Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
I am certainly not going to give you strength to go away, since that is a solution which is no solution at all. The solution is to get rid of or at least to reject all these suggestions from a wrong quarter and the state of mind which they create in you and to revert to the firm attitude and right state of consciousness which for so long a time you had maintained; at that time you were not allowing wrong suggestions, adverse happenings, temporary depressions to upset the attitude. You had made great progress – for progress in Yoga is not to be measured by occult experiences only, but by change in the nature. You have seen for yourself that people can have such experiences and yet remain where they were, with the same vital egoism and reactions. You had realised the necessity of getting rid of the ego and its reactions. When we asked you not to allow yourself to be upset or worried by imputations made against you or other disagreeables in the recent incident, we were only speaking in the spirit of your own effort and attitude, asking you to keep it up and not let yourself be shaken from it. It was certainly not a proof of indifference or non-understanding – it would certainly be a strange thing if at this stage I were unable to understand these things – it was rather from solicitude for your peace and inner progress that we spoke.
My retirement is nothing new, even the cessation of contact by correspondence is nothing new – it has been there now for a long time. I had to establish the rule not out of personal preference or likes or dislikes, but because I found that the correspondence occupied the greater part of my time and my energies and there was a danger of my real work remaining neglected and undone if I did not change my course and devote myself to it, while the actual results of this outer activity were very small – it cannot be said that it resulted in the Ashram making a great spiritual progress. Now in these times of world-crisis when I have had to be on guard and concentrated all the time to prevent irremediable catastrophes and have still to be so, and when, besides, the major movement of the inner spiritual work needs an equal concentration and persistence, it is not possible for me to abandon my rule. (Moreover, even for the individual sadhak it is in his interest that this major spiritual work should be done, for its success would create conditions under which his difficulties could be much more easily overcome.) All the same I have broken my rule, and broken it for you alone; I do not see how that can be interpreted as a want of love and a hard granite indifference. However, my main point is that for a very long time you had entered into a consciousness and right attitude in which you accepted this necessity and showed a clear understanding of it and even felt and wrote that it was done for the best good of the sadhaks also. It would be a misfortune now to return to the old vital reactions, suggestions, despondencies and despairs and obscuration of the consciousness. I know that it is not easy to maintain the true consciousness and attitude even when one has found it; but it has to be done, for it is the only way which will lead to anything.
If the tension is too great and relief is needed, we have no objection to your getting it at Almora or elsewhere, but to go away and throw up the sponge is not a thing to do. To get back to the right attitude you had developed and resume the inner endeavour is the right course.