Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume I - Part 4
Fragment ID: 10553
See letter itself (letter ID: 307)
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
December 24, 1932
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Today a Kanchenjunga of correspondence has fallen on my head, so I could not write about humanity and its progress. Were not the later views of Lowes Dickinson greyed
over by the sickly cast of a disappointed idealism? I have not myself an exaggerated respect for humanity and what it is – but to say that there has been no progress is
as much an exaggerated pessimism as the rapturous hallelujahs of the nineteenth century to a progressive humanity were an exaggerated optimism.
I shall manage to read through the chapter you sent me, though how I manage to find time for these things is a standing miracle and a signal proof of a Divine Providence.
Yes, the “progress” you are making is of the genuine kind – the signs are recognisable. And after all the best way to make humanity progress is to move on oneself – that may sound either individualistic or egoistic, but it isn’t; it is only common sense.
Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad evetaro janaḥ.3
1 SABCL, volume 22; Letters of Sri Aurobindo. 2 Ser. grayed
2 SABCL, volume 22; Letters of Sri Aurobindo. 2 Ser. at all is
3 “Whatsoever the Best doeth, that the lower kind of man puts into practice.” Gita 3.21. Sri Aurobindo’s translation. «Essays on the Gita», volume 19 of «The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo», p. 135.
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga. I // CWSA.- Volume 28. (≈ 22 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2012.- 590 p.
Other publications: