Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

2. The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Integral Yoga

Fragment ID: 19043

If you and the Mother were on earth all the time, it would mean that you were here when those great beings descended. Then whatever your external cloak, how could you hide your inner self – the true divinity – from them?

But why cannot the inner self be hidden from all in such lives? Your reasoning would only have some force if the presence on earth then were as the Avatar, but not if it was only as a Vibhuti.

So, in answer to the question, “Presence where and in whom?” I would say, “Presence in this world and in Thyself and the Mother.”

“Presence in Thyself” means nothing. It is “presence” in or behind some body and behind some outer personality. Also “presence” in what part of the world? If Mother were in Rome at the time of Buddha, how could Buddha know as he did not even know the existence of Rome?

I did not mean that you or the Mother needed to cast off your veil. It is those great men who should have recognised you in spite of the veil.

One can be a great man without knowing such things as that. Great men or even great Vibhutis need not be omniscient or know things which it was not useful for them to know.

27 September 1935