Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

His Life and Attempts to Write about It
On His Published Prose Writings

Passages from Essays on the Gita [1]

“But the Gita insists that the nature of the action does {{0}}matter....”[[Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, volume 19 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, p. 131.]] This perplexes me. Sri Aurobindo wrote to me in reply to my question about office work: “The nature of the work does not matter.”

That is quite a different question from the choice referred to in the passage of the Essays.

What is written must be read and interpreted according to the context. In the Gita, the question is between two kinds of action — the quietistic life of the Sannyasin with the minimum of action and the dynamic life offered in all its actions whatever they be as a sacrifice to the Divine. It might be said that Arjuna might do either, it does not matter — but the Gita thinks it does matter: that Arjuna being called to a life of dynamic action must follow that and not the quietistic life.

3 December 1934