Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 3. Literature, Art, Beauty and Yoga
Section 4. Literature, Art, Music and the Practice of Yoga
Literature and Yoga

Reading and Real Knowledge

Does not the knowledge of yoga come by itself?

Yes. The real knowledge comes of itself from within, by the touch of the Divine.

If so, then isn’t it better to have only that knowledge and not the knowledge obtained by reading?

Reading can be only a momentary help to prepare the mind. But the real knowledge does not come by reading. Some preparation for the inner knowledge may be helpful — but the mind should not be too superficially active or seek to know only for curiosity’s sake.

6 July 1933