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 Lights on Yoga [1]

You write in a letter: “One must not enter on this path, far vaster and more arduous than most ways of Yoga, unless one is sure of the psychic call and of one’s readiness to go through to the {{0}}end.”[[Sri Aurobindo, Lights on Yoga (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1981), pp. 2 – 3. Lights on Yoga is made up of letters by Sri Aurobindo, who revised the letters for publication in the book, which was brought out in 1935. The writer of this question of October 1934 cited the original version of the letter, which Sri Aurobindo wrote on 6 April 1928 (see page 540 of the present volume). — Ed.]]

It is simply an indication to those who wish to enter on to this Path that they must have a call (not take it up as they would take any way for spiritual experience) and must be prepared for great difficulties to surmount.

Can it be said that you have seen in all those who are permanent members of the Asram this readiness to go through to the end?

The readiness to go through to the end is a thing dependent on the will of the sadhak. That will may be there in the beginning and flag afterwards. All who are here did not come as permanent members and some were never told that they were made permanent but they have stuck on and Mother has not sent them away.

What is the exact significance of “to the end”?

Until the siddhi — but it means essentially here to go through in spite of the difficulties.

20 October 1934