Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

SABCL 26

Fragment ID: 7996

Q: The 0vermind seems so distant from us, and your Himalayan austerity and grandeur takes my breath away, making my heart palpitate!

A: O rubbish! I am austere and grand, grim and stern! every blasted thing I never was! I groan in an un-Aurobindian despair when I hear such things. What has happened to the common sense of all of you people? In order to reach the Overmind it is not at all necessary to take leave of this simple but useful quality.

Common sense by the way is not logic (which is the least commonsense-like thing in the world), it is simply looking at things as they are without inflation or deflation – not imagining wild imaginations – or for that matter despairing “I know not why” despairs.

23-2-1935