Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

2. The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Integral Yoga

Fragment ID: 19096

Sometimes we feel that your answers (not so much the Mother’s) come from such a high plane that they seem to have no connection with our lives and do not consider the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance, etc. of human nature. Is it because it is a plane or planes of eternal and infinite Light, Power, Ananda, infallible Will-Force, which sees the human plane in the same way?

I think I know as much about the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance of human nature as you do and a great deal more. The idea that the Mother or I are spiritually great but ignorant of everything practical seems to be common in the Asram. 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. I am glad however to know that this is the opinion that you and all the other members of the Asram (I suppose this is what “we” means) have about me. I am glad however to know that you think the Mother is less of an exalted imbecile than myself.

30 April 1937