Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
Letter ID: 432
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
February 17, 1934
I had no intention of sarcasm or banter, but simply meant to say that such deprivations can be used as opportunities for evolving the necessary capacity of the inner being.
I have not wantonly stopped the books1 or free letter-writing nor have I become impatient with you or anyone. I am faced with a wanton and brutal attack on my life-work from outside2 and I need all my time and energy to meet it and do what is necessary to repel it during these days. I hope that I can count not only on the indulgence but on the support of those who have followed me and loved me, while I am thus occupied, much against my will.
I do hope you will not misunderstand me, I have not altered to you in the least and if I wrote laconically it was because I had no time to do otherwise.
My prohibition of long letters was of a general character and I had to issue it so that the stoppage of the books might not result in a flood of long letters which would leave me no time for making the concentration and taking the steps I have to take. I have said that you can send your poems and write too when you feel very urgent need – I had no feeling to the contrary at all.
1 The heads of the Ashram’s various departments used to report their day’s work in notebooks to Mother and Sri Aurobindo. At the same time they also presented their work problems or problems of sadhana. Nirod, for example, used to send three notebooks: personal, literary and, as he was the resident doctor, medical.
2 We don’t really know what happened. But, in fact, Sri Aurobindo often refers to Hitler and Mussolini in subsequent letters. For it was the period when the Dark was rising. Personified in Hitler, and in Mussolini to some extent, the nazi and fascist forces were gathering strength, soon to burst brutally over the world, unleashing the unspeakable Horror of the Dark.