8 JANUARY 1939

Tonight we were at a loss how to begin. But we saw that Sri Aurobindo was ready; he was as if inviting us by his look. But none could break forth; we seemed to have exhausted all our questions. In that puzzled mood; Nirodbaran once looked up and Sri Aurobindo looked at him. Suddenly Nirodbaran burst into laughter and the rest joined in. Finding an opening or an inspiration, Purani began.

PURANI: There is something interesting about snoring in the Sunday Times today. Someone says that snoring is the reaction of the subconscient against some pressure one does not like.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nonsense! Does it mean that a man snores because he is protesting against someone's presence he doesn't like? Or that one can't snore unless there is someone present whom one doesn't like?

NIRODBARAN (to Purani): Were you attracted by that question because of our snoring?

PURANI: Yes, especially yours, I believe; whenever I come, find you snoring. .

Satyeyndra: That means Nirodbaran doesn't like your presence!

CHAMPAKLAL: No, he snores even long before.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is perhaps in anticipation of Purani's arrival. (Laughter)

As the talk on snoring didn't proceed further, Purani began quoting from the Sunday Times about Middleton Murry, where it was said that he had come to believe in Gandhi's non-violence and that because of Hitler he had become a believer in God.

SRI AUROBINDO: How is that?

PURANI: I don't know; he says he finds Hitler an anti-Christ after that murder of eighty people in one night.

SRI AUROBINDO: Wasn't Murry a mystic long before Hitler's regime? Does he mean that his faith has become stronger?

PURANI: Maybe. Gandhi writes that the non-violence tried by some people in Germany has failed because it has not been strong enough to generate sufficient heat to melt Hitler's heart. .

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SRI AUROBINDO: It would have to be a furnace in that case. The only way to melt his heart is to bomb it out of existence. Then his sentimental being which cries at the tomb of his mother and expresses itself in painting —

NIRODBARAN: Are you referring to his "London-cabman psychic", as you once put it?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that would then have a chance in his next life. It is surprising how sentimental people can be extremely cruel.

The trouble with Gandhi is that he has dealt only with Englishmen. If he had been obliged to deal with Germans or Russians his non-violence would have had much less chance. The English people like to be at ease with their conscience. They have a certain self-esteem, and they prize the esteem of the world also. Not that they are not sentimental; only they don't show it. The Russians and Germans are also sentimental but at the same time more cruel. Today a Russian may knock your head through the window-pane but tomorrow he may weep and embrace you. Englishmen also can be very cruel—for a time—but they can't go on with a persistent brutality. Hitler has cruelty in his blood.

NIRODBARAN: Englishmen seem also to appreciate a man standing up to their violence.

PURANI: I know of a case where a Punjabi settled in Fiji gave a fierce beating to an Englishman. The latter used to harass him. One day when it became unbearable, he caught hold of him, knocked him down and began beating him. After some time the Englishman shouted, "That will do, that will do." From that time on, he was all right.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is quite true. I remember once going to a station to see Deshpande off. In his carriage there were many Englishmen. He told us afterwards that as soon as he sat down, the Englishmen said, "We will beat you if you don't get out." He replied, "Come and try." And they didn't dare!

At one time, before the Swadeshi movement, our people were terribly afraid of these Europeans. But after that movement the fear ceased and it has not come back. It was a sudden transformation. Once in Howrah station, a young man was being bullied by an Englishman. He suddenly shouted, "Bande Mataram"; all the people in the train began to shout and the Englishman became alarmed.

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You have heard of Shamakanta, the tiger-tamer. He was travelling in a compartment with some English soldiers and a Bengali with his wife. The soldiers began to molest the Bengali's wife; he was so afraid that he did not know what to do. Shamakanta got up, caught hold of the soldiers and began to knock their heads against each other. At the next station they walked out.

I remember once when we were practising shooting, there was a middle-aged Bengali in the company. When he was asked to shoot, he became very nervous, said he didn't know how to shoot, closed his eyes and then fired. After firing, he opened his eyes, smiled and said, "I didn't know it was so easy!"

When my brother Barin and I were at Baidyanath, we used to go out with guns to shoot at birds, obviously with the idea of practising. My auntie saw us and said, "These two boys will be hanged." The prophecy almost came true, for Barin got a death-sentence.

Before the Swadeshi movement started, Debabrata Bose and I went on a tour of Bengal to study the conditions of the people. We lived simply on bananas. Debabrata Bose was very persuasive and could win anybody round. We found the country pessimistic, with a black weight of darkness over it. Only four or five of us stood for independence. We had great difficulty in convincing people. At Khulna we were given a royal reception, with plenty of dishes on the table. I was not known as a political leader but as the son of my father, K. D. Ghose. My father had been the all-powerful man there There was nobody who hadn't received some benefit from him and none had returned from his door empty-handed. He was said to have been a great friend of the poor. Previous to Khulna, my father was at Rangpur. There also he was like a king. The magistrate, who was his friend, did nothing without consulting him. It was with the friends of this magistrate — the Drewetts — that we stayed in England The magistrate was transferred and a new magistrate came in his place. He found that he had no authority in the town, all power being in the hands of my father. He couldn't tolerate it. He asked the Government to transfer my father and that is the reason he came to Khulana. But he was hurt by this treatment and lost his previous respect for the English people and turned into a nationalist.

DR. BECHARLAL: You must have lived only a short time with your father.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes; only the early years. When I was seven we left for England and before we returned he had died. I was in a

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way the cause of his death. He was suffering from heart disease. Grindlays informed him that I was to start on a particular steamer. The steamer went down off the coast of Portugal and many lives were lost. Somehow I didn't sail by that ship but Grindlays didn't know it. They telegraphed the news to my father and he died on receiving it.

He had great hopes for his sons, expected us to be civil servants, and yet he could be quite reasonable. When Manmohan wrote to him that he wanted to be a poet, my father made no objection; he said there was nothing wrong in that. Only, he didn't send any more money.

NIRODBARAN: We have heard that your father was irregular in sending your allowances.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes; we lived for one year on five shillings a week which my eldest brother was getting by helping the secretary of South Kensington Liberal Club, who was a brother of Sir Henry Cotton. We didn't have winter coats. We used to take tea, bread and ham in the morning and some sausages in the evening. Manmohan could not undergo that hardship, so he went to a boarding house where he managed to get his food, though he had no money to pay. Once when I was unable to pay the college dues, the principal called for me; I told him that my father had not sent my allowance. He sent a letter to my father. On receiving it my father sent me just the amount of the college dues and a lecture on my extravagance. It pained me to a certain extent, as we were living on such a meagre sum. Manmohan was extravagant, if you like.

When I went to Cambridge, I was introduced to a tailor who made suits for me on credit. When I returned to London, he traced me there and got introduced to Manmohan also. Manmohan got a red velvet suit made—not staring red, but aesthetic. He used to go see Oscar Wilde in that suit. When we came back to India, that tailor wrote to the Indian Government about the arrears that Manmohan had not paid and to the Baroda Maharaja for my arrears. I paid everything except four pounds, five shillings, which I thought I was justified in not paying as he had charged double the amount for our suits. The Baroda Maharaja said I had better pay.

Manmohan used to have poetic illness at times. Once we were walking through Cumberland. We found that he had fallen half a mile behind, walking at a leisurely pace and moaning out poetry in a deep tone. There was a dangerous place in front of us, so we shouted at him to come back. But he took no heed, went on

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muttering the lines and came to us with his usual leisurely steps. When he came to India, his playing the poet dropped off.

When Barin and I became politically famous, Manmohan used to say with arrogant pride, "There are only two and a half men in India. The two are my brothers and the half is Tilak."

Manmohan and I used to quarrel pretty often but I got on very well with my eldest brother. Once Manmohan said to me, "I hear you have been living with Madhavrao Jadhav. year after year." "Why not?" I said. "How could you do that?" he asked, "I could not live for six months without quarrelling with him."

We all forgot ourselves rolling with laughter and forgot all about the time. In the midst of our hilarity Sri Aurobindo said, "The Mother is coming." We all stopped laughing and stood up but couldn't check our outburst. On seeing us, the Mother also began to smile.

The Mother (to Sri Aurobindo): What are you laughing about so much?

SRI AUROBINDO: Nothing of importance. I was speaking about my poet-brother.

When the Mother had left, there was not much further conversation.

NIRODBARAN: What about your eldest brother?

SRI AUROBINDO: He went up for medicine but couldn't go on. He returned to India and got a job in Coochbehar. Now I hear he has come back to Calcutta. He is a very practical man, the opposite of poetic, and takes more after my father. He is a very nice man and one can easily get on with him.

9 JANUARY 1939

In the evening Dr. Rao came and unconsciously broke his promise not to speak about removal of splints. Then the usual discussion followed and the differences of opinion among doctors were commented on. After Dr. Rao had departed Sri Aurobindo started the conversation.

SRI AUROBINDO: Two doctors coming to quite different conclusions from the same data!

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Satyeyndra: Doctors are not cutting a very brilliant figure and yet one has to take their help.

SRI AUROBINDO: According to Gandhi, doctors are agents of the devil.

NIRODBARAN: Yet he had to be operated on for appendicitis.

There followed a discussion on Gandhi, his experiments with diet, with food consisting of the five elements, with raw food and how he came to the point of death by these experiments, etc.

PURANI: Formerly he was not taking garlic. Dr. Ansari prescribed garlic for his blood-pressure and he had good results. Then Gandhi began to advise everyone to take garlic.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes; in whatever he takes up, he goes the whole hog. If it is celibacy, all must observe celibacy. When somebody asked him how the world was to go on in that case, he said that it was none of his business.

Here came in talk about the researches of science to create life by artificial means and to find a suitable medium for keeping sperm for a long period.

SRI AUROBINDO: You mean that a man of the present time could have a child from a woman, say, five hundred years later? (Laughter)

Satyeyndra: Talking of procreation, what will be the place of it when the Supermind comes?

SRI AUROBINDO: Let us leave it to the Supermind to decide when it comes down.

But is procreation necessary in the supramental creation? The whole of mankind is not going to be supramentalised; so there will be plenty of people left for that purpose.

NIRODBARAN: Is it possible to create Manasaputra ("mind- child") by will-power?

SRI AUROBINDO: Anything is possible under proper conditions.

NIRODBARAN: I am afraid that is like the Maharshi's reply: "The Divine Grace can do everything." (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: But it is true in principle.

NIRODBARAN: The question is whether proper conditions would be possible.

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SRI AUROBINDO: It depends. If man, instead of living on the basis of his animality and outward nature, lived in his inner being and acquired its powers, then things like this would be possible. Such things are now mystical or magical or extraordinary because man has been looking at them from his present poise. They are mysterious because they are exceptional. But if, just as people are advancing in physical science and trying to explore every possible secret of Nature, they also went into the inner being and tapped the powers of the unusual ranges of Nature, there would be no limit to the possibilities. Things like telegraphy, wireless, etc., would not be necessary; one could dispense with the whole machinery because it would be quite possible to communicate telepathically with a person in America through a subtle medium. Even one's death would no longer be like that of an ordinary man. One could go whenever one wanted.

NIRODBARAN: They say that after the Supermind's descent there won't be any death.

SRI AUROBINDO: Do you mean to say that one will have to remain till Doomsday and then walk into the presence of the Creator? Perhaps, one may choose not to go away till one finds another to take one's place.

Satyeyndra: They say Ashwatthama is still alive.

SRI AUROBINDO: What is he doing? Wandering about in jungles?

Satyeyndra: There are five immortals, they say. Hanuman is one.

SRI AUROBINDO: That may be possible considering the length of his tail which even Bhima could not raise!

Here Purani brought in the topic of the Mahabharata, mention G. Ram's interpretation of that poem as symbolic, Bhima symbolising military genius and Draupadi...

SRI AUROBINDO: Nonsense! It is something like Byron's joke on Dante's Divine Comedy, that Beatrice was a mathematical figure.

PURANI: Critics say that in the future the epic will be more and more subjective.

SRI AUROBINDO: It looks like that. The idea has always been that an epic requires a story. But now it seems to have been

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exhausted. Besides, there is the demand of the present time for subjectivity and the epic too will have to answer it.

PURANI: Some maintain that as there is no story in the Divine Comedy, it is not an epic.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is certainly an epic. Paradise Lost has very little story in it and very few incidents. Yet it is an epic.

PURANI: Some think that Keats' Hyperion would have been as great as Milton's poem if he had finished it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, if the whole had been as great as the first part, then it would have been equal to Milton's work. But I doubt if Keats could have kept up that sustained height, for I find that he already declined in the second part. As soon as he began to put in his subjective ideas at the end of the first part, he could not :keep up that height.

PURANI: There is an idea that the new form may be a combination of epic and drama or like the odes of Meredith on the French Revolution. They give some clue to a possible epic form in the future.

SRI AUROBINDO: There has been such an effort by Victor Hugo. His Legendes des siecles is an epic in conception, thought, tone and movement. It is the only epic in French. But as yet, I think, it has not been given its proper place. It does not deal with a story but with episodes.

PURANI: It is a pity Tagore has not written an epic.

SRI AUROBINDO: Tagore? He has not the epic mind. But he has written some very fine narrative poems.

A few of William Morris' narratives are also very fine—his Sigurd ihe Volsung and Earthly Paradise, especially the latter. I read them a number of times in my early days. There is a tendency to belittle him, because he wrote about the Middle Ages and Romanticism, I suppose.

NIRODBARAN: You said the other day there has not been any successful blank verse in England after Shakespeare and Milton. What about Shelley's Prometheus Unbound?

SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't say there is no successful blank verse. Plenty of people have written successfully, such as Byron, Matthew Arnold in Sohrab and Rustom and some others. But there are only three who have written great blank verse: Milton, Shakespeare and Keats.

NIRODBARAN: What about Harin?

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SRI AUROBINDO: I don't think he has written anything wonderfull in blank verse.

NIRODBARAN: And Amal?

SRI AUROBINDO: The trouble with him is that he has a strain of what may be called post-Victorian. I had great difficulty knocking it out. I had to screw and screw him up to get right form. I had to send back his poems many times, suggesting corrections and alterations here and there till he got the right thing Now? he has fallen back to his post-Victorian in Bombay. He sent me a poem from there the other day.

The trouble in general with Indian poets writing in English that they may be successful poets but it is not as if the very man spoke. Their work gives the impression of one who has studied English literature and spun out something. I read Jehangir Vakil's poem. The same difficulty. Mrs. Naidu wrote something fine at times and she had a power of expression but her range was small.

Harin and Amal have been thinking and speaking in English since childhood. So for them writing in it is comparatively easy. Harin has from the very beginning always been original. There are several reasons why he is not appreciated in England. Firstly, he is an Indian. If he published anonymously, say, under the name "John Turner", he would have a better chance. Even so, he got high appreciation from critics like Binyon.

Secondly, his poetry can be appreciated by those who have not lost the thread of English poetry since the Victorian period. Poetry is not read in England nowadays, I hear.

One can also gather this from what was said about my poetry. Some of my recent poems were sent to the editor of an English publishing firm. He said, "They are remarkable and there is some thing new in them. But I would not advise him to publish them. For poetry is not read nowadays. If he has written anything in prose, it is better to publish it first and then the poems may go down with the public."

It is no wonder that people don't read poetry these days: the Modernists are responsible for it, I suppose.

NIRODBARAN: Harin's poems were sent to Masefield?.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why to Masefield?

NIRODBARAN: Perhaps because he is the poet-laureate.

SRI AUROBINDO: Poet-laureate! Anybody can be a poet laureate. The only people of real worth to whom the title was

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given were Tennyson and Wordsworth. Masefield's poems are Georgian, full of rhetoric.

PURANI: Thompson asked me to read the poems of Eliot. He was in ecstasy over them. I read them. I couldn't find anything there. Neither in Ezra Pound. I asked Amal's opinion.

SRI AUROBINDO: What did he say?

PURANI: He is of the same view. He cut a fine joke on Ezra Pound: "His name is Pound but he is not worth a penny."(laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: Eliot is the pioneer of modem poetry. I have not read much of him. Do you know the definition of a modern poet?: "A modern poet is one -who understands his own poems and is understood by a few of his admirers."

NIRODBARAN: Eliot has written a poem "Hippopotamus," which is supposed to be very fine.

PURANI: Hippopotamus the animal?

SRI AUROBINDO: I thought he had written about himself. (Laughter)

NIRODBARAN: The modem young poets of Bengal seem to like him very much.

SRI AUROBINDO: Because he is the fashion, I suppose.

NIRODBARAN: You have written an epic called Aeneid?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, Ilion: it is in hexameter and about the end of the siege of Troy.

NIRODBARAN: What about Radhanand's poetry? He writes in French also.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, his French poetry is very good. The Mother likes it; there is imagination and beauty. Of course, she corrects the poems. He is a stupendous writer with great energy. He has written two hundred books in six months. He has written about my life also. I had a great tussle with him not to have it published. He is very popular with the Tamils. He is supposed to be as great a poet as Bharati. His prose is rather rhetorical.

NIRODBARAN: Toru Dutt is said to have had great genius. They say that if she had lived she would have been a very great poet.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nobody in England thinks other as a great poet. Perhaps the only vigorous poetry she wrote was about the German invasion of France in 1870. That was because she had a

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deep sympathy for that country. I remember just a few lines from it.. She addresses France as the "Plead of the human column" she calls the invaders "Attila's own exultant horde". These two lines at once strike one as if they were spoken by the poet and were not an imitation. If one can write like that, it cannot recognise.

NIRODBARAN: What about Madhusudhan?

SRI AUROBINDO: I read only one poem of his and the imitation of Byron.

APPENDIX

TORU DUTT'S POEM

FRANCE-1870

Not dead,—oh no,—she cannot die!

Only a swoon from loss of blood!

Levite, England passes her by,

Help, Samaritan! none is nigh;

Who shall stanch me this sanguine flood?

Range the brown hair, it blinds her eyes,

Dash cold water over her face!

Drowned in her blood, she makes no sign,

Give her a draught of generous wine.

None heed, none hear, to do this grace.

Head of the human column, thus

Ever in swoon wilt thou remain?

Thought, Freedom, Truth, quenched ominous,

Whence then shall Hope arise for us,

Plunged in the darkness all again?

No, she stirs!-There's fire in her glance,

Ware, oh ware of that broken sword!

What, dare ye for an hour's mischance,

Gather around her, jeering France,

Attila's own exultant horde?

Lo, she stands up, - stands up e'en now,

Strong once more for the battle-fray,

Gleams bright the star, that from her brow

Lightens the world. Bow, nations, bow,

Let her again lead on the way!

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10 JANUARY 1939

Today Sri Aurobindo opened the talk by inquiring from Satyendra about X's health. Then the talk proceeded to homoeopathy. The Mother came and took some part in it. After she had gone, the talk on medicine continued.

SRI AUROBINDO: Once in Baroda I had a nasty abscess on the knee. All treatment failed. Then Madhavrao Jadhav called in a Mohammedan who pricked the knee at a particular point and brought out a big drop of black blood and the abscess was cured soon afterwards! He must have known the spot to prick.

I also remember Jatin Banerji curing many cases of sterility by a Sannyasi's medicine given to him. Cases of ten or fifteen years' sterility were cured by it and people got children within ten months. There were some peculiar rules to be observed before taking the medicine: for example, the woman had to take a bath, the hair had to be down, etc., etc.

Many such things known to India are being lost now.

Satyeyndra: I don't think medicines will succeed in curing disease. I believe only the Yogic power can do it.

NIRODBARAN: Quite so; but, even there, one has to fulfil certain conditions. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: He expects that the Yogic power will simply say, "Let the disease be cured" or "Let there be no disease for life" and the thing will be done!

Satyeyndra: Not that way, Sir! But we have even seen cases that have been cured miraculously.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is another matter. But otherwise the Yogi has to get up every morning and say, "Let everybody in the world be all right" and there will no more be disease in the world!

There are many miracles of Christ of that sort: he spat on some earth and put it on a blind man's eyes and the man was made to see.

CHAMPAKLAL: Satyen's Guru also cured a case of leprosy and the man became a painter afterwards!

SRI AUROBINDO: In the Bible there is also the multiplication of fish and the descent of the Holy Ghost and the disciples getting gift of tongues-speaking many languages perhaps? I don't understand what they mean by it.

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Satyeyndra: What is the significance of the Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost?

SRI AUROBINDO: The Son, I suppose, could be the individual Divine, the Divine in man — they speak of the Christ in man; the Father is the personal Divine, the ruler of the world; and perhaps the Holy Ghost is the Impersonal.

But I don't understand what they mean by saying, "A sin against Christ and the Father is pardonable but that against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable." It would seem to mean that if you destroy your soul you can't be redeemed.

DR. BECHARLAL: The soul can be destroyed?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, in the sense that if you go against the essential Divine in you and drive out the psychic being, the nature is left without any divine support.

Then Dr. Becharlal and others cited some cases of miracles.

DR. BECHARLAL: Brahmananda on several occasions fed many people out of a small quantity of food. Also, when the ghee ran short, he used to take water from the Narmada and have things fried in it. And when the occasion was over and a fresh supply of ghee came along he would throw into the river a quantity equivalent to the water taken.

NIRODBARAN: Are such things possible?

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, they have happened. You can't say Brahmananda played a trick.

DR. BECHARLAL: No, no, it was not magic.

SRI AUROBINDO: Magic is different. There you use a medium to bring or carry things to a distance, like the stone-throwing in the Guest House. I heard of a Yogi who used to put his feet in one corner of the room and his hands in another-perhaps to give them proper rest! (Laughter)

PURANI: Is there any sign or test - not necessarily outward- by which one can know that a certain element is removed from the subconscious, apart from the fact that it would not repeat itself ?

SRI AUROBINDO: No test; but you can become aware that, it has gone. After that, it may come up like a habit. It goes from the mind, the vital and yet it comes up like something physical..

In that case, it comes from what I call the environmental nature and you feel it as a concrete suggestion or as a pain (if it is physical.

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or as a sex-impulse. It comes and passes transversely. If it comes as a sex-impulse, there is no question of love in it; it is purely physical. It tries to, enter in. If you consent, it creates a disturbance. But as soon as you feel it is coming, you can throw it away like a thought and you can see it actually passing away like that.

NIRODBARAN: Is it very difficult to be conscious of these things?

SRI AUROBINDO: In some cases, it is very easy. Naik was very conscious, for he was high-strung, with nerves very sensitive. With people whose constitutional make-up is of that sort, people who have a natural power of vision, it is easy.

But for those who have a thick physical layer and are fond of good food and have a hold on matter, it is difficult and takes time. Also people who are mentally active, intellectual, find it difficult. On the other hand, if one has subtle intelligence, instead of external intellectuality, one may be greatly helped. A. E., for example, was very intellectual; but he was very developed in many other things also and had a remarkable power of vision. At one time I had great difficulty myself because of my mind, especially as regards visions.

The faculty can also come if one lives in his inner being. As you can feel these things, you can see them also. But it is very difficult sometimes to bring down into oneself the thing which the vision symbolises, because people are so preoccupied with the vision that we find it difficult; to make them feel and embody the consciousness. .

Sometimes for years and years this faculty stops. Mental people also give a mental form to things by their ideas and thoughts and so the true vision-form does not appear to them. But even if one is not able to see, one can feel or perceive these forces or presences. And feeling is a step towards realisation.

There are, in the inner vision, symbols which are as old as the Vedas.

NIRODBARAN: The cross is a significant one.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is ancient and very well known. It marks the meeting-point of the Individual, the Universal and the Transcendent. These symbols are seen even when you don't know anything about them. There are some symbols which have not been fixed but which accompany the opening to the Brahman. Thus, I used to hear sounds of crickets and bells. The sounds of

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crickets were so noisy that I wondered whether there were many crickets outside!

Here a discussion followed about schools of Yoga and sound (Nada). At the end someone said, "The swastika is an old sacred symbol and now has become Hitler's symbol."

SRI AUROBINDO: It was a sign of the spiritual consciousness and now it is a danger signal. (Addressing Purani) Have you heard Jean Herbert's opinion of Hitler?

PURANI: No.

SRI AUROBINDO: Someone told him that the Mother has described Hitler as possessed by a demon. He was greatly shocked and replied that the Mother could not have said so. Of course, the Mother had simply said that he was "possessed".

PURANI: That Russian S also took Hitler to be a great man; he was full of admiration for him. He said that the Germans of today are the most cultured nation.

SRI AUROBINDO: What culture do they have? I should think on the contrary that Germany before Hitler was more cultured than the present Germany. That reported interview with the Kaiser expressed the contrast very well.

PURANI: Yes, he said the Nazis were a gang of ruffians and blackguards, without God, tradition and dynasty.

SRI AUROBINDO: That's the disadvantage for the county When Hitler and Mussolini go they won't leave any tradition behind. They have no families of cultural distinction such as there used to be in the old times. In India there was also the traditional line of culture handed down from Gurus to disciples.

Then the talk took a sudden turn. Someone began to speak Ramatirtha who could recite "Om " in such a wonderful way in meeting that people were entranced by it. But after staying some months in the plains, he used to run away to the mountains saying that lie was losing his consciousness and people were dragging him into active life.

SRI AUROBINDO: I am not surprised to hear that, for they can drag a Yogi down from spiritual heights. But that shows he had the realisation in his mental being only.

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Satyeyndra: No, sir, he was a Bhakta also.

PURANI: He had two strains: intellectual and emotional.

SRI AUROBINDO: In that case it means that his experience of the Brahmic consciousness was in the mental and emotional parts and had not been brought down to the vital and physical. One loses the experience in such cases when the vital becomes active.

But it is not necessary that it should be so. In my Nirvana experience the peace I had never left me and that peace remained unbroken even in the midst of crowded meetings. I had not to make any effort to keep it. It was always there. Even here when I used to go to marriage parties like David's, I used to feel the people rather tiring but at the same time this consciousness and peace were there overhanging all and enveloping all.

NIRODBARAN: Does it mean in Ramatirtha's case that the experience was not worked upon in the vital and physical planes?

SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly. Usually you find these experiences worked upon in the mental and emotional planes, in the vital less while in the physical almost not at all.

NIRODBARAN: Where is the difference? In the nature of the conquest or the extent?

SRI AUROBINDO: It is in the extent of the achievement. From the time of the Upanishads the cleavage began.

Satyeyndra: What about the Vedic Rishis?

SRI AUROBINDO: They accepted life. But the other paths made a sharp cleavage between life and the Brahmic consciousness. It was more markedly so under the influence of Buddhism and lastly Shankara made a sharp cut between the two.

Satyeyndra: Why should this cleavage be necessary?

SRI AUROBINDO: If you hold that life has no divine purpose, then it is not necessary to go beyond the escape into Laya. Then you are perfectly right in leaving life and, from the point of view of the Brahman, life and body are a bother.

The "why" of life and body has not been satisfactorily answered by those who have advocated the escape. They have either said about their existence, "It is Maya", which means there is no explanation for it, or "It is Lila", which means God has been merely playing about and you can't expect any purpose in play. But I should think that God had a purpose when he created this world.

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NIRODBARAN: What purpose?

Satyeyndra: Progressive manifestation of the Divine perhaps. (To Sri Aurobindo) But what you call "Supramental", is it your own idea—something thought out by you—or was it given to you from above?

SRI AUROBINDO: It is not my thought or idea. I have told you before that after the Nirvana experience I had no thoughts of my own. Thoughts used to come from above. From the beginning I didn't feel Nirvana to be the highest spiritual achievement. Something in me always wanted to go on farther. But even then I didn't ask for this new experience. In fact, in Nirvana, with that peace one does not ask for anything. But the truth of the Supermind was put into me. I had no idea of the Supermind when I started and for long it was not clear to me. It was the spirit of Vivekananda who first gave me a clue in the direction of the Supermind. This clue led me to see how the Truth-Consciousness works in everything.

NIRODBARAN: Did he know about the Supermind?

SRI AUROBINDO: He didn't say "Supermind". "Supermind'' is my own word. He just said to me, "This is this, this is that' and so on. That was how he proceeded—by pointing and indicating. He visited me for fifteen days in Alipore Jail and, until I could grasp the whole thing, he went on teaching me and impressed upon my mind the working of the higher consciousness-the Truth-Consciousness in general—which leads towards the Supermind. He would not leave until he had put it all into my head.

NIRODBARAN: Do Gurus come in that way and give teachings?

SRI AUROBINDO : Why not? That is the traditional experience from ancient times. Any number of Gurus give initiation after their death.

NIRODBARAN: You once spoke about Ramakrishna's and Vivekananda's influence in your life. Was it this you meant?

SRI AUROBINDO: No. I referred to the influence of their words and books when I returned from England to Baroda. Their influence was very strong all over India. But I had another direct experience of Vivekananda's presence when I was practising Hathayoga. I felt this presence standing behind and watching over me. That exerted a great influence afterwards in my life.

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In regard to the sounds, I am reminded of another experience. It was when Annie Besant invited me to see her. I heard, during the whole time of the meeting, the noise of thunder in my ears. I believe she was trying to throw an influence on me and my being was violently throwing it back.

Then came some talk about Haranath. It was said that many people saw him after his death. Someone even saw him at Madras. His miracles and his initiation were mentioned.

SRI AUROBINDO: There are two kinds of experiences: some people see visions with open eyes, others with closed eyes. Those who see with open eyes can easily mistake their visions for material forms and feel as if the individual seen was physically present.

NIRODBARAN: But is materialisation possible?

SRI AUROBINDO: There is a well-known case of such materialisation. It relates to the mother or the grandmother of the present Queen of England, — Lady Strathmore or some such name. The husband and wife always used to discuss religious things, the reality of after-life. They made a pact that whoever died first would come back and tell the other about the reality of after-life, if anything existed beyond. The husband died first. Several years later, he returned and spoke about the truth of their religion. Then the wife said, "Can you give me some proof that you physically came here, a proof that would always last with me?" He said "Yes", and then he took her hand and pressed it very hard. She felt a very acute burning sensation at the place. That burning left a permanent mark on her hand which she had to cover in order to conceal the mark from others. ,

That was materialisation, if you please!

APPENDIX

VIVEKANANDA'S VISITATIONS IN ALIPORE JAIL

The following note throws further light on the subject of Vivekananda's visitations to Sri Aurobindo in Alipore jail: It was written by the editor of Mother India, the journal in which these talks first appeared. See also the talk of 25 January 1939.

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Nirodbaran's report of Sri Aurobindo's statement about his discovery of the Supermind after the pointer, given in Alipore by Vivekananda's "spirit", to the Higher Consciousness- planes of divine dynamism above the mind — provides some body of detail to the general indications found in the published writing of Sri Aurobindo on this subject. Thus we read in Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother.

"It is a fact that I was hearing constantly .the voice Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence.... The voice spoke only on a special and limited but very important field of spiritual experience and it ceased as soon as it had finished saying all that it had to say on the subject." (p. 115)

"[Before coming to Pondicherry] Sri Aurobindo had already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his Yoga... is founded. The first he had gained while meditation with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman.... His second realisation which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is,... happened in the Alipore Jail.... To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher plain of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore Jail." (pp. 107-108)

Further light on Vivekananda's coming to Sri Aurobindo is shed by the report found in the notes kept by Anilbaran of a talk with Sri Aurobindo in July 1926. Like Nirodbaran's report, it also brings us some significant particulars. It runs:

SRI AUROBINDO: Then there is the incident of the personality of Vivekananda visiting me in jail. He explained to me in detail this work of the Supramental — not exactly of the Supramental, but of the intuitivised mind, the mind as it is organised by the Supramental. He did not use the word "Supermind", I gave this name afterwards. That experience lasted for about two weeks.

Q: Was that a vision?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, it was not a vision. I would not have trusted a vision.

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