Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

Letter ID: 383

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

August 10, 1933

I cannot persuade myself that all the things that are happening – including the triumph of the British policy and deterioration of Gandhi’s intellect are meant for the best. On top of it my noble-hearted friend Sengupta [...] is carried off. Bengal is now benighted and there is no sign of light anywhere.

Tagore too has just written an article of despair in which he forebodes gloomily an end of the world pralay-kalpānta as perhaps the quickest and most satisfactory solution to the mess we are in. Add to this my own lack of devotion and faith – as a result of which I thirst for something concrete to feel that the Divine is after all caring for the like of us. I do sometimes even feel that in the end you will give up this wicked world and wish with Tagore for the pralay [universal dissolution] and retire into extra-cosmic Samadhi.

I have no intention of doing so – even if all smashed; I would look beyond the smash to the new creation. As for what is happening in the world, it does not upset me because I knew all along that things would happen in that fashion. I never had any illusions about Gandhi’s satyagraha – it has only fulfilled my prediction that it would end in a great confusion or a great fiasco and my only mistake was that I put an “or” where there should have been an “and” – and as for the hopes of the intellectual idealists I have not shared them, so I am not disappointed.

As for yourself, it seems to be a fit of the blues – not the spiritual brilliant, but the dark blue; there is only one thing to do with them, to throw them away and let the true blue shine out on you. Whether the harbour is nearby or further off is not the main thing – the one need is to go on with the eyes fixed on the guiding star – then today or tomorrow or afterwards one arrives at the goal.

P.S. Your metre is a lyric discovery and the poem is very beautiful.