Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
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[...] As for the rest of your letter, I shall try to write something tomorrow; today I have been really too much besieged even to have time to attempt an answer to so long a letter. I do not think desultory remarks about doubt would be of any use. To say something about the nature, origin, function and limits of Doubt might be of use but it must be said in a coherent way and as a whole which I will do in later letters. I may say, however, at once one or two things by the way. 
First, I have already said that I do not ask “undiscriminating faith” from anyone, all I ask is fundamental faith safeguarded by a patient and quiet discrimination – because it is these that are proper to the consciousness of a spiritual seeker and it is these that I have myself used and found that they removed all necessity for the quite fortuitous
dilemma of “either you must doubt everything supraphysical or be entirely credulous” which is the stock-in-trade of the materialist argument. Your Doubt, I see, constantly returns to the charge with a repetition of this formula in spite of my denial – which supports my assertion that Doubt cannot be convinced because it cannot in its very nature want
to be
; it keeps repeating the old grounds
always.
Next about Russell – I have never disputed his abilities or his character; I am concerned only with his opinions and there too only with those opinions which touch upon my own province – that of spiritual Truth. In all religions, the most narrow and stupid even, and in all non-religions also there are great minds, great men, fine characters. I know little about Russell, but I never dreamed of disputing the greatness of Lenin, for instance, merely because he was an atheist – nobody would, unless he were an imbecile. But the greatness of Lenin does not debar me from refusing assent to the credal dogmas of Bolshevism, and the beauty of character of an atheist does not prove that spirituality is a lie of the imagination and that there is no Divine. I might add that if you can find the utterances of famous Yogis childish when they talk about marriage or on other mental matters, I cannot be blamed for finding the ideas of Russell about spiritual experience, of which he knows nothing, very much wanting in light and substance. You have not named the Yogis in question, and till you do, I am afraid I shall cherish a suspicion about either the height or the breadth of their spiritual experience. But of that, hereafter, when I get a chance of an hour or two to write on it.
Current publication:
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip / edited by Sujata Nahar, Michel Danino, Shankar Bandopadhyay.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 1. 1929 – 1933.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 384 p.
Other publications:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga. I // CWSA.- Volume 28. (≈ 22 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2012.- 590 p.