-Letters on Yoga Vol 23

Regarding your question about a complementary soul and marriage, the answer is easy to give; the way of the spiritual life lies for you in one direction and marriage lies in quite another and opposite.  All talk about a complementary soul is a camouflage with which the mind tries to cover the sentimental, sensational and physical wants of the lower vital nature.  It is that vital nature in you which puts the question and would like an answer reconciling its desires and demands with the call of the true soul in you.  But it must not expect a sanction for any such incongruous reconciliation from here.  The way of the supramental yoga is clear; it lies not through concession to these things, - not, in your case, through satisfaction, under a spiritual cover if possible, of its craving for the comforts and gratifications of a domestic and conjugal the comforts and g life and the enjoyment of the ordinary emotional I desires and physical passions, - but through the purification and transformation of the forces which these movements pervert and misuse.  Not these human and animal demands, but the divine Ananda which is above and beyond them and which the indulgence of these degraded forms would prevent from descending, is the great thing and that the aspiration of the vital being must demand in the sadhak.

-Letters on Yoga Vol 23

I have stated very briefly in my previous letter my position with regard to the sex-impulse and yoga.  I may add here that my conclusion is not founded on any mental opinion or preconceived moral idea, but on probative facts and on observation and experience.  I do not deny that so long as one allows a sort of separation between inner experience and outer consciousness, the latter being left as an inferior activity controlled but not transformed, it is quite possible to have spiritual experiences and make progress without any entire cessation of the sex-activity.  The mind separates itself from the outer vital (life-parts) and the physical consciousness and lives its own inner life.  But only a few can really do this with any completeness and the moment one's experiences extend to the life-plane and the physical, sex can no ]'Longer be treated in this way.  It can become at any moment a disturbing, upsetting and deforming force.  I have observed that to an equal extent with ego (pride, vanity, ambition) and rajasic greeds and desires it is one of the main causes of the spiritual casualties that have taken place in sadhana.  The attempt to treat it by detachment without complete excision breaks down; the attempt to sublimate it, favoured by many modem mystics in Europe, is a most rash and perilous experiment.  For it is when one mixes up sex and spirituality that there is the greatest havoc.  Even the attempt to sublimate it by turning it towards the Divine as in the Vaishnava madhura bhava carries in it a serious danger, as the results of a wrong turn or use in this method so often show.  At any rate in this yoga which seeks not only the essential experience of the Divine but a transformation of the whole being and nature, I have found it an absolute necessity of the sadhana to aim at a complete mastery over the sex-force; otherwise the vital consciousness remains a turbid mixture, the turbidity affecting the purity of the spiritualised mind and seriously hindering the upward turn of the forces of the body.  This yoga demands a full ascension of the whole lower or ordinary consciousness to join the spiritual above it and a full descent of the spiritual (eventually of the supramental) into the mind, life and body to transform it.  The total ascent is impossible so long as sex desire blocks the way; the descent is dangerous so long as sex-desire is powerful in the vital.  For at any moment an unexcised or latent sex-desire may be the cause of a mixture which throws back the true descent and uses the energy acquired for other purposes or turns all the action of the consciousness towards wrong experience, turbid and delusive. One must, therefore, clear this obstacle out of the way; otherwise there is either no safety or no free movement towards finality in the sadhana.

The contrary opinion of which you speak may be due to the idea that sex is a natural part of the human vital-physical whole, a necessity like food and sleep, and that its total inhibition may lead to unbalancing and to serious disorders.  It is a fact that sex suppressed in outward action but indulged in other ways may lead to disorders of the system and brain troubles.  That is the root of the medical theory which discourages sexual abstinence.  But I have observed that these things happen only when there is either secret indulgence of a perverse kind replacing the normal sexual activity or else an indulgence of it in a kind of subtle vital way by imagination or by an invisible vital interchange of an occult kind, I do not think harm ever occurs when there is a true spiritual effort at mastery and abstinence.  It is now held by many medical men in Europe that sexual abstinence, if it is genuine, is beneficial; for the element in the retas which serves the sexual act is then changed into its other element which feeds the energies of the system, mental, vital and physical and that justifies the Indian idea of Brahmacharya, the transformation of retas into ojas and the raising of its energies upward so that they change into a spiritual force.

As for the method of mastery, it cannot be done by physical abstinence alone - it proceeds by a process of combined detachment and rejection.  The consciousness stands back from the sex-impulse, feels it as not its own, as something alien thrown on it by Nature-force to which it refuses assent or identification - each time a certain movement of rejection throws it more and more outward.  The mind remains unaffected; after a time the vital being which is the chief support withdraws from it in the same way, finally the physical consciousness no longer supports it.  This process continues until even the subconscient can no longer rouse it up in dream and no further movement comes from the outer Nature-force to -kindle this lower fire.  This is the course when the sex) propensity sticks obstinately; but there are some who can eliminate it decisively by a swift radical dropping away from the nature.  That, however, is more rare.

It has to be said that the total elimination of the sex-impulse is one of the most difficult things in sadhana  and one must be  prepared for it to take time. But its total disappearance has been achieved and a practical liberation crossed only by occasional dream-movements from the subconscient is fairly common.

-Letters on Yoga Vol 24

You seem not to have understood the principle of this yoga.  The old yoga demanded a complete renunciation extending to the giving up of the worldly life itself.  This yoga aims instead at a new and transformed life.  But it insists as inexorably on a complete throwing away of desire and attachment in the mind, life and body. its aim is to refound life in the truth of the spirit and for that purpose to transfer the roots of all we are and do from the -mind, life and body to a greater consciousness above the mind.  That means that in the new life all the connections must be founded on a spiritual intimacy and a truth quite other than any which supports our present connections.  One must be prepared to renounce at the higher call what are spoken of as the natural affections.  Even if they are kept at all, it can only be with a change which transforms them altogether.  But whether they are to be renounced or kept and changed must be decided not by the personal desires but by the truth above.  All must be given up to the Supreme Master of the yoga.

The power that works in this yoga is of a thorough-going character and tolerates in the end nothing great or small that is an obstacle to the Truth and its realisation.

-Letters on Yoga Vol 23

The idea that all sadhaks must be aloof from each other and at daggers drawn is itself a preconceived idea that must be abandoned.  Harmony and not strife is the law of yogic living.  This preconceived idea arises perhaps from the old notion of Nirvana as the aim; but Nirvana is not the aim here.  The aim here is fulfilment of the Divine in life and for that, union and solidarity are indispensable.

The ideal of the yoga is that all should be centred in and around the Divine and the life of the sadhaks must be founded on that firm foundation, their personal relations also should have the Divine for their centre.  Moreover, all relations should pass from the vital to the spiritual basis with the vital only as a form and instrument of the spiritual - this means that, from whatever relations they have with each other, all jealousy, strife, hatred, aversion, rancour and other evil vital feelings should be abandoned, for they can be no part of the spiritual life.  So, also, all egoistic love and attachment will have to disappear - the love that loves only for the ego's sake and, as soon as the ego is hurt and dissatisfied, ceases to love or even cherishes rancour and hate.  There must be a real living and lasting unity behind the love.  It is understood of course that such things as sexual impurity must disappear also.

That is the ideal, but as for the way of attainment, it may differ for different people.  One way is that in which one leaves everything else to follow the Divine alone.  This does not mean an aversion for anybody any more than it means aversion for the world and life.  It only means an absorption in one's central aim, with the idea that once that is attained it will be easy to found all relations on the true basis, to become truly united with others in the heart and the spirit and the life, united in the spiritual truth and in the Divine.  The other way is to go forward from where one is, seeking the Divine centrally and subordinating all else to that, but not putting everything else aside, rather seeking to transform gradually and progressively whatever is capable of such transformation.  All the things that are not wanted in the relation Sex impurity, jealousy, anger, egoistic demand - drop away as the inner being grows purer and is replaced by the unity of soul with soul and the binding together of the social life in the hoop of the Divine.

It is not that one cannot have relations with people outside the circle of the sadhaks, but there too if the spiritual life grows within, it must necessarily affect the relation and Spiritualise it on the sadhak's side.  And there must be no such attachment as would make the relation an obstacle or a rival to the Divine.  Attachment to family etc. often is like that and, if so, it falls away from the sadhak.  That is an exigence which, I think, should not be considered excessive.  All that, however, can be progressively done; a severing of existing relations in necessary for some, it is not so for all.  A transformation, however gradual, is indispensable, - severance where severance is the right thing to do.

P.S. I must repeat also that each case differs - one rule for all is not practical or practicable.  What is needed by each for his spiritual progress is the one desideratum to be held in view.

-Letters on Yoga Vol 23

The difficulty is dual, psychological and corporeal: the first is the effect of the unregenerated animality upon the life especially by the insistence of the body's gross instincts, impulses, desires; the second is the outcome of our corporeal structure and organic instrumentation imposing its restrictions on the dynamism of the higher divine nature.  The first of these two difficulties is easier to deal with and conquer; for here the will can intervene and impose on the body the power of the higher nature.  Certain of these impulses and instincts of the body have been found especially harmful by the spiritual aspirant and weighed considerably in favour of an ascetic rejection of the body.  Sex and sexuality and all that springs from sex and testifies to its existence had to be banned and discarded from the spiritual life, and this, though difficult, is not at all impossible and can be made a cardinal condition for the spiritual seeker.  This is natural and unescapable in all ascetic practice and the satisfaction of this condition, though not easy at first to fulfil, becomes after a time quite feasible; the overcoming of the sex-instinct and impulse is indeed binding on all who would attain to self-mastery and lead the spiritual life.  A total mastery over it is essential for all spiritual seekers, the eradication of it for the complete ascetic.  This much has to be recognised and not diminished in its obligatory importance and its principle.

But all recognition of the sex principle, as apart from, the gross physical indulgence of the sex-impulse, could not be excluded from a divine life upon earth; it is there in life, lays a large part and has to be dealt with, it cannot simply ignored, merely suppressed or held down or put away out of sight.  In the first place, it is in one of its aspects a cosmic and even a divine principle: it takes the spiritual form of the Ishwara and the Shakti and without it there could be no world creation or manifestation of the world-principle of Purusha and Prakriti which are both necessary for the creation, necessary too in their association and interchange for the play of its psychological working and in their manifestation as soul and Nature fundamental to the whole process of the Lila.  In the divine life itself an incarnation or at least in some form a presence of the two powers or their initiating influence through their embodiments or representatives would be indispensable for making the new creation possible.  In its human action on the mental and vital level sex is not altogether an undivine principle; it has its nobler aspects and idealities and it has to be seen in what way and to what extent these can be admitted into the new and larger life.  All gross animal indulgence of sex desire and impulse would have to be eliminated; it could only continue among those who are not ready for the higher life or not yet ready for a complete spiritual living.  In all who aspired to it but could not yet take it up in its fullness sex will have to be refined, submit to the spiritual or psychic impulse and a control by the higher mind and the higher vital and shed all its lighter, frivolous or degraded forms and feel the touch of the purity of the ideal.  Love would remain, all forms of the pure truth of love in higher and higher steps till it realised its highest nature, widened into universal love, merged into the love of the Divine.  The love of man and woman would also undergo that elevation and consummation; for all that can feel a touch of the ideal and the spiritual must follow the way of ascent till it reaches the divine Reality.  The body and its activities must be accepted as part of the divine life and pass under this law; but, as in the other evolutionary transitions, what cannot accept the law of the divine life cannot be accepted and must fall away from the ascending nature.

- The Supramental Manifestation Vol 16

There is one problem raised by sex for those who would reject in toto the obligations imposed by the animality of the body and put forward by it as an insistent opposition in the way of the aspirant to a higher life: it is the necessity of the prolongation of the race for which the sex activity is the only means already provided by Nature for living beings and inevitably imposed upon the race.  It is not indeed necessary for the individual seeker after a divine life to take up this problem or even for a group who do not seek after it for themselves alone but desire a wide acceptance of it by mankind as at least an ideal.  There will always be the multitude who do not concern themselves with it or are not ready for its complete practice and to these can be left the care for the prolongation of the race.  The number of those who lead the divine life can be maintained and increased as the ideal extends itself, by the voluntary adhesion of those who are touched by the aspiration and there need be no resort to physical means for this purpose, no deviation from the rule of a strict sexual abstinence.  But yet there may be circumstances in which from another standpoint, a voluntary creation of bodies for souls that seek to enter the earth-life to help in the ,Creation and extension of the divine life upon earth might be found to be desirable.  Then the necessity of the physical ;procreation for this purpose could only be avoided if new means of a supraphysical kind were evolved and made available.  A development of this kind must necessarily belong to what is now considered as the sphere of the occult and the use of concealed powers of action or creation not known or possessed by the common mind of the race.  Occultism means rightly the use of the higher powers of our nature, soul, mind, life-force and the faculties of the subtle physical consciousness to bring about results on their own or on the material plane by some pressure of their own secret law and its potentialities, for manifestation and result in human or earthly mind and life and body or in objects and events in the world of Matter.  A discovery or an extension of these little known or yet undeveloped powers is now envisaged by some well known thinkers as a next step to be taken by mankind in its immediate evolution; the kind of creation spoken of has not been included among these developments, but it could well be considered as one of the new possibilities.  Even physical science is trying to find physical means for passing beyond the ordinary instrumentation or procedure of Nature in this matter of propagation or the renewal of the physical life force in human or animal beings; but the resort to occult means and the intervention of subtle physical processes, if it could be made possible, would be a greater way which could avoid the limitations, degradations, incompleteness and heavy imperfection of the means and results solely available to the law of material force.  In India there has been always from the earliest times a widely spread belief in the possibility and reality of the use of these powers by men with an advanced knowledge of these secret things or with a developed spiritual knowledge and experience and dynamic force and even, in the Tantras, an organised system of their method and practice.  The intervention of the Yogi in bringing about a desired birth of offspring is also generally believed in and often appealed to and the bestowal on the child so obtained of a spiritual attainment or destiny by his will or his blessing is sometimes asked for and such a result is recorded not only in the tradition of the past but maintained by the witness of the present.  But there is here still the necessity of a resort to the normal means of propagation and the gross method of physical Nature.  A purely occult method, a resort to supraphysical processes acting by supraphysical means for a physical result would have to be possible if we are to avoid this necessity: the resort to the sex impulse and its animal process could not be transcended otherwise.  If there is some reality in the phenomenon of materialisation and dematerialisation claimed to be possible by occultists and evidenced by occurrences many of us have witnessed, a method of this kind would not be out of the range of possibility.  For in the theory of the occultists and in the gradation of the ranges and planes of our being which Yoga-knowledge outlines for us there is not only a subtle physical force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible.  It should be possible and it is believed to be possible for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the intervention of an occult force and process whether with or even without the assistance or intervention of some gross material procedure.  A soul wishing to enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation without passing through birth by the sex process or undergoing any degradation or any of the heavy limitations in the growth and development of its mind and material body inevitable to our present way of existence.  It might then assume at once the structure and greater powers and functionings of the truly divine material body which must one day emerge in a progressive evolution to a totally transformed existence both of the life and form in a divinised earth-nature.

- The Supramental Manifestation Vol 16