Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
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I send you Jawaharlal’s Autobiography. There are two fine photographs here of j. And one of the beautiful and noble Kamala, delicate and frail and truly “Virginal” as Jawaharlal puts it. But I want to have your opinion on his reading of the Hindu religion. I agree, however, with the bulk of his condemnation about religion. But it seems to me he is a little hazy in this idea about religion and so expects from it just what is beyond its portée, qu’en ditesvous? But of course I don’t wonder. For religion is a most mysterious term and is like our famous Kalpataru of Indra’s garden which promises to its worshippers any fruit they covet, what?
Time lacks extremely for reading the book, it is better to let) Nirod have it. The photographs are good, but this Gandhi cap hides the forehead and prevents the whole man from looking out of the face. Such of it as can be seen expresses the will and intelligence more than the psychic; the latter was very evident in other photos of him that I have seen here and there.
I fear that to accede to your request for a page and a half on the mystic soul of India is physically impossible now and psychologically a little difficult. I have once more the full flood of correspondence, in spite of the rules of time which have proved an insufficient dam. Each night is a race to get things done in time which I generally lose and that means an increasing mass of arrears which have to be dealt with whenever I get one
exceptional leisure. On Sunday a mass of outside letters waiting for disposal because I have no time on other days and not enough on Sunday either. In these circumstances to produce a page on such a subject would be a feat of acrobacy not easily performable.
As for the subject, well in the days of the Karmayogin or of the Defence of Indian Culture I could have served you freely.
Now I feel as if I have said all I could say on these things – they have gone back into the far rear
of my mind and to pull them out for expression is not easy. That is a second obstacle.
I do not take the same view of the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of man’s spirituality with his endeavours
that come in trying
to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral-temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail, but always fantastic with a significance – crumbling
and
badly outworn
in many places
, but a cathedral-temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. The outer social structure which it built for its approach is another matter.
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.