Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

The Complete Set

I find, Sir, that you have most skilfully steered clear between two troubled seas of argument. Allow me to bring the discussion back to the point from where it started,

I have seen K's letter. By transformation, I find, you mean living wholly in the Divine. Then where is the difference between the Divine realisation as you define it, and the transformation you are yourself seeking for us? Did not persons like Ramakrishna, for example, who had this realisation, merge their consciousness entirely in the Divine, thus having this kind of transformation? I think there is a difference, because you speak of a complete transformation – of mind, life and body. Obviously then, those whose realisation of the Divine was on the mental-spiritual plane did not have the physical consummation.

There are different statuses avasthā of the Divine Consciousness. There are also different statuses of transformation. First is the psychic transformation, in which all is in contact with the Divine through the psychic consciousness. Next is the spiritual transformation in which all is merged in the Divine in the cosmic consciousness. Third is the supramental transformation in which all becomes supramentalised in the divine gnostic consciousness. It is only with the last that there can begin the complete transformation of mind, life and body – in my sense of completeness.

But can we say that their mind and life were not transformed?

Answered above.

Can there remain any impurity in these domains, after the Divine realisation?

It is not a question of impurity.

Some say there can be, but I doubt. Krishna, Ramakrishna, Chaitanya, Be joy Goswami, Buddha – did they have any impurity at all? Of course their body was subject to illnesses, coughs and cold.

Well, that's an impurity.

And here comes in the great difference, great advance, novelty of your Yoga, I should say. Is it not also for the possibility of this great achievement among others, that your Supramental stands unique? For to my thinking, plenty of people have lived in the Divine Consciousness, but none could “divinise the body”, which means that none of them had a complete mastery over the laws of physical nature, e.g. age, decay, illness, etc.,

You are mistaken in two respects. First, the endeavour towards this achievement is not new and some Yogis have achieved it, I believe – but not in the way I want it. They achieved it as a personal siddhi maintained by Yoga-siddhi – not a dharma of the nature. Secondly, the supramental transformation is not the same as the spiritual-mental. It is a change of mind, life and body which the mental or overmental-spiritual cannot achieve. All whom you mention were spirituals, but in different ways. Krishna's mind, for instance, was overmentalised, Ramakrishna's intuitive, Chaitanya's spiritual-psychic, Buddha's illumined higher mental. I don't know about B.C. – he seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then take the vital of the Paramhansas. It is said their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert cf. Jadabharata. Well, there is nothing supramental in all that. So?

And who will deny that complete divinisation of the body is necessary to be a fit instrument for the Divine?

One can be a fit instrument for the Divine in any of the transformations. The question is, an instrument for what?

My main contention was that we can aspire for the Supermind since you had so emphatically stated that its realisation and the subsequent transformation of our entire existence was the ideal you stood for. Hence anyone ridiculing such an aspiration was arguing against our ideal. Of course, I admit that the necessary conditions must be fulfilled.

K ridicules them because they are not yet fit for the spiritual realisation, some not even for the psychic and yet say they are aspirants for the supermind. He says let us sincerely try for and achieve the spiritual and not talk big about the greater thing still much beyond us. A rational attitude.

I feel that your reply is too conciliatory; otherwise, I don't see why the supramental realisation should be looked upon as a secondary thing or a by-product especially as you also say that the divinisation of the body cannot be done without it.

Not secondary or by-product at all, but ultimate.

[Against the last part of my sentence he wrote:]

Not in the sense I want.

In your letter of the 15th you said “I want the supramental not for myself but for the earth and souls born on the earth, and certainly therefore I cannot object if anybody wants the supramental” – the tone seems again a little conciliatory. “I cannot object” sounds also feeble.

I put it like that because a premature ambition for the supramental may be disastrous (e.g. B, N etc.),

Either you have become wiser (excuse me!) or you want to make us wiser...

If you mean that I did not realise the difficulties before, you are mistaken.

R is complaining of increasing headache – it can't be the slight astigmatism that is the cause of such intense aches. So will you dive into possibilities and bring up the pearl of knowledge?

17.04.1935