Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Admission, Staying, Departure

The Purpose of the Ashram [4]

Your effort of so many years does not seem to have produced any effect on people in the world outside. They have not changed in the least in their aims. On the contrary they seem to be becoming more and more critical instead of appreciative of your aim and purpose.

We cannot make that a test at present. The Force is not working directly on the outside world at present — first something has to be prepared here — when the Asram is really a manifestation of the “aim and purpose”, then there will be less difficulty with the outer world.

Even in the Ashram there are extremely few who have reached or tried to reach even up to the Nirvana {{0}}level.[[The correspondent alludes here to an exchange of 29 April 1934 that is published on pages 309–10. — Ed.]] Even to reach Nirvana one has to give up desire, duality and ego and establish a certain amount of equanimity and peace. Could it be said that a sufficient number of Sadhaks in the Ashram have succeeded in doing so? At least everybody must be making some effort to do this. Why then are they not successful? Is it that after some time they forget the aim and live here as in ordinary life?

I suppose if the Nirvana aim had been put before them, more would have been fit for it, for the Nirvana aim is easier than the one we have put before us — and they would not have found it so difficult to reach the standard. The sadhaks here are of all kinds and in all stages. But the real difficulty even for those who have progressed is with the external man. Even among those who follow the old ideal, the external man of the sadhak remains almost the same even after they have attained to something. The inner being gets free, the outer follows still its fixed nature. Our Yoga can succeed only if the external man too changes, but that is the most difficult of all things. It is only by a change of the physical nature that it can be done, by a descent of the highest light into this lowest part of Nature. It is here that the struggle is going on. The internal being of most of the sadhaks here, however imperfect still, is still different from that of the ordinary man, but the external still clings to its old ways, manners, habits. Many do not seem even to have awakened to the necessity of a change. It is when this is realised and done, that the Yoga will produce its full results in the Asram itself, and not before.

30 April 1934