Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

Fragment ID: 20945

There is a truth in Ahimsa, there is a truth in destruction also. I do not teach that you should go on killing everybody every day as a spiritual dharma. I say that destruction can be done when it is part of the divine work commanded by the Divine. Non-violence is better than violence as a rule, and still sometimes violence may be the right thing. I consider dharma as relative; unity with the Divine and action from the Divine Will, the highest way. Buddha did not aim at action in the world but at cessation from the world-existence. For that he found the Eightfold Path a necessary preparatory discipline and so proclaimed it. It (Ahimsa) had nothing to do with the Yoga, but with the path towards liberation found by Buddha. There are many paths and all need not be one and the same in their teaching.