Superstitious wearing of rings or portraits

Something I give you with my own hands—there I put in something; but if it is of your own choice that you have taken a ring or a portrait, something, and you wear it… if you have the trust, the faith that it protects you, it protects you. When I give it, I give it with something completely different from the thing itself. It can contain this thing if I put it in, but if I don’t, it does not contain it.

Sri Aurobindo used to say, you know, that to wear a ring with his portrait and think that it protects you, is a superstition! He would tell you it is a superstition! That is, it depends on what you think about it…. It depends solely on what you think about it. If he had given you a ring, saying, “Wear this, my force will be with you”, then it would have been altogether different; there’s a world of difference.

Ref: Questions and Answers 1954