Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Help and Guidance

Utility of Correspondence [19]

Someone asked me if it would be possible to have direct communication with you and dispense with writing letters to get your guidance. I replied that it would not be possible unless one had developed the power of telepathy and was able to receive your replies inwardly. But even then there would be the possibility of obscuration and distortion in reception, unless there was a complete psychisation of the consciousness. Even with complete psychisation it would not be possible to know all from within, for example about the experiences of higher stages like Overmind and Supermind, because the psychic has no instrumentality to know about them. Communication through letters would, therefore, still be necessary. But if a person had a perfect rapport with the Mother, he might be able to dispense with the need of communicating through letters. But would even a person who had realised the Overmind have such a perfect rapport?

I think it would need the Supermind itself to establish such a complete rapport. The psychic can do much in that direction but on condition it has a complete control. Overmind and Intuition could do it on their own plane, but here they have to descend into the physical consciousness and that interferes with its immense obscurity in addition to the distortions of mind and vital.

27 May 1934