Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Inner Vicissitudes and Difficulties

Transforming Tamas into Śama

Either because the silence deepened or because the dullness increased, I felt a little sleepy after work. After waking I found my thoughts were moving about very slowly in a dull way. During meditation the mental lethargy passed away, but something of it remained in the body.

It is sometimes a little difficult to say whether it is silence or the physical’s translation of the silence into a kind of inertia. I have experienced that very often in the rather difficult task of turning the tamas into śama, physical tamas into spiritual rest and peace which is its divine counterpart.

11 March 1934