Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

Fragment ID: 20653

Let us not exaggerate anything. It is not so much getting rid of mental activity as converting it into the right thing.... What has to be surpassed and changed is the intellectual reason which sees things from outside only, by analysis and inference – when it does not do it, rather by taking a hasty look and saying “so it is” or “so it is not”. But you can’t do that unless the old mental activity becomes a little quiet. A quiet mind does not involve itself in its thoughts or get run away with by them; it stands back, detaches itself, lets them pass, without identifying itself, without making them its own. It becomes the witness mind watching the thoughts when necessary, but able to turn away from them and receive from within and from above. Silence is good, but absolute silence is not indispensable, at least at this stage. I do not know that to wrestle with the mind to make it quiet is of much use, usually the mind gets the better at that game. It is this standing back, detaching oneself, getting the power to listen to something else other than the thoughts of the external mind that is the easier way. At the same time one can look up as it were, imaging to oneself the Force as there just above and calling it down or quietly expecting its help. That is how most people do it, till the mind falls gradually quiet or silent of itself, or else silence begins to descend from above. But it is important not to allow the depression or despair to come in because there is no immediate success; that can only make things difficult and stop any progress that is preparing,