Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga
3. Religion, Morality, Idealism and Yoga
Fragment ID: 201
See letter itself (letter ID: 307)
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
December 24, 1932
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Today a Kanchanjungha of correspondence has fallen on my head, so I could not write about Humanity and its progress. Were not the later views of Lowes Dickinson grayed
over by the sickly cast of a disappointed idealism? I have not myself an exaggerated respect for Humanity and what it is – but to say that there has been no progress at all is
as much an exaggerated pessimism as the rapturous hallelujahs of the nineteenth century to a progressive Humanity were an exaggerated optimism. I shall manage to read through the chapter you sent me, though how I manage to find time for these things is a standing miracle and a signal proof of a Divine Providence.
Yes, the progress you are making is of the genuine kind,– the signs are recognisable. And after all, the best way to make Humanity progress is to move on oneself,– that may sound 
either individualistic or egoistic, but it isn’t: it is only common sense. As the Gita says
:
“Whatever the best do is taken as the model by the rest4.”
1 Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- Vol. 1; CWSA, volume 28: greyed
2 Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- Vol. 1; CWSA, volume 28: is
3 these words are absent in Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- Vol. 1; CWSA, volume 28
4 Yadyadācarati śreṣṭhastattadevetaro janaḥ.
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Other publications: