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

To and about Public Figures 1930–1937

To Morarji Desai [2]¹

Morarji Desai: Since 1930 I have been making an effort to put the Yoga preached by the Gita in practice as I understand it. . . . I cannot however say that I am on the right path and every day I realise how immensely difficult it is to give up attachment in every form and still live the ordinary life.

I have come here as a humble seeker for guidance in this quest of mine and request you to give me a guidance as to whether I should continue on the path I am treading at present or whether I am on a wrong track and should follow another path. If you consider that I should continue in the path followed by me at present I request you to guide me as to what I should do to give up all attachment and if you advise me to change the path, the new path may kindly be indicated and explained to me.
 

[17 August 1935]

Shri Morarji Desai,

I do not know that it is possible for me to give you any guidance on the path you have chosen – it is at any rate difficult for me to say anything definite without more precise data than those contained in your letter.

There is no need for you to change the line of life and work you have chosen so long as you feel that to be the way of your nature (svabhava) or dictated to you by your inner being, or, for some reason, it is seen to be your proper dharma. These are the three tests and apart from that I do not think there is any fixed line of conduct or way of work or life that can be laid down for the Yoga of the Gita. It is the spirit or consciousness in which the work is done that matters most; the outer form can vary greatly for different natures. Thus, so long as one does not get the settled experience of the Divine Power taking up one’s work and doing it, one acts according to one’s nature; afterwards it is that Power which determines what is to be done or not done.

The overcoming of all attachments must necessarily be difficult and cannot come except as the fruit of a long sadhana, unless there is a rapid general growth in the inner spiritual experience which is the substance of the Gita’s teaching. The cessation of desire of the fruit or attachment to the work itself, the growth of equality to all beings, to all happenings, to good repute or ill repute, the dropping of the ego, which are necessary for the loss of all attachments, can come completely only when all work becomes a spontaneous sacrifice to the Divine, the heart is offered up to Him and one has the settled experience of the Divine in all things and all beings. This consciousness or experience must come in all parts and movements of the being (sarvabhavena), not only in the mind and idea; then the falling away of all attachments becomes easy. I speak of the Gita’s way of Yoga; for in the ascetic life one obtains the same objects differently by cutting away from all the objects of attachment and the consequent atrophy of the attachment itself through rejection and disuse.

Sri Aurobindo

¹ Morarji Desai (1896–1995) was Prime Minister of India between 1977 and 1979. Desai came to the Ashram in August 1935. During his stay he wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo, asking him questions about spiritual matters. Desai published Sri Aurobindo’s reply in The Story of My Life (New Delhi: S. Chand and Co., 1978), vol. I, pp. 126–27.

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