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Writing for Publication
Unwillingness to Write for Newspapers and Magazines
If I allow the Orient to publish something yet unpublished by me, I lose my defence against demands from outside which is that I have ceased to contribute to magazines, newspapers et hoc genus omne and have made it indeed a rule not to do so. Therefore —
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I am afraid X is asking from me a thing psychologically impossible. You know that I have forbidden myself to write anything for publication for some time past and some time to come — I am self-debarred from press, platform and public. Even if it were otherwise, it would be impossible under present circumstances to write at a week’s notice. You will present him my excuses in your best and most tactful manner. 27 August 1931
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The answer to Woolf was written long ago at the time Woolf’s article appeared in the New Statesman and Nation — a London weekly. It was X who drew my notice to it and asked for an answer. Y this time wanted something of mine for the Onward August 15th number and chose this one. 24 August 1934
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I have not begun writing in the papers — what is being published in the magazines is excerpts from the unpublished things in the Arya or translations such as X is making. So I cannot give anything. As for past writings, I never take the initiative for publication in papers. Y, X or Z sometimes ask for leave to publish this
Page – 67 or that somewhere where it is asked for and I consent — that is all. circa 1936
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The initiative is always X and I do not send anything myself or intervene in his action, but he takes the sanction from me. All that you need to write to Delhi is that Sri Aurobindo is not writing articles for the papers; the things that appear from time to time are old writings of his not yet published in book form and sent to the papers at their request with his sanction. He is not writing any new things nowadays, as his time is entirely occupied with his work. This is simply to prevent demands on me for new contributions which I cannot satisfy. 2 July 1936
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As to the Foreword, I had made a strict rule not to publish anything of the kind or anything except the books from the Arya and letters, so as to avoid any call on me from anyone. I don’t know if I can break this rule now. In any case I shall have to read and consider, and I have now no time for anything but the correspondence and the work of concentration that is necessary — the pressure is too great for reading anything. So they should not depend on me for this Foreword. 28 September 1936
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X must not expect the rather portentous article or essay he demands from me. You know I have made it a rule not to make any public pronouncement; the Cripps affair was an exception that remains solitary; for the other things on the war were private letters, not written for publication. I do not propose to change the rule in order to set forth a programme for the Supermind energy to act on if and when it comes down now or fifteen years after.1 Great Powers do not publish beforehand, least of all in a journalistic compilation, their war-plans or even their peace-plans; the Supermind is the greatest of all Powers and we can 1 Sri Aurobindo was asked to write an article about what the world would be like fifteen years after the supramental descent. — Ed.
Page – 68 leave it to its own secrecy until the moment of its action. 14 January 1945
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What has happened to my letter of request for a Message to grace the Special Number of Mother India of August 15? I have heard nothing from you.
I have been trying to get you informed without success about the impossibility of your getting your expected Message from me for the 15th August. I had and have no intention of writing a Message for my birthday this year. It is psychologically impossible for me to manufacture one to command; an inspiration would have to come and it is highly improbable that any will come in this short space of time; I myself have no impulse towards it. But how is it that you have clean forgotten my rule of not writing any article for an outside paper, magazine or journal — I mean other than those conducted from the Asram and by the Asram — and even for these I write nothing new except for the Bulletin at the Mother’s request, — also my reasons for this fixed rule? If I started doing that kind of thing, my freedom would be gone; I would have to write at everybody’s command, not only articles but blessings, replies on public questions and all the rest of that kind of conventional rubbish. I would be like any ordinary politician publishing my views on all and sundry matters, discoursing on all sorts of subjects, a public man at the disposal of the public. That would make myself, my blessings, my views and my Messages exceedingly cheap; in fact, I would be no longer Sri Aurobindo. Already Hindusthan Standard, the Madras Mail and I know not what other journals and societies are demanding at the pistol’s point special messages for the 15th for themselves and I am supposed to stand and deliver. I won’t. I regret that I must disappoint you, but self-preservation is a first law of Nature. 3 August 1949
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Writing Philosophy
Look here! Do these people expect me to turn myself again into a machine for producing articles? The times of the Bande Mataram and Arya are over, thank God! I have now only the Asram correspondence and that is “overwhelming” enough in all conscience without starting philosophy for standard books and the rest of it. And philosophy! Let me tell you in confidence that I never, never, never was a philosopher — although I have written philosophy which is another story altogether. I knew precious little about philosophy before I did the Yoga and came to Pondicherry — I was a poet and a politician, not a philosopher! How I managed to do it? First, because Richard proposed to me to cooperate in a philosophical review — and as my theory was that a Yogi ought to be able to turn his hand to anything, I could not very well refuse: and then he had to go to the War and left me in the lurch with 64 pages a month of philosophy all to write by my lonely self. Secondly, I had only to write down in the terms of the intellect all that I had observed and come to know in practising Yoga daily and the philosophy was there, automatically. But that is not being a philosopher! I don’t know how to excuse myself to Radhakrishnan — for I can’t say all that to him.2 Perhaps you can find a formula for me? Perhaps — “so occupied not a moment for any other work; can’t undertake because I might not be able to carry out my promise”. What do you say? 31 August 1934
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Anilbaran says that he can compile something out of The Life Divine for Radhakrishnan. Can he do it?
No, I think not. 10 September 1934
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2 Sri Aurobindo’s letter to Dr. Radhakrishnan, turning down his request to contribute an article to a book Radhakrishnan was editing, is published in Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, volume 36 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, pp. 444 45. — Ed.
Page – 70 As to Radhakrishnan, I don’t care whether he is right or wrong in his eagerness to get the blessed contribution from me. But the first fact is that it is quite impossible for me to write philosophy to order. If something comes to me of itself, I can write, if I have time. But I have not time. I had some thought of writing to Adhar Das pointing out that he was mistaken in his criticism of my ideas about consciousness and intuition and developing briefly what were my real views about these things. But I have never been able to do it — I might as well think of putting the moon under my arm, Hanuman-like, — though in his case it was the sun — and going for a walk! The moon is not available and the walk is not possible. It would be the same if I promised anything to Radhakrishnan — it would not get done, and that would be much worse than a refusal. And the second fact is that I do not care a button about my having my name in any blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a “leader”. Then again I don’t believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom — and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere — or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the “religions” and is the reason of their failure. If I tolerate a little writing about myself, it is only to have a sufficient counterweight in that amorphous chaos, the public mind, to balance the hostility that is always aroused by the presence of a new dynamic Truth in this world of ignorance. But the utility ends there and too much advertisement would
Page – 71 defeat that object. I am perfectly “rational”, I assure you, in my methods and I do not proceed merely on any personal dislike of fame. If and so far as publicity serves the Truth, I am quite ready to tolerate it; but I do not find publicity for its own sake desirable. This “Contemporary Philosophy”, British or Indian, looks to me very much like bookmaking and, though the “vulgarisation” of knowledge — to use the French term — by bookmaking may have its use, I prefer to do solid work and leave that to others. You may say that I can write a solid thing in philosophy and let it be bookmade. But even the solid tends to look shoddy in such surroundings. And besides my solid work at present is not philosophy but something less wordy and more to the point. If that work gets done, then it will propagate itself so far as propagation is necessary — if it were not to get done, propagation would be useless. These are my reasons. However let us wait till the book is there and see what kind of stuff it is. 2 October 1934
Philosophical Theft
Radhakrishnan, in his lecture published in the Hindu,3 has stolen not only most of your ideas but has actually lifted several sentences en masse. I wonder how such piracy in philosophical literature passes unchastised. I am thinking either of writing to him deploring the theft or informing the Hindu.
I don’t think it is worth while doing anything. The thefts are obvious, but if he wants to add some peacock plumes to his dun colours! 24 July 1936
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Professor Mahendranath Sircar and others would like to write to Radhakrishnan, asking him why he used passages from your works without acknowledgement.
3 “World Fellowship through Faith . . . Sir S. Radhakrishnan’s Address”,
The Hindu
Page – 72 No. I have said no public notice should be taken of the matter. I consider it inadvisable, so the letters should not be sent.
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From the Yogic point of view one ought to be indifferent and without sense of ownership or desire of fame or praise. But for that one must have arrived at the Yogic poise — such a detachment is not possible without it. I do not mind Radhakrishnan’s lifting whole sentences and paragraphs from my writings at the World Conference as his own and getting credit for a new and quite original point of view. But if I were eager to figure before the world as a philosopher, I would resent it. But even if one does not mind, one can see the impropriety of the action or take measures against its repetition, if one thinks it worth while. 5 August 1936
The Sale of His Books
The question of the royalty can be deferred till X has seen the translation. If it is not approved, the question of royalty does not arise. You can tell him that the Asram is not supported by public subscriptions but by what is given by disciples and private sympathisers. Therefore Sri Aurobindo’s publications cannot be given free, they are sold and the proceeds counted among the available resources just as is the case with the publications of the Ramakrishna Mission. 19 September 1936
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