Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
CWSA 35
Fragment ID: 8679
1931
I am surprised at Tagore’s remark1 about the two years; he must have greatly misunderstood or misheard me. I did tell him that I would expand only after making a perfect (inner) foundation here, but I gave no date. I did give that date of two years long before in my letter to Barin,2 but I had then a less ample view of the work to be done than I have now – and I am now more cautious about assigning dates than I was once. To fix a precise time is impossible except in the two regions of certitude – the pure material which is the field of mathematical certitudes and the supramental which is the field of divine certitudes. In the planes in between where life has its word to say and things have to evolve under shock and stress, Time and Energy are too much in a flux and apt to kick against the rigour of a prefixed date or programme.
16 August 1931
1 Rabindranath Tagore remarked to someone in 1931 that Sri Aurobindo told him in 1928 that he would “expand” after two years. – Ed.
2 In a letter written in Bengali to his brother Barindra Kumar Ghose in 1920, Sri Aurobindo said that it might take him “another two years” to complete his sadhana. – Ed.