Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

4. The Mother in the Life of the Ashram

Fragment ID: 19797

X asked me if for us in the Asram whatever is sanctioned by the Mother can be accepted unhesitatingly as our kartavyaṃ karma. I replied, “Yes, if the sanction is asked for in the right spirit.” He said, “What do we know of the right or wrong spirit? If the Mother’s sanction is there, is it not enough?” I replied in the affirmative, but not with full conviction. Something was lurking in my mind suggesting that the Mother sometimes does sanction an act which may not be according to her will but for which a sadhak may have a strong desire.

If the sadhak has a strong insistence or a strong desire, the Mother may say “Yes” or “Do as you wish” or give her sanction to the thing requested or demanded. That does not make it a kartavyaṃ karma, but simply a thing which the sadhak can do. Again if a thing is indifferent or unobjectionable and the Mother is asked by somebody if he can do it, that does not exalt it into a kartavyaṃ karma.

31 July 1937