Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

Sri Aurobindo’s Letter

Your analysis is perfectly correct.

Realisation of the silent, inactive Brahman is no bar to the dynamic side of the Yoga; often it is the first step. One must not associate it with attachment to inertia. The silent Brahman is attached to nothing. Your mind is associated with inertia and attached to it.

Work itself is no solution; the spirit behind the work is important. The real remedy is to open oneself to the Force. When one gets free through the silent Brahman, one does not go back to the old way of work. By this liberation one becomes free from the ego; one becomes an instrument of the Divine Force by receiving the Force and feels its working, then inertia goes away and work in a new way becomes possible. Until that can be, one has to work in the ordinary way. But becoming an instrument of the Divine is the proper way.

I had the realisation of sublime Nirvana first. There was complete cittavritti nirodha, entire silence. Then came the experience of action, not my own, but from above. One has to grow into it unless it comes easily.