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 [6]1
9, Rue de la Marine
Pondicherry
–
July 5, 1929.
To
Durgadas Shett
Hrishikesh has wired on the 2nd
from Sherpur (Mymensingh) that he will start in a week and bring you to
Pondicherry with him. I do not know if he has written or wired to you, so I
write to inform you. Please arrange to come with him, if you are not in a
condition to come alone. To bring someone else would be very inconvenient and
might lead to awkwardness; for it has been for a long time the rule of the Asram
to admit for residence only sadhaks of the Asram itself, disciples who come for
a visit or short stay, people who come with special permission for initiation in
Yoga, and, in some cases, those who come,– again with special permission,– for
darshan on the days in the year on which Sri Aurobindo comes out. Outsiders
who do not fall within these classes are not allowed to stay in the Asram, but
are supposed to make their own arrangements elsewhere.
There is one thing which I should mention and of which
I omitted to write in my last letter. You have written of the 
work in which you have been recently engaged as if it were part of
Sri Aurobindo’s work and of those who are with you in it as if they were among
his spiritual followers or disciples. But in matter of fact Sri Aurobindo knows
practically nothing about what you are doing and nothing at all about those who
are helping you. When you wrote to him about the “Swadeshi Bazaar” you yourself
expressed a doubt as to the possibility of this enterprise having any connection
with his work and his reply was that there was none. But as he understood that
it was to be a weekly review with a special interest in economics and Swadeshi
industry and trade, he could make no objection to your taking it up if that took
your fancy. He does not interfere as a rule with the external activities of
those who are not members of the Asram and therefore self-bound to its spiritual
aim and discipline or who have not made a complete surrender of their inner and
outer life to his direction and control. Recently, however, since your last
letters to him, Sri Aurobindo has been informed that those who are now with you
are political workers of a particular school. If that is so, it is rather
surprising that you should still think it possible to connect this work of yours
with Sri Aurobindo’s. You must surely be aware that he has cut off all
connection with politics and that his work is purely spiritual and he does not
support or have any kind of connection with any political school or group or
party. It is also a rule of the Asram that any one entering it as a member must
give up all political connections and cease from any activities of that kind. I
write this in order that any misunderstanding there may be should be cleared up,
first in your own mind and afterwards here in a complete explanation of all
matters when you come.