Sri Aurobindo: Between concentration on correspondence alone and the full many-sided work — between work and concentration.  [ ] It does not mean that I lose the higher consciousness while doing the work of correspondence. If I did that, I would not only not be supramental, but would be very far even from the full Yogic consciousness.   Say “by correspondence alone”.


Sri Aurobindo: If I have to help somebody to repel an attack, I can’t do it by only writing a note, I have to send him some Force or else concentrate and do the work for him. Also I can’t bring down the Supramental by merely writing neatly to people about it. I am not asking for leisure to meditate at ease in a blissful indolence. I said distinctly I wanted it for concentration on other more important work than correspondence.  The ignorance underlying this attitude is in the assumption that one must necessarily do only work or only meditation.


Sri Aurobindo: Either work is the means or meditation is the means, but both cannot be! I have never said, so far as I know, that meditation should not be done. To set up an open competition or a closed one between works and meditation is a trick of the dividing mind and belongs to the old Yoga. Please remember that I have been declaring all along an integral Yoga in which knowledge, Bhakti, works — light of consciousness, Ananda and love, will and power in works — meditation, adoration, service of the Divine have all their place. Have I written seven volumes of the all in vain?


Sri Aurobindo: Meditation is not greater than Yoga of works nor works greater than Yoga by knowledge — both are equal.  Another thing — it is a mistake to argue from one’s own very limited experience, ignoring that of others, and build on it large generalisations about Yoga. This is what many do, but the method has obvious demerits. You have no experience of major realisations through work, and you conclude that such realisations are impossible. But what of the many who have had them — elsewhere and here too in the Asram?


Sri Aurobindo: That has no value? You kindly hint to me that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not written the history of my sadhana — if I had, you would have seen that if I had not made action and work one of my chief means of realisation — well, there would have been no sadhana and no realisation except that, perhaps, of Nirvana.  I shall perhaps add something hereafter as to what works can do, but no time tonight.


Sri Aurobindo: Do not conclude however that I am exalting works as the sole means of realisation. I am only giving it its due place.  You will excuse the vein of irony or satire in all this — but really when I am told that my own case disproves my whole spiritual philosophy and accumulated knowledge and experience, a little liveliness in answer is permissible.   The work is the work of the Divine and it is best to regard oneself as an instrument. The word mission is apt to accentuate the sense of ego and should be avoided.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is no special cause for it. It is always so with everybody unless one feels the Mother’s Force working through one in the action.  It is possible to work through the passive state even, provided one feels that one is not doing the work but it is being done through one.


Sri Aurobindo: It comes forward of itself either through constant love and aspiration or when the mind and vital have been made ready by the descent from above and the working of the Force.   There are some who cannot meditate and progress through work only. Each has his own nature. But to extend one method to all is always an error.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is a question of doing work in the right attitude — as a means of sadhana. Most take the work as work only.     One can go on without anything except a little rice daily and some water — without clothes even or a house to shelter.


Sri Aurobindo: Is that what you call true Yoga and that should be followed in the Asram? But then there is no need of an Asram. A cave somewhere for each will do.  Why do you use a fountain pen? You can very well go on with an ordinary one.


Sri Aurobindo: Why do you take these from the stores? Cheap paper would do. Why do you write? The mind should be passive.  If by passivity of the mind you mean laziness and inability to use it, then what Yoga makes that its basis?


Sri Aurobindo: The mind has to be quieted and transformed, not made indolent and useless. Is there any old Yoga that makes it a rule not to allow those who practise it to study Sanskrit or philosophy? Does that prevent the Yogis from attaining mental quietude? Do you think that the Mother and myself never read anything and have to sit all day inactive in order to make our minds quiet? Are you not aware that the principle of this Yoga is to arrive at an inner silence in which all activities can take place without disturbing the inner silence?


Sri Aurobindo:   For the sadhana, it is not true that some are here only because they give money and others because they are workers only. What is true is that there are many who can prepare themselves only by work, their consciousness not being yet ready for meditation of the more intense kind. But even for those who can do intense meditation from the beginning, sadhana by work is also necessary in this Yoga. One cannot arrive at its goal by meditation alone.


Sri Aurobindo: As for your own capacity, it was evident when for a fairly long period an active sadhana was proceeding within you.  Everybody’s capacity however is limited — little can be done by one’s own strength alone. It is reliance on the Divine Force, the Mother’s Force and Light and openness to it that is the real capacity. This you had for a time, but as with many others it got clouded over by the coming up of the physical nature in its full force. This clouding happens to almost everybody at that stage, but it need not be lasting.


Sri Aurobindo: If the physical consciousness resolves to open itself, then nothing more is needed for progress in the sadhana.    There is one thing everybody should remember that everything should be done from the point of view of Yoga, of sadhana, of growing into a divine life in the Mother’s consciousness. To insist upon one’s own mind and its ideas, to allow oneself to be governed by one’s own vital feelings and reactions should not be the rule of life here. One has to stand back from these, to be detached, to get in their place the true knowledge from above, the true feelings from the psychic within.


Sri Aurobindo: This cannot be done if the mind and vital do not surrender, if they do not renounce their attachment to their own ignorance which they call truth, right, justice. All the trouble rises from that; if that were overcome, the true basis of life, of work, of harmony of all in the union with the Divine would more and more replace the trouble and difﬁculty of the present.  The work here is not intended for showing one’s capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness to the Mother, but as a ﬁeld and an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the integral Yoga — for learning to work in the true Yogic way — dedication through service, practical selﬂessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting the Divine and the Divine’s work ﬁrst and oneself last, harmony, patience, forbearance etc.   When the workers learn these things and cease to be egocentric, as most of you now are, then will come the time for work in which capacity can really be shown — although even then the showing of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the object of divine work.


Sri Aurobindo:   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.


Sri Aurobindo:   Recover yourself now and proceed on your way with a deeper and truer aim in you. Your efforts at sadhana up till now have been too exclusively on the vital plane; aspire for a full opening of the psychic, clear your movements of all ego and strive to make yourself open and aspire only to be a receptacle of the true consciousness and an instrument of the Divine.  As for outward things, what has been lacking in you has been discipline, order, self-consecration in your work. You have acted according to your impulse and fancy and been unable to do any work steadily and with devotion in the work.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother gave you library work to do and it has not been scrupulously done. She asks you for the sake of your own self-discipline to do that little carefully and scrupulously in the future. For the rest you can go on with your music and your sadhana; but let all be done in a deeper spirit and as an offering to the Divine.   There is no reason why one should not offer to work if there is work to do. Often there is work to be done and no one offers, so it is not done.


Sri Aurobindo: Most of the Asram work is done by a few people, while others do a little only or only what they please.     Each man has his defects — you and all others. So you should not allow that to destroy the harmony that should reign among workers.


Sri Aurobindo: Remember that patience and equanimity and good feeling for all are the ﬁrst needs of the sadhak.    The Mother’s withdrawal of you from the work had nothing to do with any relation between you and or any other sadhika.  What you have to do is to utilise it for becoming quiet within, silencing the vital movement and getting into the true attitude.  What you write shows that you had a wrong idea of the work.


Sri Aurobindo: The work in the Asram was not meant as a service to humanity or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Asram. It was not meant either as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a ﬂow of sentiments and attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of the vital movements, a free vital interchange whether with some or with all. The work was meant as a service to the Divine and as a ﬁeld for the inner opening to the Divine, surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selﬂessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality.  Self-afﬁrmation is not the aim, development of the personal self is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, puriﬁcation, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one’s own ignorant self-guidance based on one’s personal ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karma Yoga, the surrender of one’s own will to the Divine Will.


Sri Aurobindo: If one feels human beings to be near and the Divine to be far and seeks the Divine through service of and love of human beings and not the direct service and love of the Divine, then one is following a wrong principle — for that is the principle of the mental, vital and moral, not the spiritual life.    All work is equal — those who write or embroider are in no way superior to those who cook or prepare the grains. To speak otherwise is ignorance.


Sri Aurobindo:   Active participation in an outside work is sometimes useful to a sadhak in the early stages of his sadhana so that he may learn equanimity; but the utility of it for a sadhak of the Asrama is not very clear. Personal or family work is not part of the divine Work unless as in’s case it is dedicated to the Divine — for he gives all its proﬁts here. But in your case it is family property and that is not possible. We are therefore rather doubtful as to how this would ﬁt in at the present stage of your sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   Work here and work done in the world are of course not the same thing. The work there is not in any way a divine work in special — it is ordinary work in the world. But still one must take it as a training and do it in the spirit of karmayoga — what matters there is not the nature of the work in itself but the spirit in which it is done. It must be in the spirit of the Gita, without desire, with detachment, without repulsion, but doing it as perfectly as possible, not for the sake of the family or promotion or to please the superiors, but simply because it is the thing that has been given in the hand to do.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a ﬁeld of inner training, nothing more. One has to learn in it three things, equality, desirelessness, dedication. It is not the work as a thing for its own sake, but one’s doing of it and one’s way of doing it that one has to dedicate to the Divine. Done in that spirit it does not matter what the work is. If one trains oneself spiritually like that, then one will be ready to do in the true way whatever special work directly for the Divine (such as the Asram work) one may any day be given to do.


Sri Aurobindo:  What is necessary is not to be troubled or upset by small things, to work pleasantly and quietly with the others, then they also will do the same and there will be no friction.  It is a good discipline like that. Rules are made for the proper harmony and convenience of the work. If you disregard them you promote disorder, inefﬁciency and looseness of work and at the same time you yourself become or remain loose, negligent, undisciplined and imperfect.


Sri Aurobindo:  Rules are indispensable for the orderly management of work; for without order and arrangement nothing can be properly done, all becomes clash, confusion and disorder.  It is the rule that as far as possible supervisors should foresee their needs and ask for the morning’s needs the evening before and for the afternoon’s needs in the morning. In special cases where the article is needed at a particular hour, that should be stated in the chit. Where such previous notice is not given, the ofﬁce will send the articles asked for as soon as possible — i.e., in view of the other work to be done.  In this case the work had been ﬁxed beforehand so it was possible to send previous notice.


Sri Aurobindo: Under the circumstances, although you could ask them to let you have your needs early in spite of absence of previous notice, you could not go and claim that as a right or threaten to report them for negligence to the Mother.  In all such dealings with others, you should see not only your own side of the question but the other side also. There should be no anger, vehement reproach or menace, for these things only raise anger and retort on the other side. I write this because you are trying to rise above yourself and dominate your vital and when one wants to do that, one cannot be too strict with oneself in these things. It is best even to be severe to one’s own mistakes and charitable to the mistakes of others.


Sri Aurobindo:   A rule that can be varied by everyone at his pleasure is no rule. In all countries in which organised work is successfully done, (India is not one of them), rules exist and nobody thinks of breaking them, for it is realised that work (or life either) without discipline would soon become a confusion and an anarchic failure. In the great days of India everything was put under rule, even art and poetry, even Yoga. Here in fact rules are much less rigid than in any European organisation.


Sri Aurobindo: Personal discretion can even in a frame of rules have plenty of play — but discretion must be discreetly used, otherwise it becomes something arbitrary or chaotic.  It was because people were neglecting their duty in the absorption of reading and writing, allowing undesirable people to enter etc. If that does not happen, one can read or write — only when one is on duty, the duty comes ﬁrst.    It is not necessary to work under anybody — it is a work of collaboration in which each is free to organise his work as he thinks best for the work.


Sri Aurobindo: You can see how best to organise yours.    The Mother has her own reasons for her decisions; she has to look at the work as a whole without regard to one department or branch alone and with a view to the necessities of the work and the management. The objection to buying much of this size was hers and not’s. Whatever work is done here, one has always to learn to subordinate or put aside one’s own ideas and preferences about things concerning it and do for the best under the conditions and decisions laid down by her.


Sri Aurobindo: This is one of the main difﬁculties throughout the Asram, as each worker wants to do according to his own ideas, on his own lines according to what he thinks to be the right or convenient thing and expects that to be sanctioned. It is one of the principal reasons of difﬁculty, clash or disorder in the work, creating conﬂict between the workers themselves, conﬂict between the workers and the heads of departments, conﬂict between the ideas of the sadhaks and the will of the Mother. Harmony can only exist if all accept the will of the Mother without grudge or personal reaction.  Independent work does not exist in the Asram. All is organised and interrelated; neither the heads of departments nor the workers are independent.


Sri Aurobindo: To learn subordination and cooperation is necessary for all collective work; without it there will be chaos.  As for the Yoga aspect of these personal clashes, dislikes etc. and of the work itself, I have written about that before.     It is necessary to ﬁx dates for the organisation of the work, but there must be a certain plasticity so that if necessary the time may be extended.


Sri Aurobindo: As to particular cases it is a matter of judgment how much time is to be given. It is the system of the schedule, but whether the work can be done “according to schedule”, as they say, has to be seen in practice. The occult resistance is a fact but it applies more to psychological than to physical things.  None of these ways is the right one; the ﬁrst weakens the authority, the second is not dynamic, the last is obviously not helpful. In all work the nearer one gets to an entire equanimity (which does not mean indifference) in the mind and the vital feeling, the better.


Sri Aurobindo: A calm detached attitude, with a fundamental sympathy in it but not of the sentimental kind, a clear unbiased eye observing their character and reactions, and a quiet and ﬁrm authority without harshness, capable both of kindness and of quiet severity, where severity is needed, would be the best attitude.      To


Sri Aurobindo: be angry and speak harshly to the workmen injures both the work and the sadhana.    I suppose it will have to come to that in the end — for the conditions and cost of having workmen and even servants is likely to become prohibitive if the new laws are made operative in the [] colonies. But for the moment it is not practicable.


Sri Aurobindo: The majority of the sadhaks have not the mentality that would be needed for this kind of work — workman’s work — nor the necessary capacity of working together. A few zealous and enthusiastic sadhaks would not be able to meet the necessity.  The idea, when the arrangement was made, was simply to see how and in what spirit the sadhaks dealt with money when they had any at their disposal.  The of a sadhak should be as few as possible; for there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries.


Sri Aurobindo: These a Yogi has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions — (1) if he uses them during his sadhana solely to train himself in possessing things without attachment or desire and learn to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and measure — or, (2) if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in any way by loss or withholding or deprival. If he has any greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, any anxiety, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not free in spirit and his use of the things he possesses is contrary to the spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free in spirit, he will not be ﬁt for possession if he has not learned to use things not for himself, but for the Divine Will, as an instrument, with the right knowledge and action in the use for the proper equipment of a life lived not for oneself but for and in the Divine.    You must be prepared to live in either condition, attached neither to luxury nor to asceticism.


Sri Aurobindo: It is good to be able to live with very few things, but you must also be able to live with nice and decent things and make right use of them. Never mind your true need, live with whatever the Mother has given you.     If that can be done (in a positive, not merely a negative way), then it would be an immense step forward.


Sri Aurobindo:   By negative I mean merely repressing the desires and wrong movements and egoism, by positive I mean the bringing down of light and peace and purity in those parts from above. I do not mean that these movements are not to be rejected — but all the energy should not be directed solely to rejection. It must also be directed to the positive replacement of them by the higher consciousness. The more this consciousness comes, the easier also will the rejection be.


Sri Aurobindo:   That is a mistake many have made because the vital wanted to make it. Whether ascetic or non-ascetic, the Yogi, the sadhak must become free from vital desire and spiritually master of the movements of his nature — and for that he must be free from ego and desire and duality. I have always made that quite clear — that indulgence of desire is no more part of this Yoga than it is of Sannyasa.


Sri Aurobindo: One must be able to use and handle physical things and physical life, but from the spiritual consciousness, not from the level of the vital ego.   It is surprising that you should miss, that so many here should miss the point that to be so much troubled about a triﬂing want or inconvenience is quite contrary to the spirit of Yoga. To be untroubled and unmoved by such things is an elementary step in Yogic self-discipline. Transcendence is a far bigger matter; but this should be possible by self-control, for that there is no need of transcendence. In the life here extreme asceticism in the sense of doing without everything but the barest needs is not enforced; but it is all the more necessary to be free within, to surmount desire and attachment, to be able to do without things in the sense of not hankering after things when they are not there, not being attached to them when they are there, not insisting on one’s own demands, desires, wants, comforts, conveniences, being satisﬁed with what one is given.


Sri Aurobindo: Sannyasa is not enforced, but the inner of non-desire, non-demand, non-attachment is indispensable. A thing like this, an inconvenience that is not remedied when one asks, should be welcomed as a test for this inner; all things of the kind should be welcome as such opportunities to the seeker after the inner perfection.  I don’t know that wearing the Sannyasi dress would help for one can wear the dress and yet be full of desires. But I have no objection if it helps you as a symbol or a reminder.


Sri Aurobindo: A sadhak should not have demands and ask for things for his personal use from people outside, but if they of their own accord and without any request or suggestion send them to him, he can receive them. The most important point is that he shall not indulge any spirit of greed or desire under any excuse or colour and should be unaffected in his vital being by the presence or absence of these things that satisfy desire.


Sri Aurobindo: All that is simply the unreasoning repetition of the old blindness.  There can be no understanding if your mind insists on something that is radically untrue. This ignorant attitude assumes that you are here to be ﬁrst, to be equal to any other in the Asram in the eyes of others, to enjoy position and privileges, to grab whatever you can for yourself, to have pleasure and enjoyment, to get everything that anybody else may have. All that is utterly false for the spiritual life. These are the aims that selﬁsh, worldly and ambitious men seek in the ordinary life.


Sri Aurobindo: The spiritual life has nothing to do with these things. One is here only for two things, to realise the Divine and to transform the consciousness and nature into the higher consciousness and nature. That is what the Power that works on you intends and nothing else. The inﬂuence upon you which struggles against it has to disappear and no more be a part of your nature.


Sri Aurobindo: He may give all that is truly needed — but people usually interpret this idea in the sense that He gives all that they think or feel that they need. He may do that — but also He may not.  In the end, yes ; but here too people expect Him to supply them instantly, which does not always happen.  It is true that the sadhaks have turned the idea of a divine life into an excuse for an unbridled spirit of demand and desire and this is increasing to a perilous extent. The whole world is in a ﬁnancial and economic crisis; money difﬁcult to get, prices rising fantastically, people everywhere cutting down their standard of life and their expenses: here in the Asram the standard of life is rising and the expenditure on comforts increasing continually.


Sri Aurobindo: At this rate it will not be long before a halt will have to come and circumstances will force a reversion to a more abstemious way of life.  But the remedy is not asceticism; it is self-control, the elimination of desire and demand, the spirit which is easily satisﬁed with what it gets, makes the most of it, is careful of physical things and not subject to craving. The ideal of the Yoga is not asceticism, but to do with things or without things in the same spirit of equality and non-attachment — only in that spirit can one make a true and spiritual use of physical things and material life.   You must get a change of consciousness which makes these external things of no importance to you. A change of room will not bring it, on the contrary your stay in this room is the very opportunity that is given you for the inner change.


Sri Aurobindo:   Why keep up these vital desires, “a cot to my taste” etc.? I have always lain on any cot given to me, not asking whether it is to my “taste” or not. It seems to me the proper attitude for a sadhak.  Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away or discourage the WealthPower.


Sri Aurobindo: These things have long been rampant in the society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean a proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress.  Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this Yoga, but self-control in the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it — and even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a selfcontrol in their use.


Sri Aurobindo:  I may say, generally, that in the present condition of things it is becoming increasingly necessary to do the best we can with what we have and make things last as long as possible. There are many kinds of things hitherto provided, for instance, which it will be impossible to renew once the present stock is over.  The difﬁculty is that most people in the Asram have no training in handling physical things (except the simplest, hardest and roughest), no propensity to take care of them, to give them their full use and time of survival. This is partly due to ignorance and inexperience, but partly also to carelessness, rough, violent and unseeing handling, indifference; there is also in many a feeling that it does not matter if things are quickly spoilt, they will be replaced; one worker was even heard to say to another, “why do you care? it is not your money.”


Sri Aurobindo: To take one instance only.  Taps in Europe will last for many years — here in a few months, sometimes in a few weeks they are spoilt and call for repairs or replacement. People ask for new provisions before the old are exhausted or even near exhaustion, not because they need them, but because they have a right (?) to a new supply; some have even been known to throw away what remains with them in order to have a new stock. And so on, ad inﬁnitum. All this is tamas and the end of tamas is disintegration, dispersal of forces, failure of material.


Sri Aurobindo: And in the end, as this is a collective affair, the consequences come upon everybody, the careful and the careless together. Our ideal was a large, not a restricted life, but wellorganised, free from waste and tamas and disorder. Now there has to be a tightness, a period of retrenchment till people learn and things get better.    If things are constantly broken, is perfectly right in enforcing economy.


Sri Aurobindo: Very few of the sadhaks have any sense of responsibility in this respect; most seem to think that they are entitled to waste, destroy, spoil, use freely as if the Mother’s sole business was to supply their wants and the Asram had unlimited resources. But it is not possible for the Asram to develop its wealth so long as the sadhaks and workers are selﬁsh, careless, undisciplined and irresponsible. Lakshmi does not continue to pour her gifts under such conditions.    Each supervisor is responsible for the maintenance intact and in good condition of the machinery, tools and apparatus in his charge.


Sri Aurobindo: No one other than those in charge or using them for the work should touch or handle.  The correct counting is not an accident; there is a sort of intuitive consciousness that comes in the body and makes it know the right thing or do the right thing. This growing of consciousness in the body is one of the most important results of Yoga turned to action and is especially important in this Yoga.  It is something in the inner being that has the power of which the Mother spoke, not the external human part. I think you are seeking the power in the external being, but that can only raise up difﬁculties.


Sri Aurobindo: Awaken the psychic in you, let the inner being come out and replace the ego, then the latent power also will become effective. You can then do the work and the service to which you aspire.    It is not a question of ﬁtness or unﬁtness, primarily, — there are many other considerations, e.g. the practicability of any such large collection under the present not very favourable circumstances, the conditions of your proposed attempt etc.  But if you are not sure of yourself (as to the persistence of your intention in the future), how can you be sure that it is your mission or a true inspiration and not the imagination or the strong impulse of a moment?


Sri Aurobindo: In another letter you had said you could wait for years.  Anyhow, I cannot give a decision on so important a matter unless I see the way more clear than I see it now.    I wrote to you before [] that I did not see my way clear in this matter. My main reason, or one of my main reasons, was that the time and present conditions are adverse to success.


Sri Aurobindo: All the information I have received since entirely conﬁrms it; most have suffered by the long prevailing depression and few are either in a mood or a position to give largely. In these circumstances the idea of a mission to collect lakhs of money must be abandoned or at least postponed to better times.  There were other difﬁculties I saw, but these need not be discussed at present, since the mission itself is barred by the lack of all reasonable chance of success.  About work here and what has been said by you on that subject, I shall write in another letter.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes; since you are working for the Asram.  If you can get some help from your friends, it would be much better. You can understand that with 100 members almost, most of whom can contribute nothing to the expenses, the Asram needs all the help it can get for their and its maintenance.   If it is done in that way, will have to wait for a result for years together. Even if they are interested, even if they are practising Yoga, people don’t think of giving money unless they are asked, except a few who have a generous vital nature.


Sri Aurobindo: It is all right to interest people in the work and the Yoga — but of itself that will be rarely sufﬁcient, they must know that money is needed and the idea of giving must be put into them.    There are many men who are very pious, but they will give only to traditional institutions, temples, dharamshalas etc. Unless they are convinced, interested or somehow touched, they may not be so ready to give to the Asram. But the attempt can always be made.


Sri Aurobindo:   The vital forces who hold the money power do not want to give or yield anything except for vital purposes, it is only under compulsion that they give for divine work.


Sri Aurobindo: Over Rs. 6000 a month — including the building expenses and all other current expenditure. Of course buying of houses and such other non-current expenditure is not included. Each member of the Asram costs Rs. 50 a month, visitors about Rs. 40 (rent, electricity, food, servants etc. all included).


Sri Aurobindo: I think there is nothing more of importance, except that we need money for expansion and do not get it.     The expenses of each sadhak are reckoned as Rs. 50 a month — but it is not much use asking for that. The real need of money here is of a bigger kind — for development of institutions in the Asram, a place for art, for music, a school for children, a place for science etc.


Sri Aurobindo: Even the maintenance of the Asram needs larger sums, e.g. for houses to be bought instead of renting them at a heavy recurring expense.  As usual you seem to have received some very fantastic and sensational reports about what you call the mill business. There was no “mill” in question, only’s small foundry and’s equally small oil factory. was in difﬁculties about her affair and came to the Mother for advice and offered to sell; the Mother was prepared to buy on reasonable or even on generous terms on certain conditions and use it, not on capitalistic lines or for any proﬁt, but for certain work necessary to the Ashram, just as she uses the Atelier or the Bakery or the Building Department.  The Ashram badly needs a foundry and the idea was to use’s machinery for making the soap necessary for the Ashram.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother told that she was sending for and if he consented to run these two affairs, she might buy but not otherwise as the Mother herself had no time to look after these things. came but found the whole thing too small and not sufﬁcient for the purpose or for some larger work he wanted to do; so had to be told that nothing could be done. That is the whole affair.  Where do you ﬁnd anything here of capitalism and huge proﬁts and slums and all the rest?  I may say however that I do not regard business as something evil or tainted, any more than it was so regarded in ancient spiritual India.


Sri Aurobindo: If I did, I would not be able to receive money from or from those of our disciples who in Bombay trade with East Africa; nor could we then encourage them to go on with their work but would have to tell them to throw it up and attend to their spiritual progress alone. How are we to reconcile’s seeking after spiritual light and his mill? Ought I not to tell him to leave his mill to itself and to the devil and go into some Ashram to meditate? Even if I myself had had the command to do business as I had the command to do politics I would have done it without the least spiritual or moral compunction. All depends on the spirit in which a thing is done, the principle on which it is built and use to which it is turned.


Sri Aurobindo: I have done politics and the most violent kind of revolutionary politics,, and I have supported war and sent men to it, even though politics is not always or often a very clean occupation nor can war be called a spiritual line of action. But Krishna calls upon Arjuna to carry on war of the most terrible kind and by his example encourage men to do every kind of human work, Do you contend that Krishna was an unspiritual man and that his advice to Arjuna was mistaken or wrong in principle? Krishna goes farther and declares that a man by doing in the right way and in the right spirit the work dictated to him by his fundamental nature, temperament and capacity and according to his and its dharma can move towards the Divine. He validates the function and dharma of the Vaishya as well as of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn proﬁts and yet be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life.


Sri Aurobindo: The Gita is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation and enjoining a Yoga of works as well as of Bhakti and Knowledge. Krishna, however, superimposes a higher law also that work must be done without desire, without attachment to any fruit or reward, without any egoistic attitude or motive, as an offering or sacriﬁce to the Divine. This is the traditional Indian attitude towards these things, that all work can be done if it is done according to the dharma and, if it is rightly done, it does not prevent the approach to the Divine or the access to spiritual knowledge and the spiritual life.  There is of course also the ascetic ideal which is necessary for many and has its place in the spiritual order. I would myself say that no man can be spiritually complete if he cannot live ascetically or follow a life as bare as the barest anchorite’s.


Sri Aurobindo: Obviously, greed for wealth and money-making has to be absent from his nature as much as greed for food or any other greed and all attachment to these things must be renounced from his consciousness. But I do not regard the ascetic way of living as indispensable to spiritual perfection or as identical with it. There is the way of spiritual self-mastery and the way of spiritual self-giving and surrender to the Divine, abandoning ego and desire even in the midst of action or of any kind of work or all kinds of work demanded from us by the Divine.  If it were not so, there would not have been great spiritual men like Janaka or Vidura in India and even there would have been no Krishna or else Krishna would have been not the Lord of Brindavan and Mathura and Dwarka or a prince and warrior or the charioteer of Kurukshetra, but only one more great anchorite. The Indian scriptures and Indian tradition, in the Mahabharata and elsewhere, make room both for the spirituality of the renunciation of life and for the spiritual life of action.


Sri Aurobindo: One cannot say that one only is the Indian tradition and that the acceptance of life and works of all kinds,, is un-Indian, European or Western and unspiritual.  The food given from the Dining Room has the Mother’s force behind it. It contains everything that is necessary to keep you in good health to do the sadhana. Keep that attitude and eat.  Everything will go well.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is certainly not very Yogic to be so much harassed by the importunity of the palate. I notice that these petty desires, which plenty of people who are not Yogis at all nor aspirants for Yoga know how to put in their proper place, seem to take an inordinate importance in the consciousness of the sadhaks here — not all, certainly, but many. In this as in many other matters they do not seem to realise that, if you want to do Yoga, you must take more and more in all matters, small or great, the Yogic attitude. In our path that attitude is not one of forceful suppression, but of detachment and equality with regard to the objects of desire.


Sri Aurobindo: Forceful suppression stands on the same level as free indulgence; in both cases, the desire remains; in the one it is fed by indulgence, in the other it lies latent and exasperated by suppression. It is only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower vital, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one’s own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually puriﬁed and itself also calm and equal.  Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and must be allowed to pass, rejected from the consciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place.  But for that these things of eating and drinking must be put in their right place, which is a very small one. You say that many have left the Asram because they did not like the food.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not know who are the many; certainly, those who came here for serious sadhana and left, went for much more grave reasons than that. But if any did go because of an offended palate, then certainly they were quite unﬁt for Yoga and this was not the place for them. For it means that a mutton chop or a tasty plate of ﬁsh was more important for them than the seeking of the Divine! It is not possible to do Yoga if values are so topsy-turvy in the consciousness. Apart from such extravagance, these things which ought to be only among the most minor values even in the human life


Sri Aurobindo: , are promoted by many here to a rank they ought not to have.  At the same time it is better, if it is possible, to have wellcooked rather than badly-cooked food. The idea that the Mother wants tasteless food to be served because tasty food is bad for Yoga, is one of the many absurdities that seem so profusely current among the sadhaks in this Asram about her ways and motives. The Mother is obliged to arrange for neutral (plain and simple), not food, for the reason that any other course has been proved to be impracticable. There are ninety people here, from different countries and provinces whose tastes are as the poles asunder.


Sri Aurobindo: What is tasty food to the Gujarati is abomination to the Bengali and. The European cannot stand an avalanche of tamarind or chillies; the Andhra accustomed to a ﬁery diet would ﬁnd French dishes tasteless. Experiments have been tried before you came, but they were disastrous in their results; a few enjoyed, the majority starved, and bad stomachs began to be the rule. On the other hand, neutral food can be eaten by all and does not injure the health, — that at least is what we have found, — even if it does not give any ecstasy to the palate.  Only, the food, if neutral, should not be tasteless.


Sri Aurobindo: A certain amount of ﬂuctuation is inevitable; no one can cook daily for 80 or 90 people and yet do always well. But if it is too much, a remedy is to be desired and the Mother is willing to consider any practicable and effective suggestion. If any practicable suggestion is made, it will be considered, — keeping always in view the difﬁculty I have pointed out of the ninety people and the three continents and half a dozen provinces that are represented here, apart from individual idiosyncracies and fancies, which, of course, it is absolutely impossible even to try to satisfy unless we want to land ourselves in chaos.  But what if people were to remember that they were here for Yoga, make that the salt and savour of their existence and acquire of the palate! My experience is that if they did that, all the trouble would disappear and even the kitchen difﬁculties and the defects of the cooking would vanish.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother and I do not take meat or ﬁsh and it is not allowed to the members of the Asram. We cannot give the sanction you ask for. You should rise superior to passing ideas and desires; to allow them to take hold of the mind and push towards action is not good for your sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother has made an arrangement with a view to all the occult forces and the best possible conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It cannot work perfectly because the sadhaks themselves have not the right attitude towards food and kindred vital-physical things.  But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility — the Mother does not and cannot sanction it.


Sri Aurobindo: But this arrangement is for the Asram and not for those who are outside.     Vegetarian food is a rule for the Asram, it is not incumbent on anyone outside.


Sri Aurobindo: Much more solid. But people here do not seem to realise that desire consciousness and Yoga consciousness are two different things. They seem to want to make a happy amalgamation of the two.    Mother meant that wrong food and the poisons created by wrong assimilation were a great obstacle to the prolongation of life.


Sri Aurobindo:   If animal food (e.g. eggs or soup) is absolutely for health in convalescence, it can be taken. But it is to suppose that vegetarian food makes people weak — if the food is nourishing and of the right kind, one can be as strong on vegetable food as on meat.    You [] can tell him that to live on fruits and milk, not to shave, not to take rice etc. is absolutely unnecessary for the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not depend on these things.  In the Asram we take only milk and vegetarian diet, — but that rule is not imposed on those outside, it is left to their choice. If it is thought necessary for his health to take ﬁsh, meat or eggs he can do it.  Sadhana also does not depend on the dressing of hair or nondressing. Sadhana in this Yoga at least is a matter of the inner consciousness mainly.


Sri Aurobindo: One has to get over greed of food but not abandon food, to get over tamas and inertia, but not abandon all rest and sleep. To injure the body by excessive physical tapasya is forbidden in this Yoga.    It is not you but I who look on the Asram as a failure [ ]. I was speaking not of you in person, but of the general spirit of the sadhaks with regard to food which is as unYogic as possible.


Sri Aurobindo: In regard not only to food, but to personal comforts it differs in no way from that of ordinary men; it is an attitude of demand, claim and desire and of anger, vexation, grudging, complaint if they do not get their desire. They justify their position by saying that this is not an ascetic Yoga. But neither is it a Yoga of the satisfaction of desire. In this Yoga quite as much as any other, one must be free from servitude to the mind, the vital and the body. It is to be done by the growth of an inner consciousness free from demand and desire, not by the principle of an outer suppression of the objects of desire.


Sri Aurobindo: It is to be done by having a perfect equality with regard to food as to other things. But this very few seem to recognise.    I am afraid you have spoiled your stomach and made it nervous by irregular eating. The food of the Asram is quite plain and healthy and unless one eats too much it ought not to give indigestion.


Sri Aurobindo: It is quite true that physical exercise is very necessary to keep off the tamas. I am glad you have begun it and I trust you will keep it up.  Physical tamas in its roots can be removed only by the descent and the transformation, but physical exercise and regular activity of the body can always prevent a tamasic condition from prevailing in the body.    Yes, certainly, it is very good.


Sri Aurobindo: The amount and speed depend on your capacity and time. A brisk long walk is always very healthful.     Certainly, Mother does not want only sportsmen in the Ashram: that would make it not an Ashram but a playground.


Sri Aurobindo: The sports and physical exercises are primarily for the children of the school and they also do not play only but have to attend to their studies: incidentally, they have improved immensely in health and in discipline and conduct as one very valuable result.  Secondarily, the younger sadhaks are allowed, not enjoined or even recommended, to join in these sports, but certainly they are not supposed to be sportsmen only: they have other and more important things to do. To be a sportsman must necessarily be a voluntary choice and depends on one having the taste and inclination. There are plenty of people around the Mother herself, for instance, who would never dream of frequenting the playground or engaging in sports and the Mother also would never think of asking them to do it. So equally she could not think of being displeased with you for shunning these delights.


Sri Aurobindo: Some, of course, might ask why any sports at all in an Ashram which ought to be concerned only with meditation and inner experiences and the escape from life into the Brahman; but that applies only to the ordinary kind of Ashram to which we have got accustomed and this is not that orthodox kind of Ashram.  It includes life in Yoga, and once we admit life, we can include anything that we ﬁnd useful for life’s ultimate and immediate purpose and not inconsistent with the works of the Spirit. After all, the orthodox Ashram came into being only after Brahman began to shun all connection with the world and the shadow of Buddhism stalked over all the land and Ashrams turned into monasteries. The old Ashrams were not entirely like that; the boys and young men who were brought up in them were trained in many things belonging to life; the son of Pururavas and Urvasie practised archery in the Ashram of a Rishi and became an expert bowman, and Karna became disciple of a great sage in order to acquire from him the use of powerful weapons. So there is no ground why sports should be excluded from the life of an Ashram like ours where we are trying to equate life with the Spirit.


Sri Aurobindo: Even table-tennis or football need not be rigorously excluded. But, putting all persiﬂage aside, my point is that to play or not to play is a matter of choice and inclination, and it would be absurd for Mother to be displeased with you any more than with for not caring to be a sportsman. So you need not have any apprehension on this score; that the Mother should be displeased with you for that is quite impossible. So the idea that the Mother wanted to punish you for anything done or not done or that she wished to draw far away from you or to be cold and distant was a misinterpretation without any real foundation since you have given no ground for it and there was nothing farther from her mind. She has herself explained that it was just the contrary that has been in her mind for some time past and it was an increasing kindness that was her feeling and intention.


Sri Aurobindo: The only change she could expect from you was to grow in your psychic and spiritual endeavour and inner progress and in this you have not failed, quite the contrary. Apart from that, the notion that she could be displeased because you did not change according to this or that pattern and that we could ever dream of sending you away on any such account is a wild idea; it would be most arbitrary and unreasonable.     As to your idea about the sports, your idea that the Mother looks on you coldly because you are not capable of taking delight in sports, that is entirely without foundation.


Sri Aurobindo: I must have told you already more than once that the Mother does not want anybody to take up the sports if he has no inclination or natural bent for them; to join or not to join must be quite voluntary and those who do not join are not cold-shouldered or looked down upon by her for that reason. It would be absurd for her to take that attitude: there are those who do her faithful service which she deeply appreciates and whom she regards with affection and conﬁdence but who never go to the playground either because they have no turn for it or no time, — can you imagine that for that reason she will turn away from them and regard them with coldness? The Mother could never intend that sports should be the sole or the chief preoccupation of the inmates of the Ashram; even the children of the school for whose physical development these sports and athletic exercises are important and for whom they were originally instituted, have other things to do, their work, their studies and other occupations and amusements in which they are as interested as in these athletics. The idea that you should “throw up the sponge” because you do not succeed in sports or like them, is surely an extravagant imagination: there are other things more important, there are Yoga, spiritual progress, bhakti, devotion, service. .


Sri Aurobindo: . .  I do not understand what you mean by my giving time to sport; I am not giving any time to it except that I have written at the Mother’s request an article for the ﬁrst number of the and another for the forthcoming number. It is the Mother who is doing all the rest of the work for the organisation of the sports and the and that she must do, obviously, till it is sufﬁciently organised to go on of itself with only a general supervision from above and her actual presence once in the day.  I put out my force to support her as in all the other work of the Ashram, but otherwise I am not giving any time for the sports.


Sri Aurobindo: As for the rest, I think I need only repeat emphatically that there is no need for anyone to take up sports as indispensable for Yoga or for enjoying the Mother’s affection and kindness. Yoga is its own object and has its own means and conditions; sport is something quite different as the Mother herself indicated to you through when she said that the concentration practised on the playground was not meditation and was used for efﬁcacy in the movements of the body and not for any purpose of Yoga.    Much less than half the Ashram, the majority of them boys and girls and children, have taken up sports; the rest have not been pressed to do so and there is no earthly reason why any pressure should be put upon you. The Mother has never intended to put any such pressure on you and if anybody has said that, there is no foundation whatever for what they have told you.


Sri Aurobindo: It is also not a fact that either the Mother or I are turning away from Yoga and intend to interest ourselves only in sport; we have no intention whatever of altering the fundamental character of the Ashram and replacing it by a sportive association. If we did that it would be a most idiotic act and if anybody should have told you anything like that, he must be off his head or in a temporary crisis of delirious enthusiasm for a very upside-down idea. The Mother told you very clearly once through that what was being done in the playground was not meditation or a concentration for Yoga but only an ordinary concentration for the physical exercises alone. If she is busy with the organisation of these things — and it is not true that she is busy with that alone — it is in order to get ﬁnished with that as soon as possible after which it will go on of itself without her being at all engrossed or specially occupied by it, as is the case with other works of the Ashram. As for myself, it is surely absurd to think that I am neglecting meditation and Yoga and interested only in running, jumping and marching!


Sri Aurobindo: There seem to have been strange misunderstandings about my second message in the In the ﬁrst, I wrote about sports and their utility just as I have written on politics or social development or any other matter. In the second, I took up the question incidentally because people were expressing ignorance as to why the Ashram should concern itself with sports at all. I explained why it had been done and dealt with the more general question of how this and other human activities could be part of a search for a total perfection of all parts of the being including the body and more especially what would be the nature of the perfection of the body. I indicated clearly that only by Yoga could there come a supreme and total perfection of all the instruments of the Spirit and the ascent of the whole being to the highest level and a divine life on earth and the assumption of a divine body. I made it clear that by human and physical means such as sports only a limited and precarious human perfection could come.


Sri Aurobindo: In all this there is nothing to justify the idea that sport could be a means for jumping into the Supermind or that the Supermind was going to descend into the playground and nowhere else and only those who are there will receive it; that would be a bad look-out for me as I would have no chance!  I write all this in the hope of clearing away all the strange misconceptions with which the air seems to have become thick and by some of which you may have been affected.     I continue my letter.


Sri Aurobindo: I hope I have been able to persuade you that all these ideas about sport and the Yoga are misconceptions and that those who suggest them are wholly mistaken; certainly, we are not putting Yoga away or in the background and turning to sport as a substitute, such an idea is absurdly impossible. I hope also that you will accept from me and the Mother our ﬁrm asseveration that our love and affection for you are undiminished and that there has been no coldness on the Mother’s part and no least diminution in my constant inner relation with you.  In view of what I have written, you ought to be able to see that your idea of our insistence on you to take up sport or to like it and accept it in any way has no foundation; you can be as averse to it as you choose, we do not mind that. I myself have never been a sportsman or, apart from a spectator’s interest in cricket in England or a non-player member of the Baroda cricket club, taken up any physical games or athletics except some exercises learnt from Madrasi wrestlers in Baroda such as-, and those I took up only to put some strength and vigour into a frail and weak though not unhealthy body, but I never attached any other importance or signiﬁcance to these things and dropped the exercises when I thought they were no longer necessary. Certainly, neither the abstinence from athletics and physical games nor the taking up of those physical exercises have for me any relevance to Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: Neither your aversion to sport nor the liking of others for it makes either you or them more ﬁt or more unﬁt for sadhana. So there is absolutely no reason why we should insist on your taking it up or why you should trouble your mind with the supposition that we want you to do it. You are surely quite free, as everybody is quite free, to take your own way in such matters.    I then come to the main point, namely that the intention attributed to the Mother of concentrating permanently on sports and withdrawing from other things pertinent to sadhana and our spiritual endeavour is a legend and a myth and has no truth in it.


Sri Aurobindo: Except for the time given to her own physical exercise and, ordinarily, two hours or sometimes three in the evening on the playground, the Mother’s whole day from early morning and a large part of the night also has always been devoted to her other occupations connected with her work and with the sadhana — not her own but that of the sadhaks, pranam, blessings, meditation and receiving the sadhaks on the staircase or elsewhere, sometimes for two hours at a time, and listening to what they have to say, questions about the sadhana, reports of their work or other matters, complaints, disputes, quarrels, all kinds of conferences about this or that to be decided or done, there is no end to the list: for the rest she had to attend to their letters, to reports about the material work of the Ashram and all its many departments, decisions on a hundred matters, correspondence and all sorts of things connected with contacts with the outside world including often serious troubles and difﬁculties and the settlement of matters of great importance. All this has certainly nothing to do with sports and she had little occasion to think of it at all apart from the short time in the evening. There was here no ground for the idea that she was neglecting the sadhaks or the sadhana or thinking of turning her mind solely or predominantly to sport and still less for imputing the same preoccupation to me. Only during the period before the ﬁrst and second December this year the Mother had to give a great deal of time and concentration to the preparation of the events of those two days because she had decided on a big cultural programme, her own play “Vers l’Avenir”, dances, recitation from and from the for the 1st December and also a big and ambitious programme for the 2nd of sportive items and events .


Sri Aurobindo: This meant a good deal more time for these purposes but not any interruption of her other occupations except for one or two of them just at the end of this period. There was surely no sufﬁcient ground here either for drawing the conclusion that this was to be for the future a normal feature of her action or a permanent change in it or in the life of the Ashram ending in a complete withdrawal from spiritual life and an apotheosis of the deity of Sport. Those who voiced this idea or declared that sport would henceforth be obligatory on all were indulging in fantasies that have no claim to credibility. As a matter of fact the period of tension is over and after the second December things have returned to normal or even to subnormal in the activities of the playground and as for the future you may recall the proverb that “once is not for ever”.  But there seems to be still a survival of the groundless idea that sportsmanship is obligatory henceforth on every sadhak and without it there is no chance of having the Mother’s attention or favour.


Sri Aurobindo: It is therefore necessary for me to repeat with the utmost emphasis the statement I made long ago when this fable became current for a time along, I think, with the rumour that the Supermind was to descend on the playground and the people who happen to be there at the time and nowhere else and on nobody else — which would have meant that I for one would never have it!! I must repeat what I said then, that the Mother has never imposed or has any idea of imposing any such obligation and had no reason for doing so. The Mother does not want you or anybody else to take to sports if there is no inclination or turn towards it. There are any number of people who enjoy her highest favour, among them some of her best and most valued workers, some most near to her and cherished by her who do not even set foot on the playground. Nobody then could possibly lose her favour or her affection by refusing to take up sport or by a dislike of sport or a strong disinclination towards it: these things are a matter of idiosyncrasy and nothing else.


Sri Aurobindo: The idea, whether advanced or not by someone claiming to have authority to voice the Mother’s intentions, that sport is now the most important thing with her and obligatory for sadhana is absurd in the extreme. Again, how could you ever imagine that the Mother or myself would turn you away or ask you to leave us for any reason, least of all for such a fantastic one as this? All this is indeed a maze of fantasies and you should drive them from your mind altogether. Your place in our hearts is permanent and your place near us must be that also; you should not allow anything to cloud that truth in your mind or lend credence to anything or anyone telling you otherwise.


Sri Aurobindo:   The realisation of the Divine is the one thing needful and the rest is desirable only in so far as it helps or leads towards that or when it is realised, extends and manifests the realisation.  Manifestation and organisation of the whole life for the divine work, — ﬁrst, the sadhana personal and collective necessary for the realisation and a common life of God-realised men, secondly, for help to the world to move towards that, and to live in the Light — is the whole meaning and purpose of my Yoga. But the realisation is the ﬁrst need and it is that round which all the rest moves, for apart from it all the rest would have no meaning.  Neither the Mother nor myself ever dreamed or could dream of putting anything else in its place or neglecting it for anything else.


Sri Aurobindo: Most of the Mother’s day is in fact given to helping the sadhaks in one way or another towards that end, most of the rest is occupied with work for the Ashram which cannot be neglected or allowed to collapse, for this too is work for the Divine. As for the gymnasium, the playground and the rest of it, the Mother has made it plain from the beginning what place she assigned to these things; she has never done anything so imbecile as to replace essential things by these accessories.  The Mother’s advice to was given more for his period of stay in the Asram than as an absolute rule for the future. If a sadhak can call down the force to cure him without need of medical treatment, that is always the best, but it is not always possible, so long as the whole consciousness mental, vital, physical down to the most subconscient is not opened and awake. There is no harm in a Doctor who is a sadhak carrying on his profession and using his medical knowledge; but he should do it in reliance on the Divine Grace and the Divine Will; if he can get true inspirations to aid his science, so much the better.


Sri Aurobindo: No doctor can cure all cases; he has to do his best with the best result he can.    I am afraid wherever you go there will be difﬁculties with your state of health — and nerves. There can be no proper provision for chronic illness in an asram.


Sri Aurobindo:   It depends on the person and the circumstances. “Action” of ’s kind can be taken — only it often means a struggle with the contrary forces; if the action is sufﬁcient, it is all right, otherwise it takes time and trouble. What you say is also true. Not to be conscious about the body, not to be always thinking of it, just to say to one’s illness “Nonsense” and go about one’s business


Sri Aurobindo: is often very effective. When we ﬁrst had the Asram there was no Doctor, no dispensary, no medicines, people hardly got ill and, if any did, he simply got well again. If at any time somebody got dysentery, he just swallowed a lot of rice and whey and got well again. If he had fever he lay in bed a day or two and got up again. There was no serious illness and no lasting illness.


Sri Aurobindo: Now with doctors and dispensaries and cupboards full of medicines illnesses gambol about like tigers in a jungle. But in those days people had a faith in the mind and even one might say in the body, “What is illness going to do to me here” and that attitude imposed its own result.    Very interesting no doubt — and under present circumstances inevitable.


Sri Aurobindo: The disadvantage is that it creates an illness atmosphere. When we had no dispensary and no doctors (at least no practising doctors) we had no illnesses or only slight ones which walked off at once because they were not hospitably attended to when they came!


Sri Aurobindo: [ ] has as yet written nothing; he is waiting, I suppose, for the urine examination he wants to make. We can say nothing until he writes. We do not ourselves like anybody being under medical treatment except when it is necessary in moments of emergency.


Sri Aurobindo: It seems to me if you get back your sleep and are able to get quiet in the nerves, the rest would set themselves right by the descent of peace and strength in the body.   We cannot afford to turn the Asram into an institute for the care of chronic invalids. As it is I do not think there is any Asram in India where people could get the standard of life, conveniences and comforts they get here. Elsewhere would be expected to lead an ascetic life, whether sick or well, and medical care and nursing would be conspicuous by their absence. However we are accustomed to people abusing us for what we do for them and accusing us for what we do not and cannot do.


Sri Aurobindo:   I don’t know whether it can be put like that. Illnesses and attacks on the body can come during the period of the vital puriﬁcation.  But it is true that when the mind and vital have progressed and the main action of the sadhana is in the physical, then attacks fall more on the body. In the early days of the Asram when the working was on the mind, nobody got ill except for slight touches that cured without medicine; as the working came lower down, illness increased while now that the working is in the physical and subconscient, illness is almost constant in the Asram and sometimes of a serious or violent kind.


Sri Aurobindo:   Increase of numbers brought in all sorts of inﬂuences that were not there in the smaller circle before. Doctors did not matter so long as faith was the main thing and a little treatment the help.  But when faith went, illness increased and the doctor became not merely useful but indispensable.


Sri Aurobindo: There was also the third cause, the descent into the physical consciousness with all its doubt, obscurity and resistance. To eliminate all that is no longer possible.  What Force?   Rubbish!


Sri Aurobindo: You repeat always this imbecile absurdity that the Supramental is descending into the sadhaks — as thought it had descended into him! The sadhaks are miles away from the Supramental. What I spoke of was not the descent of the Supramental into the sadhaks but into the earth consciousness.  If the Supramental had descended into the sadhaks, there would not be all sorts of troubles, but all sorts of helps and progresses.


Sri Aurobindo:  It would be more of a millennium if there were no need of a hospital at all and the doctors turned their injective prodding instruments into fountain-pens — provided of course they didn’t make a misuse of the pens also.     That doesn’t make an increase of hospitals, illnesses and injections the ideal of a millennium.  I was simply adapting the saying of Isaiah the prophet, “the swords will be turned into ploughshares”, but the doctor’s instrument is not big enough for a ploughshare, so I substituted fountain-pens.


Sri Aurobindo: There have been three deaths since the Asram began — one, of a child in a house that was not then part of the Asram and the other of a visitor. This is the ﬁrst death in the Asram itself.  I am unaware of having made any such statement. To whom did I make it? I have not said even that personally I have conquered it.


Sri Aurobindo: All these are the usual Asram legends.  The conquest of Death would mean the conquest of illness and of the psychological and functional necessity of Death of the body — that is one of the ideals of the Yoga, but it can be accomplished only if and when the supramental has driven its roots into Matter. All that has been acting here up to now is an Overmind force which is getting gradually supramentalised in parts — the utmost that it can do in this respect is to keep death at a distance and that is what has been done. The absence of death in the Asram for so many years has been due to that. But it is not impossible — especially when death is accepted.


Sri Aurobindo: In S’s case there was a 5 percent chance of his survival on certain conditions, but he himself knew the difﬁculty in his case and had prepared himself for his departure from the body.    [] Too comfortable a doctrine. It brings in a very tamasic syllogism. “I am accepted by Sri Aurobindo.


Sri Aurobindo: I am sure of supramentality and immune from death. Therefore I need not do a damned thing. Supramentality will of itself grow in me and I am already immortal, so I have all time and eternity before me for it to happen — of itself.” Like that, does it sound true?


Sri Aurobindo: It is a defeat of the healing force due to absence of receptivity in the body to the healing force.  Perhaps the attachment to was only one side of the same thing that stood in the way of her receiving.  Yes, the chances were all along adverse and at the end it was a ﬁght against the inevitable.   Of course, that is the real fact — death is only a shedding of the body, not a cessation of the personal existence.


Sri Aurobindo: A man is not dead because he goes into another country and changes his clothes to suit that climate.    What you said about the immunity from death was quite correct.  Immunity from death by anything but one’s own will to leave the body, immunity from illness are things that can be achieved only by a complete change of consciousness which each man has to develop in himself, — there can be no automatic immunity without that achievement. What had been established was a general protection and a defence against the entry of death while the sadhana was going on — but this could not be absolute.


Sri Aurobindo: There had been since I came here in 1910 and since people began to gather afterwards, only two deaths on the outskirts of the Asram — one in’s family (a baby) when they had not yet become resident sadhaks and one of’s mother who had come for a visit. But this comparative immunity was broken recently by S’s death and now by D’s. Formerly when there were only thirty or forty sadhaks and there was a universal faith, then without medicines or doctors the Asram was free from illness except for passing colic etc. cured in a day or merely brief fevers. If one had fever, one simply lay down for a day or two and got up well. Now, since the numbers increased and the struggle with old Nature is on the material plane, illness has increased in frequency and violence.


Sri Aurobindo: But if there were the same solid mass of living faith, the old relative immunity might still return. But absolute immunity can be only by sadhana.    In what does this change of views consist? Did I say that nobody could die in the Asram?


Sri Aurobindo: If so, I must have been intoxicated or passing through a temporary aberration.  As for the conquest of death, it is only one of the sequelae of supramentalisation — and I am not aware that I have forsworn my views about the supramental descent. But I never said or thought that the supramental descent would automatically make everybody immortal. The supramental descent can only make the best conditions for anybody who can open to it then or thereafter attaining to the supramental consciousness and its consequences. But it would not dispense with the necessity of sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: If it did, the logical consequence would be that the whole earth, men, dogs and worms, would suddenly wake up to ﬁnd themselves supramental. There would be no need of an Asram or of Yoga.  But my letters to and had nothing to do with the conquest of death — they had to do with the conditions of the sadhana in the Asram. Surely I never wrote that death and illness could not happen in the Asram which was the point was refuting and on which I conﬁrmed him.   was not old and tottering when he came and if he had kept the living faith he would not have been tottering now.


Sri Aurobindo: That depends on whether he is still alive and not quite liqueﬁed and able to open physically when the conditions change.  The terror was there before. It came with the death of D and the madness of and not as the result of my letter. It was rushing at the Mother from most of the sadhaks at Pranam every day.


Sri Aurobindo: Far from it.  Very shaky, many of them.  It is not mine.  [] Why vital? What is vital is the supramental change of consciousness — conquest of death is something minor and, as I have always said, the last physical result of it, not the ﬁrst result of all or the most important — a thing to be added to complete the whole, not the one thing needed and essential.


Sri Aurobindo: To put it ﬁrst is to reverse all spiritual values — it would mean that the seeker was actuated not by any high spiritual aim but by a vital clinging to life or a selﬁsh and timid seeking for the security of the body — such a spirit could not bring the supramental change.  Certainly, everything depends on my success. The only thing that could prevent it, so far as I can see, would be my own death or the Mother’s. But did you imagine that that [] would mean the cessation of death on this planet, and that sadhana would cease to be necessary for anybody?


Sri Aurobindo: I am not aware of any “development” of the mental etc. in their planes; the development takes place on earth. The mental and other planes are not evolutionary.  The one who dies here is assisted in his passage to the psychic world and helped in his future evolution towards the Divine.  What is the “divine life” and what are “petty things”? The divine life is not something lived on romantic heights with no reference to earth and its movements.


Sri Aurobindo: The Yogic or spiritual attitude has to be applied to the small outward details of life as well as to inner experiences or high ideals on a large scale. You ought to know by this time that the Mother attaches a great importance to the true spirit in the organisation of the material life. It is more often in relation to these petty things that the genuineness of one’s spiritual change is tested — so there is little point in talking of petty things or material or outward things as if they were not worth notice and no inner change with regard to them needed.  There is no objection to the tifﬁn carrier being washed by a servant. The objection was to the servants being tipped by sadhaks so that they neglect or do not wish to do things for those who do not or cannot tip them.


Sri Aurobindo: Visitors residing at the Asram for a few days may do so without objection, for these there is extra work; but the servants must not be encouraged in the idea that they can exact tips from resident sadhaks — they have their pay and that should be sufﬁcient.   As for tifﬁn baskets, if too many have to be carried, it becomes inconvenient for the Departments concerned — the Dining Room arrangements are framed to minimise the inconvenience and make service possible. A minimum number of exceptions can be made, but if everybody who asks is allowed, there will be chaos.


Sri Aurobindo: The door is coming off because the sill has been removed, for it was only the sill that upheld it. ’s dealings with the door door were scientiﬁcally impeccable — the only thing he forgot was that one of the uses of a door is that people (of various sizes) should pass through it. If you regard the door from the Russellian point of view as an external thing in which you must take pleasure for its own sake, then you will see that it was quite all right; it is only when you bring in irrelevant subjective considerations like people’s demands on a door and the pain of stunned heads that objections can be made. However, in spite of philosophy, the Mother will speak to in the morning and get him to do what has (practically, not philosophically) to be done.


Sri Aurobindo:   You had promised that the bullocks would not be beaten, but we have been told by more than one eye-witness that they have been beaten by yourself and the servants, and badly beaten too.  We strongly disapprove, we are entirely against this kind of maltreatment. It is not by beating, but by patience and a persistent will without getting into a nervous irritation that work can be taught to animals. They are far more intelligent than you believe.


Sri Aurobindo:   You had better put up a notice on the slate that whoever has walked off in’s wooden sandals is asked to rectify the mistake by returning them to her.    complains of an invasion of his solignumed cot, ﬂytoxed chair and almirah, books, chaddar etc. by bugs. He also fears that the conquering army, if not checked, will proceed to annex other rooms also.


Sri Aurobindo: As bugs in a solignumed cot are a violation of the law of Nature, Mother proposes to send a Committee of Enquiry composed of (who is both scientiﬁcally and ofﬁcially interested in the solignum-bug problem), yourself and for investigations.  You have full authority to interview the bugs and demand an explanation of their conduct. and yourself are ofﬁcially informed; you can demi-ofﬁcially inform.    The only thing that removes the bugs is a careful ﬂytoxing and cleaning of the bed or furniture where they are.


Sri Aurobindo: It is usually who is entrusted with that work as he is practised in it and has freed many rooms. If you like, I can ask him to do it.     The 12 feet are the usual allowance and they were the end of a roll — if you want the 5 feet more, you will have to wait till a new stock comes.


Sri Aurobindo:   Pondicherry houses do not leak! Well, that is news. Every house I have lived in leaked. The Govt. House leaks; the Govt. ofﬁces leak and our former Mahomedan landlord told me in the Govt. Secretariat they had to run about carrying tables and chairs to any place in the rooms which happened not to be wet.


Sri Aurobindo: ’s roof made only a year ago leaks. Vigie House leaks and when went to him Vigie showed him his own house leaking from many places and said “Every house here leaks! what do you expect?”  It was because of this character of Pondicherry houses that the Mother tried tectine and the ﬁrst supply was very successful. The Meditation House roof made by used to leak like a sieve till the tectine was put on, and for years we were dry.


Sri Aurobindo: Only when new beams had to be put the tectine got displaced and there were cracks over the walls, then there was some leakage, but that was put right and the old tectine up till now has protected us.  Unfortunately afterwards a bad supply of almost liquid tectine was sent which could not endure so well and it was this which was used on the NS [] which is leaking because of cracks in the cement, the usual malady of these terrace roofs.  People ought to know the facts before making comments, as if it were only our tectined roofs that crack in Pondicherry — and so there must be something wrong with the Asram engineer’s brain.  It is rather surprising that should speak like that, for he knows that it was Mother’s personal order that the remnants of the old tectine should be used this time as there was an emergency.  After all the tectine fad, if it is one, was not’s; it was the Mother who introduced the tectine as a trial (and, as I say, it was quite successful at ﬁrst) along with other new things like solignum, Silexore.


Sri Aurobindo: Some of them succeeded, some failed because of climatic conditions and the inexperience of the masons and painters; the tectine succeeded, then failed because in answer to a complaint that too much had to be used, the ﬁrm sent us a bad supply. In all this where is the fad and where is the fault of  and where is the “terrible patience”?     What wrote was correct.


Sri Aurobindo: There is no more hair-oil and in special cases Mother gave from her own stock; but then everybody began to ask, so it had to stop. If you need, you must ask Mother direct and she will give it, because it can no longer be given from the stores — for it can be given only in special cases where there is a good reason as in yours.  As for the soap, you must not use the bath-soap for hair, for it is very bad for the hair. Mother can give you Golden Grape or more oil or hair lotion for that purpose. She is giving a chit for the Golden Grape; you must use it only for the hair.


Sri Aurobindo:   An electric stove has been ordered from Madras, but the price will not be anything like 50 Rs. I don’t know whether you will have with it all the seraphic peace you expect — for in all electric matters there is the Pondicherry municipality to take into account, — untimely cessations of current, insufﬁcient current, variable current — something for all tastes but for nobody’s convenience.


Sri Aurobindo: The Light went out, the Light went out — and being not fortunate enough to be in line with the Government house, ours remained out. I had no time nor courage to go through a long pencilled poem with my insufﬁcient substitute — so all had to be shoved over to tomorrow. Man proposes, but the Pondicherry Municipality disposes. But there will be Grace tomorrow — P. M. volente.


Sri Aurobindo: Well, if it is done really according to old methods, an Ayurvedic building can stand many earthquakes. I remember at the time of the Bengal earthquake all the new buildings in the place where the Provincial Conference was held went down but an old house of the Raja of the place was the sole thing that survived unmoved and unshaken. Also when the Guest House roof was being repaired, (it was an old building) the mason (one of the most skilful we have met) said that this roof had been built in a way that astonished him, it was so solid and strong, no houses now were being built like that. So perhaps it is not Ayurveda, but the degenerate ways of the descendants of Charaka that is responsible for the poor and bad building we see around us. I have also seen a remark by an English architect in Madras that it was surprising to see how old ramshackle buildings survived and stood all shocks while others built in the most scientiﬁc modern way “sat down” unexpectedly.


Sri Aurobindo: The really old things whether in India or Europe were always solid; shoddy I think began in between — before the discovery of concrete. We have to leave the old things but progress to equally or more solid new things.    You hope to destroy white ants with a harmless insecticide?  Optimist!


Sri Aurobindo: The only defences yet found against them are kerosene (temporary) and solignum (less temporary) on things they have to cross, but here it is impossible as it can’t be put on plants.   Tell you what to do. Dig six feet down in the right place (which may be anywhere), ﬁnd the queen of the white ants and carefully strangle her; then your roses will be safe for a season.  Soot?


Sri Aurobindo: The white ants will be afraid of becoming black and stay away?    Do you send the blade for sharpening to the Atelier? If not, it will soon get blunt and useless. If it is sharpened, it can last for months.


Sri Aurobindo:   But what is to be done in the meanwhile till January? We shall have to dress the sadhaks in saris or they will have to resort to a state of Nature and Adamic innocence!  You can take your meal in the verandah as indicated by.


Sri Aurobindo: I must point out to you that is in charge of the Cycle Ofﬁce and the cycles and, if he objected — quite rightly — to your taking your meal in the room and dirtying it, you ought to have paid some attention to his objection instead of treating it with contempt and deﬁance. Whoever is put in charge of a Dept. is responsible to the Mother for the proper working of that Department and those who are assisting him must help him to keep everything in order and not act according to their own whims and fancies. If there is anything which seems to them not right in his arrangements, they can bring it to his notice or to the Mother’s notice, but not indulge in irresponsible indiscipline. Your behaviour does not justify’s losing his temper, but neither were you justiﬁed in pushing him against the wall. This kind of scene ought not to happen in the Asram.


Sri Aurobindo: It is besides not only with you have clashed but with a good many others in the Asram, and it is no use telling me that it was always the other man who misbehaved and that you were an angel of calm and patience and good behaviour. Quarrelsomeness and self-assertion and indiscipline go ill with a claim of Yogic calmness.    It appears that there are complaints against you from all sides that you are quarrelling with the servants, upsetting the work, putting others to inconvenience in order to put your own convenience and arrange things according to your own fancy. This kind of selﬁshness and quarrelsomeness will not do.


Sri Aurobindo: You have to consider the convenience of others before yours — especially as you have been given the management of the house. A manager has to consider the convenience of others ﬁrst and his own last.    I must say what I have often written to people, that it is impossible for us to take sides in a clash between sadhaks or assume the role of judge and arbiter or of defender of one party against another. Formerly the Mother used to try to intervene or to reconcile, but we found that this only kept discord alive and fed the ego of the sadhaks.


Sri Aurobindo: In most cases we pass over all quarrels and clashes in silence and almost all sadhaks have ceased to write about their conﬂicts because they get no answer. I have written to once or twice, avoiding any discussion of the merits of a dispute, only to inﬂuence him to regard things from a general and impersonal standpoint so as to prepare him to give up that of the person and ego. I passed no personal opinion or judgment for or against this or that person. You must not expect me to take any other attitude. This is a place meant for Yoga and sadhana; personal relations of the vital kind with their attractions and repulsions, quarrels and explanations and reconciliations belong to the ordinary life and nature.


Sri Aurobindo: All these clashes which arise whenever you mix with come from his weakness and yours. I have not imposed on you any rule of not meeting with him; but I have advised you not to give any ﬁeld for the weakness which you yourself have admitted and which is evidently there in you. Both you and are to me disciples and I have to deal with each in the way best for him or her. I have not pressed on your weaknesses and defects, I have given you time to ﬁnd them out yourself and overcome them, for that is the best way. I have pointed out his to when he was ready to recognise them.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a pity that you should clash whenever you meet together a little, but you know yourself why it is so. So long as any vital weakness remains it cannot be otherwise. Certainly it cannot be remedied by “submitting to his demands and his ego”.   It is perfectly true that the egoistic sense of possession and the habit of falsehood are too common among the sadhaks. You should train yourself however to look at these things in those around you, even when they touch you close, without being disturbed or unquiet.


Sri Aurobindo: What you must arrive at (of course it cannot be done at once but takes time) is a complete equanimity which sees things and people as they are but is not shaken, angered or grieved by them. We ourselves know what an obstacle all this egoism and falsehood are to our work, but are not impatient because we know also that they are part of human nature and have so much hold that it is difﬁcult for the sadhak to get rid of them even when his mind really wishes to do so. They are with many sadhaks habits stronger than their will. When there is not a strong will to get rid of them or when the sadhak is not fully conscious, then it is all the more difﬁcult. It is only a strong and always increasing awakening of the whole consciousness which can avail and it is that which we try to bring in all without yielding to impatience because of the slowness with which it comes or the imperfect effort of the sadhaks to overcome these defects of their nature.


Sri Aurobindo:   Quite right. Aggressiveness and bristles on both sides are not likely to go without a luminous modiﬁcation in the nature.    I would like to add two questions: 1. Why do people in the Asram (budding supermen) get furious against anything merely because it is new and unfamiliar?


Sri Aurobindo: That is common and natural in animals; but human beings ought to have more open minds.  2. Why are they so ready to pass positive judgments on things about which they have insufﬁcient knowledge? It would be better if they could accustom themselves to wait and learn.  Yes, all that is true.


Sri Aurobindo: The lower vital takes a mean and petty pleasure in picking out the faults of others and thereby one hampers both one’s own progress and that of the subject of the criticism.     It can be and very often is. A gossiping spirit is always an obstacle.


Sri Aurobindo:   Your attitude to the gossip is quite the right one. A great part of what is talked in the Asram about others is untrue, a great part is distorted or exaggerated and what remains are things that can be left to the Mother and need not be made the subject of small talk among the sadhaks.    The difﬁculty you experience exists because speech is a function which in the past has worked much more as an expression of the vital in man than of the mental will.


Sri Aurobindo: Speech breaks out as the expression of the vital and its habits without caring to wait for the control of the mind; the tongue has been spoken of as the unruly member. In your case the difﬁculty has been increased by the habit of talk about others, — gossip, to which your vital was very partial, so much that it cannot even yet give up the pleasure in it. It is therefore this tendency that must cease in the vital itself. Not to be under the control of the impulse to speech, to be able to do without it as a necessity and to speak only when one sees that it is right to do so and only what one sees to be right to say, is a very necessary part of Yogic self-control.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only by perseverance and vigilance and a strong resolution that this can be done, but if the resolution is there, it can be done in a short time by the aid of the Force behind.  If she is accustomed to enema she can have from the dispensary.  But that or laxatives can relieve for the moment but not really cure. It is perhaps the best remedy to drink a big glass of cold water as soon as she wakes in the morning and to do special exercises to strengthen the muscles of the abdomen.


Sri Aurobindo:  It depends on the cause. If it is the gums that are responsible, then by an action upon the gums, the teeth can be tightened again. You can use either a gargle of potassium chlorate and salt (2 of the former and one teaspoonful of salt in a medium-sized tumbler of water) or, still better, a gargle of hydrogen peroxide (one-ﬁfth of a glass in a glass of water). The best and surest hydrogen peroxide is German sold in bottles marked Merckozone.


Sri Aurobindo:  Bug bites are not usually red — red swellings usually come from some small ﬂying insects which come into the rooms here and have a rather poisonous bite.     These bites are like that. I have often had them — they last sometimes for eight days.


Sri Aurobindo:   If you cannot get rid of the sciatica by inner means, the medical remedy (not for curing it, but for keeping free as long as possible) is not to fatigue yourself. It comes for periods which may last 8 weeks, then suddenly goes. If you remain quiet physically and are not too active, it may not come for a long time.


Sri Aurobindo: But that of course means an inactive life, physically incapable. It is what I meant by eternising the sciatica — and the inertia also.     I suppose the small pimples are what is called the prickly heat; it is rather troublesome, but of no importance.


Sri Aurobindo: I am putting force so that the pains in the head may go.  As for the biscuits, the Mother wants you to go on taking them in spite of the absence of hunger because you are eating very little — too little. Especially now you are doing more work.  It is not good to let disinclination to eat grow in the body, for that weakens the nervous system and when the nervous system is weak, illnesses come in more easily into the body; if it is strong enough, it throws them off. There must be no idea that to eat little is proper for sadhana; that is a superstition.


Sri Aurobindo: For the body is a needed base for the working of the Force and the stronger it is the better.  A half-boiled egg means simply an egg boiled in water in the shell but for only a very short time — not for a longer time like the hard boiled egg — so that the yolk may remain liquid. It is the simplest thing in the world to do. What you speak of is something different which is much more difﬁcult.   [] Prepare a sauce with saffron and the little black grains (which are put in sweets) and coriander and a little (not too much) pepper.


Sri Aurobindo: There must be a good amount of cocose, a little dal ﬂour. Make the ﬂour brown in the cocose, then add water slowly stirring all the time and put the spices. This should be done in a separate pan and poured on the vegetables.   If you can get 2 or 3, you can do as for the onion sauce, then cut the in very small pieces and cook them inside the sauce. It will give a good taste.


Sri Aurobindo: Add this sauce so made to the vegetable.  Cut the onions very small, fry in cocogem or oil till they get brown; take the water in which the vegetables are cooked, dissolve in that water some ﬂour and pour slowly in the fried onions, stirring all the time. Cook for about 15 minutes, then add to the vegetables. If there are tomatoes, you can add some cut in small pieces.


Sri Aurobindo: You should make the following points clear to the Swami.  1. His request for food free from the Asram is contrary to the rule of the Asram. Food is given free, as a rule, only to members.  2. Only those are allowed to attend Pranam and Soup (save on exceptional occasions) who have entered Sri Aurobindo’s path of Yoga and are accepted as his disciples.


Sri Aurobindo: 3. The Mother does not give interviews for giving instructions and hints regarding sadhana. Especially, sadhana is given only to those who have a special call to Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga; she never interferes with others (even by way of giving help) who are following a different path.  This is what would have been explained to him already if there had been time for writing a letter before he came. As he came all that way, darshan was given to him; but this does not mean that his other requests can be granted.