Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

The Ashram and the Outside World

Yoga Centres [5]

For some time there have been a lot of clashes here in our centre. [Details given.] The other day X called me aside and told me that if people had no confidence in him, he would rather not associate with us, but remain alone. Most people here are against X, who is filled with self-praise, and always criticises the Sadhanbari.

There is absolutely no hope of mutual harmony and confidence in Chittagong and it is idle to talk of it when the hearts of the sadhaks are full of all kinds of egoism, mutual dislike, jealousy, rivalry, suspicion, fault-finding and all sorts of uncleanness. It is only through the psychic and in a psychic atmosphere that harmony can come; a sadhana based entirely on the vital ego cannot create it. X is right in drawing back and keeping to himself. When things have gone so far that the sadhaks of the Sadhanbari are forming visions of him as a dangerous devil, it is absurd to want to go on as if there were nothing.

Some people here feel that X has been bringing impurity of thought and action into our centre. I give you some examples....

All these are simply self-created vital formations due to the atmosphere of suspicion and dislike which Y’s campaign has created around X. In such an atmosphere it is not truth that manifests but the feelings of the vital that take form in shapes and images.

You may recall that you refused to let Z stay with X, as you thought it might not be good for Z’s sadhana.

I can say nothing and am not willing to say anything in these matters. I discouraged X from allowing Z to stay with him because I did not think the results will be good in view of what had happened at Rangpur — that was the reason why X refused to lodge him without an express order from here. But, seeing the results of my intervention, I refuse to intervene in any other matter. The Chittagong sadhaks must themselves settle their own affairs.

30 October 1936