Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Work in the Ashram

Some Aspects of Work in the Ashram [2]

When I was working in the Satyagraha movement, I worked with a zeal and energy I don’t seem to have here. Is it because there is no fighting programme except against one’s own self? How can I recover my interest and vigour in work?

The Satyagraha was one of those movements in which the vital part of the nature gets easily enthusiastic and interested — it meant a fight on the vital level (its only difference from other revolutionary activities being its “non-violent” character), with universal support and applause and approval, a nationwide excitement behind you, the sense of heroism and possible martyrdom, a “moral” ideal giving a farther support of strong self-approbation and the sense of righteousness. Here there is nothing that ministers to the human vital nature; the work is small, silent, shut off from the outside world and its circumstances, of value only as a field for spiritual self-culture. If one is governed by the sole spiritual motive and has the spiritual consciousness, one can take joy and interest in this work. Or if, in spite of his human shortcomings, the worker is mainly bent on spiritual progress and self-perfection, then also he can take interest in the work and both feel its utility for the discovery and purification of his egoistic mental and vital and physical nature and take joy in it as a service of the Divine.

11 August 1932