Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters
(1890–1926)
Letters and Telegrams to Political and Professional
Associates 1906–1926
To Motilal Roy [14]1
[June 1914]
Dear M
I have received from Grindlays Rs 400. That leaves Rs
200 out of the Rs 1000, which I hope will be received by next August. We have
also the clothes and shoes,– but for myself only the slippers are useful as the
shoes are too large. I have written to Saurin about the garden money and he says
he has asked Sukumar to send it. But I have received nothing as yet. If I get
this money and the remaining 200 from Das, that will be Rs 1100 in hand. With
100 more and 130 on account of the old rent, say Rs 250 altogether, we shall be
provided for bare necessities for a year, during which other conditions may
arise. That Rs 250 ought to come from Sham Babu and Sharma, but there is little
hope of money once swallowed by a patriot being disgorged again. His
philanthropic stomach digests sovereignly. I must seek it elsewhere. If this can
be done, the only burden which will fall on you is to refurnish us with apparel
and footwear from time to time. At the same time an attempt should be made to
keep up the arrangement with Das, if possible; for we do not know whether our
attempt to provide otherwise will succeed.
That attempt takes the form of a new philosophical
Review with Richard and myself as Editors – the Arya, which is to be brought out
in French and English, two separate editions,– one 
for France, one for India, England and America. In this Review my new theory of
the Veda will appear as also a translation and explanation of the Upanishads, a
series of essays giving my system of Yoga and a book of Vedantic philosophy (not
Shankara’s but Vedic Vedanta) giving the Upanishadic foundations of my theory of
the ideal life towards which humanity must move. You will see so far as my share
is concerned, it will be the intellectual side of my work for the world. The
Review will be of 64 pages to start with and the subscription Rs 6 annually. Of
the French edition 600 copies will be issued, and it will cost about Rs 750 a
year minus postage. Richard reckoned 200 subscribers in France at the start, ie
Rs 1200 in the year. For the English edition we are thinking of an issue of 1000
copies, at a cost of about Rs 1200 annually. We shall need therefore at least
200 subscribers to meet this expense and some more so that the English edition
may pay all its own expenses. Let us try 250 subscribers to start with, with the
ideal of having 800 to 1000 in the first year. If these subscribers can be got
before the Review starts, we shall have a sound financial foundation to start
with. The question is, can they be got. We are printing a prospectus with
specimens of the writings from my translation and commentary on a Vedic hymn,
and an extract from Richard’s collections of the central sayings of great sages
of all times called the Eternal Wisdom to show the nature of the Review. This is
supposed to come out in the middle of this month, and the Review on the 15th
August, so there will be nearly two months for collecting subscribers. How far
can you help us in this work? There is always one thing about which great care
has to be taken, that is, there should be no entanglement of this Review in
Indian politics or a false association created by the police finding it in the
house of some political suspects they search for; in that case people will be
afraid to subscribe. My idea is that young men should be got as agents who would
canvas for the Review all over Bengal, but there so many young men are now
political suspects that it may not be easy to find any who will be free and
active and yet above suspicion. In that case some other method must be tried. I
should like to know from you as soon as possible how far you 
can help us and how many copies of the prospectus we should send to
you. If the review succeeds, if, that is to say, we get in India 850 regular
subscribers, and 250 in France etc. we shall be able to meet the expenses of the
establishment, translation-staff etc. and yet have enough for each of the
editors to live on with their various kinds of families, say Rs 100 a month for
each. In that case the money-question will practically be solved. There will of
course be other expenses besides mere living and there may be from time to time
exceptional expenses, such as publication of books etc., but these may be met
otherwise or as the Review increases its subscribers. Therefore use your best
endeavours towards this end.
The second part of my work is the practical, consisting
in the practice of Yoga by an ever increasing number of young men all over the
country. We have started here a society called the New Idea with that object,
and a good many young men are taking up Vedantic Yoga and some progressing much.
You say that it has spread in the North all over. But in what way? I am not at
all enamoured of the way in which it seems to be practised outside Bengal. It
seems there to be mixed up with the old kind of Tantra sometimes of the most
paishachic and undesirable kind and to be kept merely as a sauce for that fiery
and gruesome dish. Better no vyapti at all outside Bengal, if it is not to be
purified and divine Yoga. In Bengal itself, there are faults which cannot but
have undesirable consequences. In the first place, there is the misplacement of
values. Vedanta is practised, or so it seems to be in some quarters, for the
sake of Tantra, and in order to give a force to Tantra. That is not right at
all. Tantra is only valuable in so far as it enables us to give effect to
Vedanta and in itself it has no value or necessity at all. Then the two are
mixed up in a most undesirable fashion, so that the Vedanta is likely to be
affected by the same disrepute and difficulties on the way of profession as
hamper the recognition of the truth in Tantra ie in its real sense, value and
effectivity. There are difficulties enough already, let us not wilfully increase
them. You have seen, for instance, that in recent political trials Yoga
pamphlets and bombs seem to have been kept together everywhere with the queerest
incongruity. That is a thing we could not
control, we can only hope that it will not happen again. But meanwhile the work
of publicity and spreading our yoga has got an unnecessary difficulty thrown in
its way. Do not let any add to it by associating Vedanta and Tantra together in
an inextricable fashion. The Tantric Yogins are few and should be comparatively
reticent – for Vedanta is a wider thing and men may then help to fulfil it in
all kinds of ways. Let the Tantriks then practise Vedanta silently, not
trumpeting abroad its connection with their own particular school but with
self-restraint and the spirit of self-sacrifice, knowing that they are only one
small corps in a march that is vast and so meant to be world-embracing. The more
they isolate themselves from the rest of the host that is in formation, the more
they will be free for their own work and the more they will help without
hampering the wider march.
Then as to the work of the Tantric discipline and kriya
itself. Remember that Tantra is not like Vedanta, it exists as a Yoga for
material gains, that has always been its nature. Only now not for personal
gains, but for effectivity in certain directions of the general Yoga of mankind.
The question I wish you to ask yourself, is whether you think that with its
present imperfect basis it can really do the work for which it was intended. I
see that it cannot. There have been two stages; first the old Tantra which has
broken down and exists only in a scattered way ineffectual for any great end of
humanity. Secondly, our own new Tantra which succeeded at first because it was
comparatively pure in spite of the difficulties created by the remnants of
egoism. But since then two things have happened. It has tried to extend itself
with the result of bringing in undesirable elements; secondly, it has tried to
attempt larger results from a basis which was no longer sufficient and had begun
to be unsound. A third stage is now necessary, that of a preparation in full
knowledge no longer resting on a blind faith in God’s power and will, but
receiving consciously that will, the illumination that guides its workings and
the power that determines its results. If the thing is to be done it must be
done no longer as by a troop stumbling on courageously in the dark and losing
its best strength by failures and the results
of unhappy blunders, but with the full divine power working out its will in its
instruments.
What is necessary for that action? First, that the
divine knowledge and power should manifest perfectly in at least one man in
India. In myself it is trying so to manifest as rapidly as the deficiencies of
my mind and body will permit, and also – this is important – as rapidly as the
defects of my chief friends and helpers will permit. For all those have to be
taken on myself spiritually and may retard my own development. I advance, but at
every fresh stage have to go back to receive some fresh load of imperfection
that comes from outside. I want now some breathing time, however brief which
will enable me to accomplish the present stage which is the central [? ] of my
advance. This once accomplished, all the rest is inevitable. This not
accomplished, the end of our Yogic movement is, externally, a failure or a
pitiful small result. That is the first reason why I call a halt.
The second necessity is that others should receive the
same power and light. In the measure that mine grows, theirs also will increase
and prosper provided always they do not separate themselves from me by the
ahankara. A sufficient Vedantic basis provided, a long, slow and obscure Tantra
will no longer be necessary. The power that I am developing, if it reaches
consummation, will be able to accomplish its effects automatically by any
method chosen. If it uses Tantric kriya, it will then be because God has
chosen that means, because He wishes to put the Shakta part of Him forward first
and not the Vaishnava. And that kriya will then be irresistible in its effects,
perhaps even strange and new in its means and forms. I have then to effect that
power and communicate it to others. But at present the forces of the material
Prakriti strive with all their remaining energy against the spiritual mastery
that is being sought to impose on them. And it is especially in the field to
which your kriyas have belonged and kindred fields that they are still too
strong for me. You will remember what has been written, that the sadhana shall
first be applied in things that do not matter and only afterwards used for life.
This is not an absolute rule, but it is the rule of necessity to apply for some
time now in this particular matter. I 
see that
I have the necessary powers; I shall communicate them next to you and some
others so that there may be a centre of irresistible spiritual light and
effective force wherever needed. Then a rapid and successful kriya can be
attempted. This is the second reason why I have cried a halt.
The first and supreme object you must have now is to
push forward in yourself and in others the Vedantic Yoga in the sense I have
described. The spread of the idea is not sufficient, you must have real Yogins,
not merely men moved intellectually and emotionally by one or two of the central
ideas of the Yoga. Spreading of the idea is the second necessity – for that the
Review at present offers itself among other means. The other means is to form
brotherhoods, not formal but real, (not societies of the European kind but
informal groups of people united by one effort and one feeling) for the practice
of Vedantic Yoga (without any necessary thought of the Tantric). But of this I
shall write to you hereafter.
Finally as to commercial matters. I had arranged things
according to the last idea, but at the last moment an objection was made that
the arrangement was not a very reasonable one,– an objection which my reason was
forced to admit. It was then proposed to send the Brahmin as a commercial agent
and I so wrote to you. But a few days afterwards when I asked for him to be
sent, I was informed that the Brahmin was no longer possible as a commercial
agent as he was now an object of suspicion to the third party. Another man I had
fixed on is so circumstanced that he cannot go now. There the matter stands. As
for your suggestion, these people here never objected to dealing direct with
you, the objection was mine due to the terms and the accidents of your
correspondence. On the other hand every attempt I have made personally to get
the matter settled has been frustrated by Krishna. I have made these attempts
contrary to the inner instructions received and by the light of the reason. That
always fails with me; if it succeeds momentarily, it brings some coarse result
afterwards. The point now is that if you do as you suggest, it must be so done
that there shall not be the least chance of the transaction interfering with our
business here – I 
mean not any commercial
business, but the enterprises (Society, Review etc.) we are starting. The
question is not one of direct communication, but of right handling and
especially of the right person not only from the point of view of the buyer and
seller, but with regard to the third party who is indirectly interested in the
transaction. In any case you must write to me what you propose to do, before you
act.
By the way, there was a very shocking and 
[aślīla] word in your last letter to me with regard
to my past activities, Bande Mataram, Karmayogin etc. I do not wish to repeat it
here. Please do not use such an indecorous expression in writing in future. In
personal talk it does not matter; but not, if you please, in correspondence.
As to your request for details of my life, about which
you wrote to Bijoy, it is a very difficult matter for there is very little one
can write without offending people, eg S. Mullick, B. Pal, S. S. Chakraborty and
revealing party secrets. However we shall see what can be done. But let me know
what you are writing about me and how and where you mean to publish it.
A. K.