Chapter 23Helpers on the Way · Taking Refuge in Their Protection

After realisation whatever the Higher Will demands is the best1 — but first detachment is the rule. To reach the Freedom without myself went for years through the utmost self-imposed bareness of life.

15 November 1933 By the way, do you think that the Mother or myself or others who have taken up the spiritual life had not enjoyed life and that it is therefore that the Mother was able to speak of a joyous sacrifice to the Divine as the true spirit of spiritual sacrifice? Or do you think we spent the preliminary stages in longings for the lost fleshpots of Egypt and that it was only later on we felt the joy of the spiritual sacrifice? Of course we did not; we and many others had no difficulty on the score of giving up anything we thought necessary to give up and no hankerings afterwards. Your rule is as usual a stiff rule that does not at all apply generally.

17 October 1935

I have heard that X has come down to this sorrowful world of ours from one of those rarefied invisible worlds; for one like him, everything becomes a Grand Trunk Road.

Nobody has found this Yoga a Grand Trunk Road, neither X nor Y nor even myself or the Mother. All such ideas are a romantic illusion.

August 1935 1 This reply was written in answer to a sadhak’s remark concerning the wearing of beautiful clothing. — Ed.

These are questions that I cannot answer — it is not for me to reply to such queries.1 I can only say that the final aim of the Yoga here is to bring down the supramental Truth (all other aims and stages being preliminary and instrumental) and organise its action. The Asram proceeds on the assumption that this has to be done through myself and the Mother and in accepting this aim and the descent of this Truth the sadhaks accept myself and is descending and cannot attain it otherwise. If they follow or want some other Truth, they are free to do so but they cannot do it here, because here they will not succeed, as it is not the end for which the Divine Force is working here. And it has been found that if they reject the Power that comes from us to follow something which is not that, it leads them out of this way and they cannot profit by our presence or by the Yoga or form a harmonious unit in the work that is to be done here. That is all I am prepared to say in this matter.

30 December 1932

This morning when I saw the Mother I got some contact with her consciousness. I was very impressed by her saying that she thought I am sincerely doing sadhana and by her giving me the flower called Supramental Future. Both these things gave me hope, especially the latter, for I have been wondering whether I would realise up to the supramental consciousness.

These days many forces have been pulling me in different

directions; in this way I don’t arrive at the Truth or at the organisation of my being. Now and then I get experiences, 1 The questions Sri Aurobindo was asked are not available. — Ed.