Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
Much less than half the Ashram, the majority of them boys and girls and children, have taken up sports; the rest have not been pressed to do so and there is no earthly reason why any pressure should be put upon you. The Mother has never intended to put any such pressure on you and if anybody has said that, there is no foundation whatever for what they have told you.
It is also not a fact that either the Mother or I are turning away from Yoga and intend to interest ourselves only in sport; we have no intention whatever of altering the fundamental character of the Ashram replacing it by a sportive association. If we did that it would be a most idiotic act and if anybody should have told you anything like that, he must be off his head or in a temporary crisis of delirious enthusiasm or a very upside-down idea. The Mother told you very clearly once through Nirod that what was being done in the playground was not meditation or a concentration for Yoga but only an ordinary concentration for the physical exercises alone.
If she is busy with the organisation of these things – and it is not true that she is busy with that alone – it is in order to get finished with that as soon as possible after which it will go on of itself without her being at all engrossed or especially occupied by it, as is the case with other works of the Ashram. As for myself, it is surely absurd to think that I am neglecting meditation and Yoga and interested only in running, jumping and marching! There seem to have been strange misunderstandings about my second message in the Bulletin. In the first, I wrote about sports and their utility just as I have written on politics or social development or any other matter. In the second, I took up the question incidentally because people were expressing ignorance as to why the Ashram should concern itself with sports at all. I explained why it had been done and dealt with the more general question of how this and other human activities could be part of a search for a total perfection of all parts of the being including the body and more specially what would be the nature of the perfection of the body. I indicated clearly that only by Yoga could there come a supreme and total perfection of all the instruments of the Spirit and the ascent of the whole being to the highest level and a divine life on earth and the assumption of a divine body. I made it clear that by human and physical means such as sports only a limited and precarious human perfection could come. In all this there is nothing to justify the idea that sports could be a means for jumping to the Supermind or that the Supermind was going to descend on the playground and nowhere else and only those who are there will receive it; that would be a bad look-out for me as I would have no chance!\
I write all this in the hope of clearing away all the strange misconceptions with which the air seems to have become thick and by some of which you may have been affected. I wish to assure you that my love and affection and the Mother’s love and affection are constantly with you. We have had nothing for you but love and affection and a full appreciation of all you have done for us, your work, your service, your labour to make people over there appreciate our Ashram and what it stands for and to turn men’s minds favourably towards us and what we are trying to do. As for me, you should realise that the will to help you towards divine realisation is one of the things that has been constantly nearest to my heart and will be always there.
This is not the letter I intended to write which must wait. It is not possible for me to write a whole answer now since it is already one o’clock, and I shall continue it tonight.