Patel, Govindbhai

My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

Letters

Fragment ID: 18836

(this fragment is largest or earliest found passage)

Sri Aurobindo — Patel, Govindbhai

March 8, 1932

March 8, 1932

The necessities of a sadhaka should be as few as possible; for there are only very few things that are necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries. These a yogin has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions:

(1) If he uses them during his sadhana solely to train himself in possessing things without attachment or desire and to learn to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with a proper handling, a just organization, arrangement and measure; — or

(2) If he already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not the least moved or affected in any way by loss or withholding or deprival. If he has any greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not free in spirit and his use of the things to possess is contrary to the spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free in spirit, he will not be fit for possession, if he has not learned to use things not for himself, but for the Divine Will, as an instrument, with the right knowledge, and action in the use for the equipment of a life lived not for oneself but for and in the Divine.