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Work in the Ashram
Work and Sadhana
I have read in The Synthesis of Yoga and the Mother’s Conversations that every act and movement, thought and word should be an offering. Even if this is a strictly mental effort without the heart’s devotion, as it may be at first, it is sure to lead to devotion, provided the effort is sincere. This discipline is quite possible in acts of a more or less mechanical nature like walking or eating, but where the work involves mental concentration, as in reading or writing, it seems well nigh impossible. If the consciousness has to be busy with the remembrance, the attention will get divided and the work will not be properly done.
It is because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered. 4 May 1933
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Does this consciousness [mentioned in the preceding letter] come only by aspiration or can one have it by following a mental discipline?
One starts by a mental effort — afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her. 31 May 1933
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We cannot approve of your idea — there are already enough intellectuals in the Asram and the room-keeping intellectual is not a type whose undue propagation we are disposed to encourage. Outside work is just what is necessary to keep the equilibrium of the nature and you certainly need it for that purpose. Also
Page – 742 your presence in the D.R. [Dining Room] is indispensable. For the rest instead of getting vexed with X or Y you should seek the cause of these things in yourself — that is always the true rule for a sadhak. You are sometimes at your best and then things go on very well; but sometimes you are not at all at your best and then these misunderstandings arise. The remedy therefore is to be at your best always — not to be in your room always, but to be in your best and therefore your true self always. 15 May 1934
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I have often felt that dhyāna was a better way than karma, poetry etc. to reach the Divine — a shorter cut I mean. Am I right?
Meditation is one means of the approach to the Divine and a great way, but it cannot be called a short cut — for most it is a long and difficult though very high ascent. It can by no means be short unless it brings a descent and even then it is only a foundation that is quickly laid — afterwards meditation has to build laboriously a big superstructure on that foundation. It is very indispensable, but there is nothing of the short cut about it. Karma is a much simpler road — provided one’s mind is not fixed on the karma to the exclusion of the Divine. The aim must be the Divine and the work can only be a means. The use of poetry etc. is to keep one in contact with one’s inner being and that helps to prepare for the direct contact with the inmost, but one must not stop with that, one must go on to the real thing. If one thinks of being a “literary man”, a poet, a painter as things worth while for their own sake, then it is no longer the Yogic spirit. That is why I have sometimes to say that our business is to be Yogis, not merely poets, painters etc. Love, bhakti, surrender, the psychic opening are the only short cut to the Divine — or can be; for if the love and bhakti are too vital, then there is likely to be a seesaw between ecstatic expectation and viraha, abhimāna, despair, which will make it not a short cut but a long one, a zigzag, not a straight flight, a whirling round one’s own ego instead of a running towards the Divine. 10 December 1934
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If I remember right, you wrote to me that work is only a means for the preparation of the spiritual life; otherwise it has no spiritual value.
[Sri Aurobindo underlined “only”, put a question mark above it, and wrote:] Lord God! when did I make this stupendous statement which destroys at one fell swoop the two volumes of the Essays on the Gita and all the seven volumes of the Arya? Work by itself is only a preparation, so is meditation by itself, but work done in the increasing Yogic consciousness is a means of realisation as much as meditation is.
In your letter to X1 you say that work helps to prepare for the direct contact with the inmost. In another letter you say that work prepares for the right consciousness to develop — which means the same thing.
I have not said, I hope, that work only prepares. Meditation also prepares for the direct contact. If we are to do work only as a preparation and then become motionless meditative ascetics, then all my spiritual teaching is false and there is no use for supramental realisation or anything else that has not been done in the past.
My own impression is that work is an excellent means as a preparation, but the major experiences and realisations are not likely to come in during work. My little experience corroborates me, because whatever drops of Ananda descended on me, were mostly during meditation. Only once did I have two minutes of Ananda during work.
I see. When the time for preparation is over, one will sit immobile for ever after and never do any work — for, as you say, work and realisation cannot go together. Hurrah for the Himalayas! Well, but why not then the old Yoga? If work is so contrary to realisation! That is Shankara’s teaching.
1 The letter of 10 December 1934 on page 743. — Ed.
Page – 744 The main difference between the two is that in work the attention is bound to be diverted. While working with the hand, utter the name of Hari with the mouth — this attitude is quite possible, but only as a preparation. It is not enough to take us to the goal, which meditation alone can do; because there the whole being is absorbed in engrossing meditation on the Beloved.
In that case I am entirely wrong in preaching a dynamic Yoga — Let us go back to the cave and the forest.
You have said that 9/10 of your time is spent in doing correspondence, works etc., whereas only 1/10 is devoted to concentration.2 One naturally asks, why should it not be possible for you to do concentration and work at the same time?
For me, correspondence alone. I have no time left for other “works etc”. Concentration and meditation are not the same thing. One can be concentrated in work or bhakti as well as in meditation. For God’s sake be careful about your vocabulary, or else you will tumble into many errors and loosenesses of thinking. If I devoted 9/10 of my time to concentration and none to work — the result would be equally unsatisfactory. My concentration is for a particular work — it is not for meditation divorced from life. When I concentrate I work upon others, upon the world, upon the play of forces. What I say is that to spend all the time reading and writing letters is not sufficient for the purpose. I am not asking to become a meditative Sannyasi.
Did you not retire for five or six years for an exclusive and intensive meditation?
I am not aware that I did so. But my biographers probably know more about it than I do.
2 See the letter of 26 October 1934 on page 333. — Ed.
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If the Supramental Divine himself differentiates between work and concentration . . .
Between concentration on correspondence alone and the full many-sided work — not between work and concentration.
and finds it difficult to radiate his Force among the few sadhaks contemporaneously with his work of correspondence etc., what about undivines and inframentals like us?
[Underlining “contemporaneously with his work of correspondence”:] It does not mean that I lose the higher consciousness while doing the work of correspondence. If I did that, I would not only not be supramental, but would be very far even from the full Yogic consciousness. Say “by correspondence alone”. If I have to help somebody to repel an attack, I can’t do it by only writing a note, I have to send him some Force or else concentrate and do the work for him. Also I can’t bring down the Supramental by merely writing neatly to people about it. I am not asking for leisure to meditate at ease in a blissful indolence. I said distinctly I wanted it for concentration on other more important work than correspondence.
These are some of the doubts some of us are afflicted with.
The ignorance underlying this attitude is in the assumption that one must necessarily do only work or only meditation. Either work is the means or meditation is the means, but both cannot be! I have never said, so far as I know, that meditation should not be done. To set up an open competition or a closed one between works and meditation is a trick of the dividing mind and belongs to the old Yoga. Please remember that I have been declaring all along an integral Yoga in which knowledge, Bhakti, works — light of consciousness, Ananda and love, will and power in works — meditation, adoration, service of the Divine have all their place. Have I written seven volumes of the Arya all in vain? Meditation is not greater than Yoga of works nor works greater than Yoga by knowledge — both are equal.
Page – 746 Another thing — it is a mistake to argue from one’s own very limited experience, ignoring that of others, and build on it large generalisations about Yoga. This is what many do, but the method has obvious demerits. You have no experience of major realisations through work, and you conclude that such realisations are impossible. But what of the many who have had them — elsewhere and here too in the Asram? That has no value? You kindly hint to me that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not written the history of my sadhana — if I had, you would have seen that if I had not made action and work one of my chief means of realisation — well, there would have been no sadhana and no realisation except that, perhaps, of Nirvana. I shall perhaps add something hereafter as to what works can do, but no time tonight. Do not conclude however that I am exalting works as the sole means of realisation. I am only giving it its due place. You will excuse the vein of irony or satire in all this — but really when I am told that my own case disproves my whole spiritual philosophy and accumulated knowledge and experience, a little liveliness in answer is permissible. 16 December 1934
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A sense was coming down from above that I belong to the Above, but have come down upon earth for a mission to work out — deputed here as an instrument of the Above for the works of the Above.
The work is the work of the Divine and it is best to regard oneself as an instrument. The word mission is apt to accentuate the sense of ego and should be avoided. 5 January 1935
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The higher consciousness keeps contact with me only through my passive self. If I do more work, it disturbs the higher working. I don’t know what the cause of this is.
There is no special cause for it. It is always so with everybody
Page – 747 unless one feels the Mother’s Force working through one in the action.
I find it hard to work while remaining in the Yogic consciousness. My inner state is too passive.
It is possible to work through the passive state even, provided one feels that one is not doing the work but it is being done through one.
You suggested another way — to keep the psychic in front. But I don’t know how to bring the psychic forward.
It comes forward of itself either through constant love and aspiration or when the mind and vital have been made ready by the descent from above and the working of the Force. 13 March 1935
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There are some sadhaks here who think that everyone should do Karmayoga only, without doing any meditation at all.
There are some who cannot meditate and progress through work only. Each has his own nature. But to extend one method to all is always an error. 16 May 1935
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Why do people complain that they are not able to keep up the sadhana during work?
It is a question of doing work in the right attitude — as a means of sadhana. Most take the work as work only. 3 July 1936
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Is it not a fact that most of the true Yogas demand passivity of the mind as the first important basis? Does your Yoga differ from them in this at least? If not, what is the purpose of allowing the sadhaks to keep their minds constantly active in learning languages? Or has it created for them such a climate
Page – 748 that they can keep their minds calm and quiet somehow behind and in spite of this mental activity?
One can go on without anything except a little rice daily and some water — without clothes even or a house to shelter. Is that what you call true Yoga and that should be followed in the Asram? But then there is no need of an Asram. A cave somewhere for each will do. Why do you use a fountain pen? You can very well go on with an ordinary one. Why do you take these cahiers from the stores? Cheap paper would do. Why do you write? The mind should be passive. If by passivity of the mind you mean laziness and inability to use it, then what Yoga makes that its basis? The mind has to be quieted and transformed, not made indolent and useless. Is there any old Yoga that makes it a rule not to allow those who practise it to study Sanskrit or philosophy? Does that prevent the Yogis from attaining mental quietude? Do you think that the Mother and myself never read anything and have to sit all day inactive in order to make our minds quiet? Are you not aware that the principle of this Yoga is to arrive at an inner silence in which all activities can take place without disturbing the inner silence? 24 March 1937
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For the sadhana, it is not true that some are here only because they give money and others because they are workers only. What is true is that there are many who can prepare themselves only by work, their consciousness not being yet ready for meditation of the more intense kind. But even for those who can do intense meditation from the beginning, sadhana by work is also necessary in this Yoga. One cannot arrive at its goal by meditation alone. As for your own capacity, it was evident when for a fairly long period an active sadhana was proceeding within you. Everybody’s capacity however is limited — little can be done by one’s own strength alone. It is reliance on the Divine Force, the Mother’s Force and Light and openness to it that is the real capacity. This you had for a time, but as with many others it got
Page – 749 clouded over by the coming up of the physical nature in its full force. This clouding happens to almost everybody at that stage, but it need not be lasting. If the physical consciousness resolves to open itself, then nothing more is needed for progress in the sadhana. 10 July 1937
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There is one thing everybody should remember that everything should be done from the point of view of Yoga, of sadhana, of growing into a divine life in the Mother’s consciousness. To insist upon one’s own mind and its ideas, to allow oneself to be governed by one’s own vital feelings and reactions should not be the rule of life here. One has to stand back from these, to be detached, to get in their place the true knowledge from above, the true feelings from the psychic within. This cannot be done if the mind and vital do not surrender, if they do not renounce their attachment to their own ignorance which they call truth, right, justice. All the trouble rises from that; if that were overcome, the true basis of life, of work, of harmony of all in the union with the Divine would more and more replace the trouble and difficulty of the present.
Some Aspects of Work in the Ashram
The work here is not intended for showing one’s capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness to the Mother, but as a field and an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the integral Yoga — for learning to work in the true Yogic way — dedication through service, practical selflessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting the Divine and the Divine’s work first and oneself last, harmony, patience, forbearance etc. When the workers learn these things and cease to be egocentric, as most of you now are, then will come the time for work in which capacity can really be shown — although even then the showing of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the object of divine work. 28 August 1931
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Page – 750 When I was working in the Satyagraha movement, I worked with a zeal and energy I don’t seem to have here. Is it because there is no fighting programme except against one’s own self? How can I recover my interest and vigour in work?
The Satyagraha was one of those movements in which the vital part of the nature gets easily enthusiastic and interested — it meant a fight on the vital level (its only difference from other revolutionary activities being its “non-violent” character), with universal support and applause and approval, a nationwide excitement behind you, the sense of heroism and possible martyrdom, a “moral” ideal giving a farther support of strong self-approbation and the sense of righteousness. Here there is nothing that ministers to the human vital nature; the work is small, silent, shut off from the outside world and its circum stances, of value only as a field for spiritual self-culture. If one is governed by the sole spiritual motive and has the spiritual consciousness, one can take joy and interest in this work. Or if, in spite of his human shortcomings, the worker is mainly bent on spiritual progress and self-perfection, then also he can take interest in the work and both feel its utility for the discovery and purification of his egoistic mental and vital and physical nature and take joy in it as a service of the Divine. 11 August 1932
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Recover yourself now and proceed on your way with a deeper and truer aim in you. Your efforts at sadhana up till now have been too exclusively on the vital plane; aspire for a full opening of the psychic, clear your movements of all ego and strive to make yourself open and aspire only to be a receptacle of the true consciousness and an instrument of the Divine. As for outward things, what has been lacking in you has been discipline, order, self-consecration in your work. You have acted according to your impulse and fancy and been unable to do any work steadily and with devotion in the work. The Mother gave you library work to do and it has not been scrupulously done. She asks you for the sake of your own self-discipline to do that little carefully and scrupulously in the future. For the rest
Page – 751 you can go on with your music and your sadhana; but let all be done in a deeper spirit and as an offering to the Divine. 11 May 1933
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There is no reason why one should not offer to work if there is work to do. Often there is work to be done and no one offers, so it is not done. Most of the Asram work is done by a few people, while others do a little only or only what they please. 31 May 1933
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Each man has his defects — you and all others. So you should not allow that to destroy the harmony that should reign among workers. Remember that patience and equanimity and good feeling for all are the first needs of the sadhak. 12 November 1933
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The Mother’s withdrawal of you from the work had nothing to do with any relation between you and X or any other sadhika. What you have to do is to utilise it for becoming quiet within, silencing the vital movement and getting into the true attitude. What you write shows that you had a wrong idea of the work. The work in the Asram was not meant as a service to humanity or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Asram. It was not meant either as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a flow of sentiments and attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of the vital movements, a free vital interchange whether with some or with all. The work was meant as a service to the Divine and as a field for the inner opening to the Divine, surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, development of the personal self is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine
Page – 752 guidance for one’s own ignorant self-guidance based on one’s personal ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karma Yoga, the surrender of one’s own will to the Divine Will. If one feels human beings to be near and the Divine to be far and seeks the Divine through service of and love of human beings and not the direct service and love of the Divine, then one is following a wrong principle — for that is the principle of the mental, vital and moral, not the spiritual life. November 1933
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All work is equal — those who write or embroider are in no way superior to those who cook or prepare the grains. To speak otherwise is ignorance. 7 December 1933
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Active participation in an outside work is sometimes useful to a sadhak in the early stages of his sadhana so that he may learn equanimity; but the utility of it for a sadhak of the Asrama is not very clear. Personal or family work is not part of the divine Work unless as in X‘s case it is dedicated to the Divine — for he gives all its profits here. But in your case it is family property and that is not possible. We are therefore rather doubtful as to how this would fit in at the present stage of your sadhana. 25 April 1935
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Work here and work done in the world are of course not the same thing. The work there is not in any way a divine work in special — it is ordinary work in the world. But still one must take it as a training and do it in the spirit of karmayoga — what matters there is not the nature of the work in itself but the spirit in which it is done. It must be in the spirit of the Gita, without desire, with detachment, without repulsion, but doing it as perfectly as possible, not for the sake of the family or promotion or to please the superiors, but simply because it is the thing that has been given in the hand to do. It is a field of inner training, nothing more. One has to learn in it three things,
Page – 753 equality, desirelessness, dedication. It is not the work as a thing for its own sake, but one’s doing of it and one’s way of doing it that one has to dedicate to the Divine. Done in that spirit it does not matter what the work is. If one trains oneself spiritually like that, then one will be ready to do in the true way whatever special work directly for the Divine (such as the Asram work) one may any day be given to do. 21 September 1935
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What is necessary is not to be troubled or upset by small things, to work pleasantly and quietly with the others, then they also will do the same and there will be no friction.
The Place of Rules in Work
We are supposed to take our tooth-sticks between 6 and 7 p.m. Yesterday I forgot to go. At 7.15 I remembered, but it was too late. I mentioned this to X. He told me to go anyway, since others go after 7. I told him I would obey the rule regardless.
It is a good discipline like that. Rules are made for the proper harmony and convenience of the work. If you disregard them you promote disorder, inefficiency and looseness of work and at the same time you yourself become or remain loose, negligent, undisciplined and imperfect. 25 June 1933
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Rules are indispensable for the orderly management of work; for without order and arrangement nothing can be properly done, all becomes clash, confusion and disorder. It is the rule that as far as possible supervisors should foresee their needs and ask for the morning’s needs the evening before and for the afternoon’s needs in the morning. In special cases where the article is needed at a particular hour, that should be stated in the chit. Where such previous notice is not given, the office will send the articles asked for as soon as possible — i.e., in view of the other work to be done. In this case the work had been fixed beforehand so it was
Page – 754 possible to send previous notice. Under the circumstances, although you could ask them to let you have your needs early in spite of absence of previous notice, you could not go and claim that as a right or threaten to report them for negligence to the Mother. In all such dealings with others, you should see not only your own side of the question but the other side also. There should be no anger, vehement reproach or menace, for these things only raise anger and retort on the other side. I write this because you are trying to rise above yourself and dominate your vital and when one wants to do that, one cannot be too strict with oneself in these things. It is best even to be severe to one’s own mistakes and charitable to the mistakes of others. 23 June 1935
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A rule that can be varied by everyone at his pleasure is no rule. In all countries in which organised work is successfully done, (India is not one of them), rules exist and nobody thinks of breaking them, for it is realised that work (or life either) without discipline would soon become a confusion and an anarchic failure. In the great days of India everything was put under rule, even art and poetry, even Yoga. Here in fact rules are much less rigid than in any European organisation. Personal discretion can even in a frame of rules have plenty of play — but discretion must be discreetly used, otherwise it becomes something arbitrary or chaotic. 1 October 1936
Organisation and Discipline in Work
I hear you do not like the gate-keepers to do any writing, reading etc. when on duty. Is it true? Up till now I have been writing during that time.
It was because people were neglecting their duty in the absorption of reading and writing, allowing undesirable people to enter etc. If that does not happen, one can read or write — only when one is on duty, the duty comes first. 12 May 1933
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In regard to my work at the office, I have the feeling that my position is neither one of working under another nor of working on my own. Is this the way it should be?
It is not necessary to work under anybody — it is a work of collaboration in which each is free to organise his work as he thinks best for the work. You can see how best to organise yours. 31 May 1934
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The Mother has her own reasons for her decisions; she has to look at the work as a whole without regard to one department or branch alone and with a view to the necessities of the work and the management. The objection to buying much of this size was hers and not X‘s. Whatever work is done here, one has always to learn to subordinate or put aside one’s own ideas and preferences about things concerning it and do for the best under the conditions and decisions laid down by her. This is one of the main difficulties throughout the Asram, as each worker wants to do according to his own ideas, on his own lines according to what he thinks to be the right or convenient thing and expects that to be sanctioned. It is one of the principal reasons of difficulty, clash or disorder in the work, creating conflict between the workers themselves, conflict between the workers and the heads of departments, conflict between the ideas of the sadhaks and the will of the Mother. Harmony can only exist if all accept the will of the Mother without grudge or personal reaction. Independent work does not exist in the Asram. All is organised and interrelated; neither the heads of departments nor the workers are independent. To learn subordination and cooperation is necessary for all collective work; without it there will be chaos. As for the Yoga aspect of these personal clashes, dislikes etc. and of the work itself, I have written about that before. 10 March 1936
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Page – 756 When people set a date by which a work must be completed, the usual result is that there is a huge haste, followed by a period in which people don’t know what to do. Is it really necessary to fix dates? I wonder sometimes if doing so does not create a sort of occult resistance.
It is necessary to fix dates for the organisation of the work, but there must be a certain plasticity so that if necessary the time may be extended. As to particular cases it is a matter of judgment how much time is to be given. It is the system of the schedule, but whether the work can be done “according to schedule”, as they say, has to be seen in practice. The occult resistance is a fact but it applies more to psychological than to physical things. 18 October 1936
Dealing with Paid Workers
In dealing with paid workmen, I sometimes behave in a very familiar way, sometimes in a neutral way and sometimes I get angry. How should I behave with them?
None of these ways is the right one; the first weakens the authority, the second is not dynamic, the last is obviously not helpful. In all work the nearer one gets to an entire equanimity (which does not mean indifference) in the mind and the vital feeling, the better. A calm detached attitude, with a fundamental sympathy in it but not of the sentimental kind, a clear unbiased eye observing their character and reactions, and a quiet and firm authority without harshness, capable both of kindness and of quiet severity, where severity is needed, would be the best attitude. 22 August 1932
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To be angry and speak harshly to the workmen injures both the work and the sadhana. 10 February 1933
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Page – 757
It seems to me that sadhaks could take up some of the work now being given to paid workers, electrical work for instance. I am ready to do this kind of work.
I suppose it will have to come to that in the end — for the conditions and cost of having workmen and even servants is likely to become prohibitive if the new laws are made operative in the [French] colonies. But for the moment it is not practicable. The majority of the sadhaks have not the mentality that would be needed for this kind of work — workman’s work — nor the necessary capacity of working together. A few zealous and enthusiastic sadhaks would not be able to meet the necessity. 30 June 1936
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