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

Publication Plans, 1949

There can be no objection to the immediate or early publication [in the United States] of (1) The Life Divine (2) the Essays on the Gita (3) The Synthesis of Yoga (Yoga of Works) (4) Superman (and other essays) (5) The Hero and the Nymph (with essay on Kalidasa). As regards the Collected Poems numerous corrections have to be made in Perseus and the essay on classical metres, but as these are mainly misprints there is no objection to their being made on the proofs when these are sent to us.

As to The Ideal of Human Unity and The Psychology of Social Development they have to be altered by the introduction of new chapters and rewriting of passages and in the Ideal changes have to be made all through the book in order to bring it up to date, so it is quite impossible to make these alterations on the proofs. I propose however to revise these two books as soon as possible; they will receive my first attention.

The Defence of Indian Culture is an unfinished book and also I had intended to alter much of it and to omit all but brief references to William Archer’s criticisms. That was why its publication has been so long delayed. Even if it is reprinted as it is, considerable alterations will have to be made and there must be some completion and an end to the book which does not at present exist.

The Future Poetry also cannot be published as it is, for there must be a considerable rearrangement of its matter since publication from month to month left its plan straggling and ill-arranged and also one or two chapters will have to be omitted or replaced by other new ones. I do not wish it to be published in its present imperfect form.

The publication of The Secret of the Veda as it is does not enter into my intention. It was published in a great hurry and at a time when I had not studied the Rig Veda as a whole as well as I have since done. Whole chapters will have to be rewritten or written otherwise and a considerable labour gone through; moreover, it was never finished and considerable additions in order to make it complete are indispensable.

30 June 1949