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Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest

1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters (1890–1926)

Letters and Telegrams to Political and Professional Associates 1906–1926

To Motilal Roy [3]1

[c. January 1913]

Dear M.

We have received from you in December Rs 60, and Rs 20, and in this month Rs 10. According to N’s account, Rs 10 belongs to November account, Rs 50 to December; Rs 20 we suppose to have been sent in advance on the January account. If so, we still expect from you Rs 20, this month. I should be glad to know if there is any prospect of your being able to increase the amount now or shortly. Up till now we have somehow or other managed to fill in the deficit of Rs 35 monthly; but, now that all our regular sources here are stopped, we have to look to mere luck for going on. Of course if we were bhaktas of the old type this would be the regular course, but as our sadhan stands upon karmayoga with jnana and bhakti, this inactive nirbhara can only continue so long as it is enjoined on us as a temporary movement of the sadhana. It cannot be permanent. I think there will have to be a change before long, but I cannot see clearly whether the regular and sufficient arrangement which must be instituted some time, is to come from you or from an unexpected quarter or whether I have myself to move in the matter. It is a question of providing some Rs 450 a year in addition to what you send,– unless, of course, God provides us with some new source for the sharírayátrá as He did two years ago.

All these matters, as well as the pursuance of my work to which you allude in your last (commercial) letter, [depend]2 on the success of the struggle which is the crowning movement of my sadhana – viz the attempt to apply knowledge and power to the events and happenings of the world without the necessary instrumentality of physical action. What I am attempting is to establish the normal working of the siddhis in life ie the perception of thoughts, feelings and happenings of other beings and in other places throughout the world without any use of information by speech or any other data. 2d, the communication of the ideas and feelings I select to others (individuals, groups, nations,) by mere transmission of will-power; 3rd, the silent compulsion on them to act according to these communicated ideas and feelings; 4th, the determining of events, actions and results of action throughout the world by pure silent will power. When I wrote to you last, I had begun the general application of these powers which God has been developing in me for the last two or three years, but, as I told you, I was getting badly beaten. This is no longer the case, for in the 1st, 2d and even in 3rd I am now largely successful, although the action of these powers is not yet perfectly organized. It is only in the 4th that I feel a serious resistance. I can produce single results with perfect accuracy, I can produce general results with difficulty and after a more or less prolonged struggle, but I can neither be sure of producing the final decisive result I am aiming at nor of securing that orderly arrangement of events which prevents the results from being isolated and only partially effective. In some directions I seem to succeed, in others partly to fail and partly to succeed, while in some fields, eg, this matter of financial equipment both for my personal life and for my work I have hitherto entirely failed. When I shall succeed even partially in that, then I shall know that my hour of success is at hand and that I have got rid of the past karma in myself and others, which stands in our way and helps the forces of Kaliyuga to baffle our efforts.

About Tantric yoga; your experiment in the smashāna was a daring one,– but it seems to have been efficiently and skilfully carried out, and the success is highly gratifying.3 In these kriyas there are three considerations to be held in view, 1st, the object of the kriya. Of course there is the general object of mukti-bhukti which Tantriks in all ages have pursued, but to bring it about certain subjective results and conditions are necessary in ourselves and our surroundings and each separate kriya should be so managed as to bring about an important result of the kind. Big kriyas or numerous kriyas are not always necessary; the main thing is that they should be faultlessly effective like your last kriya or the small one with which you opened your practices. That is the second consideration viz the success of the kriya itself and that depends on the selection and proper use of the right mantra and tantra,– mantra, the mental part, and tantra, the practical part. These must be arranged with the greatest scrupulousness. All rashness, pride, ostentation etc, the rajasic defects,– also, all negligence, omission, slipshod ritual,– the tamasic defects, must be avoided. Success must not elate your minds, nor failure discourage. 3dly, angarakshana is as important as siddhi. There are many Tantriks in this Kaliyuga who are eager about siddhi, careless in angarakshana. They get some siddhi, but become the prey of the devils and bhutas they raise. Now what is the use of a particular siddhi, if the sadhakas are destroyed? The general and real object,– mukti and bhukti,– remains unfulfilled. Angarakshana is managed, first, by the selection and arrangement of the right siddhi-mantra and kriya, secondly, by the presence behind the sadhaka of one who repeats what is called an angarakshaka mantra destructive of the pretas and Rakshasas or prohibitive of their attacks. The last function I have taken on myself; it is your business so to arrange the kriya that the bhutas get no chance for [prabēśa] or for the seizure and destruction of the sadhaka. I have found that my mantra has been more and more successful in protection, but it is not yet strong enough to prevent all [upadraba] of a dangerous character. It will take some more [ābṛtti] to increase its power. It is for this reason that I do not yet tell you to go on swiftly in your course of practices. Still there is no harm in quickening the pace in comparison with the past. Remember always the supreme necessity of mauna in Tantric practices. In Vedantic and Puranic exercises expansion is not dangerous, but the goddess of the Tantra does not look with a favourable eye on those who from pride, ostentation or looseness blab about the mantra or the kriya. In Tantric sadhana secrecy is necessary for its own sake. Those who reveal mantra or kriya to the unfit, suffer almost inevitably; even those who reveal them unnecessarily to the fit, impair somewhat the force of their Tantric action.

Kali

P.S. Please send the rest of this month’s money at once if you have not already sent it, and next month’s as early as you can.

 

1 Circa January 1913. According to Arun Chandra Dutt (Light to Superlight, pp. 50–51), the “experiment in the smashāna” mentioned in this letter was the attempt to assassinate the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, in Delhi on 23 December 1912. Śmaśānas or graveyards are believed to be good places for tantric sadhana. The term applies also to Delhi, the graveyard of vanished empires. Other terms in the letter make use of the same “tantric” metaphor.{{1}}In February 1910, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta and took temporary refuge in Chandernagore, a small French enclave on the river Hooghly about thirty kilometres north of Calcutta. There he was looked after by Motilal Roy (1882–1959), a young member of a revolutionary secret society. After leaving Chandernagore for Pondicherry in April, Sri Aurobindo kept in touch with Motilal by letter. It was primarily to Motilal that he was referring when he wrote in the “General Note on Sri Aurobindo’s Political Life” (p. 64 of this volume): “For some years he kept up some private communication with the revolutionary forces he had led through one or two individuals.” In these letters, which were subject to interception by the police, he could not of course write openly about revolutionary matters. He developed a code in which “tantra” meant revolutionary activities, and things connected with tantra (yogini chakras, tantric books, etc.) referred to revolutionary implements like guns (see Arun Chandra Dutt, ed., Light to Superlight [Calcutta: Prabartak Publishers, 1972], pp. 27–30). The code sometimes got rather complicated (see the note to letter [3] below). Sri Aurobindo did not use his normal signature or initials in the first 22 letters. Instead he signed as Kali, K., A. K. or G. He often referred to other people by initials or pseudonyms. Parthasarathi Aiyangar, for example, became “P. S.” or “the Psalmodist”.

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2 MS depends

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3 This is apparently a reference to the attempt to assassinate the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, in Delhi on 23 December 1912. – Ed.

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