Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Help and Guidance

Satsanga

It is a traditional belief that satsanga has great effect — the nearness or the personal contact of a spiritual person is supposed to produce great benefit to those who are in his company. How is it then that your earliest companions here did not derive any benefit from your company?

I don’t know that the theory of satsanga can be taken so rigorously as that. Company always has an effect, but it may be less or more or even for the most part nullified by things in the person’s own consciousness or nature or by other atmospheres. X and the others were greatly influenced by company with me in the old days but it was more in the direction of mental and vital development than spiritually, for at that time I was doing my own sadhana and not putting out any spiritual influence on others — only if anybody asked me, I told him what to do, the result of his effort was his own affair.

17 August 1936