and they are justified if that is necessary for the Yoga they practise or if that is the imperative demand of the soul within them.Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
CWSA 35
Fragment ID: 9453
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Family Life and the Ashram [5]
As for your friend, it is not possible to say that she can come here; for that depends on many things which are not clearly present here. First, one must enter this Path or it must be seen that one is called to it; afterwards there is the question whether one is meant for the Asram life here. The question about the family duties can be answered in this way – the family duties exist so long as one is in the ordinary consciousness of the grihastha; if the call to a spiritual life comes, whether one keeps to them or not depends partly upon the way of Yoga one follows, partly on one’s own spiritual necessity. There are many who pursue inwardly the spiritual life and keep the family duties, not as social duties but as a field for the practice of karmayoga, others abandon everything to follow the spiritual call alone and they are justified if that is necessary for the Yoga they practise or if that is the imperative demand of the soul within them.
1 SABCL, volume 22; Letters of Sri Aurobindo. 4 Ser.; CWSA, volume 31: or line
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Himself and the Ashram // CWSA.- Volume 35. (≈ 26 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2011.- 658 p.
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