I contemplate with mixed satisfaction the results to which my books have led. Many individuals have been helped to attain a higher measure of interior peace and mental tranquillity, but others have foolishly confirmed their previous superstitions through a one-sided reading of what I have written. What has distressed me most, however, is a painful realization of the opportunity I have given to religious humbugs, commercially minded mystics, and half-baked teachers of yoga to exploit earnest but credulous people. I would not have my books exploited by mystic quackery and parasitic superstition. Still worse is the fact that an ashram which I had helped to make famous now no longer possesses the character which it had in the days I found it many years ago, so that complaints may justly be laid at my door for giving it regrettable publicity. It is my present duty therefore to warn all readers against the misunderstanding of my teaching on yoga, against the exploiters of questing ignorance, and against these ashrams which I had formerly praised so extravagantly.
-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 5 : The Literary Work > # 53
