Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
Letter ID: 527
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
December 12, 1934
This post-card from Subhash I received last mail. He had written it before starting for Calcutta by aeroplane. Now he is practically a prisoner – a home-internee really – at his residence. I wonder what work he will be doing now. In Europe he had been actively going about and wrote a book on Indian struggle. No doubt all is part of the lila [play] as says Krishnaprem and I wish him God-speed de tout mon cœur [with all my heart]. Only I wonder why he thinks that “okhāne thakiyā kāj hoy nā” [no work can be done by staying there]? I only trust a time will come when he will be able to see that true kāj hoy [work is done] only when the Divine is realised. I am sorry he is not changed in his outlook. It is strange that in prison he always thinks much more differently than when he comes out and is active. Now he is a full-fledged activist de nouveau [again] – going about in a rush, seeing people, writing books, attending Patel’s funeral, etc., etc. – instead of taking rest and curing himself of this malignant abdominal ulcer! He used once to meditate and see light and had a real bhakti – had turned a sannyasin even once. And now he says that seeking the Divine is useless inactive work!! Great snakes! (to quote your expletive) does he truly mean that all the people who are rushing about are doing great work?!! Some people may be doing something – may be even a thundering nincompoop does some good work 
sometimes in spite of himself, though after a lot of useless waste of precious energy – but to say sweepingly that “without personal contact no kāj hoy” – well –, it simply passes me. Qu’en dites-vous? I find, alas, there is a deeply disappointing element about my nationalist activist friend – much though I admire his strength of character and idealism, what?
I had never a very great confidence in Subhash’s Yoga-turn getting the better of his activism – he has two strong ties that prevent it – ambition and need to act and lead in the vital, and in the mind a mental idealism – these two things are the great fosterers of illusion. The spiritual path needs a certain amount of realism – one has to see the real value of the things that are – which is very little, except as steps in evolution. Then one can either follow the spiritual static path of rest and release or the spiritual dynamic path of a greater truth to be brought down into life. But otherwise –
I have worked out the spondaic poem after much labour and anguish and tribulation of spirit. Glory be to Ganesh the obstacle-breaker for his heavy and forceful trunk-swinging – otherwise it could not have been done. But I want a day or two to see if it is all that at the moment it pretends to be.
Current publication:
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip / edited by Sujata Nahar, Shankar Bandyopadhyay.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 2. 1934 – 1935.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 405 p.
Other publications: