Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

His Life and Attempts to Write about It
Outer Life in Pondicherry 1910 – 1950

Meeting Paul Richard

I would like to know the mystery behind M. Paul Richard’s meeting with Sri Aurobindo. I have heard that when he started for Pondicherry you [i.e. the Mother] gave him some signs or some questions to be solved by an Indian Yogi. And they were solved by Sri Aurobindo.

I don’t think there was any mystery. He came for political purposes and enquired of Naidu or perhaps from Shankar Chettiar in whose house I was living whether there was any Indian Guru here and my name was mentioned and they brought him to see me. He showed me some signs employed in Indian, Egyptian and other occultisms, some of which I had seen — they happened to be, he said, the Indian ones. That was all.

26 June 1936