Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Admission, Staying, Departure

Admission to the Ashram, 1927 – 1943 [4]

There is no question about grihastha and Sannyasin here, because the distinction does not exist for us. There is no place for the Sannyasin of the ordinary type at least, because we do not turn our backs on life; neither are we grihasthas, because we do leave behind us the ordinary human life and its institutions and motives.

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The difficulty in X’s case is of two kinds. First, his mind seems to cling to traditional ideas and ways of action, while here they are thrown aside altogether. It is impossible without an entirely free intelligence (or, in its place, a strong psychic faith and ardour) to follow the movement here. I doubt whether X would be able to appreciate, much less to assent to it and follow it.

(2) X seems to lay entire stress on the reasoning intellect and to have fixed himself in that movement. Here the endeavour is of a supramental and therefore suprarational character. It has to be carried out through a silent mind, an active psychic being, a descent of the supramental Light and Power and Vastness and Ananda transforming all the instruments. An attachment to the way of the intellect, a bondage to the rational mind would be an insuperable obstacle. The supramental can be reached through the active mind only if the latter is large, free, subtle, plastic, ready at every moment to renounce its own way and to admit enlightenment and contradiction of all its cherished conclusions and habitual movements by a higher Light. Not one intellect in a thousand is of that kind. And even then it would not be enough without the heart’s opening and the support of the psychic brought to the surface.

It would be useless for X to come here and find himself at a loss in an atmosphere foreign to his temperament. There is no sign that he is psychically ready for such a transplantation. A certain agreement of the philosophic idea is quite insufficient.

Only two kinds of people can stay here with any true profit;

(1) Those who are ready to absorb the spiritual atmosphere and change.

(2) Those who, if not yet ready, can still surrender to the influence and prepare slowly till they are ready.

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It may be that X cannot advance precisely because of this interference of the intellect in the ways of the Spirit. The reasoning mind can never give itself confidently to the greater Influence, not even to God or Guru; it is capable of turning unprofitably around itself for ever.

July 1927