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 [25]1
Pondicherry
Sept. 2. 1920
Dear M.
My impression about your marriage idea is that you are
going too fast. What you say about the commune and the married couple is quite
right as our ideal or rather as one side of our ideal, but there is here a
question of time and tactics. In our work, especially in the preparatory and
experimental part of it, there must be not only spiritual hardihood,
साहसं [sāhasaṃ], but skill and prudence,
कौशलं [kauśalaṃ]. The question is whether it
is necessary or wise 
and advisable to engage in
a battle with society at the moment on a point which it considers to be vital
but which is to us subordinate. Our first business is to establish our communal
system on a firm spiritual, secondly on a firm economical foundation, and to
spread it wide, but the complete social change can only come as a result of the
other two. It must come first in spirit, afterwards in form. If a man enters
into the commune by spiritual unity, if he gives to it his life and labour and
considers all he has as belonging to all, the first necessity is secured. The
next thing is [to] make the movement economically self-sufficient, and to do
that requires at the present moment all the energy you can command. These two
things are, the one a constant, the other an immediate necessity. The
institution of a communal ceremony of marriage can only be a future necessity;
it involves nothing essential at the moment. The idea is that the family in
future is not to be a separate unit, but a sub-unit of the communal whole. It is
too early to decide exactly what form the family life will take, it may take
many forms, not always the same. The principle is the important thing. But this
principle can be observed whatever the form of the marriage ceremony they may
have gone through at the time of personal union, whether recognised or not by
the present social system. An external necessity does not arise in the present
case, as Khagen is not marrying outside his caste.
It remains to be seen whether this step, though not
necessary, is advisable. In the first place by your action you declare your
commune to be an entirely separate thing from the rest of Hindu society; you
will be following in the way of the Brahma Samaj or more exactly in that of
Thakur Dayananda. That means a violent scission and a long struggle, which is
likely greatly to complicate your other work and put difficulties in the way
which need not have been there. My own idea was for our system to grow up in the
society, not out of it, though different from it, first bringing in a new
spiritual idea,– a field in which opposition and intolerance cannot now long
endure,– secondly, justifying itself on the outward plane by becoming a centre
of economical regeneration and new power for the country, a work in which we
shall have sympathy more than opposition, and getting forward 
with other matters according to need and opportunity and with a
considerable freedom and latitude, meeting social orthodoxy with the plea of
reembodying the old free Hindu idea in new forms rather than with the profession
of a violent rejection both of the past and the present. In this process a clash
will be inevitable sooner or later, but a deliberate precipitation of the
conflict in so extreme a form as you suggest was not within my intentions. That
was to come, but only when we were strong and had already a hold on the country,
so that we might have a strong support as well as enemies.
Your point is that the commune should not depend either
on Government or society for the validity of the union. It seems to me
sufficient if that is spiritually insisted on or at most given an outward
indication. I would suggest that the exchange of garlands should be done before
the commune, as it was done in the old Swayamvara before the assembly. The
conventional marriage can then be added as a concession to the present society,
as in old times the sampradana by the father was added to the
swayamvara although in fact the svayamvara itself would have been quite
valid without it. If a case should arise in future where the mutual giving would
be necessary by itself, we might then go to the more extreme course. This would,
it seems to me, satisfy everything immediately necessary or advisable,– first,
the assertion of free choice as the principle of marriage, secondly, the formal
inclusion of the couple in their united life in the commune, apart from any
conventional marriage ceremony, thirdly, the justification of a continuity
between our movement and the great past of India. The movement of course is not
to stop with the forms of the past or a modernisation of them, but this sort of
preliminary advance under cover will prepare more easily its future advance into
the open, which we can afterwards make as rapid as we choose. At the same time
it will have the advantage of awaking a less vehement opposition at a moment
when it seems to me we are not yet ready for a frontal attack in the social
field and a decisive battle. If a battle becomes necessary, of course we must
not flinch from it, but I should myself prefer to have it after I have reached
the proper stage in my Yoga and 
after I return
to Bengal. At present I have so many calls upon an energy which is still largely
occupied with pushing forward to its own perfection that I do not quite like the
idea of the heavy drain on it such a struggle would entail. This at least is my
present view on the matter.
The Standard Bearer is, I am afraid, subject to the
criticism passed on it; the criticism is general and I felt it myself. It is a
sort of weekly “Arya”; but the Arya style and method are not what is wanted for
a weekly paper. What you need to do, is to make the ideas easy to the people and
give them a practical direction. At present you give only a difficult philosophy
and abstract principles. I shall write more about this matter hereafter as soon
as I find time.
A. G.