Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

4. The Mother in the Life of the Ashram

Fragment ID: 19711

Can sadhaks who leave the Mother totally forget her Grace after receiving it for so many years while living at her feet?

Some of them seem to forget.

Is there any possibility for them to return again to live at the Mother’s feet?

It depends on the person.

How is it possible for someone who feels aspiration and the Divine call in his heart to come to live at the Mother’s feet and then afterwards to leave them? Is it through vital depression or something else?

Through the suggestions of the hostile forces, because of pride, egoism, ambition, sexual desire, vanity, greed or any other vital impulse used by the hostile Powers.

Is it because the vital forces are so strong that even if a person has a clear aspiration and a Divine call they can lead him away from the Mother and the Asram?

Every man is free at every moment to consent to the Divine call or not consent – to follow the lower nature or to follow his soul.

When a person leaves the path, does it not prove that he was unable to judge whether his call for the Divine was true or not?

All this about judging is nonsense – you feel the call or you do not and, if you feel the call, you follow it without calculating or counting risks or asking whether you are fit or not.

When people feel the urge to leave the Mother’s feet and go away from her, what is the best way for them to cling to the Mother with faith and not go away?

By understanding that it is the Devil who tempts them and not listening to the Devil.

6 May 1933