Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part Three. On Indian and World Events 1940–1950

1. Messages

On the World Situation (July 1948)¹

I am afraid I can hold out but cold comfort for the present at least to those of your correspondents who are lamenting the present state of things. Things are bad, are growing worse and may at any time grow worst or worse than worst if that is possible – and anything however paradoxical seems possible in the present perturbed world. The best thing for them is to realise that all this was necessary because certain possibilities had to emerge and be got rid of if a new and better world was at all to come into being; it would not have done to postpone them for a later time. It is as in Yoga where things active or latent in the being have to be put into action in the light so that they may be grappled with and thrown out or to emerge from latency in the depths for the same purificatory purpose. Also they can remember the adage that night is darkest before dawn and that the coming of dawn is inevitable. But they must remember too that the new world whose coming we envisage is not to be made of the same texture as the old and different only in pattern and that it must come by other means, from within and not from without – so the best way is not to be too much preoccupied with the lamentable things that are happening outside, but themselves to grow within so that they may be ready for the new world whatever form it may take.

July 18, 1948

¹ This letter from Sri Aurobindo to his disciple Dilip Kumar Roy was reproduced in the Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, Calcutta, and also as a separate leaflet, in August 1948. It was included in Messages of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (1949).

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