Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3

Letter ID: 832

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

September 1936

(Let us recall that Dilipda was well-acquainted with Jawaharlal Nehru from their college days in England. Halfway through, bowled over byJawaharla’s Autobiography, he wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo. Here is Sri Aurobindo’s reply.)

I have, of late, been engrossed in Jawaharla’s beautiful Autobiography. It is a moving book, truly Guru!

... There is always the personal and the impersonal side of the Divine and the Truth and it is a mistake to think the impersonal alone true or important – for that leads to a void incompleteness in part of the being while only one side is given satisfaction. Impersonality belongs to the intellectual mind and the static self, personality to the soul and heart and dynamic being. Those who disregard the personal Divine ignore something which is profound and essential.

In Jawaharla’s case there exists a conflict between his ideas of the Truth and his heart in its purer impulses. But in followingthe heart one follows something that is at least as precious asthe mind’s loyalty to its own conceptions of what the Truthmay be.