Letters to a Young Disciple

... today I found for the first time that my heart took certain things very deeply. I don’t know how to keep it under the psychic control

The heart is part of the vital — it has to be controlled in the same way as the rest, by rejection of the wrong movements, by acceptance of the true psychic surrender which prevents all demand and clamour, by calling in the higher light and knowledge.

What makes the physical so weak that it can’t do without the vital’s help?

The physical is not weak, it is inert, because inertia is its principle — it is meant to be an instrument.

I could not understand this — “peace we must have, but not the peace of a devastated nature or a mutilated capacity incapable of unrest because it is incapable of intensity.”

Not tamasic peace which is at rest because it does not aspire after anything, is too tired by suffering and misfortune etc. to care for anything.

During the state of self-realisation very little sense remains of my body. I do not know what it does or where it lies.

That is usual. I was in that way unconscious of the body for many years.

I would very much like to bring out my inner being and live in it.

If you call down the higher consciousness, its descent of itself will show you your inner being as separate from the outer. Until then you can only go on observing yourself and the movements of your nature till you see the difference.

"The feelings and aspirations of the psychic being are all turned towards truth and right consciousness and the Divine; it is the only part that cannot be touched by the hostile forces and their suggestions."

"The heart is part of the vital — it has to be controlled in the same way as the rest, by rejection of the wrong movements, by acceptance of the true psychic surrender which prevents all demand and clamour, by calling in the higher light and knowledge."

What is required for the psychic to emerge?

Aspiration for devotion, and refusal of egoistic movement. When the psychic touches there is an intensification of love but the lower vital mixes up the love with all sorts of demands.

You wrote a few days back that the signs of the psychic’s coming forward are psychological. What are these signs?

A central love, bhakti, surrender, giving everything, a sight within that sees always clearly what is spiritually right or wrong and automatically rejects the latter — a movement of entire consecration and dedication of all in one to the Mother.