Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

1. Spirituality

The Man of Sorrows

V. Jeremiads and the Divine Force

No joy, no energy. Don't like to read or write – as if a dead man were walking about. Do you understand the position? Any personal experience?

I quite understand; often had it myself devastatingly. That's why I always advise people who have it to cheer up and buck up.

To cheer up, buck up and the rest if you can, saying “Rome was not built in a day” – if you can't, gloom it through it till the sun rises and the little birds chirp and all is well.

Looks however as if you were going through a training in vairagya. Don't much care for vairagya myself, always avoided the beastly thing, but had to go through it partly, till I hit on samatā as a better trick. But samata is difficult, vairagya is easy, only damnably gloomy and uncomfortable.

03.06.1936