Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

11. Difficulties of the Path (1)

Fragment ID: 3799

Yes, the solution is certainly the Divine Grace – it comes of itself intervening suddenly or with an increasing force when all is ready. Meanwhile, it is there behind all the struggles, and “the unconquerable aspiration for the light” of which you speak is the outward sign that it will intervene. As for the two natures, it is only one form of the perpetual duality in human nature from which nobody escapes, so universal that many systems recognize it as a standing feature to be taken account of in their discipline, two Personae, one bright, one dark, in every human being. If that were not there, yoga would be an easy walk-over and there would be no struggle. But its presence is not any reason for thinking that there is unfitness; the obstinacy of the worldly element is also not a reason, for it is always obstinate in its very nature. It is like the Germans in their trenches, falling back and digging themselves in for a new mass attack, every time they are baffled. But for all that, if the bright Person is equally determined not to be satisfied without the crown of light, if it is strong enough to make the being unable to rest content in lesser things, then that is the sign that the being is called, one of the elect in spite of outward appearances and its own doubts and despairs – who has them not, not even a Christ or a Buddha is without them – and that the inner spirit will surely win in the end. There is no cause for any apprehension on that score.