Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1643

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 4, 1936

Vairagya! Good Lord! What next? A fellow who has always detested it, loved life and company, now undergoing a training in vairagya!! Such is life, eh? Never dreamt of Yoga, and stumbled into it – vairagya now crowns it! Why D’s phantom on me? His drive towards vairagya, I understand, was due to his past life’s karma. But what past life’s karma in my case, please?

How do you know about your past life’s karma? But perhaps it is D’s karma which is afflicting you,– your karma being that of getting caught up in the swirl of his tempestuous course.

And when I look at D’s suffering due to this blessed vairagya, I shudder. I am only a small pot – then why this heavy burden on me?

Well, why did you get into the track of the big pot?

And what kind of vairagya is this? It is encouraged by almost all yogis. Kanai understands by it a positive detachment from things of this life and a luminous aspiration within towards a higher spiritual achievement.

Vairagya means a positive detachment from things of this life – but it does not immediately carry with it a luminous aspiration except for a few fortunate people. For the positive detachment is often a pulling away by the soul while the vital clings and is gloomy and reluctant.

I suppose you mean a different kind of vairagya in my case, suited to my nature?

Yes, tamasic vairagya.