Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

Fragment ID: 20724

As to the point that puzzles you, it only arises from a confusion between the feeling of a devotee and the observation of the observer. Of course, the devotee loves Krishna because Krishna is lovable and not for any other reason: that is his feeling and his true feeling. He has no time to bother his head about what in himself made him able to love; the fact that he does love is sufficient for him and he does not need to analyse his emotions. The Grace of Krishna consists for him in Krishna’s lovableness, in his showing himself to the devotee, in his call, the cry of the flute. That is enough for the heart, or if there is anything more, it is the yearning that others or all may hear the flute, see the face, feel all the beauty and rapture of this love.

It is not the heart of the devotee but the mind of the observer that questions how it is that the Gopis were called or responded at once and others – the Brahmin women, for instance – were not called and did not respond at once. Once the mind puts the question, there are two possible answers: the mere will of Krishna without any reason, what the mind would call his absolute divine choice or his arbitrary divine caprice or else the readiness of the heart that is called: and that amounts to adhikaribheda. A third reply would be: circumstances, as for instance, “the parking off the spiritual ground into close preserves” as R puts it. But then how can circumstances prevent the Grace from acting? In spite of parking off it works: Christians, Mohammedans do answer to the Grace of Krishna. Tigers, ghouls must love if they see him, hear his flute? Yes, but why do some hear it and see him, others not? We are thrown back on two alternatives: Krishna’s Grace calls whom it wills to call without any determining reason for the choice or the rejection, it is all his mercy or else he calls the hearts that are ready to vibrate and leap up at his call – and even there he waits till the moment has come. To say that it does not depend on outward merit or appearance of fitness is no doubt true: the something that was ready to wake in spite, it may be, of many hard layers in which it was enclosed, may be something visible to Krishna and not to us. It was there perhaps long before the flute began to play, but Krishna was busy melting the hard layers so that the heart in its leap might not be pressed back by them when the awakening notes came. The Gopis heard and rushed out into the forest – the others did not or did they think it was only some rustic music or some rude cowherd-lover fluting to his sweetheart: not a call that learned and. cultured pr virtuous ears could recognise as the call of the Divine? There is something to be said after all for the adhikaribheda. But, of course, it must be understood in the large sense: some may have the adhikar for recognising Krishna’s flute, some for the call of Christ, some for the dance of Shiva – to each his own way and his nature’s answer to the Divine Call. Adhikar cannot be stated in rigid mental terms: it is something spiritual and subtle, something mystic and secret between the called and the Caller. As for the swelled head, the theory of Grace may no doubt contribute to it, though I should imagine that the said head never felt the Grace but only the magnanimity of its own ego. The swelling may come equally in the road of personal effort as by the craving for Grace. It is fundamentally not due to either, but to a natural predisposition to this kind of oedema.