Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1934 — 1935

Letter ID: 500

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

October 9, 1934

I repeat what I said about the Mother: when you were with her, especially in the midst of the concentration she felt a flow of sympathy and love for you far greater than ever before. You have been badly treated by your friends and the Mother feels much for you on that account. But believe this that our friendship, our affection for you will not fail you or falter.

All are not indifferent in this Ashram to each other, nor is friendship or affection excluded from the Yoga. Friendship with the Divine is a recognised relation in the sadhana. Friendships between the sadhaks exist and are encouraged by the Mother. Only we seek to found them on a surer basis than that on which the bulk of human friendships are insecurely founded. It is precisely because we hold friendship, brotherhood, love to be sacred things that we want this change – because we do not want to see them broken at every moment by the movements of the ego, soiled and spoiled and destroyed by the passions, jealousies, treacheries to which the vital is prone – it is to make them truly sacred and secure that we want them rooted in the soul founded on the rock of the Divine. Our Yoga is not an ascetic Yoga: it aims indeed at purity, but not at a cold austerity. Friendship and love are indispensable notes in the harmony to which we aspire. It is not a vain dream, for we have seen that even in imperfect conditions when a little of the indispensable element is there at the very root the thing is possible. It is difficult and the old obstacles still cling obstinately. But no victory can be won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. There is no other way than to persevere.