Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

His Life and Attempts to Write about It
His Temperament and Character

Change of Nature [1]

It is perfectly possible to change one’s nature. I have proved that in my own case, for I have made myself exactly the opposite in character to what I was when I started life. I have seen it done in many and I have helped myself to do it in many. But certain conditions are needed. At present in this Asram there is an obstinate resistance to the change of nature — not so much in the inner being, for there are a good number who accept change there, but in the outer man which repeats its customary movements like a machine and refuses to budge out of its groove. X’s case does not matter — his vital has always wanted to be itself and follow its own way and his mental will cannot prevail over it. The difficulty is far more general than that.

That however would not matter — it would be only a question of a little more or less time, if the divine action were admitted whole-heartedly by the sadhaks. But the conditions laid down by them and the conditions laid down from above seem radically to differ. From above the urge is to lift everything above the human level, the demand of the sadhaks (not all, but so many) is to keep everything on the human level. But the human level means ignorance, disharmony, strife, suffering, death, disease — constant failure. I cannot see what solution there can be for such a contradiction — unless it be Nirvana. But transformation is hardly more difficult than Nirvana.

17 October 1934