Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Sadhana in Pondicherry
1930s

Physical Transformation [7]

Either I have not been clear or you have missed my point. What I meant is this: how is it possible for the Supramental to act in the body with its present chemical and physiological processes? A new composition and a new activity of various organs will be the proper basis for a Supramental action — if at all there is to be one.

What I did not understand is why the Supramental Force should not act at all on the present basis of the body. That it cannot act fully without changing many things is obvious.

You are evading the question of the physiological and chemical side of the thing when you say, “What else but the supermind can determine its own basis?” The real question is whether this “own basis” will have a different character, chemical composition, physiochemical activity, etc. Do you mean to say that the Supermind can work in ordinary bodies of ordinary people?

I did not intend to evade anything, except that in so far as I do not yet know what will be the chemical constitution of the changed body, I could not answer anything to that. That was why I said it needed investigation.

I was simply putting my idea on the matter which has always been that it is the supramental which will create its own physical basis. If you mean that the supramental cannot fulfil itself in the present body with its present processes that is true. The processes will obviously have to be altered. How far the constitution of the body will be changed and in what direction is another question. As I said it may become as you suggest radio-active: Théon (Mother’s teacher in occultism) spoke of it as luminous, le corps glorieux. But all that does not make it impossible for the supramental to act in the present body for change. It is what I am looking forward to at present.

Of course a certain preliminary transformation is necessary, just as the psychic and spiritual transformation precedes the supramental. But this is a change of the physical consciousness down to the submerged consciousness of the cells so that they may respond to higher forces and admit them and to a certain extent a change or at least a greater plasticity in the processes. The rules of food etc. are meant to help that by minimising obstacles. How far this involves a change of the chemical constitution of the body I cannot say. It seems to me still that whatever preparatory changes there may be, it is only the action of the supramental Force that can confirm and complete them.

21 November 1935