Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1935

Letter ID: 1459

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

October 30, 1935

I don’t know what to do with R.K There is virtually no improvement in his trachoma. Today he says he has great pain in right pain and wants it to be reported.

You are certainly a born supramental. “To have great pain in right pain” is of a supramental depth.

Why can’t I separate myself from what I read? Well, Sir, it is the devil that flares up and goes on lamenting over the loss of “ghee and butter” (by which, I suppose, you meant sex-enjoyment?) [17.10.35].

You mean then that you can’t separate yourself when you are reading of sex? But surely even modern novels can’t be nothing but sex enjoyment from start to finish? Why not separate the rest of the time, practise separation at least, even if you have to splash in when the sex comes rolling by?

I have seen your letter of today to Dilip. When I finished reading it, I let out a sigh and exclaimed – How cruel! after raising our hopes you mercilessly cut them off because the letter would be too long? Nothing is too long for us, especially such personal examples which are more valuable for the likes of us than any promises and possibilities...

Good Lord! I never said it was too long for you to read, I meant it was too long for me to write now. And I can’t write such things by themselves as an autobiographical essay – it is only if they turn up in the course of something that I can do so. Last night I had no blessed time to illustrate. I thought of writing it because it seemed very appropriate, but when I couldn’t, I just mentioned it in order to hint that what I had written was not mere theory, but provable by solid experience. No fell intention to tantalise.