Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Himself and the Ashram
The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35
Remarks on the Current State of the Sadhana, 1931 –
1947
1934 [8]
When I wrote in my letter about the supermind and the
obstinate {{0}}resistance,[[See the letter of 17 October 1934 on pages 44 –
45. — Ed.]] I spoke of course of something I had already spoken of before. I
did not mean that the resistance was of an unexpected character or had altered
anything essential. But in its nature the descent is not something arbitrary and
miraculous, but a rapid evolutionary process compressed into a few years which
proceeds by taking up the present nature into its Light and pouring its Truth
into the inferior planes. That cannot be done in the whole world at a time, but
is done like all such processes first through selected Adharas and then on a
wider scale. We have to do it through ourselves first and through the circle of
sadhakas gathered around us in the terrestrial consciousness as typified here.
If a few open, that is sufficient for the process to be possible. On the other
hand if there is a general misunderstanding and resistance (not in all, but in
many), that makes it difficult and 
the process
more laborious, but it does not make it impossible. I was not suggesting that it
has become impossible, but that if the circumstances are made unfavourable by
our being unable to concentrate enough on this thing of capital importance and
having too much work to do of an irrelevant kind, the descent was likely to take
longer than it would do otherwise. Certainly, when the supramental does touch
earth with a sufficient force to dig itself in into the earth consciousness,
there will be no more chance of any success or survival for the Asuric Maya.
The rest that I spoke of about the human and the divine
had to do with the intermediate period between before it is down. What I meant
was that if the Mother were able to bring out the Divine Personalities and
Powers into her body and physical being, as she was doing for several months
without break some years ago, the brightest period in the history of the Asram,
things would be much more easy and all these dangerous attacks that now take
place would be dealt with rapidly and would in fact be impossible. In those days
when the Mother was either receiving the sadhaks for meditation or otherwise
working and concentrating all night and day without sleep and very irregular
food, there was no ill-health and no fatigue in her and things were proceeding
with a lightning swiftness. The power used was not that of the Supermind, but of
the Overmind, but it was sufficient for what was being done. Afterwards because
the lower vital and the physical of the sadhaks could not follow, the Mother had
to push the Divine Personalities and Powers through which she was doing the
action behind a veil and come down into the physical human level and act
according to its conditions and that meant difficulty, struggle, illness,
ignorance and inertia. All has been for long slow, difficult, almost sterile in
appearance. Nevertheless our work was going on behind that appearance and now it
is again becoming possible to go forward. But for the advance to be anything
like general or swift in its process, the attitude of the sadhaks, not of a few
only, must change. They must cling less to the conditions and feelings of the
external physical consciousness and open themselves to the true consciousness of
the Yogin and sadhaka. If they did that, 
the
inner eye would open and they would not be bewildered or alarmed if the Mother
again manifested externally something of the Divine Personalities and Powers as
she did before. They would not be asking her to be always on their level, but
would be glad to be drawn swiftly or gradually up towards hers. The difficulties
would be ten times less and a larger easier securer movement possible.
This was what I meant and I suppose I manifested some
impatience at the slowness of so many to realise what is after all a logical
conclusion from the very principle of our Yoga which is that of a
transformation, all that is disharmonious in human nature being enlightened out
of existence, all that makes for harmony being changed into its divine
equivalent, purer, greater, nobler, more beautiful and much being added which
has been lacking to the human evolution. I meant that things could move more
swiftly towards this if the sadhaks had a less ignorant attitude, but if they
could not yet reach that, we had of course to go on anyhow until the supramental
descent came down to the material level.
Finally, you must get rid of this gratuitous tendency
to despair. The difficulty for you has been created by the indulgence given to
this formation I speak of; that finally dismissed, the difficulty would
disappear. Progress might be slow at first, but progress would come; it would
quicken afterwards and, with the supramental force here, there would be for you
as for others the full speed and certitude.
18 October 1934