Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Yoga

Volume IV

Publisher’s Note

Letters on Yoga – IV contains letters written by Sri Aurobindo on the transformation of human nature, mental, vital and physical, through the practice of the Integral Yoga. It also includes letters on the difficulties encountered in the practice of this Yoga. This volume is the last of four volumes of Letters on Yoga, arranged by the editors as follows:

I. Foundations of the Integral Yoga

II. Practice of the Integral Yoga

III. Experiences and Realisations in the Integral Yoga

IV. Transformation of Human Nature in the Integral Yoga

The letters in these volumes have been selected from the large body of letters that Sri Aurobindo wrote to disciples and others between 1927 and 1950. Other letters from this period are published in Letters on Poetry and Art, The Mother with Letters on the Mother and Letters on Himself and the Ashram, volumes 27, 32 and 35 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Letters written before 1927 are reproduced in Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, volume 36 of The Complete Works.

During Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime, relatively few of his letters were published. Three small books of letters on Yoga were brought out in the 1930s. A more substantial collection came out between 1947 and 1951 in a four-volume series entitled Letters of Sri Aurobindo (including one volume of letters on poetry and literature). In 1958, many more letters were included in the two large tomes of On Yoga – II. A further expanded collection in three volumes entitled Letters on Yoga was published in 1970 as part of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. The present collection, also entitled Letters on Yoga, constitutes volumes 28 – 31 of The Complete Works. These volumes incorporate previously published letters and contain many new ones as well. About one-third of the letters in the present volume were not published in the Centenary Library.

This volume is arranged by subject in four parts:

1. Sadhana on the Level of the Mind

2. Sadhana on the Level of the Vital

3. Sadhana on the Physical, Subconscient and Inconscient Levels

4. Difficulties in the Practice of the Integral Yoga

The texts of all the letters have been checked against the available manuscripts, typescripts and printed versions.