Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

Letter ID: 146

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

August 11, 1931

I have started the letter, but I doubt if I shall be able to finish it tonight; therefore it will be better to answer at once the points submitted by you.

You can send the flower to the Pali professor, but it is too early in the day to speak of Yoga and acceptance. It is necessary to know more of him first – and at first hand – Yoga is too serious a thing to be lightly taken up, or given. If he has a call and is sincere in following after it, his time will come.

As for your niece, Uma,– if we take the photograph and its evidence at their “face value”, one observes that the upper part of the physiognomy is good, especially the eyes, the lower from the Yogic point of view is faulty. That would indicate a possibility of spiritual aspiration and psychic opening, but also great vital obstacles and difficulties. But it is not safe to generalise from a photograph for even if externally accurate, it may express only one part of the nature,– and this one, you say, is not reliable. The best thing would be for her to write to you the letter she proposed to write – “at length about her inner life and spiritual seeking.” That might give better grounds for judging whether she can or cannot undertake this kind of Yoga.

Yes, certainly, I liked your poem immensely. It is very well sustained throughout and there is no pedantry, no intellectual heaviness anywhere in it; with such a constant succession of beautiful images and perfectly expressive turns of language – still more with so unfailing a flow and depth and power of emotion, that defect could not creep in for a moment.

P.S. My answer about your experience may take me a little time to write, because I want to explain to you not only the experience itself, but what lies behind it. Otherwise you will be quite at sea, as your letter shows, in the new world you are exploring.