Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

12. Difficulties of the Path (2)

Fragment ID: 3810

I reply to your letter as Mother is still too much occupied to write.

What was in her view at the time was what is called in the psychology of Indian yoga a “sattwic” perfection, perfection in the form of the qualities and actions such as would satisfy a mental idealism and be very visible and appreciable to others. This often generates a kind of pride and self-righteousness, a “sattwic” egoism, which makes the consciousness rigid and not flexible and plastic to the Divine Will. The true spiritual perfection is not so much of form; it is of the very substance of the consciousness and, as it consists at its base in an entire harmony with the Divine Consciousness and a free and plastic self-adaptation at each moment to the Divine Will, its forms and the forms of its action are not so easily visible or appreciable. The word “righteous” does not apply to its movements – they are simply right because they are in unison with the Divine.

Obviously real imperfections are not to be indulged – to take that as a principle would be dangerous; the “apparent” imperfections are those which might appear so to an outward view only. A “righteous” anger might easily be part of that self-righteousness which the Mother had in view, and to be identified with the movement of anger righteous or otherwise is spiritually undesirable. But a movement of the kind meant may seem to an outward view identical with the movements of imperfection in the nature, yet be quite the right one in the sense of rightness which I have indicated above. It is not a question of any particular action or attitude to be taken but of the consciousness within giving a free and supple expression to the Divine Will acting through it.

Çakya-Muni is a name of Buddha – “the sage of Çakyas” – the clan to which Buddha belonged by birth and of which his father was the “king”.