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 [8]

The forces compelled Adam — who does not seem to have possessed a great knowledge about the wiles of the hostile forces — to fall.

It means that he was ignorant and not merely innocent.

From your statement it is obvious that at a certain stage of the manifestation the hostile forces interfered but that up to that stage the manifestation was perfect.

Not at all. If it had been perfect, there would have been no need of evolution.

This supports the idea that a perfect manifestation was intended from the very beginning.

An unperverted manifestation is not necessarily a perfect manifestation — it may be unperverted but still imperfect.

You have not taken exception to my statement that the exclusive Avidya is not present in the inner vital and mental.

It depends on what you mean by Avidya. They are not inconscient like Matter, but until the higher knowledge comes, they are in the Ignorance.

I do not understand what you mean by “It has nothing to do with Darwin.”

The evolution I speak of is not the evolution of the Darwinian theory.

I understand that the interference of the Avidya or the hostile forces were the causes of man’s degeneration and delay in his evolution and that they were not helping forces as such, even indirectly.

They did not intend to be helping forces, but they have been obliged to help in certain ways.

Psychic innocence is a great perfection by itself.

What is psychic innocence after all?

You have not taken exception to my statement about Vidya and Avidya.

These are terms which one can use in different senses. There is no Avidya in the highest planes, if by Avidya you mean Ignorance.

You have not taken exception to my statement about the great pain created in the universe by the interference of the hostile forces in the life of man.

I have not accepted it.

Once pain is in the world and a main part of its working it cannot be got rid of arbitrarily by ignoring it or by a simple surgical operation of cutting out its source. It is the mind with its summary conclusions that thinks the complex knot of things can be dealt with by a simple cut — in fact it is not so.

The Mother has spoken many times of hostile forces that came here after the descent for transformation. In fact, she had transformed one hostile being who was present in the Asrama.

A transformed hostile being or one who wants to be transformed is no longer hostile. It is simply a power of the vital world which places itself at the service of the Divine. Hostility consists in opposing the Divine Light and fighting against the transformation of the earth consciousness.

But in any case the Mother never spoke of such transformation as the object of the sadhana or the Asrama.

You have not said anything about several of my questions and statements.

There are many things you have written about which I have not said anything but which I do not endorse. It is impossible for me with my limited time to answer such a long series of questions in detail.

After the descent, the Mother spoke of the Asrama as the spiritual cell (the word is mine) and Sangha.

The Mother was not in the habit of using the word sangha, I think.

9 January 1934