Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Admission, Staying, Departure

Admission to the Ashram, 1927 – 1943 [48]

I have recently gone through a volume called Practice of Yoga by Sivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh and learnt therefrom that about sixty students are practising yoga in the Ashram of your holiness. While writing a few words on the Ashram, the Swamiji says that “Those who really want to join the Ashram may communicate to Shree Arabindoo {{0}}directly.”[[Swami Sivananda, Practice of Yoga (Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1929), p. 211.]] It is really a very great fortune for a man who practises yoga under the guidance of such a great realised soul as your holiness.

The number of sadhaks is over 150 and it is impossible to make farther admissions except in the most sparing way, as the means of the Asram are not unlimited. Moreover Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is of a special and difficult kind and he admits only those who seem to him to have a special call to the life here.

9 May 1934