Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
3. Other Letters on Yoga and
Practical Life 1921–1938
On Yoga and Fund-raising for the Ashram, 1921–1938
To Durgadas Shett [1]1
Pondicherry
May 12. 1921
Dear Durgadas
I received day before yesterday your letter and the Rs
400 you sent me. I accept the money and shall use it for the house for those who
come to me for the Yoga. The house is taken and will be ready on the 15th.
There is no reason, no just reason for your indulging
the state of mind which is expressed in your letter. You write as if you were
not accepted and there was no hope for you. That is not so. Those who sincerely
give themselves to me, cannot be rejected. All that was intended in what Barin
and Satyen have told you, is that you should come with a complete self-giving
and a readiness to renounce everything in you that may be an obstacle to the
completeness. The main obstacles in you are an emotional self-indulgence and the
ahankara of work etc to which you seem to give a greater importance than to the
greater and deeper object of the Yoga. Our Yoga is solely for the development of
the divine consciousness in man and all the rest is secondary, work only
valuable as the expression of the Divine in the individual and it is to be done
by the Divine, not with the ego, not as a work that is yours or to be
done by you for the satisfaction of the sense of the 
[ahaṃ karta] in you. Equally an emotional
self-indulgence will stand in the way of the true calm and Ananda which belong
to the divine consciousness. If you are ready from the beginning to recognise
the difficulties in your own nature, they can be easily removed; otherwise you
will have to face much internal trouble and suffering in the 
first stages of the sadhana. The Sangha of our Yoga must be of men
who give up the lower consciousness and the lower nature in order to assume the
higher and divine. The formation of a commune for the sake of a particular
“work” is not at all the true ideal. It is only as we all grow into the Divine
that the true sangha can be created. This you ought to understand clearly and
try to fix in yourself before you come here. This also you must understand that
I cannot reject yourself and take your money. Money is nothing; it is a mere
means and convenience which God will give me whenever and to whatever degree he
wills for his purpose. It is yourself, your soul that matters.
Try to understand these things in their true light so
that you may be ready, when [you come], to receive completely what I have to
give you. Meanwhile put yourself in spiritual relation with me, try to receive
me with a passive and unobstructing mind and wait for the call to come here. As
soon as I am ready, I shall call you.
As for the others of whom you write, you may speak to
them of me hereafter, but you must leave it to me to decide about their fitness
and what is best for them. All cannot come to me immediately and each case must
be decided according to the truth of the being of each and the will of the
Divine with regard to him.
Aurobindo