A. Frequent Absence from Ashram Life

Many ashramites have taken to the habit of leaving their field of work in the Ashram and going away elsewhere in and out of season for a short or a long period of time and for reasons not at all connected with their avowed intention of building up a dedicated spiritual life. Their consciousness has become so insensitive that they feel no difference in them whether they are physically staying in the Ashram or dwelling elsewhere in an alien atmosphere. It is not a day too early that the Board of Trustees of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram has sounded a note of warning in this regard in the brochure they have brought out on 1.1.95. We take the liberty of quoting here the relevant passage from their publication:

"The inmates will not go out of the Ashram at any time for any reason. In case of an emergency or absolute necessity they will consult the Trust Board and follow their advice.

"Though all of us know that it was the Mother's wish that one should not go out from the Ashram, lately it has been found that the inmates go out for days and weeks together for reasons which are hardly important - say, for some celebration or problem in the family or even in a relative's or friend's family or for participating in cultural programmes or pleasure trips. Apart from being detrimental to our own well-being, this causes great hardship to the various services in the Ashram, for we forget that we have to work here as a community. When a brief absence from the Ashram is thought unavoidable, this can always be considered by the Trust."

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Sri Aurobindo on Sadhaks Absenting from the Ashram:

(1)"No one in fact is kept here when his will or decision is to go - although the principle of the spiritual life is against any return to the old one even for a time especially if the deeper urge is there and striving towards a firm foundation of the new consciousness - for the return to the ordinary atmosphere and surroundings and motives disturbs the work and throws back the progress." (Letters on Yoga, p. 865)

(2)"Most people after the atmosphere here cannot tolerate the ordinary atmosphere. If they go outside, they are restless until they return. Even X's aunt who was here only for a few months writes in the same way. But probably when people get into the control of a falsehood as Y and Z did, they are projected into the unregenerated vital nature and no longer feel the difference of the atmosphere." (Ibid., p. 866)

(3)"The feeling of difficulty or uneasiness in going is... a sign that the soul has taken root here and finds it painful to uproot itself." (Ibid., p. 867)

(4)"The inability to go [from the Ashram] can come from the psychic which refuses, when it comes to the point, to allow the other parts to budge, or it can come from the vital which has no longer any pull towards the ordinary life and knows that it will never be satisfied there. It is usually the higher parts of the vital that act like that. What still is capable of turning outwards is probably the physical vital in which the old tendencies have not been extinguished." (Ibid., pp. 867-68)