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

1935 [8]

The way you are hammering the supramental on us in everything, every problem, every difficulty, as the solution to all riddles, panacea for all ills, one almost thinks that its descent will make all of us “big people” overnight.

My insistence on the supramental is of course apo-diaskeptic. Don’t search for the word in the dictionary. I am simply imitating the doctors who when they are in a hole protect themselves with impossible Greek. Peace, supramental if possible, but peace anyhow — a peace which will become supramental if it has a chance. The atmosphere is most confoundedly disturbed, that is why I am ingeminating “peace, peace, peace!” like a summer dove or an intellectual under the rule of Hitler. Of course, I am not asking you to become supramental offhand. That is my business, and I will do it if you fellows give me a chance, which you are not doing just now (you is not personal, but collective and indefinite) and will do less if you go blummering into buzzific intensities. (Please don’t consult the dictionary, but look into the writings of Joyce and others.)

9 April 1935