Here is a letter of Sri Aurobindo with regard to contact with the outside world.
‘The protection and help will be there as they were here. You have only to keep yourself open to them and live inwardly seeking to become more and more conscious so that you may feel the Divine Presence and Power.
As to the Bombay atmosphere, keep inwardly separate from it, even while mixing with others. See it as a thing outside and not belonging to the inner world in which you yourself live. If you can achieve this inward separateness, it will not be able to cloud you, whatever its daily pressure.’
This is the principle to be followed with equanimity, inner remembrance of the Mother and drawing an inner line within that one does not cross in action or speech.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
