Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Yoga

4. Reason, Science and Yoga

Fragment ID: 215

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

January 13, 1936

But why on earth does your despairing friend want everybody to agree with him and follow his own preferred line of conduct or belief? That is the never-realised dream of the politician, or realised only by the violent compression of the human mind and life, which is the latest feat of the man of action. The “incarnate” Gods – Gurus and spiritual men of whom he so bitterly complains – are more modest in their hopes and are satisfied with a handful or, if you like, an Ashramful of disciples, and even these they don’t ask for, but they come, they come. So are they not – these denounced “incarnates” – nearer to reason and wisdom than the political leaders? – unless of course one of them makes the mistake of founding a universal religion, but that is not our case. Moreover, he upbraids you for losing your reason in blind faith. But what is his own view of things except a reasoned faith? You believe according to your faith, which is quite natural, he believes according to his opinion, which is natural also, but no better, so far as the likelihood of getting at the true truth of things is in question. His opinion is according to his reason. So are the opinions of his political opponents according to their reason, yet they affirm the very opposite idea to his. How is reasoning to show which is right? The opposite parties can argue till they are blue in the face – they won’t be anywhere nearer a decision. In the end he prevails who has the greater force or whom the trend of things favours. But who can look at the world as it is and say that the trend of things is always (or ever) according to right reason – whatever this thing called right reason may be? As a matter of fact there is no universal infallible reason which can decide and be the umpire between conflicting opinions; there is only my reason, your reason, X’s reason, Y’s reason, multiplied up to the discordant innumerable. Each reasons according to his view of things, his opinion, that is, his mental constitution and mental preference. So what is the use of running down faith which after all gives something to hold on to amidst the contradictions of an enigmatic universe? If one can get at a knowledge that knows, it is another matter; but so long as we have only an ignorance that argues,– well, there is a place still left for faith,– even faith may be a glint from the knowledge that knows, however far off, and meanwhile there is not the slightest doubt that it helps to get things done. There’s a bit of reasoning for you! – just like all other reasoning too, convincing to the convinced, but not to the unconvincible, that is, to those who don’t accept the ground upon which the reasoning dances. Logic, after all, is only a measured dance of the mind, nothing else.

¹ Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- Vol. 3; CWSA, volume 35: As for the desperate Subhash, why the deuce does he want