Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

4. The Mother in the Life of the Ashram

Fragment ID: 19975

X showed me a copy of your letter to Y in which you say: “Those are the Mother’s children and closest to her who are open to her, close to her in their inner being, one with her will – not those who come bodily nearest to her.” But have not those who are bodily nearest come nearest because they were already “open to her”, “one with her will” and “close to her in their inner being”? And are there not certain special advantages of this bodily nearness?

It is not so easy to be “one with the will” of the Mother or to be entirely open. To be bodily close imposes a constant pressure for progress, for perfection, which no one yet has been able to meet. People have romantic ideas in this matter which are not true.

7 March 1935