Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Help and Guidance

Circulation of Letters [1]

It does not at all concern the sadhaks to know to whom the messages are {{0}}addressed,[[Before Sri Aurobindo’s letters began to be published, typed copies of some of them were circulated among members of the Ashram. These were sometimes referred to as “messages”. — Ed.]] and it is inadmissible to base upon them reflections against the character of the addressee or to assume that he has gone wrong in his sadhana. I write often to confirm and encourage and not only to correct or reprove. In fact, I do not quite know why these communications should be called “messages”; for they are answers to questions or to letters, and only so much is circulated as is considered apposite or of general interest or use from the point of view of sadhana.

Obviously, curiosity and gossip and wrong imaginations cannot be “helpful to sadhana”. The messages are not meant as food for gossip, but to give the sadhaks indications that can be of use to them in their sadhana. If they misuse them in this way, it is their own loss.

8 March 1932