Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
Letter ID: 962
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
June 6, 1943
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I am very grateful to you for your patient way of showing me the right way. I quite realise that I have somehow got into the wrong habit of over-eagerness. I should rather, as you say, trust in the Divine and accept gratefully whatever He concedes. I remember a prayer of Mother’s:
«J’aurais tort de me plaindre des circonstances de mon existence, ne sont-elles point conformes a ce que je suis1?» (15.10.1917)
I don’t think I would have continued the prayopavesan. The idea came from a remark ofVivekananda who said to Sri Ma (Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrital “bhagahaner janye prayopabesan korte, teman ichchhe hochchhe koi? (Korbo Master Mahashay ?) Kintu jodi rakhte na pari?” [Shall I start the fast unto death ? (Shall I start Master Mahashay?) Suppose I fail to keep it up ?]
I had an idea that prayopavesan would succeed if taken up with a sincere conviction that life was meaningless without the Divine. I see now I was wrong: you have convinced me of that – though here perhaps my cowardly fear of an eventual failure in prayopavesan may have somewhat paved the way beforehand that led [??] life so that I accept your arguments a wee bit too readily! (The ingrained reluctance complex too!)
Anyhow – I must sigh like a good child and accept the joylessness since there is no other way of traversing the rest of the Way – and since no other Way I can possibly choose on earth now or ever.
Good Heavens, no! I would never recommend to anyone to accept joylessness. On the contrary, I explained that a certain vital movement was the origin of the joylessness, its cause, and what I wanted was the removal of its cause which would necessarily bring about the removal of the effect.
I resolve so often to be a good boy (a little too grownup boy though) and get along with the proper attitude of surrender and trust. But of late the joylessness has been so unrelieved that it has become very difficult. The only reasoning of yours I don’t quite follow is about my vital wanting, choosing complete rajasic or tamasic vairagya! I do so long for joy! Why should I then choose painful vairagya – and of the tamasic kind at that? I have worked hard enough in all conscience. Now, however, I don’t feel any joy at all in any work – not even music which brings only sorrow for which reason I have been seriously thinking of giving up music! Is that because I want to give up music? I don’t know how this conclusion follows. But I won’t argue or question. I accept your judgment as final. If joylessness comes to stay, let it. I will pray for strength to bear it, trusting to Divine Grace to intervene when it will.
No, I didn’t say that you chose the rajasic or tamasic vairagya. I only explained how it came, of itself, as a result of a
movement of the vital in place of the sattwic vairagya which is supposed to precede and cause or accompany or result from a turning away from the world to seek the Divine. The tamasic vairagya comes from the recoil of the vital when it feels that it has to give up the joy of life and becomes listless and joyless; the rajasic comes
when the vital begins to lose the joy of life but complains that it is getting nothing in its place. Nobody chooses such movements; they come independently of the mind as habitual reactions of the human nature. To refuse
these things by detachment, an increasing quiet aspiration, a pure bhakti, an ardent surrender to the Divine, was what I suggested as the true forward
movement.
1 (Dilipda’s translation:) I have no right to complain of the circumstances of my existence, for are they not in consonance with what I am?
2 SABCL, volume 22: the
3 SABCL, volume 22: rajasic Vairagya comes
4 CWSA, volume 29: replace
5 SABCL, volume 22: forwarding
Current publication:
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 4. 1938 – 1950 / edited by Shankar Bandopadhyay.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 269 p.
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