Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

The Leader and the Guide

The Avatar and Terrestrial Conditions [1]

I am sending with this note a typewritten MS on the Avatar. Please write an exhaustive reply, but in ink.

On the back the rational and logical result of your arguments. I shall write certain irrational answers on your MS — in {{0}}ink.[[Sri Aurobindo wrote these two sentences on the front side of a small sheet of paper sent by the correspondent, above the correspondent’s comments. On the back of the same sheet Sri Aurobindo wrote the paragraph that follows. This paragraph is a brief reply to questions posed by the correspondent in his “typewritten MS”. Sri Aurobindo returned the small sheet containing his paragraph-long reply to the correspondent on 6 March 1935. This became the basis of the questions and answers of 7 March that are reproduced on pages 416 – 19. Sri Aurobindo also wrote long and detailed replies to the questions on the “typewritten MS”; they are reproduced on pages 420 – 29. — Ed.]]

You have won all along the line. Who could resist such a lava-torrent of logic? Slightly mixed, but still! You have convinced me (1st) that there never was nor could be an Avatar, (2) that all the so-called Avatars were chimerical fools and failures, (3) that there is no Divinity or divine element in man, (4) that I have never had any true difficulties or struggles, and that if I had any, it was all my fun (as K. S. said of my new metres that they were only Mr. Ghose’s fun), (5) that if ever there was or will be a real Avatar, I am not he — but that I knew before, (6) that all I have done or the Mother has done is a mere sham — sufferings, struggles, conquests, defeats, the Way found, the Way followed, the call to others to follow, everything — it was all make-believe since I was the Divine and nothing could touch me and none follow me. That is truly a discovery, a downright knock-out which leaves me convinced, convicted, amazed, gasping. I won’t go on, there is no space; but there are a score of other luminous convictions that your logic has forced on me. But what to do next? You have put me in a terrible fix and I see no way out of it. For if the Way, the Yoga is merely sham, fun and chimera — then?

6 March 1935