This selection is from Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary
Library, vol. 23, pp. 517519 and 628629.
hat do I want
of you besides aspiring for faith?
Well, just a bit more thoroughness and persistence in the method!
Don't aspire for two days and then go into the dumps, evolving a gospel
of earthquake and Schopenhauer plus the ass and all the rest of it.
Give the Divine a full sporting chance. When he lights something in
you or is preparing a light, don't come in with a wet blanket of despondency
and throw it on the poor flame. You will say, "It is a mere candle
that is lit -- nothing at all!" But in these matters, when the
darkness of human mind and life and body has to be dissipated, a candle
is always a beginning -- a lamp can follow and afterwards a sun; but
the beginning must be allowed to have a sequel and not get cut off from
its natural sequelae by chunks of sadness and doubt and despair.
At the beginning, and for a long time, the experiences do usually
come in little quanta with empty spaces between -- but, if allowed its
way, the spaces will diminish, and the quantum theory give way to the
Newtonean continuity of the spirit. But you have never yet given it
a real chance. The empty spaces have been peopled with doubts and denials
and so the quanta have become rare, the beginning remains a beginning
...
To put it more soberly -- accept once and for all that this thing
has to be done, that is the only thing left for you yourself or the
earth. Outside are earthquakes and Hitlers and a collapsing civilization
and, generally speaking, the ass and the flood. All the more reason
to tend towards the one thing to be done, the thing you have been sent
to aid in getting done. It is difficult and the way long and the encouragement
given meager? What then? Why should you expect so great a thing to be
easy or that there must be either a swift success or none?
The difficulties have to be faced and the more cheerfully they are
faced, the sooner they will be overcome. The one thing to do is to keep
the mantra of success, the determination of victory, the fixed resolve,
"Have it I must and have it I will." Impossible? There is
no such thing as impossibility -- there are difficulties and things
of longue haleine, but no impossibles. What one is determined fixedly
to do will get done now or later -- it becomes possible.
* * *
ou have asked what
is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking
into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice
of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary
human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self.
But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface
one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper
truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the
nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object
of this concentration.
Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two
main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac
centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration
in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going
deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element
in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern
the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards
the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the
consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest
and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness
which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the
offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward
opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it
can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes
the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other
way.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre.
This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an
inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving
spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated
here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that
is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward
and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied
in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated
into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal
Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into
that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature.
To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind
and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of
concentration ...
The other side of discipline is with regard to the activities of the
nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being.
Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation
so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are
here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all
the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the
taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward
soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great
difficulty -- there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant
intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently
removes all imperfections, brings the right mental and vital movements
and reshapes the physical consciousness also.
nother method
is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical
being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general
Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any
part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes
detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its
activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself,
one becomes aware of an inner Being within us -- inner mental, inner
vital, inner physical -- silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects
the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this
inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected,
an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will
to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what
is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life
and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its
direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together
and finally fuse into one. But one can begin with either, the one that
one feels most natural and easy to follow.
Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the
help of the Teacher can intervene and bring about what is needed for
the realization or for the immediate step that is necessary.
