Page 31 - All India Magazine May-2025

Mother, in the letter below Sri Aurobindo has written about the
necessity of restricting our contacts with the outside world and
separating ourselves from the ordinary life, in order to carry on our
special work of bringing down a new consciousness for the earth.
This letter was written in 1933. But now all types of people
from the outside world are freely allowed to come to the Ashram,
and the sadhaks of the Ashram also freely mix with them. Is it be-
cause we have now reached a new stage in our work in which the
earlier restrictions in our contacts with the outside world are no
longer necessary? Will you please enlighten me on this point?
(Question to Sri Aurobindo)
"Love of the Divine in all beings and the constant perception and
acceptance of its workings in all things"— if this is one of the ways
of realising the Divine and seeing Him in all, why do we here restrict
our contacts with people in the outside world? Why can we not give
our love to all?

(Reply of Sri Aurobindo)
That is all right in the ordinary Karma yoga which aims at union
with the cosmic spirit and stops short at the overmind — but here
a special work has to be done and a new realisation achieved for
the earth and not for ourselves alone. It is necessary to stand apart
from the rest of the world so as to separate ourselves from the
ordinary consciousness in order to bring down a new one.
It is not that love for all is not part of the sadhana, but it has
not to translate itself at once into a mixing with all — it can only ex-
press itself in a general and when need be dynamic universal good-
will, but for the rest it must find vent in this labour of bringing down
the higher consciousness with all its effect for the earth. As for
accepting the working of the Divine in all things that is necessary
here too in the sense of seeing it even behind our struggles and dif-
ficulties, but not accepting the nature of man and the world as it
is — our aim is to move towards a more divine working which will

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