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]

What I meant in my first question [p. 641] was that, as far as I can see, evolution is not necessary for the divine manifestation.

There is no question about the possibility of a non-evolutionary manifestation — but that is quite irrelevant, for this is an evolutionary manifestation and it was evidently intended to be so from the beginning.

But on account of the interference of an exclusive avidyā, the manifestation has been perverted into what it now is.

What do you mean by an interference? The exclusive Avidya, that is the Inconscience of Matter, was the starting point, not something that came in after life had begun.

If there had been a gradual descent of the supramental light in the beginning, the true life, mind and higher planes might have been released and organised.

A gradual descent of the Supramental Light into what? Matter being the starting point, life and mind had to evolve first — to begin with a supramental descent would have reversed the order of the creation.

Thus the hostile forces and the perversion that they bring might have been dispensed with.

All that depends on the original statement that it might have been otherwise — if a rapid supramental creation had been intended and not an evolution. As this is in its nature an evolutionary world, there is no practical use in pressing that possibility.

My point is that the hostile forces could have been dispensed with, and that they still can be dispensed with, at present.

As for what can be done at the present time, that is just what is being fought out. But there are two parties to the issue, the higher consciousness and the earth consciousness, the latter largely represented by the sadhaks here. If the earth consciousness is ready an easy descent is quite possible, but if it resists, then there is in the nature of things difficulty and struggle and the Asuric forces have their chance.

25 December 1933