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Life and Death in the Ashram
Self-Control, Not Asceticism
What should be the true necessities of a sadhak? Should he buy things from outside? With what idea is pocket money given to us?
The idea, when the arrangement was made, was simply to see how and in what spirit the sadhaks dealt with money when they had any at their disposal. The necessities of a sadhak should be as few as possible; for there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries. These a Yogi has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions — (1) if he uses them during his sadhana solely to train himself in possessing things without attachment or desire and learn to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and measure — or, (2) if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in any way by loss or withholding or deprival. If he has any greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, any anxiety, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not free in spirit and his use of the things he possesses is contrary to the spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free in spirit, he will not be fit for possession if he has not learned to use things not for himself, but for the Divine Will, as an instrument, with the right knowledge and action in the use for the proper equipment of a life lived not for oneself but for and in the Divine. 7 March 1932
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I find it difficult to distinguish between true need and what might be called luxury. A part of me wants to have nice and
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decent things and to take pleasure in them. Another side tells me so many things are not needed. I would like to return to the ascetic life I followed before coming here.
You must be prepared to live in either condition, attached neither to luxury nor to asceticism. It is good to be able to live with very few things, but you must also be able to live with nice and decent things and make right use of them. Never mind your true need, live with whatever the Mother has given you. 6 April 1932
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An aspiration towards detachment has come upon me and the will to avoid luxury or desire or habit of any kind.
If that can be done (in a positive, not merely a negative way), then it would be an immense step forward. 18 November 1933
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You have written [in the preceding letter] of detachment “in a positive, not merely a negative way”. Please explain this.
By negative I mean merely repressing the desires and wrong movements and egoism, by positive I mean the bringing down of light and peace and purity in those parts from above. I do not mean that these movements are not to be rejected — but all the energy should not be directed solely to rejection. It must also be directed to the positive replacement of them by the higher consciousness. The more this consciousness comes, the easier also will the rejection be. 19 November 1933
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Your condemnation of asceticism is often taken by the vital as giving sanction to the continuation of desire and its fulfilment — so at least I have noticed in some here.
That is a mistake many have made because the vital wanted to make it. Whether ascetic or non-ascetic, the Yogi, the sadhak must become free from vital desire and spiritually master of the movements of his nature — and for that he must be free from
Page – 760 ego and desire and duality. I have always made that quite clear — that indulgence of desire is no more part of this Yoga than it is of Sannyasa. One must be able to use and handle physical things and physical life, but from the spiritual consciousness, not from the level of the vital ego. 27 November 1935
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It is surprising that you should miss, that so many here should miss the point that to be so much troubled about a trifling want or inconvenience is quite contrary to the spirit of Yoga. To be untroubled and unmoved by such things is an elementary step in Yogic self-discipline. Transcendence is a far bigger matter; but this should be possible by self-control, for that there is no need of transcendence. In the life here extreme asceticism in the sense of doing without everything but the barest needs is not enforced; but it is all the more necessary to be free within, to surmount desire and attachment, to be able to do without things in the sense of not hankering after things when they are not there, not being attached to them when they are there, not insisting on one’s own demands, desires, wants, comforts, conveniences, being satisfied with what one is given. Sannyasa is not enforced, but the inner tyaga of non-desire, non-demand, non-attachment is indispensable. A thing like this, an inconvenience that is not remedied when one asks, should be welcomed as a test for this inner tyaga; all things of the kind should be welcome as such opportunities to the seeker after the inner perfection. I don’t know that wearing the Sannyasi dress would help for one can wear the dress and yet be full of desires. But I have no objection if it helps you as a symbol or a reminder. 7 March 1937
No Demands
A sadhak should not have demands and ask for things for his personal use from people outside, but if they of their own accord and without any request or suggestion send them to him, he can receive them. The most important point is that he shall not indulge any spirit of greed or desire under any excuse or colour
Page – 761 and should be unaffected in his vital being by the presence or absence of these things that satisfy desire. 5 March 1931
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All that is simply the unreasoning repetition of the old blindness. There can be no understanding if your mind insists on something that is radically untrue. This ignorant attitude assumes that you are here to be first, to be equal to any other in the Asram in the eyes of others, to enjoy position and privileges, to grab whatever you can for yourself, to have pleasure and enjoyment, to get everything that anybody else may have. All that is utterly false for the spiritual life. These are the aims that selfish, worldly and ambitious men seek in the ordinary life. The spiritual life has nothing to do with these things. One is here only for two things, to realise the Divine and to transform the consciousness and nature into the higher consciousness and nature. That is what the Power that works on you intends and nothing else. The influence upon you which struggles against it has to disappear and no more be a part of your nature. 8 June 1934
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I was told that when we have surrendered completely to God, God will take care of all our true needs.
He may give all that is truly needed — but people usually interpret this idea in the sense that He gives all that they think or feel that they need. He may do that — but also He may not.
It is said that He supplies all our psychic needs.
In the end, yes; but here too people expect Him to supply them instantly, which does not always happen. 30 January 1936
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It is true that the sadhaks have turned the idea of a divine life into an excuse for an unbridled spirit of demand and desire and this is increasing to a perilous extent. The whole world is in a financial and economic crisis; money difficult to get, prices rising
Page – 762 fantastically, people everywhere cutting down their standard of life and their expenses: here in the Asram the standard of life is rising and the expenditure on comforts increasing continually. At this rate it will not be long before a halt will have to come and circumstances will force a reversion to a more abstemious way of life. But the remedy is not asceticism; it is self-control, the elimination of desire and demand, the spirit which is easily satisfied with what it gets, makes the most of it, is careful of physical things and not subject to craving. The ideal of the Yoga is not asceticism, but to do with things or without things in the same spirit of equality and non-attachment — only in that spirit can one make a true and spiritual use of physical things and material life. 5 July 1937
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You must get a change of consciousness which makes these external things of no importance to you. A change of room will not bring it, on the contrary your stay in this room is the very opportunity that is given you for the inner change.
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I have the idea of giving up the cot I was offered because I could not get a cot to my taste. Should I keep whatever comes, or should I do without?
Why keep up these vital desires, “a cot to my taste” etc.? I have always lain on any cot given to me, not asking whether it is to my “taste” or not. It seems to me the proper attitude for a sadhak.
Care of Material Things
Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away or discourage the Wealth Power. These things have long been rampant in the society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean
Page – 763 a proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress. Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this Yoga, but self-control in the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it — and even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a self control in their use. 5 January 1932
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I may say, generally, that in the present condition of things it is becoming increasingly necessary to do the best we can with what we have and make things last as long as possible. There are many kinds of things hitherto provided, for instance, which it will be impossible to renew once the present stock is over. The difficulty is that most people in the Asram have no training in handling physical things (except the simplest, hardest and roughest), no propensity to take care of them, to give them their full use and time of survival. This is partly due to ignorance and inexperience, but partly also to carelessness, rough, violent and unseeing handling, indifference; there is also in many a feeling that it does not matter if things are quickly spoilt, they will be replaced; one worker was even heard to say to another, “why do you care? it is not your money.” To take one instance only. Taps in Europe will last for many years — here in a few months, sometimes in a few weeks they are spoilt and call for repairs or replacement. People ask for new provisions before the old are exhausted or even near exhaustion, not because they need them, but because they have a right (?) to a new supply; some have even been known to throw away what remains with them in order to have a new stock. And so on, ad infinitum. All this is tamas and the end of tamas is disintegration, dispersal of forces, failure of material. And in the end, as this is a collective affair, the consequences come upon everybody, the careful and the careless
Page – 764 together. Our ideal was a large, not a restricted life, but well-organised, free from waste and tamas and disorder. Now there has to be a tightness, a period of retrenchment till people learn and things get better. 17 January 1932
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If things are constantly broken, X is perfectly right in enforcing economy. Very few of the sadhaks have any sense of responsibility in this respect; most seem to think that they are entitled to waste, destroy, spoil, use freely as if the Mother’s sole business was to supply their wants and the Asram had unlimited resources. But it is not possible for the Asram to develop its wealth so long as the sadhaks and workers are selfish, careless, undisciplined and irresponsible. Lakshmi does not continue to pour her gifts under such conditions. 30 January 1933
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Each supervisor is responsible for the maintenance intact and in good condition of the machinery, tools and apparatus in his charge. No one other than those in charge or using them for the work should touch or handle. 1940s
Consciousness in the Body
Sometimes during work, while issuing materials or counting money, the required amount comes up in the hand at the first attempt. This happens more frequently when the mind is quiet and at ease. Till now I thought it may be merely an accident. Is there anything in this?
The correct counting is not an accident; there is a sort of intuitive consciousness that comes in the body and makes it know the right thing or do the right thing. This growing of consciousness in the body is one of the most important results of Yoga turned to action and is especially important in this Yoga. 8 August 1932
Page – 765 Fund-Raising
How can I make myself fit for the Mother’s divine work? Should I actively pull her power or open myself passively and wait for it to descend and work in and through me? What are the conditions that I must fulfil to allow the materialisation of this money power? If I have the capacity, as you had told me the last time, what shall I do to fulfil the capacity?
It is something in the inner being that has the power of which the Mother spoke, not the external human part. I think you are seeking the power in the external being, but that can only raise up difficulties. Awaken the psychic in you, let the inner being come out and replace the ego, then the latent power also will become effective. You can then do the work and the service to which you aspire. 23 February 1931
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If you say “you are unfit for the [fund-raising] work that you propose”, that will suffice to break the existing deadlock.
It is not a question of fitness or unfitness, primarily, — there are many other considerations, e.g. the practicability of any such large collection under the present not very favourable circumstances, the conditions of your proposed attempt etc. But if you are not sure of yourself (as to the persistence of your intention in the future), how can you be sure that it is your mission or a true inspiration and not the imagination or the strong impulse of a moment? In another letter you had said you could wait for years. Anyhow, I cannot give a decision on so important a matter unless I see the way more clear than I see it now. 26 June 1931
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I wrote to you before [in the preceding letter] that I did not see my way clear in this matter. My main reason, or one of my main reasons, was that the time and present conditions are adverse to success. All the information I have received since entirely
Page – 766 confirms it; most have suffered by the long prevailing depression and few are either in a mood or a position to give largely. In these circumstances the idea of a mission to collect lakhs of money must be abandoned or at least postponed to better times. There were other difficulties I saw, but these need not be discussed at present, since the mission itself is barred by the lack of all reasonable chance of success. About work here and what has been said by you on that subject, I shall write in another letter. 26 August 1931
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I should like to know (1) whether I can stay here even if no financial help comes forth.
Yes; since you are working for the Asram.
(2) whether it would be desirable to open up fresh correspondence with friends who may perhaps send something.
If you can get some help from your friends, it would be much better. You can understand that with 100 members almost, most of whom can contribute nothing to the expenses, the Asram needs all the help it can get for their and its maintenance. 14 December 1931
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X wants to approach rich people for money, but does not know how to do it. He says that if people are approached directly, 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.
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
Page – 767 the idea of giving must be put into them. 13 March 1933
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I have an earnest desire to be of some help to the Ashram but I don’t know how. I know several rich people in Calcutta but I fail to make them respond generously to my request for donating to the Ashram. Please enable me to influence these people.
There are many men who are very pious, but they will give only to traditional institutions, temples, dharamshalas etc. Unless they are convinced, interested or somehow touched, they may not be so ready to give to the Asram. But the attempt can always be made. 13 March 1933
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The vital forces who hold the money power do not want to give or yield anything except for vital purposes, it is only under compulsion that they give for divine work. 15 May 1933
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I am rather anxious to know the average monthly expenses of the Asram.
Over Rs. 6000 a month — including the building expenses and all other current expenditure. Of course buying of houses and such other non-current expenditure is not included. Each member of the Asram costs Rs. 50 a month, visitors about Rs. 40 (rent, electricity, food, servants etc. all included). 31 July 1933
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May I possibly know more about the financial condition of the Asram?
I think there is nothing more of importance, except that we need money for expansion and do not get it. 1 August 1933
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The expenses of each sadhak are reckoned as Rs. 50 a month — but it is not much use asking for that. The real need of money
Page – 768 here is of a bigger kind — for development of institutions in the Asram, a place for art, for music, a school for children, a place for science etc. Even the maintenance of the Asram needs larger sums, e.g. for houses to be bought instead of renting them at a heavy recurring expense.
Business
As usual you seem to have received some very fantastic and sensational reports about what you call the mill business. There was no “mill” in question, only X‘s small foundry and Y‘s equally small oil factory. X was in difficulties about her affair and came to the Mother for advice and offered to sell; the Mother was prepared to buy on reasonable or even on generous terms on certain conditions and use it, not on capitalistic lines or for any profit, but for certain work necessary to the Ashram, just as she uses the Atelier or the Bakery or the Building Department. The Ashram badly needs a foundry and the idea was to use Y‘s machinery for making the soap necessary for the Ashram. The Mother told X that she was sending for Z and if he consented to run these two affairs, she might buy but not otherwise as the Mother herself had no time to look after these things. Z came but found the whole thing too small and not sufficient for the purpose or for some larger work he wanted to do; so X had to be told that nothing could be done. That is the whole affair. Where do you find anything here of capitalism and huge profits and slums and all the rest? I may say however that I do not regard business as some thing evil or tainted, any more than it was so regarded in ancient spiritual India. If I did, I would not be able to receive money from A or from those of our disciples who in Bombay trade with East Africa; nor could we then encourage them to go on with their work but would have to tell them to throw it up and attend to their spiritual progress alone. How are we to reconcile A‘s seeking after spiritual light and his mill? Ought I not to tell him to leave his mill to itself and to the devil and go into some Ashram to meditate? Even if I myself had
Page – 769 had the command to do business as I had the command to do politics I would have done it without the least spiritual or moral compunction. All depends on the spirit in which a thing is done, the principle on which it is built and use to which it is turned. I have done politics and the most violent kind of revolutionary ˙ politics, ghoram karma, and I have supported war and sent men to it, even though politics is not always or often a very clean occupation nor can war be called a spiritual line of action. But Krishna calls upon Arjuna to carry on war of the most terrible kind and by his example encourage men to do every kind of . human work, sarvakarmāni. Do you contend that Krishna was an unspiritual man and that his advice to Arjuna was mistaken or wrong in principle? Krishna goes farther and declares that a man by doing in the right way and in the right spirit the work dictated to him by his fundamental nature, temperament and capacity and according to his and its dharma can move towards the Divine. He validates the function and dharma of the Vaishya as well as of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn profits and yet be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life. The Gita is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation and enjoining a Yoga of works as well as of Bhakti and Knowledge. Krishna, however, superimposes a higher law also that work must be done without desire, without attachment to any fruit or reward, without any egoistic attitude or motive, as an offering or sacrifice to the Divine. This is the traditional Indian attitude towards these things, that all work can be done if it is done according to the dharma and, if it is rightly done, it does not prevent the approach to the Divine or the access to spiritual knowledge and the spiritual life. There is of course also the ascetic ideal which is necessary for many and has its place in the spiritual order. I would myself say that no man can be spiritually complete if he cannot live ascetically or follow a life as bare as the barest anchorite’s. Obviously, greed for wealth and money-making has to be absent from his nature as much as greed for food or any other greed and all attachment to these things must be renounced from his
Page – 770 consciousness. But I do not regard the ascetic way of living as indispensable to spiritual perfection or as identical with it. There is the way of spiritual self-mastery and the way of spiritual self-giving and surrender to the Divine, abandoning ego and desire even in the midst of action or of any kind of work or all kinds of work demanded from us by the Divine. If it were not so, there would not have been great spiritual men like Janaka or Vidura in India and even there would have been no Krishna or else Krishna would have been not the Lord of Brindavan and Mathura and Dwarka or a prince and warrior or the charioteer of Kurukshetra, but only one more great anchorite. The Indian scriptures and Indian tradition, in the Mahabharata and elsewhere, make room both for the spirituality of the renunciation of life and for the spiritual life of action. One cannot say that one only is the Indian tradition and . that the acceptance of life and works of all kinds, sarvakarmāni, is un-Indian, European or Western and unspiritual.
Food
The food given from the Dining Room has the Mother’s force behind it. It contains everything that is necessary to keep you in good health to do the sadhana. Keep that attitude and eat. Everything will go well.1 circa 1927
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It is certainly not very Yogic to be so much harassed by the importunity of the palate. I notice that these petty desires, which plenty of people who are not Yogis at all nor aspirants for Yoga know how to put in their proper place, seem to take an inordinate importance in the consciousness of the sadhaks here — not all, certainly, but many. In this as in many other matters they do not seem to realise that, if you want to do Yoga, you must take more and more in all matters, small or great, the Yogic attitude. In our path that attitude is not one of forceful
1 This message has hung in the dining room of the Ashram for many years. — Ed.
Page – 771 suppression, but of detachment and equality with regard to the objects of desire. Forceful suppression2 stands on the same level as free indulgence; in both cases, the desire remains; in the one it is fed by indulgence, in the other it lies latent and exasperated by suppression. It is only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower vital, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one’s own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and must be allowed to pass, rejected from the consciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place. But for that these things of eating and drinking must be put in their right place, which is a very small one. You say that many have left the Asram because they did not like the food. I do not know who are the many; certainly, those who came here for serious sadhana and left, went for much more grave reasons than that. But if any did go because of an offended palate, then certainly they were quite unfit for Yoga and this was not the place for them. For it means that a mutton chop or a tasty plate of fish was more important for them than the seeking of the Divine! It is not possible to do Yoga if values are so topsy-turvy in the consciousness. Apart from such extravagance, these things which ought to be only among the most minor values even in the human life, are promoted by many here to a rank they ought not to have. At the same time it is better, if it is possible, to have well cooked rather than badly-cooked food. The idea that the Mother wants tasteless food to be served because tasty food is bad for Yoga, is one of the many absurdities that seem so profusely current among the sadhaks in this Asram about her ways and motives. The Mother is obliged to arrange for neutral (plain and simple), not tasteless food, for the reason that any other course has been proved to be impracticable. There are ninety people
2 Fasting comes under the head; it is of no use for this purpose. Abandon that idea altogether.
Page – 772 here, from different countries and provinces whose tastes are as the poles asunder. What is tasty food to the Gujarati is abomination to the Bengali and vice versa. The European cannot stand an avalanche of tamarind or chillies; the Andhra accustomed to a fiery diet would find French dishes tasteless. Experiments have been tried before you came, but they were disastrous in their results; a few enjoyed, the majority starved, and bad stomachs began to be the rule. On the other hand, neutral food can be eaten by all and does not injure the health, — that at least is what we have found, — even if it does not give any ecstasy to the palate. Only, the food, if neutral, should not be tasteless. A certain amount of fluctuation is inevitable; no one can cook daily for 80 or 90 people and yet do always well. But if it is too much, a remedy is to be desired and the Mother is willing to consider any practicable and effective suggestion. If any practicable suggestion is made, it will be considered, — keeping always in view the difficulty I have pointed out of the ninety people and the three continents and half a dozen provinces that are represented here, apart from individual idiosyncracies and fancies, which, of course, it is absolutely impossible even to try to satisfy unless we want to land ourselves in chaos. But what if people were to remember that they were here for Yoga, make that the salt and savour of their existence and acquire samatā of the palate! My experience is that if they did that, all the trouble would disappear and even the kitchen difficulties and the defects of the cooking would vanish. 28 August 1930
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The Mother and I do not take meat or fish and it is not allowed to the members of the Asram. We cannot give the sanction you ask for. You should rise superior to passing ideas and desires; to allow them to take hold of the mind and push towards action is not good for your sadhana. 15 November 1932
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I was invited by friends to go to a restaurant and accepted. Later I learned that you were opposed to the idea. What should
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we — those of us who live outside the Ashram — do?
The Mother has made an arrangement with a view to all the occult forces and the best possible conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It cannot work perfectly because the sadhaks themselves have not the right attitude towards food and kindred vital-physical things. But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility — the Mother does not and cannot sanction it. But this arrangement is for the Asram and not for those who are outside. 14 July 1933
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Vegetarian food is a rule for the Asram, it is not incumbent on anyone outside. 30 October 1933
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I was speaking to X about the dining hall, past and present. The rule upabhogena na śāmyati seems to be more solid looking at our experience here.
Much more solid. But people here do not seem to realise that desire consciousness and Yoga consciousness are two different things. They seem to want to make a happy amalgamation of the two. 1 June 1934
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Mother meant that wrong food and the poisons created by wrong assimilation were a great obstacle to the prolongation of life. 14 January 1935
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If animal food (e.g. eggs or soup) is absolutely for health in ˙ convalescence, it can be taken. But it is samskara to suppose that vegetarian food makes people weak — if the food is nourishing and of the right kind, one can be as strong on vegetable food as on meat. 30 January 1935
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Page – 774 If my physician asks me to take a diet of rice, meat, fish, eggs etc. (as I used to eat these before) and to cut off or dress my hair etc., should I follow his instructions?
You [Sri Aurobindo’s secretary] can tell him that to live on fruits and milk, not to shave, not to take rice etc. is absolutely unnecessary for the sadhana. It does not depend on these things. In the Asram we take only milk and vegetarian diet, — but that rule is not imposed on those outside, it is left to their choice. If it is thought necessary for his health to take fish, meat or eggs he can do it. Sadhana also does not depend on the dressing of hair or non-dressing. Sadhana in this Yoga at least is a matter of the inner consciousness mainly. One has to get over greed of food but not abandon food, to get over tamas and inertia, but not abandon all rest and sleep. To injure the body by excessive physical tapasya is forbidden in this Yoga. 29 October 1935
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It is not you but I who look on the Asram as a failure [in regard to food]. I was speaking not of you in person, but of the general spirit of the sadhaks with regard to food which is as unYogic as possible. In regard not only to food, but to personal comforts it differs in no way from that of ordinary men; it is an attitude of demand, claim and desire and of anger, vexation, grudging, complaint if they do not get their desire. They justify their position by saying that this is not an ascetic Yoga. But neither is it a Yoga of the satisfaction of desire. In this Yoga quite as much as any other, one must be free from servitude to the mind, the vital and the body. It is to be done by the growth of an inner consciousness free from demand and desire, not by the principle of an outer suppression of the objects of desire. It is to be done by having a perfect equality with regard to food as to other things. But this very few seem to recognise. 17 March 1936
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I am afraid you have spoiled your stomach and made it nervous by irregular eating. The food of the Asram is quite plain and
Page – 775 healthy and unless one eats too much it ought not to give indigestion.
Exercise and Sports
Does exercise help to overcome inertia or physical tamas?
It is quite true that physical exercise is very necessary to keep off the tamas. I am glad you have begun it and I trust you will keep it up.
What should I do when I descend into physical tamas or when there is an attack of inertia?
Physical tamas in its roots can be removed only by the descent and the transformation, but physical exercise and regular activity of the body can always prevent a tamasic condition from prevailing in the body. 28 May 1934
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I suppose walking is one of the best forms of exercise. Can I take it up with profit? Kindly let me know how many miles a day and with what speed I should do it.
Yes, certainly, it is very good. The amount and speed depend on your capacity and time. A brisk long walk is always very healthful. 23 October 1934
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Certainly, Mother does not want only sportsmen in the Ashram: that would make it not an Ashram but a playground. The sports and physical exercises are primarily for the children of the school and they also do not play only but have to attend to their studies: incidentally, they have improved immensely in health and in discipline and conduct as one very valuable result. Secondarily, the younger sadhaks are allowed, not enjoined or even recommended, to join in these sports, but certainly they are not supposed to be sportsmen only: they have other and more important things to do. To be a sportsman must necessarily be
Page – 776 a voluntary choice and depends on one having the taste and inclination. There are plenty of people around the Mother her self, X for instance, who would never dream of frequenting the playground or engaging in sports and the Mother also would never think of asking them to do it. So equally she could not think of being displeased with you for shunning these delights. Some, of course, might ask why any sports at all in an Ashram which ought to be concerned only with meditation and inner experiences and the escape from life into the Brahman; but that applies only to the ordinary kind of Ashram to which we have got accustomed and this is not that orthodox kind of Ashram. It includes life in Yoga, and once we admit life, we can include anything that we find useful for life’s ultimate and immediate purpose and not inconsistent with the works of the Spirit. After all, the orthodox Ashram came into being only after Brahman began to shun all connection with the world and the shadow of Buddhism stalked over all the land and Ashrams turned into monasteries. The old Ashrams were not entirely like that; the boys and young men who were brought up in them were trained in many things belonging to life; the son of Pururavas and Urvasie practised archery in the Ashram of a Rishi and became an expert bowman, and Karna became disciple of a great sage in order to acquire from him the use of powerful weapons. So there is no a priori ground why sports should be excluded from the life of an Ashram like ours where we are trying to equate life with the Spirit. Even table-tennis or football need not be rigorously excluded. But, putting all persiflage aside, my point is that to play or not to play is a matter of choice and inclination, and it would be absurd for Mother to be displeased with you any more than with X for not caring to be a sportsman. So you need not have any apprehension on this score; that the Mother should be displeased with you for that is quite impossible. So the idea that the Mother wanted to punish you for anything done or not done or that she wished to draw far away from you or to be cold and distant was a misinterpretation without any real foundation since you have given no ground for it and there was nothing farther from her mind. She has herself explained that it
Page – 777 was just the contrary that has been in her mind for some time past and it was an increasing kindness that was her feeling and intention. The only change she could expect from you was to grow in your psychic and spiritual endeavour and inner progress and in this you have not failed, quite the contrary. Apart from that, the notion that she could be displeased because you did not change according to this or that pattern and that we could ever dream of sending you away on any such account is a wild idea; it would be most arbitrary and unreasonable. 10 July 1948
*
As to your idea about the sports, your idea that the Mother looks on you coldly because you are not capable of taking delight in sports, that is entirely without foundation. I must have told you already more than once that the Mother does not want anybody to take up the sports if he has no inclination or natural bent for them; to join or not to join must be quite voluntary and those who do not join are not cold-shouldered or looked down upon by her for that reason. It would be absurd for her to take that attitude: there are those who do her faithful service which she deeply appreciates and whom she regards with affection and confidence but who never go to the playground either because they have no turn for it or no time, — can you imagine that for that reason she will turn away from them and regard them with coldness? The Mother could never intend that sports should be the sole or the chief preoccupation of the inmates of the Ashram; even the children of the school for whose physical development these sports and athletic exercises are important and for whom they were originally instituted, have other things to do, their work, their studies and other occupations and amusements in which they are as interested as in these athletics. The idea that you should “throw up the sponge” because you do not succeed in sports or like them, is surely an extravagant imagination: there are other things more important, there are Yoga, spiritual progress, bhakti, devotion, service. . . . I do not understand what you mean by my giving time to sport; I am not giving any time to it except that I have written at
Page – 778 the Mother’s request an article for the first number of the Bulletin and another for the forthcoming number.3 It is the Mother who is doing all the rest of the work for the organisation of the sports and the Bulletin and that she must do, obviously, till it is sufficiently organised to go on of itself with only a general supervision from above and her actual presence once in the day. I put out my force to support her as in all the other work of the Ashram, but otherwise I am not giving any time for the sports. 4 March 1949
*
As for the rest, I think I need only repeat emphatically that there is no need for anyone to take up sports as indispensable for Yoga or for enjoying the Mother’s affection and kindness. Yoga is its own object and has its own means and conditions; sport is something quite different as the Mother herself indicated to you through X when she said that the concentration practised on the playground was not meditation and was used for efficacy in the movements of the body and not for any purpose of Yoga. 14 March 1949
*
Much less than half the Ashram, the majority of them boys and girls and children, have taken up sports; the rest have not been pressed to do so and there is no earthly reason why any pressure should be put upon you. The Mother has never intended to put any such pressure on you and if anybody has said that, there is no foundation whatever for what they have told you. It is also not a fact that either the Mother or I are turning away from Yoga and intend to interest ourselves only in sport; we have no intention whatever of altering the fundamental character of the Ashram and replacing it by a sportive association. If we did that it would be a most idiotic act and if anybody should have told you anything like that, he must be off his head or in a temporary crisis of delirious enthusiasm for a very upside-down
3 See “Message” and “Perfection of the Body” in Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, volume 13 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, pp. 517 35. — Ed.
Page – 3 idea. The Mother told you very clearly once through X that what was being done in the playground was not meditation or a concentration for Yoga but only an ordinary concentration for the physical exercises alone. If she is busy with the organisation of these things — and it is not true that she is busy with that alone — it is in order to get finished with that as soon as possible after which it will go on of itself without her being at all engrossed or specially occupied by it, as is the case with other works of the Ashram. As for myself, it is surely absurd to think that I am neglecting meditation and Yoga and interested only in running, jumping and marching! There seem to have been strange misunderstandings about my second message in the Bulletin. In the first, I wrote about sports and their utility just as I have written on politics or social development or any other matter. In the second, I took up the question incidentally because people were expressing ignorance as to why the Ashram should concern itself with sports at all. I explained why it had been done and dealt with the more general question of how this and other human activities could be part of a search for a total perfection of all parts of the being including the body and more especially what would be the nature of the perfection of the body. I indicated clearly that only by Yoga could there come a supreme and total perfection of all the instruments of the Spirit and the ascent of the whole being to the highest level and a divine life on earth and the assumption of a divine body. I made it clear that by human and physical means such as sports only a limited and precarious human perfection could come. In all this there is nothing to justify the idea that sport could be a means for jumping into the Supermind or that the Supermind was going to descend into the playground and nowhere else and only those who are there will receive it; that would be a bad look-out for me as I would have no chance! I write all this in the hope of clearing away all the strange misconceptions with which the air seems to have become thick and by some of which you may have been affected. 27 April 1949
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Page – 780 I continue my letter. I hope I have been able to persuade you that all these ideas about sport and the Yoga are misconceptions and that those who suggest them are wholly mistaken; certainly, we are not putting Yoga away or in the background and turning to sport as a substitute, such an idea is absurdly impossible. I hope also that you will accept from me and the Mother our firm asseveration that our love and affection for you are undiminished and that there has been no coldness on the Mother’s part and no least diminution in my constant inner relation with you. In view of what I have written, you ought to be able to see that your idea of our insistence on you to take up sport or to like it and accept it in any way has no foundation; you can be as averse to it as you choose, we do not mind that. I myself have never been a sportsman or, apart from a spectator’s interest in cricket in England or a non-player member of the Baroda cricket club, taken up any physical games or athletics except some exercises learnt from Madrasi wrestlers in Baroda such as dand-baithak, and those I took up only to put some strength .. and vigour into a frail and weak though not unhealthy body, but I never attached any other importance or significance to these things and dropped the exercises when I thought they were no longer necessary. Certainly, neither the abstinence from athletics and physical games nor the taking up of those physical exercises have for me any relevance to Yoga. Neither your aversion to sport nor the liking of others for it makes either you or them more fit or more unfit for sadhana. So there is absolutely no reason why we should insist on your taking it up or why you should trouble your mind with the supposition that we want you to do it. You are surely quite free, as everybody is quite free, to take your own way in such matters. 28 April 1949
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I then come to the main point, namely that the intention attributed to the Mother of concentrating permanently on sports and withdrawing from other things pertinent to sadhana and our spiritual endeavour is a legend and a myth and has no truth
Page – 781 in it. Except for the time given to her own physical exercise and, ordinarily, two hours or sometimes three in the evening on the playground, the Mother’s whole day from early morning and a large part of the night also has always been devoted to her other occupations connected with her work and with the sadhana — not her own but that of the sadhaks, pranam, blessings, meditation and receiving the sadhaks on the staircase or elsewhere, sometimes for two hours at a time, and listening to what they have to say, questions about the sadhana, reports of their work or other matters, complaints, disputes, quarrels, all kinds of conferences about this or that to be decided or done, there is no end to the list: for the rest she had to attend to their letters, to reports about the material work of the Ashram and all its many departments, decisions on a hundred matters, correspondence and all sorts of things connected with contacts with the outside world including often serious troubles and difficulties and the settlement of matters of great importance. All this has certainly nothing to do with sports and she had little occasion to think of it at all apart from the short time in the evening. There was here no ground for the idea that she was neglecting the sadhaks or the sadhana or thinking of turning her mind solely or predominantly to sport and still less for imputing the same preoccupation to me. Only during the period before the first and second December this year the Mother had to give a great deal of time and concentration to the preparation of the events of those two days because she had decided on a big cultural programme, her own play “Vers l’Avenir“, dances, recitation from Savitri and from the Prayers and Meditations for the 1st December and also a big and ambitious programme for the 2nd of sportive items and events. This meant a good deal more time for these purposes but not any interruption of her other occupations except for one or two of them just at the end of this period. There was surely no sufficient ground here either for drawing the conclusion that this was to be for the future a normal feature of her action or a permanent change in it or in the life of the Ashram ending in a complete withdrawal from spiritual life and an apotheosis of the deity of Sport. Those
Page – 782 who voiced this idea or declared that sport would henceforth be obligatory on all were indulging in fantasies that have no claim to credibility. As a matter of fact the period of tension is over and after the second December things have returned to normal or even to subnormal in the activities of the playground and as for the future you may recall the proverb that “once is not for ever”. But there seems to be still a survival of the groundless idea that sportsmanship is obligatory henceforth on every sadhak and without it there is no chance of having the Mother’s attention or favour. It is therefore necessary for me to repeat with the utmost emphasis the statement I made long ago when this fable became current for a time along, I think, with the rumour that the Supermind was to descend on the playground and the people who happen to be there at the time and nowhere else and on nobody else — which would have meant that I for one would never have it!! I must repeat what I said then, that the Mother has never imposed or has any idea of imposing any such obligation and had no reason for doing so. The Mother does not want you or anybody else to take to sports if there is no inclination or turn towards it. There are any number of people who enjoy her highest favour, among them some of her best and most valued workers, some most near to her and cherished by her who do not even set foot on the playground. Nobody then could possibly lose her favour or her affection by refusing to take up sport or by a dislike of sport or a strong disinclination towards it: these things are a matter of idiosyncrasy and nothing else. The idea, whether advanced or not by someone claiming to have authority to voice the Mother’s intentions, that sport is now the most important thing with her and obligatory for sadhana is absurd in the extreme. Again, how could you ever imagine that the Mother or myself would turn you away or ask you to leave us for any reason, least of all for such a fantastic one as this? All this is indeed a maze of fantasies and you should drive them from your mind altogether. Your place in our hearts is permanent and your place near us must be that also; you should not allow anything to cloud that truth in your mind or
Page – 783 lend credence to anything or anyone telling you otherwise. 7 December 1949
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The realisation of the Divine is the one thing needful and the rest is desirable only in so far as it helps or leads towards that or when it is realised, extends and manifests the realisation. Manifestation and organisation of the whole life for the divine work, — first, the sadhana personal and collective necessary for the realisation and a common life of God-realised men, secondly, for help to the world to move towards that, and to live in the Light — is the whole meaning and purpose of my Yoga. But the realisation is the first need and it is that round which all the rest moves, for apart from it all the rest would have no meaning. Neither the Mother nor myself ever dreamed or could dream of putting anything else in its place or neglecting it for anything else. Most of the Mother’s day is in fact given to helping the sadhaks in one way or another towards that end, most of the rest is occupied with work for the Ashram which cannot be neglected or allowed to collapse, for this too is work for the Divine. As for the gymnasium, the playground and the rest of it, the Mother has made it plain from the beginning what place she assigned to these things; she has never done anything so imbecile as to replace essential things by these accessories. 4 April 1950
Medical Treatment
The Mother’s advice to X was given more for his period of stay in the Asram than as an absolute rule for the future. If a sadhak can call down the force to cure him without need of medical treatment, that is always the best, but it is not always possible, so long as the whole consciousness mental, vital, physical down to the most subconscient is not opened and awake. There is no harm in a Doctor who is a sadhak carrying on his profession and using his medical knowledge; but he should do it in reliance on the Divine Grace and the Divine Will; if he can get true inspirations to aid his science, so much the better. No doctor
Page – 784 can cure all cases; he has to do his best with the best result he can. 18 October 1932
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I am afraid wherever you go there will be difficulties with your state of health — and nerves. There can be no proper provision for chronic illness in an asram. 9 May 1933
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X had some trouble with his ear for some months; it went away only after a short “action” upon it. I do not believe in this action theory — at least here in the Ashram. I believe that if one compiled statistics of those who took an active approach and those who believed in laissez faire, there would be less disease and mortality in the latter group. It depends on the person and the circumstances. “Action” of
X‘s kind can be taken — only it often means a struggle with the contrary forces; if the action is sufficient, it is all right, otherwise it takes time and trouble. What you say is also true. Not to be conscious about the body, not to be always thinking of it, just to say to one’s illness “Nonsense” and go about one’s business is often very effective. When we first had the Asram there was no Doctor, no dispensary, no medicines, people hardly got ill and, if any did, he simply got well again. If at any time somebody got dysentery, he just swallowed a lot of rice and whey and got well again. If he had fever he lay in bed a day or two and got up again. There was no serious illness and no lasting illness. Now with doctors and dispensaries and cupboards full of medicines illnesses gambol about like tigers in a jungle. But in those days people had a faith in the mind and even one might say in the body, “What is illness going to do to me here” and that attitude imposed its own result. यो यच्छ्रद्धः स एव सः 6 February 1935
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I [a non-practising doctor] have been going through some medical books. After all these years I find it rather interesting — at least in terms of solid intellectual jugglery.
Page – 785 Very interesting no doubt — and under present circumstances inevitable. The disadvantage is that it creates an illness atmosphere. When we had no dispensary and no doctors (at least no practising doctors) we had no illnesses or only slight ones which walked off at once because they were not hospitably attended to when they came! 23 March 1935
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X [a doctor] has as yet written nothing; he is waiting, I suppose, for the urine examination he wants to make. We can say nothing until he writes. We do not ourselves like anybody being under medical treatment except when it is necessary in moments of emergency. It seems to me if you get back your sleep and are able to get quiet in the nerves, the rest would set themselves right by the descent of peace and strength in the body. 5 April 1935
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We cannot afford to turn the Asram into an institute for the care of chronic invalids. As it is I do not think there is any Asram in India where people could get the standard of life, conveniences and comforts they get here. Elsewhere X would be expected to lead an ascetic life, whether sick or well, and medical care and nursing would be conspicuous by their absence. However we are accustomed to people abusing us for what we do for them and accusing us for what we do not and cannot do. 29 November 1935
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When illness and attacks come to the body, does that mean that the work of purification in the mind and vital is finished and that the body is being worked on?
I don’t know whether it can be put like that. Illnesses and attacks on the body can come during the period of the vital purification. But it is true that when the mind and vital have progressed and the main action of the sadhana is in the physical, then attacks fall more on the body. In the early days of the Asram when the working was on the mind, nobody got ill except for
Page – 786 slight touches that cured without medicine; as the working came lower down, illness increased while now that the working is in the physical and subconscient, illness is almost constant in the Asram and sometimes of a serious or violent kind. 1 May 1936
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If increase in the number of inmates stands in the way, if doctors and medicines shake the faith, well, it is very easy to solve both the problems, isn’t it?
Increase of numbers brought in all sorts of influences that were not there in the smaller circle before. Doctors did not matter so long as faith was the main thing and a little treatment the help. But when faith went, illness increased and the doctor became not merely useful but indispensable. There was also the third cause, the descent into the physical consciousness with all its doubt, obscurity and resistance. To eliminate all that is no longer possible.
We have also an impression, considering the sudden wave of diseases, that it is due to some Force descending, so that wherever there is resistance there will be a rushing up.
What Force?
Since the action is to go on in the subconscient physical at present with the Supramental descending, all sorts of physical troubles will be rampant now.
Rubbish! You repeat always this imbecile absurdity that the Supramental is descending into the sadhaks — as X thought it had descended into him! The sadhaks are miles away from the Supramental. What I spoke of was not the descent of the Supramental into the sadhaks but into the earth consciousness. If the Supramental had descended into the sadhaks, there would not be all sorts of troubles, but all sorts of helps and progresses. 9 October 1936
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Page – 787
I dreamt that the Mother was building a very big hospital. Dream of a millennium in advance?
It would be more of a millennium if there were no need of a hospital at all and the doctors turned their injective prodding instruments into fountain-pens — provided of course they didn’t make a misuse of the pens also. 19 July 1937
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Why furious about injective instruments, sir? They are supposed to be very effective.
That doesn’t make an increase of hospitals, illnesses and injections the ideal of a millennium.
But why the deuce are those instruments to be replaced by fountain-pens?
I was simply adapting the saying of Isaiah the prophet, “the swords will be turned into ploughshares”, but the doctor’s instrument is not big enough for a ploughshare, so I substituted fountain-pens. 20 July 1937
Death
I firmly believed that death was impossible here. Since the death of S4 shows that it is possible, it means that hostile forces have become victorious.
There have been three deaths since the Asram began — one, of a child in a house that was not then part of the Asram and the other of a visitor. This is the first death in the Asram itself.
You have said, I hear, that you have conquered Death, not only personally but for others as well.
I am unaware of having made any such statement. To whom did I make it? I have not said even that personally I have conquered
4 In this group of letters, “S” stands for a sadhak who died on 25 March 1935. — Ed.
Page – 788 it. All these are the usual Asram legends. The conquest of Death would mean the conquest of illness and of the psychological and functional necessity of Death of the body — that is one of the ideals of the Yoga, but it can be accomplished only if and when the supramental has driven its roots into Matter. All that has been acting here up to now is an Over mind force which is getting gradually supramentalised in parts — the utmost that it can do in this respect is to keep death at a distance and that is what has been done. The absence of death in the Asram for so many years has been due to that. But it is not impossible — especially when death is accepted. In S’s case there was a 5 percent chance of his survival on certain conditions, but he himself knew the difficulty in his case and had prepared himself for his departure from the body. 25 March 1935
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Though you may say that death is possible because illness hasn’t been conquered, I take it as a principle. X and my self firmly believe that those whom you have accepted are absolutely immune to death.
[Underlining “accepted”:] Too comfortable a doctrine. It brings in a very tamasic syllogism. “I am accepted by Sri Aurobindo. I am sure of supramentality and immune from death. Therefore I need not do a damned thing. Supramentality will of itself grow in me and I am already immortal, so I have all time and eternity before me for it to happen — of itself.” Like that, does it sound true? 27 March 1935
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How is one to look at the death of D? Is it a defeat of the healing force or the absence of receptivity on her side?
It is a defeat of the healing force due to absence of receptivity in the body to the healing force.
I have heard that she had said she would not and could not give up her attachment to X. Perhaps her receptivity to Mother’s
Page – 789
force was very little because of this attachment. But whether that should be so little as to lead to the dissolution of the physical is a question.
Perhaps the attachment to X was only one side of the same thing that stood in the way of her receiving.
Four or five days ago I felt so strongly that she was to die that I found it difficult to find arguments against it.
Yes, the chances were all along adverse and at the end it was a fight against the inevitable.
Today I had a peculiar feeling — that nothing dies and that there is nothing like death; that death is an illusion. “She is” — that’s the only fact.
Of course, that is the real fact — death is only a shedding of the body, not a cessation of the personal existence. A man is not dead because he goes into another country and changes his clothes to suit that climate. 4 October 1936
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What you said about the immunity from death was quite correct. Immunity from death by anything but one’s own will to leave the body, immunity from illness are things that can be achieved only by a complete change of consciousness which each man has to develop in himself, — there can be no automatic immunity without that achievement. What had been established was a general protection and a defence against the entry of death while the sadhana was going on — but this could not be absolute. There had been since I came here in 1910 and since people began to gather afterwards, only two deaths on the outskirts of the Asram — one in X‘s family (a baby) when they had not yet become resident sadhaks and one of Y‘s mother who had come for a visit. But this comparative immunity was broken recently by S’s death and now by D’s. Formerly when there were only thirty or forty sadhaks and there was a universal faith, then without medicines or doctors the Asram was free from illness except for
Page – 790 passing colic etc. cured in a day or merely brief fevers. If one had fever, one simply lay down for a day or two and got up well. Now, since the numbers increased and the struggle with old Nature is on the material plane, illness has increased in frequency and violence. But if there were the same solid mass of living faith, the old relative immunity might still return. But absolute immunity can be only by sadhana. 5 October 1936
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I have seen your letters to X and Y. Comparing the latter5 to the one you wrote to me after the death of S,6 I find a lot of difference. Your views have changed immensely. In your letter to me there was a very optimistic, almost a certain tone regarding the conquest of death. Now you say that death is possible because of the lack of “a solid mass of living faith”.
In what does this change of views consist? Did I say that nobody could die in the Asram? If so, I must have been intoxicated or passing through a temporary aberration. As for the conquest of death, it is only one of the sequelae of supramentalisation — and I am not aware that I have for sworn my views about the supramental descent. But I never said or thought that the supramental descent would automatically make everybody immortal. The supramental descent can only make the best conditions for anybody who can open to it then or thereafter attaining to the supramental consciousness and its consequences. But it would not dispense with the necessity of sadhana. If it did, the logical consequence would be that the whole earth, men, dogs and worms, would suddenly wake up to find themselves supramental. There would be no need of an Asram or of Yoga. But my letters to X and Y had nothing to do with the conquest of death — they had to do with the conditions of the sadhana in the Asram. Surely I never wrote that death and illness could not happen in the Asram which was the point Y was
5 The letter of 5 October 1936 on pages 790 91. — Ed. 6 The letter of 25 March 1935 on pages 788 89. — Ed.
Page – 791 refuting and on which I confirmed him.
A “solid mass of living faith” [p. 791]! Surely that is a very Himalayan condition you impose. Do you expect old tottering Z to have that solid mass in his liquid body?
Z was not old and tottering when he came and if he had kept the living faith he would not have been tottering now.
Or do you hope that by his sadhana he will have the conquest?
That depends on whether he is still alive and not quite liquefied and able to open physically when the conditions change.
Your letter to Y has struck terror into many hearts, I am afraid, and henceforth we shall look upon death as quite a possibility, though not as common as it is outside.
The terror was there before. It came with the death of D and the madness of A and not as the result of my letter. It was rushing at the Mother from most of the sadhaks at Pranam every day.
The physical condition of many sadhaks and sadhikas is not cheering in the least —
Far from it.
You know best about the condition of their sadhana.
Very shaky, many of them.
However, it is my impression that you have changed your front.
It is not mine.
Formerly I thought you said — faith or no faith, sadhana or no sadhana, you were conquering death, disease, i.e. everything depended on your success; now it seems a lot depends on us poor folks, in this vital matter.
Page – 792 [Underlining “this vital matter”:] Why vital? What is vital is the supramental change of consciousness — conquest of death is something minor and, as I have always said, the last physical result of it, not the first result of all or the most important — a thing to be added to complete the whole, not the one thing needed and essential. To put it first is to reverse all spiritual values — it would mean that the seeker was actuated not by any high spiritual aim but by a vital clinging to life or a selfish and timid seeking for the security of the body — such a spirit could not bring the supramental change. Certainly, everything depends on my success. The only thing that could prevent it, so far as I can see, would be my own death or the Mother’s. But did you imagine that that [my success] would mean the cessation of death on this planet, and that sadhana would cease to be necessary for anybody? 9 October 1936
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What is the difference between a death in the Ashram and a death outside? Does one get more benefit in the form of development of the mental, vital etc. on their own planes so that one may get a better new birth?
I am not aware of any “development” of the mental etc. in their planes; the development takes place on earth. The mental and other planes are not evolutionary. The one who dies here is assisted in his passage to the psychic world and helped in his future evolution towards the Divine. 14 December 1936
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