Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Human Relations and the Ashram

Relations with People outside the Ashram [2]

Do you believe that people here are more sensitive than people outside? Some people think that the Asram is a “rotten” place with jealousy and hatred rampant among the sadhaks.

Outside there are just the same things. The Asram is an epitome of the human nature that has to be changed — but outside people put as much as possible a mask of social manners and other pretences over the rottenness — what Christ called in the case of the Pharisees the “whited sepulchre”. Moreover there one can pick and choose the people one will associate with while in the narrow limits of the Asram it is not so possible — contacts are inevitable. Wherever humans are obliged to associate closely, what I saw described the other day as “the astonishing meannesses and caddishnesses inherent in human nature” come quickly out. I have seen that in Asrams, in political work, in social attempts at united living, everywhere in fact where it gets a chance. But when one tries to do Yoga, one cannot fail to see that in oneself and not only, as most people do, see it in others, and once seen, then? Is it to be got rid of or to be kept? Most people here seem to want to keep it. Or they say it is too strong for them, they can’t help it!

3 April 1938