ThisAshram has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit. There is no general rule as to the stage at which one may leave the ordinary life and enter here; in each case it depends on the personal need and impulsion and the possibility or the advisability for one to take the step.
*
1664
This is not an Ashram like others – the members are not Sannyasis; it is not mokṣa that is the sole aim of the yoga here. What is being done here is a preparation for a work – a work which will be founded on yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti, and can have no other foundation. Meanwhile, every member here is expected to do some work in the Ashram as part of this spiritual preparation.
*
1665
The difficulty is that she seems to have only vairāgya for worldly life without any knowledge or special call for this yoga, and this yoga and the life here are quite different things from ordinary yoga and ordinary Ashrams. It is not a life of meditative retirement as elsewhere. Moreover, it would be impossible for us to demand anything without seeing her and knowing at close hand what she is like. We are not just now for taking more inmates into the Ashram except in a very few cases.
*
1666
"Dedication of life" is quite possible for some without their staying here. It is a question of inward attitude and of the total consecration of the being to the Divine.
*
1667
We do not think it would be advisable at this stage [for X to come to stay at the Ashram]. By coming to the Ashram difficulties do not cease – they have to be faced and overcome wherever you are. For certain natures residence in the Ashram from the beginning is helpful – others have to prepare themselves outside.
*
1668
I have read and considered your letter and have decided to give you the opportunity you ask for – you can reside in the Ashram for two or three months to begin with and find out whether this is really the place and the path you were seeking and we also can by a closer observation of your spiritual possibilities discern how best we can help you and whether this yoga is the best for you.
This trial is necessary for many reasons, but especially because it is a difficult yoga to follow and not many can really meet the demands it makes on the nature. You have written that you saw in me one who achieved through the perfection of the intellect, its spiritualisation and divinisation; but in fact I arrived through the complete silence of the mind and whatever spiritualisation and divinisation it attained was through the descent of a higher supra-intellectual knowledge into that silence. The book, Essays on the Gita, itself was written in that silence of the mind, without intellectual effort and by a free activity of this knowledge from above. This is important because the principle of this yoga is not perfection of the human nature as it is but a psychic and spiritual transformation of all the parts of the being through the action of an inner consciousness and then of a higher consciousness which works on them, throws out their old movements or changes them into the image of its own and so transmutes lower into higher nature. It is not so much the perfection of the intellect as a transcendence of it, a transformation of the mind, the substitution of a larger greater principle of knowledge – and so with all the rest of the being.
This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.
If you wish, we are ready to give you the trial you ask for. On receiving your answer the Mother will make the necessary arrangements for your residence in the Ashram.
26.03.1937
*
1669
It is not helpful to abandon the ordinary life before the being is ready for the full spiritual life. To do so means to precipitate a struggle between the different elements and exasperate it to a point of intensity which the nature is not ready to bear. The vital elements in you have partly to be met by the discipline and experience of life, while keeping the spiritual aim in view and trying to govern life by it progressively in the spirit of Karmayoga.
It is for this reason that we gave our approval to your marriage.
*
1670
No, it is not enough to be in the Ashram; one has to open to the Mother and put away the mind which one was playing with in the world.
*
1671
There is no formal initiation, acceptance is sufficient, but I do not usually accept unless I have seen, or the Mother has seen the person or unless there is a clear sign that he is meant for this yoga. Sometimes those who desire to be disciples have seen me in dream or vision before acceptance.
*
1672
What you say is right. This attitude that the Divine has need of the sadhak and not the sadhak of the Divine, is utterly wrong and absurd. When people are accepted here, they are given a chance of a great Divine Grace, of being instruments of a great work. To suppose that the Divine cannot do his work without the help of this or that person is surely most arrogant and illogical. They ought to remember the Gita's ṛte'pi tvām "even without thee" the work can be done and its nimittamātram bhava.
*
1673
I was thinking not of
Pranam etc. which have a living value, but of old forms which persist although they have no longer any value – e.g. śrāddha for the dead. Also here forms which have no relation to this yoga – for instance Christians who cling to the Christian forms or Mahomedans to the Namaz or Hindus to the
Sandhyavandana in the old way might soon find them either falling off or else an obstacle to the free development of their sadhana.
What you write shows that you had a wrong idea of the work. The work in the Ashram was not meant as a service to humanity or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Ashram. It was not meant either as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a flow of sentiments and attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of the vital movements, a free vital interchange whether with some or with all. The work was meant as a service to the Divine and as a field for the inner opening to the Divine, surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one's own ignorant self-guidance based on one's personal ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karmayoga, the surrender of one's own will to the Divine Will.
If one feels human beings to be near and the Divine to be far and seeks the Divine through service of and love of human beings and not the direct service and love of the Divine, then one is following a wrong principle – for that is the principle of the mental, vital and moral not the spiritual life.
*
1675
["The love of the Divine in all beings and the constant perception and acceptance of its workings in all things."] That is all right in the ordinary Karmayoga which aims at union with the cosmic spirit and stops short at the overmind – but here a special work has to be done and a new realisation achieved for the earth and not for ourselves alone. It is necessary to stand apart from the rest of the world so as to separate ourselves from the ordinary consciousness in order to bring down a new one.
It is not that love for all is not part of the sadhana, but it has not to translate itself at once into a mixing with all – it can only express itself in a general and when need be dynamic universal goodwill, but for the rest it must find vent in this labour of bringing down the higher consciousness with all its effect for the earth. As for accepting the working of the Divine in all things that is necessary here too in the sense of seeing it even behind our struggles and difficulties, but not accepting the nature of man and the world as it is – our aim is to move towards a more divine working which will replace what now is by a greater and happier manifestation. That too is a labour of divine Love.
*
1676
As for our own position it is that ordinary life is Maya in this sense, not that it is an illusion, for it exists and is very real, but that it is an Ignorance, a thing founded on what is from the spiritual point of view a falsehood. So it is logical to avoid it or rather we are obliged to have some touch with it but we minimise that as much as possible except in so far as it is useful for our purpose. We have to turn life from falsehood into spiritual truth, from a life of Ignorance into a life of spiritual knowledge. But until we have succeeded in doing that for ourselves, it is better to keep apart from the life of Ignorance of the world – otherwise our little slowly growing light is likely to be submerged in the seas of darkness all around it. Even as it is, the endeavour is difficult enough – it would be tenfold more difficult if there were no isolation.
*
1677
Work here and work done in the world are of course not the same thing. The work there is not in any way a divine work in special – it is ordinary work in the world. But still one must take it as a training and do it in the spirit of Karmayoga – what matters there is not the nature of the work in itself, but the spirit in which it is done. It must be in the spirit of the Gita, without desire, with detachment, without repulsion, but doing it as perfectly as possible, not for the sake of the family or promotion or to please the superiors, but simply because it is the thing that has been given in the hand to do. It is a field of inner training, nothing else. One has to learn in it these things, equality, desirelessness, dedication. It is not the work as a thing for its own sake, but one's doing of it and one's way of doing it that one has to dedicate to the Divine. Done in that spirit, it does not matter what the work is. If one trains oneself spiritually like that, then one will be ready to do in the true way whatever special work directly for the Divine, (such as the Ashram work) one may any day be given to do.
*
1678
Obviously the life here is not that of a place where the mind and vital can hope to be satisfied and fulfilled or lead a lively life. It is only if one can live within that it becomes satisfactory.... But for one who has the assured inner life, there is no dullness. Realisation within must be the first object; work for the Divine on the basis of the true inner self and a new consciousness, not on the basis of the old, is the result that can follow. Till then work and life can be only a means of sadhana, not a "self-fulfilment" or a brilliant and interesting vital life on the old basis.
*
1679
Here there is nothing that ministers to the human vital nature; the work is small, silent, shut off from the outside world and its circumstances, of value only as a field for spiritual self-culture. If one is governed by the sole spiritual motive and has the spiritual consciousness, one can take joy and interest in this work. Or if, in spite of his human shortcomings, the worker is mainly bent on spiritual progress and self-perfection, then also he can take interest in the work and both feel its utility for the discovery and purification of his egoistic mental and vital and physical nature and take joy in it as a service of the Divine.
*
1680
It is not at all a question of usefulness – although your work is very useful when you put yourself to it. Work is part of the sadhana, and in sadhana the question of usefulness does not arise, that is an outward practical measure of things, – though even in the outward ordinary life utility is not the only measure. The question is of aspiration to the Divine, whether that is your central aim in life, your inner need or not. Sadhana for oneself is another matter – one can take it up or leave it. The real sadhana is for the Divine – it is the soul's need and one cannot give it up even if in moments of despondency one thinks one can.
*
1681
The work here is not intended for showing one's capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness to the Mother, but as a field and an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the integral yoga, for learning to work in the true yogic way, dedication through service, practical selflessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting the Divine and the Divine's work first and oneself last, harmony, patience, forbearance, etc. When the workers learn these things and cease to be ego-centric, as most of you now are, then will come the time for work in which capacity can really be shown, although even then the showing of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the object of divine work.
*
1682
There is no necessity for everybody to become artists or writers or do work of a public character. X and Y have their own capacities and it is sufficient for the present if they train themselves to make them useful for the Mother's work. Others have great capacities which they are content to use in the small and obscure work of the Ashram without figuring before the public in something big. What is important now is to get the true consciousness from above, get rid of the ego (which nobody has yet done) and learn to be an instrument of the Divine Force. After that the manifestation can take place, not before.
*
1683
What is called politics is too rajasic, unsound and muddled with all sorts of egoistic motives. Our way is the pressure of the Spirit upon the earth-consciousness to change.
*
1684
No, it [politics] is not given as a work to anybody. People go on with that because it is a mental interest or habit they do not like giving up, it is like the vital habit of tea-drinking or anything else of the kind. Politics is not only not given as a work but the discussion of politics is discouraged as much as possible.
*
1685
But surely politics is not the only activity possible for the vital – there are hundreds of others. Whenever there is something to be produced, created, organised, achieved, conquered, it is the vital that is indispensable.
*
1686
I have made it a rule not to write anything about politics. Also the question of what to do in a body like the Assembly depends on circumstances, on the practical needs of the situation which can change rapidly. In such a body the work is not of a spiritual character. All kinds of work can be done with the spiritual consciousness behind, but unless one has advanced very far, one must in the fact be guided by the necessities of the work itself and its characteristic nature. Since you have joined this party, its programme must be yours and what you have to do is to bring to it all the conscientiousness, ability and selflessness which
you can command. You are right in not taking office, as you have made the promise. In any case a sadhak entering politics should work not for himself but for the country. If he takes office, it should be only when he can do something for the country by it and not until he has proved his character and ability and fitness for position. You should walk by a high standard which will bring you the respect even of opponents and justify the choice of the electors.
*
1687
As for propaganda I have seen that it is perfectly useless for us – if there is any effect, it is a very trifling and paltry effect not worth the trouble. If the Truth has to spread itself, it will do it of its own motion; these things are unnecessary.
*
1688
Well-known or unknown has absolutely no importance from the spiritual point of view. It is simply the propagandist spirit. We are not a party or a church or religion seeking adherents or proselytes. One man who earnestly pursues the yoga is of more value than a thousand well-known men.
*
1689
Fear in these experiences is a thing one must get rid of; if there is any danger, a call to the Mother is sufficient, but in reality there is none – for the protection is there.
It is true that there is in most people here this running after those who come from outside especially if they are well-known or distinguished. It is a common weakness of human nature and, like other weaknesses of human nature, the sadhaks seem not inclined to get rid of it. It is because they do not live sufficiently within, so the vital gets excited or attracted when something important or somebody important (or considered so) comes in from outside.
*
1690
What X or others think or say does not matter very much after all as we do not depend on them for our work but on the Divine Will only. So many have said and thought all sorts of things (people outside) about and against us, that has never affected either us or our work in the least; it is of a very minor importance.
It is necessary or rather inevitable that in an Ashram which is a "laboratory", as X puts it, for a spiritual and supramental yoga, humanity should be variously represented. For the problem of transformation has to deal with all sorts of elements favourable and unfavourable. The same man indeed carries in him a mixture of these two things. If only sattwic and cultured men come for yoga, men without very much of the vital difficulty in them, then, because the difficulty of the vital element in terrestrial nature has not been faced and overcome, it might well be that the endeavour would fail. There might conceivably be under certain circumstances an overmental layer superimposed on the mental, vital and physical, and influencing them, but hardly anything supramental or a sovereign transmutation of the human being. Those in the Ashram come from all quarters and are of all kinds; it cannot be otherwise.
In the course of the yoga, collectively – though not for each one necessarily – as each plane is dealt with, all its difficulties arise. That will explain much in the Ashram that people do not expect there. When the preliminary work is over in the "laboratory", things must change.
Also, much stress has not been laid on human fellowship of the ordinary kind between the inmates (though good feeling, consideration and courtesy should always be there,) because that is not the aim; it is unity in a new consciousness that is the aim, and the first thing is for each to do his sadhana, to arrive at that new consciousness and realise oneness there.
Whatever faults are there in the sadhaks must be removed by the Light from above – a sattwic rule can only change natures predisposed to a sattwic rule.
*
1692
If his faith depends on the perfection of the sadhaks, obviously, it must be a rather shaky thing! sadhaks and
sadhikas are not supposed to be perfect. It is only siddhas for whom one can claim perfection and even then not according to mental standards.... His faith seems to be more mental than otherwise, and mental faith can easily go.
To be by oneself very much needs a certain force of inner life. It may be better to vary solitude with some kind of its opposite. But each has its advantages and disadvantages and it is only by being vigilant and keeping an inner poise that one can avoid the latter.
*
1693
The general principle of self-consecration and self-giving is the same for all in this yoga, but each has his own way of consecration and self-giving. The way that X takes is good for X, just as the way that you take is the right one for you, because it is in consonance with your nature. If there were not this plasticity and variety, if all had to be cut in the same pattern, yoga would be a rigid mental machinery, not a living power.
When you can sing out of your inner consciousness in which you feel the Mother moving all your actions, there is no reason why you should not do it. The development of capacities is not only permissible but right, when it can be made part of the yoga; one can give not only one's soul, but all one's powers to the Divine.
*
1694
It is a little difficult for the wider spiritual outlook to answer your question in the way you want and every mental being wants, with a trenchant "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not" – especially when the "thou" is meant to cover "all". For while there is an identity of essential aim, while there are general broad lines of endeavour, yet there is not in detail one common set of rules in inner things that can apply to all seekers. You ask: "Is not such and such a thing harmful?" But what is harmful to one may be helpful to another, what is helpful at a certain stage may cease to be helpful at another, what is harmful under certain conditions may be helpful under other conditions, what is done in a certain spirit may be disastrous, the same thing done in a quite different spirit would be innocuous or even beneficial... there are so many things to be considered: the spirit, the circumstances, the person, the need and cast of the nature, the stage. That is why it is said so often that the Guru must deal with each disciple according to his separate nature and accordingly guide his sadhana; even if it is the same line of sadhana for all, yet at every point for each it differs. That also is the reason why we say that the divine way cannot be understood by the mind, because the mind acts according to hard and fast rules and standards, while the spirit sees the truth of all and the truth of each and acts variously according to its own comprehensive and complex vision. That also is why we say that no one can understand by his personal mental judgment the Mother's actions and reasons for action: it can only be understood by entering into the larger consciousness from which she sees things and acts upon them. That is baffling to the mind because it uses its small measures, but that is the truth of the matter.
So you will see that here there is no mental rule, but in each case the guidance is determined by spiritual reasons which are of a flexible character. There is no other consideration, no rule. Music, painting, poetry and many other activities which are of the mind and vital can be used as part of spiritual development or of the work and for a spiritual purpose: it depends on the spirit in which they are done.
*
1695
Why should the Mother be obliged to treat everybody in the same way? It would be a most imbecile thing for her to do that.
*
1696
It is not a fact that all I write is meant equally for everybody. That assumes that everybody is alike and there is no difference between sadhak and sadhak. If it were so everybody would advance alike and have the same experiences and take the same time to progress by the same steps and stages. It is not so at all. In this case the general rules were laid down for one who had made no progress – but everything depends on how the yoga comes to each person.
*
1697
It is not always safe to apply practically to oneself what has been written for another. Each sadhak is a case by himself and one cannot always or often take a mental rule and apply it rigidly to all who are practising the yoga. What I wrote to X was meant for X and fits his case, but supposing a sadhak with a different (coarse) vital nature unlike X were in question, I might say to him something that might seem the very opposite, "Sit tight on your lower vital propensities, throw out your greed for food – it is standing as a serious obstacle in your way; it would be better for you to be ascetic in your habits than vulgarly animal in this part as you are now". To one who is not taking enough food or sleep and rest in the eagerness of his spirit, I might say, "Eat more, sleep more, rest more, do not overstrain yourself or bring an ascetic spirit into your tapasya". To another with the opposite excess I might speak a contrary language. Each sadhak has a nature or turn of nature of his own and the movement of the yoga of two sadhaks, even where there are some resemblances between them, is seldom exactly the same.
Again, in applying some truth that is laid down it is necessary to give it its precise meaning. It is quite true that "in our path the attitude is not one of forceful suppression, nigraha"; it is not coercion according to a mental rule or principle on an unpersuaded vital being. But that does not mean either that the vital has to go its own way and do according to its fancy. It is not coercion that is the way, but an inner change in which the lower vital is led, enlightened and transformed by a higher consciousness which is detached from the objects of vital desire. But in order to let this grow an attitude has to be taken in which a decreasing importance has to be attached to the satisfaction of the claims of the lower vital, a certain mastery, saṃyama, being above any clamour of these things, limiting such things as food to their proper place. The lower vital has its place, it is not to be crushed or killed, but it has to be changed, "caught hold of by both ends", at the upper end a mastery and control, at the lower end a right use. The main thing is to get rid of attachment and desire; it is then that an entirely right use becomes possible. By what actual steps, in what order, through what processes this mastery of the lower vital shall come depends on the nature, the stress of development, the actual movement of the yoga.
It is not the eating or the not eating of something that is the important point; what is important is how that or any of these food matters affects you, what is your inner condition and how any such indulgence, cooking or eating, stands or does not stand in the way of its progress and change, what is best for you as a yogic discipline. One rule for you I can lay down, "Do not do, say or think anything which you would want to conceal from the Mother". And that answers the objections that rose within you – from your vital, is it not? – against bringing "these petty things" to the Mother's notice. Why should you think that the Mother would be bothered by these things or regard them as petty? If all the life is to be yoga what is there that can be called petty or of no importance? Even if the Mother does not answer, to have brought any matter of your action and self-development before her in the right spirit means to have put it under her protection, in the light of the Truth, under the rays of the Power that is working for the transformation – for immediately those rays begin to play and to act on the thing brought to her notice. Anything within that advises not to do it when the spirit in you moves you to do it, may very well be a device of the vital to avoid the ray of the Light and the working of the Force.
*
1698
One must not treat human nature like a machine to be handled according to rigid mental rules – a great plasticity is needed in dealing with its complex motives.
Yes, even in ordinary life there must be a control over the vital and the ego – otherwise life would be impossible. Even many animals, those who live in groups, have their strict rules imposing a control on the play of the ego and those who disobey will have a bad time of it. The Europeans especially understand this and even though they are full of ego, yet when there is a question of team work or group life, they are adepts at keeping it in leash, even if it growls inside; it is the secret of their success. But in yoga life of course it is a question not of controlling ego but of getting rid of it and rising to a higher principle, so demand is much more strongly and insistently discouraged.
*
1700
A rule that can be varied by everyone at his pleasure is no rule. In all countries in which organised work is successfully done, (India is not one of them), rules exist and nobody thinks of breaking them, for it is realised that work (or life either) without discipline would soon become a confusion and an anarchic failure. In the great days of India everything was put under rule, even art and poetry, even yoga. Here in fact rules are much less rigid than in any European organisation. Personal discretion can even in a frame of rules have plenty of play – but discretion must be discreetly used, otherwise it becomes something arbitrary or chaotic.
*
1701
The Mother puts her protection round all the sadhaks, but if by their own act or attitude they go out of the circle of the protection there may be undesirable consequences.
*
1702
[Discipline:] To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and intelligent will and not according to one's own fancy, vital impulses and desires. In yoga obedience to the Guru or to the Divine and the law of the Truth as declared by the Guru is the foundation of discipline.
*
1703
You are putting the cart before the horse. It is not the right way to make the condition that if you get what you want you will be obedient and cheerful. But be always obedient and cheerful and then what you want will have a chance of coming to you.
*
1704
Rules are indispensable for the orderly management of work; for without order and arrangement nothing can be properly done, all becomes clash, confusion and disorder.
In all such dealings with others, you should see not only your own side of the question but the other side also. There should be no anger, vehement reproach or menace, for these things only raise anger and retort on the other side. I write this because you are trying to rise above yourself and dominate your vital and when one wants to do that, one cannot be too strict with oneself in these things. It is best even to be severe with one's own mistakes and charitable to the mistakes of others.
*
1705
Yes, quite right. It is a deficiency of psychic perception and spiritual discrimination that makes people speak like that and ignore the importance of obedience. It is the mind wanting to follow its own way of thinking and the vital seeking freedom for its desires which argue in this manner. If you do not follow the rules laid down by the spiritual guide or obey one who is leading you to the Divine, then what or whom are you to follow? Only the ideas of the individual mind and the desires of the vital: but these things never lead to siddhi in yoga. The rules are laid down in order to guard against certain influences and their dangers and to keep a right atmosphere in the Ashram favourable to spiritual development; the obedience is necessary so as to get away from one's own mind and vital and learn to follow the Truth.
*
1706
Rules like these are intended to help the vital and physical to come under the discipline of sadhana and not get dispersed in fancies, impulses, self-indulgences; but they must be done simply, not with any sense of superiority or ascetic pride, but as a mere matter of course. It is true also that they can be made the occasion of a too great mental rigidity – as if they were things of supreme importance in themselves and not only a means. Put in their right place and done in the right spirit, they can be very helpful for their purpose.
*
1707
What most want is that things should be done according to their desire without check or reference. The talk of perfection is humbug. Perfection does not consist in everybody being a law to himself. Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will.
*
1708
If I said things that human nature finds easy and natural, that would certainly be very comfortable for the disciples, but there would be no room for spiritual aim or endeavour. Spiritual aims and methods are not easy or natural (e.g. as quarrelling, sex indulgence, greed, indolence, acquiescence in all imperfections are easy and natural) and if people become disciples, they are supposed to follow spiritual aims and endeavours, however hard and above ordinary nature and not the things that are easy and natural.
03.05.1937
*
1709
In the outside world there is a mental and social control and also the absorption in other things. Here you are left alone with your own consciousness and have to replace the mental and outward control by an inner self-control of the spirit.
*
1710
It is no question of fault or punishment – if we have to condemn and punish people for their faults and deal with the sadhaks like a tribunal of justice, no sadhana could be possible. I do not see how your reproach against us is justifiable. Our sole duty to the sadhaks is to take them towards their spiritual realisation – we cannot behave like the head of a family intervening in domestic quarrels, supporting one, putting our weight against the other! However often X may stumble, we have to take him by the hand, lift him up again and get him to move once more towards the Divine. We have always done the same with you. But we could not support any demand of yours upon him. We have always treated it as something between him and the Divine. For you, the one thing we have insisted on and that with your full consent and with your prayers to us to be helped in doing it, is to cut the vital relation with him altogether and to base nothing upon it any more. Yet now you write to us that because we have not approved of your action of what you said to Y, no matter what that might be, – you renounce us forever.
I must ask you to return to your better self and your true consciousness and throw off these moods of vital passion which are unworthy of your soul. You have repeatedly written of your love for the Mother, the Ananda which you received from her and the number of spiritual experiences. Remember that and remember that that is your true way and your true being and nothing else matters. Get back your poise and throw off the lower nature and its darkness and ignorance.
No one in fact is kept here when his will or decision is to go – although the principle of the spiritual life is against any return to the old one even for a time especially if the deeper urge is there and striving towards a firm foundation of the new consciousness – for the return to the ordinary atmosphere and surroundings and motives disturbs the work and throws back the progress.
*
1712
When there is so sharp a difference between the inner and the outer being, it is always the sadhak who has to make his choice. As for coming back, many who have gone out have come back, others have not-for in going out there is always the danger of entering into a current of forces that make return impossible. Whatever decision you make should be clear and deliberate – otherwise you may go out and as soon as you are there want to come back and after coming here again want to go; that would be inadmissible.
*
1713
It is well understood that the permission given [to go away from the Ashram] does not exclude the possibility of the experiment ending badly. But the experiment becomes necessary if the pull of the ego or outer being and that of the soul have become too acute for solution otherwise or if the outer being insists on having its experience.
*
1714
It is especially when the outer being rejects the Truth and insists on living its life and refuses the rule of the spiritual life that the experiment [of going away from the Ashram] becomes inevitable. I have never said that it is recommendable.
*
1715
In some it [the push to go away from the Ashram] is too strong; they have to go and see for themselves. That does not mean that everyone has to go whenever he feels a difficulty. These are exceptional cases.
*
1716
There is no such impossibility of your victory over the harder parts of your nature as you imagine. There is only needed the perseverance to go on till this resistance breaks down and the psychic which is not absent nor unmanifest is able to dominate the others. That has to be done whether you stay here or not and to go is likely only to increase the difficulty and imperil the final result – it cannot help you. It is here that the struggle however acute has, because of the immediate presence of the Mother, the best chance and certitude of a solution and successful ending.
*
1717
It usually happens like that – when one comes out of the world, the forces that govern the world do all they can to pull you back into their own unquiet movement.
*
1718
It is certainly strange. Most people after the atmosphere here cannot tolerate the ordinary atmosphere. If they go outside, they are restless until they return. Even X's aunt who was here only for a few months writes in the same way. But probably when people get into the control of a falsehood as Y and Z did, they are projected into the unregenerated vital nature and no longer feel the difference of the atmosphere.
*
1719
All yoga is difficult, because the aim in every yoga is to reach the Divine, to turn entirely towards the Divine and that means to turn away from the ordinary movements of the nature to something beyond it. But when one aspires with sincerity the strength is given that ends by surmounting the difficulties and reaching the goal.
The Mother was speaking of sadhaks who had entered into the life and atmosphere of the Ashram and felt the touch on the psychic of what is here. It does not apply to those who have come here from the outside world but still belong to the outside. All the ties of X's nature were still with the outside life; her vital was quite unadapted to the Ashram life and recoiled from the idea of living it always. She gave her psychic no time to make that connection and absorb that influence which would have fixed in it the feeling of this as its true home. People can come here like that and stay for a time and go without any difficulty as many have done. The feeling of difficulty or uneasiness in going is on the other hand a sign that the soul has taken root here and finds it painful to uproot itself. There are some who are like that and have had to go but do not feel at ease and are always thinking of how to come back as soon as possible.
To help others without egoism or attachment or leaving the spiritual surroundings and spiritual life is one thing, to be pulled away by personal attachment or the need of helping others to the outside life is different.
*
1720
The inability to go [from the Ashram] can come from the psychic which refuses, when it comes to the point, to allow the other parts to budge, or it can come from the vital which has no longer any pull towards the ordinary life and knows that it will never be satisfied there. It is usually the higher parts of the vital that act like that. What still is capable of turning outwards is probably the physical vital in which the old tendencies have not been extinguished.
*
1721
You ought to be able to see... that the cause of the unrest is in yourself and not in the outward circumstances. It is your vital attachment to family ties and the ordinary social ideas and feelings that has risen in you and creates the difficulty. If you want to practise yoga, you must be able to live in the world, so long as you are there, with a mind set upon the Divine and not bound by the environment. One who does this, can help those around him a hundred times more than one who is bound and attached to the world.
It is not possible for the Mother to tell you to remain, if you are yourself in your mind and vital eager to go. It is from within yourself that there must come the clear will on one side or the other.
*
1722
It is easier to feel the presence in the atmosphere of the Ashram than outside it. But that is only an initial difficulty which one can overcome by a steadiness in the call and a constant opening of oneself to the influence.
*
1723
The force is there in the atmosphere, but you must receive it in the right way – in the spirit of self-giving, openness, confidence. All the rest depends on that.
*
1724
What is true is that there is a strong force going out from here and it is naturally strongest at the centre. But how it affects there, depends on how one receives it. If it is received with simple trust, faith, openness, confidence, then it works as a complete protection. But it can so work too at a distance. It is not the house, it is the inner nearness that matters.
The best way to prepare oneself for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and surroundings is to cultivate an entire equality and detachment and the samatā of the Gita with the faith that the Divine is there and the Divine Will at work in all things even though at present under the conditions of a world of Ignorance. Beyond this are the Light and Ananda towards which life is working, but the best way for their advent and foundation in the individual being and nature is to grow in this spiritual equality. That would also solve your difficulty about things unpleasant and disagreeable. All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of samatā.
When one is living in the world, one cannot do as in an Ashram – one has to mix with others and keep up outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does that, more or less rapidly according to the inner intensity of the sadhana, the attitude towards others will change. All will be seen more and more in the Divine and the feelings, actions, etc. will more and more be determined, not by the old external reactions, but by the growing consciousness within you.
*
1727
The difficulty which you experience from relatives and others is always one that intervenes as an obstacle when one has to practise the sadhana in ordinary or unfavourable surroundings. The only way to escape from it is to be able to live in oneself in one's inner being – which becomes possible when the responsiveness and luminosity of which you speak in your letter increase and become normal, for then you are constantly aware of your inner being and even live in it – the outer becomes an instrument, a means of communication and action in the outer world. It is then possible to make the relations with people outside free from tie or necessary reaction – one can determine from within one's own reaction or absence of reaction: there is a fundamental liberation from the external nexuses – of course, if one wills it to be so.
*
1728
The life of saṃsāra is in its nature a field of unrest – to go through it in the right way one has to offer one's life and actions to the Divine and pray for the peace of the Divine within. When the mind becomes quiet, one can feel the Divine Mother supporting the life and put everything into her hands.
*
1729
Peace is never easy to get in the life of the world and never constant, unless one lives deep within and bears the external activities as only a surface front of being.
*
1730
In her condition the one thing by which she can enter into the sadhana is to remember the Divine always, taking her difficulties as ordeals to be passed through, to pray constantly and seek the Divine help and protection and ask for the opening of her heart and consciousness to the supporting Divine Presence.
*
1731
It is not possible for the Mother to promise to give help in worldly matters. She intervenes only in special cases. There are some of course, who by their openness and their faith get her help in any worldly difficulty or trouble but that is a different thing. They simply remember and call the Mother and in due time some result comes.
*
1732
The tendency you speak of, to leave the family and social life for the spiritual life, has been traditional in India for the last 2000 years and more – chiefly among men, it touches only a very small number of women. It must be remembered that Indian social life has subordinated almost entirely the individual to the family. Men and women do not marry according to their free will; their marriages are mostly arranged for them while they are still children. Not only so, but the mould of society has been long of an almost iron fixity putting each individual in his place and expecting him to conform to it. You speak of issues and a courageous solution, but in this life there are no problems and issues and no call for a solution – a courageous solution is only possible where there is freedom of the personal will; but where the only solution (if one remains in this life) is submission to the family will, there can be nothing of the kind. It is a secure life and can be happy if one accommodates oneself to it and has no unusual aspirations beyond it or is fortunate in one's environment; but it has no remedy for or escape from incompatibilities or any kind of individual frustration; it leaves little room for initiative or free movement or any individualism. The only outlet for the individual is his inner spiritual or religious life and the recognised escape is the abandonment of the saṃsāra, the family life, by some kind of Sannyasa. The Sannyasi, the VaishnavaVairagi or the
Brahmachari are free; they are dead to the family and can live according to the dictates of the inner spirit. Only if they enter into an order or Ashram, they have to abide by the rules of the order, but that is their own choice. Society recognised this door of escape from itself; religion sanctioned the idea that distaste for the social or worldly life was a legitimate ground for taking up that of the recluse or religious wanderer. But this was mainly for men; women, except in old times among the Buddhists who had their convents and in later times among the Vaishnavas, had little chance of such an escape unless a very strong spiritual impulse drove them which would take no denial. As for the wife and children left behind by the Sannyasi, there was little difficulty, for the joint family was there to take up or rather to continue their maintenance.
At present what has happened is that the old framework remains, but modern ideas have brought a condition of inadaptation, of unrest, the old family system is breaking up and women are seeking in more numbers the same freedom of escape as men have always had in the past. That would account for the cases you have come across – but I don't think the number of such cases can be as yet at all considerable, it is quite a new phenomenon; the admission of women to Ashrams is itself a novelty. The extreme unhappiness of a mental and vital growth which does not fit in with the surroundings, of marriages imposed that are unsuitable and where there is no meeting-point between husband and wife, of an environment hostile and intolerant of one's inner life, and on the other hand the innate tendency of the Indian mind to seek a refuge in the spiritual or religious escape will sufficiently account for the new development. If society wants to prevent it, it must itself change. As to individuals, each case must be judged on its own merits; there is too much complexity in the problem and too much variation of nature, position, motives for a general rule.
I have spoken of the social problem in general terms only. In the conduct of the Ashram, we have had many applications obviously dictated by an unwillingness to face the difficulties and responsibilities of life – naturally ignored or refused by us, but these have been mostly from men; there have been recently only one or two cases of women. Otherwise women have not applied usually on the ground of an unhappy marriage or difficult environment. Most of the married
sadhikas have followed or accompanied their husbands on the ground of having already begun to practise yoga; others have come fulfilling sufficiently the responsibilities of married life; in two or three cases there has been a separation from the husband but that was before their coming here. In some cases there have been no children, in others the children have been left with the family. These cases do not really fall in the category of those you mention. Some of the sadhaks have left wife and family behind, but I do not think in any case the difficulties of life were the motive of their departure. It was rather the idea that they had felt the call and must leave all to follow it.
In order to remove many misunderstandings which seem to have grown up about his Asram in Pondicherry Sri Aurobindo considers it necessary to issue the following explicit statement:
An Asram means the house or houses of a Teacher or Master of spiritual philosophy in which he receives and lodges those who come to him for the teaching and practice. An Asram is not an association or a religious body or a monastery — it is only what has been indicated above and nothing more.
Everything in the Asram belongs to the Teacher; the sadhaks (those who practise under him) have no claim, right or voice in any matter. They remain or go according to his will. Whatever money he receives is his property and not that of a public body. It is not a trust or a fund, for there is no public institution. Such Asrams have existed in India since many centuries before Christ and still exist in large numbers. All depends on the Teacher and ends with his lifetime, unless there is another Teacher who can take his place.
The Asram in Pondicherry came into being in this way. Sri Aurobindo at first lived in Pondicherry with a few inmates in his house; afterwards a few more joined him. Later on after the Mother joined him, in 1920 the numbers began so much to increase that it was thought necessary to make an arrangement for lodging those who came and houses were bought and rented according to need for the purpose. Arrangements had also to be made for the maintenance, repair, rebuilding of houses, for the service of food and for decent living and hygiene. All these were private rules by the Mother and entirely at her discretion to increase, modify or alter – there is nothing in them of a public character.
All houses of the Asram are owned either by Sri Aurobindo or by the Mother. All the money spent belongs either to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother. Money is given by many to help in Sri Aurobindo's work. Some who are here give their earnings, but it is given to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother and not to the Asram as a public body, for there is no such body.
The Asram is not an association; there is no constituted body, no officials, no common property owned by an association, no governing council or committee, no activity undertaken of a public character.
The Asram is not a political institution; all association with political activities is renounced by those who live here. All propaganda – religious, political or social – has to be eschewed by the inmates.
The Asram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some are of no religion. There is no creed or set of dogmas, no governing religious body; there are only the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and certain psychological practices of concentration and meditation, etc., for the enlarging of the consciousness, receptivity to the Truth, mastery over the desires, the discovery of the divine self and consciousness concealed within each human being, a higher evolution of the nature...."1
1 The
publihed here part of the letter was omitted. The rest of the letter was published in the
Volume 26, Sri Aurobindo on Himself, p. 95, joined to another letter of August 1934. See Vol. 26, Sri Aurobindo on Himself, p. 95.
This Ashram has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit. There is no general rule as to the stage at which one may leave the ordinary life and enter here; in each case it depends on the personal need and impulsion and the possibility or the advisability for one to take the step.
