Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Himself and the Ashram
The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35
Sadhana in the Ashram
The Supramental Evolution, the Ashram and the Hostile Forces [6]
It seems to me that the evolution out of matter could have taken place without the hostile forces. It could have happened quickly, by the descent of the Supramental and other lights, powers and joy of the Transcendent.
Anything could have happened but if the Supramental was to descend immediately, there was no need of matter or evolution the only reasonable thing would have been to create a supramental world at once without any slow evolution of matter, of life in matter, of mind in living matter or of the spiritual or supramental in spiritualised life in the material body.
Without the hostile forces and the self-contradictory consciousness of an exclusive division, avidyā, the manifestation would have been self-luminous and perfect and there would have been no need of an evolution from imperfection to perfection.
Obviously but this world was created for evolution and not for an immediately luminous manifestation such as already exists on some other planes.
Whoever gave the hostile forces the power of avidyā to enter into and interfere with the earth-evolution has allowed tremendous pain and suffering to grow in the earth-consciousness.
Avidya did not
interfere with the earth evolution, it existed before the earth life was evolved
in the form of Inconscience. The meaning of evolution is the evolving or slow
manifestation of life, mind and conscious supermind out of matter with its
original Inconscience. Avidya is one thing and the intervention of the hostile
forces is another.
Even if the hostile forces go back to their own region, they will certainly wage war against the transformed divine world. The only way for God to save us from this would be for him to put some pressure on them for self-transformation.
It is supposed that the supramental Light and Force is to descend if the descent is so complete that these forces are driven back to their own world, it is not likely that any efforts on their part would have any success. It is the darkness or the insufficient Light that gave them their chance to intervene. If there is the victory of the true light, they cannot any longer.
The Mother has said that the hostile forces are necessary in the life of the Asrama for testing the sincerity of the sadhakas.
The work of this Yoga and therefore the principle of
the Asram life is to take the world as it is and deal with it by a
transformation of which the supramental descent is not the first but the final
process. The presence of the hostile forces is a part of the world as it is and
not to deal with them at all or to act as if they were not there would have been
to leave the problem unsolved and the work undone. The sadhaks of the Asram are
not spotless Saints or perfect born Yogis but men who carry in them their human
nature and typify each in his own way what is in the world and what has to be
changed. The influence of the hostile Forces was on them as on all human beings
in a less or greater degree, and so long as they open themselves to that
influence, it works on them as on the world, it is only by a perfect sincerity
and by a perfect opening to the Light that it can disappear. In that sense the
presence of these forces is a test and the world that has to be changed being
what it is and their 
nature being what it is, it
could not be otherwise.
I believe that each divine being has a hostile being associated with it for some unknown purpose in the Asrama.
It is not only in the Asram but everywhere that it is like that. It is a well-known principle of all occult knowledge that there are these two elements overstanding each seeker of the Truth.
The Mother once said that she never upheld the hostile forces, nor was she their Mother.
The hostile forces are upheld not by the Mother but by something in the sadhaks themselves which opens the doors to them by concentrated egoism, mental arrogance, vital revolt and many other things, e.g. lying, sex etc.
I remember how I was suddenly betrayed into the hands of the hostile forces when I came to the Budhi house. When I asked to be moved to a house near the Asrama, you ordered me to remain here.
The hostile forces were not in the Budhi house any more than in any other and being in a house near the Asram does not save anybody from their attacks as is shown by the case of several who lived in houses near the Asram. Even to be in the central building does not necessarily save anybody from attacks. It depends on oneself, not on purely external things.
You have said that the hostile forces are no more necessary here in the Asrama. Will you let me know when they are going to be put out of the Asrama life altogether?
They are no more necessary if the sadhaks open to the Light that is descending that was what I said but if they do not open and go on exposing themselves, there will still be a possibility of their presence for some time to come.
Please give me the
highest solutions and not temporary truths of a passing evolution.
The highest solutions cannot be brought in like that, as if one were acting in a clear field. If the temporary truths of the evolution could be got rid of so easily, there would have been no need of preparation or of a trying and difficult sadhana. It was necessary to deal with what had come into existence in the evolution so that the supramental descent might become possible.
9 December 1933