Section Seven

REMINISCENCES AND OBSERVATIONS

LAST WORD IN HUMAN NATURE

Lies? Well, a Punjabi student at Cambridge once took our breath away by the frankness and comprehensive profundity of his affirmation: "Liars! But we are all liars!" It appeared that he had intended to say "lawyers", but his pronunciation gave his remark a deep force of philosophic observation and generalisation which he had not intended! But it seems to me the last word in human nature. Only the lying is sometimes intentional, sometimes vaguely half-intentional, sometimes quite unintentional, momentary and unconscious. So there you are!...

Of course you are right about the lies — these are of all sorts — and also about all men being durācāra, — only some are virtuous durācāras, some sinful ones and some a mixed lot! I don't mean to deny that there are Harischandras and Shukadevas here and there but. one has to take a microscope or a telescope to find them.

I.C.S. PAPERS

Q: Do you think your I.C.S. examination answer papers of 1892 have been preserved by the authorities ? I was thinking of getting them if possible, in order to preserve them as a relic with us. Perhaps they do not give them out or they might have disposed of them.

A: Not likely that they keep such things.

1-5-1936

TASTE OF MAHRATTA COOKERY

I hope your dinner at Dewas did not turn out like my first taste of Mahratta cookery — when for some reason my dinner was non

est and somebody went to my neighbour, a Mahratta Professor, for food. I took one mouthful and only one. O God! Sudden fire in the mouth could not have been more surprising. Enough to bring down the whole of London in one wild agonising swoop of flame!

CHARM OF KASHMIR

Quite agree with your estimate of Kashmir. The charm of its mountains and rivers and the ideal life dawdling along in the midst of a supreme beauty in the slowly moving leisure of a houseboat — that was a kind of earthly Paradise — also writing poetry on the banks of the Jhelum where it rushes down Kashmir towards the plains. Unfortunately there was the over-industrious Gaekwar to cut short the Paradise! His idea of Paradise was going through administrative papers and making myself and others write speeches for which he got all the credit. But after all, according to the nature, to each one his Eden.

7-11-1938

THE GAEKWAR

When I knew him the Gaekwar was a free-thinker without any religion; I don't know if he has altered his views since. Formally, he is of course a Hindu.

7-7-1936

          THE AGE OF SWAMI BRAHMANANDA

There is no incontrovertible proof. 400 years is an exaggeration. It is known however that he lived on the banks of the Narmada for 80 years and when he arrived there, he was already in appearance at the age when maturity turns toward overripeness. He was when I met him just before his death a man of magnificent physique showing no signs of old age except white beard and hair,

extremely tall, robust, able to walk any number of miles a day and tiring out his younger disciples, walking too so swiftly that they tended to fall behind, a great head and magnificent face that seemed to belong to men of more ancient times. He never spoke of his age or of his past either except for an occasional almost accidental utterance. One of these was spoken to a disciple of his well known to me, a Baroda Sardar, Mazumdar (it was on the top storey of his house by the way that I sat with Lele in Jan. 1909 and had a decisive experience of liberation and Nirvana). Mazumdar learned that he was suffering from a bad tooth and brought him a bottle of Floriline, a toothwash then much in vogue. The Yogi refused saying, "I never use medicines. My one medicine is Narmada water. As for the tooth I have suffered from it since the days of Bhao Girdi." Bhao Girdi was the Maratha General Sadashiv Rao Bhao who disappeared in the Battle of Panipat¹ and his body was never found. Many formed the conclusion that Brahmananda was himself Bhao Girdi, but this was an imagination. Nobody who knew Brahmananda would doubt any statement of his — he was a man of perfect simplicity and truthfulness and did not seek fame or to impose himself. When he died he was still in full strength and his death came not by decay but by the accident of blood-poisoning through a rusty nail that entered into his foot as he walked on the sands of the Narmada. I had spoken to the Mother about him, that was why she mentioned him in her Conversations² which were not meant for the public — otherwise she might not have said anything, as the longevity of Brahmananda to more than 200 years depends only on his own casual word and is a matter of faith in his word. There is no "legal" proof of it. I may say that three at least of his disciples to my knowledge kept an extraordinary aspect and energy of youth to a comparatively late or quite advanced age — but this perhaps may be not uncommon among those who practise both Raja and Hatha Yoga together.

1-2-1936

¹ 14.1.1761.

² See July 1971 Edition, p, 103.

SISTER NIVEDITA AND SISTER CHRISTINE

I knew very well Sister Nivedita (she was for many years a friend and a comrade in the political field) and met Sister Christine, — the two closest European disciples of Vivekananda. Both were Westerners to the core and had nothing at all of the Hindu outlook; although Sister Nivedita, an Irish woman, had the power of penetrating by an intense sympathy into the ways of life of the people around her, her own nature remained non-oriental to the end. Yet she found no difficulty in arriving at realisation on the lines of Vedanta.

"THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN INDIA"

The Divine may be difficult, but His difficulties can be overcome if one keeps at Him. Even my smilelessness was overcome which Nevinson had remarked with horrors more than twenty years before— "the most dangerous man in India", Aurobindo Ghosh who "never smiles". He ought to have added: "but who always jokes" — but he did not know that, as I was very solemn with him, or perhaps I had not developed sufficiently on that side then. Anyhow, if you could overcome that — my smilelessness — you are bound to overcome all the other difficulties also.

11-2-1937

AUSTERE AND GRAND !

Q: The 0vermind seems so distant from us, and your Himalayan austerity and grandeur takes my breath away, making my heart palpitate!

A: O rubbish! I am austere and grand, grim and stern! every blasted thing I never was! I groan in an un-Aurobindian despair when I hear such things. What has happened to the common sense of all of you people ? In order to reach the Overmind it is not at all necessary to take leave of this simple but useful quality.

Common sense by the way is not logic (which is the least commonsense-like thing in the world), it is simply looking at things as they are without inflation or deflation — not imagining wild imaginations — or for that matter despairing "I know not why" despairs.

23-2-1935

PAIN AND PHYSICAL ANANDA

As for Divine rapture, a knock on head or foot or elsewhere can be received with the physical Ananda of pain or pain and Ananda or pure physical Ananda — for I have often, quite involuntarily, made the experiment myself and passed with honours. It began by the way as far back as in Alipore Jail when I got bitten in my cell by some very red and ferocious-looking warrior ants and found to my surprise that pain and pleasure are conventions of our senses. But I do not expect that unusual reaction from others. And I suppose there are limits.

13-2-1932

PRAYER, NOT A MACHINERY

As for prayer, no hard and fast rule can be laid down. Some prayers are answered, all are not. An example? The eldest daughter of my Mesho, K. K. Mitra, editor of Sanjibani, not by any means a romantic, occult, supraphysical or even imaginative person, was abandoned by the doctors after using every resource, all medicines stopped as useless. The father said "There is only God now, let us pray". He did, and from that moment the girl began to recover, typhoid fever and all its symptoms fled, death also. I know any number of cases like that. Well ? You may ask why should not then all prayers be answered ? But why should they be ? It is not a machinery — put a prayer in the slot and get your asking. Besides, considering all the contradictory things mankind is praying for at the same moment. God would

be in a rather awkward hole, if he had to grant all of them — it wouldn't do.

7-10-1936

GURUGIRI

X's objection to Grace would be valid if the religionists mattered, but in spiritual things they don't. Their action naturally is to make a formula and dry shell of everything, not Grace alone. Even "Awake, Arise, Arise" leads to the swelled head or the formula—can't be avoided when Mr. Everyman deals with things divine. I had the same kind of violent objection to Gurugiri, but you see I was obliged by the irony of things or rather by the inexorable truth behind them to become a Guru and preach the Guruvada. Such is Fate.

16-1-1936

SHIVA TEMPERAMENT

I have no special liking for the ideal of Shiva, though something of the Shiva temperament must necessarily be present. I never had any turn for rejection of the money power nor any attachment to it. One has to rise above these things; but it is precisely when one has risen above that one can more easily command them.

15-1-1936

TRUE ASCETICISM

It depends on what is meant by asceticism. I have no desires but I don't lead outwardly an ascetic life, only a secluded one. According to the Gita, tyāga the inner freedom from desire and attachment, is the true asceticism.

9-7-1937

POVERTY

Poverty has never had any terrors for me nor is it an incentive. You seem to forget that I left my very safe and "handsome" Baroda position without any need to it, and that I gave up also the Rs. 150 of the National College Principalship, leaving myself with nothing to live on. I could not have done that if money had been an incentive.

If you don't realise that starting and carrying on for ten years and more a revolutionary movement for independence in a country wholly unprepared for it is not living dangerously, no amount of puncturing of your skull with words will give you that simple perception. And as to the Yoga, you yourself were perorating at the top of your voice about its awful, horrible, pathetic and tragic dangers. So—

SOCIETY MANNERS AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

But when on earth were, politeness and good society manners considered as a part or a test of spiritual experience or true Yogic Siddhi? It is no more a test than the capacity of dancing well or dressing nicely. Just as there are very good and kind men who are boorish and rude in their manners, so there may be very spiritual men (I mean here by spiritual men those who have had deep spiritual experiences) who have no grasp over physical life of action (many intellectuals too, by the way, are like that) and are not at all careful about their manners. I suppose I myself am accused for rude and arrogant behaviour because I refuse to see people, do not answer letters, and a host of other misdemeanours. I have heard of a famous recluse who threw stones at anybody coming to his retreat because he did not want disciples and found no other way of warding off the flood of candidates. I, at least, would hesitate to pronounce that such people had no spiritual life or experience. Certainly, I prefer that Sadhaks should be reasonably considerate towards each other, but that is for the rule of collective life and harmony, not as a Siddhi of the Yoga or an indispensable sign of inner experience.

December, 1935

YOGIC PEACE AND SATTWIC TEMPERAMENT

Q: People of sattwic temperament in ordinary life behave practically in the same manner as the Sadhaks who realise spiritual peace as a result of Yoga. Can it be said that in the sattwic people the peace descends but in a hidden manner, or is it due to their past lives that they have the sattwic temperament?

A: Of course they have gained their power to live in the mind by a past evolution. But the spiritual peace is something other and infinitely more than the mental peace and its results are different, not merely clear thinking or some control or balance or a sattwic state. But its greater results can only be fully and permanently manifest when it lasts long enough in the system or when one feels spread out in it above the head and on every side stretching towards infinity as well as penetrated by it down to the very cells. Then it carries with it the deep and vast and solid tranquillity that nothing can shake — even if on the surface there is storm and battle. I was myself of the sattwic type you describe in my youth, but when the peace from above came down, that was quite different. Sattvaguṇa disappeared into nirguṇa and negative nirguṇa into positive traiguṇyātīta.

22-7-1935

TRAINING FOR PHYSICAL WORK

It is not a question of liking but of capacity — though usually (not always) liking goes with the capacity. But capacity can be developed and liking can be developed or rather the rasa you speak of. One cannot be said to be in the full Yogic condition — for the purposes of this Yoga — if one cannot take up with willingness any work given to one as an offering to the Divine. At one time I was absolutely unfit for any physical work and cared only for the mental, but I trained myself in doing physical things with care and perfection so as to overcome this glaring defect in my being and make the bodily instrument apt and

conscious. It was the same with some others here. A nature not trained to accept external work and activity becomes mentally top-heavy — physically inert and obscure. It is only if one is disabled or too physically weak that physical work can be put aside altogether. I am speaking of course from the point of view of the ideal — the rest depends upon the nature.

As for the deity presiding over the control of servants, godown work as well as over poetry or painting, it is always the same—the Shakti, the Mother.

11-12-1934

GENIUS FOR LOLLING

As for your pious desire to loll a little now after your bout of stupendous work, well, there is no how about it: one just lolls if one has the genius for it. I have, though opportunities are now lacking for showing my genius. But it can't be taught nor any process invented: it is just a gift of Nature.

SEEING UNKNOWN PEOPLE BY INNER VISION

Yes, of course, I remember about X — I can't say I remember him because I never saw him, at least in the flesh. What he probably means by the Supramental is the Above Mind — what I now call Illumined Mind - Intuition - Overmind. I used to make that confusion myself at the beginning.

There is not enough to go upon to say whether he really sees the Mother or an image of her as reflected in his own mind. But there is nothing extraordinary, much less improbable in seeing a person whom one has never seen — you are thinking as if the inner mind and sense, the inner vision, were limited by the outer mind and sense, the outer vision, or were mere reflection of that. There would be not much use in an inner mind and sense and vision if they were only that and nothing more. This faculty is one of the elementary powers of the inner sense and inner seeing, and not only Yogins have it, but the ordinary clairvoyants,

crystal-gazers, etc. The latter can see people they never saw or heard of before, doing certain precise things in certain very precise surroundings, and every detail of the vision is confirmed afterwards by the persons seen — there are many striking and indubitable cases of that kind. The Mother is always seeing people whom she does not know; some afterwards come here or their photographs come here. I myself have these visions, only I don't usually try to remember or verify them. But there were two curious instances which were among the first of this kind and which therefore I remember. Once I was trying to see a recently elected deputy here and saw someone quite different from him, someone who afterwards came here as Governor. I ought never to have met him in the ordinary course, but a curious mistake happened and as a result I went and saw him in his bureau and at once recognised him. The other was a certain Y whom I had to meet, but I saw him not as he was when he actually came, but as he became after a year's residence in my house. He became the very image of that vision, a face close-cropped, rough, rude, energetic, the very opposite of the dreamy smooth-faced enthusiastic Vaishnava who came to me. So that was the vision of a man I had never seen, but as he was to be in the future — a prophetic vision.

24-10-1934

THE SWAYING SENSATION

Q: I was standing on the scaffolding [on the wall] which was swinging to and fro. Once I saw the walls nearby swinging like a pendulum. I understood the reason, but the sight of swinging walls was so vivid that I put my hand on the wall nearby to be convinced that it was not moving—yet the "eye-mind" refused to accept the evidence of the "touch-mind"!

A: But what was it due to ? The sense of swinging of the scaffolding communicating itself to the walls as it were in the impression upon some brain centre? After travelling long in a boat I had

once or twice the swaying sense of it after coming off it, as if the land about me was tossing like the boat — of course a subtle physical impression, but vivid enough.

4-4-1935

THINKING FROM OUTSIDE THE BODY

Q: Owing to much reading I feel a strain and dryness in the head and find it difficult to sleep. But while reading and remembering I feel as if the process goes on somewhere in the chest and not in the head and yet the strain is felt in the head. Why is this so ?

A: The chest action is rather curious, because it is the vital mind that is there and the Romans always spoke of the mind as if it were in the heart. But memory and reading would rather be in the physical mind. But anyhow the brain is a conveying instrument for all these activities and can feel the strain if there is any. The best relief for the brain is when the thinking takes place outside the body and above the head (or in space or at other levels but still outside the body). At any rate it was so in my case; for as soon as that happened there was an immense relief; I have felt body strain since then but never any kind of brain-fatigue. I have heard the same thing from others.

19-12-1934

A HINT

Q: I concentrate so much on reading that no room is left for Sadhana-thinking with the result that as soon as I come out of that concentration anything can enter in my mind. Is this not an undesirable practice from the point of view of discipline in Sadhana ?

A: I should say... that if you could divide your attention between the reading and Sadhana thought and concentration move, it

might be better from the point of view you mention. I mean that there should be sufficient concentration to create in your mind a Sadhana atmosphere which you can bring up to the surface as soon as you leave reading or whenever it is needed to set right an invading movement. Otherwise the subconscient forces have free play and gain power. Besides the condition becomes sub­conscient, i.e. inert and like a drift. At least that is what I have seen recently in my dealings with my own subconscient, so I pass on the hint to you.

27-5-1935

SUBCONSCIENT DREAMS

Q: I do not find any change in the character of my dreams as yet — I get the usual kind of dreams about home-life, eating, meeting strange people, moving about, etc. Why has there been no change in this respect in spite of my three years of Sadhana here ?

A: Dreams of this kind can last for years and years after the waking consciousness has ceased to interest itself in things of that kind. The subconscient is exceedingly obstinate in the keeping of its old impressions. I find myself even recently having a dream of revolutionary activities or another in which the Maharaja of Baroda butted in, people and things I have not even thought of passingly for the last twenty years almost. I suppose it is because the very business of the subconscient in the human psychology is to keep all the past inside it and, being without conscious mentality, it clings to its office until the light has fully come down into it, illumining even its corners and crevices.

17-12-1934

Q: For the last few days I am having frequent dreams of eating. Does it indicate greed for food or a need in the body or is it a sign of coming illness as they believe in the villages?

A: I don't think so — it is probably old impressions from the subconscient material (not vital—therefore a memory rather than desire) rising up in sleep. I remember a time when I was always seeing dishes of food even though I did not care a hang about food at that time.

2-4-1934

DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES

Q: I am still not able to maintain the right attitude in my own Sadhana and yet I give advice to others in their difficulties. Is this not hypocrisy and insincerity ?

A: Well, one can give good advice even when one does not follow it oneself—there is the old adage "Do what I preach and not what I practise." More seriously, there are different personalities in oneself and the one that is eager to advise and help may be quite sincere. I remember in days long past when I still had personal struggles and difficulties, people came to me from outside for advice etc. when I was in a black depression and could not see my way out of a sense of hopelessness and failure, yet nothing of that came out and I spoke with an assured conviction. Was that insincerity ? I think not, — the one who spoke in me was quite sure of what he spoke. The turning of all oneself to the Divine is not an easy matter and one must not be discouraged if it takes time and other movements still intervene. One must note, rectify and go on — anirviṇṇacetasā.

24-2-1935

HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY

My experience shows me that human beings are much less deliberate and responsible for their acts than the moralists, novelists and dramatists make them, and I look rather to see what forces drove them than what the man himself may have seemed by inference to have intended or purposed — our inferences are often

wrong and even when they are right touch only the surface of the matter.

22-6-1934

HOROSCOPES AND ASTROLOGY

I can't say anything about the horoscope, as I have forgotten the little astrology I knew.

14-9-1936

Astrologers tell all sorts of things that don't come true. According to one I was to have died last year, according to another I was to have gone out from Pondicherry in March or May last year and wandered about India with my disciples till I disap­peared in a river (in a ferry). Even if the prediction were accurate according to the horoscope it need not fulfil itself, because by entering the spiritual life one opens to a new force which can change one's destiny.

22-8-1937

Q: X told me that today [April 4, 1936} is the birthday of Pondicherry because you came here on this date. If one can place oneself in the year 2036 A.D. he may find that 4th April is celebrated as the birthday of the earth's spiritual life. Perhaps the horoscope of the earth may show this more accurately; but is there a horoscope of the earth as there are horoscopes of some •villages ?

A: Pondicherry was born long ago — but if X means the rebirth, it may be, for it was absolutely dead when I came. I don't know that there is a horoscope of the Earth. There was nobody present to note the year, day, hour, minute when she came into existence. But some astrologer could take the position of the stars at the moment when I got out of the boat and build up the terrestrial

consequences upon that perhaps! Unfortunately he would probably get everything wrong, like the astrologer who predicted that I would leave Pondicherry in March 1936 and wander about India till 1948 and then disappear while bathing in a river among my disciples. I believe he predicted it on the strength of Bhrigu Samhita — the old dodge; but I am not sure. Long ago I had a splendiferous Mussolinic-Napoleonic prediction of my future made to me on the strength of the same old mythological Bhrigu.

4-5-1936

THE OLD AND THE NEW BUILDINGS

Q: Some people here are very glad to know that I was preparing the roof of the house by adopting the old method used by forefathers for generations. In this case old may be good but to some people all old is gold. Perhaps they would be happy if the new European systems of medicine like homeopathy and naturopathy are rejected and the old Ayurveda only allowed. But I wonder they cannot see how superior are reinforced concrete buildings and roads to old methods — and for earthquakes, would the Ayurvedic buildings stand the shocks ?

A: Well, if it is done really according to old methods, an Ayurvedic building can stand many earthquakes. I remember at the time of the Bengal earthquake all the new buildings in the place where the Provincial Conference was held went down but an old house of the Raja of the place was the sole thing that survived unmoved and unshaken. Also when the Guest House roof was being repaired, (it was an old building) the mason (one of the most skilful we have met) said that this roof had been built in a way that astonished him, it was so solid and strong, no houses now were being built like that. So perhaps it is not Ayurveda, but the degenerate ways of the descendants of Charaka that is responsible for the poor and bad building we see around us. I have also seen a remark by an English architect in Madras that it was surprising to see how old ramshackle buildings survived

and stood all shocks while others built in the most scientific modern way "sat down" unexpectedly. The really old things whether in India or Europe were always solid; shoddy I think began in between — before the discovery of concrete. We have to leave the old things but progress to equally or more solid new things.

29-3-1937

LEARNING FRENCH

Q: It seems most people who want to learn French read more than they assimilate. They read rapidly lots of French stories, novels, dramas, and as a result they hardly assimilate the idioms, phrases, grammatical peculiarities, etc. I think one ought to read a book three to four times. Rapid reading of French books creates an illusion that one understands all that one reads.

A: I suppose most learn only to be able to read French books, not to know the language well.... It is not many who know French accurately and idiomatically.... I don't think many people would consent to make a principle of reading each book 3 or 4 times in the way you advocate, for very few have the scholarly mind — but two or three books should be so read. I learnt Sanskrit by reading the Naladamayanti episode in the Mahabharata like that with minute care several times.

25-3-1937

SPIRITUAL LIFE AND OUTWARD UTILITY

Q: What is the need for so many here to learn French ? Are you preparing them for giving lectures or opening centres in France or French-knowing countries?

A: Are life and mind to be governed only by material utility or outward practicality? Spiritual life would then be inferior even

to ordinary mental life where people learn for the sake of acquiring knowledge arid culturing the mind and not only for the sake of some outward utility.

24-3-1937

DISADVANTAGE OF FAMILIARITY

Q: Is it true that the deep significance of mantras like "Om Sānti" and words like "paix" (peace in French) is lost because of too much familiarity ?

A: Yes, it must be the familiarity—for I remember when I first read the Om Shanti Shanti Shanti of the Upanishads it had a powerful effect on me. In French it depends on the form or the way in which it is put.

14-2-1936

RECORD IN BOOK-PRODUCTION

Q: X told me that Y has translated a novel in English half of which is corrected by you; this practically means that X makes you translate somebody's novel instead of himself translating "Arya" which would be more reasonable. What ordeals for you to pass through! Perhaps the person who remarked in a London paper that you had written five hundred books was not quite wrong; by this time your letters to Sadhaks would make three or four books for each of them and if to these are added your poems, translations and other writings the total would not be less than five hundred.

A: The idea of Y translating Arya makes the hair stand on end! It would be much easier for me to write five hundred books. Perhaps I have done so — if all I have scribbled is to be taken into account against me. But most of it will not see the light of day —

at least of public day; I may still escape establishing the record in book-production.

3-2-1935

THE "ARYA"

Q: It is said that the "Arya" began on the day the World War broke out or just before it. Has this not some significance? Was it not a kind of parallel movement?

A: The Arya was decided on the 1st June [1914] and it was agreed that it would start on the 15th August. The war inter­vened on the 4th. "Parallelism" of dates if you like, but it was not very close and certainly nothing came down at that time.

9-9-1935

The Arya was, in fact, a financial success. It paid its way with a large surplus.

... "global" also has established itself and it is too useful and indeed indispensable to reject; there is no other word that can express exactly the same shade of meaning. I heard it first from X who described the language of Arya as expressing a glo­bal thinking and I at once caught it up as the right and only word for certain things, for instance, the thinking in masses which is a frequent characteristic of the Overmind.

2-4-1947

"THE SYNTHESIS OF YOGA"

The Synthesis of Yoga was not meant to give a method for all to follow. Each side of the Yoga was dealt with separately with all its possibilities, and an indication as to how they meet so that

one starting from knowledge could realise Karma and Bhakti also and so with each path. It was intended when the Self-Per-fection¹ was finished, to suggest a way in which all could be combined, but this was never written. The Mother and the Lights were not intended to be a systematic treatment of the Sadhana as a whole; they only touch on various elements in it.

18-5-1936

At the time when the last chapters of The Synthesis of Yoga were written in the Arya, the name "Overmind" had not been found, so there is no mention of it. What is described in those chapters is the action of the Supermind when it descends into the Overmind plane and takes up the Overmind workings and transforms them. The highest Supermind or Divine gnosis existent in itself, is something that lies beyond still and quite above. It was intended in latter chapters to show how difficult even this was and how many levels there were between the human mind and Supermind and how even Supermind descending could get mixed with the lower action and turned into something that was less than the true Truth. But these latter chapters were not written.

13-4-1932

Q: In the "Arya" there is no mention of the Overmind. You have mentioned the supramental or Divine Reason in the gradations of the Supermind, but from its description it is quite different from the Overmind. Why was the Overmind not mentioned and clearly distinguished from the Supermind in the "Arya" ?

A: The distinction has not been made in the Arya because at that time what I now call the Overmind was supposed to be an infe­rior plane of the Supermind. But that was because I was seeing them from the Mind. The true defect of Overmind, the limita­tion in it which gave rise to a world of Ignorance is seen fully only when one looks at it from the physical consciousness, from the

¹ "The Yoga of Self-Perfection", The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Four.

result (Ignorance in Matter) to the cause (Overmind division of the Truth). In its own plane Overmind seems to be only a divided, many-sided play of the Truth, so can easily be taken by the Mind as a supramental province. Mind also when flooded by the Overmind lights feels itself living in a surprising revelation of Divine Truth. The difficulty comes when we deal with the vital and still more with the physical. Then it becomes imperative to face the difficulty and to make a sharp distinction between Overmind and Supermind — for it then becomes evident that the Overmind Power (in spite of its lights and splendours) is not sufficient to overcome the Ignorance because it is itself under the law of Division out of which came the Ignorance. One has to pass beyond and supramentalise Overmind so that mind and all the rest may undergo the final change.

20-11-1933

Q: What, about the publication of the "Synthesis'" ? They are all asking me about it. So many are eager that it should see the light, fed up as we all are with the analysis of the universe through science of mind and ignorance of life, what?

A: I hope you are not referring to the whole colossal mass of The Synthesis of Yoga, — though that too may be ready for publication before the next world-war (?) or after the beginning of the Satyayuga (New World Order?). If you mean the "Yoga of Works", I am writing or trying to write four or five additional chapters for it. I hope they will be ready in a reasonable time; but my daily time is short and chapters are long. In the absence of exact prophetic power, that is all I can say.

2-3-1944

"ESSAYS ON THE GITA"

Q: I had read your "Essays on the Gita" thrice before,

still when I started reading it again recently I found that there were so many ideas in it which I had missed before. I think if I read it over and over again I would find newer and newer ideas every time.

A: That is a common experience — most books with any profundity of knowledge in them have that effect. Almost all spiri­tual problems have been briefly but deeply dealt with in the Gita and I have tried to bring out all that fully in the Essays.

1-11-1936

"THE FUTURE POETRY"

It was not the intention to make a long review of Cousins' book in The Future Poetry, that was only a starting-point; the rest was drawn from Sri Aurobindo's own ideas and his already conceived view of Art and life.

"THE MOTHER"

The Mother had not the same origin as the other books mentioned.¹ The main part of this book describing the four Shaktis, etc., was written independently and not as a letter, so also the first part.

Q: I sent you a review of "The Mother" a few days back. Have you seen it ?

A: Yes. I think it will give the reader the impression that The Mother is a philosophical or practical exposition of Yoga — while its atmosphere is really not that at all.

1-3-1937

¹ Lights on Yoga, Bases of Yoga, The Riddle of This World.