Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

5. On Three Works of the Mother

Fragment ID: 20244

“For there is nothing in the world which has not its ultimate truth and support in the Divine” [p. 27]. To know this perfectly by experience is to have a very great attainment, perhaps the final attainment, I think. Am I right?

Yes.

“Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended” [p. 28]. Then what is the place of repentance in man’s life? Has it any place in the life of a sadhak?

The place of repentance is in its effect for the future – if it induces the nature to turn from the state of things that brought about the happening. For the sadhak however it is not repentance but recognition of a wrong movement and the necessity of its not recurring that is needed.

“...you are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of what has been done before” [p. 30]. Does “before” mean all the past lives, beginning from the very first up to this one?

That is taking things in the mass. In a metaphysical sense whatever happens is the consequence of all that has gone before up to the moment of the action. Practically, particular consequences have particular antecedents in the past and it is these that are said to determine it.

From where are these quotations? In the exact intention of a sentence much sometimes depends on the context.

19 January 1937