Sri Aurobindo and Mother to Prithwi Singh

26 February 1936

Private and confidential

Prithwi Singh

The Naik-Mridu²⁹ affair was one of the frequent quarrels that take place from time to time in the Asram between sadhaks and became prominent only by the violence of the two combatants and the excessive attention given to it by the sadhaks owing to Mridu's clamours. I do not regard Naik as someone who is dangerous. He is in his ordinary moments a good-natured and even kind but oversensitive man, but he is subject to fits of anger in which he loses proper control of speech and gesture and even, though up to a certain point only, of his acts. He has had several outbursts of this kind, but has never yet actually hurt anybody. It is true that he is sometimes seized in these moments by a dark force, and that, coupled with this streak of violence, could become dangerous, if it made him hostile. But up till now it has not done so. He has tried to go away but something in him will not allow him to do so.

As for the general question of people moved by wrong forces, sending away has been done sometimes, usually if they become quite unmanageable or hostile. But it has been found that it is no solution. The forces find other instruments. It is the forces themselves that have to be overcome.

Sri Aurobindo