Section Five

THE MASTER AND THE GUIDE

CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTANCE AS DISCIPLES

I do not very readily accept disciples as this path of Yoga is a difficult one and it can be followed only if there is a special call.

If he wishes to accept my Yoga the conditions are a steady resolve and aspiration towards the truth I am bringing down, a calm passivity and an opening upward towards the source from which the light is coming. The Shakti is already working in him and if he takes and keeps this attitude and has a complete confidence in me, there is no reason why he should not advance safely in the Sadhana.

9-12-1922

As for the Zamindar he seems to expect some dīkṣā of the traditional kind from me, but this I cannot give. He will have to be told that I do not and that my method is different. It may be a little difficult to explain to him or for him to understand what it is. Perhaps he may be told that those who come to have the Yoga are not accepted at once and there is sometimes a long period of trial before they are. We can see how he takes it and decide afterwards if he persists in his desire to come here.

11-7-1949

If he had a true Yogic capacity it would be different, but we see no trace of it. Tell him he needs another kind of guidance — he will not be able to stand this Yoga.

It is not possible for me to give him help and guidance — for that would mean an Influence put on him and in the present stage of his development he has not the necessary strength and balance to receive it and bear it.

I have said he cannot do this Yoga. He needs something else that he can assimilate.

4-7-1936

I have read and considered your letter and have decided to give you the opportunity you ask for — you can reside in the Ashram for two or three months to begin with and find out whether this is really the place and the path you were seeking and we also can by a closer observation of your spiritual possibilities discern how best we can help you and whether this Yoga is the best for you.

This trial is necessary for many reasons, but especially because it is a difficult Yoga to follow and not many can really meet the demands it makes on the nature. You have written that you saw in me one who achieved through the perfection of the intellect, its spiritualisation and divinisation; but in fact I arrived through the complete silence of the mind and whatever spiritualisation and divinisation it attained was through the descent of a higher supra-intellectual knowledge into that silence. The book, Essays on the Gita, itself was written in that silence of the mind, without intellectual effort and by a free activity of this knowledge from above. This is important because the principle of this Yoga is not perfection of the human nature as it is but a psychic and spiritual transformation of all the parts of the being through the action of an inner consciousness and then of a higher consciousness which works on them, throws out their old movements or changes them into the image of its own and so transmutes lower into higher nature. It is not so much the perfection of the intellect as a transcendence of it, a transformation of the mind, the substitution of a larger greater principle of knowledge — and so with all the rest of the being.

This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.

If you wish, we are ready to give you the trial you ask for. On receiving your answer the Mother will make the necessary arrangements for your residence in the Ashram.

26-3-1937

Write to your friend that we do not ask for any financial help from your father and therefore you are not called upon to answer the questions in his letter. It is not everyone who has the adhikāra to help in the work of the Ashram.

Those only can do so who have faith in it, or sympathy or at least confidence in Sri Aurobindo....

Sri Aurobindo is not anxious to increase the number of his disciples and only those are accepted usually who have the call and capacity for Yoga and are ready to satisfy the conditions.

14-10-1928

If I said only things that human nature finds easy and natural, that would certainly be very comfortable for the disciples, but there would be no room for spiritual aim or endeavour. Spiritual aims and methods are not easy or natural (e.g., as quarrelling, sex-indulgence, greed, indolence, acquiescence in all imperfections are easy and natural,) and if people become disciples, they are supposed to follow spiritual aims and endeavours, however hard and above ordinary nature and not the things that are easy and natural.

3-5-1937

Q: Here is a man of fifty intending vanaprastha, who thinks our Ashram will just be the place for him. He says he has prepared himself for Ashram life; his only fault being taking a little opium for the sake of health. What should I write to him ?

A: Declined with thanks. Opium not allowed here. Also this is not a vānaprastha Ashram.

17-7-1936

Q: Here is a village girl, a young widow, who has heard your call in a dream and is eager to come here.

A: Too young — such dreams are not decisive and there is too much of the vital tone in her remarks; you need say nothing about that however.

14-10-1938

IMPERSONAL APPROACH AND PERSONAL TOUCH

Well, what I am considering is this, whether it would not be wiser, as far as concerns England or America, to start imperson­ally with the philosophical side and the side of the Yoga, and leave the person a little behind the scene, for the present, until people there are ready as individuals for the personal touch; that is the course we have been following up to now. In India it is different, for here there is another kind of general mentality and there is the tradition of the Guru and the Shishya.

May, 1943

THE DISCIPLES AND THE MASTER

Q: What disciples we are of what a Master! I wish you had chosen or called some better stuff—perhaps somebody like X.

A: As to the disciples, I agree! — Yes, but would the better stuff, supposing it to exist, be typical of humanity ? To deal with a few exceptional types would hardly solve the problem. And would they consent to follow my path — that is another ques­tion ? And if they were put to the test, would not the common

humanity suddenly reveal itself — that is still another question.

3-8-1935

HARM IN GOING OUT OF THE ASHRAM

Q: Does your allowing people to go out from here mean that now there is no harm in their doing so?

A: No, it does not; it simply means that we can't always be holding back people whose vital says "I want to go, I want to go" and they side with the vital. They are allowed to go and take their risk.

18-3-1937

INTEREST IN YOGA AND GIVING MONEY

Q: X wants to approach rich people for money, but does not know how to do it.... He says that if people are directly approached for money, there may not be any response. His plan is to somehow...make them take interest in our work so that they may themselves offer money without any asking. ...He asked me to take your advice in this matter.

A; If it is done in that way, X will have to wait for a result for years together. Even if they are interested, even if they are practising Yoga, people don't think of giving money unless they are asked, except a few who have a generous vital nature. It is all right to interest people in the work and the Yoga — but of itself that will be rarely sufficient, they must know that money is needed and the idea of giving must be put into them.

13-3-1933

CORRESPONDENCE WITH SADHAKS

About the correspondence, I would be indeed a brainless fool if I made it the central aim of my life to con an absurd mountain of

letters and leave all higher aims aside! If I have given importance to the correspondence, it is because it was an effective instrument towards my central purpose—there are a large number of Sadhaks whom it has helped to awaken from lethargy and begin to tread the way of spiritual experience, others whom it has carried from a small round of experience to a flood of realisations, some who have been absolutely hopeless for years who have undergone a conversion and entered from darkness into an opening of light. Others no doubt have not profited or profited only a little. Also there were some who wrote at random and wasted our time. But I think we can say that for the majority of those who wrote there has been a real progress. No doubt also it was not the correspondence in itself but the Force that was increasing in its pressure on the physical nature which was able to do all this, but a canalisation was needed, and this served the purpose. There were many for whom it was not necessary, others for whom it was not suitable. If it had been a mere intellectual asking of questions it would have been useless, but the substantial part was about Sadhana and experience and it is that that proved to be of great use.

But as time went on the correspondence began to grow too much and reached impossible proportions, yet it was difficult to stop the flood or to make distinctions which would not have been understood; so we have to seek a way out and as yet have only found palliatives. The easy way would be if those who have opened would now rely on the inner communication with only a necessary word now and then — some have begun to do so. I suppose in the end we shall be able to reduce the thing to manageable proportions.

12-1-1934

I do not understand your point about raising up a new race by my going on writing "trivial" letters ten hours a day. Of course not — nor by writing important letters either; even if I were to spend my time writing fine poems it would not build up a new race. Each activity is important in its own place — an electron or a molecule or a grain may be small things in themselves, but in

their place they are indispensable to the building up of a world; it cannot be made up only of mountains and sunsets and streamings of the aurora borealis — though these have their place there. All depends on the force behind these things and the purpose in their action — and that is known to the Cosmic Spirit which is at work; and it works, I may add, not by the mind or according to human standards but by a greater consciousness which, starting from an electron, can build up a world and, using a tangle of ganglia, can make them the base here for the works of the Mind and Spirit in Matter, produce a Ramakrishna, or a Napoleon, or a Shakespeare. Is the life of a great poet either made up only of magnificent and important things ? How many trivial things had to be dealt with and done before there could be produced a King Lear or a Hamlet ? Again, according to your own reasoning, would not people be justified in mocking at your pother — so they would call it, I do not — about metre and scansion and how many ways a syllable can be read? Why, they might say, is he wasting his time in trivial prosaic things like this when he might have been spending it in producing a beautiful lyric or fine music ? But the worker knows and respects the material with which he must work and he knows why he is busy with "trifles" and small details and what is their place in the fullness of his labour.

December, 1933

But I do not understand how all that can prevent me from answering mental questions. On my own showing, if it is necessary for the Divine purpose, it has to be done. Sri Ramakrishna himself answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the answers must be such as he gave and such as I try to give, answers from higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of know­ledge and not lucubrations of the logical intellect trying to co-ordinate its ignorance. Still less can there be a placing of the Divine Truth before the judgments of the intellect to be condemned or acquitted by that authority, for that authority has no sufficient jurisdiction or competence.

Page – 181

Q: Is it not true that the letters we receive from you are full of power ?

A: Yes, power is put into them.

Q: It seems as if those who are not writing to you daily are not worse off for it. What is that due to ?

A: Either they have not that same push for the Sadhana or they feel less need to lay open their difficulties because they have some line of positive experience which they confidently follow.

24-9-1933

Q: Even for those who do not write to you often and confidently follow a line of positive experience, is there not the danger of wrong suggestions and constructions coming to them and also of an absence of variety or integrality of experience ?

A: Yes, there are both these dangers. Those even who are not visited by serious difficulties, are exposed to the latter danger of remaining always in the same plane of experience. But again many do not write because they are not yet prepared for the pressure on them to progress rapidly which that would mean.

25-9-1933 

Q: Is the asking of questions a help to Yoga?

A: Questions are meant for getting light on the things that are going on in one. It is the statement of what is going on that helps to surrender.

3-4-1934

Q: Many times questions come to the mind like: "What is the Divine?" Is it not better to write them to you?

A: Provided you do not expect me to answer always. People write to me not for getting mental information or answering questions but to lay before me their experiences and difficulties and get my help. When it is necessary, I answer questions, but I cannot be doing it all the time.

I cannot undertake to be telling you all the time all that is hot perfectly Yogic in the details of your action from morning to night. These are things to see to yourself. It is the movements of your Sadhana that you place before me and it is this that I have to see whether they are the right things or not.

7-5-1936 

When what you write is correct, I say nothing — when it is your physical mind that brings in wrong ideas, I correct.

10-5-1936 

Q: Before reading Your answers to my letters I feel as if I would be unable to read or understand them. What is this activity in me?

A: A useless activity of the vital mind. You should keep it quiet and receive with a silent mind waiting for light. In the silent mind one can receive an answer even if I write nothing.

9-6-1933

Q: When I wrote that while reading your answers I experienced something coming out of my heart, you replied, "It depends on the nature of the movement. Something from the psychic?" Well, it was something

from the psychic. But how did it get connected with the answers?

A: The psychic can be connected with anything that gives room for love or Bhakti.

It is the psychic contact with what is in or behind the answers —what comes out into them from myself.

26-6-1936

Q: When you make a fresh opening in me, is it not possible to inform me one day in advance, so that I may keep myself ready ?

A: No. Certainly not. Such a mental method would be of no use whatever. The experience must come of itself.

9-5-1936

THE OUTER GUIDANCE AND THE INNER HELP

The outer guidance is meant only as an aid to the inner working, especially for the correction of any erroneous movement and sometimes in order to point out the right road. It is not meant, except at a very early stage, to satisfy mental questionings or to stimulate a mental activity.

What I write usually helps only the mind and that too very little, for people do not really understand what I write — they put their own constructions on it. The inner help is quite different and there can be no confusion with it, for it reaches the substance of the consciousness, not the mind only.

SRI AUROBINDO'S TOUCH

My touch is always there; but you must learn to feel it not only with the outward contact as a medium — a touch of the pen —

but in its direct action on the mind and heart and vital and body. There would then be very much less difficulty — or no difficulty at all.

27-3-1933

The outward touch is helpful; but the inward is still more helpful when one is accustomed to receive it with a certain concreteness — and the outward touch is not always fully possible, while the inward can be there all the time.

SRI AUROBINDO'S COMPASSION

Q: Why is the flower symbolising your compassion so delicate and why does it wither away so soon?

A: No, the compassion does not wither with its symbol — flowers are the moment's representations of things that are in themselves eternal.

9-8-1936

SPIRITUAL CHANGE AND THE SCHOOL-MASTER METHOD

I never point out to anybody his defects unless he gives me the occasion. A Sadhak must become conscious and lay himself before the light, see and reject and change. It is not the right method for us to interfere and lecture and point out this and point out that. That is the school-master method — it does not work in the spiritual change.

10-5-1936

SHUTTING UP DOORS AGAINST HELP

I am not aware of refusing help; but to receive the help is also necessary. When you are in this condition you seem at once to

shut yourself up against those from whom you seek help by a spirit of bitterness and anger. That is not an attitude which makes it easy to receive or be conscious and it is not easy either for the help to be effective. All I can do is to send you the Force that if received would help you to change your condition; it is what I have always done. But it cannot act effectively — or at least not at once— if the doors are shut against it.

23-5-1936

THE WORST HOSTILE SUGGESTION

Q: The worst of the hostile suggestions is that you are partial in your dealings. When this is accepted a wall comes between you and the Sadhak and there is a revolt and then there may be an end of the Sadhana !

A: Yes, it is their aim — for it is their one short cut to success, to separate the Sadhak from his soul.

3-5-1935

WORK AND TIME

You do not realise that I have to spend 12 hours over the ordinary correspondence, numerous reports, etc. I work 3 hours in the afternoon and the whole night up to 6 in the morning over this. So if I get a long letter with many questions I may not be able to answer it all at once. To get into such a disturbance over it and want to throw off the Yoga is quite unreasonable.

17-6-1933

As to the book, I am afraid I have no time for such things. The twenty-four hours are already too short for what I have to do.

3-9-1930

Good Lord! What can one write in 1 or 1½ hours ? If I could only get that time for immortal productions every day! Why in another three years Savitri and Ilion and I don't know how much more would be all rewritten, finished, resplendently complete.

6-12-1935

Q: What has happened to my typescript? Hibernating?

A: My dear sir, if you saw me nowadays with my nose to paper from afternoon to morning, deciphering, deciphering, writing, writing, writing, even the rocky heart of a disciple would be touched and you would not talk about typescripts and hibernation. I have given up (for the present at least) the attempt to minimise the cataract of correspondence; I accept my fate like X with the plague of Prasads and admirers, but at least don't add anguish to annihilation by talking about typescripts.

9-3-1936

SRI KRISHNA AND CORRESPONDENCE

Q: Sri Krishna must have had more leisure than you have. In those days the art of writing had not developed so much and so he had not to reply to questions, though sometimes he had sudden calls as when Durvasa came with a host of thousands of disciples asking for food when there was not a morsel. Perhaps Sri Krishna had to perform more miracles than you have to, though I should not forget that constant calls must be coming to you also for help in illnesses and many others in many ways. Moreover, Sri Krishna never actually became a Guru of several people.

A: Well, he may have been rather wise in that and fortunate in the infrequency of correspondence in those days — but that did not save him. There is a poignant chapter in the Mahabharata

describing his miseries and bothers with his people in Dwarka which is very illuminating — unfortunately I have forgotten where it is. The calls don't matter much, for putting the Force is a subjective thing which does not take time, except in cases when it is a daily or frequently recurring difficulty. As for Durvasa if he turned up, it would be met by an order to X "Go and manage" or else an intimation to Durvasa not to be unreasonable.

4-9-1936

REASONS FOR RETIREMENT

My retirement is nothing new, even the cessation of contact by correspondence is nothing new, — it has been there now for a long time. I had to establish the rule not out of personal preference or likes or dislikes, but because the correspondence occupied the greater part of my time and energies and there was a danger of my real work remaining neglected or undone if I did not change my course and devote myself to it, while the actual results of the outer activity were very small — it cannot be said that it resulted in the Ashram making a great spiritual progress. Now in these times of world-crisis when I have to be on guard and concentrated all the time to prevent irremediable catastrophes and have still to be so, and when, besides, the major movement of the inner spiritual work needs an equal concentration and persistence, it is not possible for me to abandon my rule. (Moreover, even for the individual Sadhak it is in his interest that this major spiritual work should be done, for its success would create conditions under which his difficulties could be much more easily overcome.) All the same I have broken my rule, and broken it for you alone: I do not see how that can be interpreted as a want of love and a hard granite indifference.

29-5-1942

No, there is no obligation of gloom, harshness, austerity or lonely grandeur in this Yoga. If I am living in my room, it is not out of passion for solitude, and it would be ridiculous to put forward

this purely external circumstance as if it were the obligatory sign of a high advance in the Yoga or solitude the aim. So you need not be anxious; solitude is not demanded of you.

1932

I have no intention, I can assure you, of cutting off connection in the future. What restrictions there have been, were due to unavoidable causes. My retirement itself was indispensable; otherwise I would not be now where I am, that is, personally, near the goal. When the goal is reached, it will be different. If you had an unprecedented peace for so long a time, it was due to my persistent inner pressure; I refuse to give up all the credit to my double,Krishna.

14-8-1945

The psychic is not responsible for my aloofness or retirement — it is the mass of opposition that I have to face which is respon­sible for that. It is only when I have overcome by the aid of the psychic and (excuse me!) your other bête noire, the Supermind, that the retirement can cease.

Q: I pray for Sri Aurobindo's Darshan once more before I leave. I know that it is against the rule but I hope you won't mind relaxing it for the sake of a Bhakta.

A: I am afraid it is impossible. No separate personal Darshan can be given at this stage — it is not a rule, it is a necessity for the work that Sri Aurobindo is doing.

17-8-1934

Q: When will you come out of your retirement?

A: That is a thing of which nothing can be said at present. My

retirement had a purpose and that purpose must first be fulfilled.

25-8-1933

Q: It would be very good if you could come out to give Darshan once a month instead of only three times a year. Is it possible?

A: If I went out once a month, the effect of my going out would be diminished by one third.

2-3-1933

Q: Will you come out of your retirement after the supramental descent?

A: That will be decided after the descent.

23-9-1935

Q: Sardar V asked X when you would come out and guide people. X replied that that was not to be expected. But perhaps V had a meaning in his question which X did not understand.

A: Perhaps not. V is not likely to understand more than others that a spiritual life can be led by me without a view to a come­back hereafter for the greatest good of the greatest India (or world). Tagore expected the latter and is much disappointed that I have not done it.

7-3-1935

SRI AUROBINDO'S LIGHT

Sri Aurobindo's light is not a light of the illumined mind — it is the divine Illumination which may act on any plane.

7-9-1933

Q: Two days back in a dream I saw Sri Aurobindo coming towards me. His body and dress were of blue colour. Why did I see him in this colour and not any other?

A: It is the basic light Sri Aurobindo manifests.

23-6-1933

If it is pale blue, it may be my colour. Pale lavender blue, pale but very brilliant in its own shade.

6-8-1932

It [the significance] depends on the shade of the blue. Ordinary pale blue is usually the light of the Illumined Mind or something of the Intuition. Whitish blue is Sri Aurobindo's light or Krishna's light.

There are many blues and it is difficult to say which these are. Usually the deeper blue is Higher Mind, a paler blue is Illu­mined Mind — whitish blue Sri Krishna's Light (also called Sri Aurobindo's Light).

The different blues mean different forces (the real blue has nothing to do with poison). The whitish blue is specially called my light — but it does not mean that that alone can come from me.

22-11-1933

Q: Nowadays I see Sri Aurobindo's light for most of the time but in different forms — sometimes like a big star, sometimes like a moon, sometimes like a flash of light. Why do I not see it in the same form?

A: It varies according to the circumstances. Why should it be always the same?

21-4-1933

Q: How can I receive Sri Aurobindo's light in the mind?

A: It can always come if you aspire patiently. But the basic condition, if you want that light, is to get rid of all other mental influences.

Q: What is the meaning of "to get rid of all other mental influences" ? Is it this that I had better not read any other books except Sri Aurobindo's or not try to learn anything by hearing or admiring others?

A: It is not a question of books or learning facts. When a woman loves or admires, her mind is instinctively moulded by the one she loves or admires, and this influence remains after the feeling itself has gone or appears to be gone. This does not refer to X's influence merely. It is the general rule given to keep yourself free from any other admiration or influence.

30-5-1932

Q: As one approaches your photograph in the Reception Room, there is a feeling that it is an emanation of yours. There seems to be a special light in it.

A: The Sadhaks may themselves bring this light by approaching me through the photo.

24-8-1934

SOME VISIONS OF SRI AUROBINDO

Q: I looked at your photograph in the Reception Room

after meditation and clearly saw the portrait move its shoulders and as if breathing.

A: There was a movement in the vital plane and you opened to an inner vision of it.

22-3-1933

Q: As I was sitting in prayer, I saw Sri Aurobindo in a vision coming down the staircase till he came just near to the floor. What does this mean?

A: It indicates perhaps the bringing of the Divine Consciousness down from level to level till it is now near the material.

23-9-1933

Q: Today while meditating I saw in a vision that in Sri Aurobindo's light Nataraja Shiva was manifesting with many hands. What does this signify?

A: It is the sign of the manifestation.

Q: Then I saw that in the sky Sri Aurobindo's light and red light were manifesting in the form of a globe. Does this signify the manifestation of Sri Aurobindo's divine light on the physical plane ?

A: Yes.

Q: Then I saw that Sri Aurobindo's light was manifesting on a sea along with another light of pale blue colour. Does this mean that in the vastness of consciousness Sri

Aurobindo's divine light is manifesting through the Intuitive Mind consciousness?

A: Yes.

15-10-1933

Q: I saw Sri Aurobindo last night in a vision seated on a chair and writing something. Behind his head there was a circular green light. What does this mean ?

A: The green light is that of a dynamic vital energy (of work). As I was writing — at work — it is natural that that light should be behind my head.

5-11-1933

Q: Last night I had a dream that you had come out of your seclusion for once; you were tall, quite young, but very dark. I began to wonder if this was Sri Aurobindo of former years!

A: No. It is not likely. It is probably some subtle physical form —that one corresponding to the Shiva element in me. I have seen myself like that sometimes and it was always the Shiva formation.

11-12-1934

RIGHT USE OF VISIONS AND VOICES

Q: The visions and voices can help us to see or hear our Guru, to receive constant directions from you or the Mother for our Sadhana. Well, why can't you open me to them ? I shall then have to trouble you much less with my crowd of questions. With this faculty you will always appear before me and talk to me!

A: I shall have first to be sure that you will make the right use of

them. I prefer that you should get higher discrimination and knowledge first.

9-7-1936

X discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and intuition — in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind — visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that they are being misled or in danger of being misled by false visions and false voices. That does not mean that visions and voices have no value.

9-7-1936

THE 15TH AUGUST DARSHAN

Q: X told me that only ten days were left for the August 15th Darshan. I replied that every day should be considered as the 15th.

A: That is the right attitude. Every day should be regarded as a day when a descent may take place or a contact established with the higher consciousness. Then the 15th itself would be more successful.

4-8-1934

Q: During this Darshan, instead of Ananda, Force or Light I felt a great dryness.

A: It depends upon your condition whether the Ananda or Force or Light descends or whether the resistance rises. It is the resistance of the ordinary physical consciousness ignorant and obscure that seems to have risen in you. The period of 15th is a period of great descents but also of great resistances. This 15th was not an exception.

ContINUE

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