Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Himself and the Ashram
The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35
Rules in the Life of the Ashram
General Rules and Individual Natures [2]
No, there is no obligation of gloom, harshness,
austerity or lonely grandeur in this Yoga. If I am living in my room, it is not
out of a passion for solitude, and it would be ridiculous to put forward this
purely external circumstance or Xs withdrawnness which is a personal
necessity of his sadhana as if it were the obligatory sign of a high advance
in the Yoga or solitude the aim; these are simply incidents which none is called
on to imitate. So you need not be anxious; solitude is not demanded of you, for
an ascetic dryness of isolated loneliness cannot be your spiritual destiny since
it is not consonant with your swabhava which is made for joy, largeness,
expansion, a comprehensive movement of the life-force. And, as for stern gravity
and the majesty of a speechless and smileless face, your transformation into
that would be terrifying to think of! I may remind you that the Mother and
myself always recommended to you a sunlit and 
cheerful
progress as the best; if we were inclined to complain of anything in you which
we are not, knowing that one does not choose ones difficulties, it would not
be that you have too much gaiety but that you are not always as gay and cheerful
as we would like you to be! The storm, cloud, difficulty, suffering come, but
they are no part of the Yogic idea; they belong to the Nature that is now, not
to the divine Nature that is to be.