Patel, Govindbhai

My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

Letters

Fragment ID: 18787

(this fragment is largest or earliest found passage)

Sri Aurobindo — Patel, Govindbhai

February 1932

February 1932

There was an attempt to become an instrument conscious of the forces.... The first result of the down flow of the overmind power is always to exaggerate the ego, which feels itself strong, almost irresistible (though it is not really so), divinized, luminous. The first thing to do after some experience of the thing is to get rid of this magnified ego. For that, you have to stand back, not allow yourself to be swept in by the movement, but to watch, understand, reject all nature, aspire for a purer and yet purer Light and action. This can be done perfectly if psychic comes forward. The mind and vital, especially the vital receiving these forces, can with difficulty resist a tendency to seize on, and use them for the ego’s objects or, which comes practically to the same thing, mix the demands of the ego with the service of a higher object.