At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo

21 October 1933

MYSELF: Herewith a letter from a friend. She would like to come and settle here if you would accept her.

SRI AUROBINDO: The difficulty is that she seems to have vairagya for worldly life without any knowledge or special call for this yoga and this yoga and the life here are quite different things from ordinary yoga and ordinary Ashram. It is not a life of meditative retirement as elsewhere. Moreover it would be impossible for us to decide anything without seeing her and knowing at close hand what she is like. We are not just now taking more inmates into the Ashram except in a very few cases.

MYSELF: Sri Aurobindo, I have received a letter from another girl who had come for Darshan. You may remember that long ago she wrote once asking for shelter here. I have known her since her childhood. She wants now to come to do yoga. I have asked her to read your books, but she expects a reply. Will you let me know what to write?

SRI AUROBINDO: As for your friend, it is not possible to say that she can come here for that depends on many things which are not clearly present here. First, one must enter this Path or it must be seen that one is called to it; afterwards there is the question whether one is meant for the Ashram life here. The question about the family duties can be answered in this way — the family duties exist so long as one is in the ordinary consciousness of the Garhastha, if the call to spiritual life comes, whether one keeps to them or not depends partly upon the way of yoga one follows, partly on one’s own spiritual necessity. There are many who pursue inwardly the spiritual life and keep the family duties, not as social duties but as a field for the practice of Karmayoga, others abandon everything to follow the spiritual call or line and they are justified if that is necessary for the yoga they practise or if that is the imperative demand of the soul within them.

MYSELF: Mother, my inborn idleness is still very cheerfully alive; but I am none the less desirous of offering myself through work. I was never devoted to work, especially household work — this big fault finds scope even when I remain in a good condition, while it is also true that I want to get rid of this idleness and turn a good worker. It seems I became one, and a habit also grew up but the frequent bouts of idleness unsettle that habit.

SRI AUROBINDO: Idleness must of course go — but sometimes I think you have pulled too much the other way. To be able to work with full energy is necessary — but to be able not to work is also necessary.

MYSELF: Mother, what is the colour of moonlight? Does it give the impression of a golden colour or a silver colour? My impression is that the light of the Sun is gold but the light of the moon is silvery. Is it not generally said “Silvery moon”? Of course in the moon sometimes one can see a little golden tint just when it begins to rise, but its light is always silver. Is it not so? Or is it sometimes golden?

SRI AUROBINDO: The moon itself is often golden, not always silvery. As for the light when it rests on the ground it is golden, in the air it is pale whitish blue.

(21.10.33)