Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

5. On Three Works of the Mother

Fragment ID: 20234

The Mother, in her Conversations, says that “the first effect of Yoga... is to take away the mental control” [p. 5] so that the ideas and desires which were so long checked become surprisingly prominent and create difficulties. Would you not call these forces the consequence of yogic pressure?

They were not prominent because they were getting some satisfaction or at least the vital generally was getting indulged in one way or another. When they are no longer indulged then they become obstreperous. But they are not new forces created by the Yoga – they were there all the time.

What is meant by the mental control being removed, is that the mental simply kept them in check but could not remove them. So in Yoga the mental has to be replaced by the psychic or spiritual self-control which could do what the mental cannot. Only many sadhaks do not make this exchange in time and withdraw the mental control merely.

12 May 1933