Chapter 5To People in India, 1914–1926 · Draft of a Letter to Nolini Kanta Gupta

however, was necessary and made the necessary preparation of the material instruments — I can now only look forward as a subsequent eventuality in a yet distant vista of things.

To possess securely the Light and the Force of the supramental being, this is the main object to which the Power is now turning. But the remnant of the old habits of intellectual thought and mental will come so obstinate in their determination to remain that the progress is hampered, uncertain and always falls back from the little achievement already effected. They are no longer within me, they are blind, stupid, mechanical, incorrigible even when they perceive their incompetence, but they crowd round the mind and pour in their suggestions whenever it tries to remain open only to the supramental Light and the higher Command, so that the knowledge and the will reach the mind in a confused, distorted and often misleading form. It is, however, only a question of time: the siege will diminish in force and be finally dispelled.

23 June 1916

He wishes me to say that he sent back the MS according to your request because he felt that it was quite impossible for him to deal with it in the near future.4 He is now living entirely retired and engrossed in his yoga. He has put off all external activities and so organised his time as to be able entirely to concentrate upon it alone. He has removed from his immediate surroundings all who are out of harmony with the atmosphere necessary to the yogic quietude. He sees no one and receives no visits. His friends in Madras do not see him when they come. Even his old guru Vishnu Lele who proposed to come here at this time has been requested to postpone indefinitely his visit. For the same reason he has ceased altogether to write. His own works, even those of which the publication has been arranged, — except the few of which others take the responsibility and which make no demand on him, — are lying unpublished for want of time to 4 In this draft, Sri Aurobindo referred to himself in the third person because he intended the letter to be sent over the signature of his secretary. — Ed.