Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
All right about the Rs.300. You can bring it to the Mother on Saturday at one.
We have already seen the gentleman sitting with the musical instrument. Without accepting as gospel truth the figures of the assistant, one can say that the story is credible. The amiable Ch. is no doubt an honourable man (“so are they all”), but he is also a sharp business man, not Rockefeller certainly, but –. I have no reason to challenge Russell’s conclusions – I share them without having the data. The adage “Honesty is the best policy” was invented in a semi-barbarous age when mankind had not made so much progress as now, an age which no longer exists – except perhaps in the wilds of Abyssinia, and now Mussolini is out to finish with it and bring in the blessings of civilisation even there. Nowadays the saying is notoriously out of date; it only means that with honesty you have less chances of going to jail – provided you are lucky and also provided you have not met Mahatma Gandhi. But Rockefellers and the rest of the commercial aristocracy were not born for 
jail but for palaces with marble water closets and the immortality of Rockefeller institutes and honour in the land of the gangsters and the free. All this is not meant to tempt you out of the paths of virtue, but only to point the moral which seems “Therefore, O Dilip, keep thy weather-eye open and do not allow Ch. to ch. you too much, for to prevent it altogether is, I fear, a Utopian idea; honourable men must earn their living.” By the way, why should Rockefeller go for Russell; he has got his millions and why should he mind an impotent little reminder of the way he got it?
The carpet is very fine; the mats also. So the failure of my supramental philosophy does not upset me.
Welcome to the moisture! May it change before long into the Rain of Heaven.