Note of Thanks TO : MOTHER AND SRI AUROBINDO To: Revered Gobindo Gopal Mukhopadhyaya, Sanskritist, musician, who personally knew many spiritual personalities of the epoch. Without his constant affectionate encouragement we do not know when these letters would have seen the light of day. By the way, it was another Mukhopadhyay, Dr. Joygopal, who gave Dilip the final push when he was hesitating to take the plunge, because he had not got any- thing 'tangible' from his Guru: "You are bargaining with the Divine?" The shaft went home, says Dilip. To: Sri Shankar Bandopadhyay of Hari Krishna Mandir Trust, Pune, without whose sweet collaboration, nothing could have been

DILIP-DA Sri Aurobindo, I heard, once said to Nirod-da that Dilip was among the four or five really beautiful men he had ever seen. When I first saw him, though Father's senior and nearing forty, Dilip-da was quite handsome. But more than anything else, what left a lasting impression in my nine-year-old heart was his warm personality: affectionate, graceful, generous, a heart of gold. It is well nigh seventy years now but I can still vividly recall how at once he put me at my ease (I was rather shy, you know!). My father, Prithwi Singh Nahar, had taken Rajabhai (my brother Abhay) and me to the Ashram for the darshan of 21 February 1935, for Mother's fifty-seven

1935 1935? I dreamed rather a nice sort of a dream, if you know what I mean, don't you know? I dreamed as though I was swimming like an Annette Kellermain, only somewhat blindly. The result? found myself suddenly in deep waters , and below some vicious dark-looking crags jutting out but beyond my reach—tantalisingly so! In. a sort of heart-sinking for it was no joke then—I prayed, when, lo, there s. was an iron rod stretching from the crags to the shore. I plumped for the rod like a shot of course and tried to reach the shore with its help. But alas, again! it was far , from easy to reach the shore sliding along a slippery rod. I despaired, when, lo, again, Guru,' wh

Sri Aurobindo to Dilip Volume -2 1934-1935 edited by Sujata Nahar and Shankar Bandyopadhyay HARI KRISHNA MANDIR TRUST, PUNE AND MIRA ADITI, MYSORE

Notes 1. A colonist from Immortality ... A treasurer of superhuman dreams (Savitri 1, III) 2. Sri Aurobindo Came to Me, 2nd edition, p.263. 3. Sri Aurobmdo and Mother to Prithwi Singh, Dec. \, 1935. 4. nikhilarasamrta murti: literally, a form made up of the nectarous essence of universal delight. 5. Goloka: the Vaishnava heaven of eternal Beauty and Bliss. 6. Aksara Brahman: imperishable, unchanging Brahman. 7. kavih puranah: the ancient poet. 8. The heads of the Ashram's various departments used to report their day's work in notebooks to Mother and Sri Aurobindo. At the same time they also presented their work problems or pro

1934 1934? I made no mistake at all. Your inner being is quite capable of Yoga and in your experiences there were plenty of proofs of it. It is your outer being that is making all the trouble and putting up a big fight against the inner destiny. But that hap- pens to many people who turn out very good Yogis in the end. So that is no ground whatever for your not staying here. What I have written before was written on the basis of what I saw and still see. If I thought there was no chance for you I would tell you so. January 2, 1934 There is no other cause of these fits of despair than that you allow a certain kind of suggestions to lay hold of you

Preface This is the second volume of Sri Aurobindo's letters to Dadaji, Sri Dilip Kumar Roy. The first volume was published by us in August 2003. It covered the period between 1929 and 1933. This volume spans only two years 1934 and 1935 as the correspondence between the Master and the disciple grew in volume, frequency and depth during this period. It will not be put of place here to highlight again the Divine force and Grace imparted concretely through these letters by a Guru, the Messianic "treasurer of superhuman dreams'71 to his cherished and receptive disciple who the Guru called "a friend and a son and part of his existence". Sri Dilip Kumar illustrates this in his book

Appendix July 5, 1932 It may be philosophic to say nothing about the loss, though that would depend on the philosophy—and the philosopher; but it is perhaps more practical to make a row so that the gentleman of the bathroom may not be tempted to repeat his joke. We are not out to imitate the bishop of the "Misérables" or the Sannyasi who ran after the thief to make him a present of his remaining vessels. It is best however to ascertain first the probabilities. I am asking Kodandarama who is the new scavenger in question (we knew all our facts) and asking him too to make enquiries personally. July 2, 1932 It is certainly "symphony" and not "sympathy"; I don't