Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3

Letter ID: 851

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

October 1936 (?)

(...) Mystery! Mystery O Guru! Nolini, Amrita & Co. baffled. Look at this map. They wired at 9.30 this morn from Madura. Now what do they mean? Reaching here 11 a.m. on 21st? Then how can they stay at Salem till lunch – Salem is about the same distance from Pondicherry as Pondicherry is from Madras. Then – and here is the Riddle of the Sphinx – why forbid me uselessly to come there (where?) by missing meditation? Could I even do that even if I wanted to play truant? When am I to repair chucking meditation – confound it all. Guru? And how can they reach the house without first reaching me? They know not the address. Can you possibly throw some light by yogic intuition?

Intuition is not enough – only the Divine Omniscience could solve the mysteries of this telegram. The last part about the meditation might be explained by Vidya’s declaration in a letter (if I remember right) that they might just walk into the house without informing you and surprise you by inviting you to tea. But if they don’t know the address? Or will they guess themselves into the right house? Perhaps you have given sufficient indications about it for that? For me the insoluble mystery is the lunch. Why lunch and not breakfast or dinner and why Salem? And how can they be here at eleven morning and lunching at Salem almost at the same time. It would need the yogic power of being in several places at a time. Logically we might suppose that the lunch at Salem must be not on the 21st but a previous day and they would break journey to eat and digest the lunch. But this is perhaps far-fetched? Belongs too much to the logic of time while the telegram is of the Timeless. Anyhow the important thing is their arrival – lunch or no lunch, Salem or no Salem. If they can’t find the house, they can find yours – so the difficulty is not practical but metaphysical.