Ive received a letter from a publisher friend of mine. He tells me the real reasons for their refusal of my manuscript Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.
Oh, really!
Its interesting. If you want me to read it to you
(Satprem reads)
I had already told you about my misgivings.1 As to the motives for the decision, it always boils down to the same point: a sincere (though ambiguous) will of ecumenism, a broad rather than deep intellectual curiosity, permit mentalities such as those that give our firm its orientation and public image to pay some attention to academic essays regarded (wrongly so in the present instance) as dealing with the famous Eastern spirituality. But as soon as the essays are lived from within, the goodwill withdraws into its shell. The reaction is even worse if the author is a renegade, a Westerner who has gone over to the enemy side. (I can vouch for that!2) I must emphasize that this whole process is not only unintentional but, more than that, unconscious (which is not an excuse but an aggravating circumstance). The opposition put up against your first manuscript3 rather hardened with the second, a much more personal book, I mean less detached, still less objective than the firstand more ample. Through the medium of literature, you were able to convey whatever you liked. Through a direct essay, you will reach and so much the worse, or so much the betteronly those who seek. Our firm and its public do not belong, for that matter, to the category of those who seek.
Hes conscious!
Its obvious, I told you so all along: your book isnt meant for them. There arent many who seek.
Those who seek really, there arent many.
I see the letters we receive from those who are convinced not only that they seek but also that theyve found. Letters from would-be disciples of Sri Aurobindo coming from over there, from France, Germany, Englanddont understand, they dont understand!
Anyhow, that doesnt matter, it will be for later.
Above all, they think theyve understood everything.
Ah, the less you know, the more you think you know.
Yes, they know everything, they cant learn anything from us.
They will have to return both your manuscripts to you. No need for them to rot there.
But I dont see what can touch that?
No, no! Its not worth trying.
But still its worth it from the point of view of the Workhow will there be a breach there one day?
Oh! You remember that aphorism of Sri Aurobindos? I understand VERY WELL what he means.
That will be the day of the great overturn.
A little child
[76Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.]
I didnt want to comment on it. But its true.
Because theyre impregnable. Those people are impregnable.
Mentally.
Its not mentally that you can make them yield.
Then how? Its either by forceviolent forceor else by a miracle (what they call a miracle) that will leave them dumbfounded.
Those people are entirely vulnerable (by vulnerable, I mean defenseless) to spiritual force. The day when it manifests physically, there will be a debacle.
Even here, with these people who through their tradition are so accustomed to the Power, the true spiritual Power, when it just manifests a little, they they tremble all over. But there they deny it which means they are completely defenseless.
I dont know when it will come I dont know, it may not be soon but one thing I know: when it comes, there will be panicyou know, THE Panic.
And in a panic, you can do something.
(silence)
In any case, your book will be published here, which means it will reach the few who are ready but not over there.
The Americans are more open, because they have remained more childlike they think they know everything on a material level, but they also know that there are things they dont know. While the others they are beyond childish religious beliefs, of course!
Its not even true, for as soon as a little something stirs within (gesture at the heart center), they plunge back into their Catholicism.
Anyway
***
(There follows a discussion between Mother and Satprem to decide whether Mothers comment on the last aphorism, on renunciation, should be published in the Bulletin in full or only in excerpts. At first Mother finds it too personal. This raises the problem of the publication of Mothers words.)
It should have been said objectively, not as my experience. But if I start saying my experience, I have to go right to the end of my experience, I cant stop halfway.
But thats just the point: its really striking only when its YOUR experience.
Yes, but then I would have to tell everything. Its exactly as your friend wrote in that letter: if you present an objective theory, then its finepeople can take it or leave it, it doesnt matter; but when you introduce that personal element Not that I am afraid people may not appreciate (I am perfectly indifferent to that), its that I fear it may harm some.
Harm, how?
When you read something you are not ready for, it does you no good.
If I at least had put it in a didactic way
Yes, but in a didactic way it wont have that richness, that force.
Of course, but thats what people consider intellectual.
Well, I think we should just ignore them.
Either I should give lessons, or else But I must say that nowadays I dont enjoy it. I find it so childish to say, Things happen in this way I know perfectly well they dont happen in this way! They happen in this way and they happen in another way, and everything is possible. You cant keep telling people, Everything is possible, you know. To keep repeating, Everything is possible, you know, is absurd.
So either I should keep quiet, or else
Let me give you another example: when I answer peoples letters, I never write about myself, I write about them, yet its very personal: its FOR THEM. And in fact, I am coming to see (in not a very pleasant way) that out of a personal answer they want to make a general teaching its absurd! Absurd. I say something to this man or that woman, and Ill say the opposite to someone else! But they publish it. So we should stop publishing anything.
Either stop publishing anything or else, well, too bad.
If we must always take this and that into account, theres nothing we can do or say any more.
I could very well stop publishing anything and declare, Now, I wont speak any more, its finished. But then we would have to stop the Bulletin.
I think you should present your experience, and thats all. Because otherwise, if we cut these texts to leave only the objective things, it becomes dry.
Yes, dry and hollow.
And incomplete, terribly incomplete. Then people will understand very dogmatically thats bad.
I think its better to put everything in.
To tell the truth (laughing), I dont care! Even if they get the impression that I have a screw loose.
Those who get wrong impressions will get them anyhow.
And, truly, sincerely, its absolutely all the same to me. Its the same when people write to me, How wonderful: I smile and I think, What can they understand?! I receive letters priceless letters! Positively exuberant, full of bombastic words, and then there are others who tell me very frankly that they are full of doubt, that I quite simply use tricks to run the whole business (!) like any ordinary human intelligence, and that they cant feel anything divine at all behind all thatboth make the same impression on me, the one and the other! (Mother laughs) To me its all the same thing. Its their opinions they have the right to have any opinions they like. To tell the truth, all that we could reply to them is, Have the opinions that make you progress, whether in this way or that, it doesnt matter in the least!
Thats not the point. Maybe its the fear (there is a fear somewhere, I dont know), the fear of opening the intimacy a little too much, a fear from the standpoint of the vibrations.
But (laughing) I dont think theres much danger!
I saw that, in fact: I showed A. some passages from the Agenda that I had selected; obviously A. likes me, also he makes an effort to understand spirituallywell, I clearly saw while he was reading that he doesnt understand. There was a whole part that was absolutely beyond his understanding, he didnt understand, and what little he could catch was just a husk.
So, to tell the truth, it doesnt matter.
Of course, theres the rule that its not good to speak of yourself that goes without saying. But what can I talk about now, if not about my experience? Because nothing exists any moreall the so-called objective knowledge is to me a useless mental activity.
So lets just leave it at that.
Otherwise, truncated publications I find that very bad; better nothing at all, because they are, as it were, drained.
Yes, drained of all power.
Lets just leave it as it is.
See conversation of May 25
The author of this letter is a Westerner turned Sufi.
Sri Aurobindo or the Transformation of the World.
***
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