Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18729

1936-37

Since you and the Mother are supposed to know all that happens in us, then why do you want us to write to you about it?

It is necessary for you to be conscious and to put your self-observation before us; it is on that that we can act. A mere action on our own observation without any corresponding consciousness on the part of the sadhak would lead to nothing.

I think I know as much about the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance of human nature as you do and a good deal more. The idea that the Mother or I are spiritually great but ignorant of everything practical seems to be common in the Ashram. It is an error to suppose that to be on a high spiritual plane makes one ignorant or unobservant of the world or of human nature. If I know nothing of human nature or do not consider it, I am obviously unfit to be anybody’s guide in the work of transformation, for nobody can transform human nature if he does not know what human nature is, does not see its workings or, even if he sees, does not take them into consideration at all. If I think that the human plane is like the plane or planes of infinite Light, Power, Ananda, infallible Will Force, then I must be either a stark lunatic or a gibbering imbecile or a fool so abysmally idiotic as to be worth keeping in a museum as an exhibit.