-16_Letters and Telegrams to Political and Professional Associates, 1906 – 1926.htm

visions of rajogun run mad, then I say, "More power to its elbow." For it is only when this foolishness is done with that truth will have a chance, the sattwic mind in India emerge and a really strong spiritual movement begin as a prelude to India's regeneration. No doubt, there will be plenty of trouble and error still to face, but we shall have a chance of putting our feet on the right path. In all I believe God to be guiding us, giving the necessary experiences, preparing the necessary conditions.

13 July 1911

Note on a Forged Document

1 The card purports to issue from the Mymensingh Sadhana Samaj. The word is spelt Maymensingh with a long a. Every Bengali in Bengal knows that it is Moymensingh with a short a and would at once be able to point out the mistake.

2. The word Swaraj well-known to everyone in Bengal, is spelt Saraj and that this is no casual slip of the pen is shown by its faithful repetition, the only other time that "Saraj" appears in the card (on the flag to the left).

3. "Bande Mataram" is twice spelt Bade Mataram. This is interesting because it shows that the card was written by a man unaccustomed to the Bengali character and more habituated to the Devanagari (Sanscrit) alphabet. In the Devanagari the n is usually represented by a nasalising dot over the previous letter which might easily be dropped by an unpractised writer. In Bengali the nd is a conjunct letter and even the most ignorant Bengali writer would be incapable of dropping the n. If by an inconceivable blunder he dropped [it], the most casual look at the word would show him what was wrong; but here the mistake is twice consistently repeated and not corrected even in a card the details of which have been so carefully and boldly executed.

4. The writer drops the characteristic dots which differentiate b from r  and y from impure j in Bengali. Thus he writes Pujar as Pujab and Viceroy as Viceroj. Only a foreigner writing the Bengali character, would commit an error of this kind so easily and repeatedly or would fail to correct it at the first glance.  

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5. The peculiar form of the 1 in Balidan shows again a man accustomed to write the Devanagari and not accustomed to write the Bengali l^.   

6. The formation of g in Durga Puja is a sheer impossibility to a Bengali eye or a Bengali hand. Other letters, m, p, etc give minor evidence in the same direction.   

7. The mistakes are of such a nature that they could readily be made by a man copying his Bengali letters from the book forms and not accustomed to the written character. The convincing proof is the j in Samaj and Puja which is drawn rather than written by some foreigner acquainted with the printed j, but not acquainted with the very different form given to j in handwriting

8. Note beside that these few Bengali words have been written with great labour; but while some of the letters are very finely formed, almost as if they had been drawn, others are very rudely done — a difference so great that we must suppose either two writers of each word or else a man copying unfamiliar forms sometimes carefully, sometimes with deficient care and skill.   

No tribunal in Bengal, presided over by a Bengali judge, would admit for a moment this clumsy forgery. 

April 1912 

To Anandrao 

[June 1912] 

Dear Anandrao,   

My Bengal correspondent writes to me that you have sent  me the following message, "The Baroda friend has left service  and therefore there is difficulty in finding money. He asks, now  you have become a Sannyasin, on what ground he can collect  money. Still, if you let him know clearly your future, the time  it will take to effect your siddhi and the amount of money you  need, he will try to collect from Rs 600 to 1000."   

I cannot understand why on earth people should make  up their minds that I have become a Sannyasin! I have even

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made it clear enough in the public Press that I have not taken Sannyasa but am practising Yoga as a householder, not even a Brahmacharin. The Yoga I am practising has not the ghost of a connection with Sannyasa. It is a Yoga meant for life & life only. Its object is perfection of the moral condition & mental & physical being along with the possession of certain powers — the truth of which I have been establishing by continuous practical experiment, — with the object of carrying out a certain mission in life which God has given me. Therefore there is or ought to be no difficulty on that score. If I were a Sannyasin, there would indeed be no money difficulty to solve.

The question about the cult to answer precisely. There are four parts of the siddhi, roughly, moral, mental, physical & practical. Starting from December 1908 the moral has taken me three years and a half and may now be considered complete. The mental has taken two years of regular sadhana and for the present purpose may be considered complete; the physical is backward and nearing completion only in the immunity from disease — which I am now attempting successfully to perfect & test by exposure to abnormal conditions. The physical also does not matter so much for practical purposes, as the moral, mental and a certain number of practical siddhis are sufficient. It is these practical siddhis that alone cause delay. I have had first to prove to myself their existence and utility, secondly to develop them in myself so as to be working forces, thirdly to make them actually effective for life & impart them to others. The development will, I think, be complete in another two months, but the application to life & the formation of my helpers will take some time — for the reason that I shall then have a greater force of opposition to surmount than in the purely educative exercises I have hitherto practised. The full application to life will, I think, take three years more, but it is only for a year of that time (if so long) that I expect to need outside assistance. I believe that I may have to stay in French India for another year. I presume that is what the question about my future means. But on this point also I cannot speak with certainty. If, however, it refers to my future work, that is a big question &  

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does not yet admit of a full answer. I may say briefly that I have been given a religious & philosophical mission, to re-explain the Veda & Vedanta (Upanishads) in the ancient sense which I have recovered by actual experience in Yoga and to popularise the new system of Yoga (new in arrangement & object) which has been revealed to me & which, as I progress, I am imparting to the young men staying with me & to others in Pondicherry; I have also to spread certain ideas about God & life by literary work, speech & practice, to try & bring about certain social changes &, finally, to do a certain work for my country, in particular, as soon as the means are put in my hands. All this to be done by God's help only & not to be begun till things & myself are ready.

The amount of money I shall need for the year in question, are Rs 300 to clear up the liabilities I have contracted during the last nine or ten months (in which I have had only fortuitous help) and some Rs 1200 (or 1400, reckoning up to August 1913) to maintain myself & those I am training. I had hoped to get the money from a certain gentleman who had promised me Rs 2000 a year for the purpose & given it for the first year from October 1910 to October 1911. But there are great difficulties in the way & I can no longer reckon surely on this support which would have made it unnecessary for me to tax my friends. Please ask my friend if, with this explanation, he can manage the money to the amount suggested. If I get other help from this side, I shall let him know so that the [?burden can]² be lightened.

At present I am at the height of my difficulties, in debt, with no money for the morrow, besieged in Pondicherry & all who could help are in temporary or permanent difficulties or else absent & beyond communication. I take it, from my past experiences as a sign that I am nearing the end of the period of trial. I would ask you if you can do no more, at least to send me some help to tide over the next month or two. After that period, for certain reasons, it will be easier to create means, if they are not created for me. AG.

2 MS damaged; conjectural reconstruction. — Ed.  

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To Motilal Roy

[1]

3 July 1912

Dear M.

Your money (by letter & wire) & clothes reached safely. The French Post Office here has got into the habit (not yet explained) of not delivering your letters till Friday; that was the reason why we wired to you thinking you had not sent the money that week. I do not know whether this means anything — formerly we used to get your letters on Tuesday, afterwards it came to Wednesday, then Thursday & finally Friday. It may be a natural evolution of French Republicanism. Or it may be something else. I see no signs of the seals having been tampered with, but that is not an absolutely sure indication of security. The postman may be paid by the police. Personally, however, I am inclined to believe in the Republican administration theory — the Republic always likes to have time on its hands. Still, if you like, you can send important communications to any other address here you may know of, for the present (of course, by French post & a Madrasi address). All others should come by the old address — you may be sure, I think, no letter will be actually intercepted, on this side. By the way, please let us know whether Mr.. Banomali Pal received a letter by Fr. post from Achari enclosing another to Partha Sarathi.

I have not written all this time because I was not allowed to put pen to paper for some time — that is all. I send enclosed a letter to our Marathi friend. If he can give you anything for me, please send it without the least delay. If not, I must ask you to procure for me by will power or any other power in heaven or on earth Rs 50 at least as a loan. If you cannot get it elsewhere, why not apply to Barid Babu? Also, if Nagen is in Calcutta, ask him whether the Noakhali gentleman can let me have anything. I was told he had Rs 300 put aside for me if I wanted it; but I did not wish to apply to him except in case of necessity. The situation just now is that we have Rs 11 or so in hand. Srinivasa ­ 2  

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is also without money. As to Bharati, living on nothing a month means an uncertain quantity, the only other man in Py whom I .. could at present ask for help absent sine die and my messenger to the South not returned. The last time he came he brought a promise of Rs 1000 in a month and some permanent provision afterwards, but the promise like certain predecessors has not yet been fulfilled & we sent him for cash. But though he should have been here three days ago, he has not returned, & even when he returns, I am not quite sure about the cash & still less sure about the sufficiency of the amount. No doubt, God will provide, but He has contracted a bad habit of waiting till the last moment. I only hope He does not wish us to learn how to live on a minus quantity, like Bharati.

Other difficulties are disappearing. The case brought against the Swadeshis (no one in this household was included in it although we had a very charmingly polite visit from the Parquet & Juge d'Instruction) has collapsed into the nether regions & the complainant & his son have fled from Py & become, like .. ourselves, "political refugees" in Cuddalore. I hear he has been sentenced by default to five years imprisonment on false accusation, but I don't know yet whether the report is true. The police were to have left at the end of [the month]³ but a young lunatic (one of Bharati's old disciples in patriotism & atheism) got involved in a sedition-search (for the Indian Sociologist of all rubbish in the world!) and came running here in the nick of time for the Police to claim another two months' holiday in Pondicherry. However, I think their fangs have been drawn. I may possibly send you the facts of the case for publication in the Nayak or any other paper, but I am not yet certain.

I shall write to you about sadhana etc. another time.

Kali

3 MS Pondicherry  

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[2]

[August 1912 or after]

Dear M

P.S. has sent to his brother an address for sending Yogini Chakras. He says it is approved by you. Now we want to know, not only whether they are religious people there — he says you have assured him of that — but whether there is any likelihood of [their]⁴ being taken by the P.O. authorities for anything else. There are religious people who are openly mixed up with politics. We do not think it wise to send our purely religious Tantric instruments to any such.⁵ Kindly answer by return post. If the answer is satisfactory & we get the money promised, we will send Chakras.

15th August is usually a turning point or a notable day . for me personally either in sadhana or life — indirectly only for others. This time it has been very important for me. My subjective sadhana may be said to have received its final seal and something like its consummation by a prolonged realisation & dwelling in Parabrahman for many hours. Since then, egoism is dead for all in me except the Annamaya Atma, — the physical self which awaits one farther realisation before it is entirely liberated from occasional visitings or external touches of the old separated existence.

My future sadhan is for life, practical knowledge & shakti, — not the essential knowledge or shakti in itself which I have got already — but knowledge & shakti established in the same physical self & directed to my work in life. I am now getting a clearer idea of that work & I may as well impart something of that idea to you; since you look to me as the centre, you should know what is likely to radiate out of that centre.

1. To reexplain the Sanatana Dharma to the human intellect

4 MS there

5 In these letters to Motilal, terms such as "tantric instruments" and "tantric kriyas" are code-words for revolutionary materials and activities. The "Yogini Chakras" mentioned above were, according to an associate of Motilal's, revolvers that Motilal wanted Sri Aurobindo to send to Chandernagore via the French post. — Ed.  

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in all its parts, from a new standpoint. This work is already beginning, & three parts of it are being clearly worked out. Sri Krishna has shown me the true meaning of the Vedas, not only so but he has shown me a new Science of Philology showing the process & origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed & the new interpretation of the Veda based upon it. He has also shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not understood either by Indians or Europeans. I have therefore to reexplain the whole Vedanta & Veda in such a way that it will be seen how all religion arises out of it & is one everywhere. In this way it will be proved that India is the centre of the religious life of the world & its destined saviour through the Sanatana Dharma.

2. On the basis of Vedic knowledge to establish a Yogic sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity & help in the restoration of the Satyayuga. That work has to begin now but will not be complete till the end of the Kali.

3. India being the centre, to work for her restoration to her proper place in the world; but this restoration must be effected as a part of the above work and by means of Yoga applied to human means & instruments, not otherwise.

4. A perfect humanity being intended society will have to be remodelled so as to be fit to contain that perfection.

You must remember that I have not given you the whole Yogic sadhana. What I have given you is only the beginning. You have to get rid of ahankara & desire & surrender yourself to God, in order that the rest may come. You speak of printing Yoga & its Objects. But remember that what I have sent you is only the first part which gives the path, not the objects or the circumstances. If you print it, print it as the first of a series, with the subtitle, the Path. I am now busy with an explanation of the Isha Upanishad in twelve chapters; I am at the eleventh now and will finish in a few days. Afterwards I shall begin the second part of the series & send it to you when finished.

I have also begun, but on a very small scale the second part of my work which will consist in making men for the new age by  

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imparting whatever siddhi I get to those who are chosen. From this point of view our little colony here is a sort of seed plot & a laboratory. The things I work out in it, are then extended outside. Here the work is progressing at last on definite lines and with a certain steadiness, not very rapid; but still definite results are forming. I should be glad to have from you clearer knowledge of the results you speak of over there; for my drishti is not yet sufficiently free from obstruction for me to know all that I need to know at this stage.

What you say about the Ramakrishna Mission is, I dare say, true to a certain extent. Do not oppose that movement or enter into any conflict with it; whatever has to be done, I shall do spiritually, for God in these matters especially uses the spiritual means & the material are only very subordinate. Of course, you can get into that stream, as you suggest, and deflect as much as you can into a more powerful channel, but not so as to seem to be conflicting with it. Use spiritual means chiefly, will & vyapti. They are more powerful than speech & discussion. Remember also that we derive from Ramakrishna. For myself it was Ramakrishna who personally came & first turned me to this Yoga. Vivekananda in the Alipore jail gave me the foundations of that knowledge which is the basis of our sadhana. The error of the Mission is to keep too much to the forms of Ramakrishna & Vivekananda & not keep themselves open for new outpourings of their spirit, — the error of all "Churches" and organised religious bodies. I do not think they will escape from it, so long as their "Holy Mother" is with them. She represents now the Shakti of Ramakrishna so far as it was manifested in his life. When I say do not enter into conflict with them, I really mean "do not enter conflict with her." Let her fulfil her mission, keeping always ours intact and ever-increasing.

As to other work (Tantric), I am not yet in possession of knowledge. The Shakti is only preparing to pour herself out there, but I don't know what course she will take. You must remember I never plan or fix anything for myself. She must choose her own paddhati or rather follow the line Krishna fixes for her.  

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I am glad you have arranged something about money. It is indifferent to me whether you get it from others or provide it yourselves, so long as my energies which are badly needed for sadhan & for the heavy work laid on me, are not diverted at present into this lower effort in which they would be sorely wasted. You will be relieved of the burden as soon as this physical resistance is overcome, but I do not know yet how soon or late that will be. Reward, of course, those who give to God, shall have; but what reward He will determine. Remember the importance of keeping up this centre, for all my future work depends on what I work out here.

I shall write about the Sikh pamphlet, which is an excellent thing with one or two blemishes; but I could not understand who wrote the accompanying letter or what gentleman he refers to.

The letter you sent me last time from our man in Chandannagar is practically answered here. Biren may have made some mistake about my "shoes". It was intended that they should be got from Amiyas. The glass case theory is all right, — only the exhibits have got to be maintained.

Kali

[3]

[c. January 1913]

Dear M.

We have received from you in December Rs 60, & Rs 20, and in this month Rs 10. According to N's account, Rs 10 belongs to November account, Rs 50 to December; Rs 20 we suppose to have been sent in advance on the January account. If so, we still expect from you Rs 20, this month. I should be glad to know if there is any prospect of your being able to increase the amount now or shortly. Up till now we have somehow or other managed to fill in the deficit of Rs 35 monthly; but, now that all our regular sources here are stopped, we have to look to mere luck for going on. Of course if we were bhaktas of the old type this would be the regular course, but as our sadhan stands upon

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karmayoga with jnana & bhakti, this inactive nirbhara can only continue so long as it is enjoined on us as a temporary movement of the sadhana. It cannot be permanent. I think there will have to be a change before long, but I cannot see clearly whether the regular & sufficient arrangement which must be instituted some time, is to come from you or from an unexpected quarter or whether I have myself to move in the matter. It is a question of providing some Rs 450 a year in addition to what you send, — unless, of course, God provides us with some new source for the sharírayátrá as He did two years ago.

All these matters, as well as the pursuance of my work to which you allude in your last (commercial) letter, [depend]⁶ on the success of the struggle which is the crowning movement of my sadhana — viz the attempt to apply knowledge & power to the events and happenings of the world without the necessary instrumentality of physical action. What I am attempting is to establish the normal working of the siddhis in life ie the perception of thoughts, feelings & happenings of other beings & in other places throughout the world without any use of information by speech or any other data. 2^d, the communication of the ideas & .. feelings I select to others (individuals, groups, nations,) by mere transmission of will-power; 3^d, the silent compulsion on them to . act according to these communicated ideas & feelings; 4th, the determining of events, actions & results of action throughout the world by pure silent will power. When I wrote to you last, I had begun the general application of these powers which God has been developing in me for the last two or three years, but, as I told you, I was getting badly beaten. This is no longer the case, for in the 1^st, 2^d & even in 3^rd I am now largely successful, al. though the action of these powers is not yet perfectly organized. It is only in the 4^th that I feel a serious resistance. I can produce .. single results with perfect accuracy, I can produce general results with difficulty & after a more or less prolonged struggle, but I can neither be sure of producing the final decisive result I am aiming at nor of securing that orderly arrangement of events which

6 MS depends  

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prevents the results from being isolated & only partially effective. In some directions I seem to succeed, in others partly to fail & partly to succeed, while in some fields, eg, this matter of financial equipment both for my personal life & for my work I have hitherto entirely failed. When I shall succeed even partially in that, then I shall know that my hour of success is at hand & that I have got rid of the past karma in myself & others, which stands in our way & helps the forces of Kaliyuga to baffle our efforts.

About Tantric yoga; your experiment in the smashana was a daring one, — but it seems to have been efficiently & skilfully carried out, & the success is highly gratifying.⁷ In these kriyas there are three considerations to be held in view, 1st, the object of the kriya. Of course there is the general object of mukti-bhukti which Tantriks in all ages have pursued, but to bring it about certain subjective results & conditions are necessary in ourselves & our surroundings & each separate kriya should be so managed as to bring about an important result of the kind. Big kriyas or numerous kriyas are not always necessary; the main thing is that they should be faultlessly effective like your last kriya or the small one with which you opened your practices. That is the second consideration viz the success of the kriya itself & that depends on the selection & proper use of the right mantra & tantra, — mantra, the mental part, & tantra, the practical part. These must be arranged with the greatest scrupulousness. All rashness, pride, ostentation etc, the rajasic defects, — also, all negligence, omission, slipshod ritual, — the tamasic defects, must be avoided. Success must not elate your minds, nor failure discourage. 3^dly, angarakshana is as important as siddhi. There are many Tantriks in this Kaliyuga who are eager about siddhi, careless in angarakshana. They get some siddhi, but become the prey of the devils & bhutas they raise. Now what is the use of a particular siddhi, if the sadhakas are destroyed? The general & real object, — mukti & bhukti, — remains unfulfilled. Angarakshana is managed, first, by the

7 This is apparently a reference to the attempt to assassinate the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, in Delhi on 23 December 1912. — Ed.  

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selection & arrangement of the right siddhi-mantra & kriya, secondly, by the presence behind the sadhaka of one who repeats what is called an angarakshaka mantra destructive of the pretas & Rakshasas or prohibitive of their attacks. The last function I have taken on myself; it is your business so to arrange the kriya that the bhutas get no chance for or for the seizure & destruction of the sadhaka. I have found that my mantra has been more & more successful in protection, but it is not yet strong enough to prevent all of a dangerous character. It will take some more to increase its power. It is for this reason that I do not yet tell you to go on swiftly in your course of practices. Still there is no harm in quickening the pace in comparison with the past. Remember always the supreme necessity of mauna in Tantric practices. In Vedantic & Puranic exercises expansion is not dangerous, but the goddess of the Tantra does not look with a favourable eye on those who from pride, ostentation or looseness blab about the mantra or the kriya. In Tantric sadhana secrecy is necessary for its own sake. Those who reveal mantra or kriya to the unfit, suffer almost inevitably; even those who reveal them unnecessarily to the fit, impair somewhat the force of their Tantric action.

Kali

P.S. Please send the rest of this month's money at once if you have not already sent it, & next month's as early as you can.

[4]

[February 1913]

Dear M

I have received Rs 60 by wire & Rs 20 by letter. It was a great relief to us that you were able to send Rs 80 this time & Rs 85 for March; owing to the cutting off of all other means of supply, we were getting into a very difficult position. I welcome it as a sign of some preliminary effectiveness, through you, in this direction, in which, hitherto, everything has gone against us; also, as one proof of several, that the quality of your power  

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& your work is greatly improving in effectiveness & sureness. I need not refer to the other proofs; you will know what I mean. But just now, I find every forward step to be made is violently combated & obstinately obstructed. Our progress is like the advance of a modern regiment under fire in which we have to steal a few yards at a run & then lie down under covert & let the storm of bullets sweep by. I neither hope for nor see yet any prospect of a more successful rapidity.

I have been lying down under covert ever since the middle of February, after a very brilliant advance in January & the early part of February. I keep the positions gained, but can make as yet no sure progress farther. There is only a slow preparation for farther progress. The real difficulty is to bring force, sureness & rapidity into the application of power & knowledge to life, — especially sureness, — for it is possible to bring force & rapidity, but if not attended by unfailing sureness of working, they may lead to great errors in knowledge & great stumbles & disasters in action which counteract the successes. On the other hand, if sureness has to be gained only by not stepping except where everything is sure (which is the first stage of action & knowledge necessary to get rid of rajasic rashness) progress is likely to be slow. I am trying to solve the dilemma.

I have not kept your last letter & I only remember that you asked me to write something about your sadhan. I cannot just now, but I shall try to do it in my next, as I expect by then to be clear of some of my present difficulties.

There is the pressing cry for clothes in this quarter, as these articles seem to be with us to remind us now constantly of the paucity of matter. I have received Bepin Pal's Soul of India. Can you add to it by getting from Hiranyagarbha Sister Nivedita's My Master as I saw him. I am also in need, as I wrote to you once before, of R. C. Dutt's Bengali translation of the Vedas. Neither ]⁸ keep them of these books is urgently wanted but please [ in mind & send them when you can.

Kali

8 MS them  

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[5]

[June ­ July 1913]

Dear M.

I subjoin certain explanations about the matter of the Tantric books.⁹ I put them in cipher because there are certain things, as you can understand, not comme il faut according to the ideas of modern social decorum which ought not to fall under unfit eyes. It appears that you did not understand my last letter. However, from henceforth please leave this matter entirely in my hands. You will see from the explanations given how highly undesirable is the kind of correspondence you have been carrying on hitherto in another quarter. I have taken Rs 50 from S, but this sum or part of it (at least Rs 30) ought to be replaced for expenses attached to that particular transaction. Meanwhile I await Rs 35 for June & all the July money. I delay other matters in consideration of the urgency of the accompanying note.

Kali

PS. I received information of your Tantric kriyas. It is clear that you are far from perfect yet. All the more reason why you should not be in a hurry to progress physically. Get rid of the remnants of sattwic ahankara and rajoguna, for that which we are within, our karmas & kriyas will be without. Kali demands a pure adhara for her works, & if you try to hurry her by rajasic impatience, you will delay the success instead of hastening it. I will write to you fully about it later.

[6]

[June ­ July 1913]

Dear M.

Your letter, money etc have reached me without delay or mishap. Please make it a rule, in future, not to be anxious or troubled when you get no answer; when I do not reply, it is

9 These "explanations", written on a separate sheet of paper, have not survived. — Ed.  

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not because I have not received your letters, but because silence was necessary, for my siddhi, for yours or for the work that has to be done. At such times, keep calm, repel any suggestions of perplexity or anxiety and do not allow any disturbing mental waves to interfere between. A still heart, a clear mind and untroubled nerves are the very first necessity for the perfection of our Yoga.

I enclose a letter for C. R. Das. Please transmit it & get a reply written or verbal. You will see, I did not authorise Bhaga to ask him for money; at the same time, in doing so, he obeyed an unspoken general vyapti from myself which his mind seems to have got hold of & mixed up with its own desires & anxieties. I am drawing now towards the close of my internal Yogic tapasya and the time is not very distant when I shall have to use its results for the work God has sent me to do in the world. For that work I shall need large sums of money. So long as I was only perfecting myself and sending out Shakti to others, all I needed was enough for the maintenance of myself & those who are with me. This charge I gave to you and the charge is not withdrawn; but, as you know, it covers only the bare physical necessities of our life in Pondicherry. More than that, you are not likely to be able to afford; and certainly you could not provide me with the sums I shall need even in the earlier part of my work. To limit myself to the Rs 85 a month you can send me, would be to deny myself the material means for doing what I have to do and to accept stagnation and quiescence. It is true I am not beginning that work immediately, but, before it begins, I have to bend circumstances to my will in this very particular so that the obstacle of paucity of means which has been my chief stumbling block for the beginning may be got rid of once for all. My will has to become effective on this point above all & the impediments both subjective and objective to its mastery have to be eliminated. Therefore I have sent out the general vyapti I spoke of. Biren's action was one of the first responses, but, as it was [an] impure response, it has created more golmal than effect. As to confining the appeal for pecuniary assistance to those who are entirely of one way of thinking with ourselves, it  

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was a good rule for you to observe; but it cannot bind me when I begin my larger movement. From whatever quarter money or help comes to me, it comes from God.

With regard to the Tantric books, the Psalmodist was here, & wrote to you and went away, expecting to return in a fortnight; but several fortnights have passed without his return. He has written to us to say he has received money from you and we have written to him to come here. He is expected daily, but he does not arrive. He will, no doubt, be a good karmavira in time; but at present he is too rajasic, with intervals of tamas, has too much faith in European religions & the arms of the flesh & too little faith in Yoga & the arms of the spirit. He went northward on his own initiative; I could have told him his efforts there would be fruitless, but it is always well for a man to get experience for himself, when he will not take the benefit of superior experience. Your scheme about the books is impracticable under present conditions of which you are ignorant. When he comes, we will consult together & see if any blameless way can be found. But there is a time for all things & the time for free publication of Tantric works has not arrived. Still, your particular order may be met. Your letter to him, if addressed to Pd, did not reach us; whether he got it in Madras or not, I do not know.

Your working, remember, is not yet definitive working; it is still in the nature of experiment, with some minor results. When your sadhan of our tantric kriya has become more perfect and the necessary spiritual force can be sent from here, — then, real Tantra can begin. Meanwhile, don't be over-eager; let nothing disconcert, discourage or perplex you. Eagerness, anxiety & discouragement are all different faces of one defect. I shall write to you on all matters connected with the Tantra after the Psalmodist arrives. Also about the Vedanta. If he does not come soon, I shall write all the same.

Bejoy was to have seen Ramchandra in Calcutta & given you news of us, on his way to Khulna, but from your not sending the June money & from Sudhir's letter, it seems the interview did not take place or else no report was given to you. Please send  

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the money. I am going on somehow, but the money I am doing with, will have to be replaced.

Kali

P.S. The Psalmodist has written, announcing his immediate arrival here, but he has so often disappointed us that I send off this letter, without farther waiting. If he comes, I shall write to you as soon as anything is settled.

[7]

[August 1913]

Dear M.

I enclose a letter to C. R. Das. Please let me know as soon as possible whether he has received the MSS. Also let me have the address of your West Indian friend in that connection which you omitted to give in your last letter, — of course in the usual formula. Please explain how you expect him to befriend you if there is any difficulty in the final stage of the publication. I am too exhausted to write anything at length this time — we shall see afterwards when I have recovered my physical equilibrium. I expect Rs 40 for July & the money for August (current) which will complete our regular account for the present if C. R. Das sends in the rest of his money as proposed. By the way, his agents Grindlay & Co send me Rs 300 with a note saying that I shall get Rs 1000 for the translations. Is the Rs 300 part of the Rs 1000 or separate. I ask this for information only, because you wrote that he intended to give me one year's expenses & Rs 300 extra. I need some extra money badly now for materials for the work I have now seriously entered on in connection with the Veda and the Sanscrit language. In that same connection will you please make a serious effort this time to get hold of Dutt's Bengali translation of the Rigveda & send it to me — or any translation for that matter which gives the European version.

Kali  

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[8]

[c. 1913]

Dear M.

I send the proofs. Your Rs 50 for Narayan etc.'s travelling expenses reached duly and were by him duly spent. He has promised to repay the sum, but I don't know when he will be able to do so. He will see you, he told me, when he first goes to Calcutta from his place; as his mother was ill, he would not stop to see you on the way. But perhaps other reasons prevented him just then, for I believe he did stop a day or two in Calcutta.

Biren is all right, I believe; he said nothing to anybody about that matter. There were some legitimate doubts in some quarters owing to his unsteady nature & other defects of character. I thought it right to give them as much value for practical purposes as was reasonable; therefore I wrote to you.

I do not write to you this time about the despatch of the books, because that is a long matter & would delay the proofs which have already been too long delayed. But I shall write a separate letter on that subject. I have also to write about your Tantric Yoga, but I think I shall await what else you have to tell me on that subject before doing so.

Kali

P.S. Don't delay long in sending the money.

[9]

[1913]

Dear M.

I write only about 3 points today.

1. Your R. S. Sharma I hold to be a police spy. I have refused to see him because originally when he tried to force his way into my house & win my confidence by his extravagances I received a warning against him from within which has always been repeated. This was confirmed afterwards by two facts, first, that the Madras Police betrayed a very benevolent interest in the  

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success of his mission, secondly, that he came to Pondicherry afterwards as subeditor of a new Pondicherry paper, the Independent, subsequently defunct and replaced by another the Argus, belonging to the same proprietor who has been openly acting in concert with the British Police against us in Pondicherry. In this paper he wrote a very sneering & depreciatory paragraph about me, (not by name, but by allusion,) in which he vented his spite at his failure. Failing even so to get any footing here, for the Swadeshis were warned against him, he returned to Madras. He seems now to have tried his hand with you at Calcutta & succeeded, probably, beyond his expectations! I wonder when you people will stop trusting the first stranger with a glib tongue who professes Nationalist fervour & devotion. Whether you accept my estimate of him or not, you may be sure that his bhakti for me is humbug — as shown by the above newspaper incident — & you must accept at least the facts I have given you and draw any conclusions that common sense may suggest to you.

2. Do not print Yoga & its Objects unless & until I give you positive directions. It cannot be printed in its present form, & I may decide to complete the work before it is printed. In any case parts of it would have to be omitted or modified.

3. Next, money matters. I could not understand your arithmetic about the Rs 40 and how we should gain by not getting it. The only reason why we wrote constantly for it, was that it was necessary to us in our present financial position, in which we have to provide anxiously for every need and the failure of any expected sum reduces us to difficulties. I had reckoned on the remainder of Madgaokar's money to pay the sum still due for the rent of our last house. Fortunately, the litigation connected with the house has kept the matter hanging; but it may be demanded from us one day & we shall have to pay at once, or face the prospect of being dragged into court & losing our prestige here entirely. In future, let me ask you, never to undertake any payment to us which you are not sure of being able to fulfil, because of the great disorder in our arrangements which results.

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Our position here now is at its worst; since all efforts to get some help from here have been temporarily fruitless & we have to depend on your Rs 50 which is insufficient. We have to pay Rs 15 for rent, other expenses come to not less, & the remaining Rs 20 cannot suffice for the food expenses of five people. Even any delay in your money arriving makes our Manager "see darkness". That is why we had to telegraph. We did not know then that your last remittance of Rs 20 had arrived; & our available money was exhausted. Our correspondence agent has turned merchant & walked off to Madras indefinitely; in his absence we had great difficulty in getting hold of your letter & indeed it is only today that it reached our hands. Narayan will give you a new address to which please address all letters in future.

There is no "reason" for my not writing to you. I never nowadays act on reasons, but only as an automaton in the hands of Another; sometimes He lets me know the reasons of my action, sometimes He does not, but I have to act — or refrain from action — all the same, according as He wills.

I shall write nothing about sadhan etc. until I am out of my present struggle to make the Spirit prevail over matter & circumstances, in which for the present I have been getting badly the worst of it. Till then you must expect nothing but mere business letters, — if any.

Kali

[10]

[March 1914]

Dear M.

Recently in the papers there has appeared a case of one Rashbehary Bose against whom a warrant of extradition has been granted by the Chandannagar Administrator in a political case. Although ordinarily we do not concern ourselves with political matters, this concerns me & my friends because it is an attack on the security of our position. If this kind of thing is allowed to go unchallenged, then any of us may at any moment  

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be extradited on a trumped up charge by the British police. I must therefore ask you to interest yourself in the matter, even though it interferes with your Yoga. The case is clearly a political one; for the main charges in the Delhi case seem to be (1) a charge of conspiracy on a clause relating to State (ie political) offences; (2) a charge of murder under Sc.-302 (?) read in connection with this State offence section, therefore an assassination with a political intention; (3) a charge under the Explosive Act, which is an extraordinary measure passed in view of certain political conditions. Moreover all these cases are tried together & form part of the same transaction, ie a political conspiracy directed against the existing form of Govt.. & having for its object the change or overthrow of that Govt... Under the Extradition Treaty between France & England, — unless that has been altered by the latest Treaty to which I have not had access, there can be no extradition for (1) a political offence, (2) an offence of a political character or tendency, (3) on a charge which, though preferred as for an ordinary offence, is really an excuse or device for laying hands on a political offender. Rashbehary Bose is reported to be in hiding either in Chandannagar or the Panjab. If anybody moves therefore it can only be a relative or friend on his behalf, — a relative would be much better. What you have to do is to get hold of someone entitled to act for him, consult the text of the latest Extradition Treaty between France & England and, if it is as I have stated, then let it be put in the hands of a lawyer of the French Courts who must move in the matter according to the French procedure about which I know nothing. I presume he would have to move the Govt . in France or, failing there, the Court of Cassation in Paris, but the latter would be an expensive affair. So long as Bose is not handed over to the British (if he is in Chandannagar), the Court of Cassation has, I should suppose the power of cancelling the warrant. I do not know whether it is necessary first to appeal to the Procureur Général in Pondicherry before going to the Higher Court. On these points of procedure Bose's representative will have to consult a French lawyer. In case he is handed over, the Hague decision with regard to Savarkar will come in the way  

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& make the thing almost hopeless. The French Govt might still . move on the ground that Bose is a French subject, but it could only succeed by strong diplomatic pressure which the present Fr. Govt might be unwilling to employ. In any case it might be . worthwhile to get a decree of the Court of Cassation so as to establish the principle. There is always, however, the danger in these political cases, where justice & law are so seldom observed, of an opposite decision making the position worse than before. It would be worthwhile finding out what exactly was done & on what grounds in Charu Chander Ray's case & seeing whether these grounds can be made to apply. If you will give me the exact facts of the warrant, the charges etc, I may be able to get ` a letter written to France so that Jaurès or others may move in the matter.

As to your Tantric Yoga, the reasons of your failures are so obvious that I am surprised you should attribute it all to the Goddess and not to the unpardonable blunders we have all been making in our Yogic Kriya. Kali of the Tantra is not a goddess who is satisfied with mere tamasic faith & adoration. Perfection in Kriya is indispensable or at least a conscientious and diligent attempt at perfection. This has not been made; on the contrary all the defects that have made Tantra ineffective throughout the Kaliyuga abound in your anusthana. All this must be changed; the warning has been given & it will be wise to give heed to it. If not, — well, you know what the Gita says about those who from ahankara hear not.

The root of the whole evil is that we have been attempting an extension of Tantric Kriya without any sufficient Vedantic basis. You especially were going on the basis that if a man had faith, enthusiasm, intellectual & emotional sincerity & proffered self-surrender, all that was necessary was there & he could go on straight to difficult Tantric anusthana. This basis is condemned. A much stronger & greater foundation is necessary. It was the basis of the sattwic ahankara; which said to itself, "I am the chosen of Kali, I am her bhakta, I have every claim on her, I can afford to be negligent about other things, she is bound to help & guard me". It is this sattwic ahankara which I have long felt  

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to be the great obstacle in our Yoga; some have it in the sattwa-rajasic form, others in the sattwo-tamasic, but it is there in you all, blinding your vision, limiting your strength, frustrating your progress. And its worst quality is that it is unwilling to admit its own defects, or if it admits one, it takes refuge in another. Open your eyes to this enemy within you and expel it. Without that purification you can have no success. To "do rajasic kriya in a sattwic spirit" is merely to go on in the old way while pretending to oneself that there is a change. Going on in the old way is out of the question. That path can only lead to the pit. I speak strongly because I see clearly; if not yet with absolute vision yet without that misleading false light which marred all my seeing till now & allowed me to be swept in the flood of confused sattwo-rajasic impure Shakti which came with you from Bengal.

My first instruction to you therefore is to pause, stand on the defensive against your spiritual enemies & go on with your Vedantic Yoga. God is arranging things for me in my knowledge, but the process is not yet finished. I shall send you (it will take two or three letters) the lines on which I wish the Vedantic & Tantric lines to be altered & developed; afterwards we shall see when we have recovered from the stress that was upon us, how He intends to work them out in practice.

Please send me the Rs 50 with you, as I am again in the position of having to replace money diverted to current expenses & have very little [if]¹⁰ any living money left. Also try & get the rest of the money from Das. If not, you will have to find me an additional 20 for the last month & another 20 for next in addition to the monthly Rs 50 & deduct the sum of Rs 30 from Das' payment when you do get it.

Kali

P.S. I have a sum of Rs 10 to pay monthly for a purpose unconnected with our own expenses & in addition certain additional expenses of my own which I cannot dispense with; for this reason Rs 50 is insufficient. I hope Das will be in a position to send the balance of the money this time.

10 MS of  

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[11]

[April 1914]

Dear M.

I send you today the electoral declaration of M. Paul Richard, one of the candidates at the approaching election for the French Chamber. This election is of some importance to us; for there are two of the candidates who represent our views to a great extent, Laporte & Richard. Richard is not only a personal friend of mine and a brother in the Yoga, but he wishes, like myself, & in his own way works for a general renovation of the world by which the present European civilisation shall be replaced by a spiritual civilisation. In that change the resurrection of the Asiatic races & especially of India is an essential point. He & Madame Richard are rare examples of European Yogins who have not been led away by Theosophical and other aberrations. I have been in material and spiritual correspondence with them for the last four years. Of course, they know nothing of Tantric Yoga. It is only in the Vedantic that we meet. If Richard were to become deputy for French India, that would practically mean the same thing as myself being deputy for French India. Laporte is a Swadeshi with personal ambitions; his success would not mean the same but at any rate it would mean a strong and, I believe, a faithful ally in power in this country and holding a voice in France.

Of course, there is no chance, humanly speaking, of their being elected this time. Laporte is not strong enough to change the situation singlehanded. Richard has come too late; otherwise so great is the disgust of the people with Bluysen & Lemaire, Gaebelé and Pierre that I think we could have managed an electoral revolution. Still, it is necessary, if it can at all be done, to stir things a little at the present moment and form a nucleus of tendency &, if possible, of active result which would be a foundation for the future & enable us at the next election to present one or other of these candidates with a fair chance of success.

I want to know whether it is possible, without your exposing yourself, to have the idea spread in Chandernagore, especially  

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among the younger men, of the desirability of these candidatures & the abandonment of the old parochial & rotten politics of French India, with its following of interested local Europeans & subservience to their petty ambitions in favour of a politics of principles which will support one of our own men or a European like Richard who is practically an Indian in beliefs, in personal culture, in sympathies & aspirations, one of the Nivedita type. If also a certain number of votes can be recorded for Richard in Chandernagore so much the better; for that will mean a practical beginning, a tendency from the sukshma world materialised initially in the sthula. If you think this can be done, please get it done — always taking care not to expose yourself. For your main work is not political, but spiritual. If there can be a Bengali translation of Richard's manifesto, or much better, a statement of the situation & the desirability of his candidature succeeding, — always steering clear of extremism and British Indian politics, — it should be done & distributed. I lay stress on these things because it is necessary that the conditions of Chandernagore & Pondicherry should be changed, the repetition of recent events rendered impossible and the cession of French territory put out of the question. There would be other & more positive gains by the change, but these I need not emphasise now.

I have just received your letter & the money. I shall delay answering it for the present, as this letter must go immediately. l shall answer soon, however. I am only waiting till this election is over to give some shape to the decision I have arrived at to resume personally my work on the material plane and it is necessary that there should be some arrangement by which the Vedantic work can go on unhampered by the effect of errors in Tantric kriya. For Tantric kriya carried on in the old style, to which your people seem to be so undivorceably attached, can only help so far as to keep up the Yogic flame in the hearts of a few, while on the other hand it is full of dangers to the spirit & the body. It is only by a wide Vedantic movement leading later to a greater Tantra that the work of regeneration can be done; & of that movement neither you nor Saurin can be the head. It needs a wider knowledge & a greater spiritual force  

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in the Adhara through which it is engineered; it needs, in fact, the greatest which India contains & which is at the same time willing to take it up. I see only Devavrata & myself who have the idea — for the Dayanandas & others are a negligible quantity, & Devavrata seems to me to have gone off for the moment on a wrong route & through egoism has even allowed his spiritual force to be used against us by secret forces in the sukshma world which he is not yet advanced enough to understand. Therefore, if God wills, I will take the field.

K.

P.S. Gaebelé has given me strenuous assurances that Bluysen is not working for the cession of Chandannagar & has sworn that he (Gaebelé) will ever be a stern and furious opponent of any such cession as well as a staunch defender of the Swadeshi refugees! Such is the fervour of electoral promises! He has given a number of the Journal des Débats in which there is a full account of Bluysen's interpellations, from which it appears that both Bluysen & Doumergue were agreed that there can be no question of cession but only of "rectification of Pondicherry boundaries". But only then did Bluysen tell us solemnly that the cession was a "settled fact" & any refugee in Ch must run to Pondicherry at once. However, I am trying to send you or get sent to Banamali Pal the copy of the Journal, so that Bluysen may have the benefit of his public declarations. They are in a sense binding, if anything can bind a French politician. If you don't get the Journal, at any rate contrive that the substance of it as given by me here should be known in Ch, if it is not known already. For you must remember that Lemaire has made no such declaration and is not bound at all by any past professions, but has rather been an advocate of the cession.

[12]

17 April, 1914

Dear M.

The political situation here is as follows. In appearance Bluysen and Lemaire face each other on the old lines and the  

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real fight is between them. Bluysen has the support of the whole administration, except a certain number of Lemairistes who are quiescent and in favour of it. The Governor Martineau, Gaebelé, the Police Lieutenant & the Commissaire form his political committee. By threats & bribes the Maires of all the Communes except two have been forced or induced to declare on his side. He has bought or got over most of the Hindu traders in Pondicherry. He has brought over 50,000 Rupees for his election & is prepared to purchase the whole populace, if necessary. Is it British rupees, I wonder? The British Govt is also said to be interfering on his behalf and it is certain the Mahomedan Collector of Cuddalore has asked his coreligionists to vote for this master of corruption. A violent administrative pressure is being brought to bear both at Pondicherry & Karikal, & the Maires being on his side the Electoral Colleges will be in his hands with all their possibilities of fraud & violence.

Lemaire has for him most of the Christians & Renonçants (except the young men who are for Richard) and Pierre. But the Pierre party is entirely divided. Kotia refuses to declare himself, most of the others are Bluysenites, the Comité Radical has thrice met without Pierre being able to overcome the opposition against him. Lemaire had two chances, one that if the people could be got to vote, Pierre's influence over the mass might carry the day for him, the other that Nandagopalu might intimidate the enemy & counteract the administration. But Nandagopalu instead of intimidating is himself intimidated; he is hiding in his house & sending obsequious messages to Gaebelé & Martineau. So great at one time was the despair of the Lemairistes, that Pierre offered through Richard to withdraw Lemaire, if Gaebelé withdraws Bluysen, the two enemies then to shake hands & unite in support of Richard or another candidate. Gaebelé would have been glad to accept the offer, but he cannot, he has taken huge sums from Bluysen. The leaders are almost all bought over by Bluysen & those who remain on Lemaire's side dare not act. The only weapon now in Lemaire's hands is vague threat and rumour, that the Cabinet has fallen, that Martineau is suspended, that the new Police Captain is his man etc. There are also rumours of a sudden  

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coup d'état by Lemaire on the election day, of Appa Swami being carried off or killed, of the [Recensement]¹¹ Committee being in his hands & it is true that the President is a Lemairiste. But I do not see how these things are going to be done. There may, of course, be a sudden Lemairiste rally, but at present it seems as if Bluysen by the help of the Administration money, the British Government and the devil were likely to win an easy victory.

Laporte had some chance of strong backing at the beginning but his own indolence & mistakes have destroyed it. He is now waiting on God and Lemaire into whose shoes he dreams of stepping, — for Lemaire has promised him that if he gets no favourable answer from France he will desist in Laporte's favour and Laporte being a man of faith is sitting quiet in that glorious expectation.

Then there is Richard. He has neither agent, nor committee, nor the backing of a single influential man. What he has is the sympathy & good wishes of all the Hindus & Mahomedans in Pondicherry & Karikal with the exception of the Vaniyas who are for Bluysen. The people are sick to death of the old candidates, they hate Bluysen, they abhor Lemaire & if only they could be got to vote according to their feelings, Richard would come in by an overwhelming majority. But they are overawed by the Govt.. and wait for some influential man among the Hindus to declare for him. No such man is forthcoming. All are either bought by Bluysen or wish to be on the winning side. Under these circumstances the danger is that the people will not vote at all and the electoral committees will be free to manufacture in their names bogus votes for Bluysen. On the other hand an impression has been made at Karikal, where the young men are working zealously for Richard; some of its communes are going to support him; some of the leaders who are themselves pledged to Bluysen have promised to tell their followers that they are free to vote for Richard if they wish; the Mahomedan leaders of Karikal are for Bluysen or rather for his money, but the mass have resolved to vote neither for

11 MS Recension  

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B. nor Lemaire, & either not to vote at all or for Richard. At Pondicherry, Villenour has promised to declare for Richard the day before the election so as to avoid prolonged administrative pressure. Certain sections of the community e.g. the young men among the Christians and a number of the Mahomedans, — Richard is to speak at the mosque and a great number may possibly come over, — and a certain nucleus of the Hindus are certain to vote for him. We count also on the impression that can be given during the next few days. If in addition Chandernagore can give a large vote for Richard, there is a chance not of carrying Richard but of preventing a decisive vote at the first election, so that there may be a second ballot. If that is done, great numbers who hesitate to vote for Richard in the idea that Bluysen must carry all before him, may pick up courage & turn the whole situation, — to say nothing of the chances of Lemaire retiring & his whole vote coming over or a great part of it. Therefore, I say, throw aside all other considerations and let the young men of Chandernagore at least put all their strength on Richard's side and against the two unspeakable representatives of Evil who dispute the election between them. For if they do not, humanly speaking, Chandernagore seems to be doomed.

I wrote to you in my last doubtfully about Bluysen's or rather Gaebelé's professions about Ch. and the Swadeshis. Since then, even Martineau has condescended to let us know that he is trying to get the British police sent away from Pondicherry. But all this is either sheer falsehood or late repentance for the convenience of the moment. The damning facts are that Bluysen saw the Viceroy on his last visit, that it is known on this occasion the whole talk was about this cession of Chandernagore, that on his return he told Bharati the cession of Ch was a settled fact and while before his trip northward, he was gushing over to the Swadeshis, afterwards he roundly declared that he could not help us openly because the Cabinet was pro-English & he must follow the Cabinet, that he went to Karikal and declared to a number of people (this has only yesterday come to my knowledge) that Chandernagore was going to be ceded

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to the British with Bluysen's consent; that, on his second & present visit, he was entertained by the Collector of Cuddalore on his way & that that Collector has condescended to act as an electoral agent for him with his coreligionists. It is perfectly clear now that the man has sold himself to England — selling & buying himself & others seem to be his only profession in the world. Therefore every vote given for Bluysen in Ch. is a vote for the cession of Chandernagore to the British.

On the other hand if you vote for Lemaire, it means the same thing at a later date. For he was the first to broach the question in the public press in France, he has advised the suppression of the vote in French India, he has English connections & is an Anglophil. Not only so, but although asked by the Hindus to recant his former views if he wanted their vote, he has refused to do it, & this refusal has contributed largely to the failure of Pierre to carry the Hindus with him. Let these facts be widely known in Chandernagore, both about Bluysen & Lemaire, let it be known that Richard is a Hindu in faith, a Hindu in heart and a man whose whole life is devoted to the ideal of lifting up humanity & specially Asia & India & supporting the oppressed against the strong, the cause of the future which is our cause against all that hampers and resists it. If after that, Chandernagore still votes for Bluysen or Lemaire, it is its own choice & it will have itself to thank for anything that may follow.

I have more to write of these things from the spiritual point of view, but I shall leave it till tomorrow or the day after as this letter must go at once. Put faith in God & act. You have seen that when He wills, He can bring about impossibilities. Do not look too much at the chances of success & failure in this matter .

Kali 

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[13]

5 May [1914].

Dear M —

The election is over — or what they call an election — with the result that the man who had the fewer real votes has got the majority. As for M. Richard's votes, they got rid of them in Pondicherry & Karikal by the simple process of reading Paul Bluysen wherever Paul Richard was printed. Even where he brought his voters in Karikal to the poll himself, the results were published "Richard — 0". At Villenur people were simply prevented from voting for him or anyone else. As for the results they had been arranged on the evening before the election by M. Gaebelé & were made to fit in with his figures. The extent to which this was done you can imagine from the fact that at Nandagopal's village where there is no single Bluysenite, there were only 13 "votes" for Lemaire and all the rest for Bluysen. The same result in Mudrapalli which is strong for Pierre, except in one college where Sada (President of the Cercle Sportif) was interpreter & did not allow any humbug; knowing whom they had to deal with, they did not dare to falsify the results. There Bluysen got only 33 votes against 200 & more for Lemaire. In most places, this would have been the normal result, if there had been any election at all. As for Richard, he would probably have got a thousand votes beside the Chandernagore total; as in some five Colleges of Pondicherry alone he had about 300 which were transmuted into zero, & we know of one village in which he had 91 who were prevented forcibly from voting. Bluysen normally would hardly have got 5000 in the whole of French India. Of course protests are being prepared from every side, & if Bluysen is not supported by the Cabinet which is likely to come in after the elections in France, the election may be invalidated. Otherwise, for some time, he may reign in spite of the hatred & contempt of the whole population by the terror of the administration and the police. This Madrasi population is so deficient in even the rudiments of moral courage that one cannot hope very much from it.  

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Meanwhile Richard intends to remain in India for 2 years & work for the people. He is trying to start an Association of the young men of Pondicherry & Karikal as a sort of training ground from which men can be chosen for the Vedantic Yoga. Everything is a little nebulous as yet. I shall write to you about it when things are more definite.

Since writing the above I have received your last letter. As for the election, we must wait to see whether Bluysen is validated or not. Even if he is not, I do not think Richard can stand again until the new party in Pondicherry is increased & organised & that will have to be done quietly at first. There is, however, just one possibility, that if something happens which it is just now ´ needless to mention, it might be feasible to unite Gaebelé & Pierre in a candidature of reconciliation. The idea was raised by Pierre himself & very reluctantly rejected by Gaebelé before the elections. Another time it might succeed & even if Richard were not the candidate chosen, he would get a great influence by engineering the settlement. Otherwise we shall have to await a more favourable opportunity. As for Bluysen he has made himself a byword for every kind of rascality & oppression, & is now the enemy much rather than Lemaire. These things we shall see to afterwards. The young men of Pondicherry & Karikal are sending a protest with signed declarations of facts observed in the election & two hundred signatures to the Minister, the Chambre & the Temps newspaper. It has also been read aloud by the President in the Commission of Recensement & produced a great impression — moral only, of course. In France, the opinion of the "jeunesse" is much valued and, joined with the Lemairiste protests, it may possibly have some effect, unless either Bluysen buys the Validation Committee or is supported ´ by the French "hommes d'état". There is an ugly rumour that ´ Poincare supports Bluysen; & there are always corrupt financial dealings underlying French politics which the outside world does not see. If so, we must put spiritual force against the banded forces of evil & see the result.

Next as to money matters. My present position is that I have exhausted all my money along with Rs 60 Richard forced  

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on me & am still in debt for the Rs 130 due for the old rent. I do not like to take more money from Richard, for he has sold one fourth of his wife's fortune (a very small one) in order to be able to come & work for India, & the money he has can only carry him through the 2 years he thinks of staying here. I should therefore be impoverishing them by taking anything from them. Of course, they believe that money will come whenever it is necessary; but then God's idea of necessity & ours do not always agree. As for Rangaswamy, there is a fatality about his money, — it is intercepted by all sorts of people & very little reaches me even on the rare occasions when he sends anything. I have no hope, therefore, of any regular help from that quarter. Even in the fact of your being unable to meet him, fate has been against us. On the other hand, Saurin writes that he has been able to "fix" Rs 1000 a year for me in Bengal. Is this merely the refixing of Das' promise or something else. As for fixing anything may be fixed orally or on paper; the difficulty is to realise what has been fixed. He says also there is Rs 500 awaiting me, my share of the garden money. He wants it for his "commerce", but when I have no money to live on, I can hardly comply. He does not tell me what I am to do to get the money, but only that I can get it whenever I want it. I am writing to him to Meherpur, but if you see him in Calcutta, ask him to get it & send it to me at once. With this money I may be able to go on for a few months till something definite & regular can be settled & worked out. As for the sum I need monthly, so long as S & the others do not return, I need Rs 50 monthly for my own expenses  Rs 10 not for myself, but still absolutely indispensable. When S & the others return, that will no longer be sufficient. I am writing to S to try and make some real bandobast about money before coming back. Please also press Shyama Babu and the others for the money due to me. This habit of defalcation of money for "noble & philanthropic" purposes in which usually the ego is largely the beneficiary is one of the curses of our movement &, so long as it is continued, Lakshmi will not return to this country. I have sharply discontinued all looseness of the kind myself & it must be discouraged henceforth wherever we meet it. It is  

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much better & more honest to be a thief for our own personal benefit, than under these holy masks. And always, if one must plunder, it is best to do it as a Kshatriya, not with the corruption of the Vaishya spirit of gain which is the chief enemy in our present struggle. What you have to do, is to try to make some real arrangement, not a theoretical arrangement, by which the burden of my expenses may be shifted off your shoulders until I am able to make my own provision. Meanwhile get me Rs 150 & the Rs 500 due to me (garden money) &, if afterwards we can make no other arrangement, we shall then have to consider the question again. It is this point of equipment, not only for myself but for my work in which the opposition of the Kaliyuga forces is just now the most obstinate. It has somehow to be overcome.

Richard has paid the Rs 51. I am keeping the sum as the Rs 50 for last month  1. Please cut it off from the sum you would otherwise have sent — (not, however, from the Rs 130 for the payment of the rent). Please also get us some cloths sent from Calcutta, as they are very urgently needed, especially as I may now have to go out from time to time breaking my old rule of seclusion. I am also in need of a pair of shoes as Bharati has bagged the pair I had.

Then for more important subjects. You write about Biren being here. I do not hold the same opinion about Biren as Saurin etc do, who are inclined towards a very black interpretation of his character & actions. It seems to me that events have corroborated all he said about his relations with certain undesirable persons. Moreover I see that he has taken Yoga earnestly & has made for him a rapid progress. I am also unaware of anything he has said to others which would help any evilminded person in establishing a wrong interpretation of your philosophic & social activities. I fail to find in him, looking at him spiritually, those ineffable blacknesses which were supposed to dwell in him, — only flightiness, weakness, indiscretion, childish & erratic impulsiveness & self-will & certain undesirable possibilities present in many young Bengalis, in a certain type, indeed, which has done much harm in the past. All these have recently much diminished & I hope even to eradicate them by the Yoga. In fact, the view  

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of his presence here forced on me by that which guides me, is that he was sent here as the representative of this type & that I have to change & purify it. If I can do this in the representative, it is possible in the future to do so in the class, & unless I can do it, the task I have set for myself for India will remain almost too difficult for solution. For as long as that element remains strong, Bengal can never become what it is intended to be.

You will say, supposing I am wrong & Saurin right, or supposing I fail. In any case, he cannot strike your work except by first striking at me, since he does not know anything about you directly or independently of his stay here. Still, there is the possibility (intellectually) of even that happening. That raises a whole question which it is necessary to settle — the entire separation of Vedantic Yoga from other activities. You must realise that my work is a very vast one & that I must in doing it, come in close contact with all sorts of people including Europeans, perhaps even officials, perhaps even spies & officials. For instance, there is Biren. There is a French man named Stair Siddhar now in Chandernagore, who came to me & whom I had to see & sound. He is a queer sort of fool with something of the knave, but he had possibilities which I had to sound. There is Richard who is to know nothing about Tantricism. There are a host of possible young men whom I must meet & handle, but who may not turn out well. It is obviously impossible for me to do this work, if the close connection with Tantriks remains & everyone whom I meet & receive is supposed by people there to be a mighty & venerable person who is to be taken at once into perfect confidence by reason of having been for a time in my august shadow. It won't do at all. The whole thing must be rearranged on a reasonable basis.

First, it must be known among our friends that my whole action is about to be such as I have described, so that they may not again repeat that kind of mistake.

Secondly, those immediately connected with me must be aloof physically from Tantricism — because of the discredit it brings, — & intangible by evilminded persons.

Thirdly, Biren & others of that kind must be made to under 

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stand that Tantra for us is discontinued until farther notice which can be only in the far future.

Fourthly, the written basis of Vedantic Yoga has now become impossible & must be entirely changed &, as far as possible, withdrawn from circulation.

These are details, but important details. There is one matter, however, which has to be settled, that of the Brahmin. The Brahmin, it appears, has made himself impossible as an agent or, at least, he is so considered. Then as for your direct communication with Sarathi, it is looked upon with dislike by Sarathi's people & I do not know what S's own sentiments in the matter may be. Of course, the reason they allege is obvious enough. There is one of my own people here who might do it, but he is so useful in other important matters that I hesitate to use him as an agent in this. That is why I am in a difficulty & I get no light on the question from above, only the intellect stumbles about between possibilities against all of which there is an objection, especially from the new point of view which demands for the present a spotless peace & irreproachable reputation in these matters for the centre of Yogic activity here. Nevertheless, the thing must be done, although as the last legacy of the old state of things. I shall write to you on the old lines about it in a few days, as also about the future of the Tantric Yoga. Judging from what I have heard of the facts, I do not think the difficulty about S is likely to materialise — unless there are facts behind of which I do not know. Unfortunately the manner in which the Tantric Yoga has been carried on is so full of the old faults of former Tantric sadhana that a catastrophe was inevitable. The new Yoga cannot be used as a sort of sauce for old dishes; it must occupy the whole place on peril of serious difficulties in the siddhi & even disasters.

I shall write to you about what I propose to do about Vedantic Yoga & publication; as yet it has not been sufficiently formulated to write. At present we have only started a new ´ society here called L'Idée Nouvelle (the New Idea) & are trying to get an authorisation.

K.  

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[postscript in another hand:]

Dear Moti baboo

We are in absolute want of clothes. Will you please take a little attention on that point and relieve us from this absolute want. K is going out now a days and at least for that we want some clothes.

Do not send it [in] Jogin's name they are going back to Bengal. Send it to David.

Yours,

B.

[14]

[June 1914]

Dear M

I have received from Grindlays Rs 400. That leaves Rs 200 out of the Rs 1000, which I hope will be received by next August. We have also the clothes & shoes, — but for myself only the slippers are useful as the shoes are too large. I have written to Saurin about the garden money & he says he has asked Sukumar to send it. But I have received nothing as yet. If I get this money and the remaining 200 from Das, that will be Rs 1100 in hand. With 100 more and 130 on account of the old rent, say Rs 250 altogether, we shall be provided for bare necessities for a year, during which other conditions may arise. That Rs 250 ought to come from Sham Babu and Sharma, but there is little hope of money once swallowed by a patriot being disgorged again. His philanthropic stomach digests sovereignly. I must seek it elsewhere. If this can be done, the only burden which will fall on you is to refurnish us with apparel and footwear from time to time. At the same time an attempt should be made to keep up the arrangement with Das, if possible; for we do not know whether our attempt to provide otherwise will succeed.

That attempt takes the form of a new philosophical Review with Richard and myself as Editors — the Arya, which is to be brought out in French & English, two separate editions, — one  

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for France, one for India, England & America. In this Review my new theory of the Veda will appear as also a translation and explanation of the Upanishads, a series of essays giving my system of Yoga & a book of Vedantic philosophy (not Shankara's but Vedic Vedanta) giving the Upanishadic foundations of my theory of the ideal life towards which humanity must move. You will see so far as my share is concerned, it will be the intellectual side of my work for the world. The Review will be of 64 pages to start with and the subscription Rs 6 annually. Of the French edition 600 copies will be issued, and it will cost about Rs 750 a year minus postage. Richard reckoned 200 subscribers in France at the start, ie Rs 1200 in the year. For the English edition we are thinking of an issue of 1000 copies, at a cost of about Rs 1200 annually. We shall need therefore at least 200 subscribers to meet this expense & some more so that the English edition may pay all its own expenses. Let us try 250 subscribers to start with, with the ideal of having 800 to 1000 in the first year. If these subscribers can be got before the Review starts, we shall have a sound financial foundation to start with. The question is, can they be got. We are printing a prospectus with specimens of the writings from my translation & commentary on a Vedic hymn, and an extract from Richard's collections of the central sayings of great sages of all times called the Eternal Wisdom to show the nature of the Review. This is supposed to come out in the middle of this month, & the Review on the 15th August, so there will be nearly two months for collecting subscribers. How far can you help us in this work? There is always one thing about which great care has to be taken, that is, there should be no entanglement of this Review in Indian politics or a false association created by the police finding it in the house of some political suspects they search for; in that case people will be afraid to subscribe. My idea is that young men should be got as agents who would canvas for the Review all over Bengal, but there so many young men are now political suspects that it may not be easy to find any who will be free & active & yet above suspicion. In that case some other method must be tried. I should like to know from you as soon as possible how far you  

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can help us & how many copies of the prospectus we should send to you. If the review succeeds, if, that is to say, we get in India 850 regular subscribers, and 250 in France etc. we shall be able to meet the expenses of the establishment, translation-staff etc. and yet have enough for each of the editors to live on with their various kinds of families, say Rs 100 a month for each. In that case the money-question will practically be solved. There will of course be other expenses besides mere living & there may be from time to time exceptional expenses, such as publication of books etc., but these may be met otherwise or as the Review increases its subscribers. Therefore use your best endeavours towards this end.

The second part of my work is the practical, consisting in the practice of Yoga by an ever increasing number of young men all over the country. We have started here a society called the New Idea with that object, & a good many young men are taking up Vedantic Yoga & some progressing much. You say that it has spread in the North all over. But in what way? I am not at all enamoured of the way in which it seems to be practised outside Bengal. It seems there to be mixed up with the old kind of Tantra sometimes of the most paishachic & undesirable kind & to be kept merely as a sauce for that fiery & gruesome dish. Better no vyapti at all outside Bengal, if it is not to be purified and divine Yoga. In Bengal itself, there are faults which cannot but have undesirable consequences. In the first place, there is the misplacement of values. Vedanta is practised, or so it seems to be in some quarters, for the sake of Tantra, & in order to give a force to Tantra. That is not right at all. Tantra is only valuable in so far as it enables us to give effect to Vedanta & in itself it has no value or necessity at all. Then the two are mixed up in a most undesirable fashion, so that the Vedanta is likely to be affected by the same disrepute and difficulties on the way of profession as hamper the recognition of the truth in Tantra ie in its real sense, value and effectivity. There are difficulties enough already, let us not wilfully increase them. You have seen, for instance, that in recent political trials Yoga pamphlets & bombs seem to have been kept together everywhere with the queerest incongruity.

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That is a thing we could not control, we can only hope that it will not happen again. But meanwhile the work of publicity and spreading our yoga has got an unnecessary difficulty thrown in its way. Do not let any add to it by associating Vedanta & Tantra together in an inextricable fashion. The Tantric Yogins are few and should be comparatively reticent — for Vedanta is a wider thing and men may then help to fulfil it in all kinds of ways. Let the Tantriks then practise Vedanta silently, not trumpeting abroad its connection with their own particular school but with self-restraint and the spirit of self-sacrifice, knowing that they are only one small corps in a march that is vast and so meant to be world-embracing. The more they isolate themselves from the rest of the host that is in formation, the more they will be free for their own work & the more they will help without hampering the wider march.

Then as to the work of the Tantric discipline & kriya itself. Remember that Tantra is not like Vedanta, it exists as a Yoga for material gains, that has always been its nature. Only now not for personal gains, but for effectivity in certain directions of the general Yoga of mankind. The question I wish you to ask yourself, is whether you think that with its present imperfect basis it can really do the work for which it was intended. I see that it cannot. There have been two stages; first the old Tantra which has broken down & exists only in a scattered way ineffectual for any great end of humanity. Secondly, our own new Tantra which succeeded at first because it was comparatively pure in spite of the difficulties created by the remnants of egoism. But since then two things have happened. It has tried to extend itself with the result of bringing in undesirable elements; secondly, it has tried to attempt larger results from a basis which was no longer sufficient & had begun to be unsound. A third stage is now necessary, that of a preparation in full knowledge no longer resting on a blind faith in God's power and will, but receiving consciously that will, the illumination that guides its workings and the power that determines its results. If the thing is to be done it must be done no longer as by a troop stumbling on courageously in the dark & losing its best strength by failures &  

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the results of unhappy blunders, but with the full divine power working out its will in its instruments.

What is necessary for that action? First, that the divine knowledge & power should manifest perfectly in at least one man in India. In myself it is trying so to manifest as rapidly as the deficiencies of my mind & body will permit, and also — this is important — as rapidly as the defects of my chief friends & helpers will permit. For all those have to be taken on myself spiritually and may retard my own development. I advance, but at every fresh stage have to go back to receive some fresh load of imperfection that comes from outside. I want now some breathing time, however brief which will enable me to accomplish the present stage which is the central [? ] of my advance. This once accomplished, all the rest is inevitable. This not accomplished, the end of our Yogic movement is, externally, a failure or a pitiful small result. That is the first reason why I call a halt.

The second necessity is that others should receive the same power & light. In the measure that mine grows, theirs also will increase & prosper provided always they do not separate themselves from me by the ahankara. A sufficient Vedantic basis provided, a long, slow & obscure Tantra will no longer be necessary. The power that I am developing, if it reaches consummation, will be able to accomplish its effects automatically by any method chosen. If it uses Tantric kriya, it will then be because God has chosen that means, because He wishes to put the Shakta part of Him forward first & not the Vaishnava. And that kriya will then be irresistible in its effects, perhaps even strange & new in its means & forms. I have then to effect that power & communicate it to others. But at present the forces of the material Prakriti strive with all their remaining energy against the spiritual mastery that is being sought to impose on them. And it is especially in the field to which your kriyas have belonged and kindred fields that they are still too strong for me. You will remember what has been written, that the sadhana shall first be applied in things that do not matter & only afterwards used for life. This is not an absolute rule, but it is the rule of necessity to apply for some time now in this particular matter. I  

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see that I have the necessary powers; I shall communicate them next to you and some others so that there may be a centre of irresistible spiritual light & effective force wherever needed. Then a rapid & successful kriya can be attempted. This is the second reason why I have cried a halt.

The first & supreme object you must have now is to push forward in yourself & in others the Vedantic Yoga in the sense I have described. The spread of the idea is not sufficient, you must have real Yogins, not merely men moved intellectually & emotionally by one or two of the central ideas of the Yoga. Spreading of the idea is the second necessity — for that the Review at present offers itself among other means. The other means is to form brotherhoods, not formal but real, (not societies of the European kind but informal groups of people united by one effort & one feeling) for the practice of Vedantic Yoga (without any necessary thought of the Tantric). But of this I shall write to you hereafter.

Finally as to commercial matters. I had arranged things according to the last idea, but at the last moment an objection was made that the arrangement was not a very reasonable one, — an objection which my reason was forced to admit. It was then proposed to send the Brahmin as a commercial agent & I so wrote to you. But a few days afterwards when I asked for him to be sent, I was informed that the Brahmin was no longer possible as a commercial agent as he was now an object of suspicion to the third party. Another man I had fixed on is so circumstanced that he cannot go now. There the matter stands. As for your suggestion, these people here never objected to dealing direct with you, the objection was mine due to the terms & the accidents of your correspondence. On the other hand every attempt I have made personally to get the matter settled has been frustrated by Krishna. I have made these attempts contrary to the inner instructions received & by the light of the reason. That always fails with me; if it succeeds momentarily, it brings some coarse result afterwards. The point now is that if you do as you suggest, it must be so done that there shall not be the least chance of the transaction interfering with our business here — I  

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mean not any commercial business, but the enterprises (Society, Review etc.) we are starting. The question is not one of direct communication, but of right handling & especially of the right person not only from the point of view of the buyer and seller, but with regard to the third party who is indirectly interested in the transaction. In any case you must write to me what you propose to do, before you act.

By the way, there was a very shocking and word in your last letter to me with regard to my past activities, Bande Mataram, Karmayogin etc. I do not wish to repeat it here. Please do not use such an indecorous expression in writing in future. In personal talk it does not matter; but not, if you please, in correspondence.

As to your request for details of my life, about which you wrote to Bijoy, it is a very difficult matter for there is very little one can write without offending people, eg S. Mullick, B. Pal, S. S. Chakraborty & revealing party secrets. However we shall see what can be done. But let me know what you are writing about me & how & where you mean to publish it.

A. K.

[15]

[July 1914]

Dear M.

I write today only about two business matters. As to the Review, I do not think we can dispense with the 200 subscribers whom you promise. The only difficulty is that, if there are political suspects among them, it will give the police a handle for connecting politics & the Review & thus frightening the public. But this is not a sufficient reason for the Review refusing so many subscribers or for so large a number being deprived of the enlightenment it may bring them. Therefore, some arrangement should be made. I should suggest that you should make those subscribers who are mainly interested in Yoga, and as for those who decline to give up political opinions of a vehement nature  

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or to conceal them so as not to fall into police snares, they may without becoming subscribers on our list receive the Review from trustworthy agents appointed by you as our representative. The agent must let us or you know the number of copies wanted, send in the money and receive the Review from us or you in a packet as a declared agent commissioned to sell a certain number of copies, receiving (nominally) a discount on each copy sold. I suggest this arrangement but if another would be more convenient, please let us know. You must organise the subscription matter before starting for your pilgrimage so that we may have a fair start in August. I shall write a longer letter to you about Yoga & other matters as soon as I have a little time.

The Psalmodist was here. He asked for the Calcutta address & I gave it to him. It appears he is sending it to Calcutta in connection with a business he wants to wind up. It is difficult to understand because he says it is a commercial secret, but he tells me you will understand if I send you the accompanying cabalistic figures — God save us from all mysteries except those of Tantric Yoga.

Kali

[16]

[July ­ August 1914]

Dear M.

Again a business letter. Enclosed you will find two samples of paper, taken from a sample book of the Titaghur Mills which we want made to order, of a certain size, for our Review. Will you please see at once the agent in Calcutta, whose address is given, and ask him for all the particulars, the price, whether the paper of that sample, of the size required, is available or can be made to order by them, in what minimum amount, within what time etc and let the Manager know immediately by the British post.

What about the commercial transaction and my last letter? The Psalmodist's brother is asking for a reply.

K.  

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P.S. Received your letter. Please let us know how many copies of the Arya you want sent to you for sale, since you cannot get subscribers. I shall write later. The divorce from Tantrism is necessary if you are to do the work of the Review or the other work I wish you to undertake. You must surely see that. Neither will march if there are any occurrences of the old kind mixing them up together. [Postscript in another hand:] If it is possible please send some subscribers. Subscribers book is nearly as blank as it was at the time [of] our purchasing it.

Yours,

[Illegible signature]

[17]

29 August 1914

Dear M.

Before your letter came, ie yesterday, the news was published that the Government had drawn back from its proposal, and today the Amrita [Bazar]¹² with its comment arrived. I presume, therefore, no immediate answer from me is needed. But in case anything of the kind is raised again, I shall give you my opinion in the matter.

We gain nothing by preaching an unconditional loyalty to the Government, such as is the fashion nowadays, or doing anything which even in appearance strengthens the disposition towards an abject & unmanly tone in politics. Gandhi's loyalism is not a pattern for India which is not South Africa, & even Gandhi's loyalism is corrected by passive resistance. An abject tone of servility in politics is not "diplomacy" & is not good politics. It does not deceive or disarm the opponent; it does encourage nervelessness, fear & a cringing cunning in the subject people. What Gandhi has been attempting in S. Africa is to secure for Indians the position of kindly treated serfs, — as a

12 MS Bazaar  

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stepping-stone to something better. Loyalty  Ambulance Corps mean the same thing in India. But the conditions of India are not those of S. Africa; our position is different & our aim is different, not to secure a few privileges, but to create a nation of men fit for independence & able to secure & keep it. We have been beaten in the first attempt, like every other nation similarly circumstanced. That is no reason why the whole people should go back to a condition of abject fear, grovelling loyalty & whining complaints. The public Nationalist policy has always been

1. Eventual independence

2. No cooperation without control.

3 A masculine courage in speech & action Let us add a fourth,

4. Readiness to accept real concessions & pay their just price, but no more. Beyond that, I do not see the necessity of any change. We recognise that immediate independence is not practicable & we are ready to defend the British rule against any foreign nation, for that means defending our own future independence.

Therefore, if the Government accepts volunteers or favours the institution of Boy-Scouts, we give our aid, but not to be mere stretcher-bearers.

That is the side of principle; now let us look at that of policy.

(1) I don't appreciate Sarat Maharaj's position. If self-sacrifice is the object, every human being has the whole of life as a field for self-sacrifice & does not depend on any Government for that. We can show our sacrificing activities every moment, if we want. It is not a question of sacrifice at all, it is a question of military training. If the young men wish to organise for charitable work, the Government is not going to stop it, even though they may watch and suspect. I put that aside altogether.

(2) The leaders suggested cooperation in return for some substantial self-government. They are now offering cooperation without any return at all. Very self-sacrificing, but not political. If indeed, Govt were willing to train "thousands of young men" in military service as volunteers, Territorials or boy-scouts, whether for keeping the peace or as a reserve in case of invasion, then we  

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need not boggle about the return. But, after so much experience, do these addle-headed politicians think the Govt.. is going to do that except in case of absolute necessity and as a choice between two evils? When will that absolute necessity come? Only if the war goes against them seriously & they have to withdraw their troops from India. I shall discuss that point later on.

(3) Meanwhile what have the Government done? After testing the temper of the people &, you may be sure, watching closely what young men came forward as volunteers & who did not, they have removed an offer which had already been whittled down to a mere harmless Ambulance Corps in which the young men have plenty of chances of getting killed, but none of learning real warfare. Mere common sense warns us not to trust such an administration & to think ten times before accepting its offers. We know Lord Hardinge's policy; (1) sweet words, (2) quiet systematic coercion, (3) concession where obstinacy would mean too great a row & too much creation of deep-seated hostility.

Having prefaced so much, let us look at the utility of the things offered us or offered by us.

1. Ambulance Corps —

The only possible utilities would be two, (1) to train two thousand young men to be steady under fire (2) to train them to act together under discipline in an easy but dangerous service. Now it is quite possible for us to create courage in our young men without these means, & I hope our best men, or let me say, our men generally do not need to become stretcher bearers in a European war in order to have the necessary nerve, courage, steadiness & discipline. If therefore an Ambulance Corps is again suggested & accepted, either refuse or let only those young men go who are enthusiastic, but still lightheaded, self-indulgent or undisciplined. Possibly, the experience may steady & discipline them. It may be necessary to let this be done, if the circumstances are such that to refuse entirely would reflect on our national courage or be interpreted as a backing out from a national engagement.

2. Boy-Scouts — Volunteer Corps — Territorials.

All these are entirely good, provided the police are kept at  

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a distance, & provided officers as well as men are trained & the Govt control is limited to the giving of military discipline in the . first two cases. Even without the second proviso, any of these things would be worth accepting.

Only in the case of volunteers going to the scene of war, you must see that we are not crippled by all our best men or even a majority being sent; only enough to bring in an element among us who have seen actual warfare —

=

I think any of these things may one day become possible. Since the last year, new forces have come into the world and are now strong enough to act, which are likely to alter the whole face of the world. The present war is only a beginning not the end. We have to consider what are our chances & what we ought to do in these circumstances.

The war is open to a certain number of broad chances.

I. Those bringing about the destruction of the two Teutonic empires, German & Austrian.

This may happen either by an immediate German defeat, its armies being broken & chased back from Belgium & Alsace-Lorraine to Berlin, which is not probable, or by the Russian arrival at Berlin & a successful French stand near Rheims or Compiègne, or by the entry of Italy & the remaining Balkan states into the war & the invasion of Austro-Hungary from two sides.

II Those bringing about the weakening or isolation of the British power.

This may be done by the Germans destroying the British expeditionary force, entering Paris & dictating terms to France while Russia is checked in its march to Berlin by a strong Austro-German force operating in the German quadrilateral between ¨ the forts of Danzig, Thorn, Posen and Konigsberg. If this happens Russia may possibly enter into a compact with Germany based on a reconciliation of the three Empires and a reversion to the old idea of a simultaneous attack on England and a division of her Empire between Germany & Russia.  

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III. Those bringing about the destruction of British power.

This may happen by the shattering of the British fleet and a German landing in England.

In either of the two last cases an invasion of India by Germany, Russia or Japan is only a question of time, and England will be unable to resist except by one of three means.

(1) universal conscription in England & the Colonies

(2) the aid of Japan or some other foreign power

(3) the aid of the Indian people.

The first is useless for the defence of India, in case III, & can only be applied in case II, if England is still mistress of the seas. The second is dangerous to England herself, since the ally who helps, may also covet. The third means the concession of self-government to India.

In case I, there will only remain four considerable powers in Europe & Asia, Russia, France, England, Japan — with perhaps a Balkan Confederacy or Empire as a fifth. That means as the next stage a struggle between England & Russia in Asia. There again England is reduced to one of the three alternatives or a combination of them.

Of course, the war may take different turns from the above, with slightly altered circumstances & results; the one thing that is impossible, is that it should leave the world as it was before. In any case, the question of India must rise at no very long date. If England adopts more or less grudgingly the third alternative, our opportunity arrives and we must be ready to take it — on this basis, continuance of British rule & cooperation until we are strong enough to stand by ourselves. If not, we must still decide how we are to prepare ourselves, so as not to pass from one foreign domination to a worse.

I want those of you who have the capacity, to consider the situation as I have described it, to think over it, enlarging our old views which are no longer sufficient, and accustom yourselves to act always with these new & larger conceptions in your minds. I shall write nothing myself about my views, just as yet, as that might prevent you from thinking yourselves.

Only, two things you will see obviously from it, first, the

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necessity of seizing on any opportunity that arises of organisation or military training (not self-sacrificing charity, that has already been done); secondly, the necessity of creating an organisation & finding the means, if no opportunity presents itself. It will be necessary for someone from Bengal to come & see me before long, but that will probably not be till October or later.

I shall write to you before long farther on the subject, as also on other matters.

K.

[18]

[after October 1914]

Dear M ­

I have not written for a long time for several reasons. Our position here since the war has become increasingly difficult and delicate, as the administration is run for the moment by certain subordinates who are actively hostile to the Swadeshis. I have therefore adopted a policy of entire reserve, including abstention from correspondence with Bengal even with officially unobjectionable people. Our correspondence now is chiefly limited to Arya business.

Your internal struggle in the Yoga has naturally its causes. I shall help you as much as possible spiritually, but you must get rid of everything that gives a handle to the enemy in ourselves. Your letters for a long time showed a considerable revival of rajasic egoism, contracted, I suppose, by association with the old Tantrics, and that always [brings]¹³ in our Yoga disagreeable consequences. If you could make yourselves entirely pure instruments, things would go much better. But there is always something in the prana and intellect which kicks against the pricks and resists the purifier. Especially get rid of the Aham Karta element, which usually disguises itself under the idea "I am the chosen yantra". Despise no one, try to see God in all and

13 MS bring  

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the Self in all. The Shakti in you will then act better on your materials and environment.

There is another point. You sent a message about an "Aurobindo Math" which seemed to show you had caught the contagion which rages in Bengal. You must understand that my mission is not to create maths, ascetics and Sannyasis; but to call back the souls of the strong to the Lila of Krishna & Kali. That is my teaching, as you can see from the Review, and my name must never be connected with monastic forms or the monastic ideal. Every ascetic movement since the time of Buddha has left India weaker and for a very obvious reason. Renunciation of life is one thing, to make life itself, national, individual, world-life greater & more divine is another. You cannot enforce one ideal on the country without weakening the other. You cannot take away the best souls from life & yet leave life stronger & greater. Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life is the Yoga I teach, — no other renunciation.

Saurin has written to you about Bejoy's detention. M. Richard wrote to the Madras Government, but with the usual result.

Here one of the Swadeshis, a certain VVS. Aiyar has been hauled up for circulating unauthorised pamphlets from America. It appears the Govt.. of Pondicherry has established a censorship in the French P.O. and opens letters etc from abroad. They have intercepted some wonderful pamphlets of the usual sanguinary order asking India to rise & help Germany which some fool had sent to his address from New York. On the strength of this a case has been trumped up against Aiyar who knew nothing about either the New York idiot or his pamphlets. The funny thing is that all the time Aiyar seems to be fervently Anti-German in his sentiments & pro-Belgian & pro-Servian! So this wonderful French administration insists on making him a martyr for the cause he denounces! One thing I could never appreciate is the utility of this pamphleteering business of which Indian revolutionists are so fond. Pamphlets won't liberate India; but they do seem to succeed in getting their distributors and non-distributors also into prison. My connection with Aiyar has been practically  

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nil, as in normal times I only see him once in two years. But here all the Swadeshis are lumped together; so we have to be careful not only that we give no handle to our enemies, but that other people don't give them a handle against us — which is just a little difficult.

You have decided, it seems, to carry on Tantra & Mantra, anushthan and pure Vedanta together! My objection to it was from the standpoint of the Review and Vedantic work generally. Anusthan & the Review do not go well together. Of course, a synthesis is always possible, but amalgamation is not synthesis.

G.

P.S. By the way, try to realise one thing. The work we wish to do cannot produce its effects on the objective world until my Ashtasiddhi is strong enough to work upon that world organically and as a whole, & it has not yet reached that point. No amount of rajasic eagerness on my part or on yours or anybody else's will fill the place or can substitute itself as the divine instrument which will be definitely effective. In the matter of the Review Bejoy has found that out by this time! I have found it out myself by constant experience & warning. You also, if you wish to profit by my teaching, should learn it also — without the necessity of experience.

[19]

[1914 ­ 1915]

Dear M.

Your letter and enclosure (50) reached us all right. We have not received the Rs. 200 due from Das. As for the Rs. 500, that has nothing to do with the garden money of my uncle, it is a sum promised to me which Saurin was to have brought, but it was not paid in time. He tells me he told you about it before he came and he wrote also from here. Our actual expenses here are Rs. 115 a month; this can be reduced if we get another house, but you know that is not easy in Pondicherry. I note that we are to get Rs. 50 from you in the latter part of this month.  

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So much for money matters. It is regrettable that the Government should think you are mixed up in political matters and that you are on the list of suspects. But once they get that idea into their heads, it is impossible to change it; once a suspect, always a suspect is their rule. They are particularly good at purchasing trouble for themselves and others in this way and just now they are all fear and suspicion and see revolutions in every bush. The only thing is to be extremely careful. You should not on any account move out of Chandernagore so long as the war measures are in force; for in these times innocence is no defence.

It is regrettable that Bengal should be unable to find anything in the Arya, but not surprising. The intellect of Bengal has been so much fed on chemical tablets of thought and hot spiced foods that anything strong and substantial is indigestible to it. Moreover people in India are accustomed only to second-hand thoughts, — the old familiar ideas of the six philosophies, Patanjali etc. etc. Any new presentation of life and thought and Yoga upsets their expectations and is unintelligible to them. The thought of the Arya demands close thinking from the reader; it does not spare him the trouble of thinking and understanding and the minds of the people have long been accustomed to have the trouble of thought spared them. They know how to indulge their minds, they have forgotten how to exercise them.

It does not matter very much just now, so long as the people who practise the Yoga, read and profit. The Arya presents a new philosophy and a new method of Yoga and everything that is new takes time to get a hearing. Of course, in reality it is only the old brought back again, but so old that it has been forgotten. It is only those who practise and experience that can at first understand it. In a way, this is good, because it is meant to change the life of people and not merely satisfy the intellect. In France it has been very much appreciated by those who are seeking the truth, because these people are not shut up in old and received ideas, they are on the lookout for something which will change the inner and outer life. When the same state of mind can be brought about here, the Arya will begin to be appreciated. At  

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present, Bengal only understands and appreciates politics and asceticism. The central ideas of the Arya are Greek to it.

Soon after the Arya began, I got a letter from some graduates saying that what they wanted was "man-making". I have done my share of man-making and it is a thing which now anybody can do; Nature herself is looking after it all over the world, though more slowly in India than elsewhere. My business is now not man-making, but divine man-making. My present teaching is that the world is preparing for a new progress, a new evolution. Whatever race, whatever country seizes on the lines of that new evolution and fulfils it, will be the leader of humanity. In the Arya I state the thought upon which this new evolution will be based as I see it, and the method of Yoga by which it can be accomplished. Of course, I cannot speak plainly yet my whole message, for obvious reasons, I have to put it in a severe, colourless fashion which cannot be pleasing to the emotional and excitement-seeking Bengali mind. But the message is there, for those who care to understand. It has really three parts (1) for each man as an individual to change himself into the future type of divine humanity, the men of the new Satyayuga which is striving to be born; (2) to evolve a race of such men to lead humanity and (3) to call all humanity to the path under the lead of these pioneers and this chosen race. India and especially Bengal have the best chance and the best right to create that race and become the leaders of the future — to do in the right way what Germany thought of doing in the wrong way. But first they must learn to think, to cast away old ideas, and turn their faces resolutely to the future. But they cannot do this, if they merely copy European politics or go on eternally reproducing Buddhistic asceticism. I am afraid the Ramakrishna Mission with all its good intentions is only going to give us Shankaracharya & Buddhistic humanitarianism. But that is not the goal to which the world is moving. Meanwhile remember that these are very difficult times and careful walking is necessary. It is just possible that the war may come to an end in a few months, for the old immobility is beginning to break down and the forces at work behind the veil are straining towards a solution. While the war  

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continues, nothing great can be done, we are fettered on every side. Afterwards things will change and we must wait for the development.

K.

[20]

[1916 ­ 1918]

Dear M.

I have not written for a long time because nothing definite came to me to be written. We are in a state of things in which every movement fails to come to a decisive result because everywhere and in everything the forces are balanced by contrary forces. At the present moment the world is passing through an upheaval in which all forces possible have been let loose and none therefore has a triumphant action. Ordinarily, there are certain puissances, certain ideas which are given a dominant impulsion and conquest, those opposing them being easily broken after a first severe struggle. Now everything is different. Wherever a force or an idea tries to assert itself in action, all that can oppose rushes to stop it and there follows a "struggle of exhaustion". You see that in Europe now; no one can succeed; nothing is accomplished; only that which already was, maintains itself with difficulty. At such a time one has to act as little as possible and prepare and fortify as much as possible — that is to say, that is the rule for those who are not compelled to be in the battle of the present and whose action tends more towards the future.

I had hoped that we should be much more "forward" at this period, but the obstacles have been too great. I have not been able to get anything active into shape. Consequently, we have to go on as before for some time longer. Our action depends on developing sufficient spiritual power to overcome the enormous material obstacles opposed to us, to shape minds, men, events, means, things. This we have got as yet in very insufficient quantity.

You have done well in confining yourself to Vedantic Yoga;  

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you can see for yourself that the Tantric bears no secure and sufficient fruit without a very strong and faultless Vedantic basis. Otherwise you have a medley of good and bad sadhakas associating together and the bad spoil the Kriya of the good; for a collective yoga is not like a solitary one, it is not free from collective influences; it has a collective soul which cannot afford to be in some parts either raw or rotten. It is this which modern Tantrics do not understand, their aspiration is not governed by old Shastra founded on the experience of centuries. A chakra, for instance, must either be perfectly composed or immediately governed and protected by the spiritual force of some powerful guru. But our modern minds are too impatient to see to these things.

As for your external difficulties, I mean with regard to the bad ideas the Government or the police have about you and the consequent obstacles and pressure, that is a result of past Karma and probably of some present associations and can hardly be cured. I see people are interned who have no connection at all with politics or have long cut off whatever connection they had. Owing to the war, the authorities are uneasy & suspicious and being ill served by their police act on prejudgments and often on false reports. You have to sit tight, spiritually defend yourself and physically avoid putting yourself where the police can do you any harm and, so far as possible, avoid also doing anything which would give any colour or appearance of a foundation for their prejudices. More can hardly be done. One cannot throw aside friends because they are "suspects"; in that case, we should have to begin with ourselves. If on the ground of such associations we are ourselves more suspected, — as, for instance, the officials make it a grievance against me that although I am doing nothing political myself, yet I associate with my Madrasi friends against whom they have chosen to launch warrants for sedition, etc, it cannot be helped. We cannot suffer political or police dictation in our private friendships.

What has become of the "Pravartaka". The last number was very good, but for a long time we have had no other. Is the administration withholding visa or are there other reasons for  

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the irregularity? I hope it is not a discontinuance. We have the "Arya" here visaed without delay or difficulty.

If you have difficulties of any kind, it is as well to let me know at once; for I can then concentrate what force I have more particularly to help you. The help may not be always or immediately effective, but it will count and may be more powerful than a general will, not instructed in the particular necessity. You must not mind if you do not get always a written answer; the unwritten will always be there.

I leave it to the Manager of the Arya to write to you about business matters.

K.

[21]

[1918 ­ 1919]

Dear M ­

If you want discipline, the first thing of that kind I would impose on you or ask you to impose on yourselves is self-discipline, âtma-sanyama, and the first element in that is obedience to the law of the Yoga I have given to you. If you bring in things which do not belong to it at all and are quite foreign to it, such as "hunger-strikes" and vehement emotional revolt against the divine Will, it is idle to expect any rapid progress. That means that you insist on going on your own bypath and yet demand of me that I shall bring you to my goal. All difficulties can be conquered, but only on condition of fidelity to the Way that you have taken. There is no obligation on anyone to take it, — it is a difficult and trying one, a way for heroes, not for weaklings, — but once taken, it must be followed, or you will not arrive.

Remember what is the whole basis of the Yoga. It is not founded upon the vehement emotionalism of the Bhakti-marga to which the temperament of Bengal is most prone, though it has a different kind of Bhakti, but on samata and atma-samarpana. Obedience to the divine Will, not assertion of self-will, is the very first mantra. But what can be a more violent assertion of self-will than to demand the result you desire, whether external  

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or internal, at once, and not in God's muhurta, God's moment? You say that there is complete utsarga, but it cannot be complete, if there is any kind of revolt or vehement impatience. Revolt and impatience mean always that there is a part of the being or something in the being which does not submit, has not given itself to God, but insists on God going out of his way to obey it. That may be very well in the Bhaktimarga, but it will not do on this Way. The revolt and impatience may come and will come in the heart or the prana when these are still subject to imperfection and impurity; but it is then for the will and the faith in your buddhi to reject them, not to act upon them. If the will consents, approves and supports them, it means that you are siding with the inner enemy. If you want rapid progress, the first condition is that you should not do this; for every time you do it, the enemy is strengthened and the shuddhi postponed. This is a difficult lesson to learn, but you must learn it. I do not find fault with you for taking long over it, I myself took full twelve years to learn it thoroughly, and even after I knew the principle well enough, it took me quite four years and more to master my lower nature in this respect. But you have the advantage of my experience and my help; you will be able to do it more rapidly, if you consciously and fully assist me, by not associating yourself with the enemy Desire; jahi kâmam durâsadam, remember that utterance of the Gita, it is a keyword of our Yoga.

As for Haradhan, he should show the way in calm, patience and endurance. He has been a soldier. How does he think the nations of Europe could have carried this war to an end, if they had grown so impatient of the fatigue of the trenches, suffering, disturbance, scarcity, continual postponement of the result, and declared that either they must have victory in a given time or throw up the struggle? Does he expect the inner war with our lower selves, the personal habit of thousands of lives and the human inheritance of ages, to be less arduous or to be carried out by a rapid and easy miracle? Hunger-striking to force God or to force anybody or anything else is not the true spiritual means. I do not object to Mr.. Gandhi or anyone else following it  

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for quite other than spiritual purposes, but here it is out of place; these things, I repeat, are foreign to the fundamental principle of our Yoga.

Shuddhi is the most difficult part of the whole Yoga, it is the condition of all the rest, and if that is once conquered, the real conquest is accomplished. The rest becomes a comparatively easy building on an assured basis, — it may take longer or shorter, but it can be done tranquilly and steadily. To prevent the shuddhi the lower nature in you and around you will exhaust all its efforts, and even when it cannot prevent, it will try to retard. And its strongest weapon then is, when you think you have got it, suddenly to break in on you and convince you that you have not got it, that it is far away, and so arouse disappointment, grief, loss of faith, discouragement, depression and revolt, the whole army of troubles that wait upon impure Desire. When you have once found calm, peace of mind, firm faith, equality and been able to live in it for some time, then and only then you may be sure that suddhi is founded; but you must not think it will not be disturbed. It will be, so long as your heart and prana are still capable of responding to the old movements, have still any memory and habit of vibrating to the old chords. The one thing necessary when the renewed trouble comes, is to stand back in your mind and will from it, refuse it the sanction of your higher being, even when it is raging in the lower nature. As that habit of refusal fixes itself, — at first you may not be able to do it, the buddhi may be lost in the storm, — you will find that the asuddhi, even though it still returns, becomes less violent, more and more external, until it ceases to be anything more than a faint and short-lived touch from outside and finally comes no more. That is the course it has followed with me, not only with regard to this kind of disturbance, but with regard to all imperfections. You, since you have chosen to share my Yoga for mankind, must follow the same way, undergo the same disturbances.

This is a thing which it is necessary for you to understand clearly. I myself have had for these fourteen years, and it is not yet finished, to bear all the possible typical difficulties, troubles, downfalls and backslidings that can rise in this great effort to

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change the whole normal human being. How else could I have been able to help or guide others on the same way? Those who join me at the present stage, must share in my burden, especially those who are themselves chosen in any degree to lead, help and guide. It may be that when I have the complete siddhi, — which I have not yet, I am only on the way to it, — then, if it be God's will to extend very largely and rapidly my work in this body, those who come after may have the way made very easy for them. But we are the pioneers hewing our way through the jungle of the lower prakriti. It will not do for us to be cowards and shirkers and refuse the burden, to clamour for everything to be made quick and easy for us. Above all things I demand from you endurance, firmness, heroism, — the true spiritual heroism. I want strong men, I do not want emotional children. Manhood first, can only be built upon that. If I do not get it in those who accept my Yoga, then I shall have to understand that it is not God's will that I should succeed. If that be so, I shall accept his will calmly. But meanwhile I go on bearing whatever burden he lays on me, meeting whatever difficulties he puts in the way of my siddhi. Personally, I am now sure of success in everything except in the kaya-siddhi, which is still doubtful, and in my work. The work can only succeed if I find noble and worthy helpers, fitted for it by the same struggles and the same endurance. I expect them in you.

Again you must not expect the shuddhi or any part of the siddhi to be simultaneous and complete at once in all whom you associate with you. One may attain, others progress, others linger. You must not expect a sudden collective miracle. I have not come here to accomplish miracles, but to show, lead the way, help, on the road to a great inner change of our human nature, — the outer change in the world is only possible if and when that inner transmutation is effected and extends itself. You must not expect to establish a perfect sangha all at once and by a single leap. If you make such demands on me, I can only say that I cannot do what is not God's will. Go forward calmly and firmly, not attached to success, not disturbed by unsuccess; my help will then not fail you.  

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As to your idea of work, it seems to me a little crude in form; but I have no objection to your beginning it, since you feel the pressing necessity. I shall write to you later on about it at more length. The only reason why I do not lay great stress on outer work, is that it must always be kaccha, much embarrassed by difficulties, at best only a preparatory thing, until we are inwardly and spiritually ready. That is no reason why it should not be done. Work done in the right spirit will itself become a means of the inner siddhi.

Kali

[22]

[end 1919]

Dear M.

About your scheme of a weekly paper — as for the name it is not difficult to find; it could be called the "Standard-bearer". But are you quite sure you will be able to live up to the name and carry the thing on in the requisite manner? Nalini and Suresh are not likely to be able to write; one does not write at all in English, the other can do it if he likes, but is even more than in Bengali. To write for an English weekly would be beyond his present energies. As for myself, I am at present unable to write or do anything substantial, because of the extreme pressure of my Yoga, which has entirely occupied my time, — except for what I am obliged to give to the "Arya" and even that I have cut short as much as possible, — for the last few months. This state of things is likely to go on for the rest of the (English) year; whether it will be changed in the beginning of the next is more than I can tell with any certainty. The whole work might fall on your two Chandernagore writers. An English weekly cannot be conducted like a Bengali monthly or fortnightly. And it is not going to be a political paper of the ordinary kind which can be filled up anyhow. It will have to maintain a high reputation to be at all successful. These things however are for you to consider; you know your own strength and how far the field in Bengal is ready. As to the symbol, none has come to me. I  

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am not altogether favourably inclined to the Uttara Yogi idea, nor anyone else here. It sounds too like the old style of spiritual pretension, and, when it is put in a current English production, suggests bujruki. Plain colours and as few symbols as may be are what we want at the beginning. Indian spirituality has lost itself in a jungle of symbols and shlokas and we have to get out of them on to the plain and straight ways and the open heights, where we can see the "much work that has still to be done". Why any editor? Let the Shakti herself be the editor.

As to articles for the Prabartak, Nalini used to be your mainstay and he is now in another atmosphere, — mainly hitherto of marriage and football, and complains of an inability to write. As for the other he has produced nothing since he left here, except a drama for the "Bijoli" and the answer to [? ] even his Prabasi article was written and sent before he left for Bengal. Moni's inspiration flows in channels hardly suitable for the Prabartak. As for myself, it was only as a result of a solitary inspiration and with much trouble of rewriting that I got one thing done for you. Since then I have been too much occupied by my Yoga and not at all visited by any preranâ or at least none which lasted long enough to produce more than a few lines. In this matter I am entirely dependent on the  , as I have no natural control of the language and I have no time at present for increasing it by constant practice. It seems to me that Prabartak is getting on well enough as it is, though, if Nalini could write, it would produce an element of greater variety. You should be able to develop more writers with the necessary spiritual experience, grasp of the thought and literary ability, — these things the inner Shakti can bring to the surface if it is called upon for them, — so that Prabartak will not have to depend on three or four people only for its sustenance.

There is nothing more, I think, to add immediately, — if there is I will keep it for later answering, so that this letter may not be farther delayed. By the way, with regard to your design for the paper, the only thing that now suggests itself to me is the Hansa in the Sun, ie the free Soul lodged in the vijñâna, and the legend "In this sign thou shalt conquer," which is appropriate,  

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but has the disadvantage of being borrowed from Christianity and Constantine. It would perhaps be better if you could find a Sanscrit equivalent or substitute.

K.

[23]

Jan 2. 1920

Dear M ­

I write today only for your question about Manindranath and the other. We have been imprisoned in an inferno of rain for the last few days and I have only just been able to get a reliable answer. They have only to get a sauf-conduit from the Chandernagore Administrator and then, as they are called here by the French Government for government work, nobody can interfere with their going and coming. This is what I am told and it ought obviously to be so. How are your people going to vote? Martineau and Flandin are the two candidates at present and Martineau is impossible.

I note with some amusement the Secretary's letter to Bejoy Chatterji. The logic of the Bengal Government's attitude is a little difficult to follow. However, I suppose the King's proclamation will make some difference, but I fancy the Govt.. of India is the chief obstacle in these matters and they will perhaps try to limit the scope of this qualified amnesty. Still I hope that the restrictions on your own movements will be removed before long. We have received a postcard from Bejoy notifying to the "Arya" a change of address which shows that after five long years he has been released from his quite causeless imprisonment, but he is now interned in or near Ramnagar in Birbhum. As for me, I do not see, if Lajpatrai is coming to India, how they can object to my going to Bengal. But, allowed or not allowed, I have not the least intention of doing that at present or for another year at the earliest. When I do go, this or that circumstance will make no difference. Mr.. Gandhi, like the man in Macedonia with St Paul, sent me a message to "come over and help", but I had to say that I was not ready to join in the old politics and had no  

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new programme formed for a more spiritual line of work, and it would be no use my going out till I saw my way.

As to the Standard-bearer, I cannot write now, as it would take too long and delay this letter. I shall write afterwards or send word. Your insured packet reached us yesterday. The increase comes in a good moment, as with Saurin in Bengal the Aryan Stores is simply marking time and the Arya is in a new economic phase which means for the moment some diminution of income.

A. G.

[Postscript in another hand:]

In a few days you will be getting 50 copies of "War & S. D."

K. Amrita

[24]

Pondicherry

May 1920

Dear M.

It is only now for the first time since Sirish left that I get some time to write. It is not possible for me to write all I have to say, much must wait till you come here; I will confine myself to what is of pressing importance for the work.

The circumstances under which you have to work have now changed a great deal and you will have in order to meet it to enlarge your view and inner attitude on many sides; this I think you are preparing to do, but it will be as well for me to make it as precise as possible. Up till now you were working alone in a Bengal which was in a state, first, of the last fragmentary and chaotic agitations of the old violent spirit of rajasic politics and then of torpor and inaction; and the thing that had to be done was to get rid of the errors of the past (errors once necessary for the development, but likely if persisted in to ruin and frustrate the future), to get at a firm spiritual basis and found a centre of spiritual unity and action, a sangha, on a small scale but sure of its principle and capable of a large development. This has  

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now been done, but at the moment of its firm effectuation, new conditions have come in which create a new and larger problem. First, many imprisoned forces have been set loose and, secondly, the chaos of incertitude, confused agitation and unseeing unrest which has followed upon the war and is felt all over the world, is now at work in Bengal. The nature of this unrest is a haste to get something done without knowing what has to be done, a sense of and vague response to large forces without any vision of or hold on the real possibilities of the future of humanity and the nation. The old things are broken up in their assured mould and are yet persisting and trying to form themselves anew, the new exist for the most part only in vague idea without a body or clear action and without any power as yet to form what is lacking to them. The old politics in India persist in a chaos of parties and programmes centred round the Congress quarrel and the Reforms, and in Bengal we have a rush of the commercial and industrial spirit which follows the Western principle and, if it succeeds on those lines, is likely to create a very disastrous reproduction or imitation of the European situation with its corrupt capitalism and the labour struggle and the war of classes. And all that is the very reverse of our own ideal. The one advantage for us is that it is a chaos and not a new order, and it is essential that we should throw our spirit and idea upon this fermentation, and draw what is best among its personalities and forces to the side and service of our ideal so as to get a hold and a greater mass of effectuation for it in the near future.

This, as I conceive it, has to be done on two lines. First, what has already been created by us and given a right spirit, basis and form, must be kept intact in spirit, intact in basis and intact in form and must strengthen and enlarge itself in its own strength and by its inherent power of self-development and the divine force within it. This is the line of work on which you have to proceed. We have to confront the confusion around us with a thing that is sure of itself and illumined by self-knowledge and a work that by its clear form and firm growth will present more and more the aspect of an assured solution of the problems of the present and the future. The mind of the outside world may  

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be too shallow, restless and impatient to understand a great, profound and difficult truth like ours on the side of the idea, but a visible accomplishment, a body of things done has always the power to compel and to attract the world to follow it. The only danger then is that when this body of things becomes prominent and attractive, numbers may rush into it and try to follow the externals without realising and reproducing in themselves the truth and the power of the real thing that made it possible. It was that against which I warned you when there came the first possibility of a considerable expansion. It is your business to enlarge your field of work and the work itself but not at the cost of any lowering or adulteration of its spirit. The first condition you have to assure is that all who have the work in hand or share in its direction must be of the spirit and work from the self outward; they must be men of the Yoga; but, secondly, all who enter in must have this imposed on them as the thing to be developed, must learn to develop this self-realisation first and foremost and the work only as its expression. The safety of the work lies in a strict adherence to this principle. The majority of the educated people of Bengal care only to get something done — and are not troubled by the fact that really nothing sure and lasting does get done or else only something that is likely to do as much harm as good; they care nothing about the spiritual basis of life which is India's real mission and the only possible source of her greatness, or give to it only a slight, secondary or incidental value, a something that has to be stuck on as a sentiment or a bit of colouring matter. Our whole principle is different and you have to insist on our principle in all that you say and do. Moreover, you have got a clear form for your work in association and that form as well as the spirit you must maintain; any loosening of it or compromise would mean confusion and an impairing of the force that is working in your sangha.

But on the other hand there is another line of work which is also necessary at the present moment, because the Shakti is moving in that direction also and the Shakti is the doer of the work, — and that is for others, like Barin to enter into the fermenting mass and draw out of it elements that are fit but not  

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yet ready to take our whole idea and first to get into and then occupy existing or newly created means and activities, — as he is doing with the Narayan, — which can be increasingly made instruments of our purpose. This work will be attended with all the difficulties and uncertainties and obstacles which go with a mixed and yet unformed working, — such as you had at the beginning, but have now got over, — but we must trust to the divine Shakti to overcome them. The one difficulty that it is in our power to avoid is that of the relation between those who are working on these different lines. There the first necessity is that there should be no clash or spirit of rivalry, sense of division or monopolising personal or corporate egoism to bring discord among those who receive their inspiration from the same source and have the same ideal. A spiritual unity and a readiness for cooperation must be the guiding principle of their relations.

I have already answered to Sirish the first very natural question that arose in your mind at the inception of these new conditions, why Barin and others should cast themselves separately into the to create a रुप out of it, when there is already a form and a body of associated communal work in the spirit of our ideal and why all should not unite in that form and create a greater power of associated driving force to bring about a rapid enlargement and victory of the ideal. The first thing is that the particular form given is the right thing for those who are already associated together, because it has arisen naturally out of themselves and by the Will that guides, but it may well be that the same precise form may not be applicable or intended everywhere. The spirit, the truth must be the same, but the formations may be different with advantage to the spirit. To insist on one form only might well bring in that rigidity which grew upon Indian society and its civilisation in the past and brought about an imprisonment and decline of the spirit. India was strongest and most alive when she had many variations of form but one spirit. And I think, — that at least was the prevision that came on me in the Alipur jail and I do not yet see a different prospect, — that this will be the case also in the future. Then, secondly, there is a psychological  

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necessity which we cannot at the present moment leave out of consideration. The sangha at Chandernagore is a thing that has grown up with my power behind and yours at the centre and it has assumed a body and temperament which is the result of this origination. But there are others, people of strong personality and full of shakti, who receive the spiritual force direct from me and are made themselves to be central spirits and direct radiators of the shakti, and for these to subordinate themselves to the existing body and temperament would not be easy for any and in most cases impossible, — such a subordination would not have grown out of themselves and would only be imposed by nigraha, a thing contrary to the prakriti, — and it would besides clog up the natural action of the power in them. And on the other hand to bring them in as coordinated central figures into the existing form would not be feasible, for it would mean a disturbing change and new fermentation of forces in the work that is already being well done on established lines. It would mean, even if at all successful, a sort of conducting by spiritual committee and that is not the line on which the Shakti has proceeded at Chandernagore. The more perfect coordination of all who are at work can only come, as far as I can see, after I myself go to Bengal and can act by my direct presence. Thirdly, there are a considerable number of people in the country who are not yet of us, yet can be given the necessary turn, but owing to temperamental and other causes they would not be drawn to the existing centre, but could be easily drawn by Barin, Saurin, Bijoy and others. And in all these and similar cases we must leave freedom to the guiding Shakti to use her own means and instruments. Finally, there are things to be done which need to be done, but which I would not like to impose on your sangha as it now stands, first, because it would disturb the characteristic frame and ideal temperament of your work, a thing which it is important to keep, and secondly because it would impose on you unnecessary complications; and these things can best be done by Barin and others while seeming to work independently for their own hand. And there are needs also to be met for which these other activities are required. Of that I can better speak to  

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you in person than by letter. This being the situation, the need that remains is to keep a right relation between those who are working, and that means to extend the spirit of unity which is our basis so as to embrace all the work and workers, undeterred by differences of mentality and divergences of action.

In our work we have to fix our relations with three different kinds of people, first, those who are working for the country but without any greater idea or spiritual motive, secondly, those who have the spiritual motive but not the same ideal and inspiration as ourselves, thirdly, those who have the same ideal and inspiration, but are working in different bodies and at first on different lines. Our relation to the first class of people and their work must be based on the fundamental principle of our Yoga to see God in all and the one Self in all acting through different natures and all energies, even those which are hostile, as workings of the divine Shakti although behind the veil of the ahankara and the ignorant mentality. There are movements at work new and old which are not the definite reality of the future but are needed at the present moment as part of the transition. It is in this light for example that I regard many things that are in process in Europe and I am even moved to give a temporary spiritual support to efforts and movements which are not in consonance with our own and must eventually fail or cease by exhaustion of their utility but are needed as transitional powers. This too is how I regard the work of men like Tilak and Gandhi. We work in the faith that it is our vision of the future that is the central divine will, the highest actualisable possibility and therefore the one thing that must be made the object of our action; but that does not mean that the Shakti is not working in her own covert way and for her own ends through others. No doubt their movements are of a western and materialistic inspiration or else an imperfect mixture, and some day it may be we shall have to give battle to them as certainly we shall have to overcome the spirit that informs them. But that time has not come yet, and meanwhile what we have to do is to develop and spread our own vision and idea and give it body so as eventually to confront the things that are in possession of the present with

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a realisation of the things that belong to the future. I think that at this juncture we should avoid a too direct attack or criticism of them as that only creates avoidable opposition to our own work. The positive rather than the negative method is the one we should adopt until we are strong enough to convince by our visible strength and work the minds that are now attracted by the present power and activity of other movements, — to assert our own ideal as the true and the right way but not to invite conflict by a destructive frontal attack on the others.

As for the second class, such as the other spiritual movements in Bengal, our attitude to most should be that of a benevolent neutrality and a sympathy for such of their elements as are at all in consonance with our own ideal. The one thing which we have to get rid of is the idea of Maya and ascetic abandonment of the life and effort of humanity and also, though that is social and religious rather than directly spiritual, the clinging to old forms and refusal to admit new development. The movements that admit life and Ananda and are ready to break away from the old narrowness of social and other forms, are so much to the good even though they have not the full largeness of the integral spiritual idea and realisation. These we must leave to go on their way and run themselves out or else enlarge themselves till they are ready to coalesce with us. I do not mean that with regard to either of these classes we should refrain from all criticism of the insufficiency of ideal or method, but this should be as far as possible quite general, a discussion and the enforcement of a greater principle and truer method, distinguishing truth from error but not too pointedly aggressive against particular things or so expressed as to seem to hit straight at this or that person or body. To insist on our own propaganda and work is always necessary and sometimes though not always to meet any attack on it; but we need not go out of our way to invite conflict. To this rule there may be particular exceptions; I only indicate what seems to me for the present the right general attitude.

This once understood, the really important thing becomes at once our own work and the relation between different workers,  

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and here, as I have said, what we need is the growth of spiritual unity and a readiness to take the work of others as supplementing one's own and, wherever it is called for and possible, to cooperate. There is a danger here from the subtler forms of egoism. It is not enough to realise unity among those who are already working with one mind as one soul in many bodies; there must be unity of spirit with others who are following different ways or working separately for the present and complete samata with regard to their action, even if it seems to one wrong or imperfect, and patience with regard to mental and moral divergences. This should be easy for you, as it means only getting rid of the remnants of your sattwic ahankara; it may not be so easy for others who have still a rajasic ahankara to trouble them. But if people like you and Barin give the example, that difficulty can eventually be got over; if on the contrary you also allow misunderstandings among yourselves, the work is likely to be very unnecessarily hampered. I may give as an instance, the matter about the Prabartak. Certain casual utterances of Saurin's, made in answer to queries and not volunteered, have come to you quite misreported as a sort of intentional campaign to belittle the paper and the other half of what he said, namely, that the Prabartak was inspired, though not actually written by me and the spirit and substance were that of my ideal, never reached your ears. I may add also that the alleged incident to which you took exception, as to his method of raising money, never actually happened. Again the advertisement or rather paragraph about Narayana in the Amrita [Bazar]¹⁴ was not inserted by Barin, but by someone else according to that other person's idea after a conversation with him: Barin was not responsible for the form nor had he any intention of claiming the Narayana as the sole and direct mouthpiece of my ideas. It is these misunderstandings which I want to see all of you avoid and it can be easily done if those who are among the principal channels of the Shakti preserve the spiritual unity which ought to prevail among those who derive their inspiration from the same source and follow

14 MS Bazaar  

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the same ideal. Others less developed may give cause for offence owing to their inability to control the rajasic ego still working in them, but calm, patience, prema and samata are the spirit in which we should meet such causes of offence; otherwise where is the perfection we seek by our Yoga? Let me add, while I am on this subject, that Haradhan seems to have been misinformed about Nalini. As a matter of fact he has mixed with no  , nor engaged in any kind of associated activity while in Bengal. And if he had, it would have been with no other purpose than to draw others to our Yoga and our way of thinking; but as a matter of fact he remained inactive.

As for the other matter of the different lines of work, there is one instance which illustrates the difficulties that may arise. Barin has taken up the "Narayan" with the idea of gradually and eventually making it another instrument of propaganda for our ideas, and if he succeeds, that will be so much the more strength for us. It will not be a mere doubling of the work of the Prabartak, as it will present our ideas in a different way and so as to catch minds of a different type from those who are naturally attracted by the Prabartak which demands from its readers a mind already turned to spiritual things or at least naturally able to enter into that atmosphere. To others who are of a less spiritual and intuitive, a more intellectual or literary and artistic temperament, the articles of the Prabartak written out of an experience to which they are strangers, are not easily assimilable, and it is these minds which it may be possible to approach through the "Narayan". But if there is not a right understanding, the attitude of the two to each other may be that of separation and competition rather than of activities supplementary to each other in the same work. In addition he has now the chance of getting hold of a strong publishing agency in Calcutta, as Sirish must already have told you, but he hesitates to take it up from fear that it may be regarded as a rival agency to the Prabartak Publishing House. He is not afraid of any misunderstanding between you and him, but of others connected with either work taking things in the wrong light and bringing in an unwholesome spirit of competition. This is a thing which  

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might easily happen, but must not be allowed to happen. I have told him that I would write to you and ask you to see that there is no misunderstanding in the matter, before giving him sanction to take up the possibility. Afterwards it will be for you and him to see that things on both sides are managed in the right spirit. This agency, if it comes into Barin's control, will be conducted with the same idea and method as the "Narayan" and all the profits except what is necessary for the maintenance and extension of the agency, will come to us and our work. These two things are the first fields the Shakti has offered to his energy and they are of a kind for which he is well fitted; their success means for us a great advantage. A time is now coming in which the Shakti is pressing to break down the barriers in which we have had hitherto to move and we must be ready to follow her indications without allowing our personal preferences and limitations to attempt to dictate to her any mind-made limits.

As for the extension of the work you are doing, I have spoken in general terms to Sirish and it is not necessary to add anything in this letter. When you come, I shall perhaps have more to say about it. It is regrettable that at this moment the physical strain should take an effect on your body; I trust it is only a part of a temporary invasion of Roga of which many of us including myself have recently felt some touch. But you must be careful not to throw too much strain on the physical system. A timely sparing of the physical system when there is an indication of overstrain is often necessary before the Shakti has taken perfect possession of the more external parts of the adhara or the vijñâna will is strong enough to set right at once weakenings and disturbances. There remains the question of your visit to Pondicherry. I had thought to delay it for a short time until I saw my way more clearly on certain important matters; but I now believe this is not necessary and it will be as well for you to come as soon as may be. I hardly suppose that Nelson's curious reservation about your visit means anything serious; otherwise he would have been more positive about it. I take it that they do not like the idea and would be suspicious about its motive and watch your actions more narrowly after it; but as they are  

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obstinately determined to be suspicious about anything we do in any case, this by itself cannot be allowed to be an obstacle. I should suggest therefore that you might come over after making arrangements for the work in your absence in such a way that the visit may be a fairly long one.

The work of the Arya has fallen into arrears and I have to spend just now the greater part of my energy in catching up, and the rest of my time, in the evening, is taken up by the daily visit of the Richards. I hope to get over the worst part of this necessity by the middle of June, so that by the time you come I may have a freer atmosphere to attend to the currents of the work and the world about me. There is now the beginning of a pressure from many sides inviting my spiritual attention to the future कर्म and this means the need of a greater outflowing of energy than when I had nothing to do but support a concentrated nucleus of the Shakti. I doubt however whether I shall be in a fit condition for meeting the demand till August, especially as I have not been able to get the physical basis yet put right by the power of the vijñâna. After that we shall see what and how much can actually be done under the new circumstances. Meanwhile your visit may help to get things into preparatory line both in the inward motor-power and the outward determination.

A. G.

[25]

Pondicherry Sept. 2. 1920

Dear M.

My impression about your marriage idea is that you are going too fast. What you say about the commune and the married couple is quite right as our ideal or rather as one side of our ideal, but there is here a question of time and tactics. In our work, especially in the preparatory and experimental part of it, there must be not only spiritual hardihood, साहसं, but skill and prudence, कौशलं. The question is whether it is necessary or wise  

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and advisable to engage in a battle with society at the moment on a point which it considers to be vital but which is to us subordinate. Our first business is to establish our communal system on a firm spiritual, secondly on a firm economical foundation, and to spread it wide, but the complete social change can only come as a result of the other two. It must come first in spirit, afterwards in form. If a man enters into the commune by spiritual unity, if he gives to it his life and labour and considers all he has as belonging to all, the first necessity is secured. The next thing is [to] make the movement economically self-sufficient, and to do that requires at the present moment all the energy you can command. These two things are, the one a constant, the other an immediate necessity. The institution of a communal ceremony of marriage can only be a future necessity; it involves nothing essential at the moment. The idea is that the family in future is not to be a separate unit, but a sub-unit of the communal whole. It is too early to decide exactly what form the family life will take, it may take many forms, not always the same. The principle is the important thing. But this principle can be observed whatever the form of the marriage ceremony they may have gone through at the time of personal union, whether recognised or not by the present social system. An external necessity does not arise in the present case, as Khagen is not marrying outside his caste.

It remains to be seen whether this step, though not necessary, is advisable. In the first place by your action you declare your commune to be an entirely separate thing from the rest of Hindu society; you will be following in the way of the Brahma Samaj or more exactly in that of Thakur Dayananda. That means a violent scission and a long struggle, which is likely greatly to complicate your other work and put difficulties in the way which need not have been there. My own idea was for our system to grow up in the society, not out of it, though different from it, first bringing in a new spiritual idea, — a field in which opposition and intolerance cannot now long endure, — secondly, justifying itself on the outward plane by becoming a centre of economical regeneration and new power for the country, a work in which we shall have sympathy more than opposition, and getting forward  

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with other matters according to need and opportunity and with a considerable freedom and latitude, meeting social orthodoxy with the plea of reembodying the old free Hindu idea in new forms rather than with the profession of a violent rejection both of the past and the present. In this process a clash will be inevitable sooner or later, but a deliberate precipitation of the conflict in so extreme a form as you suggest was not within my intentions. That was to come, but only when we were strong and had already a hold on the country, so that we might have a strong support as well as enemies.

Your point is that the commune should not depend either on Government or society for the validity of the union. It seems to me sufficient if that is spiritually insisted on or at most given an outward indication. I would suggest that the exchange of garlands should be done before the commune, as it was done in the old Swayamvara before the assembly. The conventional marriage can then be added as a concession to the present society, as in old times the sampradana by the father was added to the swayamvara although in fact the svayamvara itself would have been quite valid without it. If a case should arise in future where the mutual giving would be necessary by itself, we might then go to the more extreme course. This would, it seems to me, satisfy everything immediately necessary or advisable, — first, the assertion of free choice as the principle of marriage, secondly, the formal inclusion of the couple in their united life in the commune, apart from any conventional marriage ceremony, thirdly, the justification of a continuity between our movement and the great past of India. The movement of course is not to stop with the forms of the past or a modernisation of them, but this sort of preliminary advance under cover will prepare more easily its future advance into the open, which we can afterwards make as rapid as we choose. At the same time it will have the advantage of awaking a less vehement opposition at a moment when it seems to me we are not yet ready for a frontal attack in the social field and a decisive battle. If a battle becomes necessary, of course we must not flinch from it, but I should myself prefer to have it after I have reached the proper stage in my Yoga and  

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after I return to Bengal. At present I have so many calls upon an energy which is still largely occupied with pushing forward to its own perfection that I do not quite like the idea of the heavy drain on it such a struggle would entail. This at least is my present view on the matter.

The Standard Bearer is, I am afraid, subject to the criticism passed on it; the criticism is general and I felt it myself. It is a sort of weekly "Arya"; but the Arya style and method are not what is wanted for a weekly paper. What you need to do, is to make the ideas easy to the people and give them a practical direction. At present you give only a difficult philosophy and abstract principles. I shall write more about this matter hereafter as soon as I find time.

A. G.

[26]

Pondicherry

Nov 11. 1920

Dear M.

It has become necessary for me to give a categorical denial to all the rumours and ascriptions of opinion which irresponsible people are publishing from time to time about me. The Janmabhumi nonsense is especially idiotic and I do not understand how anyone with brains in his head could have accepted such childish rubbish as mine. Please write an article in the next issue of the Standardbearer saying that in view of the conflicting rumours that have been set abroad, some representing me as for the Reforms and others as for Non-Cooperation, you (that is the St. B.) have written to me and received the following reply which you are authorised to publish. "All these assertions are without foundation. I have made no pronouncement of my political views. I have authorised nobody whether publicly or privately to be the spokesman of my opinions. The rumour suggesting that I support the Montagu Chelmsford Reforms and am opposed to Non-Cooperation is without basis. I have nothing to do personally with the manifesto of Sir Ashutosh  

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Chaudhuri and others citing a passage from my past writings. The recorded opinions of a public man are public property and I do not disclaim what I have written; but the responsibility for its application to the Montagu Chelmsford Reforms and the present situation rests entirely with the signatories to the manifesto. The summary of my opinions in the Janmabhumi, representing me as an enthusiastic follower of Mahatma Gandhi, of which I only came to know the other day, is wholly unauthorised and does not "render justice to my views" either in form or in substance. Things are attributed to me in it which I would never have dreamed of saying. It is especially adding insult to injury to make me say that I am ready to sacrifice my conscience to a Congress mandate and recommend all to go and do likewise. I have not stated to anyone that "full responsible self-government completely independent of British control" or any other purely political object is the goal to the attainment of which I intend to devote my efforts and I have not made any rhetorical prophecy of a colossal success for the Non-Cooperation movement. As you well know, I am identifying myself with only one kind of work or propaganda as regards India, the endeavour to reconstitute her cultural, social and economic life within larger and freer lines than the past on a spiritual basis. As regards political questions, I would request my friends and the public not to attach credence to anything purporting to be a statement of my opinions which is not expressly authorised by me or issued over my signature."

I shall write to you about other matters in another letter.

A. G.

P.S. Please ask Mani Naik to see my sister before he comes here. She wants to send with him certain utensils for our use.

[27]

TIME INOPPORTUNE. INTERVIEW NOT POSSIBLE. WHY NOT WRITE?

13 May 1925  

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[28]

[8 May 1930]

Nalini.

There are certain words (marked) I fail to decipher and I don't understand the first line of the second paragraph. Can you enlighten me as to what he really wants, behind the twists and vagueness of his rhetoric?¹⁵

Sri Aurobindo

Write to Motilal in Bengali telling him that Sri Aurobindo for the last few years does not see anybody, not even his disciples here, except on the three days of the year set apart for darshan and even then does not speak to anyone. At first an occasional exception was made but now even this has not been done for a long time. It is through the Mother and not by personal contact that he directs the work. If anyone wants to ask him a question of importance, get a difficulty solved etc, he writes and the answer is given in writing.

Add that the difficulty for which he wants a solution is not clear to Sri Aurobindo from his letter. He appears to say that the Sangha is securely founded on a spiritual basis and that he wishes now to go out in search of mukti. He knows that mukti in the ordinary sense (moksha), release from the world and life, is not an aim in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. Mukti here means liberation from ego and all its movements and elevation into a divine and spiritual consciousness. For this it may be necessary to come out of the ordinary life and its unsuitable atmosphere, surroundings and activities. But if the Sangha is well founded on a spiritual basis then there ought to be a spiritual atmosphere there favourable to this kind of mukti, the very work itself being a help and a means toward it and not an obstacle. It is therefore not clear why it should be necessary for him to go out of it to get mukti.

15 Sri Aurobindo wrote these two sentences to his secretary Nolini Kanta Gupta on the back of a letter from Motilal. He wrote the two paragraphs that follow on the back of the same letter, apparently after getting the required clarification. — Ed.

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Draft of a Letter to Saurin Bose

[June 1914]

Dear Saurin,

I have received your letter and I reply first to the one or two points in it which demand an answer. We have changed the name of the review from the New Idea to the Arya. We are bringing out a prospectus with specimens of the content which will have to be distributed so as to attract subscribers. It will probably be out in the middle of the month. Please let us know before then how many copies we should send to you to distribute. The address of the Review will be 7 Rue Dupleix & subscriptions should be sent to the Manager, Arya at that address. This is the house that has been found for M & Madame Richard; they have not occupied it yet but will do so within a week or so. It is Martin's house over on the other side of the street just near to the Governor's. It is also to be the headquarters of the Review & the Society, at least for the present.

Sukumar has not yet sent the garden-money but I presume he will do so before long. I have received Rs 400 of the Rs 600 due to me from another quarter & hope to get the remainder by August. With the garden money, this will mean Rs 1100, & with another Rs 100 & 130 for payment of the old rent, we could just go on for a year even without the Rs 1000 arrangement yearly or other money. But Rs 150 is the real minimum sum needed, especially if we keep this house after Nagen goes, as Richard wishes. If the Review succeeds, the problem will be solved; for with 500 subscribers abroad & 1500 in India, we could run the Review, pay the assistants & keep a sufficient sum for the two Editors.

As for your loans, my point was not about a legal process or any material trouble as the result of non-payment. It was that those who give the loan should not have any feeling of not being rightly dealt with, if we should fail to repay them, any feeling that advantage had been taken of their friendship. I have had too bad an experience of money-matters & their power to cool down friendly relations not to be on my guard in this respect.  

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Therefore, I desire that there should be no ground left for future misunderstanding in any matter of the kind, & loans are the most fruitful of these things, much more than money asked or taken as a gift.

You will of course return before August, — as soon in fact as it is no longer necessary for you to stay in Bengal to get matters arranged there. I await your farther information with regard to the idea of Mrinalini coming here. At present it seems to me that that will depend very much on the success of the Review & a more settled condition in my means of life. We shall see, however, whether anything else develops.

To K. R. Appadurai

"ARYA"

 Revue de Grande Synthèse Philosophique

7, rue Dupleix, PONDICHÉRY.

_____

13th April. 1916 ..

Dear Mr.. Appadurai

Thanks for the money. About the Raja of Pittapur, the difficulty is that I do not know Pundit Shivanath very well, and secondly we were never associated politically. I am even afraid that any letter of mine might do a disservice, if, as I think, the Pundit belongs to the Moderate school of politics; it might cause him to look upon Mr.. K.V.R. as an extreme politician to be avoided rather than supported. However, if you don't mind taking the risk, you can use the letter which I send.

Kindly ask Mr.. K.V.R. to send me money from time to time if he can for a while as just at present my sources of supply in Bengal are very much obstructed and I am in considerable difficulty.

Yours sincerely

Aurobindo Ghose  

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Fragmentary Draft Letter

[.....] with whatever the superior wisdom and political experience of the ruling race to grant to them. You are asking for a thing contrary to human nature.*¹⁶

I state the difficulty broadly as I see it; I shall try to make my meaning more precise in a subsequent letter. Meanwhile all I can say is that whatever can be done to alter this state [of] things — subject to my conscience and lights, I am always willing to do. But my scope of action is very limited. I am an exile in French India, in danger of arrest or internment if I step across the border. I have long abstained from all intermiscence in politics, and anything I might say, write or do now would be misunderstood by the Government. They regard me, I believe, as an arch revolutionary and irreconcilable; any assertion of mine to the contrary would be regarded probably as camouflage or covert for unavowable designs. Nor could I engage to satisfy them by my utterances or action, I would necessarily have to speak and act from the point of view of Indian aspiration to liberty and this is a thing which they seem still to regard [as] objectionable. All that I can see at present to do is in the line I am doing, but that is necessarily a [?samadhic] kind of action which can only bear fruit indirectly and not in the present

But if the English mind would take the first step and try to see things from the Indian's standpoint — see their mind and act accordingly, all difficulties might be solved. The Indian mind has not the Irish memory for past wrongs and discords, it forgives and forgets easily. Only it must be made to feel that the approach on the other side is frank and whole hearted. If it once felt that, every difficulty would be solved.

I send you my volume of poems since you have desired to read it, but with some hesitation. I doubt whether you will find much that is worth your perusal except two or three of the shorter poems, they were written long ago, some as many as 20 or 25 years, and are rather gropings after verse and style than a

16 The asterisk is Sri Aurobindo's; its significance is not known. — Ed.  

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self-expression. It is only now that I am doing work which I feel has some chance of living, but it is not yet ready for publication.

To a Would-be Contributor to the Arya

Pondicherry

Sept. 3. 1919

Dear Sir,

I regret that not knowing you would require the copy back, — we do not usually return manuscripts, — I have entered upon it certain alterations to indicate the kind of changes which would be needed if you wished to have it published in the "Arya". The magazine aims at a very high standard of style and thinking, and I make it a rule to admit nothing which is not in my judgment as perfect as possible in both directions. Your poem is noble throughout in idea and has fine lines, but is not throughout of one piece; that is to say, it is written in a high and almost epic strain, but there are dissonant turns and phrases which belong to a lower pitch of writing. I was about to write to you to this effect. I understand from your letter that you wish now to publish the poem elsewhere; but the copy is spoilt for the purpose, though I can return it if you still desire.

Yours sincerely

Aurobindo Ghose

Director, "Arya"

To Joseph Baptista

Pondicherry

Jan. 5, 1920

Dear Baptista,

Your offer is a tempting one, but I regret that I cannot answer it in the affirmative. It is due to you that I should state explicitly my reasons. In the first place I am not prepared at present to return to British India. This is quite apart from any political obstacle. I understand that up to last September  

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the Government of Bengal (and probably the Government of Madras also) were opposed to my return to British India and that practically this opposition meant that if I went back I should be interned or imprisoned under one or other of the beneficent Acts which are apparently still to subsist as helps in ushering in the new era of trust and cooperation. I do not suppose other Governments would be any more delighted by my appearance in their respective provinces. Perhaps the King's Proclamation may make a difference, but that is not certain since, as I read it, it does not mean an amnesty, but an act of gracious concession and benevolence limited by the discretion of the Viceroy. Now I have too much work on my hands to waste my time in the leisured ease of an involuntary Government guest. But even if I were assured of an entirely free action and movement, I should yet not go just now. I came to Pondicherry in order to have freedom and tranquillity for a fixed object having nothing to do with present politics — in which I have taken no direct part since my coming here, though what I could do for the country in my own way I have constantly done, — and until it is accomplished, it is not possible for me to resume any kind of public activity. But if I were in British India, I should be obliged to plunge at once into action of different kinds. Pondicherry is my place of retreat, my cave of tapasya, — not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention. I must finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped for my work before I leave it.

Next in the matter of the work itself. I do not at all look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal or contempt or disgust of secular things. There is to me nothing secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life, and the importance of politics at the present time is very great. But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably from anything now current in the field. I entered into political action and continued it from 1903 to 1910 with one aim and one alone, to get into the mind of the people a settled  

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will for freedom and the necessity of a struggle to achieve it in place of the futile ambling Congress methods till then in vogue. That is now done and the Amritsar Congress is the seal upon it. The will is not as practical and compact nor by any means as organised and sustained in action as it should be, but there is the will and plenty of strong and able leaders to guide it. I consider that in spite of the inadequacy of the Reforms, the will to self-determination, if the country keeps its present temper, as I have no doubt it will, is bound to prevail before long. What preoccupies me now is the question what it is going to do with its self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to determine its future?

You may ask why not come out and help, myself, so far as I can, in giving a lead? But my mind has a habit of running inconveniently ahead of the times, — some might say, out of time altogether into the world of the ideal. Your party, you say, is going to be a social democratic party. Now I believe in something which might be called social democracy, but not in any of the forms now current, and I am not altogether in love with the European kind, however great an improvement it may be on the past. I hold that India having a spirit of her own and a governing temperament proper to her own civilisation, should in politics as in everything else strike out her own original path and not stumble in the wake of Europe. But this is precisely what she will be obliged to do, if she has to start on the road in her present chaotic and unprepared condition of mind. No doubt people talk of India developing on her own lines, but nobody seems to have very clear or sufficient ideas as to what those lines are to be. In this matter I have formed ideals and certain definite ideas of my own, in which at present very few are likely to follow me, since they are governed by an uncompromising spiritual idealism of an unconventional kind and would be unintelligible to many and an offence and stumbling block to a great number. But I have not as yet any clear and full idea of the practical lines; I have no formed programme. In a word, I am feeling my way in my mind and am not ready for either propaganda or action. Even if I were, it would mean for some time ploughing my lonely  

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furrow or at least freedom to take my own way. As the editor of your paper, I should be bound to voice the opinion of others and reserve my own, and while I have full sympathy with the general ideas of the advanced parties so far as concerns the action of the present moment and, if I were in the field, would do all I could to help them, I am almost incapable by nature of limiting myself in that way, at least to the extent that would be requisite.

Excuse the length of this screed. I thought it necessary to explain fully so as to avoid giving you the impression that I declined your request from any affectation or reality of spiritual aloofness or wish to shirk the call of the country or want of sympathy with the work you and others are so admirably doing. I repeat my regret that I am compelled to disappoint you.

Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose

To Balkrishna Shivaram Moonje

[1]

Pondicherry

Aug 30. 1920

Dear Dr.. Moonje,

As I have already wired to you, I find myself unable to accept your offer of the Presidentship of the Nagpur Congress. There are reasons even within the political field itself which in any case would have stood in my way. In the first place I have never signed and would never care to sign as a personal declaration of faith the Congress creed, as my own is of a different character. In the next place since my retirement from British India I have developed an outlook and views which have diverged a great deal from those I held at the time and, as they are remote from present actualities and do not follow the present stream of political action, I should find myself very much embarrassed what to say to the Congress. I am entirely in sympathy with all that is being done so far as its object is to secure liberty for India, but I should  

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be unable to identify myself with the programme of any of the parties. The President of the Congress is really a mouthpiece of the Congress and to make from the presidential chair a purely personal pronouncement miles away from what the Congress is thinking and doing would be grotesquely out of place. Not only so, but nowadays the President has a responsibility in connection with the All India Congress Committee and the policy of the Congress during the year and other emergencies that may arise which, apart from my constitutional objection and, probably, incapacity to discharge official duties of any kind or to put on any kind of harness, I should be unable to fulfil, since it is impossible for me to throw over suddenly my fixed programme and settle at once in British India. These reasons would in any case have come in the way of my accepting your offer.

The central reason however is this that I am no longer first and foremost a politician, but have definitely commenced another kind of work with a spiritual basis, a work of spiritual, social, cultural and economic reconstruction of an almost revolutionary kind, and am even making or at least supervising a sort of practical or laboratory experiment in that sense which needs all the attention and energy that I can have to spare. It is impossible for me to combine political work of the current kind and this at the beginning. I should practically have to leave it aside, and this I cannot do, as I have taken it up as my mission for the rest of my life. This is the true reason of my inability to respond to your call.

I may say that in any case I think you would be making a wrong choice in asking me to take Tilak's place at your head. No one now alive in India, or at least no one yet known, is capable of taking that place, but myself least of all. I am an idealist to the marrow and could only be useful when there is something drastic to be done, a radical or revolutionary line to be taken, (I do not mean revolutionary by violence) a movement with an ideal aim and direct method to be inspired and organised. Tilak's policy of "responsive cooperation", continued agitation and obstruction whenever needed — and that would be oftener than not in the present circumstances — is, no doubt,  

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the only alternative to some form of non-cooperation or passive resistance. But it would need at its head a man of his combined suppleness, skill and determination to make it effective. I have not the suppleness and skill — at least of the kind needed — and could only bring the determination, supposing I accepted the policy, which I could not do practically, as, for [ ]¹⁷ reasons of my own, nothing could induce me to set my foot in the new Councils. On the other hand a gigantic movement of noncooperation merely to get some Punjab officials punished or to set up again the Turkish Empire which is dead and gone, shocks my ideas both of proportion and of common sense. I could only understand it as a means of "embarrassing the Government" and seizing hold of immediate grievances in order to launch an acute struggle for autonomy after the manner of Egypt and Ireland, — though no doubt without the element of violence. All the same, it could be only on a programme involving an entire change of the creed, function and organisation and policy of the Congress, making it a centre of national reconstruction and not merely of political agitation that I could — if I had not the other reason I have spoken of — re-enter the political field. Unfortunately the political mind and habits created by the past methods of the Congress do not make that practicable at the moment. I think you will see that, holding these ideas, it is not possible for me to intervene and least of all on the chair of the President.

Might I suggest that the success of the Congress can hardly depend on the presence of a single person and one who has long been in obscurity? The friends who call on me are surely wrong in thinking that the Nagpur Congress will be uninspiring without me. The national movement is surely strong enough now to be inspired with its own idea especially at a time of stress like the present. I am sorry to disappoint, but I have given the reasons that compel me and I cannot see how it is avoidable.

Yours sincerely

Aurobindo Ghose

17 MS my  

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[2]

RECONSIDERATION IMPOSSIBLE [SUBSEQUENT]¹⁸ EVENTS ONLY CONFIRM MY DECISION.

19 September 1920

To Chittaranjan Das

"Arya" Office

Pondicherry

the 18th November, 1922

Dear Chitta,

It is a long time, almost two years I think, since I have written a letter to anyone. I have been so much retired and absorbed in my Sadhana that contact with the outside world has till lately been reduced to a minimum. Now that I am looking outward again, I find that circumstances lead me to write first to you, I say circumstances, because it is a need that makes me take up the pen after so long a disuse.

The need is in connection with the first outward work that I am undertaking after this long inner retirement. Barin has gone to Bengal and will see you in connection with it, but a word from me is perhaps necessary and therefore I send you through Barin this letter. I am giving him also a letter of authority from which you will understand the immediate nature of the need for which I have sent him to raise funds. But I may add something to make it more definite.

I think you know my present idea and the attitude towards life and work to which it has brought me. I have become confirmed in a perception which I had always, less clearly and dynamically then, but which has now become more and more evident to me, that the true basis of work and life is the spiritual, that is to say, a new consciousness to be developed only by Yoga. I see more and more manifestly that man can never get out of the futile circle the race is always treading until he has raised himself on to the new foundation. I believe also that it is the mission of

18 MS (telegram) SUBSEQUENTLY

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India to make this great victory for the world. But what precisely was the nature of the dynamic power of this greater consciousness? What was the condition of its effective truth? How could it be brought down, mobilised, organised, turned upon life? How could our present instruments, intellect, mind, life, body be made true and perfect channels for this great transformation? This was the problem I have been trying to work out in my own experience and I have now a sure basis, a wide knowledge and some mastery of the secret. Not yet its fulness and complete imperative presence — therefore I have still to remain in retirement. For I am determined not to work in the external field till I have the sure and complete possession of this new power of action, — not to build except on a perfect foundation.

But still I have gone far enough to be able to undertake one work on a larger scale than before — the training of others to receive this Sadhana and prepare themselves as I have done, for without that my future work cannot even be begun. There are many who desire to come here and whom I can admit for the purpose, there are a greater number who can be trained at a distance; but I am unable to carry on unless I have sufficient funds to be able to maintain a centre here and one or two at least outside. I need therefore much larger resources than I at present command. I have thought that by your recommendation and influence you may help Barin to gather them for me. May I hope that you will do this for me?

One word to avoid a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economical organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his own way in his Sangha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about, — my own work which I must do myself and no one can do for me.

I have been following with interest your political activities specially your present attempt to give a more flexible and practically effective turn to the non-cooperation movement. I doubt whether you will succeed against such contrary forces, but I wish you success in your endeavour. I am most interested however in  

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your indications about Swaraj; for I have been developing my own ideas about the organisation of a true Indian Swaraj and I shall look forward to see how far yours will fall in with mine.

Yours

Aurobindo.

To Shyamsundar Chakravarty

Pondicherry, March 12 ­ 1926

Dear Chakravarty,

I have been obliged to answer in the negative to your request by wire for contributions to the ["Bengalee"]19 on the occasion of your taking it over on behalf of the Nationalist party. I have been for a long time under a self-denying ordinance which precludes me from making any public utterance on politics and I have had to refuse similar requests from "Forward" and other papers. Even if it were not so, I confess that in the present confused state of politics I should be somewhat at a loss to make any useful pronouncement. No useful purpose could be served by any general statements on duties in the present situation. Everybody seems to be agreed on the general object and issue and the only question worth writing on is that of the best practical means for securing the agreed object and getting rid of the obstacles in the way. This is in any case a question for the practical leaders actually in the field and not for a retired spectator at a distance. It would be difficult for me even to pass an opinion on the rival policies in the field; for I have been unable to gather from what I have seen in the papers what is the practical turn they propose to give these policies or how they propose by them to secure Swaraj or bring it nearer. Please therefore excuse my refusal.

Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose.

19 MS "Bengali"  

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