Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
4. The Mother in the Life of the Ashram
The Mother does not provide the sadhaks with comforts because she thinks that their desires, fancies, likings, preferences should 
be satisfied – in Yoga people have to overcome these things. In any other Asram they would not get one tenth of what they get here, they would have to put up with all possible discomforts, privations, hard and rigorous austerities, and if they complained, they would be told they were not fit for Yoga. If there is a different rule here, it is not because the desires have to be indulged, but because they have to be overcome in the presence of the objects of desire and not in their absence. The first rule of Yoga is that the sadhak must be content with what comes to him, much or little; if things are there, he must be able to use them without attachment or desire; if they are not he must be indifferent to their absence.
7 January 1937