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February 1935
if such a theory will be practically realised. Past history does not seem to prove it. In Krishna's time, no disciple of his was a greater spiritual figure than the preceding Avatar Rama, even though Krishna was an Avatar of a higher plane.
What is all this obsession of greater or less? In our Yoga we do not strive after greatness. It is not a question of Sri Krishna's disciples, but of the earth-consciousness Rama was a mental man, there is no touch of the overmind consciousness (direct) in anything he said or did, but what he did was done with the greatness of the Avatar. But there have since been men who did live in touch with the planes above mind higher mind, illumined mind, Intuition. There is no question of asking whether they were "greater" than Rama; they might have been less "great", but they were able to live from a new plane of consciousness. And Krishna's opening the overmind certainly made it possible for the attempt at bringing Supermind to the earth to be made.
I would not mind your fury in revenge if only you would crush me with a convincing assault. I hope to close the chapter on "Divine Omnipotence with this last letter, but you keep me hoping with that promise of yours to write at length some day
"Peace, peace, O fiery furious spirit! calm thyself and be at rest." Your fury or furiousness is wasted because your point is perfectly irrelevant to the central question on which all this breath (or rather ink) is being spent. Muthu and the sadhaks who want to equal or distance or replace the Mother and myself and so need very badly Middle Narayan oil there have been several have appeared only as meaningless foam and froth on the excited crest of the dispute. I fear you have not grasped the internalities and modalities and causalities of my high and subtle reasoning. It is not surprising as you are down down in the troughs of the rigidly logically illogical human reason while I am floating on the heights amid the infinite plasticities of the overmind and the lightninglike subtleties and swiftnesses of the intuition. There! what do you think of that? However!! More seriously. I have not stated that any Muthu has equalled Ramakrishna and I quite admit that Muthu here in ipsa persona Page - 141 has no chance of performing that feat. I have not said that anyone here can be Sri Aurobindo or the Mother I have pointed out what I meant when I objected to your explaining away my sadhana as a perfectly useless piece of Avatarian fireworks. So in my comment on the Muthu logic, I simply pointed out that it was bad logic that someone quite ignorant and low in the social scale can manifest a great spirituality and even a great spiritual knowledge. I hope you are not bourgeois enough to deny that or to contend that the Divine or the spiritual can only manifest in somebody who has some money in his pockets or some University education in his pate? For the rest as I myself have been pointing out all the time there is a difference between essential truth and conditional truth, paramartha and vyavaharika, the latter being relative and conditional and mutable. In mathematics one works out problems in infinite and in unreal numbers which exist nowhere on earth and yet these are extremely important and can help scientific reasoning and scientific discovery and achievement. The question of a Muthu becoming a Ramakrishna, i.e. a great spiritual man may look to you like being an exercise in unreal numbers or magnitudes because it exceeds the actual observable facts in the case of this Muthu who very evidently is not going to be a great spiritual man but we were arguing the matter of essential principle. I was pointing out that in the essentiality all things are possible so you ought not to say the Divine cannot do this or that. But at the same time I was pointing out too that the Divine is not bound to show his omnipotence without rhyme or reason when he is working by his own will under conditions. For by arguing that the Divine cannot, that he is impotent, that he cannot do what has never yet been done etc., you deny the possibility of changing conditions, of evolution, of the realisation of the unrealised, of the action of Divine Power, of Divine Grace, and reduce all to a matter of rigid and unalterable status quo. Which is an insolent defiance to both fact and reason (!) and suprareason. See now? About myself and the Mother, there are people who say, "If the supramental is to come down, it can come down in everyone, why then in them first? Why should we not get it before they do? Why through them, not direct?" It sounds very rational, very logical, very arguable. The difficulty is that this reasoning ignores the conditions, foolishly assumes that one can get the supramental down into oneself without having the least knowledge of what the supramental Page - 142 is and so supposes an upside-down miracle everybody who tries it is bound to land himself in a most horrible cropper as all have done hitherto who tried it. It is like thinking one need not follow the Guide, but can reach up to the top of the mountain from the narrow path one is following on the edge of a precipice by simply leaping into the air. The result is inevitable. About greater and less, one point. Is Captain John Higgins of S.S. Mauretania a greater man than Christopher Columbus because he can reach America without trouble in a few days? Is a university graduate in philosophy greater than Plato because he can reason about problems and systems which had never even occurred to Plato? No, only humanity has acquired greater scientific power which any good navigator can use or a wider intellectual knowledge which anyone with a philosophic training can use. You will say greater scientific power and wider knowledge is not a change of consciousness. Very well, but there are Rama and Ramakrishna. Rama spoke always from the thinking intelligence, the common property of developed men; Ramakrishna spoke constantly from a swift and luminous spiritual intuition. Can you tell me which is the greater? the Avatar recognised by all India? or the saint and Yogi recognised as an Avatar only by his disciples and some others who follow them? February 10, 1935
I am a little taken aback to hear that a "certain note of persiflage" dilutes the grave discussion I am having with you.
Look here, don't tell me that because you are a doctor, therefore you can't understand a joke. It would have the effect of making me dreadfully serious.
I am sorry I can't detect the adulteration of the Divine philosophy with persiflage. My medical appliance is hardly capable of doing it.
A sense of humour (not grim) ought to be a sufficient appliance.
No doubt, I enjoy heartily the humour but I should like to be able to suck up the cream and give the rest its proper place. Page - 143 The cream = the persiflage the rest is the solemn part or the argument.
I would like to know something about my "bad logic" before I write anything further to you.
Helps to finding out your bad logic. I give instances expressed or implied in your reasonings.
Bad logic No: 1. Because things have not been, therefore they can never be. " " 2. Because Sri Aurobindo is an Avatar, his sadhana can have no meaning for humanity. 3. What happens in Sri Aurobindo's sadhana cannot happen in anybody else's sadhana (i.e. neither descent, nor realisation, nor transformation, nor intuitions, nor budding of new powers or faculties) because Sri Aurobindo is an Avatar and the sadhaks are not. 4. A street beggar cannot have any spirituality or at least not so much as, let us say, a University graduate because, well, one doesn't know why the hell not. 5. (and last because of want of space) Because I am a doctor, I can't see a joke when it is there.
N's temperature is varying from 98 Ί6-99 °2.
Why the deuce doesn't it become normal? What about his blessed lungs?
He wants to come to evening meditation, will he ?
Depends on you. The nights are not yet quite warm and he would be there for a long time. February 11, 1935
But how terrifying is your "Look here"! What I have heard about your extreme seriousness in former days,Ή is quite enough not to invite it farther on my poor head!
Ή "The man who never smiles", said Henry W. Nevinson, English writer and journalist who had met Sri Aurobindo in 1907 during his full revolutionary activities. Page - 144 Bad logic again! when I write "Look here! it means I am not serious, however terrifying I may be.
Only I find that you have beaten me right and left for what I did not even intend to say.
Of course! One is most responsible for what one does not intend. It is besides the nature of bad logic to imply what the logician did not mean or did not know that he meant. Ignorance is no defence in law and non-intention is no defence in logic. Such is the beauty of life!
G.L. came for glycerine. Rajangam asked me to see his throat, since he has been going on applying it mechanically. I thought it was not my business in absence of any complaint from him. There is chronic catarrh which subsides with present remedies, he says. Shall we use stronger throat- paints? R says that it is our duty to see how a man is getting on, even though he doesn't himself volunteer for examination or treatment.
R's theory is excessive. We are doubtful about the advisability of stronger paintings it tends to dull down the natural resistance in the throat. February 12, 1935
Excuse me I did not say that a street beggar or a proletarian can't manifest a great spirituality; I know that there have been cases where fishermen, barbers and robbers have been transformed into spiritual men by the touch of saints, prophets and Avatars. So I don't deny the action and the effectiveness of the Divine Power.
Then why bring in the poor street-beggar at all?
But others say and it was the central question that wherever the Divine Power has successfully acted upon and miraculously changed those who were in their external nature robbers and social pariahs, there was probably in them, interiorly, something latent. And they say excuse Page - 145 my reiteration that from those who have evidently no music or poetry latent in them the Divine cannot bring out these elements in spite of His omnipotence.
What is the use of this argument based on a "probably" ? You say that in one in whom poetry and music are not evident, the omnipotent Divine is impotent to create poetry and music. Yet in one in whom virtue and sainthood is not evident at all, criminals, debauchees, etc., he can produce sainthood and virtue. When it appears, it is supposed to have been "probably" latent. But why can't poetry and music also be "probably" latent even when they are not evident? To say that only moral capacities are latent and mental capacities cannot be, is a sheer absurdity. There are plenty of examples of particular mental capacities manifesting in men who had them not before A man makes one magnificent speech in his life, E writes one or two splendid poems all the rest is either silence or ( twaddle. The eye dull to beauty of painting becomes aware of line and colour; the man who was "no good" at logic or philosophy can develop into a logician or a philosopher. When he was "no good" these capacities were not "evident", they become evident only when they appear. Moreover, what is meant by latency where do these things lie in their latency? If you say in the surface mind, then show me how their secret existence can be discovered while they are still latent. Otherwise how can we affirm an undiscoverable latency? If you say it is in the subliminal, I answer that the subliminal is the inner being which is open to the universal and plastic to it. All things exist in the universal, so it is impossible to say what will or will not manifest in the inner being, once the universal acts on it. If the Divine is omnipotent, he can do it. If he can't do it, he is not omnipotent. What is this absurd self-contradiction of an Omnipotent who is impotent? If the Divine does not, it is because he does not choose to for one reason or another and I have tried to explain to you how the thing works it is because he conditions his own working to suit his own self-made law and purpose.
When I argue with these people I say that maybe these things are latent, but even if they are not, the Divine can make them manifest if He chooses to. "Then you mean to say", they reply, "that a Muthu can be metamorphosed Page - 146 into a saint or an Avatar? A very big jump indeed!" I tell them, "Leave out the Avatars; they are perilous examples. But a Muthu can surely be turned into a great spiritual man by the omnipotent Divine; that is quite possible." Then these people answer, "Yes, maybe it is possible, but we are in no way wiser for it, because it is not done". Now we don't know what is latent and what is not latent, but great Yogis and Avatars do; so we request you to tell us what is meant by mūkam karoti vācālam,Ή and whether the Divine can sow a seed in a barren, unproductive plot of land and reap the harvest of music, poetry and spirituality out of it, or whether He brings these things out from seeds which are already there in the soil latent? It means exactly what it says that a man in whom there was no "evident" capacity, can suddenly or rapidly manifest that capacity by the Divine Grace. Indeed such things happen even without the direct intervention of the Divine Grace, so a fortiori the Grace can do it. He can make the barren unproductive land productive and fertile. Even a man can do that, say, Mussolini or the Japanese agriculturist. Seeds are thrown into the soil they don't lie there for a thousand years and then sprout. But first make clear what is. meant by the soil? The surface man? The subliminal man ? In every human being there are these two, and if you can say something about the first, how much can you say about the other?
The examples of an unlettered Ramakrishna or a St. Peter and others do not prove much; one may say that big spiritual figures can and do take birth in humble social disguises. When all is said and done, the "latent" theory cannot be entirely waved aside. It seems that the Divine too usually follows the path of least resistance I mean he brings out generally those tendencies and capacities that one is born with, that is, things that are latent.
It is a mere word this "latent". It is like the materialist's "coincidence" and "hallucination" to explain away the appearance of the Ή "He makes the dumb talk" {Tulsi Ramayana, 1st part). Page - 147 supernormal. At least it is so unless you define Its action and modalities. Certainly, it is the usual case. But the usual is not the limit of the possible.
Now, about your personal example. You speak of the evolution theory to prove that "it can be done", though the domain I touched upon was only the spiritual. If the scientists say that man has not been able to create living things up to now, and therefore he will not be able to do so in the future that "it can't be done", what will be your answer? And if similarly, I say that a Tom, Dick or Harry cannot be a Rama, Krishna or Sri Aurobindo, what reply will you give?
I have brought in the evolution theory or rather fact of evolution, to disprove your argument that because a thing has not been done, it is thereby proved that it could not be done. I don't understand your argument. If a scientist says that, he is using bad logic. I have never said it can't be done. I dare say some day in the right conditions the creation of life will become possible. They may not be Ram or Krishna or Sri Aurobindo, but they may become a spiritualised super-Tom, super-Dick or super-Harry. I have answered about the Avatar.
I have never said that you are only a big human person. On the contrary, you are not, and hence nobody can be like you. Nevertheless, I don't quite follow what you mean when you state that whatever you achieve is possible for humanity to achieve, your attainments opening the way for others to follow.
It is singular that you cannot understand such a simple thing. I had no urge towards spirituality in me, I developed spirituality. I was incapable of understanding metaphysics, I developed into a philosopher. I had no eye for painting I developed it by Yoga. I transformed my nature from what it was to what it was not. I did it by a special manner, not by a miracle and I did it to show what could be done and how it could be done, I did not do it out of any personal necessity of my own or by a miracle without any process. Page - 148 I say that if it is not so, then my Yoga is useless and my life was a mistake a mere absurd freak of Nature without meaning or consequence. You all seem to think it a great compliment to me to say that what I have done has no meaning for anybody except myself it is the most damaging criticism on my work that could be made.
If a man has transformed his nature, he couldn't have done it all by himself, as you have done.
I also did not do it all by myself, if you mean by myself the Aurobindo that was. He did it with the help of Krishna and the Divine Shakti. I had help from embodied sources also.
I should say that Avatars are like well-fitted, well-equipped Rolls Royce machines.
All sufficient to themselves perfect and complete from the beginning, hey? Just roll, royce and ripple!
They do have plenty of difficulties on their journey, but just because they are like Rolls Royce they can surmount them whilst the rest of humanity is either like loose and disjointed machines or wagons to be dragged along by Avatars and great spiritual personages. Floating on the heights of the Overmind, you have overlooked what this earth-bound clod crawling over low plateaus has meant.
Great Scott! What a penal servitude for the great personages and the Avatars! And where are they leading them? All that rubbish into Paradise? How is that any more possible than creating a capacity where there was none? If the disjointed machines cannot be jointed, isn't it more economical to leave them where they are, in the lumber-shed? I don't know about Avatars. Practically what I know is that I had not all the powers necessary when I started, I had to develop them by Yoga, at least many of them which were not in existence in me when I began, and those which were I had to train to a higher degree. My own idea of the matter is that the Avatar's life and actions are not miracles, and if they were, his existence would be perfectly useless, a mere superfluous freak of Nature. He accepts the terrestrial Page - 149 conditions, he uses means, he shows the way to humanity as well as helps it. Otherwise what is the use of him and why is he here? I was not always in the overmind, if you please. I had to climb there from the mental and vital level.
Really, Sir, you have put into my mouth what I never mentioned or even intended to.
You may not have mentioned it but it was implied in your logic without your knowing that it was implied. Logic has its own consequences which are not apparent to the logiciser. It is like a move in chess by which you intend to overcome the opponent but it leads, logically, to consequences which you didn't intend and ends in your own checkmate. You can't invalidate the consequences by saying that you didn't intend them. Let me remind you of what I wrote about the Avatar. There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the Divine Consciousness behind and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forward the instrumental personality in Nature, under the conditions of Nature, and it uses it according to the rules of the game though also sometimes to change the rules of the game. If Avatarhood is only a flashing miracle, then I have no use for it. If it is a coherent part of the arrangement of the omnipresent Divine in Nature, then I can understand and accept it. As for the Muthu affair, that was only a joke as ought to have been clear to you at once. Nobody has any intention of making Muthu a saint or an Avatar. But that is only because the Divine is not going to play the fool, not because he is impotent. Muthu's only business in life is to prepare himself for something better hereafter and exhaust some of his lower tendencies in the meantime. That is not the question the question is whether as a general rule rigid and unalterable man is bound down to his outward nature as it appears to be built at the moment and even the Divine cannot or will not under any circumstances change it or develop something new in it, something not yet "evident", not yet manifested, or is there a chance for human beings becoming more like the Divine? sβdrishyamukti, sβdharmyam βgatβh.Ή If not, there is no use in
Ή sādrishyamukti; mama sādharmyam āgatāh: Identity of the soul's liberated nature with the divine nature; they have attained to one law of being with Me (the Divine). (Bhagavat Gita 14.2) Page - 150 anybody doing this Yoga; let the Krishnas and Ramakrishnas rocket about gloriously and uselessly in the empty Inane and the rest wriggle about for ever in the clutch of the eternal Devil. For that is the logical conclusion of the whole matter. February 13, 1935 It seems that before I could come out of the pit of "latency", the Avatar-pyramid has fallen on my head, sending me down to the bottom again! But I am afraid, you are making me admit something I never wrote, nor implied in what I wrote. Hower, I shall consult your Essays on the Gita to see what you say about the Avatar. Can you not understand that it was the natural logical result of the statements made on either side about the unbridgeable distance between "Man Divine" and the human being moving in the darkness towards the Divine? If you admit the utility of my sadhana, the controversy ceases. But so long as you declare that what I have done in my sadhana has no connection with what can be done, I shall go on beating you. (What the Avatar says in the "Essays" is only an explanation of the Gita; it is not the full statement of the issue.) But still if you read three or four chapters there, you will get some idea of the general principles. For the rest I propose that all discussion be postponed till after the 21st (not immediately after). This will give time for you to clear your ideas and for me to pursue my "Avataric" sadhana (not for myself, but for this confounded and too confounded earth race).
N was looking a little tired. Mother says. If it is necessary for him to have S again. Mother can spare her. February 14, 1935 I accept your proposal of postponement and send this last letter, which incidentally brings to an end the topic of latency and omnipotence. We shall all be anxiously waiting to hear what you have gained in two weeks for "this confounded earth race for which you always seem to have such great love. (Please don't forget this confounded little earth creature.) Page - 151 Now, I would like to mention one thing more. Sometimes I think that the Avatar's work, Buddha's sadhana, Christ's preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven, etc. were not so unselfish. I don't mean that they did anything for personal gain; nevertheless, it was a kind of selfishness let us say of the noblest kind.
No objection if to do things for the Divine in the world rather than for individual gain is a high selfishness, that is all right. Only selfishness usually means doing something for one's own sole profit.
Considerably subdued after the beating I received, I am beginning to understand what you say about omnipotence, the conditions of the game that have to be observed, latency, etc. This letter is not to dispute any of the things you have stated, but just to express that I am boiling inside with impotent rage to see how you have "unfairly" cornered me with the very arguments I was maintaining all the while. Alas! my pen derives its power only from terrestrial planes!
You were the reporter of the discussion, so naturally you had to be the whipping boy for all sides. You can't complain of that. There must be somebody to tilt at otherwise how the deuce is the argument to be done?
I have, however, jotted down a few points for you to see. Point No 1. I never said that only moral capacities can be latent, and not mental.
No, but it was implied in the argument to which you gave voice. It may not have been your argument, but what does that matter?
Point No 2. I did not say that poetry or music, or any art not evident, cannot be manifested. I distinctly used the word latent, and not evident.
Evident is the opposite of latent; so "not evident" or "evidently not there" as you put it is equal to "latent" my use of the word is therefore perfectly apposite. Page - 152 Our point was that faculties not yet evident may be made evident because they may be unmanifest, latent, in some inner region of the being; just as in Shunyam everything exists, so also in man whatever comes out of him.
How can they be evident when they are latent? "Latent" means "hidden", therefore not evident. When you say that a capacity is evidently not there, you mean only that to all evidence it is not there = there is no, evidence of its being there to the observer, ergo, the observer concludes that it is not there. All that you can really say is that it appears to be non-existent you cannot say with certitude more than that.
The whole discussion collapses if we deny that the unevident can be made evident.
You said "people who have evidently no music in them" that can only mean people in whom music is not evident for none can say whether it is or is not there latent. It does so also if you admit that the unevident can be made evident.
By latency we mean what is not evident, that is, not on the surface, but somewhere behind or below. If it is in the surface mind, it is no longer latent, because one can say with some certitude that such faculties exist, though not quite developed yet that is, neither latent nor fully evident.
Evidently not there on the surface, but how can you say that it is evidently not there below?
You say, if I understand you right, that since the inner being is open to the universal, anything can manifest through it even if it is not there latent; you further add that it is impossible to say what will or will not manifest once the universal acts upon it. But is this impossible for Yogis also ? For example, can't you say whether a man has a capacity for Yoga or for something else? Do you simply gamble when you accept someone ? Page - 153 I have never said anything about how I choose people. I was answering the argument that what has not been or is not in manifestation, cannot be. That was very clearly the point in the discussion that the Divine cannot manifest what is not yet there even He is impotent to do that. He can only manifest what is either already manifest or else latent in the field (person) he is working in. I say no he can bring in new things. He can bring it in from the universal or he can bring it down from the transcendent. For in the Divine cosmic and transcendent all things are. Whether He will do so or not in a particular case is quite another matter. My argument was directed towards dissipating this "can't, can't" with which people try to stop all possibility of progress.
You have raised another new point about the universal.
These are not new points, they are as old as the hills.
You can cut me, Sir, or beat me, but don't forsake me. In imitation of the librarian of my College who came out with a similar appeal when the professor of English caught him smoking one day.
Never! But beat a lot.
I repeat a little pathetically that my brain is sclerotic and psychic smoky; no intellect and no Yogic capacity, as you yourself must have realised by making "word-punctures .
Well, to see that they are non-evident shows you at once that they are latent and will be evident and even if they are not latent they are waiting for you in the universal! So in every blessed way you are very quite all right. Be consoled therefore.
Rather a long letter, because a closing one. When will these two weeks be over! Give me a little extra force for doing something, just to keep me out of mischief an idle brain is the devil's workshop. Who knows what I'll be up to!
Man, don't talk lightly like that of the devil. He is too active to Page - 154 be trifled with in that way. My devils? they are only expletive.
By the way, Mother, no chance for me to see you tomorrow the anniversary of my arrival?
Mother has 2 birthdays (not her own, of course) and an interview tomorrow morning. I am afraid your train can pass only when the line is clear.
N is straining himself too much. It would be advisable to let S look after him, but as you see she is unwilling to give up work altogether.
The work can be so arranged that she will be there when he most needs her. They can arrange that between them. February 15, 1935 It is neither a discussion nor a medical report; but you may take it, if you like, as a medical report of my present mental- spiritual condition... I am unhappy and I don't know why. To put it medically, there is some hidden focus of infection, disseminating slow and mild but constant toxins of unhappiness in the system.
Well, but hang it all! If there is no "why", then "why" be "unhappy"? Is it in "the system" or in the air? Endemic ? epidemic? You seem to be only one of many cases.
I felt an immense joy at the Darshan [on February 2lst], but it ebbed away as soon as I came down.
It sounds like facilis descensus Averno.Ή But after all downstairs and Erebus are not the same thing.
There are some Yogis, I hear, who are in bliss during meditation, but when they come down they are swallowed
Ή In Latin: Easy the descent to Hell. Page - 155 up by the lower nature, and to escape from this they at once leap up to their static sublimity. Unfortunately I can't rush up again till August [15th the next Darshan]. Will you kindly come down and help the poor amateur Yogi out of these inexplicable meshes?
Come down? into Erebus? No, thank you I might become like the said Yogis.
But what is all this? We count minutes and hours for the Darshans and when they come and go, what kind of reaction do they leave in the being? and why?
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "why"] It must be like your unhappiness no why to it.
At present I am only sleeping and sleeping, no aspiration, no will, nothing shunyam, void! Have I set the devil on my track by my boasting? Please save me from this Dilipian despair.
Which boasting? But why hug despair without a cause DilipianΉ or other? Come to your senses and develop a Nirodian jollity instead (not necessarily Mark Tapleyan,² though that is better than none). Laugh and be fat then dance to keep the fat down that is a sounder programme.
The Overmind seems so distant from us, and your Himalayan austerity and grandeur takes my breath away, making my heart palpitate!
O rubbish! I am austere and grand, grim and stern! every blasted thing that I never was! I groan in unAurobindian despair when I hear such things. What has happened to the common sense of all you people? In order to reach the Overmind it is not at all necessary to take leave of this simple but useful quality. Common
Ή In the manner of another disciple, Dilip, well-known for his changing moods. 2 A light-hearted young man in Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit whose ambition was "to come out jolly" in the most unfavourable circumstances. Page - 156 sense by the way is not logic (which is the least commonsense-like thing in the world), it is simply looking at things as they are without inflation or deflation not imagining wild imaginations or for that matter despairing "I know not why" despairs. February 23, 1935 Your grandeur and austerity imposed themselves not on this commonsense-lacking poor man alone, but on others too. I will say then that common sense is highly uncommon like yogic faculties. However, I am waiting to write in detail as soon as the signal is down.
Common sense is exceedingly uncommon in this Asram. Sometimes I think the Mother and myself alone have our stock left unexhausted and all the rest have sent theirs flying sky high. However!
Our "poisoned" patient V has, to our surprise, recovered. Our medical authority says that castor oil seeds are highly toxic and that 10 seeds are the extreme limit. This chap took more than three times 10! Is medical science mistaken or has your Force worked or is it the antidote or cow dung given by some villagers that did the miracle?
Perhaps it was Force + the cow dung that did it. You know the proverbial Cromwellism "Trust in God and keep your powder dry" so "Open to the Force and keep your cow dung handy" would be the recipe for castor-oil-seed-eaters. By the way, we are told V advised D.R.R. to take the poison and he himself takes 5 grains at a time as a joy-dose. Is this fact or legend?
R has submitted the latest report, he says.
I have no report from R, but I gather from you that he has rallied and is at least on the way to cure. The books give 48 hours for the period of the poisoning, so I suppose if he is not only alive but kicking and lively at noon tomorrow, we may consider him safe. February 25, 1935 Page - 157 Do you mean seriously that you will "never" forsake this humble pie? [15.2.3 5} Of course! [Underlined.]
Or has it any concealed meaning?
None; it is quite above-board. [Underlined.]
Will you have some spare moments to release a wave of inspiration for one or two good poems?
That I don't know provided the poems are there "latent".
V's story turns out to be a history. Last two months he has been taking the seeds starting with 5-7 seeds a day. The number rapidly rose to 26-30 divided among three meals. It is amazing he had no bad symptoms except a slight oily sensation in the throat at first. Immunity? Tolerance by the system ? Or another KhaganandaΉ in the Asram ?
He must have immunised himself a modern Mithridates! Of course, the Yogis do do this kind of thing and it is perfectly possible, but I did not realise that V was one of the great ones. He has however in these matters the faith (and audacity) that moves mountains. Also his intestines must be very leathery and tough. Who is Khagananda? There was the public poison + nails + snake eater who died because once he forgot to do the antidotic Kriya after his poison-meal. But that was, I think, another Ananda.
It would be better if V stopped taking these seeds. Who knows if it may not produce cumulative poisoning later. I learn that he has already done some Hathayoga.
He must not stop suddenly, otherwise all the symptoms of poisoning are likely to come up. If he stops, it must be very gradually, decreasing little by little. Mother finds him very grey perhaps he is
Ή A modern Hathayogi. Page - 158 undermining his system. But one does not know what to do with these fellows who start such things without reason or warning. You might discuss the matter with him and see what can be done.
The more we are seeing the more that pessimistic attitude comes over me and the likes of us you want to supramentalise! But the Book of Verses says, "The meaner the slave, the greater the Lord."
What is this more that you are seeing?
Jiban asked me about D.R.R. 's diet. Is lie under my jurisdiction ? He is all right, except for slight pain. Just now we have given him guimauve.
That is right he should take until the pain goes. You had better keep an eye on him till he is all right. He can have milk, but you must speak to Dyuman about it. Mother has already informed him in case it is wanted. February 26, 1935
I discussed the matter with V [the "poisoned" patient]. He agrees to give up taking the seeds if you wish it. He says that the seeds have done him a lot of good cured his obstinate constipation and resistant piles. Besides, he doesn't notice any bad effect. Well?
At any rate he had better diminish the quantity and not increase it and not advise others to take. Of course, he must not stop it abruptly; As for the cure, it means that his bowels have become dependent on this artificial action that is all.
We gave D.R.R. some Bismuth and Magnesium Carbonate for the pains in his bowels. It is indicated as treatment.
Bismuth constipates. Enema of guimauve and tisane (decoctions) of guimauve or linseed would be better.
Are you interested in seeing our monthly work ? We can send Page - 159 you the reports of the cases tomorrow. Yes.
Khagananda is a Bengali Ananda who exhibits these yogic tricks, and is still on this earth. The other fellow you speak of was a Madrasi and is dead and gone by Potas. Cyanide. We are at a loss about Mithridates. The experts know only of one a Persian king. Is he the one you allude to ? But he had nothing to do with swallowing poisons.
The information of the experts is defective. Mithridates in order to guard himself against all possibility of poisoning immunised himself by training his system to take all poisons first by small then by increasing doses. He did it so well that when the Romans were after him in their genial manner and he had no choice but death at their hands or his own, he could not take recourse to poison and had to end himself by a vulgar perforation with steel at least I think it was steel. He was not a Persian king, though he was of Indo-Persian extraction as his name shows. I believe he was king of Armenia or Bithynia or some such obsolete place in Asia Minor.
I proposed to R to get my bureau painted in my spacious bathroom, as he has no other place. He is willing if you will it.
Yes but on condition he does not spoil the floor. February 27, 1935 Here are the medical reports In.: inmates; w.: workers. You may be surprised at the small volume of papers, but the actual number of cases attended is more than reported. If you want all, I'll write down everything.
Don't. [Underlined.] It is all right. But if you gave a resume (number sadhaks, number workmen, number cases cured, number pending) that would complete it.
By the way, people get poems, pictures in meditation and Page - 160 I seem to get only letters and points for letters! Since letters and discussions are interdicted I have been obliged to draw inspiration from sleep. And I find that sleeping has a decided advantage in this Yoga!
You get letters in meditation! that would be fine it would save me the trouble of writing them, simply project into your meditation instead of sending through Nolini! No objection to sleep the land of Nod has also its treasures. February 28, 1935 Page - 161 |