Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Entering Sri Aurobindo’s Path

Acceptance as a Disciple, 1926 – 1949 [7]

Your letter this time is sufficiently explicit regarding your state of mind and your object in practising Yoga. You have apparently a call and may be fit for Yoga; but there are different paths and each has a different aim and end before it. It is common to all the paths to conquer the desires, to put aside the ordinary relations of life, and to try to pass from uncertainty to everlasting certitude. One may also try to conquer dream and sleep, thirst and hunger etc. But it is no part of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga to have nothing to do with the world or with life or to kill the senses or entirely inhibit their action. It is the object of his Yoga to transform life by bringing down into it the Light, Power and Bliss of the divine Truth and its dynamic certitudes. This Yoga is not a Yoga of world-shunning asceticism, but of divine Life. Your object on the other hand can only be gained by entering into Samadhi and ceasing in it from all connection with world-existence. You cannot get help in this path from Sri Aurobindo; you must go to someone else in order to find a Guru.

1 January 1929