Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga
2. Integral Yoga and Other Paths
Fragment ID: 78
See letter itself (letter ID: 425)
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
January 6, 1934
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There is no reason why the passage about Buddhism should be omitted. It gives one side of the Buddhistic teaching which is not much known or is usually ignored, for that teaching is by most rendered as Nirvana (Sunyavada1) and a spiritual humanitarianism. The difficulty is that it is these sides that have been stressed especially in the modern interpretations of Buddhism and any strictures I may have passed were in view of these interpretations and that one-sided stress. I am aware of course of opposite tendencies in the Mahayana and the Japanese cult of Amitabha Buddha which is a cult of bhakti. It is now being said even of Shankara that there was another side of his doctrine – but his followers have made him stand solely for the Great Illusion, the inferiority of bhakti, the uselessness of Karma – jagan mithyā.
1 Shunyavada.– Ed.
2 Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- Vol. 2; CWSA, volume 29: spiritualised
3 CWSA, volume 29: of the opposite
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
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