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30 DECEMBER 1938
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes; India also was considered docile and mild, like an elephant, but once the elephant is off the line you had better keep out of his way! Now there is a new morality in the air. They talk of pacifism, anti-nationalism, anti-militarism. But the talking is done by those who can't do things. In any case it has to stand the test of time, PURANI: Jwalanti (Madame Monod-Herzen) used to be wild when England began to shout against Italy's war on Abyssinia. Of course, she does not defend Italy, but England should be the last nation to raise a cry. SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. England was the only country that defended air-bombing because she wanted to kill the Pathans! DR. BECHARLAL: Has European civilisation today nothing good in it? SRI AUROBINDO: It has lowered the moral tone of humanity. No doubt, it has brought in hygiene, sanitation, etc. But even the nineteenth century civilisation with its defects was better than what we have now. Europe could not stand the test of the last world war. The ancient peoples tried to keep to their ideals and to raise them still higher while Europe lost all her ideals after the war. People have become cynical, selfish. What you hear of post-war England or post-war Germany is not all wrong. Have you not heard Arjava (J. Chadwick) inveighing against post-war England? I suppose it is all due to commercialism.
We were thinking how to begin the talk. Time was passing and yet none could find any question. Then Purani came forward with a few paintings of Picasso. There were four or five pictures. One was that of a man and woman, another of a human figure with a birdlike face, and the third of a figure with three eyes.
SRI AUROBINDO: There is some power of expression in the picture of a man and woman. The other one looks like a Brahmin pandit with a tiki (tuft of hair) on the head. The face represents the animal origin still left in him and one of the eyes seems the Prajna chakra, another the throat-centre and so on. When these modern artists want to convey something, the spectators find it difficult to
Page-82 understand. How on earth is one to make out what the artist means—even if he does mean to convey something? It is all right if you don't want to convey anything but merely express yourself and leave people to feel about it as they like. In that case one gets an impression and even though one can't put it in terms of the mind one can feel the thing, as in the case of the two figures here. But, instead, if you convey something and say like the Surrealist poets, "Why should art mean anything? Why do you want to understand?", then it becomes difficult to accept. Take the picture of the Brahmin pandit. It would have been all right without those eyes. But the eyes, or what seem to be eyes, challenge at once the mind to think what it all means. (Addressing Purani) Have you seen a certain Futurist painting representing a man in different positions? The artist wanted to convey movement in painting—most absurd! You may just as well draw our guest-house "Golconde" walking about. Each art has its own conditions and limitations and you have to work under those conditions and with those limitations. PURANI: I hope the aspiration for purification will purify the field of art also. Elie Faure has an idea that France sacrificed her architectural continuity of five hundred years for securing the first place in painting in Europe. There is no all-Europe name in painting in any other country. SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. France leads in art. What she begins, others follow. But architecture has stopped everywhere. PURANI: Elie Faure says the machine is also a piece of archtecture. SRI AUROBINDO: How? PURANI: Because it is made of parts and fulfils certain functions. SRI AUROBINDO: Then you also are a piece of architecture. Everything is made of parts. The motor-car too is architecture then. PURANI: X finds these paintings of Picasso very remarkable. SRI AUROBINDO: Does he understand anything about them? PURANI: I suppose the more mysterious a thing, the more remarkable it must be!
SRI AUROBINDO: People are getting to be mystic without their knowing it. You know, Hitler is a sort of mystic. He says he is guided by an inner voice. He goes into silence in his palace
Page-83 and waits for the voice. Whatever the voice says he will carry out Jwalanti's son's friend writes that he is absolutely undependable. His generals, financiers etc. don't know what his next step will be. Today he may say one thing and tomorrow he may say quite the contrary and upset everything. Most unreliable and inconsistent. He is possessed by some supernormal Power and it is from this Power that the voice, as he calls it, comes. Have you noted that people who at one time were inimical to him come into contact with him and leave as his admirers? It is a sign of that Power. It is from this Power that he has constantly received suggestions and the constant repetition of the suggestions has taken hold of the German people. You will also mark that in his speeches he goes on stressing the same ideas — this is evidently a sign of that vital possession. But he is not insane. What he says on the whole hangs perfectly together. I think it is in a photograph in L'Illustration, where Hitler, Goebbels and Goering are together, that the characters of the three come out very well. In other photos the disclosure is not so striking: the expressions get hidden. But here Hitler gives the impression of having the face of a Paris street-criminal. Goebbels shows a narrow sharp-cut face with cunning eyes. Goering is marked by disequilibrium: he was actually in a mental hospital for some time. The three are possessed by forces of the Life plane. In Hitler's case it is successful ruffianism with a diabolical cunning and, behind it, the psychic of a London cabman-crude and undeveloped. That is to say, the psychic character in the man consists of some futile and silly sentimentalism. It is that silly sentimentalism that finds expression in his paintings, I suppose. In a photograph of the Munich Pact I saw Hitler with Chamberlain. This man with a great diabolical cunning in his eyes was looking at Chamberlain, who looked like a fly before a spider on the point of being caught—and he actually was caught. Mussolini had a great power. But when I saw the photograph of the two dictators together after Munich, strangely enough I found Mussolini almost weak by contrast, as if Hitler could put him in his pocket. Daladier claims to be the strong man of France but he also is nothing beside Hitler. NIRODBARAN: What about Stalin? SRI AUROBINDO: Stalin has the face of an astute and confident ruffian. Page-84 No one thought of Hitler as having anything in him. Then came the vital development, the vital Power holding him in its clutch. Mussolini is at least human, with a human character. Hitler is terribly cruel-another trait that comes out very clearly in his photograph. It is strange to see this outburst of cruelty after the humanitarianism of the nineteenth century—it exceeds even the Christian religious tyranny. In ancient times there was at least pride, a sense of honour for which people died. We say that the Romans were cruel, but even they were human if not humanitarian in comparison and they would have been shocked by what is done in Hitler's Germany, like the deliberate cold-blooded murder of the Jews. PURANI: I was extremely shocked to hear of Von Schleicher being murdered in a new purge. SRI AUROBINDO: Hitler killed the lieutenant who had raised him to power on a charge of immorality, and that again is the London cabman mentality. But it is an instance of his diabolical cunning. He had known all the time of that man's homosexuality. PURANI: Schomberg was telling me, "Mr. Purani, we say but we can't act." SRI AUROBINDO: Because it is only a mental idea. That is what humanitarianism comes to. It can't act. It seems strange that the destiny of the whole world should depend on one man and yet it is so-for everybody looks up to him. From one point of view there never was a time when humanity had come down so low as it has now. It looks as if a small number of violent men are the arbiters of humanity and the rest of the world is ready to bow down before one man. PURANI: It is the lowest depth of Kaliyuga, I suppose. Evening, 5.30. The conversation was begun by Dr. Becharlal. We knew from the peculiar signs on his face that he was preparing and he soon burst forth.
DR. BECHARLAL: What is the effect of fasting? SRI AUROBINDO (knitting his brows as usual at Dr. Becharlal's question): What about it?
DR. BECHARLAL: The effect of fasting on Yoga?
Page-85 SRI AUROBINDO (as if the question now were not so perplexing after all): It gives a sort of excitement to the vital being, but the effect does not seem. to be very sound. I fasted twice— once in Alipore jail for ten days and the other time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was in full yogic activity. I was not taking any food. I was throwing away all of it into the bucket. Of course, the superintendent didn't know. Only the warder knew and he said to the others, "The gentleman must be ill. He won't live long." Although I lost considerable weight, I could lift a pail of water above my head, which I couldn't do ordinarily. Then at Pondicherry, while I was fasting, I kept up full mental and vital and yogic activity. I was walking eight hours a day and yet not feeling tired in the least. When I broke my fast, I did it straightaway with normal food. NIRODBARAN: How is it possible to be active like this without food? SRI AUROBINDO: One draws energy from the vital plane instead of depending on physical sustenance. Once in Calcutta I lived for a long time on rice and bananas only. It was a very good food. DR. Satyeyndra: The trouble is that one can't draw conclusions from your case. SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): At least this conclusion can be drawn, that it can be done. Now, let me tell you about the invitation to Dinner by R. C. Dutt. He was surprised that I was taking only vegetarian food whereas he could not live without meat. With vegetarian food I was feeling light and pure. It is just a belief that one can't live without meat, and that creates a habit. As regards fasting, I know of a European who fasted for forty days and became ecstatic over the effect of fasting, but after the fast he had a breakdown. There are many stories about Jains fasting. What is the idea behind their fasts? DR. Satyeyndra: I suppose they believe in the mortification of the flesh for the release of the spirit. NIRODBARAN: Can fasting cure diseases too?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if you know the process. That's why Europeans fast. Sometimes it is the mental idea that works. You start with the idea of being well or ill and it happens accordingly. Page-86
A disease comes from outside. It pierces what the Mother calls the nervous sheath and enters the body. If one is conscious of this subtle nervous sheath, then the disease can be thrown away, as I did at Baroda with the thoughts, before it can enter. In neurasthenic people this nervous envelope becomes damaged. DR. BECHARLAL: Does neuralgia also come in the same way? SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): Yes, I suppose you are thinking of your own case? DR. BECHARLAL: How then is one to get rid of it? SRI AUROBINDO: As I said, you have first to be conscious of the subtle body before you can do it. Champaklal: X told me once how she used to have a headache which remained just above the head and it was very severe. We used to laugh at her because we couldn't believe in a headache of that nature. SRI AUROBINDO: How do you know there can't be such a headache? If the consciousness can be lifted above the head and remain there, why not a headache? The body is a mere means of responsive vibrations. Everything coming from outside finds a response in it and we get all these things. DR. Satyeyndra: If everything comes from outside, then what are we? What belongs to us? SRI AUROBINDO: In one sense nothing belongs to us. The physical is made up, you may say, of various predispositions: certain energies due to heredity, your past lives (the sum of energies of the past) and what you have acquired in this life. These are ready to act under favourable conditions, under the pressure of Nature, universal Nature which gives the sense of "I", "I am doing everything." This "I" and "mine" have no truth in the ordinary sense. DR. Satyeyndra: The other day you spoke of the fundamental personality. I couldn't quite understand you. SRI AUROBINDO: There are two things here- the personality and the Person-which are not the same. The Person is the eternal Divine Purusha assuming many personalities and thrown out into Time as the Cosmic and as the Individual for a particular purpose, use or work. Even as the Individual, this Purusha is all the time conscious of identity with the Cosmic. That is why liberation of the Individual is possible.
DR. Satyeyndra: Is the cosmic liberation static or dynamic? Page-87
SRI AUROBINDO: It is both. In the static aspect, it is the Self, infinite, one, without movement, action, duality. In the dynamic, it depends on where your experience feels the unity. If in the mental, your mind feels one with the cosmic mind; if in the vital, your vital becomes part of the cosmic vital; if in the physical, the body is felt as a speck of universal Matter. Just as there is a wall that separates the outer nature from the soul, the psychic being, so also there is a wall above the head. You break that wall or what is called the lid and you feel your individual self in the Infinite or you feel you are the Infinite. The opening can be vertical or horizontal—at various levels, the vital being, the heart, etc. Champaklal: Is it true that illness comes from sadhana? SRI AUROBINDO: From sadhana? NIRODBARAN: I think he means that illness may come in the course of sadhana for purification. SRI AUROBINDO: That's a different thing. It can be a circumstance in sadhana. Champaklal: When I was still a new comer and having some physical troubles now and then, people used to say it was due to sadhana. So I used to keep my troubles secret from you lest should stop your Force when you found out about them. DR. Satyeyndra: Some Sufis and Bhaktas take illness and other such things as coming from the Divine. SRI AUROBINDO: They are right. They take everything as coming from the Divine, and it is a very good attitude if one can truly take it. If you neglect the chain of intermediate causes, whatever happens has the sanction of the Supreme. This is a Cause superior to everything. DR. BECHARLAL: If anything happens due to our negligence, can we call it sanctioned by the Divine? SRI AUROBINDO: I said, "If you neglect the chain of intermediate causes." DR. BECHARLAL: Could there not be some danger in that attitude? We may shirk our responsibility and lay it on the Divine,
SRI AUROBINDO: I was speaking about the Bhakta. For the Bhakta whatever happens is for the best and he takes everything in that light. For the Yogi who has to conquer these things, they must come; otherwise what is there to be conquered? In Yoga difficulties are opportunities. No doubt, hostile forces are recognised
Page-88 as hostile, but from. a special standpoint. Ultimately all powers are from the Divine, assisting in the work. They throw difficulties at us in order to test the strength. It is the Divine that has created the opposition and sends you a defeat so that you may conquer hereafter. This is necessary in order to go beyond the ego's sense of its own responsibility. At one time I experienced the hostile forces as gods trying to test my strength in sadhana. You act not for success but for the Divine, though that does not mean that you must not work for success. Is this confusing? That was what Arjuna complained to Krishna—that Krishna spoke in double words. He told Arjuna not to be eager for results but at the same time he said, "Fight and conquer."
Dr. Savoor came to see Sri Aurobindo. After pranam he sat on the carpet with us and talked about homoeopathy and how by Providence he had taken it up, a thing he never thought of. Touching on the mentality of patients he remarked, "It is better not to tell the price of a medicine. For if a patient is told that a medicine is very cheap, as homoeopathic drugs usually are, he loses all faith and respect for it. So I always keep the price a secret." Then he said something about the Mother testing him. The Mother had come into the room meanwhile and had been listening to him. The Mother: Testing is not the practice here. It is the play of forces or at times the adverse forces that do the testing in order to measure your strength. If you refuse to listen to them and remain firm, they withdraw. People have enough difficulties already; why should we add any more? To say that we purposely test is not true. We never do it— never! DR. Savoor: I am very glad to get this answer from you. I feel perfectly assured now. The Mother: Are there any highly priced drugs in homoeopathy?
DR. Savoor: No, Mother. The highest price that we pay for one dram of medicine is about five rupees. And with
Page-89 that one dram we can by trituration treat a huge number of patients. SRI AUROBINDO: Are there no exceedingly rare drugs for which you have to pay a big sum? DR. Savoor: It is only drugs of very high potencies that are rare in India. One has to get them from America. Otherwise almost all drugs are available in Calcutta and other places and most homoeopaths get them from there.
After this, the Mother went out to get ready for the general meditation. All of us fell silent, though some were anxious to start a conversation. Purani had been preparing something but waited for the Mother's departure.
PURANI: How far is it desirable for the Ashram to be Self-sufficient? SRI AUROBINDO: Self-sufficient in what way? PURANI: In meeting the needs of daily life: say, the clothes, here. Virji who has come from Bombay wants us to introduce the spinning loom to make our own clothes. How far is such self- sufficiency desirable in an Ashram like ours? SRI AUROBINDO: The question is not whether it is desirable but whether it is practicable. No objection to spinning or weaving (Suddenly looking at Nirodbaran and smiling) Will you set Nirodbaran spinning, to begin with? NIRODBARAN: I have been spinning all the time. (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: There are all sorts of mental formations that can be carried out. But here it is by the Mother's intuition that, things are taken up and done. PURANI : They have done many things for self-sufficiency successfully at Dayalbagh. SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): First of all, the spinners and weavers will at once start quarrelling with one another, and that is one way in which the Ashram is not the fit place. In other organisations they impose a discipline and ensure obedience by force, and people are obliged to take their orders from the one at the head. But here we don't impose such discipline from outside. People are left free. Even if you want to do that kind of work, there are difficulties on the way that have to be guarded against. First, the tendency to degenerate into mere mechanical and commercial activity. Page-90 Secondly, ambition: there is a great desire among the sadhaks to make the Ashram figure before the world. That must go. And then the whole thing won't be possible unless Dr. Savoor promises to homoeopathise all into health! It is not that we don't want to do that sort of work; we have many ideas but we can't take them up unless the foundation is ready. Even now, in the Gardens, the Building Service and the Dining Room, two or three people can't work together. Their egos come to the front and they want a mental independence. Work as a part of sadhana or work for the Divine is all right. But work must primarily be spiritual and not merely creative in a personal way. Work as part of spiritual creation is, of course, right, but we can't take this up unless the inner difficulties are overcome. Neither can it be according to mental constructions; it must only be according to the Mother's intuition. Even then there are so many difficulties. Not that we have no workers; there are people here with considerable capacity.
Then the talk was diverted to a totally different subject by Sri Aurobindo asking Dr. Savoor: "Is there any cure for baldness in homoeopathy? I was looking at Nolini's head when he came to dust my books and I was thinking if homoeopathy could do anything for him." A long discussion on baldness followed, with a mention of its various treatments. The example of King Edward VII came in.
SRI AUROBINDO: At Baroda there came a Kaviraj who claimed to have cured his own baldness. He showed some patches which had been bald and where hair was now growing. But unkind critics said that he used to shave his head in patches and call them bald. He treated one of my cousins for baldness, but with no result.
In this connection came in the topic of Dr. Ramchandra and we discussed him.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is a man with an abundant vitality. With that vitality there is nothing that he could not have done. But at the same time there is no discipline, order and control in the vital being. He has written some very fine poems in English. He had made a name here as a doctor and, as soon as he entered the
Page-91 Ashram, people wanted to crowd in to be treated by him. He was successful with outside people because he could enforce his will and the patients were obliged to follow all his instructions.
After this Dr. Becharlal came out suddenly with a question.
DR. BECHARLAL: What is the difference between peace and silence? SRI AUROBINDO: How do you mean? DR. BECHARLAL: Is peace included in silence, or vice versa? SRI AUROBINDO: If you have the silence, then there is naturally peace with it; but the opposite may not be true. One can do a lot of work with the peace within. NIRODBARAN: Can one do work with the silence intact? Does not the silence get disturbed? SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly one can do work. By silence I mean inner silence. It is perfectly possible to carry on any amount of activity in that state. I told you about my experience, which is still with me. It has not been disturbed by any activity. DR. BECHARLAL: Is silence dynamic or static? SRI AUROBINDO: It is not the silence that is dynamic but you can have full dynamic activity out of the inner silence. Also you can remain without doing anything. People who are kinetic in a vital or mental way cannot remain like that. Some Marathas came to see me here and inquired what I was doing. I replied, "Nothing." One of them remarked that it was a great thing to do nothing. This is true. NIRODBARAN: Isn't the silence associated with some sort of emptiness? SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on what you mean by emptiness. There is an emptiness which is full of the divine Presence and can hardly be called empty. There is another emptiness of silence which is neutral and still another in which one empties oneself, 'waiting for something higher to come and fill it. NIRODBARAN: In that emptiness one feels somewhat dry, doesn't one?
SRI AUROBINDO: No. On the contrary it is a very pleasant state, with a sense of great release. The neutral silence may be associated with some dryness and dullness-to the ordinary mind.
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NIRODBARAN: It seems you said once to Barin, when he was having such emptiness and dryness, that it comes to everybody and he had to pass through that phase or stage. SRI AUROBINDO: Well, it need not come to everybody, but when it does come to somebody he has to pass through it. People like Bertrand Russell can't bear this emptiness. He says that as soon as he tries to go within he begins to feel empty and wants to come back. It is foolish on his part to want to come back, for if he is able to feel this emptiness it is something good, the sign of a valuable capacity. These Europeans can't do without thought and the external interests of life. They think that nothing of value can come into the consciousness except from outside. DR. Satyeyndra: We know of Bansali who stitched his lips for a long time to maintain silence. It was only after persuasion by Gandhi that he gave it up. SRI AUROBINDO: It is what the Gita calls Asuric Tapasya. NIRODBARAN: Can one gain anything and advance by that? SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? But there is the question: what and how far? Physical and vital Tapasya can give some control over the body and the vital being. But it looks more like Nigraha, forceful suppression. NIRODBARAN: It doesn't seem to have anything to do with divine realisation. SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by divine realisation? NIRODBARAN: I mean Peace, Bliss, Presence. SRI AUROBINDO: There is a divine realisation and there is a realisation of the Divine — that is to say, spiritual realisation. If one gains control over the vital nature by the influence of the Atman, the Self, that is a divine realisation. NIRODBARAN : Control by an influence, I suppose, comes and goes. It is not permanent and stable. One can gain control also by a constant exercise of the mind. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and I think that is a better way. These things, again, may be steps towards the Divine, just as from Hathayoga one goes to Rajayoga. Naturally there are shortcomings in the onward process. You may remember, D used to write plenty of letters complaining of the defects of Yogis. One does not look for defects in the Yogis, for it is not the defects that are important. What ever leads to the upward growth, adding something to one's stature, is a gain to human progress. No upward progress is to be despised.
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Has Bansali gained anything by his silence? DR. Satyeyndra: He seems to have. SRI AUROBINDO: Although I don't approve of the method, it is all right if he gained something. DR. Satyeyndra: Bansali used to go wandering from place to place, not asking for food from anybody. SRI AUROBINDO: That is an old recognised practice among Yogis. It is a great discipline and gives a control over the desires. At one time I also did that. I never asked anything from anyone, Dayanand Thakur is said to store nothing for the future, Whenever anything came to his Ashram they used to spend it away, not thinking about what would happen the next day.
NIRODBARAN: It is assumed here that illness brings some progress in sadhana after it has been cured. Is that true? SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. Do you mean that your cold will give you some progress? (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Cold is hardly a disease! SRI AUROBINDO: It is said that for every disease there is psychological reason. NIRODBARAN: Said by whom? SRI AUROBINDO: By the Yogis. If that reason can be found and remedied, then there may be a progress. NIRODBARAN: What about children then? SRI AUROBINDO: What about them? They have no psychology? Do you mean to say that when they are born they come with a blank page to be filled up only later on in life? They are full of psychology, each one differing from the others. The body is an expression of one's nature, and if one could detect the exact psychological factor behind, which is not easy to do, then many helpful things can be done.
Here the Mother came in and silence followed. After she had gone, talk began about homoeopathy.
SRI AUROBINDO: Lila was cured by Ramchandra. She found fault with him and discontinued the treatment, saying that she Page-94 would rely on the Mother's Force since it was the Mother who had cured her. DR. Satyeyndra: That is the difficulty here. Sir! The patients come to oblige us and when they are cured it is done by the Mother. Then why come to us? They say they come to give us work; otherwise, how will our sadhana go on?
Here Nirodbaran gave an instance of a homoeopathic cure. Dilip's cousin had a tumour which was cured by homoeopathy. There was no question of faith in this case. Then the topic arose of long life achieved by Yoga or other means. Someone mentioned Tibeti Baba.
SRI AUROBINDO: But he says that it was not due to Yoga but to some medicine that his body has changed and he has attained longevity. Brahmananda also lived very long—some say two or three hundred years. None knew how old he was and he never told his age. Once when he had a toothache, Sardar Majumdar took some medicine to him. Brahmananda said, "This toothache has been with me since the Battle of Panipat." That gave the clue to his age. He had the most remarkable eyes. Usually they were either closed or half shut. When I went to see him and took leave, he opened them fully and looked at me. It seemed as if he could penetrate me and see everything clearly. That reminds me of a compliment given to my eyes by Sir Edward Baker, Governor of Bengal. He visited me in Alipore Jail and told Charu Dutt, "Have you seen Aurobindo Ghose's eyes?" "Yes, what about them?" asked Charu. "He has the eyes of a madman!" Charu took great pains to convince him that I was not at all mad but a Karmayogi! PURANI: Nevinson, the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, said that you never laughed. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. I met him twice, once in Bengal at Subodh Mullick's place. I was very serious at that time. The next occasion was when I was president of the National Conference at Surat. Then also I couldn't laugh, being the President. So he called me "the man who never laughs". (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: Taggart regarded you as the most dangerous man in the British Empire. He was dead against lifting the ban on
Page-95 your entry into British India, when it was discussed in England I remember rightly. SRI AUROBINDO: How could that be? I never knew that there was such a ban. The last prosecution against me was for two signed letters in the Karmayogin, and they were declared be non-seditious. That ban seems to be just a legend. NIRODBARAN: All over India there was the impression that a ban had been put and everybody thought you were the head of the revolutionary movement. SRI AUROBINDO: That was the idea of all Englishmen. You know Olive Maidand. She was friendly with some members of the royal family. When she went back to England from here she tried to persuade them that I was rather an innocent person and the Ashram was a nice place. She found that instead of converting them to her view they began to look askance at her. Lord Minto said that he could not rest his head on his pillow until he had crushed Aurobindo Ghose. He feared that I would start the revolutionary movement again, and assassinations were going on at that time. But there was no ban. On the contrary Lord Carmichael sent somebody to persuade me to return and settle somewhere in Darjeeling and discuss philosophy with him. I refused the offer. The Government was absolutely taken by surprise when our movement was launched. It never expected that Indians could start revolutionary activities. NIRODBARAN: I hear Charu Dutt also joined the movement SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, yes. Everybody knew of it and so he was called by the Europeans "the disloyal judge". He was very courageous, spirited, powerful and frank. That's the kind of man I like. He used to talk openly and frankly about his revolutionary ideas to Englishmen. NIRODBARAN: They-at least of some of them-also liked him,
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they like such people. There was another man, D'Souza, whom I knew very well. He is working in Mysore State now. He is one of the cleverest brains I have ever met. He is an Indian Christian. Not that much of Christianity is left in him. He has an independent mind.
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NIRODBARAN: Taggart was mainly responsible for crushing the movement, we hear. He narrowly escaped being killed in Palestine the other day. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is surprising how some of the greatest scoundrels have so much protection. NIRODBARAN: Dutt has mentioned in his reminiscences two incidents about you - bridge-playing and shooting with a gun. SRI AUROBINDO: It is true that I didn't know how to play cards and bridge is a difficult game, but I kept winning. So he thought I knew everybody's hand. As for shooting with a gun, it is quite easy. I could have shot even small birds high in the air. NIRODBARAN: Dutt is afraid to come here lest he shouldn't be able to go back. SRI AUROBINDO: It would be his last journey? NIRODBARAN: Was he a great friend of yours? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Beachcroft, who was my schoolmate, somehow couldn't believe that I was a revolutionary. Another intimate English friend of mine, Ferrer, came to see me in the court when the trial was going on. We, the accused, were put into a cage for fear we should jump out and murder the judge. Ferrer was a barrister practising in Sumatra or Singapore. He saw me in the cage and was much concerned and couldn't conceive how to get me out. It was he who had given me the clue to the real hexameter in English. He read out a line which he thought was the best hexametrical line, and that gave me the swing of the metre as it should be in English. English has no really successful poetry in hexametres and all the best critics have declared it to be impossible. Matthew Arnold's professor friend and others tried it but failed. NIRODBARAN: I thought Yeats also has written hexameters. SRI AUROBINDO: Where? I don't know about it. I think you mean alexandrines. NIRODBARAN: Yes, yes.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is different. Plenty of people have written alexandrines. But this is the dactylic six-foot line, the metre in which the epics of Homer and Virgil are written. It has a very fine movement which is most suitable for Epic. I wrote most of my hexametres — the poem Ilion—in Pondicherry. Amal and Arjava saw them and considered them a success. I may cite a few lines: Page-97
One and unarmed in the car was the driver; grey was shrunken, Worn with his decades. To Pergama cinctured with strength Cyclopean, Old and alone he arrived, insignificant, feeblest of mortals, Carrying Fate in his helpless hands and the doom of an empire. NIRODBARAN: When did you begin to write poetry? SRI AUROBINDO: When my two brothers and I were staying at Manchester. I wrote for the Fox family magazine. It was an awful imitation of somebody I don't remember. Then I went to London where I began really to write; some of the verses are published in Songs to Myrtilla. NIRODBARAN: Where did you learn metre? At school? SRI AUROBINDO: No. They don't teach metre at school. I began to read and read and I wrote by a sense of the sound. I am not a prosodist like X. NIRODBARAN: Had your brother Manmohan already become a poet when you started writing? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. He, Laurence Binyon, Stephen Phillips and Arthur Cripps, who did not come to much in poetry afterwards, brought out a book in conjunction. It was well spoken of. I dare say my brother stimulated me greatly to write poetry. NIRODBARAN: Was Oscar Wilde a friend of your brother? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. He used to visit him every evening and Wilde described him in his Wildish way as "a young Indian panther in evening 'brown". Wilde was as brilliant in conversation as in writing. Once some of his friends came to see him and asked how he had passed the morning. He said he had been to the zoo and gave a wonderful description of it, making a striking word picture of every animal. Mrs. Wilde, who was all the time sitting in a corner, put in a small voice, "But, Oscar, how could you say that! You were with me all morning." Wilde replied, "But, my dear one has to be imaginative sometimes." (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: I have heard a Wilde story. Once when he correcting the proofs of a book of his, some friends visited him and asked him what he was busy with. He said, "I have to decide whether to put a comma in one place or not." They returned after a time and found him still busy. He said, "I have put a comma in, but now I don't know whether it should be there. I have to
Page-98 decide." The friends went away and came back a little later. Wilde said, "I have decided to take the comma out." SRI AUROBINDO: The story is very characteristic of Wilde.
Here Purani brought in the subject of Epic and the experiments that were being made in Gujarat to search for a proper medium for it. He regretted that no Indian vernacular had any genuine and successful epic poetry.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why do you say that? Madhusudan has succeeded in Epic. He has excellent movement, form and swing, but the substance is poor. It is surprising that he could write an epic, for Bengalis haven't got an epic mind. The Bengali Ramayana and Mahabharata are not worth much. But I believe he got his inspiration from Homer and Virgil whom he read a lot. NIRODBARAN: What exactly do you mean by "an epic mind"? SRI AUROBINDO: The epic mind is something high, vast and powerful. The Bengali mind is more delicate and graceful. Compare Bengal's painting with the epic statues of the Pallavas in South India. For the same reason the French couldn't write an epic. Their language is too lucid and orderly and graceful for it. SRI AUROBINDO: For a high substance one must have a noble and elevated mind, a capacity for sympathy with great thoughts, a heart that is large and deep. And, as you know, Madhusudan was nothing in that respect. NIRODBARAN: And yet he was by his genius able to create sympathy in us for Ravana and not Rama. Isn't this striking? SRI AUROBINDO : But even then his Ravana is insignificant as compared to the tremendous personality in Valmiki's Ramayana. Or see the character of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost. And Rama's character too has been much degraded in Madhusudan. (Turning to Purani) Is there any epic in the Marathi language? PURANI: I don't know. I have heard about Moropant.
SRI AUROBINDO: I believe there was somebody— Sridhar— who has written something like an epic. I hear Jnanadev wrote brilliantly but he died at an early age: twenty-one. And jnaneshwar wrote his Gita at fifteen. Page-99
PURANI: They say Tulsidas's Manas is a recognised epic in Hindi. SRI AUROBINDO: The South Indians say that Kamban's is a great epic. I remember somebody trying to prove that Kamban the world's greatest poet. (Looking at Nirodbaran) Nishikanto also aspires to write an epic NIRODBARAN: He may be able to do it. For he seems to have the necessary gift. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he may come to it. NIRODBARAN: He combines power and delicacy wonderfully well. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and when he writes lyrics he is superb NIRODBARAN: Have you seen Iqbal's poems? Some hold he greater than Tagore. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know what his poems are like Persian or Urdu. But the translations give me the impression that they haven't got as great and original a substance as Tagore's poetry. PURANI: Do present conditions permit the writing of an epic It is said that epic subjects may be there but there is not the epic poet to write of them. SRI AUROBINDO: I can't say. It is believed that the epic poet comes only once in centuries. Look at the world's epic poets, How many are they? As for subject, what subject could be more suitable to an epic than the career of Napoleon? It is surprising—the large number of epic poets in Sanskrit. The very language is epic. Valmiki, Vyasa, even classical poets like Kalidasa, Bharavi and others have all achieved epic heights. NIRODBARAN: Has your own epic Savitri anything to do with the Mahabharata story? SRI AUROBINDO: Not really. Only the clue is taken from Mahabharata. My story is symbolic. I believe that original Mahabharata story was also symbolic, but it has been made into a tale of conjugal fidelity. NIRODBARAN: What is your symbolism?
SRI AUROBINDO: Well, Satyavan, whom Savitri marries the symbol of the soul descended into the Kingdom of Death Savitri, who is, as you know, the Goddess of Divine Light Knowledge, comes down to redeem Satyavan from Death's grasp. Aswapati, the father of Savitri, is the Lord of Energy. Dyumatsena
Page-100 is "the one who has the shining hosts". It is all inner movement, nothing much as regards outward action. The poem opens with the Dawn. Savitri awakes on the day of destiny, the day when Satyavan has to die. The birth of Savitri is a boon of the Supreme Goddess given to Aswapati. Aswapati is the Yogi who seeks the means to deliver the world out of Ignorance. NIRODBARAN: But how far are you with it? Have you finished the first draft? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, I have finished the first draft,, but I have to revise it. I have revised this poem, as I once told you, twelve times and I have finished only the first part of the first book. NIRODBARAN: In what form have you cast it? SRI AUROBINDO: I have gone back to Shakespeare and Marlowe. Each line stands by itself and each sentence consists at most of five or six lines. The blank verse differs from Milton's. There are practically no pauses or enjambments like those in Paradise Lost. Blank verse after Milton has not been very great. So if you write the kind that is in Paradise Lost, you imitate Milton's style and there can be only one Milton. Yeats has written some successful blank verse in the Tennysonian form on Irish Celtic subjects. There is one long piece about a king, a queen and a divine lover: I forget the name. He has given his blank verse a greater beauty than Tennyson was capable of.
Sri Aurobindo himself started the talk. After inquiring about X's health from Satyendra, he related what Amal had written about his health. When, after his heart-trouble, Amal had got back on his feet, he went to watch the international wrestling tournaments going on at that time in Bombay. He got so caught up in the bouts that his heart began beating faster and faster and when the foreign wrestlers started playing foul his excitement was at such a pitch that he felt as if his heart would give way and he would faint. He realised that this kind of excitement was very harmful, but he would not give up going to see the tournaments. He decided that what was to be got rid of was his taking sides and wanting the Indian wrestlers to win. By refraining from any partisanship he felt he would cut out the extreme excitement. Page-101
This interesting report set
us off on the subject of fainting. Nirodbaran enumerated a few instances of
fainting even while slight finger-cuts were being dressed. He said that Dilip
too had fainted.
SRI AUROBINDO: Even Dilip did it? NIRODBARAN: Yes. He came in boldly, but as soon as we started he went off! Curious! SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps these people are being Yogicised! Or is it a reaction of the subconscient? Or may be they are trying to go into the Nirvikalpa Samadhi! It is said that in such Samadhi one is not conscious even of a burning red-hot iron. Well, I remember a Yogi who was tested with a red-hot iron; and when he had no sensation of it the experimenters thought he had really got into the Nirvikalpa Samadhi. But I think that a deep trance is quite sufficient for this kind of unawareness. NIRODBARAN: In hypnotism too one doesn't feel anything when, for instance, a pin is stuck into the flesh. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. I saw a case of hypnotism in which the raised arm of a patient could not be pulled down even by four or five men. NIRODBARAN: How can this be explained? SRI AUROBINDO: These are things of a supraphysical state, and the ordinary physical laws bringing about the ordinary reactions are not valid then. There are cases in which people under the influence of hypnotism find sugar tasting bitter. Now the question is whether sugar itself is bitter or the subject feels it to be so. In other words, does the quality of a thing depend on the object or on the subject? Take, for instance, beauty. When we call someone or something beautiful, is it because the object itself is beautiful or the subject sees it as such—that is, does beauty depend only on the psychological state of the subject and have nothing to do with the object? . NIRODBARAN: In the case of beauty one can say that tastes differ. What one calls beautiful another may not. But sugar is sweet to everybody under normal conditions. Since the sensation of sweetness is a common human reaction, there must be something in the object. SRI AUROBINDO: But is this reaction confined to humanity or is it a common reaction of all living beings? Satyeyndra: What is your conclusion. Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. Page-102
At this point the Mother came in and asked, "What is the subject of our talk today?" Satyendra reported the conversation and said, "Sri Aurobindo has no opinion. Have you any, Mother?"
The Mother: I don't approve of hypnotism. I have seen many cases of so-called hypnotism in which the forces remain behind and the subjects lend themselves to be used by the forces. What is hypnotism? Doesn't it mean that the subject's will-power is replaced by somebody else's? I know a case of exteriorisation where the operator was able to exteriorise the vital being of the subject in an almost material form and replace it by another's and not by the operator's own. If one replaced it by one's own, there could be no operation. But these operations are extremely dangerous, for there are so many forces around that may easily take possession of the body, or else death may follow. One shouldn't do these things except under guidance or in the presence of a Master.
After some more talk the Mother departed for the general meditation.
SRI AUROBINDO (resuming): When the subtle body goes out, there is a thin thread that maintains the connection with the physical body. If that thread is snapped somehow, the man dies. NIRODBARAN: I have heard that the Mother had such an accident in Algeria. SRI AUROBINDO (surprised): How do you know that? She went to Algeria to study with Theon who was a great occultist; his wife was still more so. From there once the Mother visited Paris and was among her friends and wrote something on a paper with a pencil. That paper was here even the other day.
Then there began a talk about miracles.
SRI AUROBINDO: Bejoy Goswami's life, written by one of his disciples, is full of miracles. When P. Mitter was asked how Goswami could fly, he said, "He could glide like that!" (Sri Aurobindo showed this by a movement of his hand.) Of course all those things were done in the subtle body. Satyeyndra: What about the miracles in the life of Haranath? Once on his way back from Kashmir, it is said, he fell seriously ill Page- 103 and was unconscious for two or three hours. When he regained consciousness, it was found that his body had changed to a golden colour. Is such a change possible, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. If he was unconscious, something must have come down. I know of a case where the stature of a man increased! NIRODBARAN: Your colour also has changed, they say. SRI AUROBINDO (after some silence): H said that the change was due to my remaining in the shade. But even an ordinary man, not a Yogi, can have a change of colour. I know a dark lower-middle- class Bengali named Hesh who returned from Europe after some years. He looked almost like a European. He came to see me at Baroda but I couldn't recognise him. Then he said, "Don't you recognise me?" When I was doing Pranayama I used to feel the breath concentrated in the head. My skin began to be smooth and fair. The women of our family noticed it first, as they have a sharp eye for such things. And it was at that time I began to put on flesh. Formerly I was frail and thin. Then I noticed something unusual in the flow of my saliva. It was that substance perhaps that gave the change of colour and the other things. The Yogis say some sort of Amrita, that is, nectar, flows down from the top of the brain that can make one immortal. An American at darshan time looked very closely and minutely at me, for he saw some light around me. He wanted to make sure it was not a physical light. When he found that it was not, he began to think I was some kind of Mahatma. PURANI: I know of a Sadhu cutting again and again the membrane under his tongue to enable the tongue to reach inside and get that flow of Amrita. He turned insane afterwards. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, that is Khechari Mudra. He perhaps got the wrong flow. Barin was approached by some of these Sadhus who promised all sorts of things if he performed that practice of cutting the membrane under the tongue. He said, "I am not going to do it." They coaxed and coaxed him but failed to persuade him. Then they sneered at him, "Bengali coward!" He replied, "Bengali or no Bengali, I am not going to do it!" (Laughter)
The conversation turned to Tibetan occultism and how Europeans are taken up by such things and not by spirituality. Page- 104 SRI AUROBINDO: These Europeans either believe everything or nothing. If you tell them there are Yogis in Tibet and Mahabhutan who are two thousand years old and that crores of Mahatmas are living there, they may go to visit the place. You must have heard of wonderful yogic novels written by someone dealing with Tibet and its occult things. I read one of them but found nothing of Yoga there. NIRODBARAN: Yes, I have read two by A. Beck. SRI AUROBINDO: Is that a woman? NIRODBARAN: Yes. She has written a novel about Japan also, where she attributes to Japanese Jiu-jitsu some mystic power and makes it a symbol of it. SRI AUROBINDO: I thought that Japanese spirituality is in the Japanese religion which is called Zen Buddhism. There the disciples have to bear blows from the Guru as a test of discipleship. (Smiling) I suppose many would find that inconvenient here. NIRODBARAN: Have you written any stories? SRI AUROBINDO: I have, but they are all lost. When there was the rumour that our house would be searched by the police, my trunk was sent off to David's place. After some time when they brought the trunk back, it was found that all my stories had been eaten away by white ants. So my future fame as a story-writer perished. (Laughter) But it is a pity I lost two translations of poems. One of them was a translation of Kalidasa's Meghaduta in terza rimas. It was rather well done. NIRODBARAN: Yes, indeed a pity. SRI AUROBINDO: But the stories were nothing to speak of except one. I can say something of this one because I still have two pages left of it. All my stories were occult. Have any of you read Jules Romains? He is at once a doctor, an occultist, a novelist and a dramatist. The Mother speaks very highly of him. She says that he doesn't depict the outer circumstances as they are but goes within and writes from there. He is a Unanimist and believes that there is one soul in all. In a novel of his, he describes a wife meeting in her subtle body her husband sitting in a chair on a ship. As soon as he saw the impressions left on the chair he got frightened and thought he was going too much against God's laws. That is the European mentality. It can't go far. Page- 105 |