Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

1. Spirituality

Sadhana (II)

It is exactly a year and a half since I came here, but I can't detect any sign of progress.

You have had experiences which are signs of a future possibility. To have more within the first one and a half years it would be necessary to have the complete attitude of the sadhak and give up that of the man of the world. It is only then that progress can be rapid from the beginning.

I must admit that of late I have been rather lax, especially regarding food – I mean eating with friends on Sundays. Does this Sunday indulgence have any connection with the resistance that came up in me? What was the real reason for it?

Laxity and a self-externalising consciousness more occupied with outer than with inner things.

About food, tea, etc. the aim of Yoga is to have no hankerings, no slavery either to the stomach or the palate. How to get to that point is another matter – it depends often on the individual. With a thing like tea the straight and easiest way is to stop it. As to food, the best way usually is to take the food given you, practise non-attachment and follow no fancies. That would mean giving up the Sunday indulgence. The rest must be done by an inner change of consciousness and not by external means.

I suppose that this is what you mean by having the complete attitude of the sadhak and giving up that of the man of the world.

All these are external things that have their use, but what I mean is something more inward. I mean not to be interested in outward things for their own sake, following after them with desire, but at all times to be intent on one's soul, living centrally in the inner being and its progress, taking outward things and action only as a means for the inner progress.

The question of food is to some extent within one's control, but it is not so easy to control the habitual movement of thoughts in the mind.

Detach yourself from it – make your mind external to it, something that you can observe as you observe things occurring in the street. So long as you do not do that it is difficult to be the mind's master.