Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters
(1890–1926)
Letters and Telegrams to Political and Professional
Associates 1906–1926
To Joseph Baptista1
Pondicherry
Jan. 5, 1920
Dear Baptista,
Your offer is a tempting one, but I regret that I
cannot answer it in the affirmative. It is due to you that I should state
explicitly my reasons. In the first place I am not prepared at present to return
to British India. This is quite apart from any political obstacle. I understand
that up to last September 
the Government of
Bengal (and probably the Government of Madras also) were opposed to my return to
British India and that practically this opposition meant that if I went back I
should be interned or imprisoned under one or other of the beneficent Acts which
are apparently still to subsist as helps in ushering in the new era of trust and
cooperation. I do not suppose other Governments would be any more delighted by
my appearance in their respective provinces. Perhaps the King’s Proclamation may
make a difference, but that is not certain since, as I read it, it does not mean
an amnesty, but an act of gracious concession and benevolence limited by the
discretion of the Viceroy. Now I have too much work on my hands to waste my time
in the leisured ease of an involuntary Government guest. But even if I were
assured of an entirely free action and movement, I should yet not go just now. I
came to Pondicherry in order to have freedom and tranquillity for a fixed object
having nothing to do with present politics – in which I have taken no direct
part since my coming here, though what I could do for the country in my own way
I have constantly done,– and until it is accomplished, it is not possible for me
to resume any kind of public activity. But if I were in British India, I should
be obliged to plunge at once into action of different kinds. Pondicherry is my
place of retreat, my cave of tapasya,– not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand
of my own invention. I must finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped
for my work before I leave it.
Next in the matter of the work itself. I do not at all
look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I
have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the
spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic
withdrawal or contempt or disgust of secular things. There is to me nothing
secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete
spiritual life, and the importance of politics at the present time is very
great. But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably
from anything now current in the field. I entered into political action and
continued it from 1903 to 1910 with one aim and one alone, to get into the mind
of the people a settled 
will for freedom and
the necessity of a struggle to achieve it in place of the futile ambling
Congress methods till then in vogue. That is now done and the Amritsar Congress
is the seal upon it. The will is not as practical and compact nor by any means
as organised and sustained in action as it should be, but there is the will and
plenty of strong and able leaders to guide it. I consider that in spite of the
inadequacy of the Reforms, the will to self-determination, if the country keeps
its present temper, as I have no doubt it will, is bound to prevail before long.
What preoccupies me now is the question what it is going to do with its
self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to
determine its future?
You may ask why not come out and help, myself, so far
as I can, in giving a lead? But my mind has a habit of running inconveniently
ahead of the times,– some might say, out of time altogether into the world of
the ideal. Your party, you say, is going to be a social democratic party. Now I
believe in something which might be called social democracy, but not in any of
the forms now current, and I am not altogether in love with the European kind,
however great an improvement it may be on the past. I hold that India having a
spirit of her own and a governing temperament proper to her own civilisation,
should in politics as in everything else strike out her own original path and
not stumble in the wake of Europe. But this is precisely what she will be
obliged to do, if she has to start on the road in her present chaotic and
unprepared condition of mind. No doubt people talk of India developing on her
own lines, but nobody seems to have very clear or sufficient ideas as to what
those lines are to be. In this matter I have formed ideals and certain definite
ideas of my own, in which at present very few are likely to follow me, since
they are governed by an uncompromising spiritual idealism of an unconventional
kind and would be unintelligible to many and an offence and stumbling block to a
great number. But I have not as yet any clear and full idea of the practical
lines; I have no formed programme. In a word, I am feeling my way in my mind and
am not ready for either propaganda or action. Even if I were, it would mean for
some time ploughing my lonely 
furrow or at
least freedom to take my own way. As the editor of your paper, I should be bound
to voice the opinion of others and reserve my own, and while I have full
sympathy with the general ideas of the advanced parties so far as concerns the
action of the present moment and, if I were in the field, would do all I could
to help them, I am almost incapable by nature of limiting myself in that way, at
least to the extent that would be requisite.
Excuse the length of this screed. I thought it
necessary to explain fully so as to avoid giving you the impression that I
declined your request from any affectation or reality of spiritual aloofness or
wish to shirk the call of the country or want of sympathy with the work you and
others are so admirably doing. I repeat my regret that I am compelled to
disappoint you.
Yours sincerely,
Aurobindo Ghose