Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Help and Guidance

Giving Mental Silence

I wrote something on the subject of peace, which I showed to X. He said there were many errors in it, particularly where I wrote about philosophers and the silence.

There was no error. Ordinary human minds, Europeans especially, are accustomed to regard thought as indispensable and as the highest thing — so they are alarmed at silence. V. V. S. Aiyar when he was here asked for Yoga. I told him how to make his mind silent and it became silent. He immediately got frightened and said “I am becoming a fool, I can’t think”,— so I took what I had given away from him. That is how the average mind regards silence.

11 December 1935