Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Human Relations and the Ashram

Inadvisability of Forming Special Relations [4]

The whole difficulty comes from the fact that you and X had a special relation to each other which was of the character of a mutual vital demand and dependence on each other and what is called in Yoga an attachment. (There is no question here of a sexual physical relation but of a vital attachment.) This was coming in the way of your making any progress in Yoga and it was coming in the way of X also. When X realised this and wanted to reduce the connection between you to a minimum, you were unwilling, you wanted to do all sorts of things that would keep you near him and keep him busy with you. X himself was not free from attachment and therefore in reacting against your pressure and his own remains of weakness, he became rude and violent — that was what he meant by cutting the connection altogether. But he is not yet free and that is why he still reacts violently whenever there is any talk of your going to him as he has done in his last letter. On your side you also are not free — if you were, it would not happen that every time there is any question of X you immediately lose the good condition you were getting and all the old thoughts occupy your mind and you fall back into the weeping and not eating etc. etc. It is the reason why the Mother does not care for you and X to meet so long as these old reactions are there either in him or in you. That is the plain fact of the matter. What other people think or say about it, is of no importance. What matters is the sadhana and besides it nothing else matters. Show that you are free, that what X does or does not do does not disturb or occupy your mind in the least and get into the true way of the sadhana as you were preparing to do — then it will be easier for us to deal with X and his defects and difficulties. This Asram is not intended to be a society like that of the outside world, and when Y or Z or anyone else talk and advise you from that standpoint, they are speaking things which have nothing to do with the work we are trying to do here — and if you listen to such advice, you will only get out of the right way of looking at it. You will get into the right way only when you cease to think of these things and look at things from the point of view of sadhana only.