Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
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Mountain of proof, so music was interrupted – but not piousness. Herewith my savant friend Professor’s postcard. Please write about the sale of my record as Chandicharan seems suspiciously like cheating us as he simply wrote, “āpnāder record moter opar bhāloi bikray hatchhe jānben” [Please note that your records are selling quite well.] Rather lukewarm that, yet many others are saying the records are selling like incandescent cakes. However “waitons,” what?
I am ready for any amount of suspicion with regard to that admirable businessman Chandicharan. But till he shows his hand, waitons.
But please send me the two photos (1) yours (2) Mother’s for Professor. He sent Rs.3, remember?
Yes; but you did not notice my little note about the rupees – there were only two in the envelope when I opened it. Also I asked you what was to be done about the photos, but I understand now that they have to be sent to you.
A poem of Nishikanta: fine stuff, isn’t it?
Yes, it is very fine.
Day before yesterday I was calmly telling him how Russell in his latest book In Praise of Idleness has predicted with almost irrefutable logic the coming collapse of the war-mad Europe seized with lunacy born of horror on the one hand and greed on the other. But just listen a bit: “We are all more aware of our fellow-citizens than we used to be, more anxious, if we are virtuous, to do them good (like Raihana’s Dr. Jones, what?) and in any case to make them 
do us good. (As in Abyssinia, what?) We do not like to think of anyone lazily enjoying life, however refined may be the quality of his enjoyment. We feel that everybody ought to be doing something to help in the great cause – whatever it maybe – the more so as so many bad men are working against it and ought to be stopped. We have not leisure of mind, therefore, to acquire any knowledge except such as will help us in the fight for whatever it may happen to be that we think important.” (Essay on “Useless Knowledge”)
What will the rational Subhash, who holds all irrational faith suspect say of this rational cynicism directed against his darling activism which is so often, alas, but a respectable cloak of arrivisme and oftener an outlet for that restlessness, which the West is now getting tired of, many actually preaching the gospel of idleness which is a concomitant of culture and often of the best and lovable type?
Poor Subhash! But he is a politician and the rationality of politicians has perforce to move within limits; if they were to allow themselves to be as clear-minded as that, their occupation would be gone. It is not everybody who can be as cynical as a Birkenhead1 or as philosophic
as a
C. R. Das4 and go on with political reason or political humbug in spite of knowing what it all comes
to – from arrivisme in the one and from patriotism in the other case.
Also listen, enjoy a little, what? Russell further writes:
“When the indemnities were imposed, the Allies regarded themselves as consumers: they considered that it would be pleasant to have the Germans work for them as temporary slaves, and to be able themselves to consume, without labour, what the Germans had produced. Then, after the treaty of Versailles had been concluded, they suddenly remembered that they were also producers, and that the influx of German goods which they had been demanding would ruin their industries! They were so puzzled that 
they started scratching their heads, but that did no good, even when they all did it together and called it an International Conference. The plain fact is that the governing classes of the world are too ignorant and stupid to be able to think through such a problem, and too conceited to ask advice of those who might help them.” Well, what would Subhash as a ruling patriot say to this! How support his reason? All these meeting-makers are reasonable people, aren’t they?
Yes, but human reason is a very convenient and accommodating instrument and works only in the circle set for it by interest, partiality and prejudice. The politicians reason wrongly or insincerely and have power to enforce the results of their reasoning so as to make
a mess of the world’s affairs – the intellectuals reason and see
what their minds show them, which is far from being always the truth, for it is generally decided by intellectual preference and the mind’s inborn education-inculcated
angle of vision – but even when they see it, they have no power to enforce it. So between blind power and seeing impotence the world moves, achieving destiny through a mental muddle.
Lastly, O Guru, Russell shows the devastating logic that Europe is heading straight for shipwreck, thanks to her “lunacy” born of greed and terror: “When a nation, instead of an individual is seized with lunacy, it is thought to be displaying remarkable industrial wisdom.” Qu’en dites-vous?
Seized with lunacy? But that implies that
nation is ordinarily led by reason? Is it so? Or even by common sense? Masses of men act upon their vital push, not according to reason – individuals too mostly, though they frequently call in their reason as a lawyer to plead the vital’s case.
A little literature: Prof. Mohini Mohan did demur a little at first to my too wide vocabulary, whereto I demurred that now so many who used to say formerly that I used difficult words have discovered suddenly that it is śabdasampad. I am pleased now that he recognises the artistry I aim at in choosing from a wide range of words which he calls śabder jādu (the magic of words). Prithwisingh too now-a-days admits this though formerly he too used to demur. I feel often a little newness in expression vocabulary, etc. is at first a little baffling and unwelcome to many hommes de bonne volonté. For I am not conscious of pedantry, I wrote to Professor, only the words which to them seem a little unusual come to me very easily (believe me) and I like śabdasampad, a wide vocabulary and new rhythms and metres even at some (temporarily I feel) risks. A little self-defence rather complacent maybe, but not too much as this Professor knew me very little before and is already talking in a different strain, what?
Anything new has always to fight its way to recognition – the first impulse of the human minds is to reject it.
Current publication:
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 3. 1936 – 1937 / edited by Sujata Nahar, Michel Danino, Shankar Bandopadhyay.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 305 p.
Other publications:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Himself and the Ashram // CWSA.- Volume 35. (≈ 26 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2011.- 658 p.
Sri Aurobindo. Letters of Sri Aurobindo: In 4 Series.- Second Series [On Yoga].- Bombay: Sri Aurobindo Sircle, 1949.- 599 p.