Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
The decision made in a vital turmoil and disturbance cannot be the right decision or help towards the right orientation of the life. I must ask you therefore to reconsider your hasty decision and wait until you can see things more lucidly and clearly. It is not true that I have decided not to help you any longer; that can never happen. My close connection with you, both the spiritual and the outward, has not been a connection casually formed or to be casually terminated, but is deep-rooted, at least on my side, and cannot change. Even if you left me for good, I could not possibly disinterest myself in you or abandon my hopes for your life and spiritual future. I do not accept your renunciation of Yoga and the effort towards the spiritual life and I still consider that your persistent orientation towards it and the beginnings you have made have been sufficient to warrant the belief that something deep in your being turned you towards it and will in the end prevail. Even if you gave it up now you would still have to return to it. I recognise the extreme difficulties under which you are labouring – it is indeed a time of the worse difficulties for the world and almost everybody in it and for myself and my work – and I would have no objection to your seeking relief for a time, even as I have had no objection to it in the past. A relief of that kind from extreme tension is sometimes the right course; but permanent renunciation is quite another matter and unacceptable. Even if you renounced the Yoga and renounced me, I could not renounce you. You cannot escape from God like that; whether you like his ways or not, you will have to seek after Him till you find Him. As for the difficulties, I shall overcome mine; the world also will overcome its difficulties, as it cannot fail to do if I overcome mine: you also must overcome yours and not succumb to them however hard to bear at present they may be.
I had to shelve the letter I was writing because I was not satisfied with the form it had taken and did not find a right one. It is shelved but not abandoned. I have certainly not abandoned nor even shelved my will and my effort to help you. I have always continued it in whatever circumstances and shall always continue. I have no time to write anymore than this brief letter since you speak of going at 12 and this has to reach you before then. I have written only what is essential, but I hope it will be sufficient to turn you from your wrong resolve. To follow it would, I believe, be as unhappy for yourself as for me. Persevere, fight on and be faithful to your soul. My love and blessings