Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18712

1936-37

Some sadhaks type out their experiences and your comments on them and then show them to their friends!

To show what is written about experiences or to speak about one’s experiences to others is always risky. They are much better kept to oneself.

Vanity is not pride. It is self-admiration and has always in it something light and absurd.

Ostentation can be a show of things one has but also a show of things one has not. Ostentation means a showing off to others. A vain man may or may not be ostentatious.

All antagonism to other sadhaks or dislike of them should go. There should be a calm goodwill and charity to all, but no inner mixing or interchange. Liking and disliking always means interchange of influences. The point is that [human] relations and friendships are usually founded on the vital and are very mixed affairs. That is why they turn out to be obstacles in sadhana.