Usually there is a fullness from the early morning till the afternoon, and an emptiness in the evening. But for the last three days there has been practically no sadhana in the morning. Why so?
I don’t know. Times and seasons vary according to the poise and flux and reflux of the forces in the consciousness. It is not a thing to which you can affix a rationalised and systematised explanation. One can feel it and understand in the essence of the consciousness, but not formulate precise cause and effect.
When the higher consciousness is active, it is very easy for me to deal with my lower nature. But that action is rare and stays for a short time only. Can it not be made more frequent?
It is the condition of the lower nature itself that interferes with the frequency.
The peace has been there for years, and it is still descending more and more from above. What then prevents it from becoming dynamic?
Probably because the nature is taking long to get ready.
One cannot say whether the conquest is near or not, — one has to go on steadily with the process of the sadhana without thinking of near or far, fixed on the aim, not elated if it seems to come close, not depressed if it still seems to be far.
What is needed is to be perfectly silent and support and watch how the Mother’s Force acts and how our being reacts to it.
Yes, that is the best.
Even when I rise to the higher consciousness, I sometimes feel dullness, dissatisfaction and an absence of the true higher spiritual joy, happiness and peace. How can it be possible?
I don’t know unless you are unconscious or in trance and it is therefore a blank to your ordinary consciousness when you come out? If it is like that it is perhaps one reason why the Force has so much difficulty in coming down and the Peace that comes is only passive.
At times I feel neither happy nor dull, neither active nor passive, neither liking nor disliking the sadhana.
It is a neutral condition — that frequently comes.
On one of the Darshan days, it seems you burnt some being which had been troubling N very obstinately for a long time.
Such burning gives only a temporary relief if the part that called the being does not reject it. The thing comes back in another form.
Is not the present absence of experience, descent, etc. due more to the obstruction of the general working of Nature than to our own resistance? I feel the resistance more in the general Nature than in myself.
It comes to the same thing so long as the response to it is not rejected.
Can you give some general characteristics of the different forms of Force?
I have never classified the different forms — they can be hundreds or thousands in number. Force varies its form according to the work it has to do.
I don’t know that there is any utility here in distinguishing between force and energy as in Science. Energy is simply force in action.
The lower nature is called lower because it is unenlightened — it can’t be enlightened and changed by ignoring it, the higher has to be brought there. So one must speak of both, not of the higher alone.
The satisfaction of the vital desires is a normal feature of the ordinary life, only it must be controlled and regulated by the mental will, so that one may not be enslaved to the desires. It is only if one turns to the spiritual life that one has to get rid of vital desires.
Once one takes up the spiritual life, what is done in the worldly life can no longer be a standard to be followed.
During the morning meditation my state was elevated, the silence was deepening. But then my vital fell into depression and adverse suggestions came. I took them as a test. But from where do such tests come and why are they necessary?
Your description is too vague. From what you wrote it may just as well be the reaction that frequently follows an experience; the adverse Force coming in with a contrary movement. Tests come sometimes from the hostile forces, sometimes in the course of Nature. I suppose they must be necessary, since they always come in sadhana.
Do you mean that an experience is followed sometimes by a movement of the hostile or adverse forces?
Very often.
The stress of the inertia is the general obstacle; it may be overcome in one thing, it may not be overcome in another. Your physical mind applies conceptions in a much too stiff and narrow way. Mind and life do not move in set formulas. “The inertia is the obstacle in both cases, in one it has yielded, so it ought to have yielded in the other” is not a logic that can serve. The balance of conditions in the two cases can be different so as to make the inertia effective in one case while it is overcome in the other. The same with the result of the concentrations; it depends on many things what the immediate result may be.
I thought it was understood that what I wrote to you about persons was private. Experiences, one’s own or others’ if one comes to know about them, should not be talked about or made a matter of gossip. It is only if there can be some spiritual profit to others and even then if they are experiences of the past that one can speak of them. Otherwise it becomes like news of Abyssinia or Spain, something common and trivial for the vital mass mind to chew or gobble.
Sadness is of no use — it is itself a form of tamas (inertia) and therefore does not help recovery.
As for the inconveniences, you should take them as a training in samata (equality). To be able to bear inconveniences is one of the most elementary necessities if one wants to enter into the true spirit of Yoga.
These generalisations on either side are not of much value. One does not need to get a hatred for food in order to get rid of the greed for food. On the other to develop dislike for certain things may help to reject them — but that too is not always the cure, for they may remain in spite of the dislike.
By the increasing signs of inertia I knew that the lapse from a good to a lower state was coming. Why could it not be prevented? Was it really an inevitable fall?
There is nothing inevitable, only things that happen, because of the condition of the consciousness, the forces that work on it and the reaction to the forces by being more responsive to us than to the inertia.
You wrote about “an effort in which also there is the spirit of surrender”. Kindly explain to me how to keep a spirit of surrender in my effort.
By calling on the Force to aid the personal effort, by not getting into despondency and the rest of it if the results do not come, by a never failing tranquil confidence in the final outcome of the sadhana.
Headaches “produced by a pressure from above”, as you put it, are not due to the pressure or produced by it, but produced by a resistance. R’s headaches have nothing to do with Yoga or sadhana.
The pressure does not “bring” a resistance. “If there were no resistance there would be no headache” is the proper knowledge, not the reverse. So long as you think that it is the pressure that brings the resistance, the very idea will create the resistance. R’s case is not an example either of headache due to resistance or of headache due to pressure — it is due to ordinary physical and psychological causes.
Certainly, you cannot have reached the point of thinking always about the Mother alone or Yoga alone! If you had, there would not have been trouble of sex or depression. You were at the very least thinking of yourself also.
When will my spiritual life take a positive and permanent step forward?
It will happen I suppose when you are fit for it — i.e. when the vital and physical being begin to take an un-egoistic interest in the Yoga.
When my mind presses the vital and the ego for an inward turn, they start a revolt. That brings in all sorts of wrong forces. The sadhana then becomes difficult and dangerous instead of simple, happy and safe.
There is no reason to accept their despair, depression or revolt. One has persistently to separate oneself from these things — if one separates oneself they cannot occupy the being. There is also no reason why one should insist on the sadhana being simple, happy and safe and, if it is not, refuse to follow it.
Since my being wants so eagerly to be free from inertia, is it not possible for you to remove it?
How do you propose that I should remove it? By magic? Even if that were done, your nature would call it back. It is only if you determine to be rid of it and make the necessary endeavour, not for a day or two, but for as long as it is necessary that it can go.
You cannot conquer a difficulty by avoiding it.
I see from your answers that I did not try to develop my inner being which is of great importance in the Integral Yoga. The self-realisation was all I sought for. Shall I now centre my sadhana around the inner being?
The whole question is whether you can go farther in the realisation of the self without either purification of the vital and the ego or development of the inner being. If you can, it is all right, but it does not look as if you could.
Today I did not have the usual tendency to throw myself out in gossiping with friends. So I remained indoors. But they came to my place and we had the normal chit-chatting, which resulted in my full externalisation.
How does Nature bring about the things or events through others, when it finds it difficult to do it directly?
Nature forces are conscious forces — they can very well combine all that is necessary for an action or a purpose and if one means fails, take another.
In that case whatever obstacles we meet with in the form of accidents are purposely arranged by Nature to hinder our progress.
Not by Nature, but by certain forces of Nature. Nature has in her both helpful forces and hindering forces.
