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 [12]1
[6 May 1926]
Tirupati,
Your aspiration to be my manifestation and all the rest
of the delusions to which you have surrendered yourself are not Yoga 
or Sadhana. They are an illusion of your vital being and your brain.
We tried to cure you and for a few days while you were obeying my instructions
you were on the point of being cured. But you have called back your illness and
made it worse than before. You seem to be no longer capable even of
understanding what I write to you; you read your own delusions into my letters.
I can do nothing more for you.
All that I can tell you is to go back to Vizianagaram and allow yourself to be taken care of there. I can make no arrangements for you anywhere. I can give only a last advice. Throw away the foolish arrogance and vanity that have been the cause of your illness, consent to become like an ordinary man living in the normal physical mind.
Now that is your only means of being saved from your illness.
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}}Tirupati came to Pondicherry on 6 May 1926. Sri Aurobindo refused to see him. He gave him this letter instead. It is reproduced here from one of the notebooks of A. B. Purani who recorded it. – Ed.