Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
3. The Mother and the Practice of the Integral Yoga
I always thought that in other Yogas seekers first had to undergo a rigorous disciplined period of 12 years of Brahmacharya, and only when the Guru certified their physical, vital, mental immunity were they allowed to enter into its practical course.
Never heard of this 12 years affair or of any certificate. Perhaps in European occultism there are noviciates, stages, ordeals, grades etc. In India the Guru gives a mantra as soon as he accepts a disciple and tells him to go ahead with it. We have no mantra except the Mother’s name. But usually we give work, tell them to aspire, reject, open to the Mother. I don’t know whether you call that the practical course. Anyhow people have got into difficulties here even without any practical course, most while doing their “twelve years” and in some cases we have had to push them into active sadhana as the only way to control the lower forces and get them out of it.
Here the merry lot fancy they can do all manner of things.
What things? I find only a small minority doing anything at all except gossiping, discussing, quarrelling, complaining etc. etc. A certain number do the aspiration, rejection, Motherward turn – but nothing more. They have enough difficulty with that even.
Even when strenuous measures are adopted for practising the nearest approximation to real Yoga, ought not there to be a question of a triple fitness first?
How are they to develop it without any sadhana? Just by sitting still? No one has it to start with.
20 October 1936