After Sri Aurobindo 's lunch at about 4.30 p.m. Nirodbaran was reading to him the memorial orations on a prominent figure in local politics and business. One person after another, beginning with the Governor, had praised him in superlative terms: "upright", "generous", "great friend of
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At about 7.00 the talk started again. It turned on homoeopathy and its difference from allopathy in regard to dosage and other matters.
SRI AUROBINDO: Homoeopathy is nearer to Yoga. Allopathy is more mechanical. Homoeopathy deals with the physical personality all the symptoms put together and making up this personality. Allopathy goes by diagnosis which does not consider the personality. The action of homoeopathy is more subtle and dynamic.
Savoor: Some Yogis go into Samadhi as a release from bodily pain and suffering. But there are others who don't do that and bear the pain.
NIRODBARAN: Ramakrishna was one such.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Yogis can go into Samadhi and put an end to the Samskara. But I don't see the utility of going into Samadhi to escape from pain. On the other hand, when one decides to bear a disease, it seems to me in a way an acceptance of it.
Ramakrishna once, when he was seriously ill, said to Keshab Sen that his body was breaking up under the stress of his spiritual development. But spiritual development need not always lead to disease.
NIRODBARAN: If Ramakrishna had so willed it, he could have prevented the disease.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh yes, but he didn't believe in using his will to cure his disease or in praying to the Divine for a cure.
NIRODBARAN: It is said that he got his cancer because of the sins of his disciples.
SRI AUROBINDO: He said that himself and, if he did, it must be true. The Guru has to take up many things of the disciples. The Mother does that because she unites herself with the sadhaks and takes them up into herself. Of course, at the same time she also stops many things from happening in herself. A famous Yogi told a disciple, when the latter was becoming a Guru, "In addition to your own difficulties you will now take up those of others." No doubt, if one cuts the connection with the disciples, this can't
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Interchange of forces between persons is very common. Whenever two people meet, the interchange goes on. In that way one contracts a disease from another without any infection by germs. A disciple here was very conscious of what he was receiving from others, but he didn't care to think about what he was passing on to them!
Even without meeting, there can be mutual effects. Even thought has power for good and evil. Bad thoughts may affect others. That's why Buddha used to emphasise right thinking.
The need of company which people feel is really their need to interchange forces. What after all is the passion of man and woman for each other? Nothing but a vital interchange, a drawing in of forces from each other. Of course, the interchange or drawing in of forces takes place unconsciously and sometimes in spite of oneself. Thus when a person doesn't like another, he doesn't always know the reason, but it means that the vital beings of the two don't agree; the interchanges are unpleasant. You know Sheridan's lines:
I do not like thee. Doctor Fell.
The reason why I cannot tell.
But at times, even when there is incompatibility, people come together. You see men and women quarrelling violently and yet unable to do without each other. That is because each has a need of the other's vital force. Woman has almost always such a need and that is what is called "being in love". Surely the need has been imposed on her by man. But Indian society established the relation between the husband and the wife in such a way that an equation might result.
NIRODBARAN: But if one draws more than the other, there is a risk.
SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly. If one receives more than one gives, bad consequences may be there for the one who gives more. Hindu astrology speaks of Rakshasa Yoga: a husband losing many wives one after another means an incompatibility so that instead of supporting them he is eating them up.
NIRODBARAN: What are vampires?
SRI AUROBINDO: Those who constantly draw from other people's vital beings without giving anything in return.
NIRODBARAN: Are they so by nature or through possession?
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SRI AUROBINDO: They may be so either way. And there are men vampires as there are women vampires.
There is also another kind of vital nature: an expansive one. And in that case one has the need to pour out. Still another kind, again expansive, is the Hitlerian vital, catching hold of other people in its grip.
NIRODBARAN: Does psychic love ever catch hold like that?
SRI AUROBINDO: Of course not! The law of psychic love is to give without making any demand.
After Dr. Rao had gone we gathered round Sri Aurobindo and began talking again about medicine—homoeopathy, allopathy, ayurveda, etc. Somebody remarked how barbers came to occupy a place in the history of healing in India.
SRI AUROBINDO: In Europe also during the Middle Ages, most of the surgeons were barbers.
I understand there are Kavirajas who can, by examining the pulse, state the condition and disease of the patient.
Then some of us referred to reports about remarkable pulse-specialists who could even say what one had eaten a few days back.
SATYENDRA: They are not always correct. One can't accept the reports.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? How do you know the reports are not correct? Many sciences are built up by experience and intuition and handed down by tradition: for example, the Chinese method of treatment by finding nerve centres and puncturing them with pins.
PURANI: It is said of Dhanwantari that whenever he used to stand before a plant, the plant used to reveal its properties to him.
SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): He was the physician of the Gods; so that is nothing unnatural for him.
Ayurveda was the first system of medicine. It was from India that this science went to Greece and then to Arabia. Indian physicians used to go to Arabia. What Hippocrates and Galen speak of as the
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NIRODBARAN: At Calcutta, people are trying to found Ayurvedic schools. That will be better, for it will be a combination of Eastern and Western systems, especially in anatomy and surgery.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why? Anatomy and surgery were known to Indians. There were many surgical instruments in ancient India. Besides, for ancient things like Ayurveda I don't believe in this modern system of schools and colleges. They make the whole thing mental and intellectual, while the ancient systems were more intuitive. In India they used to hand down such things from Guru to disciple. It is the same with Yoga. One can't think of Yogic schools and classes. They are an American idea. The Guru of Vaun Macpheeters used to hold classes and give lectures and readings in Yoga.
NIRODBARAN: Perhaps all this can be done with Hatha Yoga?
SRI AUROBINDO: Even that would be only the outer part.
All of us assembled in the hope of hearing something from Sri Aurobindo. But he did not seem to be in a talkative mood. So we were forced to keep quiet, thinking how to draw him into conversation. Suddenly we found Dr. Becharlal beaming with a smile and looking at him. Then he took a few steps nearer to Sri Aurobindo and we followed him. When he drew still closer he burst into a question.
DR. BECHARLAL: To attain the right attitude, what principles should we follow in our dealing and behaviour with others?
SRI AUROBINDO: It seems to me that one should go about it the other way round. If we have the right attitude other things come by themselves. But the right attitude is itself secondary. What is important is the inner state. Spiritual and ethical principles are quite different, for everything depends on whether it is done for the sake of the Spirit or for ethical reasons. One may observe mental control in his dealings, but his inner state may be quite different. For example, he may not show anger, but within he may be ruffled. In the true inner control the inner peace is not disturbed
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NIRODBARAN: How is the psychic control to be got?
SRI AUROBINDO: By constant remembrance, consecration of oneself to the Divine, rejection of all that stands in the way of the psychic influence. Generally it is the vital being that stands in the way with its desires and demands. But once the psychic opens, it shows at every step what is to be done.
Soon after the Mother came in and all of us sat in meditation with her. On her departure about 7.00 p.m. Sri Aurobindo started the talk again.
SRI AUROBINDO: What's the idea behind your question? Is it something personal or general?
DR. BECHARLAL: I meant, for instance, how to see God in everybody, how to love all and have a goodwill for all?
SRI AUROBINDO: One has to start with the idea of goodwill for all, to consecrate oneself to the Divine, try to see God in others, acquire a psychic control and reject in oneself all vital and mental impulses. On this basis one must proceed towards realisation. The idea must pass into experience. Once the realisation is there, everything becomes easy. But even then, it is easy in the static aspect. When it comes to the dynamic expression it becomes difficult. Thus, when one finds a man behaving like a brute, it is very difficult to see God in him, unless one separates him from his outer nature and sees the Divine behind.
One can also repeat the name of the Divine and come to a divine consciousness.
NIRODBARAN: How does repeating the name help one?
SRI AUROBINDO: The name is a power, like a Mantra. Everything in the world is a power. There are some who do Pranayama together with repeating the name. After a while, the repetition and Pranayama become automatic and one feels the Divine Presence.
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There are no limits to the ways of God. In the Ashram here, once people began to feel a tremendous force in their work. They could work without fatigue for hours and hours. But they overdid it. One has to be reasonable even in spirituality. That tremendous force was felt when the sadhana was in the vital being. When the sadhana started in the physical, things were different. The physical is like a stone, full of Aprakasha and Apravritti, darkness and inertia.
NIRODBARAN: Sometimes one feels a sort of love for everybody; though the feeling lasts only for a few seconds, it gives a great Joy.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is a wave from the psychic. But what is your attitude towards it? Do you take it as a passing mood or does it stimulate you to further experience of that sort?
NIRODBARAN: It stimulates, but often the vital mixture tries to come in. Fortunately I could drive it out recently.
SRI AUROBINDO: The mixture is the risk. The fact that the mixture tried to come shows that the wave came through the inner vital and thus took something from the vital. In the vital, one has to be careful to avoid sex impurities. There was a sadhak who, in spite of his occasional outburst of violence, was a very nice and affectionate man. But he used to get his psychic experiences mixed up with the sex impulse, and the experiences were spoiled. The spoiling happens because at times one gives a semi justification to the sex impulse, saying that after all it does not matter very much. But sex is absolutely out of place in Yoga. In the ordinary life it has a certain place for certain purposes.
When I was in jail I knew a man who had a power of concentration by which he tried to make everyone love him, and he succeeded. The warders and all the others were drawn to him. Of course one must know the process of concentrating.
NIRODBARAN: That's just what we don't know. (Laughter)
SRI AUROBINDO: The mind must be made quiet and the consciousness turned—not the mind alone—towards the aim. It no doubt takes time but that is the way. There are no devices for these things.
SATYENDRA: What is the difference between modification of nature and transformation of it?
SRI AUROBINDO: Transformation is the casting of the whole nature into the mould of your inner realisation. What you realise you project outwards into your nature.
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I speak of three transformations — the psychic, the spiritual and the supramental. Many have had the psychic: there were the Christian saints who spoke of God's presence in their hearts. The spiritual transformation implies the realisation of the Self, the Infinite above, with the dynamic no less than the static side of its peace, knowledge, Ananda, etc. This transformation is difficult. Beyond that is the supramental transformation, the Truth- Consciousness working for the Divine aim and purpose.
NIRODBARAN. If one has inner realisation, transformation should follow in the light of it.
SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. There may be some modification in the nature, but entire transformation is not automatic. It is not so easy as all that. The experience of peace and calm after my first contact with Lele never left me, but in my outer nature there were many agitations and again and again I had to make an effort to establish peace and calm there. Ever since that early experience the whole object of my Yoga has been to change the nature into the mould of the inner realisation. That is what I have done in my sadhana.
NIRODBARAN: Could a man with true realisation have grave defects left in his nature — defects like the sex impulse?
SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? There can be the movement of anger as well as the sex impulse. Have you not heard of Durvasa's anger or the fall of the Rishis through sex? But all Yogis may not care about these defects. Yogis pass beyond the stage of good and evil: ordinary questions of morality don't arise then. So some of them may look upon the outer nature as a child behaving as it wants, and not bother to harmonise it with the inner being. There is also the danger of self-deception. A Yogi may go into the Higher Mind, perhaps even touch the Overmind, and yet have a sexual fall. He may think he is guided by an inner divine voice and attempt to justify his erratic behaviour by saying he is only obeying that voice. I have heard of a certain Yogi who went abroad and was arrested for making advances to girls in a public place. These things are possible because man's psychology is complex.
Once after the Barisal Conference I went to see Mahendranath Nandi who was called the Tolstoy of Brahmanbaria. His grandfather was a Tantric and could meditate sitting upon the waters of a river. From him perhaps Nandi got his spiritual capacities. Nandi used to be guided by an inner voice. When Bipin Pal asked him
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But, of course, merely unconventional conduct by a Yogi is not a fall. Once a disciple got shocked because he saw me eating meat. He complained to Ramana Maharshi. Maharshi replied that it is a question of habit and, when the man had departed, Maharshi said to his followers, "What an imbecile!"
In spiritual realisations there are any number of passages, cross ways and truths. And when I say that something is to be done or not done in Yoga, I mean in our Yoga. It does not apply to Yogas with other aims. In our Yoga we insist on the transformation of the outer nature.
There was a lull for some time after this. Then Sri Aurobindo spoke again.
SRI AUROBINDO: Do you know anything about Z?
SATYENDRAr: I am not personally attracted to him.
SRI AUROBINDO: When I saw his photo I had the impression that he is a man with a strong vital power. His sadhana seems to be on the vital plane and it is in such sadhana that one brings about a great influx of Power and unfortunately people are attracted to it. In the spiritual, psychic and even mental sadhana, Power can come but it comes automatically, without one's asking for it.
Barin was another Z, with a powerful vital. At one time I had high hopes for him, but people whose sadhana is on the vital basis pass into what I have called the Intermediate Zone, and they don't want to go beyond. The vital is like a jungle and it is extremely difficult to rescue one with such a vital power. It is comparatively much easier to help those who are weak and lacking in such power. Barin used to think that he had put himself in the Divine's hands and the Divine was in him. We had to be severe with him to disillusion him of his idea. That's why he could not remain here. He went back and became a Guru with about thirty or forty disciples around him. Gurugiri comes very often to this kind of people. He did everything he wanted in my name a turn I heartily dislike. Unfortunately his mind was not as equally developed in power as his vital. He had the fighter's mind, not the
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We assembled again as usual and were eager to start the talk, but nobody dared to begin without any hint or gesture from Sri Aurobindo. He was lying calmly on the bed.
Champaklal slowly approached him, looking by turns at him and at us. We saw a ray of hope in this attempt, but looking at Champaklal's combination of eagerness and hesitation Nirodbaran could not check his amusement. So he moved away from Sri Aurobindo's presence and, lying down on the floor, shook and rolled with suppressed laughter. Sri Aurobindo at once noticed that something was going on.
SRI AUROBINDO: What's the matter?
PURANI: Nirodbaran is rolling with laughter!
SRI AUROBINDO: Descent of Ananda?
NIRODBARAN: It is Champaklal.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, descent of Champaklal?
At this the whole atmosphere changed and Purani, catching the opportunity, shot a question with a beaming face.
PURANI: Because hostile forces offer resistance to the divine manifestation in the world and some are even victorious, can it be said with any logic that the Divine lacks omnipotence? It is not my question. I am asking somebody else's. Personally I don't think so.
SRI AUROBINDO (turning his head towards Purani): It depends on what you mean by omnipotence. If the idea is that God must always succeed, then when He does not we should conclude that He is not omnipotent. But do you mean to say that in spite of resistance He must invariably succeed? People have very queer
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Every time the Light has tried to descend, it has met with resistance and opposition. Christ was crucified. You may ask why it should be like that when he was innocent. Yet his very crucifixion was the divine dispensation. Buddha was denied. Sons of Light come, the earth denies them, rejects them and afterwards , accepts them in name in order to reject them in substance. Only a small minority grows towards a spiritual birth and it is through them that the divine manifestation takes place.
What remains of Buddhism today except a few edicts of Asoka and a few hundred thousand Buddhists?
NIRODBARAN: Asoka helped in propagating Buddhism.
SRI AUROBINDO: Anybody could have done that.
NIRODBARAN: But didn't it become all-powerful through his aid?
SRI AUROBINDO: If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual, it would have been much better for real Buddhism. That is always the case with spiritual things. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline in its substance. The King of Norway, about whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all the people who were not Christians and thus succeeded in establishing Christianity! The same happened to Mohammedanism where it succeeded and the followers of the Prophet became Caliphs. Not kings and emperors but those who are truly spiritual keep spirituality alive.
NIRODBARAN: Asoka sacrificed everything for Buddhism.
SRI AUROBINDO: But he remained an emperor till the end. When kings and emperors try to spread a religion, they make the
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NIRODBARAN: Ramana Maharshi was hardly known. It was Brunton who spread his name.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is a strange measure of success people adopt in judging a spiritual man by the number of disciples. Who was a greater success-Ramana Maharshi surrounded by all sorts of disciples or Ramana Maharshi doing his sadhana in seclusion for years? Success to be real must be spiritual.
Then the talk turned on Ashrams in general and the mismanagement of some while the Guru remains indifferent. The difficulties of staying in some Ashrams were also cited.
SRI AUROBINDO: Once Mrs. Kelly went to see Maharshi and was seen fidgeting about due to mosquitoes during meditation. Afterwards she complained to him of mosquito bites. Maharshi told her that if she couldn't bear mosquito bites she couldn't do Yoga. Mrs. Kelly couldn't understand the significance of this statement. She wanted spirituality without mosquitoes. Trouble also arises because of quarrelling among disciples.
PURANI: A certain disciple of Maharshi criticised Brunton, saying he was using Maharshi's name and making money. He said too that Brunton was taking notes during meditation and that after jotting down what came into his head he would declare it was from Maharshi.
SRI AUROBINDO: And yet Brunton is a seeker of the Truth, though he has serious difficulties.
Perhaps you know the famous story about Maharshi. Once, getting disgusted with the Ashram and the disciples, he started to go away to the mountains. He passed along a narrow path flanked by hills. He came upon an old woman sitting with her legs stretched across the path. He requested her to draw aside her legs but she wouldn't. Then he walked across them. She became very angry and said, "Why are you so restless? Why can't you sit in one place at Arunachala instead of moving about? Go back to your place and worship Shiva there." Her remarks struck him and he retraced his steps. After going some distance he looked back. He found that nobody was there. It flashed on him that the Divine Mother herself had spoken and had wanted him to remain at Arunachala.
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Of course it was the Divine Mother who had asked him to go back. Maharshi is intended to live that sort of life. He has nothing to do with what happens around him. He remains calm and detached. The man is still what he always was.
By the way, I am glad to hear of Maharshi shouting at some Indian Christians. It means he also can become dynamic.
The only Ashram I have heard of in which there was great unity was Thakur Dayanand's. Once I wrote an article on the Avatar in the Karmayogin. Mahendra Day, one of Dayanand's disciples, seeing the article wrote to me: "Here is the Avatar." He was very enthusiastic about it.
NIRODBARAN: Why are Gurus obliged to work with imperfect and defective people like us? In our Ashram the difficulty seems to be more keen.
SRI AUROBINDO: What you say about Gurus has been a puzzle to me also. But it is like that. Our case is a little different. Our aim is to change the world, though not universally, of course. Hence everyone here represents human nature with all its difficulties as well as capacities. (Looking at Nirodbaran) That's how your difficulties are explained!
Dr. Rao arrived and, as before, was insisting that the splints could safely be removed from Sri Aurobindo's leg on New Year's day. We couldn't assent to this.
DR. Rao: I discussed the point with the specialist. But we begged to differ. The specialist's opinion is that the splints should be kept for ten weeks more.
THE MOTHER: Do doctors change their opinions?
DR. Rao: This specialist has changed his. But the question is to be decided by Sri Aurobindo.
When Dr. Rao had gone, the Mother asked Sri Aurobindo what he thought.
SRI AUROBINDO: I can't take the risk. I have to be very careful as I am not sure that violent movements won't take place
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NIRODBARAN: Dr. Rao always emphasises that you are an extraordinary patient who can be trusted to follow directions.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then I have to take extraordinary care. (Laughter)
After a few minutes the Mother departed for the general meditation and there was a spell of silence. We were wakened from it by a remark of Sri Aurobindo 's.
SRI AUROBINDO: Doctors are bound to differ. It seems to me that medical science has developed much knowledge but in application it is either an art or a fluke.
Satyendra and Purani agreed with the remark and said that as regards application medical science was not exact as yet. Nirodbaran observed that this was so because of individual variation.
SRI AUROBINDO: They have not found any drug that can cure a particular disease in all cases. I am talking of allopathy, not homoeopathy, about which I know nothing. Even in theory, which they have developed remarkably, there is always a change of opinion. What they hold as true today is discarded after ten years. Now TB has been proved by a French doctor with statistics not to be a contagious disease. He says it is hereditary. What a great relief this will be! I myself haven't found it contagious. Take also the question of diet. They are changing their ideas constantly. Some day medical science will become exact.
Then Satyendra brought in the question of the unscrupulousness and incapacity of private practitioners and held that medical practice should be under State control.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't believe in that. I like State control less than medical control.
NIRODBARAN: It will be a better arrangement. Take the example of country councils which particularly enjoin the regular examination of people by medical attendants.
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SRI AUROBINDO: What about poor Yogis then, who may not like being examined?
NIRODBARAN: The patients of a particular area under the charge of one doctor can't change to another doctor without sufficient reason.
SRI AUROBINDO: What if one doesn't believe in a doctor or doesn't like him?
NIRODBARAN: That isn't a sufficient reason, for the council sees that all doctors are well trained.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why isn't it a sufficient reason? It is an excellent reason. Why should there be no choice? You may as well force a patient here to be under Ramachandra and not go to Savoor. I have no faith in such Government controls, because I believe in a certain amount of freedom, freedom to find out things for oneself in one's own way, freedom to commit blunders even. Nature leads us through various errors and eccentricities. When Nature created the human being with all his possibilities for good or ill, she knew very well what she was about. Freedom for experiment in human life is a great thing. Without freedom to take risks and commit mistakes, there can be no progress.
NIRODBARAN: But without a sufficient growth of consciousness one may abuse the freedom.
SRI AUROBINDO: One must take the risk. Growth of consciousness can't come without freedom. You can of course have certain elementary laws and develop sanitation and spread the knowledge of health and hygiene among the people. The State can certainly provide efficient medical service, but when one exceeds one's province the error comes in. To say that one can't change one's doctor even if one does not believe in him or like him is, it seems to me, a little too much.
It all began from the pressure of the development of the physical sciences in Europe. In these sciences one can be exact and precise and everything is mechanical and fixed. This is all right as far as physical things are concerned because there if you make a mistake Nature hits you on the nose and you are made to see it. But the moment you try to apply the same rules in dealing with life and mind, you may go on committing errors and never know it. You will refuse to see them because of a fixed mental idea which tries to fit everything to its own view.
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Everything is moving towards that in Europe. The totalitarian States do not believe in the existence of any individual variation, and even non-totalitarian States are obliged to follow them. Yes, they do it for the sake of efficiency. But whose efficiency? It is the efficiency of the State, the organised machine, not that of the individual. The individual has no freedom, he doesn't grow. Organise by all means, but there must be scope for freedom and plasticity.
In India, even in spirituality they allowed all sorts of experiments, including the Vama Marga, the left-hand path of the Tantra, and you see how wonderfully Indian spirituality has developed.
NIRODBARAN: Sometimes people justify both totalitarianism and imperialism. Shaw, for instance, justifies Italy's conquest of Abyssinia. To show up Abyssinia's inefficiency he says that when one passes through the Denakal desert, one runs the risk of losing one's life.
SRI AUROBINDO: In that case let Shaw keep out of the desert. What business has he to pass through it?
NIRODBARAN: But surely Italy's conquest will bring in culture, aesthetics, roads, buildings, etc., into Abyssinia, a country which is said to be without a civilisation at all?
SRI AUROBINDO: Aesthetics? The Negroes have no art? And what culture will be brought in? Of course, if you walk into a Negro den, you may get killed, but the same thing may happen among the present-day Germans. How many people are aesthetic in England? And as regards roads and buildings, could anyone, looking at life in Port Said, say that the people there are more civilised than the Negroes? Have you read Phanindra Bose's book on the Santals? He says that the Santals are not at all inferior to other classes of people in the matter of ethics. So also with the Arabian races. Wilfred Scawen Blunt praised them highly as a very sympathetic and honest people. Do you think the average man today is better than a Greek of 2500 years ago — or than an Indian of that time? Look at the condition in Germany today. You have seen the Kaiser's remark on Hitler. (Smiling) You can't say Germany is progressing.
I have come in contact with the Indian masses and I have found them better than the Europeans of the same class. So too the working classes here—they are superior to the European ones: the latter may be more efficient but that is due to external reasons. The
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French Governor Solomiac said during the riots that the labourers were really so docile, meek and humble and only when they took to drink did they turn to violence. The Irish doctor in Alipore jail could not understand how the young anarchists who were so gentle and attractive could be revolutionary. Even the ordinary criminals I found very human; they were better than European criminals.
There will always be different states of development of humanity. It is a fallacy to say that education will do everything, and your so-called civilisation is not an unmixed good". You have only to look at the "civilised" countries. Take the condition of affairs under Nazism. It is terrible. It is extremely difficult for the individual to assert himself. Everyone is living in a state of tension. Under that tension either the whole thing will break up with a crash or all life will be crushed out of the people. In both cases the result will be a disaster.
Society is after all reverting to the old system—only in another form. It is the revival of monarchy, with an aristocracy and the masses. There is the Fuhrer or leading or sovereign man, like a king; then there is his party, which is the aristocracy, the elite, and there is the general herd of common people. The same arrangement holds with Fascism and Communism, except that the Brahmin classes, the intellectuals, have no place.
After this, a few remarks were exchanged on democracy.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is curious how a thing gets spoiled when it is given recognition. Democracy was a far better thing when it was not called democracy. When it was given a name, much of the truth went out of it.
NIRODBARAN: H used to be a great admirer of Socialism. He would say it is a heaven without God.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why didn't he go and settle in Russia then? If he had done so, he would have been at once suppressed. I foresaw that Socialism would destroy all freedom of the individual.
NIRODBARAN: Is there any difference between Communism and Nazism?
SRI AUROBINDO: Practically none. The Nazis call themselves National Socialists; the others are simply Socialists. In Communism it is a proletariat government where there are no separate classes: they have abolished the classes and they say that the govemment
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NIRODBARAN: But Communism began with a high ideal and it is certainly better than Fascism or Nazism. The masses have their own government.
SRI AUROBINDO: In what way is it better? Formerly the masses were unconscious slaves. Before they could strike when they were dissatisfied; now they can't. The main question is whether the people have freedom or not. They are all bound to the State, the Dictator and the Party. They can't even choose the Dictator. And whoever differs from him is mercilessly suppressed. You know about the way they are doing it.
NIRODBARAN: But with the abolition of class distinctions there is now a sense of equality: nobody feels superior or inferior.
SRI AUROBINDO: How? At first, all the generals and soldiers went to run the machines and industrial organisations. But they found that they could not do it. Then they brought in the specialists with high pay and other advantages. The condition of the working classes is no better than in England or France. Some good things have been done in regard to women and children, medical attendance, etc. But they are being done in France also. You must know that a famous fashionable aristocratic resort has now been given over to the working people in France.
NIRODBARAN: Why then are Romain Rolland and others so enthusiastic about Russia?
SRI AUROBINDO: That is because they are Socialists. But even they are getting disillusioned now. Plenty of French workers went to Russia but came back disappointed. The same thing happened when democracy came in. People thought there would be a lot of liberty but found that it was a delusion.
NIRODBARAN: But formerly they were serving the Emperor and now they serve their own people.-
SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly not. Where did you get that idea? The Emperor had nothing to do with the government. It was the capitalist class that ruled the country, and the same thing happens today, whatever the name you may give it. The whole thing is a fraud. It is impossible to change humanity by political machinery. It can't be done!
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