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 [18]¹

[after October 1914]

Dear M –

I have not written for a long time for several reasons. Our position here since the war has become increasingly difficult and delicate, as the administration is run for the moment by certain subordinates who are actively hostile to the Swadeshis. I have therefore adopted a policy of entire reserve, including abstention from correspondence with Bengal even with officially unobjectionable people. Our correspondence now is chiefly limited to Arya business.

Your internal struggle in the Yoga has naturally its causes. I shall help you as much as possible spiritually, but you must get rid of everything that gives a handle to the enemy in ourselves. Your letters for a long time showed a considerable revival of rajasic egoism, contracted, I suppose, by association with the old Tantrics, and that always [brings]² in our Yoga disagreeable consequences. If you could make yourselves entirely pure instruments, things would go much better. But there is always something in the prana and intellect which kicks against the pricks and resists the purifier. Especially get rid of the Aham Karta element, which usually disguises itself under the idea “I am the chosen yantra”. Despise no one, try to see God in all and the Self in all. The Shakti in you will then act better on your materials and environment.

There is another point. You sent a message about an “Aurobindo Math” which seemed to show you had caught the contagion which rages in Bengal. You must understand that my mission is not to create maths, ascetics and Sannyasis; but to call back the souls of the strong to the Lila of Krishna and Kali. That is my teaching, as you can see from the Review, and my name must never be connected with monastic forms or the monastic ideal. Every ascetic movement since the time of Buddha has left India weaker and for a very obvious reason. Renunciation of life is one thing, to make life itself, national, individual, world-life greater and more divine is another. You cannot enforce one ideal on the country without weakening the other. You cannot take away the best souls from life and yet leave life stronger and greater. Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life is the Yoga I teach,– no other renunciation.

Saurin has written to you about Bejoy’s detention. M. Richard wrote to the Madras Government, but with the usual result.

Here one of the Swadeshis, a certain VVS. Aiyar has been hauled up for circulating unauthorised pamphlets from America. It appears the Gov^t of Pondicherry has established a censorship in the French P.O. and opens letters etc from abroad. They have intercepted some wonderful pamphlets of the usual sanguinary order asking India to rise and help Germany which some fool had sent to his address from New York. On the strength of this a case has been trumped up against Aiyar who knew nothing about either the New York idiot or his pamphlets. The funny thing is that all the time Aiyar seems to be fervently Anti-German in his sentiments and pro-Belgian and pro-Servian! So this wonderful French administration insists on making him a martyr for the cause he denounces! One thing I could never appreciate is the utility of this pamphleteering business of which Indian revolutionists are so fond. Pamphlets won’t liberate India; but they do seem to succeed in getting their distributors and non-distributors also into prison. My connection with Aiyar has been practically nil, as in normal times I only see him once in two years. But here all the Swadeshis are lumped together; so we have to be careful not only that we give no handle to our enemies, but that other people don’t give them a handle against us – which is just a little difficult.

You have decided, it seems, to carry on Tantra and Mantra, anushthan and pure Vedanta together! My objection to it was from the standpoint of the Review and Vedantic work generally. Anusthan and the Review do not go well together. Of course, a synthesis is always possible, but amalgamation is not synthesis.

G.

P.S. By the way, try to realise one thing. The work we wish to do cannot produce its effects on the objective world until my Ashtasiddhi is strong enough to work upon that world organically and as a whole, and it has not yet reached that point. No amount of rajasic eagerness on my part or on yours or anybody else’s will fill the place or can substitute itself as the divine instrument which will be definitely effective. In the matter of the Review Bejoy has found that out by this time! I have found it out myself by constant experience and warning. You also, if you wish to profit by my teaching, should learn it also – without the necessity of experience.

¹ After October 1914. Bijoy Nag, a member of Sri Aurobindo’s household, was imprisoned in October 1914 under the Defence of India Act after he entered British India. He remained in jail for the duration of the war. V. V. S. Aiyar was a revolutionary from the Madras Presidency who had taken refuge in Pondicherry. (Despite the “a certain”, Sri Aurobindo knew Aiyar well.){{1}}In February 1910, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta and took temporary refuge in Chandernagore, a small French enclave on the river Hooghly about thirty kilometres north of Calcutta. There he was looked after by Motilal Roy (1882–1959), a young member of a revolutionary secret society. After leaving Chandernagore for Pondicherry in April, Sri Aurobindo kept in touch with Motilal by letter. It was primarily to Motilal that he was referring when he wrote in the “General Note on Sri Aurobindo’s Political Life” (p. 64 of this volume): “For some years he kept up some private communication with the revolutionary forces he had led through one or two individuals.” In these letters, which were subject to interception by the police, he could not of course write openly about revolutionary matters. He developed a code in which “tantra” meant revolutionary activities, and things connected with tantra (yogini chakras, tantric books, etc.) referred to revolutionary implements like guns (see Arun Chandra Dutt, ed., Light to Superlight [Calcutta: Prabartak Publishers, 1972], pp. 27–30). The code sometimes got rather complicated (see the note to letter [3] below). Sri Aurobindo did not use his normal signature or initials in the first 22 letters. Instead he signed as Kali, K., A. K. or G. He often referred to other people by initials or pseudonyms. Parthasarathi Aiyangar, for example, became “P. S.” or “the Psalmodist”.

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² MS bring

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