which are holding me up. I repeat, however, that I am still “game” if you reconsider your veto to give me another trial.Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
Letter ID: 624
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
September 16, 1935
O Guru, I thank you sincerely for refusing assent to my doom. And yet, paradoxically, I feel a definite disappointment too along with the relief. For I had a lurking suspicion that your Supramental wisdom might still be wanting to impose asceticism on me since I have, willy-nilly, to practise your Supramental Yoga and no other; so I decided, after a mighty wrench, to ban everything my mental loved or even approved of. But now you yourself are turning down my proposal to conquer attachments which are holding me up. I repeat, however, that I am still “game” if you reconsider your veto to give me another trial.
How in the earthly did you get this strange idea that we were pressing asceticism on you? When? how? where? I only admitted it as a possibility after repeated assertions from you that you wanted to do this formidable thing, and it was with great heart-searchings and terrible apprehensive visions of an ascetic Dilip with wild weird eyes and a loin-cloth, eating ground-nuts and nails and sleeping on iron spikes in the presence of a dumbfounded Lord Shiva! I never prescribed the thing to you at all; it was you who were clamouring for it, so I gave in and tried to make the best of it, hoping that you would think better of it. As for the Mother the first time she heard of it, she knocked it off with the most emphatic “Nonsense!” possible. In fact what you proposed was even more formidable than my vision – a shaven-headed and mosquito-bitten Dilip + the loin-cloth and the rest of it (not that you actually proposed the last, but it is the logical outcome of that devastating shave!). Conquest of attachment is quite a different matter – one has to learn to take one’s tea and potatoes without weeping for them or even missing them if they are not there. But we have repeatedly said that you could go on with them and need not follow the way taken by some others. As to seclusion I have written my distrust of “retirement” several times; it is only a few people who can do it and profit, but they are not a rule for others. So your subtle supramental interpretation of our intentions or wishes was a bad misfit. However all’s well that ends well and in spite of your suggestion of being still game, I will consider the danger as over. Laus Deo [Praise be to God]!
By the way, what’s all that about Rishabhchand1, Radhananda and Ambabhikshu2? It is very cryptic. Radhananda’s “ascetic” ways are his own and of long-standing and our influence has been towards their diminution if anything; I am not aware that Rishabhchand is an ascetic or sitting upon nails. 
Ambabhikshu? Is it because he does not receive visitors in his room? but that is a prohibition belonging to the upstairs of Retraite and not to the person.
1 Rishabhchand (3.12.1900-25.4.1970) was born in West Bengal and had a brilliant academic carrer in Berhampur and at Presidency College, Calcutta. He turned to the non-cooperation movement and then founded the renowned Indian Silk House in Calcutta in 1926. He came in contact with Sri Aurobindo and settled in the Ashram in 1931 where he worked in the Service Mobilier. He wrote many books on Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s work, among them Sri Aurobindo – His Life Unique.
2 Ambabhikshu (born on 5.7.1900): A Gujarati disciple. Fired with idealism, he left his medical studies midway, joined the freedom movement and stayed at Gandhiji’s Sabarmati Ashram. Then he joined Vinoba Bhave. Left him for a Sikh guru who directed him to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In the Ashram he tended gardens and grew fruits and vegetables. Later with the help of his wife Kamalalakshmi, he made rose water, power syrup and other products for Mother.