object:2.13 - On Psychology
book class:Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
author class:A B Purani
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter
ON PSYCHOLOGY
ON PSYCHOLOGY
30 MAY 1923
A Dream
Sri Aurobindo: Some dreams have got meaning down to their very details. I saw one yesterday.
There was a scientist and a magician. Both of them wanted to rescue a girl from alien enemies. The magician was the psychic and mental man who knows the Truth but does not know concretisation of the same. He has the grasp of the Spirit but not of the process and its details.
The scientist and the magician tried to save the girl. The magician failed. Then the scientist tried; he found himself baffled by the opponents as they — dasyus, the hostile vital powers — were not struck down by the blows of the sword or of anything. The opponents were going to a king's capital. Then they fled and the girl was taken away.
The scientist was a geologist who had made the discovery that the strata of the earth must be measured from the top and not from the bottom. When the enemies fled they left; their things behind and did not like to go into the capital wounded. The scientist then found a big book on geology — half as big as this room — among the things left: behind, and he found the girl just between the cover and the pages.
The secret of the earth, the physical nature, was thus symbolicaily given.
10 JULY 1923
Disciple: When a man leaves his body, does his soul assume another birth at once?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends on what you mean by the 'body' and by the 'soul'.
Disciple: It is said that the soul has to take another physical life in order to complete its evolution.
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by 'evolution' of the soul? If you mean by the 'soul' the essential Self then it requires no evolution.
Disciple: What is the law of connection between the living and the dead?
Sri Aurobindo: Your question seems to imply that the physical manifestation is the whole manifestation. The body is merely a circumstance in the manifestation of the soul. What we mean by a world or a plane is a state of consciousness. What is then the meaning of going? The soul has not to travel through any space, it only goes to another state of consciousness.
Disciple: Where does the soul depart after death?
Sri Aurobindo: Again, what do you mean by 'departing'? It only goes to another state of consciousness as I said.
Disciple: In our country the belief is that after a man's death the soul remains in a certain condition and as it cannot complete its evolution there it has to return to human life. The question is: How is this done?
Sri Aurobindo: As Isaid, for the essential Self there is no development, no evolution.
Disciple: In the Chhandogya Upanishad it is said that the departed soul comes down in the form of rain and then enters plant life and is born through females.
Sri Aurobindo: Do you mean to say that whenever it rains so many souls are pouring down? (Laughter)
Disciple: It may be a figurative way of saying, perhaps.
Sri Aurobindo: It is meant to be symbolic.
Disciple: It seems there are two purposes for which souls descend into human birth. Perfected souls come down with the Avatar to take part in his Lila and help the world with him.
Sri Aurobindo: That is not the ordinary birth. But the question can be why there is any birth at all. It is as good as asking: "Why was the world created?" Or you can ask: "Why are you and I here even though we are divine, and, in a sense, perfect?" We can only say that a soul assumes birth in order to manifest divine perfection, to manifest the Divine in life. That is all we can say.
Disciple: One part of the question was about the machinery of rebirth, if I may put it that way.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two things: the body and the soul. The body is an ordinary formation and I suppose you know what science says about the composition of Matter: It is all a play of atoms and they can be resolved into electrons and the electrons are formations of certain forces in the physical world. Then you come to the vital body — that is a formation from the vital world. And then you have the mental body, which is a formation from the mental world. Similarly, the psychic being is also formed.
I leave aside other minor divisions of the being. This is only a rough outline. If you want to go into details, the physical alone has five planes. Then you come to the soul. Ordinarily the soul is not understood as the Jiva. 'Soul' does not denote the essential personality which is eternally one with the Divine and is always in the presence of God. So also 'soul' does not mean Atman, the Self, because for this Self there is no evolution. What is generally understood by 'soul' is the psychic individualisation which persists even after the dissolution of the physical body and the vital and mental sheaths.
Now, when a man dies his physical body dissolves; the vital body dissolves after some time, and the mental body also dissolves. Take the case of an insect. In the insect there is only the physical consciousness and nothing else. Other formations in the universe are too low to be considered. The insect gathers certain experiences on the physical plane. My own view is that it goes on developing from plane to plane with a supporting Self. The soul — sūkṣma dehī — living on the physical plane returns to the Jiva which was all along supporting the insect in the physical consciousness. When the soul is ready, it is taken up into the vital plane and there it gathers experiences till the mental plane is reached in man. There is the Supramental plane also.
What we do in our Yoga is to bring down the Supramental plane so that the soul may return with the full experience to the higher plane. The question is how far we can supramentalise. If we can supramentalise the mind and the vital being we can return with the memory of that experience and also with that ready formation in another manifestation. One can preserve, if he so chooses, his vital body after death and produce effects on the vital plane.
Now suppose we supramentalise the body. In that case we can carry the full physical experience and return with the fullest physical, vital and mental force and manifest the Divine. That is what happens in the case of Avatars and Vibhutis, — there is full memory of the past vital and mental experiences and in the case of the Avatar even of the physical experiences. If we can supramentalise the body it can be retained or thrown away at will —icchā mṛtyu.And even when the body is thrown away, when the process of manifestation is undertaken the soul has not to gather the physical and the vital and the mental from any of the formations of Universal Nature — as in the case of ordinary souls. In case these — the physical, the vital, and the mental — are supramentalised the whole being is quite ready; one has simply to take up the ready formation and manifest the Divine.
Disciple: But what affords the material for the physical or the vital bodies?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by "what affords"? It is already there in Nature, as there is electricity, gas, etc.
Disciple: What is Nature?
Sri Aurobindo: The Universal Divine has projected the Universe and there is Universal Nature which affords all the material for us. Essentially, everything in Nature corresponds to something in the Universal Soul. For instance, the vital corresponds to the divine Tapas. The details about the law and the process of rebirth are too complex to be given exactly. It is a complicated question.
1 JUNE 1924
Sri Aurobindo sat watching a spider busily preparing its web round the electric lamp, as it found a lot of moths flying around the light on account of the rainy evening. The spider was frantic in its haste to have its web in time, which was being constantly broken by the insects flying around; it could not put in a new thread quickly enough. Somehow it managed to get a sort of net ready within five minutes.
Sri Aurobindo: He has got quite a feast! He is again running to make the web strong. He ties up the moth in a corner and then goes about preparing the web. He knows mathematics!
Then Sri Aurobindo recalled an incident in the Guest House when a spider wanted to balance the whole web. It put a grain of sand but finding it too heavy it cut it off, and instead put in a straw and found the balance was all right.
Sri Aurobindo: You see, these spiders are very resourceful. They know what they have to do and then they learn by experience and experiment.
Disciple: Only, they do not speak.
Disciple: How do you know?
Disciple: They do not speak to us.
Disciple: You do not speak to the cow! (Laughter)
4 AUGUST 1924 (Morning)
Disciple: What is the distinction between the vital will and mental will?
Sri Aurobindo: The vital will is an impulse first and thought afterwards. It is, you can say, force first and thought afterwards. For instance, desire — if deprived of the element of 'desire' — is an impulse or force going out or trying to realise itself.
While mental will is the will connected with thought. It is primarily a thought-force. Every thought has its will. Even in the Supermind there is a distinction: there is sometimes a force that tries to realise itself while there is at times a knowledge that tries to be effective, though primarily it is knowledge and secondarily force. In the highest Supermind the two are one: Truth and Force, Knowledge and Will — both simultaneous and effective.
The sadhak must make the calm and equality absolutely secure so that whatever may happen the inner detachment and equality cannot be broken.
30 AUGUST 1925
Sri Aurobindo: There is one Major Hill who is fit to be an inmate of a lunatic asylum. He has invited Gandhi to the Society of Psycho-Analysts and explained to him how the Hindu-Muslim problem is merely a problem of a complex. It is due to the cow-complex. (Laughter)
The Major said further: "If you want to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity you must change the symbol to something else than the cow! Then there would be no problem."
Disciple: I read an article by a biological analyst, or a psycho-biologist perhaps, in which the divorce between Kamal Pasha and his wife was explained. It said Mrs. Kamal had a great love for her parents; she did not love her husband. Secondly, she had in her the masculine complex which made her a suffragist. The writer also explained how Napoleon divorced Josephine because he loved his mother, and that Queen Elizabeth had a masculine complex but those who came in contact with her had not the feminine complex in them strong enough to keep her to them. He even says that Gandhi has a complex! One can never know what is this complex business!
Sri Aurobindo: All that I know about it is that when you repress something in your nature it goes down into the subconscious. But this generalisation that all you do is due to complexes is quite new.
Disciple: Is it correct?
Sri Aurobindo: No. The old European psychology had nothing of it. The new psychology has something, but it is false.
Disciple: Is it all false? Does it not make an advance upon the old?
Sri Aurobindo: It is an advance in the sense I mentioned that the old had nothing whereas this new one has something which is false. The Europeans have got a fixed idea about these sciences. They observe some abnormal phenomena, study them, find out a general law and then try to apply it everywhere. Napoleon, Elizabeth, Begum Samru all behaved in particular ways because they had complexes. It only means that a man has a certain character and his actions are determined by that character. This we knew ten thousand years back, there is nothing new in it.
The difficulty is that they want to work in psychology in the same way that they work in physics. But psychology is not so simple. You cant generalise in it as you can with matter. It is very subtle, and one has to take into account many factors.
If you say that everything we do produces an influence on our inner being and leaves an influence there, and conversely, that whatever is within us in the subconscious does influence our actions to some extent — that is all right. But more than that is not tenable. Take their theory of dreams. It is perfectly true that dreams are due to something from the subconscious rising up during sleep in an irregular and fitful manner. But that does not account for all the dreams. The realm of dreams is very wide. There are other kinds of dreams, not due to the subconscious. Human psychology is very complicated.
Disciple: Do you mean to say that the new psychology is not at all correct?
Sri Aurobindo: I mean it is false, and inasmuch as it tries to work on the lines of the physical sciences it is absurd; for, there is no correspondence.
Disciple: It was Freud who started the complex theory.
Disciple: And he cured people by his theory, you must know.
Sri Aurobindo: Theory can never cure anybody. Do you yet believe that a theory cures? Curing people, or getting a certain result, does not depend upon the theory at all. A theory may be true or false and yet you may obtain results from it. A theory simply puts you in a condition when something behind you can work through you. That is the whole stand of Bergson. Theory merely convinces you and thereby produces the necessary inner condition. That is all. It may be true or it may be false. Freud may have cured people as Coué cures them now. But does he cure them by his theory? Not at all; it is because he has some power that people get cured by him. You can try to apply the theories of psycho-analysis to remove obstacles and complexes from human nature and you will see that you do not succeed.
Disciple: It is true, it does not go as deep as Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: It starts its work on a wrong foundation.
18 OCTOBER 1925
There was talk today about the animal mind.
Sri Aurobindo: With the report of the rats you have also the instance of monkeys crossing a river. It is not mere instinct. The calculation of the height of the tree, formation of the chain and the idea of the breadth of the river, requires mind.
I saw the other day the report of a dog which made friends with a horse. The groom used to steal from the ration of the horse. Either the horse complained to the dog, or the dog itself came to know about it, but the dog knew about the theft. One day, when the man was actually stealing, it went to the master and brought him there!
Animals seem to act upon memory, association, invention and adaptation of means. They think with the vital mind while man thinks with the reason.
19 OCTOBER 1925
The talk turned to cats.
Sri Aurobindo: They have a great vitality. They disturb the whole atmosphere when they are excited and throw the vital force all around while they are in that state. They have a wonderful vitality.
Someone brought in the subject of small-pox and of vaccination and anti-vaccination theories. There was a discussion during which a disciple argued that statistics supported a particular view.
Sri Aurobindo: Statistics are not always reliable; they are often deceptive and manipulated to bring about conclusions which men want to draw from them.
APRIL / MAY 1926
The talk started with a reference to X's shrinking from the fish which was given to cats, and Y's shrinking from a meat diet.
Sri Aurobindo: I had myself got that nervous shrinking. Bipin Pal and I once went to the Dakshineshwar temple. There a great animal sacrifice was going on. I stood it all right but Pal was very much disturbed. I got rid of it completely in jail. Pity and nervous shrinking are weaknesses of the vital being.
Disciple: What is the idea of Patanjali's Ahimsa?
Sri Aurobindo: I don't know. You must ask Patanjali for it. (Laughter)
Disciple: The question is: "What is to be done with bugs?" X can stand any number of them.
Disciple: His capacity depends upon the size of the bugs; if they are big he minds them! (Laughter)
Disciple: Y is an executioner of bugs!
Sri Aurobindo: When a thing is to be done then it is kartavya karma, as you know from the Gita. At that time if I am full of pity it is a weakness. If it is a question of driving out the British, you can't think of pity at the same time! You can't think of the loss of jobs of many persons or loss to British commerce.
Shrinking is nervous in its nature, while pity is in the heart. It is an emotion. It has more to do with the psychic being. The Ahimsa of the Jains is more theoretical than that of other communities. They have no objection to cruelty if it does not take that particular form which by their customs and Sanskaras they are made to abhor. Gandhi's idea of Ahimsa does not debar him from inflicting suffering on himself and on others. He does not see that he is responsible for their suffering.
Disciple: How is one to know whether it is shrinking or pity?
Sri Aurobindo: You can feel it within you. You sense the shrinking. Sensation and feeling are quite different things. Shrinking is primarily in the nervous being while pity is a feeling.
29 MAY 1926
Disciple: X was expressing intense regret while leaving Pondicherry.
Sri Aurobindo: Was it sincere?
Disciple: At least I felt it was at the moment. But there seems to be a double personality in him.
Sri Aurobindo: This is not a case of double personality in which one is oblivious of the other, for he evidently remembered what he wrote.
Disciple: In the beginning he seemed a different person but then he changed.
Sri Aurobindo: No, the case is that of a being of the vital plane that comes and takes possession of him. It represents itself as myself or the Mother and it is this being that suggests fantastic explanations of my letters to him.
Disciple: What would be the result of this kind of possession?
Sri Aurobindo: There are two results possible: either he may go mad, or he may manifest some power and pretend to be a great Avatar.
(After a pause) It is easy to fall in this Yoga, but it is very difficult to reclimb.
Disciple: Was his fall due to some weakness in the physical being?
Sri Aurobindo: He had made his body weak in the non-cooperation movement by resorting to ascetic practices. But his weakness was not more than what other people have got. His chief defects were in the mental and vital beings. He has a very narrow mental being — practically no mind at all, only conventional ideas about religion and spirituality. But he had a remarkable aspiration and intensity in the vital being. He progressed more than anyone. But he had also a great vanity in him and believed that he was someone very special. He aimed at becoming the Superman in the egoistic sense. He then went into a sort of ecstatic devotion, weeping and calling Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in order to pull down the Supermind in one year! He came to such a pass that he lost control of the physical reality and he thought that I was making him do all those things which, in fact, I did not want him to do! He was not able to control his body and used to fall on his knees when the impulse came. He had an attraction for magical and miraculous things and believed that a yogi must not eat or sleep.
Disciple: Is it possible to have such a control over the universal vital plane as to make it impossible for these vital forces to represent themselves as the Truth or yourself and the Mother?
Sri Aurobindo: It is a question of consciousness and not of the physical plane where you can prevent somebody from doing something. Nothing is possible without the co-operation of the individual. The difficulty is that he wants to have that being of the vital plane and, even when it is driven out, calls it back.
Disciple: What is the effect of this being on him?
Sri Aurobindo: When we took away the pressure he felt like an ordinary man, he felt pains in the body. In some cases where the man resists, there are fits and hysteria, etc.
Disciple: Why is it that the vital being drives him here — makes him come to Pondicherry?
Sri Aurobindo: There are various beings and they have various tendencies and motives. They are attracted to this place for various reasons, yet they do not want to obey.
Disciple: What is the aim of these beings in taking possession of a human being?
Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, to have influence on the physical plane which they can have by taking possession of a man. Secondly, to play a joke — just to see what happens. Thirdly, to play God and be worshipped. Fourthly, to bring about a manifestation of vital power. To this class belong those beings that effect miraculous cures and have great healing powers. Fifthly, to satisfy some desire or impulse like murder or lust. From this point of view you will see that capital punishment is absurd. A man who murders is, most probably, under the possession of a vital being. When he is executed that being takes possession of another. Many of those who commit murder have admittted that they had their first impulse when they saw an execution.
Some vital beings want to have their play here.
Disciple: Why do they do like that?
Sri Aurobindo: They get supported. But these are not strong beings. The really strong beings are those that are behind world-movements, like Theosophy; they have not only vital force but mental power.
Disciple: What is their part in evolution?
Sri Aurobindo: They only exhibit power; they do not generally take up a physical body.
Disciple: Have they an idea of progress?
Sri Aurobindo: Their idea of progress is increase of power. But they can be converted. Théon — who was the Mother's instructor in occultism in Algeria — believed that those forces or beings who try to come in touch with the physical are destined to be converted.
Disciple: Do they change their vital nature?
Sri Aurobindo: They remain vital beings but instead of aiming at power for themselves and manifesting it egoistically they consent to manifest something higher. They need not take up a body for that. They can remain on their own plane and work here as an influence for a higher life.
Disciple: Does the soul of the manwho is possessed try to recover the lost ground?
Sri Aurobindo: After some time, during possession, there is no soul; it is thrust behind, into the background. Generally, in man the soul is not in front. By Yoga the soul comes to the front. But it can be thrown into the background by these forces taking advantage of some weakness, some vital or physical defect — unless the Central Being comes down and takes hold of the instruments.
Disciple: Can these forces take possession when a man has got a fine mind — a mind which is higher than the vital impulses?
Sri Aurobindo: What is man's mental knowledge before those beings? What does man know? Practically nothing. They know the complexity of forces at work, while man knows nothing of it. Man has a great destiny if he goes along the right lines, but as he is, he is shut up in the physical consciousness which is a very inferior plane. Even his reason requires data for its knowledge, and argument or reasoning can justify anything. Two quite opposite conclusions can be supported by the aid of the same reasoning, and your preferences determine which one you accept. For the data of reasoning, again, you require to depend upon what you see and hear — on your senses. The vital beings are not so foolish as all that, they are not so limited.
22 JUNE 1926
Disciple: What is the relation between the inner mental, inner vital and inner physical beings and the psychic being?
Sri Aurobindo: The inner mental, vital and physical beings are the instruments of expression of the psychic being. You can say that they are formulations of the psychic being here for manifestation in earth-evolution. It is the psychic being which supports them here. It stands behind them. The psychic being is what the Europeans call the 'soul' — it is the 'true person' in man. It is the innermost being in the lower nature, it is the direct representative of the Divine in the lower nature. It is generally supposed to be behind the heart. It is behind the emotional activity which is its surface manifestation. Ordinary emotional activity is not psychic in its nature. True psychic emotion is very deep, and it is a pure spiritual emotion. The psychic being opens directly to the Higher Truth and can receive it here.
Disciple: Is it the psychic being that governs man's inner mental, vital and physical beings?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But in ordinary man the psychic does not govern most of his actions. They are dictated mostly by outside influences.
Disciple: You said when speaking about X that he had broken the veil between the inner mental and the psychic being. What did you exactly mean by it? Is there such a veil?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is a veil: that is why most people are not conscious of their soul. In X's case I used the word psychic in the ordinary sense. He had broken the veil between the mental and the vital planes, and opened himself to the worlds behind them, but he was unable to bear all that followed. There I used the word in the sense of the 'subliminal self'.
Disciple: Is the influence of the psychic being mainly in the inner mental and vital beings or is it subconscious?
Sri Aurobindo: Everything that one is not ordinarily conscious of is subconscious to him. It means that something happens behind of which the surface man has no knowledge. But really speaking nothing is subconscious. In a certain sense one can say that even the superconscient is subconscient.
Disciple: What has the psychic being to do with the Supermind?
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is not the Supermind. For instance, one can, by breaking the veil, somehow get into the subliminal or the psychic being, but one cannot get to the Supermind like that. The psychic being opens to the Higher Truth, but it is itself not That, it receives the Truth. The psychic being is what is 'behind' the mental and the vital and the physical beings, not 'above' them.
Disciple: What is the difference between the psychic and the spiritual being?
Sri Aurobindo: You can't speak of the spiritual being except, of course, the being of Sat-Chit-Ananda which is not individual. These three principles are above the Mind and constitute the upper hemisphere. The mental, vital and physical constitute the lower hemisphere. Between the two hemispheres is what I call the Supermind.
You can't get to the real Sat-Chit-Ananda. But you can have — as do most people who say that they have realised Sachchidananda — the experience of it in the mind or in the vital being. But you can't organise it here even though you get the experience. The organisation of the Infinite Consciousness, the Sachchidananda, can only be done by the Supermind.
Disciple: Is the psychic being the entity that survives death? What is meant by kāraṇa śarīra?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not the psychic being which presides over reincarnation, but the Jiva, the Central Being, which according to its need gathers the material from Nature. The kāraṇa śarīra generally means the supramental body.
Disciple: In the orthodox terminology, though kāraṇa śarīra means vijñānamaya, yet they speak of it not as a means of development but as a means of escape. To them the use of the kāraṇa śarīra is to burn away the seeds of everything that is in Nature. They believe that unless the seed is burnt there in the kāraṇa śarīra one can't really get liberation.
Sri Aurobindo: It is true, because the seed of everything that you see here is in the Supermind and unless you get to the Supermind you can't really get rid of imperfection in nature.
For instance, take filial love. Generally it represents something of the Above, but the form it takes entirely misrepresents it. Now, if you want to remove this error you have not merely to keep it down, because then it is not really gone, but you have to offer it up to the Higher Truth, and when you know the truth behind it, then you are no longer subject to the false form it generally takes. So it is with everything.
Disciple: They generally tried to get to the seed of all imperfection here and then they tried to escape from the world.
Sri Aurobindo: That was the old idea. It was based on the assumption that the Truth, the Supramental, can't be organised here in this world. Because all that is here is imperfect, false, is not the Truth; the Mind tried to organise the Truth here and failed, so they thought that "going into the Truth" meant leaving the mind and life etc. And by an exaggeration of the same idea the world appeared not merely imperfect but an illusion. Coming back to life to them meant coming back to the falsehood. That is what is meant by the Upanishad's image of "escaping through the door of the Sun". If you want to come back you can do so as long as you are in the rays of the Sun. But once you enter the body of the Sun you cannot return. To start from another assumption — that "life is false and imperfect but we can manifest Truth and perfection here" — is possible. The Truth cannot be manifested in life here with the present formulation and organisation of the human consciousness which works with mind as its chief instrument. The mind cannot organise Truth here. But a higher formulation, organisation, of consciousness is possible here.
Disciple: Even the desire to organise it here, the Mayavadin would like to call an illusion.
Sri Aurobindo: That way even the desire for getting away from the world is an illusion!
Disciple: In Tantra it is said that one should renounce even the desire for liberation.
Sri Aurobindo: That does not help very much to renounce the desire to get liberation.
Disciple: It is all right for those who have reached liberation, but not for those on the way. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: One of the logical conclusions of the Theory of Illusion was the idea that you must reject everything violently and that you can't get the Truth unless you are disgusted with everything in the world. That is what is understood to be Vairagya. But I don't see any reason why one should be disgusted with everything before one can take to the spiritual life. What we do is that we see the imperfection in the world and we do not accept the ordinary life which is subject to ignorance and falsehood. But we do not despise it — we do not look upon it with disgust and contempt. We look upon it with calm and equality — Samata — and try to understand what it is and what place it occupies in the Lila and its purpose.
Disciple: Generally, it is supposed that aman takes to the spiritual life as a result of dissatisfaction. Is the dissatisfaction a psychic dissatisfaction in its nature?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by psychic dissatisfaction?
Disciple: The psychic dissatisfaction reflected in the mental or the vital being.
Sri Aurobindo: The true dissatisfaction is different from the mental or vital dissatisfaction, which comes when, for instance, somebody runs away with your wife, or you have lost money.
Disciple: Then directly you go to a Guru! (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: The true dissatisfaction comes from the inner being which is not satisfied with the ordinary life — once it is touched by the psychic being.
Disciple: Is aspiration always psychic?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. True aspiration is always psychic in its origin. It is "Agni rising from the earth", as the Veda says, "towards its own home". The Agni there is the "fire of aspiration". It takes mental or vital forms which may be imperfect and therefore there may be imperfection in the aspiration itself. But even behind these imperfect forms there is something that is burning. Once one has awakened this fire it is impossible for him to rest satisfied with the ordinary life.
Disciple: Does Agni always signify the psychic aspiration in the Veda?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But there are various forms and powers of Agni in us and also in the universe. This Agni in the inner being they spoke of, most probably, as the gārhapatya — the Fire belonging to the Lord of the House.
Disciple: What do we mean when we say that the psychic being in a man has come to the front or when we say that it has become strong?
Sri Aurobindo: When we say that the psychic being has come to the surface we mean that it has begun to exert its influence on the other members of a man's nature. It becomes first an active influence and ultimately it is the influence in the being. And the result of this influence is to turn the whole nature towards the Truth. In proportion as it increases its control and its influence over the formations and personalities in a man, we say that his psychic being is more developed.
Generally, there are certain external signs by which you can find out whether the psychic being of a man is more developed. For instance, such a man has greater purity, delicacy in life in dealing with people and refinement of taste. One can hear, also, the voice of the soul which generally comes from the psychic being. But it should not be confounded with the voice that is heard in the mind. The psychic voice is true and it has something more imperative in it than the mental voice.
Disciple: Has the psychic being its own activity and field apart from its working through the mind, the vital and the body?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it has got its own activity and its own field.
Disciple: But this psychic being, then, though present in all men, is not known to them?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes; for the ordinary man you can say that his soul is not at all within his reach. He is so much given to the vital life and other external impulses that he is hardly conscious of his soul except at times when he has glimpses of it.
Disciple: Is it possible for a man to completely cut off connection with his soul? Occultists speak of 'soulless man'.
Sri Aurobindo: The question is whether the majority of men have got connection with the soul at all.
Disciple: It seems, then, that the soul of man is not interested in ninety percent of his activities and keeps aloof.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Generally most of man's activities are dictated by outside influences and not from the inner being.
Disciple: So it is the soul that receives the call for the spiritual life?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes.
Disciple: Is it possible for the whole psychic being to come at once to the surface or does it come gradually?
Sri Aurobindo: Generally, man catches glimpses of the soul and by degrees the soul comes to the surface till the whole being is controlled by it. But there is no fixed rule; the whole of the psychic being can come to the surface all at once.
Disciple: It seems most men get the spiritual awakening through suffering. Is suffering a necessary part of this awakening?
Sri Aurobindo: No, I don't believe that. It is entirely an erroneous idea. It is a Christian doctrine and is a perversion of the Truth.
Disciple: Is suffering not a purifying agent?
Sri Aurobindo: Not always; it involves subjection to forces that are not spiritual and for self-purification one need not always undergo suffering.
Disciple: Mostly, men turn to the spiritual life after receiving some shock.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is so in some cases, though not in all. A man may be attached to something, and when the object of attachment is suddenly removed he completely turns over a new chapter in his life. Something that stands in the way is knocked down and then the call is heard.
Disciple: That means the preparation is already going on beneath and it comes to the surface suddenly after the shock.
The manner in which the call for the spiritual life comes to a man is also sometimes very sudden. For instance, in the case of Lala Babu it came in the following manner: One day he was going on his way when he heard two fisher-women speaking to each other. One said: "It is late, darkness is coming, difficulties may come, let us hurry home." This gave him the necessary push for entering the spiritual life.
Sri Aurobindo: Such things happen very often. These outer things serve as excuses, or rather occasions for giving the necessary touch, especially in a country like India where the spiritual atmosphere is all around you, and the least touch is sufficient to open a man to it.
Disciple: Do you think that it is more easy to get the spiritual life in India than in any other country?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question of my thinking, it is a fact. Because we have been doing that work for the last four to five thousand years, the whole past is living in a remarkable way, so that the slightest touch can open a man to it if he has anything in him which supplies the necessary material.
Disciple: Why is it that the spiritual life is more difficult in Europe than in India?
Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, because the Europeans never had it in such a degree as the Indians; and secondly what they had is for away from their mental and vital life, and so it has receded behind. Perhaps it is coming back now there also. That is why Europeans who have got a spiritual aspiration turn to India. It does not mean that they turn to Indians but to the accumulated spiritual force that is here. At any rate it is easy to make a start in India.
Disciple: Is it not also easier to fight the obstacles that come in the spiritual life in India than outside?
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily, — and not all. There are some obstacles which you can easily overcome here, but there are others which you can overcome more easily in Europe. For instance, Mayavada is more difficult to get rid of in India than in Europe.
Disciple: Are Indians more spiritual than other people?
Sri Aurobindo: No, it is not so. No nation is entirely spiritual. Indians are not more spiritual than other people. But behind the Indian race there is a past spiritual influence.
Disciple: Some people, who are prominent national workers in India, seem to me to be incarnations of some European force here.
Sri Aurobindo: May not be incarnations, but may be strongly influenced by European thought. For instance, Gandhi is a European — truly, a Russian Christian. And there are some Indians in European bodies!
Disciple: The Mahatma a European!
Sri Aurobindo: Yes; when the Europeans say that he is more Christian than many Christians and that he is "the Christ of the modern times" they are perfectly right. All his preaching is derived from Christianity, and though the form that is given to it is Indian, the essential spirit is Christian. He may not be exactly Christ, but at any rate he comes in continuation of the same movement.
He is largely influenced by Tolstoy and the Bible and by Jainism in his preachings; at any rate, more than by the Indian scriptures — the Upanishads or the Gita which he interprets in the light of his own ideas.
Disciple: Many educated Indians consider him a spiritual man.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, because the Europeans call him spiritual. What he preaches is not Indian spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity, non-violence, suffering, etc.
Disciple: He admits to have been greatly influenced by Tolstoy.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Tolstoy was his Guru.
Disciple: The Russian people have an enthusiastic but tragic and gloomy temperament.
Sri Aurobindo: They are a queer mixture of strength and weakness. They have got a passion in their intellect, say, a passionate intellect. But although they have a distracted and restless being, there is something in it which is very fine and psychic. And therefore I am not right when I said that Gandhi is a Russian Christian because he is very dry. He has got the intellectual passion and a great moral will-force but he is more dry than the Russians. The gospel of suffering that he is preaching has its root in Russia as nowhere else in Europe. Other Christian nations don't believe in it, at the most they have it in their mind, but the Russians have got it in their blood. They commit a mistake in preaching the gospel of suffering; we also in India commit the same in preaching the idea of Vairagya.
Disciple: Perhaps the Mahatma would be more successful as a leader in Europe.
Sri Aurobindo: If you mean as a political leader, he would have been nowhere successful.
Disciple: But his antagonism to machinery and his idea of simplicity of life would have been accepted in Europe.
Sri Aurobindo: I don't think so. There are plenty of people who are against machinery, though they may be in the minority and powerless — and there was, at any rate, a fashion of simplicity. He would have, of course, given a European form to his ideas.
Disciple: What about the Charkha?
Sri Aurobindo: There are people in Europe who are enthusiastic about it, but the Charkha after all is a minor point.
Disciple: There are people in India who regard Mahatmaji as a spiritual man because of his yama and niyama — the vows of self-control and simplicity and his Ahimsa, love, etc.
Sri Aurobindo: There is a great difference between the aim of Patanjali and that of Gandhi and Tolstoy. The aim of Patanjali was to rise to a Higher Consciousness. He proposed to do it by replacing the general Rajasic movements of nature by the Sattwic ones. There was no idea of morality or ethics in it, and he never made yama and niyama the aim of the discipline. His aim was to rise above the ordinary consciousness and even his idea of saṁyama was not dictated by morality. He wanted to gather power for a spiritual purpose and so he discouraged the spending away of forces in the ordinary way.
Disciple: The Gita speaks of four kinds of Bhaktas: ārta — distressed, jijñāsu — seeking knowledge, arthārthī— one who wants to serve some purpose, and jñānī— the man of knowledge. What is the meaning of arthārthī?
Sri Aurobindo: When you want God for serving some of your own aims.
Disciple: For instance, when you wanted God for the liberation of India.
Sri Aurobindo: Then I was an arthārthī Bhakta.
Disciple: A mixture of jñānī and arthārthī.
Sri Aurobindo: No. I had no knowledge. I did not know what God was. It was two years before I met Lele that I began Yoga seriously. Deshpande at that time was doing Hatha Yoga, Asanas and other practices and, as he had a great proselytising tendency, he wanted to convert me to his view. But I thought that a yoga which requires me to give up the world was not for me. I had to liberate my country. I took it up seriously when I learnt that the same Tapasya which one does to get away from the world can be turned to action. I learnt that Yoga gives power and I thought: Why should I not get power and use it to liberate my country?
Disciple: God very cleverly exploited your desire to liberate India.
Sri Aurobindo: It was the time of the country first, humanity afterwards and the rest nowhere. It was something behind that got the idea accepted by the mind; mine was a side-door entry into the spiritual life.
25 JUNE 1926
Sri Aurobindo (turning to a disciple) : You said last time that suffering purifies. Can you explain in what way?
Disciple: When suffering comes it forces one to separate himself from the instruments and recognise his true self and so he feels pure and light and this helps him to rise above the lower nature.
Sri Aurobindo: It need not make you to separate yourself from suffering unless you have got the power to stand back from it; but this power is not inherent in suffering. Take the case of the unfortunate persons who are put into prison. They suffer, but suffering does not purify them; on the contrary, it makes them worse. To my mind suffering is a sign of imperfection of nature. It is a stamp of imperfection on the individual and universal nature. You have to learn from suffering: firstly, why it is there, and, secondly, how to overcome it.
But if you take delight in it and invite it like the Christian monks who used to get whipped and took pleasure in it — that I consider a deviation and a perversion.
Disciple: Is it not true that when we suffer we turn to God?
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. There are people who suffer and suffer and never turn to God.
Disciple: Tagore says, "Suffering or joy, whatever you give, I put it on my head and accept with equal joy."
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, yes. That is all right. That is like all things highly sentimental and not necessarily true.
Disciple: Why should I protest when God sends me suffering?
Sri Aurobindo: I don't protest. I only learn, I don't fly away from it and shrink from it. You have to look upon it as upon everything else in the world — like sin and evil, for instance. But you have not to accept sin and evil.
Disciple: But everything comes from God.
Disciple: Christian mysticism derives its idea of rejoicing in suffering from intense Bhakti. Everything is seen to come from the beloved and welcomed.
Sri Aurobindo: What does not come from God? Even evil and sin come from God. Why not accept them? If God drives you towards your neighbour's wife why not accept it? They — sin and evil — have their place in the universe to fulfil and in evolution also. But that is not the law of the human soul; the soul is not here for suffering. The Gita speaks of the Asuric Tapas and says that people who invite suffering torture the elements in the body and torture "Me", Krishna, who am seated in the body.
When you say everything comes from God, you have to accept it with some common sense. It is all right so long as you are in the Vedantic consciousness. Everything comes from God is another way of saying that the Infinite manifests itself in everything. But it is not necessary that the manifestation of the Infinite here should take the forms of suffering and evil.
Disciple: Suppose I take everything as coming from God, can I not progress in the spiritual life?
Sri Aurobindo: You can take up any attitude which may give you spiritual benefit, for instance, if suffering comes, you can put your attitude roughly as follows: "I have been touched, I know the cause from which it comes, and I must get rid of it."
That is quite different from taking pleasure in suffering as the Christians do. In the movement of the Infinite there are both good and evil, suffering and joy, i.e., there are the higher and the lower movements and if you accept and invite the lower and take delight in it, well, you can have it! If you want suffering, God will give you enough of it. That way would not lead you to rise above it.
Disciple: Generally, suffering comes because something in the man takes delight in it.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course. Even when there is the rejection, something very obscure in the vital and the physical being takes pleasure in it.
Disciple: Why should I accept one movement of the Infinite and reject another? What is the criterion?
Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge is the criterion. You accept those movements that help you to grow and release you into the divine consciousness and reject those that bind you down.
Disciple: Supposing I change suffering into joy?
Sri Aurobindo: Then it is no longer suffering. It becomes an experience of Ananda. All this idea of suffering and self-immolation comes from the Asuric vital plane where suffering is the law of development and it is the Asuric influence that casts it on humanity.
Disciple: Is not suffering as well as evil a law of all manifestation?
Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. It is only a circumstance of our evolution. There are planes where the element of suffering does not enter at all.
Disciple: Is not duality a necessary law of manifestation?
Sri Aurobindo: No, it is also a circumstance of our evolution. Duality is the device of manifesting the Infinite in Ignorance through imperfect instruments. For instance, in the Supermind and Supramental world all these things — suffering, duality, etc. — do not enter at all because there is no possibility of them.
What is suffering? Suffering means that the consciousness is not able to bear the contact of certain forces and assimilate them, because I have not got in me what the Veda calls the ṛtam — the true or the right movement of consciousness. Take physical pain — what is it? A certain force comes to me and I am not able to seize it and master it, bear the contact and assimilate it, and the reaction is pain. If the full force, or even a sufficient force, to meet the contact were there, there would be no pain. It is the same thing with regard to what is called error, evil, or sin. Really speaking, it is the infinite Ananda which becomes perverted into suffering here in duality. But suffering does not enter into the infinite Ananda, as conceptions of good and evil do not enter into the infinite Power nor error into infinite Knowledge.
Error is there and enters into me, because I am not able to enter into the knowledge that comes to me in that form and extract it out of it and assimilate it. The same is with evil.
Disciple: But why is there this suffering in the world?
Sri Aurobindo: The fact is that the Infinite creates a figure of himself in the Inconscient — you can say, even in the Nescient — and tries to manifest by the pressure of his infinite power, higher and higher degrees of consciousness till it reaches the Divine. This happens because in the Infinite there are infinite possibilities and all of them are bound to realise themselves at some time. This universe is only one of its possibilities. If you ask why he creates it, we have to say, "Because it is possible." We are obliged to say, "He does it for Lila." It is not proper to expect God to act with the same motives as men. If you ask "why" and "for what purpose" in the human sense, then there is no reply.
Disciple: You said that there is the Asuric plane or world from which this idea of suffering comes. You said that suffering is the law of their development. Is suffering their only law?
Sri Aurobindo: There are two worlds: one Divine and the other Asuric. The Divine is a world of harmony, idyllic beauty where everything moves in order. You may call it a world of ideals — a world of freedom — i.e., free movement towards Truth, Power and Ananda. But it is not possible to realise it here on this earth. On the other side there is the Asuric world which is a world of force, violent and hard — a world of self-aggrandisement, self-mortification and self-immolation. Harmony there is not. It moves by conflict, struggle, strife. The Asura increases his power by suffering, by what the Gita calls Asuric Tapas — by violent means and self-torture, and thus tries to approach the power of the Gods.
Disciple: Humanity is badly off between these Gods and Asuras, because the perfection of the Divine world cannot be realised here on this earth as it is not the law of our plane, and on the other side there are the Asuric impulses and tendencies.
Sri Aurobindo: That is the old conflict between Gods and Asuras symbolised by all the religions.
Disciple: But the religions say that you have to follow the Devas and then you are safe.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not so easy. It may be very good for them but not for the man because they desire the Ananda from his Tapas in their own plane as the Asuras do in theirs. At a certain stage in the Yoga you can clearly see these two worlds and distinguish the impulses coming from there. But if you want to manifest the Truth here, you have to climb above to some still higher plane from where the world of the Devas and the Asuric world derive their truth. When I spoke of "the Divine world" I did not mean of "the greater Gods". Both Daivic and Asuric worlds deviate the sadhak from the straight spiritual climb.[1]
Disciple: You spoke about the increase of power through suffering. It is, I believe, of the same nature as the physiological reactions due to serums. Whenever a certain poison or germ is introduced into the system the whole system reacts in such a way as to produce more anti-toxin and anti-germ bodies than are necessary to kill the obstruction.
Sri Aurobindo: But that is not an example of suffering; it is the law of fight. It is well known that to a certain extent, fight increases the power in man. But suffering is quite different.
Disciple: But if we have to reject suffering, we have also to reject pleasure because it is also imperfect.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is why the Gita says you have to reject both, as also rāga and dveṣa, ignorance and partial knowledge. We have to go beyond duality to the true Ananda which is here misrepresented by both pleasure and pain.
Disciple: There is a sect of Shiva worshippers in Bengal who put themselves to great tortures. Perhaps their idea is that they will earn more puṇya, merit, by doing so.
Sri Aurobindo: The Indian ascetic idea of torturing the body is not exactly the same as the Christian idea of suffering. They don't want self-purification through suffering. They have the idea of self-mastery, that the body shall do what the spirit wants it to do. That is the idea behind asceticism. Self-mastery has been the trend of Indian thought all along its spiritual development. Even Buddha, when he started, had the idea of uprooting suffering and evil from the world. Only, he said that you can't achieve it here in this world unless you go to Nirvana. The Indian ascetic self-torture was done in the violent Asuric way and by self-will trying to master the body by throwing great vital force upon it. There was also a certain contempt for the body and for the limitations which the physical being imposed upon the spirit. It was a violent revolt against that bondage.
Disciple: The Christian idea is "Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Perhaps they are rewarded in heaven in proportion to their suffering.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not so mathematical as that. It only means: when you suffer more, more grace is upon you. It is an opportunity that God sends you to liberate yourself. According to them salvation is in the Cross — it is, in fact, a symbol of salvation.
Disciple: Even among Christians we find people who have different ideas. For example, the Christian Scientists simply deny the existence of suffering. It is said to be an illusion that will vanish if we reject it.
Sri Aurobindo: It is true. But to deny it only with the mind is not enough, you must deny it with the whole of your being.
Disciple: There was the instance of a man whom cobra poison did not affect. Is that possible?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is possible, if you can reject it not by the mind but with the physical consciousness also. But while you are rejecting it with your mind, your body is crying, "Oh, Oh!"
Disciple: But instead of simply denying suffering would it not be wiser to look for the cause of suffering and uproot the cause? Then suffering would vanish.
Sri Aurobindo: What is the cause of suffering?
Disciple: If I get pain in the stomach the cause may be that I have overeaten.
Sri Aurobindo: It is true that refraining from overeating may help you to get a stomach without pain. But even then you may get stomachache.
What you say comes to finding out what is called the law of measure of your nature and trying to keep it. There are two ways: one is obedience and the other is mastery. What you speak of is the way of obedience. It is all true so long as you are on the ordinary level. But I am speaking about it from the highest spiritual standpoint.
Disciple: How is it possible to transform pain into Ananda?
Sri Aurobindo: At first we can gain in two ways by suffering. One is, we learn to bear it; and the other, we find something in us which does not suffer. Wlien we have got the separation we can learn the way to transform suffering into Ananda. In the first stage some part of the being stands apart from the suffering and enjoys it. In the second, the Ananda of the separate self enters into the suffering. Lastly, there remains only intense Ananda and pain is transformed into it.
Disciple: A manuscript is said to have been found in Tibet which says that Christ came to India and learnt Buddhism, then went back to Jerusalem and preached his gospel.
Sri Aurobindo: It is a very old story. I believe it was a Russian who invented it. I heard it when I came back from England.
Disciple: There are so many contradictory statements concerning Christ and nobody is able to prove anything. Some scholars even question whether Christ existed at all.
Sri Aurobindo: It does not matter in the least if Christ lived or not. The thing for which the name stands is there, it exists.
Disciple: Is it possible that such a movement could gain in mankind without anybody to organise it?
Sri Aurobindo: That is not impossible.
Disciple: Do poetic creations also live in the same way?
Sri Aurobindo: Not in the same way.
Disciple: Did Rama live, or is he merely the creation of Valmiki?
Sri Aurobindo: There is no ground to believe that Rama is a historical figure.
Disciple: But the account of the conquest and other things?
Sri Aurobindo: Do you believe a king marches to Lanka with an army of monkeys? Valmiki may have taken it from tradition, or from imagination, and created figures which so well suited the Indian temperament that the whole race took them into its consciousness and assimilated them.
Some even believe that there were Ramayanas before Valmiki's and that even in the Veda you find Rama symbolising the Divine and Sita standing for the earth. It also may be that Valmiki brought it over from some Daivic plane to this earth. Rama might have lived but one cannot say anything definite.
Disciple: What about Krishna?
Sri Aurobindo: Well, Krishna stands on a different footing from that of Rama. He seems to be a historical character. All the myths that have gathered round his name may be later additions. But he is mentioned in the Upanishad and seems to have lived. He is mentioned there as "Krishna, son of Devaki — one who lived in the island"; there is also mention of Dhritarashtra. There Krishna is recognised as one of those who had the divin knowledge. He was, no doubt, somebody who made a very deep impression upon his age. But it does not matter whether Krishna, as he is popularly known, lived or not; Krishna exists in a much more real way than the physical.
It is very difficult to separate what the founder stands for and what has been added on to his name afterwards. For instance, very little of what is now known as Buddhism was taught by Buddha. Take the doctrine of karuṇā, compassion. It was brought in by the teachers of the Mahayana school.
Disciple: According to popular belief among the Jains, Krishna is now in the seventh hell! And in the next cycle he will be one of the Tirthankars! He is now in hell because he was responsible for so much killing — hiṁsa.
Disciple: In Bengal the Mahomedans have made Rama accept Mahomedanism and they have written books to prove it!
Disciple: There is a story of two Christian monks which is proved to be the same as that of Buddha and Ananda.
Sri Aurobindo: Religions are very funny. Instead of all these absurdities, if they get to the thing that is behind the religion, it would be more to the purpose.
Disciple: What do you think of Prāyaścitta as a means of purification?
Sri Aurobindo: It is atonement; it is a form of punishment for breaking some custom or social law. It has nothing to do with spiritual purification. It is akin to legal punishment.
Disciple: It is generally given in ritualistic Smritis.
Disciple: There is a belief that a bath in the Ganges purifies a man. Is there any truth in it?
Sri Aurobindo: In that way everything does some good.
Disciple: Ramakrishna used to say about the bath in Ganges that when you are taking the bath your sins hang on the nearest tree and as soon as you are out they catch you and stick to you again!
Sri Aurobindo: Some people are said to feel pure and light after atonement. But generally they are ready to make another fresh start! All these ideas about death in Kashi and removal of sins are simply heresy and deceits of the vital world.
2 JULY 1926
Disciple: You said the other day that birth, growth, decay and death, that is the law of life, but it is not absolute; it is only a groove created by Nature.
Now, we have in atoms an example of a different law of life because they have a beginning and an end, but they have no growth and decay. Their death has been studied by science in the case of radio-active elements. The scientists speak of the life of an atom as the period or length of time necessary for its disintegration. The life of an atom varies greatly; radium is said to have about 1300 years. But the point to be noted is that the death rate is exactly the same for old and newly formed atoms. They have practically no age, and their death is not brought about by decay and wearing away.
Sri Aurobindo: When I was speaking of 'life' the other day I meant to imply those forms of life like the plants and animals in which life is more organised and complex. Of course there is life as well as mind and even supermind in the atoms, but these are not manifest and not organised, not on the surface as it were.
These principles — life and mind — would not manifest if there was not the pressure from the higher planes; because of the pressure they come out and organise themselves. That is the reason why we feel pressure from above when we bring the Supermind. The Supermind tries to enter into Mind and Life and Matter and transform them.
Disciple: According to the biologists the characteristics of life are growth from within, assimilation, reproduction, and fatigue.
Sri Aurobindo: There is no fatigue in the vital force. Fatigue is only a circumstance due to the imperfect equilibrium between the physical and the vital. The same is with the mental. If you can open to the universal vital and mental you find they are inexhaustible.
Disciple: What is the nature of the balance between the physical and the vital?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by the nature of the balance? There is a fixed quantity of vital force and mental force that can be used by the physical body. The body is not able to bear a very great amount of those forces. That is why the modern man is much more delicate than the savage.
These words, 'assimilation' and 'reproduction', do not explain what life is. They are simply properties of life. You cannot know what life is with mental knowledge.
Disciple: We have different manifestations of life on the physical plane. If we take molecules, cells and organised bodies — the three forms — we find at each stage that it is necessary to have a higher force. For instance, molecules by themselves cannot form or build a cell, and similarly a cell cannot build a body. Their growth would only be an amorphous mass.
Sri Aurobindo: That is true. There is the difference in the scale, but there is no gap, really speaking, from Matter to the Highest Consciousness — though the manifestation of life when seen through the mind may seem so.
Disciple: For instance, scientists find a gap between dead matter and living. They can explain how the dead particles of food — i.e., Matter — pass through the stomach and how they are absorbed, but they cannot explain how they are changed into living cells. They also cannot explain how the nervous stimulus, sensation, is changed into thought.
Sri Aurobindo: How do you know that food particles are dead Matter? Because there is no such gap, the transformation cannot be understood by science. It is futile to ask 'why', because science can only know the 'process', the 'how', of things.
Disciple: Bergson says that mental knowledge only applies to the physico-chemical world and that the problem of life can only be grasped by intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is true. Mind itself understands nothing. You say "this is the reason" but the same act of reasoning can lead you to a quite opposite conclusion. Even when a man acts, or seems to act, according to some 'reason' he acts not by mental reasoning but by something from above — intuition. At a certain stage the substance of the mind itself is transformed into the intuitive mind. Then it is found impossible to resume the old mental activity. Intuition is an image of the Supermind; materials collected by the mind are there, of course, but they don't enter into the final decision. They are not the chief determining factor.
Then you go on developing more and more and manifest higher and higher degrees of supramental working in which the action becomes increasingly more independent of the mind.
Disciple: Can an individual in the Supermind know the function of, and deal with, the material world without the direct intervention of mental knowledge?
Sri Aurobindo: When it is perfect, there is no more need of mental knowledge.
Disciple: I mean to say this: take a piece of glass; it is found by experiment that certain substances in certain proportions are necessary to make the best glass.
Sri Aurobindo: If the supramental consciousness were perfected in the physical there would be no need of experiment.
Disciple: Do you mean to say that a supramental being could be a better electrician without study and training in electricity?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? Do you think that the Supermind is inferior to the mind? There is a doubt at the back of your mind whether such a thing is possible.
Disciple: Yes. It staggers the mind to think of it.
Sri Aurobindo: Up to the present time nobody has cared to bring down and apply this Power to the physical plane. Something was done in the mind and also in the vital being but not in the physical. Firstly, the yogis did not care for these questions of the physical plane. Secondly, they had other, more direct, means of dealing with them.
Disciple: Will all supermen be able to do it?
Sri Aurobindo: How many supermen are there? But as I say, this new Consciousness is a gradual unfolding. You find it in the atoms of your body and there is a consciousness in the cells; you can also feel and understand the forces on the physical plane when it descends. But it is very difficult to bring it down to the physical. And even when it comes down there are fields in which it is well organised and works better and others in which it struggles and stumbles and errs. It develops itself first in parts which are more prepared by your past development. Then the development is gradual and not miraculous. We may even doubt if it is possible to make a beginning at all, for, it is something which has never been done and the field is not prepared. But if we grant the supposition that this earth is the field of higher and higher manifestations of Consciousness, then it is perfectly logical to suppose that all physical phenomena would be brought under the control of this Higher Force.
Disciple: All supermen would be able to do it?
Sri Aurobindo: Once you start it will go on working and there is no reason why it should be limited. The past efforts have not prepared it — one can even doubt if it can come into the physical at all. The Higher Force is our one hope. We can make a beginning, afterwards it can be perfected.
Disciple: In this life?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon how long you can keep the body. Anyhow, it is perfectly possible that we may be able to make a start and it will go on gradually developing in man.
Disciple: Will it be perfected in the same life?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it depends upon how long you can keep the body. Even if we don't succeed in perfecting it, but establish it in the physical, then in time it will unfold all the degrees of the Supermind and there is no reason to suppose that it will not manifest even higher degrees than the Supermind — manifest not equally in all, of course.
9 JULY 1926
Disciple: In a case like that of X where the individual himself is averse to free himself from possession, would he be able to get rid of it by suicide? Is suicide bad in such a case?
Sri Aurobindo: Idon't think that is the way out. Generally these ideas of suicide come from the hostile world.
Disciple: Why do the hostiles give this suggestion of suicide?
Sri Aurobindo: Because they are satisfied with the Bhoga and they leave the body with the mechanical madness behind, or they may destroy the body.
Disciple: What would be the effect of this kind of possession on X's future life? Will there be any weakness tending to subject him to the same influence?
Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say; but, I suppose, it depends upon how for the psychic being withdraws from the movement. If the psychic being can reject it completely and cut itself away from this vital personality that has brought about this fall, in that case the vital personality would be left to its own fate. It may either disintegrate or go into animal births and sink lower or be incorporated in the Asuric plane. But it would not be any longer a part of him. Then the psychic being would have to build another vital and another physical being for itself and it may take several lives. If he were not possessed as he is, and if he could live like a normal man in this life, what he has done before might serve as a basis for his future evolution. But now he has to regain what he has lost. But supposing that the psychic being is not able to throw away this personality in him, then he may go on repeating the double movement and one can't say to what it may lead.
It is better for his spiritual evolution that this crash has come to him; for, if he had remained sane and allowed this force to work through him and himself taken enjoyment of it like Y, or become a big Swami and had disciples etc., then there would have been very little chance to recover from it.
Disciple: Would he be able to reject this personality in this life?
Sri Aurobindo: It is apparent that he can't reject it in this life. It is a very serious defeat for the soul and it seems now this personality is a part of the composition of his nature and he cannot get rid of it.
But the psychic being may in a future life be able to recover the lost ground by building a vital and a physical which would be better than they are now.
10 JULY 1926
Disciple: K says, "I will stay in a room by the side of the graveyard and inform me if Sri Aurobindo ever feels compassion for me."
Sri Aurobindo: The compassion is to be measured by the distance — the farther he remains there is a chance for more compassion. (Laughter)
Disciple: As there are forces that are hostile in Yoga, are there not forces also that help Yoga? What is their nature?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon the Yoga you are practising.
Disciple: It means there are forces that help in our Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there are forces that help us, not directly but from behind. You can say they are the Devas, they help from behind and they work under the Higher Force which we are calling down. In our Yoga we can't take their help completely because the help that is given by them, though considerable at certain stages is, after all, conditional. There are beings that are in sympathy with this effort we are making because they stand to profit by our Yoga. They would be prepared to help in proportion to the advantage they derive and to the extent to which you fulfil their conditions.
It may also happen that when you try to go beyond them, they may prove to be obstacles in your progress. For instance, they help you if you give them worship. Now, in this Yoga our aspiration being for the highest Truth, we cannot give our entire worship to anything but the Truth, and it is the Truth and the power of Truth on which we mainly rely for help.
Disciple: Axe there forces that help on all the planes?
Sri Aurobindo: Hostile attacks are direct and so you feel them more; the help that is given is from behind.
Disciple: Is the help given by these forces mental in its nature?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Generally the help is from the mental and the vital planes and we cannot take it because the help is always conditional.
By the way I was talking to the Mother about the story that has appeared in New India about the awakening of memory of previous birth in a child two and a half years old. She gave another instance of a similar case that is authentic. It occurred in her own family. She has a brother who is a cultured, intelligent man who does not believe in rebirth or any of these things. He has a daughter. Once, between the age of three and four years, when she was being given a bath by her father she closed her eyes and began to sing a queer tune. Her father asked her what was the tune she was singing. She replied with her eyes half-closed: "I used to play this tune when I was a shepherdess on the Paros." Now, none in the family had ever talked to her about the Paros [in Greece] or anything else. The only ones who could talk were her father and mother, for the servant in the house was an idiot. It stopped with that one memory and did not go any further; but it is clear that it was something that came upon her. If a child is grown up it comes as an imagination.
So this story adds weight to the possibility of the child remembering its previous birth. It is necessary that every case must be well authenticated.
6 AUGUST 1926
Disciple: Yesterday there was some talk about the distinction between feelings and emotions. Emotions are those feelings which require the process of thought.
Sri Aurobindo: Your distinction is at least fifty-year-old psychology! Nowadays they don't make any distinction. Formerly, they used to lay stress on mental classification, they used to subdivide and analyse all mental functions. But nowadays they deal, or try to deal at any rate, with the fundamentals. And so they now say that 'feelings' and 'emotions' used in the ordinary sense are the same thing. If you use 'feelings' in the wider sense it may include 'emotions'. But that is not the sense in which it is ordinarily used.
Disciple: I did not mean to say that there is any absolute distinction between them. I only referred to the practical distinction. For instance, when I say "I feel hungry" I do not mean the same kind of feeling as a higher emotion.
Sri Aurobindo: Really speaking, hunger is not a 'feeling'. You can say it is a kind of sensation which creates the feeling of hunger in your vital and physico-vital being corresponding to some 'need' in the physical.
Disciple: But take patriotism, for instance, we can't feel 'patriotic' unless we have the necessary mental development or enlargement.
Sri Aurobindo: Idon't admit that. Even dogs have some sort of 'patriotism'. What man has done is that he has woven a lot of things round all the animal impulses of nature. Ordinarily, what men call patriotism is nothing more than the instinct of the herd. The bees and the ants are also patriotic, they fight for preserving the herd and there also the individuals sacrifice their lives in order that the community may live.
Disciple: Only, they do it without delivering lectures! (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and without proclaiming aloud that they are the highest in the scale of creation because they do it. It is the same animal nature; what happens in man's case is that he raises it up to the mental level and there weaves all kinds of things around it — thoughts, emotions, ideals, etc. and they justify to his mind the vital-animal nature.
Disciple: The Gita says dhyāyato viṣayān... saṅgaḥ — by thinking about objects of enjoyment attachment for them is born. There it is clear that attachment is due to thinking.
Sri Aurobindo: I don't think that the Gita, strictly speaking, is dealing with the origin of emotions in that couplet. It merely tries to show that when the mind "runs after" and "dwells upon" something, it gets attachment. But it does not mean that thought precedes emotions always.
Disciple: Sometimes a connection is established between a vital desire and thought.
Sri Aurobindo: That always happens. For instance, certain desires are accompanied by certain thought-movements. And so, when the same thought-movement takes place, it reciprocally awakens corresponding desires or emotions. But that is due to association. It does not mean that the thought creates the movement in the emotions.
Disciple: But if I think about certain events I can reproduce the emotion which I felt in the past.
Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another matter. It is recalling by memory. I could even reproduce illness in the body by thinking of it! It does not mean thinking is responsible for it.
As I said, most of the things which man delights in are not much different from those which animals delight in. We have inherited and brought into our human life much of the animal nature almost intact. All that you call emotions are, really speaking, vital in their origin; and, as I have already told you, man has simply woven a web round them. Animals also have the same vital feelings, emotions and even thoughts. But in man they work in a different way, because he is a mental being. Man raises up all these things and forms what I call the 'vital mind' or what you call 'emotions'. Emotions according to my classification are the vital part of the mind. Man simply has raised up the animal's vital impulses and tried to mentalise them. The result has been what I call "weaving a web round" them. All these things therefore appear justifiable to him by his reasoning.
Disciple: I raised the question in order to understand the distinction between the mental, the vital, and the physical.
Sri Aurobindo: Imake a distinction between the mental-vital and the vital proper.
Disciple: What is the vital proper?
Sri Aurobindo: The vital being is that which is concerned directly with life. You can call it 'life-force', and all the movements connected with the life-force belong to the vital being. The fundamental working of the vital being is that it takes the form of desire — the desire for objects, for possession, lust, ambition and, generally speaking, all ṣaḍ ripus — the six inimical tendencies — belong to the vital plane. This wrong form of the vital movement has a Truth behind it which assumes this wrong form because of Ignorance. The vital being is, really speaking, an instrument, and must be used as an instrument of the Jiva, the Central Being. It is a means of effectuation in life. In the Ignorance it takes the form of desire to effectuate itself; but in the Higher Knowledge it becomes sheer will, the power of effectuation without straining of desire, etc.
Man simply raises these vital movements, which belong equally to the animal nature, to the mind. That is all. He deludes himself into thinking that when he has connected some emotion with the vital movement, it has become pure and when his mind can give a rational explanation of it, he has got a justification to go on with the vital play. In fact, that is the way in which these vital forces have kept their hold upon man. Take, for instance, what man ordinarily calls 'love'. It is primarily nothing else but the vital impulse which he can call the sex-impulse. It is everywhere in nature. Man mixes it with a certain movement of emotion and calls it love and thinks everything is justified by it.
Disciple: What is the physical?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you understand by the physical?
Disciple: We mean by it material objects without life and mind.
Sri Aurobindo: That is not quite correct, because your body is material and yet it has got life and mind. In the physical itself you have got life and mind; only, they are involved. But if you can grow conscious on the physical plane you will find that there is life and even mind in the cells of the body. Of course, the life and mind we find in the physical world are not the same as we find on the vital or the mental plane. But you can't deny that there is mind in it. It is that which performs the mechanical operations of the body with such precision. The physical mind is the mind which sees only the physical and material aspect of things and refuses to see any other aspect.
Disciple: That is the ordinary mind.
Sri Aurobindo: Most minds are nothing else than that.
Disciple: What should a man do to raise himself from mind to Supermind?
Sri Aurobindo: The first thing one has to do is to know the nature of the being, and then he must turn to something higher than the mind for the attainment of the Truth. The mind can give some knowledge about it, but it cannot give the complete knowledge nor can it effect the transformation.
Disciple: You said just now that man has the animal nature in him for the most part. The European philosophers make an exaggerated statement of the same truth. They say the vital is at the root of everything in humanity, and they seem to idolise it.
Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? Man is an animal, or rather, there is the animal in man.
Disciple: These thinkers seem to deny the existence of anything higher in man. They almost seem to say: "As man is an animal, it is good for him to be a conscious and an efficient animal, and he must try to be an efficient nothing else." In Bernard Shaw we find that insistence.
Sri Aurobindo: But Shaw does not say that there is nothing higher than the animal nature in man! Shaw is an acute thinker. He refuses to be deceived into the belief of the greatness of man. He says that man must rise higher.
But it is one thing to have an idea of rising higher and quite another thing to believe that man is a highly evolved being. One of the most fundamental requisites for the search of the Truth is a critical reason, almost a cynical mind, which tears off the mask and refuses to accept current ideas, thoughts and opinions. It is a kind of solvent. Man must have the courage to see the Truth as it is without any deception about it. Shaw has got that critical mind to a great extent and we find the same in Anatole France.
The second thing that a man must have in order to reach the Truth is the aspiration for a Truth higher than what has been attained. He must watch all ideals, principles and truths and see which are possible and how far each ideal can be realised; and, most important of all, he must know the conditions required for the fulfilment of such an ideal.
Disciple: If the Supramental Power is working, then why do so many difficulties from outside come to a sadhak like X?
Sri Aurobindo: There are hostile powers that do not want the manifestation of this Higher Power. The more you progress the more they become furious and try to attack you. Secondly, it is not the highest Supramental Power itself that is working in the beginning. It presses down upon the mind and through the movement of the Higher Mind it shows the ignorance and the imperfections.
Disciple: How are we to get rid of these difficulties?
Sri Aurobindo: First of all, you have to remain calm; that is, establish perfect equality of temperament, and not be moved by them. Whenever a movement of ignorance or imperfection comes you have to watch and see from where it comes: whether from without or from inside your nature. Then you have to refer it to the Higher Knowledge. You will find the Light. But in the beginning it will be mixed up with your mental movements. In the light of that knowledge you have to reject what is false and give consent only to the highest movement. As you progress more and more you will find a higher light and a higher power which shows the way of meeting these forces and of mastering them.
Ultimately, when you have got the highest movement, you become too strong for the difficulties. Of course, the higher protection is given to you. But the first condition for getting the protection is that one should constantly open oneself to the Higher Power. Secondly, one must have a firm resolution and sincerity. Thirdly, a complete faith in the protection of the Higher Power.
Disciple: Do these difficulties come as a trial?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, from a higher standpoint you can look upon them as tests of your progress in Yoga. They show you your weak points and you can derive benefit out of them if you take them in the right spirit.
Disciple: Suppose a yogi conquers the difficulties, would it mean a universal conquest for him?
Sri Aurobindo: First of all you have to conquer them in yourself. Then, in your surroundings; that is, in those who will come within your influence and at last, with the sanction of the Divine, you can also influence events. For instance, there is no reason why a yogi should not be able to influence events in Russia or America, sitting in his chair. He can also put his power behind men who are in the field and thus change the course of events.
Disciple: Does the yogi work upon world-forces?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he can — by putting his influence upon them to change their course.
Disciple: Have the world-forces knowledge of the Truth?
Sri Aurobindo: No. They are only forces and want to realise themselves. It is a way of speaking when one says, "A yogi's power is working." All power is Divine Power and the individual is merely a point d'appui, point of support, and he knows it all the time that the Divine Power is working.
He can also use it egoistically and produce great effects but in proportion as it is limited by his ego or desire, it becomes imperfect and limited in potency.
13 AUGUST 1926
Disciple: I want to know the distinction between the various psychological parts of the being:
The mental — mental proper, mental vital, and mental physical.
The vital — vital mental (desire-mind), vital proper, and vital physical or physico-vital.
The physical — physical mental, physical vital, and physical proper.
Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to put the distinction in words and, even if one could, it would be very inadequate and partial. If you take the mental being of man you will find that there is what may be called the pure mental part of it, which is high above the head and communicates through the brain with the physical life. It is the 'thinking mind'. It is concerned chiefly with reasoning, creations of mental forms and the activity of the mental will.
Then there are the emotions and sensations which are not really mental in their origin and stuff; they rise from the vital being and, coming up into the mind, they take up mental forms — mental emotions and mental sensations. That I call the mental-vital. According to some, it is purely vital.
And from the head to the throat, the centre of speech, so to say, you have the mental being.
Disciple: What is meant by buddhi?
Sri Aurobindo: Buddhi is what I call the pure mind. It combines the intellect and the will. It is the faculty of thinking and reflection. It reasons. It tries to answer the questions, "What is the truth? What is it that I must do?" and also, "How must I do it?" And when this pure mental faculty develops we find that it has a certain power of perception and mental vision. It creates forms and speech.
Disciple: To what does the centre of speech belong?
Sri Aurobindo: The centre of speech is at the root of the throat and speech is, really speaking, a mental faculty. It tries to communicate the result of thinking and reasoning through the medium of speech. It serves as an expression of thought, and it is also used by the emotions and the vital being for their expression. First they go up from the lower parts and express themselves through speech. But speech is essentially a mental faculty.
Disciple: What is manas? What is the difference between Buddhi and Manas?
Sri Aurobindo: When we use Manas in the general and wider sense it means the mind, meaning the whole mental activity — reflection, emotion and mental sensation, all taken together. But when we use Manas in Philosophy we mean by it the sense-mind. It is located near the heart. For instance, sometimes when people get presentiments they get it in the sense-mind. That is why in the Upanishads Manas is called the sixth sense, while Buddhi generally means the intelligence with the will. It finds out the Truth or tries to find it out and then decides to act according to it.
Then there is the mental-physical which is not the same thing as the physical mind. It is not this which is behind matter and supports it. It is certain habitual, mental movements repeating themselves without any act of pure reasoning. Even if there is reasoning in it, it is mechanical. It goes on moving in its round even when the other parts of the mind are not conscious of it. It goes on mechanically repeating old ideas and sanskaras etc. There is neither vital urge in it, nor any creative activity of the mind proper.
Disciple: On each of the three planes — mental, vital and physical — I suppose there is also an element of the Supermind. What is it that corresponds to the Supermind in the mental being?
Sri Aurobindo: Supermind on the mental level is Intuition. It is not pure Supermind. It is the mental form of it.
Then there is the vital being from the navel and below it, or, according to some, from the heart down to the navel. In its own nature it is life-movement or force trying to effectuate itself in life. Its crudest form is 'desire'. In feet, it is force trying to possess and enjoy. It lays hold on objects and puts its own stamp upon them. It lays hold on things for possession and enjoyment. It is that which creates in man ambition, lust, greed for money, for power, all egoistic forms of desire, etc. Well, that crude form is very useful for perpetuating life in Nature.
It is the vital being in man which wants to do this or to do that. It is busy trying to throw itself out. That is the essential vital nature. And behind it is the vital mind, which creates thought-forms that are different from mental thought-forms. They go out straight from the vital being and not from the mind. The vital mind accompanies the vital movements, knows them and expresses them in speech and mental forms, but it does not reason. It thinks and plans even as the pure mind does, but it thinks and plans in another way. It is a mind that stands apart and arranges how to realise the impulse.
Disciple: But then it is not true thought, it is false.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not false. Only, it is vital thought and not mental. For instance, when Mussolini says, "Italy shall have a place under the sun," it is not a mental thought, it is a vital thought.
Disciple: Is it not an emotion?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not primarily an emotion. It is a thought straight from his vital ego. Then it may be accompanied by the emotion of patriotism in him and he may even ask his reason to find a justification for it. He may tell his Buddhi: "Well, I have said such and such a thing. Now you try and find out a reason for my saying so and also why it is true."
Disciple: Then what is the dynamic mind?
Sri Aurobindo: The dynamic mind is the will, while the vital mind is the desire-mind. It desires the vital urge without any reasoning. As I said, when the mind works, it first tries to answer the question, "What is the truth? And what is it that I must do?" And then it does not stop there, it also answers, "How am I to do it?" That part is the will. It also plans and arranges, but in a different way. The dynamic mind is the will that tries to carry out the decisions of the intellect.
Then you have got the physico-vital, that is, the physical part of the vital being. It is necessary in order to realise the vital impulses on the physical plane. It is that which is concerned mainly with passing events and transitory movements. It is that which is irritated over trifles, easily upset. It gets exhilaration of joy very soon, and is also very soon depressed. It is a restless part concerned with passing things and makes one restless. The vital may have the necessary urge, but if this physical part is not ready one cant realise it on this plane.
All this forms the vital being. It is a very necessary part for the full development of the being. In fact, it is the vital which supports the mind in its upward movement — at least, it should, because without it the mind would not be able to effectuate itself in life. It might remain only with ideals, ideas and principles.
Disciple: That is to say, the vital must consent to the mental ideas.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, because without it nothing can be accomplished.
Disciple: Butthen, is it the mental which draws outthe vital force or the vital which calls forth the mental energy?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon what is first in the field. It may be the mental or the vital in different individuals.
Disciple: So that if it supports the mind then there is every chance of the mind succeeding?
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. The vital may consent to and support the mental being, but it may not have the necessary strength to carry out the ideas in life.
Disciple: Which is the supramental element in the vital being?
Sri Aurobindo: The supramental in the vital is, you can say, vital intuitions and inspired impulsions and inspirations. It is something that comes down from above direct to the vital being — not necessarily touching the mind. It is that which gives correct intuitions as to what is to be done. There are persons — not necessarily yogis — who, without reasoning or thinking, at once find out the right thing to be done.
All men of genius have got that capacity — a sort of half-supramentalised vital being, which makes them always do the right thing, the thing that ought to be done. They don't commit mistakes in their actions. Generally they don't reason. In fact they can't give reasons. But yet they do the right thing and succeed.
As I said, the vital being is a very necessary part of the being. When it is changed it becomes an instrument in the hands of the Higher Power. Then there is no longer desire but the Higher Force which acts through it. In order that it may be able to do it, it has to open itself to the Truth above the mind.
Disciple: What is prāṇa?
Sri Anrobindo: Prana is the basic stuff of consciousness according to the old phraseology. It is that which is behind all the movements of the being here. It is different from citta which is the higher consciousness. There is, for instance, prāṇa ākāśa and citta ākāśa.
Then there is the physical being. There you have the physical mind, which all have got. It observes and accepts the physical things around us but does not go beyond them. It accepts them as they are, and though we can't say it 'thinks' about them, yet it is that which arranges them in a sort of way. It hardly reasons except when acting in conjunction with higher faculties. It is, you may say, the farthest end, just like the point of a pen, which is necessary for the work of the mental being. When I take up a pen and my hand begins to write something upon paper without, of course, thinking anything about it — say, some word or name — it is the physical mind that is doing it.
Then there is the vital-physical or physico-vital. It is the vital moving in the physical being. It is most important to us because it is that which makes the different organs act: the functions of the physical being are regulated by it. It is that which gives health and strength to the body. It is for this reason that the Upanishads speak of prāṇas —vital breaths — moving in the system. They are most important because they form as it were the nerve-ends of the higher faculties. You can do nothing well if they do not respond to the higher faculties, to the inner being. For instance, if you are a musician, you may have the best music within you, but if your fingers do not act properly you can't succeed. They form, as it were, the farthest end of the inner being through which the inner being expresses itself on the physical plane. It is just like the pen through which the thought finds expression.
It is also the reason why the brain is considered as the most important part of the body. Not because it creates thought but just because it forms the connecting link by which thought can find expression here. It is the apparatus which receives the higher working.
Disciple: Painting also is in the same difficulty as music.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, even poetry. There are people who get fine poetry in the mind, but the moment they take up the pen nothing comes.
Disciple: That is what happens to K. He says he has many things to write but as soon as he takes up his pen, only the pen and ink remain. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: And then there is the physical proper, the material part. It is the consciousness of the body, you can say, almost the 'flesh consciousness'. It is a consciousness even in the cells of the body.
The supermind working in the physical is rather difficult to speak about. One can hint at it. You can say it is something in the very physical cells which makes them do precisely the thing that is necessary for the body. Because it is there, the body, for instance, knows what it should eat. If left free it would tell you what it requires and what it does not. For instance, you take up an object and, without any mental action or otherwise, you know its weight, straight as it were, from the physical. But most civilised men have lost that capacity. Men turned too much to the mental and vital faculties that were rising in them. Generally, the vital interferes too much with its desire for food and says, "I want that," and "I like this," "I like that." And the mind also, with its ideas, "It is good to take this food," and "This contains this, therefore it is good." But the physical consciousness if left free, knows what it needs. The body has no desires, it has needs, and it knows what it needs.
Disciple: Can men get back that lost faculty?
Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to get it back in its entirety, but we can recover it to a great extent. In this respect we have lost many of the faculties of primitive men.
Disciple: There is something in medical science which supports the view. You gave out now that there is a consciousness in the cells. It is found that when food is taken, it is absorbed by the cells when the substance in the stomach is in a certain condition. It is then that the nutritive elements are absorbed by the system to the greatest extent. Now, when a poison is taken and even when the conditions for its absorption are there ready, it is found that the cells of the body reject the poison; that is, they don't absorb the poison. It is called selective absorption. It, as it were, knows and refuses to take a poison.
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, yes.
Disciple: The animals, for example, know what they ought not to take.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is the physical consciousness. They sometimes know through the smell. We find in man that as the mind has grown at the expense of the vital being, so also it has done at the expense of certain capacities of the physical being.
Of course one can argue that if man had not stressed his mental being so much, he would not have tried to find out the truth about these things. The mind would have remained idle. But the mind need not have remained like that. The mind is a consciousness turning back upon itself and looking down from above at the vital and physical. The mind could have taken the evidence of the materials which the vital and the physical beings had to offer and then gone further on with them, trying to understand them, instead of losing those faculties.
Disciple: To what plane does aesthetic creation belong?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon different people. Generally it belongs to the vital plane. But there are differences. For instance, style for its own sake, I mean the beauty of poetic style — beauty of language, rhythm, etc. — all that belongs to the vital plane. But aesthetic creation can be on every plane. Originally, all that comes from the Ananda plane.
Disciple: From what plane did K's letter of today come?
Disciple: Is it vital beauty?
Sri Aurobindo: It is vital imagination. It is something working in its own way without regard to facts. If the man is powerful he can make his imagination realise itself.
Disciple: Is that what we call a dreamer?
Sri Aurobindo: Dreams? Dreams belong to all planes and not to one.
Disciple: I mean people who can't realise their ideas and go on imagining things.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Idealists who have not got the vital force to put their ideals into life and make them effective.
Disciple: What is memory? Is it a mental faculty?
Sri Aurobindo: Memory is everywhere. All that transpires, of which one may be conscious or not, is recorded in the Prana, the basic stuff of consciousness. But one remembers only that which one has attentively heard and fixed in his mind. But generally these impressions are received by the Prana and immediately they sink into the subconscious, or the subliminal consciousness, or whatever you like to call it.
There is the recorded instance of the servant girl of a famous French scholar of Hebrew. She used to hear, while at work, her master repeating the Bible in Hebrew. To her it was meaningless gibberish. Then when she was in an abnormal condition she repeated her masters recitation exactly, with the same accents and without a mistake. She knew nothing of the language — that is, evidently the mind did not understand anything of it. But all the time it was being recorded in the subconscious being. Even the soles of our feet have got a memory of their own.
We have divided and analysed these functions but it is, like all analyses, convenient only for understanding; things in reality are not so cut-and-dry. They don't work separately. There is a great deal of action and interaction among them and the being is much more complex in its actual working than may be supposed from this analysis.
For instance, we have divided the being into the mental, vital and physical. But when we speak of the mental, we take the mind working on its own plane, so to say. But all the parts are interconnected and the mind is working from above right down to the lowest plane of consciousness; and so it is with every principle. It is only for the convenience of understanding, that we classify them.
Disciple: Do not these movements of nature correspond to the movements in the universe?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Otherwise they would not be found in the human being.
Disciple: What is pain?
Sri Aurobindo: You mean grief? It is vital in its nature.
14 AUGUST 1926
Disciple: Is there any relation between the aesthetic being and the psychic being?
Sri Aurobindo: There is a sense of beauty in the aesthetic being and also there is a sense of beauty in the psychic being. Beyond that there is no necessary relation between the two.
The aesthetic being belongs to the vital plane. If the man is not merely a master of form and line, the aesthetic being sees that the beauty of form expresses something. The aesthetic being sees the beauty of form and line and sees also the beauty of something that is expressed, while the psychic being sees the charm of the soul.
The psychic being has no beauty as it is ordinarily understood. It is rather charm, — an inner beauty, beauty of the soul. But it need not necessarily have beauty of form, — though it may also have that. A man who may have a fine soul may not be physically beautiful.
Disciple: Nobility of soul, must it not express itself in physical beauty?
Sri Aurobindo: That is what should be; but it is not so always in life. A man's soul may be as noble as that of Socrates and he may be as ugly!
Disciple: Children are all and always beautiful.
Sri Aurobindo: In them it is the vital glow.
Disciple: Does psychic beauty consist in colour or line or such other characteristic?
Sri Aurobindo: Psychic beauty does not, or may not, express itself in colour and line like aesthetic beauty. It is something quite apart from them, though it may express itself through them. It is a certain indefinable delicacy and charm.
Disciple: That means psychic beauty has delicacy.
Sri Aurobindo: If you catch at words like that you misinterpret what I say. Vital beauty also has got delicacy. But it is not that. Sometimes a look or a smile expresses not the vital but the psychic beauty. Well, some flowers have got psychic beauty in them: for instance, the jasmine is a very psychic flower.
Disciple: The flowers have beauty but it is something new to learn that they have psychic beauty.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is the beauty of the soul of the flower.
Disciple: Soul of the flower!
Sri Aurobindo: I knew it would astound you. You think the flowers have no soul? It is again man's ignorance that makes him think that he is the greatest being in creation. Some dogs have got a much finer psychic than many men!
Would you believe if I were to tell you that there can be a psychic element in the love-making of animals? Take our cat, Big-boy. When he makes love to Bite-bite, he is physical; when he makes love to Baby, he is vital; when he makes love to Mimi, he is emotional and sentimental; and when he makes love to Girly, he is psychic!
Disciple: Then how is it that man is regarded as the highest being in creation?
Sri Aurobindo: He is high because there is in him the possibility of evolving a divine life. You can say also that he is high because he has developed a mind and the mind gives him a chance of conscious evolution. But it does not necessarily follow that because man is a mental being he has used his mind for his evolution. Exactly because he has a mind, man has an infinite capacity to be devilish. He brings to the help of his devil a mind, and the devil himself can't be so bad as man with his mind when he puts it at the service of his vital being.
Disciple: Infinite possibilities! Both ways, divine and devilish!
Sri Aurobindo: It is the egoistic ignorance of man which makes him think he is the highest in creation.
Disciple: But, then, there is the great difference between man's body and the animal's.
Sri Aurobindo: That is all. And even that is not so much as you try to make it out to be. After all, what is the difference between the animal body and the human? If you see carefully, you will see you have discarded the tail, and instead of walking on four legs you have been using two, and the other two you have changed into hands. There have been slight but very important changes in the brain and some details here and there. You have cast off your fur and horns.
Disciple: Not all men! K has a lot of fur yet. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: You see, after all it is not so great a change in the physical as would create a gulf between animal and man! No. All that is human nonsense. Man is great because he can open to something higher and can consciously go beyond the mind and live a divine life upon earth.
Disciple: You said just now that jasmine is a psychic flower — is it so in the shape and colour or in the fragrance or in what?
Sri Aurobindo: No. I do not at all mean that the psychic beauty of the flower is in these external things. It is very difficult to convey the idea of that beauty to the mind.
Disciple: How do you find the rose?
Sri Aurobindo: The rose is strongly vital; the inner soul is lost in the form there.
Disciple: And the lotus?
Sri Aurobindo: The lotus, of course, is a symbolic flower. It represents the opening of the inner being to the higher truth. You can see that the lotus is a mystic flower.
Disciple: In Indian works of art, can you recollect paintings that have a psychic beauty in them?
Sri Aurobindo: Idon't remember just now, but Isaw some had it, not many. You have seen that picture of Nandalal Bose, Pathahārā — Way-lost [cow]?
Disciple: Yes.
Sri Aurobindo: There is something of it there, and there was another picture by Abanindranath, which I now forget. But generally Abanindranath draws his inspiration from the vital plane.
Disciple: Has it nothing to do with mental beauty?
Sri Aurobindo: No. That is why it is difficult to know what is psychic beauty unless you can feel it with your soul. For instance, you come across a passage in a book, and you exclaim: "How fine!" Well, that is mental beauty but that is not psychic beauty. Again, a man's face may show a bright light of intelligence but that is also not psychic beauty: it is due to intelligence.
Disciple: Can a person appreciate psychic beauty without having the psychic being evolved in him?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? There is a psychic being in everybody.
Disciple: But if the psychic being is not strong?
Sri Aurobindo: It may not be strong enough to impress itself upon the mind or the vital being, but it may have psychic feelings and there are persons in whom these psychic feelings have an influence on their lives.
Disciple: How do things of beauty help ones spiritual development?
Sri Aurobindo: That depends upon what you mean by spiritual development. It helps man's growth as everything else does. Cultivation of the sense of beauty refines the temperament. A refined temperament is much more easy to purify than an unrefined one. This is the thing which Gandhi does not realise: that the development of the sense of beauty is as much a part of perfection as anything else. Not only that; if a man has not developed the sense of beauty he would miss the path of approach to the Supreme which is through beauty.
Disciple: You said some time back that the Superman would always look young as at 18.
Sri Aurobindo: Did I say that? I would like to say that he would look ageless, that is to say, his body would carry an impression of agelessnesss.
28 SEPTEMBER 1926
Disciple: What is the characteristic of the Purusha on each plane of being — the physical, the vital and the mental — looking at the world?
Sri Aurobindo: The Purusha looks at the world as Prakriti represents it to be. On the mental plane Prakriti represents thoughts, ideas — in short, all mental movements. On the vital plane Prakriti represents itself as desires — in short, as action of the vital force. On the physical plane it represents itself as the unchangeable law of physical life.
Disciple: When the Purusha separates itself from Prakriti, how is it possible for it to aspire for something higher?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not the Purusha but the Prakriti which has to be made to aspire and made fit. The Purusha is silent, passive, looking at Prakriti.
Disciple: What is the characteristic way of Purusha looking at the world from the Supermind?
Sri Aurobindo: The Supramental Purusha looks at the world as the Truth looks at it.
Disciple: How does the Truth look at the world?
Sri Aurobindo (with a gesture of hand pointing up) : You get up there and you will see.
Disciple: In the Taittiriya Upanishad the following passage occurs: "Vijnana extends the sacrifice — what is dear is its head; delight is its right side; great delight, the left side; bliss, the body; Brahman, the lower part, the foundation."
Sri Aurobindo: Here puccham, tail, means the end, the basis. It means the basis of Ananda is the Infinite, the Brahman.
Disciple: Further it says: "By that this is filled; faith is its head; Truth of movement the right side; Truth of being the left side; union, the body; the great plane, the lower part, the foundation."
Sri Aurobindo: It means if you want to rise to the Supermind you have to attain the mahas — the wide, infinite and universal consciousness which is its basis; ritam means Truth of movement; satyam is Truth of being; śraddhā is the acceptance of the Truth when it is there.
Disciple: When the Truth is there present on the Supramental level, why is Shraddha required?
Sri Aurobindo: Shraddha here means that when you see the Truth, you are ready to accept it. Yogātmā means that the lower being has to attain union with the higher being in order to go up to the level higher than the Mind.
Disciple: About the prāṇamaya also it speaks and adds that it is fulfilled by it.
Sri Aurobindo: It says that the mental — manomaya — is higher than the vital and is fulfilled by it.
Disciple: It also says "yajñas is the head; the rik is the right side; sāman is the left side; command is the soul; atharva-aṅgirasa is the end and foundation."
Sri Aurobindo: Rik means the intuitive movement in the mind; sāman is the rhythm of the movement and harmony. Atharva means the effective action of the physical plane. Aṅgirasa, in the Veda at least, means the power of Agni which releases the cows, the Light, from the cave of darkness of the pāṇis with the help of the Word and Indra and the other gods.
Disciple: There is a description of the vital and its function.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, "vyāna is the right side; apāna is the left side; ākāśa is ātmā." It may refer to the vital ether and pṛthivī puccham pratiṣṭhā clearly means that the vital is based on and looks from above upon the physical.
Disciple: Does the Christian Trinity correspond to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva?
Sri Aurobindo: No. The Indian trinity refers to cosmic powers which preside over certain movements in the universe. The 'Son' in the Christian Trinity means perhaps the Divine in man. The 'Holy Ghost' symbolises the Divine Consciousness.
3 OCTOBER 1926
Sri Aurobindo: True humility is when you are ready to admit your own defects for which, again, you need not feel adhama — fallen. You feel that you have all the defects that are in universal nature and that you are not personally superior to anyone. You need not keep this feeling when the defects are gone and go on repeating "I am nothing, let me be full of sin," — also one should not be swollen-headed about it. Really speaking, it is absence of arrogance — humility is not a good word.
Disciple: Has the sense of humour a place in spiritual perfection?
Sri Aurobindo: If the siddha never laughs it is an imperfection.
(incomplete)
[1] This docs not refer to the true Gods; it should be noted that there are Devas — little and great gods — on many planes of consciousness. Worship to them binds the human soul to the lower levels and thus prevents its ascent to the Higher Consciousness beyond the mental, vital and physical consciousness.
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