Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
5. On Three Works of the Mother
The Mother says in Entretiens: “En fait, la mort a été attachée à toute vie sur terre” [p. 41]. The words “En fait” and “attachée” tend to give the impression that after all death is inevitable. But the preceding sentence (“Si cette croyance pouvait être rejetée, d’abord de la mentalité consciente,... la mort ne serait plus inévitable”) brings in an ambiguity because it does not make death so inevitable; it introduces a condition, an “if” by which death could be avoided. But the categoricality of the sentence with “En fait” rather decreases one’s expectation of a material immortality. Moreover, the “if” in the other sentence is too formidable to be satisfied.
There is no ambiguity that I can see. “En fait” and “attachée” do not convey any sense of inevitability. “En fait” means simply 
that in fact, actually, as things are at present all life (on earth) has death attached to it as its end; but it does not in the least convey the idea that it can never be otherwise or that this is the unalterable law of all existence. It is at present a fact for certain reasons which are stated,– due to certain mental and physical circumstances – if these are changed, death is not inevitable any longer. Obviously the alteration can only come “if” certain conditions are satisfied – all progress and change by evolution depends upon an “if” which gets satisfied. If the animal mind had not been pushed to develop speech and reason, mental man would never have come into existence,– but the “if”, a stupendous and formidable one, was satisfied. So with the ifs that condition a farther progress.
31 July 1936