Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Correspondence (1933-1967)
Letter ID: 44
Sri Aurobindo — Nahar, Prithwi Singh
February 26, 1936
Private and confidential
Prithwi Singh
The Naik-Mridu1 affair was one of the frequent quarrels that take place from time to time in the Asram between sadhaks and became prominent only by the violence of the two combatants and the excessive attention given to it by the sadhaks owing to Mridu’s clamours. I do not regard Naik as someone who is dangerous. He is in his ordinary moments a good-natured and even kind but oversensitive man, but he is subject to fits of anger in which he loses proper control of speech and gesture and even, though up to a certain point only, of his acts. He has had several outbursts of this kind, but has never yet actually 
hurt anybody. It is true that he is sometimes seized in these moments by a dark force, and that, coupled with this streak of violence, could become dangerous, if it made him hostile. But up till now it has not done so. He has tried to go away but something in him will not allow him to do so.
As for the general question of people moved by wrong forces, sending away has been done sometimes, usually if they become quite unmanageable or hostile. But it has been found that it is no solution. The forces find other instruments. It is the forces themselves that have to be overcome.
Sri Aurobindo
1 Mridu, a Bengali, she was widowed young. Rotund, she looked like a volleyball put on top of a balloon. Quarrelsome. Sri Aurobindo with sweet patience soothed her myriad plaints. A good cook, she sent up dishes for Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Then distributed prasād (food tasted by Sri Aurobindo) to all and sundry – children like Sujata and Abhay, Governor Baron and his secretary Bernard E. (who later became Satprem) were all recipients. She passed away on 22 September 1962.
Naik, a Gujarati sadhak who left the Ashram after some time.