Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 35

Fragment ID: 8324

Unwillingness to Write for Newspapers and Magazines [8]

What has happened to my letter of request for a Message to grace the Special Number of Mother India of August 15? I have heard nothing from you.

I have been trying to get you informed without success about the impossibility of your getting your expected Message from me for the 15th August. I had and have no intention of writing a Message for my birthday this year. It is psychologically impossible for me to manufacture one to command; an inspiration would have to come and it is highly improbable that any will come in this short space of time; I myself have no impulse towards it. But how is it that you have clean forgotten my rule of not writing any article for an outside paper, magazine or journal – I mean other than those conducted from the Asram and by the Asram – and even for these I write nothing new except for the Bulletin at the Mother’s request,– also my reasons for this fixed rule? If I started doing that kind of thing, my freedom would be gone; I would have to write at everybody’s command, not only articles but blessings, replies on public questions and all the rest of that kind of conventional rubbish. I would be like any ordinary politician publishing my views on all and sundry matters, discoursing on all sorts of subjects, a public man at the disposal of the public. That would make myself, my blessings, my views and my Messages exceedingly cheap; in fact, I would be no longer Sri Aurobindo. Already Hindusthan Standard, the Madras Mail and I know not what other journals and societies are demanding at the pistol’s point special messages for the 15th for themselves and I am supposed to stand and deliver. I won’t. I regret that I must disappoint you, but self-preservation is a first law of Nature.

3 August 1949