'Letters on Himself and the Ashram' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 Section Two   General Remarks on His Life   Remarks on His Life in Pondicherry after 1926   On His Retirement   What harm would there be if you would talk for a few minutes to each sadhak at least once a year?   There would be no gain from it and my retirement is necessary for the inner work. 25 May 1933   *   When will you come out of your retirement?   That is a thing of which nothing can be said at present. My retirement had a purpose and that purpose must first be fulfilled. 25 Augu

Part Four   The Practice of Yoga in the Ashram and Outside       Section One   The Practice of Yoga in the Ashram 1926 ­ 1950       Entering Sri Aurobindo's Path   Acceptance as a Disciple, 1926 ­ 1949   His aspiration may be satisfied if he makes himself fit. Let him continue to read the Arya and practise daily meditation. In the meditation he should concentrate first in an aspiration that the central truths of which he reads should be made real to him in conscious experience and his mind opened to the calm, wideness, st

Part Three The Leader and the Guide     Section One   The Guru and the Avatar   The Guru   The Guru and the Divine   It is not usual to use the word Guru in the supramental yoga, here everything comes from the Divine himself. But if anybody wants it he can use it for the time being. November 1929   *     The relation of Guru and disciple is only one of many relations which one can have with the Divine, and in this Yoga which aims at a supramental realisation, it is not usual to give it this name; rather, the Divine is regarded as the Source, the

Remarks on the Current State of the Sadhana, 1931 - 1947   1931   I am surprised at Tagore's remark1 about the two years; he must have greatly misunderstood or misheard me. I did tell him that I would expand only after making a perfect (inner) foundation here, but I gave no date. I did give that date of two years long before in my letter to Barin,2 but I had then a less ample view of the work to be done than I have now —  and I am now more cautious about assigning dates than I was once. To fix a precise time is impossible except in the two regions of certitude —  the pure material which is

Section Four   Remarks on Contemporaries  and on Contemporary Problems       Remarks on Spiritual Figures in India   Ramakrishna Paramhansa   I would have been surprised to hear that I regard (in agreement with an advanced sadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pigmy, if I had not become past astonishment in these matters. I have said, it seems, so many things that were never in my mind and done too not a few that I have never dreamed of doing! I shall not be surprised or perturbed if one day I am reported to have declared, on the authority of advanced or even unadvanced sadhaks, that Buddha wa

Letters on Himself and the Ashram   VOLUME 35 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 2011 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA     Letters on Himself and the Ashram   Publisher's Note   This volume contains letters in which Sri Aurobindo referred to his life and works, his sadhana or practice of yoga, and the sadhana of members of his ashram. Many of the letters appeared earlier in Sri Aurobindo on Himself

Life in England, 1879 ­ 1893   An Early Memory     I am not at all concerned about Nicodemus and what seems to me his stupid and ignorant question; he brings a fantastic physical notion across Christ's teaching and I am afraid I must hold him partially responsible for Freud's sexual meanderings and his craze for going back into his mother's womb. I don't myself remember any blissful sojourn in that locality in my case and I don't believe in it and I am quite sure I never felt any passion for returning there. The great Sigismund must have had it, I suppose, and remembered that blissful period and felt a longing for beatific return and I suppose o

Contact with People Outside the Ashram   Correspondence with Outsiders   You can tell him about the arrangements for correspondence. We do not write ourselves. He can always write to the Mother or to myself (we have received his letters); but answers, if any, are given on our instructions to Nolini who has the general charge of the correspondence or in certain cases by someone else specially deputed for the purpose. 21 August 1931   Does Not Give Advice on Mundane Matters   Since he has sent a stamped envelope, you can write to him (in Bengali) that it is no use putting t

Mantras Written by Sri Aurobindo   Sanskrit Mantras       OM anandamayi chaitanyamayi [satyamayi parame]1 circa 1927 * 1 Sri Aurobindo wrote this mantra around 1927 as one of several miscellaneous notations connected with Record of Yoga. See Record of Yoga, volume 11 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, page 1352. Note that he did not complete the transliteration in Latin script. The text was first published as a message in November 1955. Still later the Mother completed the transliteration in her own hand; see the facsimile below. —Ed.     Page – 829     OM Tat Sat Jyotir Aravinda    

Discipline in the Ashram   Discipline Defined   What is discipline?   To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and intelligent will and not according to one's own fancy, vital impulses and desires. In Yoga obedience to the Guru or to the Divine and the law of the Truth as declared by the Guru is the foundation of discipline. 12 June 1933   *   What is discipline and how does it apply here, in our Yoga?   It is not the discipline of Yoga,