Aurobindo to Mrinalini Devi

 

 

Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary, poet, philosopher, writer, and spiritual master. Following letter was written by Aurobindo to his wife Mrinalini Devi. The letter is one of those which were found and taken away by the police during the search of the Grey Street house in connection with the Alipore bomb trial and afterwards produced in court. It was in this way that these intimate documents unexpectedly saw the light of day and what was intended by Sri Aurobindo to be “secret” has become public property. In the letter, Aurobindo talks about the duties prescribed by Hindu scriptures for wives.

30 August 1905

Dearest Mrinalini

I will write the other thing of which I spoke before. I think you have understood by now that the man with whose fate yours has been linked is a man of a very unusual character. Mine is not the same field of action, the same purpose in life, the same mental attitude as that of the people of today. I am in every respect different from them and out of the ordinary. Perhaps you know what ordinary men say of an extraordinary view, an extraordinary endeavour, and an extraordinary ambition. To them it is madness; only, if the madman is successful in his work then he is called no longer a madman, but a great genius. Among a thousand men, there are five or six who are out of the ordinary and out of the five or six one perhaps successful. There is nothing then for you but to consider me mad. And it is an evil thing for a woman to fall into the hands of a mad fellow. For woman’s expectations are all bound up in worldly happiness and sorrow.

The founders of the Hindu religion understood this very well. Madman or genius, they respected the extraordinary man. But all this means a terrible plight for the wife, and how could the difficulty be solved? The sages fixed upon this solution; they told the woman, “Know that the only mantra for womankind is this: ‘The husband is the supreme guru.’ The wife shares the dharma of her husband. She must help him, counsel him, encourage him in whatever work he accepts as his dharma. She should regard him as her god, take joy in his joy, and feel sorrow in his unhappiness. It is for a man to choose his work; the woman’s part is to give help and encouragement.”

Now, the point is this. Are you going to choose the path of the Hindu religion or follow the ideal of the new culture? Your marriage to a madman is the result of bad karma in your previous lives. It is good to come to terms with one’s fate, but what sort of terms will they be? Will you also dismiss your husband as a madman on the strength of what other people think? Will you then do nothing but sit in a corner and weep? Or, will you run along with him; try to be the mad wife of this madman, like the queen of the blind king who played the part of a blind woman by putting a bandage across her eyes? In spite of studying in Brahmo school, the blood of Hindu ancestors flows in your veins. I have no doubt you will choose the latter course.

Yours