15-8-1925
Evening conversation. Sri Aurobindo came out at 7 o'clock.
Sri Aurobindo: Anybody going to keep up the tradition?
Disciple: We are only waiting for the signal.
Sri Aurobindo: The whistle is given, you can start.
Disciple: We want to know something about your sadhana.
Sri Aurobindo: (in Bengali) Amiir siidhanii! Ami ki siidhanii kor chi? My sadhana!-am I doing sadhana? Ask some other question.
Disciple: From experience of the physical plane till now, do you think that it is possible to bring down the Superrnind into the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? I would not attempt it if it were not possible. If you mean, by that question, "whether it is possible this time and now", then that is quite another matter.
Disciple: That is what I mean.
Sri Aurobindo: It all depends upon things outside myself. It is to be seen whether the physical plane is ready to receive the Light, for it is not always that the physical plane is ready when the Light descends.
Disciple: Can you not give any certainty about it?
Sri Aurobindo: I never said it was certain.
Disciple: Last year when this question was put to you.
Sri Aurobindo: What did I say?
Disciple : You said, "Ask me next August. "
Disciple: When the question was put to you, you said, "It is more possible this year than it was last year."
Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another matter. I could not have used the other expression. I can say now, "It is more possible this year than it was last year." (All burst into laughter as he evaded the answer.)
Sri Aurobindo: I am not joking. There have been manifestations of it now that were not there before. The Power is working more directly on the physical plane.
Disciple: Then can you not give the certainty?
Sri Aurobindo: You can give the certainty, instead of me, I can't. You can see for yourself.
Disciple: If I could see I would not have asked you.
Sri Aurobindo: Then, you want to throw the whole burden on me and evade your responsibility?
Disciple: If you push me like that into a corner then I can't say anything.
Sri Aurobindo : Well, you want the truth from me and not a pleasant falsehood, I suppose. I have been feeling this very strongly for the last two days, that is why I say this. It is not a personal question, I am speaking of the general atmosphere. I find that the more the Light and Power are coming down the greater is the resistance. You yourself can see that there is something pressing down. You can also see that there is the tremendous resistance.
Disciple: This is quite a new thing this time.
Disciple: It is not at all new. It is only expressed this time.
Sri Aurobindo: Now that we have all come to the lower vital and the physical planes where the struggle is most acute I am speaking from there and not from any higher standpoint. (pause; then to a disciple :) No, K - you can't evade your responsibility. (Laughter)
I am not doing an isolated yoga. When I wrote that much-abused sentence about humanity in The Yoga and its Objects there was a truth behind it though I was not conscious of it. It is true that my yoga is not for humanity; but it is not for myself either; of course, my attaining to the Siddhi is the preliminary condition to others being able to attain it. If I were seeking my own liberation and perfection, my yoga would have been finished long ago.
Disciple: You said in your speech in the afternoon that the physical plane had not been worked upon by anyone before.
Sri Aurobindo: I did not say that no attempt had been made in the past. Attempts were made but nothing stable was attained on the physical level; nothing fundamental was established. If it were established, the thing would be there, however partial the achievement. You see, however imperfect the achievement, it is there in the Mind and you find it, so also in the Vital. But you find nothing like that in the physical plane.
Disciple: It means that the necessary atmosphere for bringing down the Supermind on the physical plane is to be created?
Sri Aurobindo: That is the whole attempt. You ought to help in it by creating the necessary condition, if you want it to be done this time.
(Pointing to himsef) There is the centre. You can take from it. But we must be all on one side if we want to succeed. If you give room to hostile suggestions you retard your own progress and also the general advancement.
Disciple: What should be done to reduce the resistance of the physical nature?
Sri Aurobindo: You must have an integral aspiration for the truth. It is true, of course, that there come times in the Sadhana when the mind gets depressed, and the higher Presence is veiled, the know ledge obscured. At that time it is the aspiration and the faith what Ramakrishna calls "blind faith"-that supports one. That faith is not really speaking "blind". It is the memory of the soul. If faith is necessary to Coue out a disease, much more is it necessary to bring down the Supermind. If I had lost faith I would have given up the effort long ago.
Disciple: Anybody else would have given it up long ago. (Laughter) Disciple: Is the transition from the Mind to the Supermind more radical in its nature than that from the Supermind to the planes above it?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by that? Do you mean is it as decisive a step as from Ignorance to Knowledge?
Disciple: Yes.
Sri Aurobindo: You see, the Mind works on the basis of division. It always takes the truth piece-meal,-one aspect at a time and acts as if a part were the whole. Now, this very basis is false.
The Supermind is unity and on the basis of that unity, it knows the division. It is the stage nearest to us towards the Divine. Of course, it is also working in the Mind. But in the Mind, you seek and find truth partially. Mind is an effort at knowing, but not knowledge. Mind only represents, it cannot attain. It cannot fully express the truth.
On the vital plane also the Supermind works. There its working is Instinct, a precise but covert working which.is nearest to the Supermind. But the Supermind · is something quite different. You may say it is something automatic though not in the mechanical sense. You can say it is "self-active" Truth. Once you attain to the Supermind you can escape through "the doors of the Sun", if you want. If you go higher still you come to a plane where no Sun is needed. But all that becomes more possible and easy if you can bring down the Supermind into the physical plane. After that, it is all a flowering up of the being, a natural and easy growth. But it is all a struggle here in mind, life and body.
The sign that you have attained to the Supermind is that you dispense with the need of thought, or thinking as we understand it. In the Supermind you do not need to think. It does not mean that there is no thought and that all is a mere blank. There is something self-existent that works.
Disciple: How?
Sri Aurobindo: "How" you can't understand.
Disciple: But how does the Mind work when there is no thought? Sri Aurobindo: In the Mind, you think from one point to another point and then to another and so on. Then you gather them all up and connect them in the relation of cause and effect. Now suppose all these hundred thoughts arise simultaneously, showing up itll the details and all that in less than one second. Can you imagine that? That is the Supramental thought.
Disciple: I can imagine that.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, you can imagine but you can't have an idea of the thing unless you experience it.
Disciple: Will you give us some other aspect of the Supermind? Sri Aurobindo: Some other aspect? It is not a thing to be understood mentally like that.
Disciple: All the same it may be of some help to us.
Sri Aurobiodo: For instance, absolute rest and absolute activity at the same time. Can you imagine that?
Disciple: Is it true that all the mental faculties have their corresponding counterparts in the Supermind?
Sri Aurobindo: Weil, that is what I have said in the Arya. I wrote the Arya when I was on the borderland. I should not say the same thing now. Everybody has to go through that stage. It is true that corresponding to Reason there is· what may be called the Divine Reason, and you can say that what works as the Divine Reason is derived from the activity of the Supermind. But it is something which is quite different.- I am putting the thing in terms of the mind. I can only give you images. But there it is not exactly the same thing. For instance, Reason finds out the cause and effect and connects them together-while the Divine Reason puts them all in the right relation.
There are other things which cannot be expressed in terms of the mind.
Disciple: For example?
Sri Aurobindo : Reconciliation between opposites - for example, absolute silence and absolute expression, can you express it in terms
- of the mind?
Disciple: When the Supermind will descend it will evolve its own language.
Sri Aurobindo: There is no need of language there; suppose you have got the Supermind and I have got it, we need not use any language.
Disciple: Then we will be sitting quiet all along?
Sri Aurobindo: A terrible thing to you, I suppose?
Disciple: In Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah there are "ancients" who come and stay with those whom he calls "children",
ordinary men, and if they stay too long the children get frightened.
Disciple: K is probably afraid that there would be no more questions to ask.
Disciple: In the Upanishad Yajnavalkya says to Gargi when she put too many questions, "Don't ask too many questions, otherwise your head will fall off."
Disciple: It would be a blessing if the head fell off.
Disciple: If this conquest of the physical plane is once achieved, would it mean the defeat of the hostile forces in cases where there
might be no opening to the yoga?
. .Sri Aurobindo: You come back to the same question of humanity in another form. That is to say, you want to know whether this victory would mean universal victory. Well, let us wait and establish the thing on the physical plane first, then we shall see.
Disciple: (On behalf of X) How are the universal conditions more ready now for the coming down of the Supermind than they were before?
Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, the knowledge of the physical world has increased so much that it is on the verge of breaking its own bounds.
Secondly, there is an attempt all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and the inner vital and even the outer and the inner physical. Men are becoming more "psychic".
Thirdly, the vital is trying to lay its hold on the physical as it
never did before. It is always the sign that whenever the higher
Truth is coming down, it throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as an increase in the number of persons who go mad, earthquakes etc.
Also, the world is becoming more united on account of the dis
coveries of modem science, - the aeroplane, the railways, the wireless telegraph etc. Such a union is the condition for the highest
Truth coming down and it is also our difficulty. Fourthly, the rise of persons who wield tremendous vital influence over large numbers of men.
·
These are some of the signs to show that the universal condition may be more ready now. Of course, we do not know anything about the conditions of past attempts; But in so far as we can see now there are conditions to warrant the attempt.
Disciple: Do you consider the knowledge of the world forces a necessary part of the yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes! You have to deal with world-forces because they make themselves felt, especially the hostile ones; and so also you have to know the forces that make for help. Even when one is doing individual Sadhana, these universal forces make themselves felt. Of course, as you develop, their aspect changes completely.
The movement of these world-forces does not begin on the lower planes. It begins high above. All decisions are made high above, it is true, but they are not allowed to be known on the planes which they concern. A veil is interposed, and each plane is left free to make its own decision. The struggle is left to be decided over again by the contending forces. It is only when the decisive turn has been taken that the highest decision is made known. You can help the greater knowledge to grow in you by trying to get the lesser knowledge.
Disciple: What is our place in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: Your place? What do you mean by the question? Disciple: I can't explain it, I think.
Sri Aurobindo: You must put precise questions if you want precise answers.
Disciple: Probably he wants to know what is the responsibility of the sadhakas?
Disciple: Yes, I mean that.
Sri Aurobindo: But I simply said that as a joke, because K wanted to back out.
Disciple: But I took it seriously.
Sri Aurobindo: Well, I did not say it seriously, though there was something behind which was serious. (All laughed)
Disciple: This is the Supramental reconciliation of the opposites. (Laughter again)
Sri Aurobindo: Well, you can help the attempt by one-pointed aspiration. You should reject everything that stands in the way of fulfilling this ideal. But, if instead of doing that, you go on accepting the suggestions of the hostile forces and repeat their mantrams which would give you or give others the idea that it is not possible then you help them.
Disciple: I will put one question.
Sri Aurobindo: It is time now, put it some other day.
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