I have no time to read books usually. I seldom had and none at all now. I have had no inspirations from the sadhana of Bejoy Goswami, though a good deal at one time from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. My remarks simply meant that I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the Upanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed. In this development the recent spiritual history of India is a very important stage and the names I mentioned had a special prominence in my thought at the time — they seemed to me to indicate the lines from which the future spiritual development had most directly to proceed, not staying but passing on. I do not know that I would put my meaning exactly in the language you suggest. I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion new or old for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.

18 August 1935

Islam, Hinduism, and the Integral Yoga

I want to do something to work for Islamic ideals here. I have a strong desire to do this, but somehow it cuts me off very much from the Ashram atmosphere and sadhana.

As to what you say about Islamic ideals, you should remember that whatever is necessary to keep from the past as materials for the future, will of itself and automatically be taken into the new creation when things are ready and the full Light and Power at work. It is not necessary for anybody to represent or stand for Islamic ideals or for Hindu or Christian ideals; if anybody

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here thinks he must stand for one or other of these things, he is making a mistake and is likely to create unnecessary narrowness, clash and opposition. There is no opposition or clash between them in spiritual experience; it is only the external human mind that mistakenly puts them against each other. What we are here to make is a new creation in which there is a larger reconciling Truth than anything that went before in the past; but what will reconcile and create anew is the Power, the Light, the Knowledge that comes from above. The important thing therefore is to prepare yourself for that Power, Light and Knowledge; it is only when that descends that all will be done rightly. Nothing can be done rightly by the individual working without the Light and the Knowledge.

14 January 1932

I want to ask if there is any likelihood of a fight between the Hindus and Mahomedans in India, and if the forces are nearly equal on both sides or one side is superior to the other.

It is to be hoped that in time the present mentality will pass away and both communities learn to live as children of the same Mother. If they fight, neither are likely to gain but both to lose, even perhaps giving an opening to a third party as has happened before in their history.

I also want to ask if Mahomedanism will retain its present form and terms in the future. At present its only strength and faith is in the most orthodox section, which does not and cannot change even a bit; for the least change would mean the end of its formation, and in that it has sufficient force and faith. What happens under such circumstances? Can it have a place in the supramental creation?

There is no place for rigid orthodoxy, whether Hindu, Mahomedan or Christian in the future. Those who cling to it, lose hold on life and go under — as has been shown by the fate of the Hindus in India and of the orthodox Mahomedan countries all over the world. It is only where there has been an opening to new light and inevitable change that strength is returning as

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in Turkey and Persia. In the supramental creation fundamental truth will always find a place; but orthodoxy means a clinging to narrow limitations, and limitations of that kind cannot exist in the supramental creation. All that is permanently true will be taken up into the creation of the future.

23 February 1932

I wish that Muslims might come here from outside and keep a more constant contact. It would create a nice atmosphere here. After all, it seems improbable that all the twelve crores of Mahomedans should be left quite out of contact with the Yoga.

These things that rise in you are certainly desires of the physical vital or else ideas of the physical mind giving a mental shape to desires. The sadhak has to see them when they rise and note them for what they are, but not allow them to move him to action.

If one is meant to be an intermediary between the Yogic Truth that is descending here and some part of the outside world, e.g. the Mahomedan world, it is necessary first that he should get a calm and complete balance, a full foundation in the higher consciousness and the permanent Light in his being, — otherwise he will not be able to do his work. If he tries before he is ready, he will fail — therefore let there be nothing done that is premature.

16 November 1932

You write: "If one is meant to be an intermediary between the Yogic Truth and . . . the Mahomedan world". I wish to ask if the Mahomedan world is such a separate thing here. For this phrase cannot be put thus: "between the Yogic Truth and the Hindu world".

Of course it can — the orthodox Hindu world is quite separate, all the outside world is separate, until the Light that is growing here makes the connection.

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I thought the attitude towards Mahomedans lay in the minds of the people here because of a subconscious influence and I took this to be an ignorance that can be overlooked for the time being. But if Sri Aurobindo also writes like this, I wish to know if the Mahomedan world is a separate block to be dealt with as one deals with strangers, foreigners, almost enemies.

I wish also to ask this: The Mother has often issued notices saying, "When a man comes here, he ceases to be a Hindu or a Mahomedan etc." Though there is sufficient pressure on the Mahomedans to cease to be Mahomedan, does anybody cease to be a Hindu? Is the idea even believed by any Hindu sadhak? So certain is everybody of its not being true that there is hardly any hope of such a thought ever entering the mind. Under these circumstances, God alone knows if it is right or sensible for me to live on and see the ruin without doing anything to bring in the Mahomedan influence here. When I surrendered, I had not ceased to be a Mahomedan as happened afterwards.

If there is anybody in this Asram who is a Hindu sectarian hating Mahomedans and not opening to the Light in which all can overcome their limitations and in which all can be fulfilled (each religion or way of approaching the Divine contributing its own element of the truth, but all fused together and surpassed), then that Hindu sectarian is not a completely surrendered disciple of Sri Aurobindo. By his narrowness and hatred of others he is bringing an element of falsehood into the work that is being done here.

When I spoke of the outside world, I meant all outside, including the Hindus and Christians and everyone else, all who have not yet accepted the greater Light that is coming. If this Asram were here only to serve Hinduism I would not be in it and the Mother who was never a Hindu would not be in it.

What is being done here is the preparation of a Truth which includes all other Truth but is limited to no single religion or creed, and this preparation has to be done apart and in silence until things are ready. It is in that sense that I speak of the rest of the world and all its component parts as being the outside world — not that there was nothing to be done or no connection to be

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made; but these things are to be done in their own proper time.

Do you tell me that all the people here show the spirit you speak of against the Mahomedans or are you generalising from particular cases? If it is as you say, I am quite ready to intervene to put a stop to it. For such a spirit would be entirely opposed to the Truth I am here to manifest.

When I came here in the beginning, X told me that Sri Aurobindo said: "Mahomedanism was all right for the people of Arabia and those countries. I don't see why it should have come to India." Had Mahomedanism no message for India? Is this a teaching of the Ashram?

No, certainly not; it is a sheer misinterpretation of my views. I have written clearly that the coming of so many religions to India was part of her spiritual destiny and a great advantage for the work to be done.

17 November 1932

If the sadhaks here remain Hindus, which in the end turns out to be their very aim and zest, what an utter fool I would be to allow myself to be changed and trust myself to be worked upon thus.

Again, when Sri Aurobindo writes about what he is going to manifest here, I wonder why such a great thing is partial. Why should that creation be formed in such a way as to exclude Mahomedans from it and put on them an all-round pressure which is experienced by nobody else. To give up one's past and forget it or to try not to think about it is one thing; to go through the humiliation of taking up the way of others is most difficult, almost shameful, and I have lost faith in it.

It is news to me that I have excluded Mahomedans from the Yoga. I have not done it any more than I have excluded Europeans or Christians. As for giving up one's past, if that means giving up the outer forms of the old religions, it is done as much by the Hindus here as by the Mahomedans. Every Hindu here — even those who were once orthodox Brahmins and have grown old in it, — give up all observance of caste, take food from Pariahs and are served by them, associate and eat with

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Mahomedans, Christians, Europeans, cease to practise temple worship or Sandhya (daily prayer and mantras), accept a non Hindu from Europe as their spiritual director. These are things people who have Hinduism as their aim and object would not do — they do it because they are obliged here to look to a higher ideal in which these things have no value. What is kept of Hinduism is Vedanta and Yoga, in which Hinduism is one with Sufism of Islam and with the Christian mystics. But even here it is not Vedanta and Yoga in their traditional limits (their past), but widened and rid of many ideas that are peculiar to the Hindus. If I have used Sanskrit terms and figures, it is because I know them and do not know Persian and Arabic. I have not the slightest objection to anyone here drawing inspiration from Islamic sources if they agree with the Truth as Sufism agrees with it. On the other hand I have not the slightest objection to Hinduism being broken to pieces and disappearing from the face of the earth, if that is the Divine Will. I have no attachment to past forms; what is Truth will always remain; the Truth alone matters.

17 November 1932

Does the supramental victory mean the victory of the Hindu religion and culture over others? Will the supramental consciousness come into the body of a man whether or not he subordinates himself to Hinduism?

The Asram has nothing to do with Hindu religion or culture or any religion or nationality. The Truth of the Divine which is the spiritual reality behind all religions and the descent of the supramental which is not known to any religion are the sole things which will be the foundation of the work of the future.

The Hindu Religion and Its Social Structure

My friend Dhurjati writes: "I want to know the essential feature of Hinduism. Hinduism is inside me, but please bring it up on my conscious plane. The first step of my realisation must always be conceptual and propositional."

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I am rather at a loss from which side to tackle the affair. Conceptually and propositionally is it possible to give Dhurjati some thing about the essential feature of Hinduism which he does not know already? I can say what to my view is the truth behind Hinduism, a truth contained in the very nature (not superficially seen of course) of human existence, something which is not the monopoly of Hinduism but of which Hindu spirituality was the richest expression. Perhaps I can try to bring out something on that line. I will see.

19 May 1936

I send you Jawaharlal's Autobiography. I want to have your opinion on his reading of the Hindu religion. I agree with the bulk of his condemnation of religion. But it seems to me he is a little hazy in his ideas, expecting from it just what is beyond its portée. But of course I don't wonder, for religion is a most mysterious term, like our famous kalpataru of Indra's garden which promises to its worshippers any fruit they covet.

I fear that to accede to your request for a page and a half on the mystic soul of India is physically impossible now and psychologically a little difficult. I have once more the full flood of correspondence, in spite of the rules of time which have proved an insufficient dam. Each night is a race to get things done in time which I generally lose and that means an increasing mass of arrears which have to be dealt with whenever I get some exceptional leisure. On Sunday a mass of outside letters waiting for disposal because I have no time on other days and not enough on Sunday either. In these circumstances to produce a page on such a subject would be a feat of acrobacy not easily performable.

As for the subject, well in the days of the Karmayogin or of the Defence of Indian Culture I could have served you freely. Now I feel as if I have said all I could say on these things — they have gone back into the far recess of my mind and to pull them out for expression is not easy. That is a second obstacle.

I do not take the same view of the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of

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man's spirituality with the errors that come in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral temple half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail, but always fantastic with a significance — crumbled and overgrown in many places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. The outer social structure which it built for its approach is another matter.

19 September 1936

Social Rules, Caste and the Ashram

You must not get upset like this over these things. After all when one comes to an Asram to do Yoga, one leaves social rules, caste, ceremonial purity etc. behind one. Also one tries to practise সমতা [samata] to all people and all things, because the Divine is everywhere. Why not take that attitude instead of the old one?

No Public Worship

It seems that even when visitors are there, people come into the Reception Room and prostrate before the photograph. I thought the rule had been made that when visitors were there, no one was to go? This rule must be strictly enforced — inform the gatekeepers and let everybody know that if these things continue, the Reception Room will have to be closed and opened only when visitors come.

23 December 1933

The reception hall is for visitors. It is only when there are no visitors that Sadhaks can go there — for a short meditation if they want. It should not be made a place of public worship.

27 December 1933

Inward Worship and Outer Forms

The Mother's prohibition is only against sadhaks being there and prostrating when visitors are in the Reception Room. This

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room was originally meant for the reception of people from outside and the photo was put there to be shown to visitors who could not see me. The permission was at first given to one sadhak or another to sit and meditate there and afterwards it has become a common practice to go and make pranam, but it was understood that the sadhaks should not be there when there were visits. This rule has not been observed and people have used it as a place of public worship. It was this that was disapproved of by the Mother.

There is no restriction in this Yoga to inward worship and meditation only. As it is a Yoga for the whole being, not for the inner being only, no such restriction could be intended. Old forms of the different religions may fall away, but absence of all forms is not a rule of the sadhana.

c. January 1934

You have written [in the preceding letter] that the "old forms . . . may fall away"; but I think it would be proper if they fell away only after a true consciousness was established.

That is what I meant.

It would seem to me that there would be no impropriety if forms like Pranam, Dhup, Dip or Naivedya are continued even after a true inner consciousness is established.

I was thinking not of Pranam etc. which have a living value, but of old forms which persist although they have no longer any value — e.g. Sraddha for the dead. Also here forms which have no relation to this Yoga — for instance Christians who cling to the Christian forms or Mahomedans to the Namaz or Hindus to the Sandhyavandana in the old way might soon find them either falling off or else an obstacle to the free development of their sadhana.

3 January 1934

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