Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Poetry and Art
SABCL - Volume 27
Part 3. Literature, Art, Beauty and Yoga
Section 4. Literature, Art, Music and the Practice of Yoga
Painting, Music, Dance and Yoga
Music and Sadhana [1]
I quite understood your main point to which I shall
answer, but there were many side-issues which obscure the main one in your
letter and I took the occasion to try to get rid of one of them at once. For the
moment I am answering only to your question about the music. Let me say at once
that all of you seem to have too great an aptitude for making drastic
conclusions on the 
strength of very minor facts.
It is always perilous to take two or three small facts, put them together and
build upon them a big inference. It becomes still more dangerous when you
emphasise minor facts and set aside or belittle the meaning of the main ones. In
this case the main facts are (1) that the Mother has loved music all her life
and found it a key to spiritual experience, (2) that she has given all
encouragement to your music in special and to the music of others also. She has
also made clear the relation of Art and Beauty with Yoga. It is therefore rather
extraordinary that anyone should think she only tolerates music here and
considers it inconsistent with Yoga. It is perfectly true that Music or Art are
not either the first or the only thing in life for her,— any more than Poetry or
Literature are with me,— the Divine, the divine consciousness, the discovery of
the conditions for a divine life are and must be our one concern, with Art,
Poetry or Music as parts or means only of the divine life or expression of the
Divine Truth and the Divine Beauty. That does not mean that they are only
“tolerated”, but that they are put in their right place.
Then the minor facts and their significance. The Mother
limited the concerts to one hour because that was the utmost she could give to
them in the afternoons for which they are fixed and that meant checking a very
natural tendency to spread over a greater length of time. On this occasion she
first wanted it to be a half an hour affair because the more important occasion
was to be reserved for November. But it was found that certain very undesirable
psychological movements were tending to appear which would turn the occasion not
into a part of the preparation for true expression or a part of the Yoga, but an
occasion for the exhibition of a very mundane, almost professional egoism,
vanity, rivalry, anger and spite at one’s talent being “neglected” etc. It was
decided that this anti-Yogic stuff should not be allowed to mix with the
atmosphere of the 24th November and therefore the Sunday concert could be
lengthened out and the November one dropped — and this was what was written to
Venkataraman. It is not an objection to music that the decision represented, but
an objection to bringing into music here these very undivine and unyogic and, if
human, yet not very reputable human elements 
and
movements. The Mother said nothing to you about it because these things did not
directly concern you and she did not besides care to make the causes of
the change public.
Let us have music by all means; but also more rhythm
and harmony in the atmosphere!
29 October 1932