Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest

2.Early Letters on Yoga and the Spiritual Life 1911–1928

To People in India, 1914–1926

To V. Tirupati [5]¹

4-3-26

Dear Tirupati,

We have received your letters and noted all the points on which you have asked for instruction and enlightenment. We intend to answer fully, but the letter will take a day or two to write. In the meanwhile try to carry out the instructions already given. In your relations with your people, act simply and naturally; get rid of these nervous shrinkings which are a weakness. The important thing is to have the right inner attitude, calm and without attachment. If you do that, all these details – about how to address them, food and bathing, etc – become trifling matters which will arrange themselves according to convenience and common sense. It is simply that you have to stay at Vizianagaram for some time – as you have rightly seen, for several months, and during that time you must take what help they can give you for your material needs, without that binding you in any way to them. But on this matter as on the other questions raised in your letter we shall write fully in our next letter.

¹ An enthusiastic sadhak, Tirupati practised an extreme form of bhakti yoga, as a result of which he lost his mental balance. Sri Aurobindo advised him to go back to his home in Vizianagaram, coastal Andhra, to recuperate. From there Tirupati wrote a number of letters to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Sri Aurobindo wrote these twelve replies at this time.{{1}}This letter-draft was written by the Mother at Sri Aurobindo’s dictation or following his oral instructions. – Ed.

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