Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
05. Sadhana through Work
If I have not written to you, it is because I could not add anything to what I had already written before to you. I cannot promise that within a given time you will have a result which will enable you either to go out into the world with a stronger spirit or succeed in the yoga. For the yoga you yourself say that you have not yet the whole mind for it and without the whole mind success is hardly possible in sadhana. For the other, it is hardly the function of sadhana to prepare a man for ordinary life in the world. There is one thing only that could work in a direction which would help you to something which is not that, but still not the whole yoga for which you intimate that you are not wholly ready. It is if you get the spirit of the yoga of works as it is indicated in the Gita – forget yourself and your miseries in the aspiration to a larger consciousness, feel the greater Force working in the world and make yourself an instrument for a work to be done, however small it may be. But, whatever the way may be, you must accept it wholly and put your whole will into it – with a divided and wavering will you cannot hope for success in anything, neither in life nor in yoga.