Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
CWSA 35
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The Hindu Religion and Its Social Structure [2]
I send you Jawaharlal’s Autobiography. I want to have your opinion on his reading of the Hindu religion. I agree with the bulk of his condemnation of religion. But it seems to me he is a little hazy in his ideas, expecting from it just what is beyond its portée. But of course I don’t wonder, for religion is a most mysterious term, like our famous kalpataru of Indra’s garden which promises to its worshippers any fruit they covet.
I
fear that to accede to your request for a page and a half on the mystic soul of India is physically impossible now and psychologically a little difficult. I have once more the full flood of correspondence, in spite of the rules of time which have proved an insufficient dam. Each night is a race to get things done in time which I generally lose and that means an increasing mass of arrears which have to be dealt with whenever I get some
exceptional leisure. On Sunday a mass of outside letters waiting for disposal because I have no time on other days and not enough on Sunday either. In these circumstances to produce a page on such a subject would be a feat of acrobacy not easily performable.
As for the subject, well in the days of the Karmayogin or of the Defence of Indian Culture I could have served you freely. Now I feel as if I have said all I could say on these things – they have gone back into the far recess
of my mind and to pull them out for expression is not easy. That is a second obstacle.
I do not take the same view of the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of 
man’s spirituality with the errors
that come in trying
to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral temple half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail, but always fantastic with a significance – crumbled
and
overgrown
in many places
, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. The outer social structure which it built for its approach is another matter.
19 September 1936
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Himself and the Ashram // CWSA.- Volume 35. (≈ 26 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2011.- 658 p.
Other publications:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 3. 1936 – 1937 / edited by Sujata Nahar, Michel Danino, Shankar Bandopadhyay.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 305 p.
Sri Aurobindo. Letters of Sri Aurobindo: In 4 Series.- Second Series [On Yoga].- Bombay: Sri Aurobindo Sircle, 1949.- 599 p.