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Each object is related to the background, consciousness. It should be understood that the content of consciousness is always necessarily a unity. In that sense it may be said that there is never more than one object present in consciousness at one and the same time, that is, present in the space-time sense. No two objects can be thought about together without being reduced to a unity. This unity is thus at each moment the object of consciousness. This is true when we distinguish between cause and effect. In reality, these two notions make up a whole, it is impossible to distinguish between corresponding notions. Cause and effect are grasped by the same act of consciousness and have an indissoluble unity.

  The same is true of the idea of time. One may say, strictly speaking, that the idea of time is timeless. The idea of a succession implies that one seizes simultaneously and synthetically the different items of this succession. Otherwise, there would be a succession of ideas but not an idea of succession.

  What is the mind?

  In the dream as well as in the waking state, the mind is nothing but a function bred of desire. Silent plenitude precedes mental activity and follows it. The mind is nothing but an instrument of this fullness which it makes use of in order to act, just as we make use of our legs in order to walk.

  Have the three states anything in common?

  Mental activity and desire are active in the waking and in the dream states. In deep sleep desire and mental activity are suspended.

  The common factor of these three states is the absence of the knowledge of the real. This knowledge of the real is not the knowledge of objects. It is only possible when the illusion of the me and of the world have disappeared. It must be thoroughly understood that all the aspects of multiplicity are superimpositions overlaying the Ultimate Reality and by which it is veiled. The vanishing of this superimposition reveals the truth which is then unmasked as is a shadow which one took to be a thief.

  What difference is there between a mystic in the usual sense of the word and a realized man?

  A mystic in the usual sense of the word is a man who seeks experiences and whose ideal is to reach a state of ecstasy. The search for ecstasy, for the experience of ecstasy, has nothing to do with realization. Ecstasy is a state – one can enter it and emerge from it – without having known any real transmutation.

  The realized man on the other hand, has regained the consciousness of his true nature, and is thereby reinstated in his primeval and eternal being.

  The mystic, once he has emerged from his ecstasy, returns to his human nature, practically unchanged. He is in much the same situation as before and face to face with all the difficulties of life. Whereas for the realized man, the world has lost its objective and distinctive (consequently problematic) character, and then appears to him as shining forth from the Self.

  I have listened to lectures on spiritual matters for many years, and yet I cannot attain the experience of the Self, and I am still obsessed by my problems. Do you think that I may one day be free?

  This question is put by the non-Self. Now, a fragment can never have any notion of the whole. Eliminate the non-Self and what remains will establish you once and for all in joy and freedom. When one does not follow the direct path, one fails to see the chief problem, because one is absorbed by secondary problems, and one moves forever in a circle.

  The fundamental problem arises from a mistaken identification with the body and the mind. All other problems stem from this one. When one ceases to cling to false values and when one clearly understands that the mind is incapable of grasping reality, one does not have the experience of the Self in the objective sense in which we understand this expression, but one is established in a state of being where all our problems leave us, just as a headache goes when we have hit upon the right cure.

  Objective methods, although they are sometimes the cause of a certain opening out of the mind, shatter any chance of the experience which we are talking about.

  In order to conduct an inner action on oneself I assume that one should be in a state of inner steadiness, in perfect health. Now I often spend restless and oppressive nights. Do you see how I could go about such a work on myself, a thing which I must do because I have a deep desire to find truth?

  One must start from a certain number of given elements, and see what your present possibilities are. These possibilities can only be discovered in the fire of action, from moment to moment, and on condition that no judgement, no comparison with the state of your neighbour or the state you would like to be in, shall interfere. One must never be other than one is. If you follow this line of thought, you begin to feel yourself to be unique and that is what you are. By accepting your given state without any evasion, without any desire to escape, you begin to understand in a tangible way what you are capable of doing, and this understanding will act as a stimulant. By making the best of your present possibilities, which you fully know since you have completely accepted them, you will experience a blossoming which will be organic as well as psychological. Any other approach would be ill-timed and would only increase your impatience. From such a starting point you will respect both yourself and others, leaving all competitiveness behind you. This approach will show you your situation in society, with an entire certainty. It will give you a beneficial state of balance, a harmonious art of living. You will be at ease within the framework of your possibilities. Your deep desire to reach truth has given you a foretaste of it and you know that what you are searching for does not belong to the world of objects, but lies within yourself without any object.

  As to the asthmatic condition I detect in you, you will cure it neither by allopathic nor by homeopathic treatment. Prepare yourself a better state of health by an adequate diet, chiefly composed of cereals and devoid of any acidity. Sugar should be particularly avoided and any recipes which make use of cooked fats. Asthma is a centripetal defensive and repressive reaction which stifles your physiology. It is a complaint entirely bred of fear; fear of an over-authoritive father, fear of tomorrow, of not being able to face certain situations, fear of losing one’s capital, one’s prestige, fear of loneliness, of death. With certain people whose entire personality circles around such a state of fear, things may come to such a point that, if the usual support accidentally disappears, they feel the absence of fear to be eminently uncomfortable and construct a new support for it. The fear of want is a thirst that can never be quenched, even if a man is satisfied to overflowing, for there is no such thing in this world as total security.

  This satisfaction of a desire can provide us with a temporary satisfaction, but a new desire arises, directed towards another object, which no more than the first can give us a final gratification. Insecurity and impermanence are in the nature of things and that is the charm of life. Entire security only pertains to a state which is truly desireless. It is only when you come to understand with a total comprehension, that objects do not contain happiness, that you will suddenly find yourself in an immense void, where you can no longer refer to anything, and this state will give you a foretaste of a scented solitude. This silent fullness will never leave you, whatever the worries of the day may be. You will then have a new outlook on life, owing to your discrimination your energies will no longer be dictated to you by fear, and a marvellous sensation of expansion and liberation will take the place of oppression and stifling. You will then be cured at every level of your being and once and for all.

  I am enslaved by so many bonds preventing me from leading this deeper life of which you speak, I feel tied hand and foot and quite helpless.

  You are not free because you are convinced that you are your body and mind, whereas you are the ultimate knower. Foremost amongst these bonds are your thoughts. If you direct your attention towards the timeless reality, which understands these bonds, and not towards phenomena mistakenly taken to be objective, you will find that these bonds cease to be impediments. They are in fact nothing more than alarm signals which awaken you to a new outlook. Happy the man for whom the alarm signal sounds loudly.


  I suppose that during the Sadhana certain food should be avoided. Speaking as a medical man, I should like to know what you advise in the way of food which may help us to acquire this awareness and watchfulness.

  All acid foods should, I repeat, be avoided because they destroy the machine and empty it of its substance. All recipes containing fatty foods – and particularly when they are cooked – blunt and clog the physical body, preventing us from defining a problem with accuracy. Sugar in any form, with the exception of certain fruit taken with moderation, mollifies character, is a cause of laziness and wavering, leading one to avoid all problems, or put them off. Tobacco, alcohol and meat are stimulants causing heat, absent-mindedness and various perturbations which prevent the clear flow of discriminating thought. The most balanced diet is based on unrefined cereals. Of course all this is only a general guideline and should be adapted to individual cases.

  In this path towards supreme introversion, what is the part played by the guru?

  The guru being fully established in the background, in the immovable Self is, according to the traditional expression, “the destroyer of darkness”. His quality of spiritual teacher (Acharya) necessarily implies that he is able to determine the nature of the disciples’ residues from the past and therefore provide him with the help which he requires. For him he unveils, one after the other, the various aspects of truth, and it is by listening to the teacher and afterwards to himself that the disciple gradually assimilates, with the help of meditation, the content of truth.

  The teacher observes his disciple. He discovers the knots and diverted centres of energy, and when he realizes that there is no more antagonism and that the conflicts are sufficiently reduced, he intervenes and helps towards the realization of the experience.

  This is the moment when the presence of the guru is essential. Once the experience has been lived, the final establishing in the experience will happen sooner or later. For he who has realized the Self, any feeling of personal qualification has completely disappeared and if he were suddenly asked who and what he is, he would just answer “I am”.

  The relationship between the master and his disciple is one of special intimacy. It is neither personal nor impersonal (in the conventional sense), but it has an incomparable character due to the fact that the guru, being established in the Self, is in fact the real “me” of the disciple. Thus it is said according to tradition, that the true guru is the guru in oneself.

  I do not yet see very clearly how the teaching of the teacher acts on his disciple.

  You must understand that the experience takes place beyond any mental framework. The disciple being always in an attitude of listening to his master who endeavours to make him understand what the Self cannot be, the disciple goes through a certain number of transformations and eliminations which finally leave him completely stripped. Later on, each time the disciple turns his thoughts towards non-duality, he will then go through the same set of eliminations each time with greater ease and less resistance. Finally, he will directly reach a state of plenitude; the final establishment in this state will then only be a question of time.

  Do you think that religions have aimed at this establishment? And if so how did they proceed?

  Sacred art by its very nature points towards the principle. Unfortunately, it began to disintegrate with the appearance of Gothic art and completely disappeared at the time of the Renaissance. From this time on, religious art lost its sacred character. The presence which one feels in a Norman church is already lost in Gothic buildings. The vertical striving which is their characteristic and which is usually felt to be so full of pathos and so specifically religious, is in fact an escape towards heights and indicates the disappearance of our feeling of the Divine in the centre of ourselves. The Norman church by its very structure was for the believer an environment which could help him to enter into contact with his own divine centre. On the other hand, in a Baroque building, the divine presence is shattered by the multiplication of forms and colours which challenge the mind on all sides, excite and exalt it, but which entirely prevent any true meditation.

  I know how interested you are in Indian music. It has remained truly sacred up till now because it has kept its traditional character, having always been transmitted from master to disciple. It is interesting to observe this mode of expression, where sound fills the dimension of sound space, ever returning to its centre, its fundamental point, the tonic. And the tambura with its four strings, the dominant sound being constantly heard, the superior tonic twice, and the inferior octave symbolizing the background, the Eternal Presence, while all the other instruments enjoy all possible development and variation. This reminds me of Goethe who, after having heard Bach’s music for the first time, said: “This music makes us forget space and time, it would seem to be eternal harmony discoursing with itself”.

  Could you please reassure me that it is really because I forget my true nature that I am held a prisoner of the identification with a small myself considered to be active?

  That which dwells in us and is conscious of our individual existence transcends it. What transcends this individual existence is our true nature which is never absent. The Self is beyond all our vicissitudes, beyond all the modifications of the three states, beyond birth and death.

  Although we claim thoughts, sensations and emotions which constantly change as being our own, we are nevertheless not implicated in all this. The Self seems to take upon itself the characteristics of the individual (jiva) and the chain of causes and effects. From the human point of view, we have an identity which is expressed by the pronoun me and this me, the ego, is confused with the mind-body. The ego finds itself in the following situation: it may apprehend reality, i.e. return to the Self, or continue to identify itself with the mind-body considered to be active. But this identification is just a bad habit. We must become deeply conscious of it so as to free ourselves from it permanently.

  If we cease to identify ourselves with any modification whatsoever, we are no longer affected by changes. One then understands that those objects which appear during the waking state or during dreams, are mere forms which are reabsorbed in the state of deep sleep. One then knows that one is the witness, the absolutely non-implicated Self and that objects can no more affect this witness than a lion in a dream can devour the dreamer.

  But what happens to the world in all this? The divine game, the Lila of the Lord, in the positive sense in which Aurobindo uses the word?

  He who aims at Ultimate Reality places no accent on the things of the world: it would seem completely futile to him since he has ascertained the unreality of things. He is more interested in the magician than in his enchantments and his achievements. The world is directed towards the perceiver, it celebrates the ultimate perceiver. He who is established in the Self is in no way interested in theologies and cosmologies. The construction of a cosmological hypothesis, such as the one which looks upon the world as a divine game, is a mental hypothesis due to ignorance, which does not understand the true nature of the Ultimate. The Shastras, and I am thinking more particularly of Gaudapada, assert that “Creation is of the very nature of the Shining One, for He only exists, He and no other”.

  Ultimate Reality is itself multiplicity, diversity. It is a waste of energy to strive to explain the world and its origin, which only diverts us from the essential Experience.

  What is the ultimate state according to the Vedanta?

  The ultimate state is a state where one distinguishes nothing, where one does not find oneself distinct. This state is a spontaneous realization of which one is aware, it is beyond any notion of distinction.

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