Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Sadhana in Pondicherry
1930s

Sadhana for the Earth Consciousness [10]

I have been pondering over your letter [pp. 346– 47]. I trust I have grown wiser, not less so as a result of the irony in your letter in regard to us mental beings. But you have expressed yourself, willy-nilly, in the language which the mental has invented after all. So you are in no less of a fix than I.

Why should I be in a fix for that? I use the language of the mind because there is no other which human beings can understand,— even though most of them understand it badly. If I were to use a supramental language like Joyce, you would not even have the illusion of understanding it; so, not being an Irishman, I don’t make the attempt. But of course anyone who wants to change earth-nature must first accept it in order to change it. To quote from an unpublished poem of my own:

He who would bring the heavens here

Must descend himself into clay

And the burden of earthly nature bear

And tread the dolorous {{0}}way.[[Lines from “A God’s Labour”, in Collected Poems, volume 2 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, p. 534. — Ed.]]

23 August 1935