Chapter 24Helpers on the Way · Their Attitude towards the Sadhaks

but I also get confusion and nothing is settled. Sometimes the very law of life seems to be fight and disagreement.

Today I felt a quiet peace in the vital and the Mother’s

consciousness. For a long time I remained quiet after seeing the Mother. I am getting many experiences, but the consciousness gets diverted by suggestions and by activity.

1. A quiet mind makes consciousness easier. 2. If you keep a quiet mind and a constant contact with myself and the Mother and the true Light and Force, then things will become easy and straight — it is the only way to get to the realisation.

3. It is a mistake to think that this method will not lead you to the supramental realisation. It is the only way to advance towards the supramental change.

4. It is because you become doubtful and begin to follow after other ways and other (lower) experiences that you get again confused and full of incertitudes.

5. Keep to one way, the way shown to you by me. It is by following this way that you can reach the wideness you want — if you run about on many ways, that will bring not wideness but confusion.

6. Here in the lower nature there are many things, but they are in a state of disharmony, so to follow them all together means disharmony, confusion, want of organisation, fight. In the higher (supramental) nature there is a greater wideness and much more is there than in the lower nature; but all is harmony, organisation, peace. Follow therefore the one way that leads to the higher supramental nature.

7. Do not be impatient, because full knowledge does not come to you at once. In quietude of mind keep the contact, let the true Light and Force work and with time all knowledge will come and the Truth will grow in you.

2 February 1932 You may be sure that we shall not desert you and that we would never dream of doing so. You say truly that what drives you into these moods is the Asuric Maya or a goad from the Asura — it is what we speak of as the hostile Force. What answers to it is a part of the human vital that has an attraction or habit of response to suffering, self-torment, depression and despair. But in itself what comes is from outside and not from within you. It is, as I have more than once told you, a formation that has been made and repeats itself and this is shown by the fact that once it starts it goes round always in the same course of ideas, suggestions and feelings. The first thing you have to do is to recognise it for what it is. It was not, for instance, “all your nature” that advised you not to write to the Mother, but it was the suggestion of this Force. If you recognise these things as suggestions — and of a Force adverse to you and your sadhana — it is easier to meet and answer than if you see it as something in yourself. The second thing is to take refuge in your better and higher self against that vital part which responds to these suggestions. You must not regard this part as all your nature, but only a part of your vital which has taken an exaggerated prominence. Even in the vital the larger part by far was that which had high ambitions, generous feelings, a large-heartedness which everybody was obliged to recognise. That is what you must regard as your real self and you must believe that the Divine has a use for that and for the faculties that have been given you — believe not in a rajasic or egoistic spirit but in the spirit of the instrument called and chosen to purify itself and be fit for its work and service — and because of that you have no right to throw it or yourself away, but have to persevere quietly till you are rid of the lower nature and the Asuric Maya. And, last but not least, you have to develop the power and the habit of taking refuge in the protection of the Mother and myself. It is for this reason that the habit of criticising and judging by the outer mind or cherishing its preconceived ideas and formations must disappear. You should repeat always to yourself when it tries to rise, “Sri Aurobindo and the Mother know better than myself — they have the experience and knowledge which I have not — they must surely be acting for the best and in a greater light than that of ordinary human knowledge.” If you can fix that idea in yourself so that it will remain even in clouded moments, you will be able to face much more easily the suggestions of the Asuric Maya.

The idea of suicide is always a sign of these Asuric forma-tions. Like all the rest it is perfectly irrational — for the suicide after death goes through a hell of misery far worse than was possible in life and when he is reborn he has to face the same problems and difficulties he fled from, but in an acuter form and in much less favourable circumstances. The other justifying suggestions were equally irrational and untrue. Wherever you went, the blow would always fall on ourselves and the Asram, for you are and would remain too intimately identified with us for it to be otherwise and distance would make no difference. And certainly the verse in the Gita does not cover a case of suicide, but refers to the consciousness and concentration of the Yogi in his departure.

18 October 1934 You need not think that anything can alter our attitude towards you. That which is extended to you is not a vital human love which can be altered by external things: it remains and persistently we shall try to help and lift you up and lead you towards the Light where in the union of soul and heart you will recognise the Friend and the Mother.

* I was overjoyed to read your letter — first because it relieved me from the anxiety which your persistent trouble had given and, most, because of the clarity of consciousness which has liberated you. Yes, that was the main difficulty — that and the clinging to wrong ideas which it has created. You should never doubt about the reality and sincerity of our feeling towards you, mine and the Mother’s — for it creates a veil and separates, where there should be no separation, and it is a first barrier against that openness which is necessary if one is to receive fully or even at all from the Guru. Of course, I saw that something had blinded you and