Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Sadhana in the Ashram

“Advanced Sadhaks” [3]

Yes, you should learn not to be perturbed by talk of this kind from whomsoever it proceeds; I think I have already tried to put you on your guard against listening to “advanced sadhaks” or taking these pronouncements of theirs as authoritative statements of the aims and conditions of the Yoga. Why this claim to be an advanced sadhak and what is the sense of it? it resolves itself into an egoistic assertion of superiority over others which is not justified so long as there is the egoism and the need of assertion — accompanied, as it always is, by a weakness and turbid imperfection which belie the claim of living in a superior consciousness to the “unadvanced” sadhaks. It is time these crudities disappeared from the Asram atmosphere.

3 February 1932