Chapter 6To People in India, 1914–1926 · To A. B. Purani

retouch them. It is not only that he does not wish but that he cannot any longer allow himself to be disturbed or interrupted by anything that would perturb the balance or break the mould of his present arrangement of his life or draw him aside from the concentration of his energies. All else must be postponed until he has finished what he has to do and is free again to apply himself to external things and activities. Under these conditions a work so considerable as the retranslation or revised translation of the “Seigneur des Nations” becomes quite impossible. If he undertook it, he would not be able to carry it out. He hopes therefore that you will be able to make some other arrangement for it, as for the translations of your recent addresses which have been admirably done. Once you understand in the light of the above the conditions here, you can understand also why — apart from all other considerations — he is unable to assent to the suggestions in your letter.

[1]

Dear Sir,

I regret that I have not been able to reply as yet to your postcard. I am entirely occupied with the work for the Review which has to be given to the Press shortly. After the 17t.h. I shall be more free and hope then to be able to reply to the questions you have put to us.

Yours sincerely

Aurobindo Ghose Pondicherry 9 Sept. 1914

[2]

Pondicherry

21 Sept 1914 Dear Sir,

I hope you received duly my card explaining the delay in my answer.

Your questions cover the whole of a very wide field. It is therefore necessary to reply to them with some brevity, touching only on some principal points.

1. What meditation exactly means. There are two words used in English to express the Indian idea of Dhyana, “meditation” and “contemplation”. Meditation means properly the concentration of the mind on a single train of ideas which work out a single subject. Contemplation means regarding mentally a single object, image, idea so that the knowledge about the object, image or idea may arise naturally in the mind by force of the concentration. Both these things are forms of dhyana; for the principle of dhyana is mental