Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
As yet I have no luck with my answer to your arguments against any Yoga that is not obvious to the senses and subject to their verdict and sentence; for this night I have been assailed with a mass of letters and a mass of bothers. The bothers I can regard with equality, but they and the letters had to be dealt with, so I could not make any headway with that subject. Your tenant seems to be a curious fellow; he lectures you from a sharp and lofty pedestal. Don’t get worried however, we will see about the matter. Mother will speak to Uday Singh1, but you will have to give a note of authorisation so that they may act.
As I have a few minutes I may comment on your today’s letter so as to get that out of the way. I must say your arguments about R. and S., made me smile. When on earth were politeness and good society manners considered as a part or a test of spiritual experience or true yogic siddhi? It is no more a test than the capacity of dancing well or of dressing nicely. Just as there are many very good and kind men who are boorish and rude in their manners, so there may be very spiritual men (I mean who have had deep spiritual experiences) who have no grasp over physical life or action (many intellectuals too are like that) and are not at all careful about their manners. I suppose I myself am accused of rude and arrogant behaviour because I refuse to see people, do not 
answer letters, and a host of other misdemeanours. I have heard of a famous recluse who threw stones at anybody coming to his retreat because he did not want disciples and found no other way of warding off the flood of candidates. I at least would hesitate to pronounce that such people had no spiritual life or experience. Certainly, I prefer that sadhaks should be reasonably considerate towards each other, but that is for the sake of collective life and harmony, not as a siddhi of the Yoga or an indispensable sign of inner experience.
[As2 for the other matter how can the écarts of the sadhaks here, none of whom have reached perfection or anywhere near it, be a proof that spiritual experience is null or worthless.] You write as if the moment [one had] any kind of spiritual experience or realisation, one must at once be a perfect person without defects or weaknesses. That is to make a demand which it is impossible to satisfy and it is to ignore the fact that spiritual life is a growth and not a sudden and inexplicable miracle. No sadhak can be judged as if he were already a siddha [perfect] yogi, least of all those who have only travelled a quarter or less of a very long path [as it is the case with most who are here]. Even great yogis do not claim perfection and you cannot say that because they are not absolutely perfect, therefore their spirituality is false or of no use to the world. There are, besides, all kinds of spiritual men, some who are content with spiritual experience and do not seek after an outward perfection or progress, some who are saints, others who do not seek after sainthood, others who are content to live in the cosmic consciousness in touch or union with the All but allowing all kinds of forces to play through them, e.g., in the typical description of the Paramahaṃsa. The ideal I put before our Yoga is one thing but it does not bind all spiritual life and endeavour. The spiritual life is not a thing that can be formulated in a rigid definition or bound by a fixed mental rule; it is a vast field of evolution, an immense kingdom potentially larger than the other kingdoms below it, with a hundred provinces, a thousand types, stages, forms, paths, variations of the spiritual ideal, degrees of spiritual advancement. It is from the basis of this truth [which I shall try to explain in subsequent letters] that things regarding spirituality and its seekers must be judged, if they are to be judged with knowledge. Let me do that first and afterwards if I am able to give some idea of it, which is not easy, particular questions can be more solvable.
P.S. All these things I say, must not be applied to the personal cases you mention which are only an occasion for saying them. The one thing that applies to them is that they are sadhaks, not siddhas, raw still, not ripe.