Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Letters

Fragment ID: 22141

A&R.–  1985, April, p. 72

[After Sri Aurobindo wrote the Life-Sketch published on the preceding pages for inclusion in Dilip Kumar Roy’s Among the Great, Dilip wrote him, evidently asking, among other things, whether the piece could be published over Sri Aurobindo’s signature. Sri Aurobindo replied:]

No, certainly not. If you gave my name, it would be as if I were advertising myself in your book. I did not care to have anything of the kind written, as I told you, because I do not think these things are of any importance. I merely wrote, in the end, a brief summary of the most outward facts, nothing inward or personal, because I have seen that many legends and distortions are afloat, and this will at least put things in the straight line. If you like, you can mention that it is a brief statement of the principal facts of Sri Aurobindo’s public life from an authoritative source.

Necessarily I have mentioned only salient facts, leaving out all mere details. As for an estimate of myself I have given none. In my view, a man’s value does not depend on what he learns or his position or fame or what he does, but on what he is and inwardly becomes, and of that I have said nothing. I do not want to alter what I have written. If you like you can put a note of your own to the “occidental education” stating that it included Greek and Latin and two or three modern languages, but I do not myself see the necessity of it or the importance.