Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 4

Letter ID: 991

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

March 13, 1944

Yes, the use to which you have turned your vital capacities in Bengal and Bombay – to turn them into instruments of service and the Divine Work, is certainly the best possible.

Through such action and such use of the vital power, one can certainly progress in Yoga. Vital power is necessary for work and you have an exceptional amount of it. Of course, to make a full Yogic use of it and of its force for action, the ego must gradually fade out and vital attachments and impulses be replaced by the spiritual motive. Bhakti, devotion to the Divine, and the spirit of service to the Divine are among the most powerful means for this change.

Certainly, my force is not limited to the Ashram and its conditions. As you know it is being largely used for helping the right development of the war and of change in the human world. It is also used for individual purposes outside the scope of the Ashram and the practice of Yoga; but that of course is silently done and mainly by spiritual action. The Ashram however remains at the centre of the work and without the practice of Yoga the work would not exist and could not have any meaning or fruition. But in the Yoga itself there are different ways of proceeding for different natures, even though the general path is the same, surrender to the Divine and change of nature. But surrender to the Divine in the complete sense cannot be achieved in a short time, nor can the change of the nature. On the whole, one has to go as quickly as one can and as slowly as is necessary – which seems contradictory but is not.