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March 1935
I am thinking of doing some studies in English language, not for any creative purpose, but for recreation.
All right. With this aim in view, I want to take up your immortal philosophy — though my walnut of a brain can't do much with it — and if you will allow, have some discussions with you, at intervals. Provided the discussions can be put in a "walnut" shell! I hear you are having a tough fight with the forces ?
Very beastly — these forces. One can't advance a single step without their throwing their shells and stink-bombs. However like General Joffre, I advance. "Nous progressâmes."¹ If we busy ourselves with something like the study of the English language, as I have stated, it may indirectly help to keep the devil off.
Let us hope so. There is much need of keeping him off and if the English language can do it, glory be to the English language!
March 1, 19351 ¹ In French, "We progressed". Page - 161 You thrashed me for calling you grave and austere at the Darshan time [25.2.35]. But see, when we go to the Mother, how seraphically she smiles, while your Self being near, appears still far away at some Olympian height. It is difficult to discern the gravity or the jollity of a face at such a height. But I suppose, our conception of the gods was formed from the vision of such a figure.
Neither gravity nor jollity, but a large, easy, quiet, amiable condition. The gods can't be amiable? The very fact that there remains no question about the Mother's feeling and attitude, shows that we are not probably all wrong and devoid of sense.
Look here, what are you saying? The Mother's feeling and attitude are being constantly questioned by the sadhaks, "You didn't smile! You were severe! You are displeased with me! You don't love me! What wrong have I done?" etc., etc. much to the Mother's astonishment, as she had no consciousness of such things in her! A smile may be nothing to some, but if you look at it a little sympathetically and humanly, you will give it its proper importance. Considering the fact that one has left behind all joys and pleasures of life and come to a desert — at least at the primary stage — you can't ask us to be above all expectations of touches of soft breezes, can you ? The poet says or ought to have said, "It is the mind that makes its hell or heaven." The proof is that some people find it for a long time not a desert, but as they call it, a Paradise. Of course it is neither, — it is what one makes of it. I am thinking of taking some milk-tea and butter in the morning! Will it be a move to the left? If so, I give it up at once.
Butter in milk-tea? Never heard of such a meal before! Is it symbolic of the supramental? March 2, 1935 Page - 162 Last night I had a peculiar dream. I saw Mother in a half- reclining position, writing something playfully on my forehead with her finger and you entreated her smilingly to write more. Now, what is this? Result of my groaning complaint? Effectuation in dreamland what couldn't be in the world of fact and reality?
The place where you were is as much a world of fact and reality as is the material world and its happenings have sometimes a great effect on this world. What an ignorant lot of disciples you all are! Too much modernisation and Europeanisation by half! These things are meetings in the vital plane, but very often in the transcription of what happened some details get in that are contributed by the subconscient mind . . . The writing on the forehead means of course something that is fixed in you in the vital plane and has to come out hereafter in the physical consciousness.
By milk-tea and butter I meant a greater quantity of milk with a little tea, bread and butter. Well, the idea is to fill up the clavicular and other hollows in the body. Laughing alone can't make one fat! And without a little fat, it is said one hardly looks like a doctor!
Fat = medical knowledge? or a doctor thinks with his fat and not with his brain? . . But the self-buttering is your affair —I have no idea one way or the other in the matter. March 4, 1935 You discover it too late, Sir ! No escape now but to drag us, the ignorant fools, and it is for this very reason I was prtesting that fools can't do what Avatars can. However!!
Well, they can, if they stop being fools. However!!! Can you enlighten me how "... its happenings have sometimes a great effect on this world"? I have a personal interest too. Page - 163 The physical world is only a last field in which not only the physical forces but those of other worlds also throw themselves for realisation. Whatever happens here has already been prepared or foreshadowed in the vital; it does not happen exactly as represented in the vital, but with a change suitable for the material world. But this is a big subject — can't be dealt with tonight. And can't you be a little more explicit and precise about that writing on the forehead? Something impure that has to come up ? We usually associate the vital with impurity.
Why the Apollyon¹ do you suppose that all vital things are impure? The vital has strength, ardour, enthusiasm, self-confidence, generosity, the victor spirit — a host of other very necessary things. The only difficulty is that they get mixed up with others that are impure. All the same they are there and much needed. What is this "something fixed in the vital"? If anything impure is to happen, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Besides, I am not afraid of anything since that memorable "never" of yours.
Great Muggins, man! What a mess you have made of my explanation! I meant that by writing on your forehead the Mother had fixed something in you on the vital plane. That something, which she has fixed, will in time come out, manifest, be produced, born, fulfilled in this (slightly obtuse) physical consciousness of yours on this material plane. Produce itself out of latency like the sainthood in Muthu — see? Why on earth should the Mother write something impure on your forehead? Something good of course — something meaning to be there — something of your spiritual future, realisation kind of affair — what? If you echo me and ask "What? what?" I can't tell you — No data in the dream and as a conscientious scientific person I refuse to interpret without data, Here is another dream: we were all sitting in the Pranam Hall, in the morning, when the Mother came down smiling
¹ In Greek, the devil. Page - 164 and began to look around. There seemed to be many invisible presences — I felt Christ was there too. Then she sat down and a blazing ray of blue light was focussed on her from somewhere. Her appearance became marvellous. This gave me immense joy.
Well, you are beginning to have very good dream-experiences on the vital plane — very beautiful and true. That is something. But I wonder what Christ was doing there? Perhaps he came to be converted from his "gospel of sorrow"— but that would be the Christian Christ, not the real one. March 5, 1935 Enclosed is a long, perhaps too long controversy.¹ But the subject demands it. You may read it at one, two or three stretches. Please write an exhaustive reply, but in ink.
Nirod. [Underlined.} On the back the rational and logical result of your arguments. I shall write certain irrational answers on your MS.— in ink. You have won all along the line. Who could resist such a lavatorrent of logic? slightly mixed but still! You have convinced me (1st) that there never was nor could be an Avatar, (2) that all the so-called Avatars were chimerical fools and failures, (3) that there is no Divinity or divine element in man, (4) that I have never had any true difficulties or struggles, and that if I had any, it was all my fun (as K.S. said of my new metres that they were only Mr. Ghose's fun); (5) that if ever there was or will be a real Avatar, I am not he — but that I knew before, (6) that all I have done or the Mother has done is a mere sham — sufferings, struggles, conquests, defeats, the Way found, the Way followed, the call to others to follow, everything — it was all make-believe since I was the Divine and nothing could touch me and none follow me. That is truly a discovery, a downright knock-out which leaves me convinced, convicted, amazed, gasping. I won't go on, there is no space; but there are a score of other luminous convictions that your logic has forced on ¹ I.e. a typed letter of 5 pages taking up the subject of Avatarhood. See letter of March 6, 1935. Page - 165 me. But what to do next? You have put me in a terrible fix and I see no way out of it. For if the Way, the Yoga is merely sham, fun and chimera — then? [Here begins my typed letter. Sri Aurobindo's answer, written in hand on the same sheets, was never sent. I first read it after it was discovered among some old papers of Sri Aurobindo in 1981.] I have read your Essays on the Gita, Synthesis of Yoga, letter on Rama and, though I am wiser, my original and fundamental difficulty remains as unsolved as ever. What is so simple to you, as everything is, appears mighty complex and abstruse to my dense intellect. So no alternative but to submit to afresh beating. What your view comes to, put in a syllogism, is this: Since I have done it and I am an Avatar, every other blessed creature can do it.
This is idiotic. I have said "Follow my path, the way I have discovered for you through my own efforts and example. Transform your nature from the animal to the spiritual, grow into a higher divine consciousness. All this you can do by your own aspiration aided by the force of the Divine Shakti." That, if you please, is not the utterance of a madman or an imbecile. I have said, "I have opened the Way; now you with the Divine help can follow it." I have not said "Find the way for yourself as I did." In the Essays on the Gita you say, man "is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the seal of... Nature, Prakriti, Maya . . . she has minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine substance, but overlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal humanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there, it is at first indistinguishable."¹
Does it follow that the coating cannot be dissolved nor the mark effaced? Then stamp the stamp of the chimera on all efforts at ¹ Centenary Edition, Vol. 13, p. 149. Page - 166 spirituality and catalogue as asses and fools all who have attempted to rise beyond the human animal — all who have tried to follow the path of the Christ, the Buddha; stigmatise as folly Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, the way of the Jinas, Christ himself and Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, and any other pathfinder and seeker. On the other hand you write that in the Avatar, "the divinely- born Man, the real substance shines through the coating; the mark of the seal is there only for form, the vision is that of the secret Godhead, the power of the life is that of the secret Godhead, and it breaks through the seals of the assumed human nature. "¹
Does it follow that the breaking through had not to be done, or was a mere trifling impediment ? The power of the form can be exceedingly great as every thinker and observer of life can tell you. After this you say that the Avatar's descent is "precisely to show that the human birth with all its limitations can be made such a means and instrument of the divine birth and divine works... Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show... how that suffering may be a means of redemption."² Well, Sir, it will have no go with me, my heart won't leap up at such a divine possibility, such a dream of Paradise!
Your heart not leaping up does not make my statement a falsehood, a non-sequitur or a chimera. My fellow-brothers may venture to reach there through such a thin hanging bridge but if they do, I am afraid, it will be into a fool's Paradise. The fool being myself, eh? For it is my Paradise and it is I who call them to it. The difficulties you face, the dangers you overcome, the ¹ Ibid., pp. 149-50. ² Ibid., pp. 155-56. Page - 167 struggles you embrace would seem to be mere shams. [Sri Aurobindo underlined "mere shams".]
Truly then what a humbug and charlatan I have been, making much of sham struggles and dangers — or, in the alternative, since I took them for realities, what a self-blinded imbecile!
Mother knew she was an Avatar at a very early age.
At what age? But I shall say nothing about the Mother — I cannot bring her into such arguments, only myself.
She was thus able to follow the path of travails through volcanoes and earthquakes. But if she says to me, "You can also do it," I will cry out, "Forbear, Mother, forbear."
Nobody asks you to go through volcanoes and earthquakes or to proceed unhelped. You are simply asked to follow the Leader and Guide with the Divine help and with courage, in the face of whatever difficulties come.
If I knew I was an Avatar (pardon my bold hypothesis) do you think I would cry or wail for fear of any amount of crashes and collisions or would it matter if I began with a nature with not a grain of spirituality in me? I would jump from peak to peak in somersaults, go down the abysses, rise up the steeps without fear of mortal consequences since I would know that I was the Divine.
Would you? I wish you had been in my place then! You would have been a hundred times more fit than myself, if you could really have done that. And how easily things would have been done! while I did them and am still doing them with enormous difficulty because I lead and have to make the path so that others may follow with less difficulty.
There could be no death or failure for me.
The Divine in the body is not subject to death or failure? Yet all Page - 168 those claimed to be Avatars have died — some by violence, some by cancer, some of indigestion etc., etc. You yourself say that they were all failures. How do you reconcile these self-contradictory arguments?
You say, "A physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the descending Godhead takes possession of it."¹
Like my heredity? It was "pure"? But of course I am not a divine incarnation. Only why put all that upon me whom it does not fit?
To his beloved children created in his own image the Divine says with gusto, "I send you through this hell of a cycle of rebirths. Don't lose heart, poor boys, if you groan under the weight of your sins and those of your ancestors to boot. I will come down and take hold of a pure heredity with no coating around me and say unto you — come and follow my example."
Who gave this message? It is your own invention. The Divine does not come down in that way. It is a silly imagination of yours that you are trying to foist on the truth of things. The Divine also comes down into the cycle of rebirths, makes the great holocaust, endures shame and obloquy, torture and crucifixion, the burden of human nature, sex and passion and sorrow and suffering, manifests many births before he reveals the Avatar. And when he does reveal it? Well, read the lives of the Avatars and try to understand and see. Nobody ever said there was no coating — that is your invention.
Not a very inspiring message, Sir!
No, of course not — but it is yours, not any Avatar's.
Jatakas tell us that in every life small or great, Buddha's
¹ Ibid., p. 157. Page - 169 frontal consciousness was always above the level of others.
Jatakas are legends.
Ramakrishna and Chaitanya began yoga in their cradle, it seems.
Did they? I know nothing about it; but if they told you that! Anyhow one died by drowning and the other of a cancer.
I don't know if Avatars ever play the part of the rogue or the eternal sinner. [ Sri Aurobindo underlined "rogue or the eternal sinner".]
Krishna was a rogue and a sinner even in his Avatar life, if tales are true! Don't you think so?
Now about your absence of urge towards spirituality. Even though that sounds like a story, pray tell us how you could free your mind from all thoughts in 7 days or be established in Brahmic consciousness in a few days.
3 if you please. You are terribly inaccurate in your statements. It was simply through the Divine Grace, because it had been done by thousands before me throughout the centuries and millenniums, and the Divine did not want me to waste time over that; other things in the Yoga were not so damned easy!
And even apart from spirituality, what of your waiting for the gallows for your country's sake, with perfect equanimity? [Sri Aurobindo underlined "perfect equanimity”.]
Who told you that? I was perfectly sure of release. But even so plenty of ordinary men did it before me.
What of your profoundly bold assertion that you would free the country by a Force which was under your feet ?
Never said that, surely. Under my feet?
What of your brilliant career? Page - 170 My career was much less brilliant than many others'. They ought to have progressed then farther in Yoga than myself, e.g. Mussolini, Lenin, Tilak, Brajendranath Seal, the admirable Crichton, Gandhi, Tagore, Roosevelt, Lloyd George etc., etc. All Avatars or all full of the essential principle.
If one has the essential principle, what does it matter if one has no urge towards spirituality ? The inner consciousness is there.
All that does not apply to me alone. There are hundreds of others. The inner consciousness is not so rare a phenomenon as all that.
There are some people, I hear, who are to all external appearance debauchees or moral insolvents but whose psychic is much developed or "can be touched".
That gives away the whole case. For mark that I have never asked the whole human race to follow me to the supramental —that is your invention, not mine.
Still you go on saying that what you have done is possible for me and not for Arjunas only to whom alone Krishna seems to have addressed the Gita. [Sri Aurobindo underlined "Arjunas only".]
What a waste of words and energy! Yet Krishna said "even Chandalas can follow my way."
I prophesy that your message will reverberate in the rarefied atmosphere evoking a loud rebellious echo from human . hearts.
I admit that you have successfully proved that I am an imbecile.
But if you say, "I come to raise you bodily by my divine omnipotence, not by my example," I am all for it. If you insist that I follow your example, it would be as well to insist on my leaving you bag and baggage at once. Page - 171 All this is a purely personal argument concerning yourself. Up to now you were making general assertions — so was I. I was concerned with the possibility of people following the Path I had opened, as Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Chaitanya, etc. opened theirs. You were declaring that no human being could follow and that my life was perfectly useless as an example — like the lives of the Avatars. Path, life, example all useless — even Power useless because all have been failures. These are general questions. Whether X or Y is able or willing to follow the path or depends on divine Omnipotence only is a personal question. Even if X or Y does so, he has no right to pass a general decree of impossibility against others.¹
There are some who claim that they are here and remain here by their soul's call. But I am not one of those fortunate ones. Where they hear the soul's call, I hear the calls of a thousand devils and if it were not for your love — well, no,—for your Power (which I firmly believe in), I would end up myself by being one of those devils. I hope you will believe that this is not a conceited statement.
It is very conceited. To be a devil needs a considerable personal capacity or else a great openness to the Beyond. If you had said, I can only be an ordinary human being, that might be modest.
We don't mean to give you a compliment when we say these things.
Of course not. It is the reverse of complimentary, since you prove me to be an ignorant and mistaken fellow of an Avatar, who merrily wastes his time doing things which are of no earthly use to any human being — except perhaps Arjuna who .is not here.
We say that the Sun is a thing apart, not to be measured by any human standards.
The Sun's rays are of use to somebody — you say all my acts and life and laborious opening of the way I thought I had made for spiritual
¹ Note that Sri Aurobindo wrote X and Y in the MS, Here they are not editorial substitutions. Page - 172 realisation, are of no use to anybody — since nobody is strong enough to follow the path, only the Avatar can do it. Poor lonely ineffective fellow of an Avatar! We respect him, adore him, lay ourselves bare to his light, but we do not follow him.
Who is this we? Editorial "we"? Let me point out one or two facts in a perfectly serious spirit. (1) It has always been supposed by spiritual people that divine perfection, similitude to the Divine, sadrishya, sadharmya is part of the Mukti. Christ said "Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect"— the very Divine himself, mind you, not a mere Avatar or luminous projection from him. His followers strive to be Christ- like. Thomas a Kempis, meditating and striving, wrote a book on the Imitation of Christ. Francis of Assisi and many others arrived at Christlikeness. [Krishna in] the Gita insists on sadharmya, gives himself as an example, and tells Arjuna that many before him from ancient times reached to it. Buddha in teaching karuna, the eightfold path, the rejection of sanskaras, gave it as an ideal to all true followers of his path, thus placing before them not only his own path but his own example. All this is trash and humbug? Christ and Buddha were fools? Myself even a bigger fool? It is not a question of greatness — it is a question of acquiring a certain consciousness to which the way is laid open. It is not a question of acquiring cosmic omniscience and omnipotence, but of reaching the essential divine consciousness with all its spiritual consequences, peace, light, equality, strength, Ananda etc., etc. If you say that that can not be done, you deny all possibility of spiritual perfection, transformation or any true Yoga. All that any one can do is to lie helpless and wait for the divine Omnipotence to do something or other. The whole spiritual past of man becomes a fantastic insanity, with the Avatars as the chief lunatics. That is the materialist point of view; but I am unable to envisage it as a basis for sadhana. That example is not all, is true; I have not said it is; there is Influence, there is spiritual help — but the truth of the Way and the Example cannot be belittled in this scornful fashion. (2) You make nothing of the Divine in man. If there is no divinity in man, then there is no possibility of Avatarhood; also spirituality can just as well pass away into silence — it has no foundation here. Page - 173 If the divinity is there in man, it can break through its coatings. You admit that it can do it in debauchees and moral insolvents — that it can manifest in ignorant and uncultured men and women is a proved fact; the Gita itself declares that all kinds of men and women can follow its path. Whether X or Y¹ does or does not [do] so does not depend then on these things and it is no use trying to bar the path to people because of either their ignorance or their immorality. To do so is to betray a bottomless ignorance of spiritual things. As to the possibility of awakening the psychic being, on what intellectual grounds or by what fixed ethical or rational rules are you going to fix that and declare "No entry here for you" ? You cannot generalise in the way you try to do by an intellectual reasoning. The mystery of the Spirit is too great for such a puny endeavour. March 6, 1935 [Whatever correspondence on Avatarhood follows now, refers only to Sri Aurobindo's short reply of March 6, 1935 (see above, pp. 165-6) written on the chit.: "Nirod. . . chimera — then ?” or before. ] You seem to attribute to me things which I never said, or is it my clumsy way of putting things? Probably that. But even then, you have put into my mouth exactly the opposite of what I have been trying to say. For instance — when did I say that you are not an Avatar? On the contrary I wrote to you that you are an Avatar.
You don't say, but if your theory or description of an Avatar is right, I am not one. I am proceeding on the necessary consequences of your logic.
When did I say that you or Mother had no difficulties or struggles? Did I not write that the Avatar accepts all terrestrial conditions, etc. ? However, I did say that the difficulties and struggles are all shams, that is, not as real as our difficulties.
¹ Here also Sri Aurobindo wrote X and Y in the MS. Page - 174 If they are shams, they have no value for others or for any true effect. If they have no value for others or for any true effect, they are perfectly irrational and unreal and meaningless. The Divine does not need to suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it is in order to bear the world-burden and help the world and men; and if the sufferings and struggles are to be of any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot help. They must be as real as the struggles and sufferings of men themselves — the Divine bears them and at the same time shows the way out of them. Otherwise his assumption of human nature has no meaning and no utility and no value. It is strange that you cannot understand or refuse to admit so simple and crucial a point. What is the use of admitting Avatarhood if you take all the meaning out of it?
I never said that there could be no Avatars nor that they are failures.
Good Lord! You said most emphatically that they were all failures and that is why the Divine had to come back again and again — to "atone for his failures". If your argument is that the life, actions, struggles of the Avatar (e.g. Rama's, Krishna's) are unreal because the Divine is there and knows it is all a Maya, in man also there is a self, a spirit that is immortal, untouched, divine; you can say that man's sufferings and ignorance are only put on, shams, unreal. But if man feels them as real and if the Avatar feels his work and difficulties to be serious and real?
I don't think I said that there is no divinity in man. In the quotation I gave from the Gita it is said that man is made out of the divine substance but has a thick coating on him.
If the existence of the Divinity is of no practical effect, what is the use of a theoretical admission? The manifestation of the Divinity in the Avatar is of help to man because it helps him to discover his own divinity, find the way to realise it. If the difference is so great that the humanity by its very nature prevents all possibility of following the way opened by the Avatar, it merely means that there is no divinity in man that can respond to the divinity in the Avatar. Page - 175 You make a flourish of reasonings and do not see the consequence of your reasonings. It is no use saying "I believe this or that" and then reasoning in a way which leads logically to the very negation of what you believe.
Also, I find that some important points on which my whole case stands and without which my "fury” has no meaning, have been left out by you. I admitted that Avatars have many difficulties, but because they know, as Mother did, that they are Avatars, because the "real substance” shines through the alloy in all that they do, they have a fixed faith and conviction that they will never fail. Now take the case of man; he has usually no such conviction because of the blessed "coating”. So he groans and writhe sin agony, doubt and despair. How many times in the midst of struggles have I not said to myself that Yoga is beyond my capacities! Now, if I knew for certain that I was an extraordinary being, say an Avatar, I would not despair. This is why I said that the difficulties of Avatars are not real, but shams — not that they have no sting in them, but that the luminous consciousness bears them easily and goes on in spite of them.
You think then that in me (I do not bring in the Mother), there was never any doubt or despair, no attacks of that kind. I have borne every attack which human beings have borne, otherwise I would be unable to assure anybody "This too can be conquered". At least I would have no right to say so. Your psychology is terribly rigid. I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is the same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that there is behind others — and it is to awaken that that he is there. The psychic being does the same for all who are intended for the spiritual way,— men need not be extraordinary beings to follow Yoga. That is the mistake you are making, to harp on greatness as if only the great can be spiritual.
Regarding the divinity in man — what is the use of this divinity if it is coated layer after layer with Maya ? How many can really become conscious of it? Page - 176 Exactly! Why admit any divinity then at all, if humanity is an insuperable bar to any following in the Way pointed out by the Avatar? That was your contention that humanity and divinity are unbridgeably opposite things, that it is no use the Avatar asking others (except Arjuna) to follow in his Path — they, being human, cannot do it. You had defeats, struggles, but had at the same time the spirit of absolute surrender, faith which we find shining through Mother's prayers as well. Did you not leave your great work for the country at one word of Krishna?
Lots of people leave things at the word of a human being like Gandhi, they do not need the word of Krishna.
Does the average man have this faith etc. ? If he has not, but has instead struggles, sufferings etc., picture what his condition would be!
If absolute surrender, faith etc. from the beginning were essential for Yoga, then nobody could do it. I myself could not have done it, if such a condition had been demanded of me. Let me make it clear that in all I wrote I was not writing to prove that I am an Avatar! You are busy in your reasonings with the personal .question, I am busy in mine with the general one. I am seeking to manifest something of the Divine that I am conscious of and feel — I care a damn whether that constitutes me an Avatar or something else. That is not a question which concerns me. By manifestation, of course, I mean the bringing out and spreading of that Consciousness so that others also may feel and enter into it and live in it. March 7, 1935 I await your "irrational” remarks on my type-script.¹ I hope you haven't thrown it into the waste paper basket.
I had written a good deal the same day as I got your type-script —
¹ As noted above, Sri Aurobindo's long reply to my type-script, was never sent. Page - 177 but I have a sanguinary eye, so I have to wait a day or two before pursuing my irrationalities. March 8, 1935 I am surprised and sad to hear that you can still be affected by these physical ailments! What I am surprised at is that I have any eye left at all after the last two or three years of half-day and all night work. The difficulty for resting is that the sadhaks have begun pouring paper again without waiting for the withdrawal of the notice — not all of course, but many. And there is a stack of outside correspondence .still unanswered! I am persuading my eye, but it is still red and sulky and reproachful. Revolted, what? Thinks too much is imposed on it and no attention paid to its needs, desires, preferences etc. Will have to reason with it for a day or two longer.
How I wish, as a medical man, I mean, I could enforce absolute rest to the eyes and issue a bulletin.
[Underlining "absolute rest"]: It does not exist in this world — not even in the Himalayas — except of course for the inner being which can always be in absolute rest. March 9, 1935 I am pursuing a policy of non-interference with others’ patients according to medical etiquette. For instance D.R.R. called in Dr. R from the very start, so I didn't butt in.
Of course you can't interfere — but you may assist. R however does not seem to be fond of his acquisition — he was proposing to shove him into the hospital again! I think after B goes you must not hesitate to take things in your hands firmly. Don't hesitate to lead R gently in the way he should go. If he does anything foolish, interfere vigorously — I have told R at his own suggestion to call you and see what D.R. has, if it is typhoid he must go to the hospital — we can't deal with that here. March 14. 1935 Page - 178 Dr. B is going tonight and the whole responsibility of the dispensary sits on my shoulders. Well, all faults and failings have to be borne alone. You may say the Divine is there behind. Yes, but that "behind" makes all the difference ! One doesn't know whether He is there! And I don't know why He proposes to work in me from behind or within!
Don't know, "God moves in a mysterious way"— that is the sum of human wisdom in the matter, but it doesn't carry you very far.
We gave N. P. some bromide for sleep.
Bromide should be avoided — it does not give good sleep of a helpful kind.
We have prescribed mercury ointment also.
For many mercury ointment increases pain and swelling of eyes.
S seems to be all right. We can let him walk about a little. P asked me if his giddiness was due to congestion or some other cause. Considering his age, state of pulse and symptoms, I would think it's congestion.
I think he might walk about a little. Giddiness can come from many causes. I used to walk about for hours with my head going round or going up in a most exhilarating way. It gave me a perverse Ananda but did not inconvenience me otherwise. But S's case is not quite clear.
And why so many illnesses all on a sudden ? Is the Supramental then too near?
No, it is the material which has become too uppish.
People are saying that it has come down into the physical, evidenced by great peace and calm. Is this then that calm and peace or the deluge before the new creation?
Into whose physical? I shall be very glad to know — for I myself Page - 179 have not got so far, otherwise I would not have a queasy eye. But if you know anybody who has got it (the Supramental in the physical, not the eye) tell me like a shot. I will acclaim him "Grand First Supramental" at once.
And so many eye-cases too! Is the infection spreading from the Master to the disciples?
There were plenty of eye-cases before. Your idea of their sudden multitude is an optical illusion!
Please see that my type-script [on Avatarhood} with your remarks, is not misplaced. I am almost dreading it. If once it goes into the heap, it is gone for ever!
It is safe. I have a stylish 17th century (or something like that) portfolio for these three precious (?) documents now. March 17, 1935 N. P. has pain in the eye which he says is of a throbbing character as if somebody were "pricking” from within the centre of the eye.
"Throbbing" and "pricking" are two quite different things. Tricking pains are quite normal in ordinary eye-illness. N is not a good "pain-bearer" and those who are like that, always get pain worse and find it more difficult to get rid of it.
R came to see him at my request and advised him to do palming.
We must first know what the damned thing is. If it is glaucoma, then sunlight treatment is the only chance of cure. Let us hope it is not.
My impression is that R is more concerned with treatment than diagnosis; then the treatment is bound to be symptomatic. Page - 180 |