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 [21]1
[1918–1919]
Dear M –
If you want discipline, the first thing of that kind I
would impose on you or ask you to impose on yourselves is self-discipline,
ātma-sanyama, and the first element in that is obedience to the law of
the Yoga I have given to you. If you bring in things which do not belong to it
at all and are quite foreign to it, such as “hunger-strikes” and vehement
emotional revolt against the divine Will, it is idle to expect any rapid
progress. That means that you insist on going on your own bypath and yet demand
of me that I shall bring you to my goal. All difficulties can be conquered, but
only on condition of fidelity to the Way that you have taken. There is no
obligation on anyone to take it,– it is a difficult and trying one, a way for
heroes, not for weaklings,– but once taken, it must be followed, or you will not
arrive.
Remember what is the whole basis of the Yoga. It is not
founded upon the vehement emotionalism of the Bhakti-marga to which the
temperament of Bengal is most prone, though it has a different kind of Bhakti,
but on samata and atma-samarpana. Obedience to the divine Will,
not assertion of self-will, is the very first mantra. But what can be a
more violent assertion of self-will than to demand the result you desire,
whether external 
or internal, at once, 
[ei muhūte ei kṣaṇe] and not in God’s muhurta, God’s
moment? You say that there is complete utsarga, but it cannot be
complete, if there is any kind of revolt or vehement impatience. Revolt and
impatience mean always that there is a part of the being or something in the
being which does not submit, has not given itself to God, but insists on God
going out of his way to obey it. That may be very well in the Bhaktimarga, but
it will not do on this Way. The revolt and impatience may come and will come in
the heart or the prana when these are still subject to imperfection and
impurity; but it is then for the will and the faith in your buddhi to reject
them, not to act upon them. If the will consents, approves and supports them, it
means that you are siding with the inner enemy. If you want rapid progress, the
first condition is that you should not do this; for every time you do it, the
enemy is strengthened and the shuddhi postponed. This is a difficult
lesson to learn, but you must learn it. I do not find fault with you for taking
long over it, I myself took full twelve years to learn it thoroughly, and even
after I knew the principle well enough, it took me quite four years and more to
master my lower nature in this respect. But you have the advantage of my
experience and my help; you will be able to do it more rapidly, if you
consciously and fully assist me, by not associating yourself with the enemy
Desire; jahi kāmam durāsadam, remember that utterance
of the Gita, it is a keyword of our Yoga.
As for Haradhan, he should show the way in calm,
patience and endurance. He has been a soldier. How does he think the nations of
Europe could have carried this war to an end, if they had grown so impatient of
the fatigue of the trenches, suffering, disturbance, scarcity, continual
postponement of the result, and declared that either they must have victory in a
given time or throw up the struggle? Does he expect the inner war with our lower
selves, the personal habit of thousands of lives and the human inheritance of
ages, to be less arduous or to be carried out by a rapid and easy miracle?
Hunger-striking to force God or to force anybody or anything else is not the
true spiritual means. I do not object to Mr. Gandhi or anyone else following it 
for quite other than spiritual purposes, but here it is out of place;
these things, I repeat, are foreign to the fundamental principle of our Yoga.
Shuddhi is the most difficult part of the whole Yoga,
it is the condition of all the rest, and if that is once conquered, the real
conquest is accomplished. The rest becomes a comparatively easy building on an
assured basis,– it may take longer or shorter, but it can be done tranquilly and
steadily. To prevent the shuddhi the lower nature in you and around you will
exhaust all its efforts, and even when it cannot prevent, it will try to retard.
And its strongest weapon then is, when you think you have got it, suddenly to
break in on you and convince you that you have not got it, that it is far away,
and so arouse disappointment, grief, loss of faith, discouragement, depression
and revolt, the whole army of troubles that wait upon impure Desire. When you
have once found calm, peace of mind, firm faith, equality and been able to live
in it for some time, then and only then you may be sure that suddhi is founded;
but you must not think it will not be disturbed. It will be, so long as your
heart and prana are still capable of responding to the old movements, have still
any memory and habit of vibrating to the old chords. The one thing necessary
when the renewed trouble comes, is to stand back in your mind and will from it,
refuse it the sanction of your higher being, even when it is raging in the lower
nature. As that habit of refusal fixes itself,– at first you may not be able to
do it, the buddhi may be lost in the storm,– you will find that the asuddhi,
even though it still returns, becomes less violent, more and more external,
until it ceases to be anything more than a faint and short-lived touch from
outside and finally comes no more. That is the course it has followed with me,
not only with regard to this kind of disturbance, but with regard to all
imperfections. You, since you have chosen to share my Yoga for mankind, must
follow the same way, undergo the same disturbances.
This is a thing which it is necessary for you to
understand clearly. I myself have had for these fourteen years, and it is not
yet finished, to bear all the possible typical difficulties, troubles, downfalls
and backslidings that can rise in this great effort to 
change the whole normal human being. How else could I have been able to help or
guide others on the same way? Those who join me at the present stage, must share
in my burden, especially those who are themselves chosen in any degree to lead,
help and guide. It may be that when I have the complete siddhi,– which I have
not yet, I am only on the way to it,– then, if it be God’s will to extend very
largely and rapidly my work in this body, those who come after may have the way
made very easy for them. But we are the pioneers hewing our way through the
jungle of the lower prakriti. It will not do for us to be cowards and shirkers
and refuse the burden, to clamour for everything to be made quick and easy for
us. Above all things I demand from you endurance, firmness, heroism,– the true
spiritual heroism. I want strong men, I do not want emotional children. Manhood
first, 
[debatva]
can only be built upon that. If I do not get it in those who accept my Yoga,
then I shall have to understand that it is not God’s will that I should succeed.
If that be so, I shall accept his will calmly. But meanwhile I go on bearing
whatever burden he lays on me, meeting whatever difficulties he puts in the way
of my siddhi. Personally, I am now sure of success in everything except in the
kaya-siddhi, which is still doubtful, and in my work. The work can only
succeed if I find noble and worthy helpers, fitted for it by the same struggles
and the same endurance. I expect them in you.
Again you must not expect the shuddhi or any
part of the siddhi to be simultaneous and complete at
once in all whom you associate with you. One may attain, others progress, others
linger. You must not expect a sudden collective miracle. I have not come here to
accomplish miracles, but to show, lead the way, help, on the road to a great
inner change of our human nature,– the outer change in the world is only
possible if and when that inner transmutation is effected and extends itself.
You must not expect to establish a perfect sangha all at once and by a
single leap. If you make such demands on me, I can only say that I cannot do
what is not God’s will. Go forward calmly and firmly, not attached to success,
not disturbed by unsuccess; my help will then not fail you.
As to your idea of
work, it seems to me a little crude in form; but I have no objection to your
beginning it, since you feel the pressing necessity. I shall write to you later
on about it at more length. The only reason why I do not lay great stress on
outer work, is that it must always be kaccha, much embarrassed by
difficulties, at best only a preparatory thing, until we are inwardly and
spiritually ready. That is no reason why it should not be done. Work done in the
right spirit will itself become a means of the inner siddhi.
Kali