do it in the
Cherry Press and not at Pondicherry. If you want to come here, you must do it
with a firm determination to get rid of this attachment and make a complete and
unconditional consecration and self-surrender.Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
2.Early Letters on Yoga and the Spiritual Life 1911–1928
To Barindra Kumar Ghose and Others, 1922–1928
To Hrishikesh Kanjilal1
[c. 1922]
To Hrishikesh
It appears from your present letter and attitude that
you propose to give God a seat on your right hand and R – another on the left
and to sit in meditation between oscillating sweetly from one to the other. If
this is what you want to do please do it in the
Cherry Press and not at Pondicherry. If you want to come here, you must do it
with a firm determination to get rid of this attachment and make a complete and
unconditional consecration and self-surrender.
You seem not to have understood the principle of this Yoga. The old Yoga demanded a complete renunciation extending to the giving up of the worldly life itself. This Yoga aims instead at a new and transformed life. But it insists as inexorably on a complete throwing away of desire and attachment in the mind, life and body. Its aim is to refound life in the truth of the spirit and for that purpose to transfer the roots of all we are and do from the mind, life and body to a greater consciousness above the mind. That means that in the new life all the connections must be founded on a spiritual intimacy and a truth quite other than any which supports our present connections. One must be prepared to renounce at the higher call what are called the natural affections. Even if they are kept at all, it can only be with a change which transforms them altogether. But whether they are to be renounced or kept and changed must be decided not by the personal desires but by the truth above. All must be given up to the Supreme Master of the Yoga.
If you cling to the desires of the mental, vital and physical beings, this transference and transformation cannot happen. Your attachment to your son is a thing of the vital parts in you, and if you are not prepared to give it up, it will inevitably clash with the demands of the Yoga and stop your progress.
When you came here, your psychical being was opened up,
and the mental, vital and physical obstacles sufficiently worked upon to admit
of this opening. This came first, because that was the strongest part of you for
the purposes of the Yoga. Afterwards there was an attempt to open up the mind
and other parts. But owing to certain influences their resistance became strong
enough to bring things to a standstill. Doubt and non-understanding in the mind
and the vital attachments of which this one to your son is the strongest, were
the main instruments of this resistance. It is no use coming back with any of
these things still cherished and supported by your mind and will. 
Either you will make no progress at all here or if the power works on
you it will work to break the resistance of the vital being and if you still
support that resistance the nature of this struggle and the consequences may be
of a serious and undesirable character. The power that works in this Yoga is of
a thorough-going character and tolerates in the end nothing great or small that
is an obstacle to the truth and its realisation. To come here will be to invite
its working in the strongest and most insistent form.
Aurobindo Ghose
1 Circa 1922. A member of Barin Ghose’s revolutionary group, Hrishikesh Kanjilal (born 1879) was one of the defendants in the Alipore Bomb Trial. Convicted, he spent ten years in the Andamans. After his release he visited Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. In Calcutta he was associated with Barin in his various enterprises, one of which was the Cherry Press.