Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18393

1936-37

You wrote the other day: “What that element is has to be seen -there is no rule.” How can I see that element unless I know something about the elements? I don’t even know what is meant by “elements” here.

Elements are things that constitute. Elements of a condition of consciousness are things that constitute it. It is a perfectly general and vague phrase and meant to be so. One cannot know the total condition of one’s consciousness by books or by classifications, but only by observation, vision and an increasing self-knowledge within.