Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Contact with People Outside the Ashram

Does Not Grant Interviews or Personal Darshans [5]

I am afraid I don’t see how I can see William Arthur Moore — how can I extend to him so extraordinary a privilege (since I see nobody) which I would not have conceded to Sarat Chatterji? You say Barin certifies him as a bhakta — but Barin’s language is apt to be vivid and exaggerated; he probably means only an admirer. I think he must be answered that certainly he would have been allowed a meeting with me if I had been coming out but the entire seclusion has been taken as a rule for Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana and it may not be subjected to exception so long as the rule is in force. If he is really a bhakta, that will give him a ray of distant hope and if he isn’t, the impression made does not very much matter. Barin surely exaggerates the power of the publicist — after all he is only the editor of the Statesman — but even otherwise that is not the main consideration. By the way why have you transmogrified Moore into Jones? — there was a Jones there but he has departed and yielded the place to Moore.

17 August 1933