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16 JANUARY 1939

SRI AUROBINDO: But what should they do in case of attack? Simply stand by?

PURANI: No, they have to die resisting non-violently.

SRI AUROBINDO: This idea of passive resistance I have never been able to fathom. I can understand an absolute non-resistance to evil, what the Christians mean when they say, "Resist not evil." You may die without resisting and accept the consequences as sent by God. But to change the opponent's heart by passive resistance is something I don't understand.

PURANI: I agree with the Modern Review that by this method one allows evil to triumph. It seems foolish to expect that a goonda's heart will melt in that way.

SRI AUROBINDO: Precisely. Gandhi has been trying to apply to ordinary life what belongs to spirituality. Non-violence or Ahimsa as a spiritual attitude and practice is perfectly intelligible and has a standing of its own. You may not accept it in toto but it has a basis in reality. To apply it to ordinary life is absurd. One then ignores — as the Europeans do in several things — the principle of Adhikarbheda and the difference of situation.

PURANI: Gandhi's point is that in either case you die. If you die with arms you encourage and perpetuate the killing method.

SRI AUROBINDO: And if you die without arms you encourage and perpetuate passive resistance. (Laughter)

It is certainly a principle which can be applied successfully if practised on a mass scale, especially by unarmed people like Indians. I understand this principle, because you, being unarmed are left with no other choice. But even if it succeeds, it is not because you have changed the heart of the enemy but because you have made it impossible for him to rule. That is what happened in Ireland. Of course, there was armed resistance also, but it would not have succeeded without passive resistance side by side.

What a tremendous generaliser Gandhi is! Passive resistance, Charkha and celibacy for all! One can't be a member of the Congress without oneself spinning! I wonder how many of Gandhi's followers do it.

PURANI: Now they have removed the demand. Nobody took spinning seriously.

SRI AUROBINDO: How do you expect anyone to take it seriously? If I were asked to spin, I would offer passive resistance

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myself— complete Satyagraha. (Laughter) I wonder what Abanindra Tagore and D would have done.

NIRODBARAN: It seems Nandalal Bose did spinning.

SRI AUROBINDO: Isn't he a man of an ascetic temperament? There was somebody who even wrote that the Chakra referred to in the Gita is really the Charkha!

PURANI: There are many ascetically-minded enthusiasts whom people look up to as Gurus. About one of them a friend told me, "He can attain the Supermind." I replied, "No objection. Let him try."

SRI AUROBINDO: These people will stumble at the very step to the Supermind. They have to give up all their fixed ideas.

17 JANUARY 1939

Satyendra showed Sri Aurobindo some photographs of Pagal Haranath, the Bengali saint, and his wife. Below one of the photos of his wife was written that she was the Supreme Power and he was one of her forces.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is the Tantric doctrine.

Satyeyndra: He was a Vaishnava.

SRI AUROBINDO: Maybe, but the doctrine is not a Vaishnava one. It is Tantric.

In principle the doctrine is true, for the Supreme Shakti is the Divine Consciousness and all the Gods come from her. It is said that even Shiva cannot act unless She gives him the power.

Satyeyndra: Haranath had an interesting life. He underwent complete change of colour at Kashmir. It is said that Gauranga came to him in a vision and gave him his mission. But his later disciples consider him equal to Gauranga.

SRI AUROBINDO: Where is the contradiction? If the conciousness is ultimately and essentially divine, why should not both be one in consciousness?

Satyeyndra: They want to prove him an Avatar as great as Gauranga.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, competition for Avatarhood? But did he proclaim himself an Avatar?

Satyeyndra: No, Sir; but he behaved like one.

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SRI AUROBINDO: Gauranga is regarded as an Avatar of Krishna, and if Haranath is an Avatar of Gauranga, naturally both are Avatars of Krishna, Then why quarrel?

Satyeyndra: There are cases of very rapid progress among people who have met Haranath.

SRI AUROBINDO: I have found that Vaishnava Bhakti leads to very intense and rapid progress.

Satyeyndra: There is a line of Sadhus in Gujarat who have Bhakti for the impersonal God.

SRI AUROBINDO: Bhakti for the impersonal God?

Satyeyndra: They don't have devotion for any personal God but for the One who is everywhere and beyond all personalities. Kabir and some other saints believe like that. Even when they take a particular name, they mean by it something more than the name. They will say "Rama" but believe in various aspects of Rama: for example, one Rama in Dasaratha's house, one in each heart, one pervading all and another beyond all.

PURANI: That is one who is the Transcendent.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the Supreme Absolute. That is the same thing as the Gita's idea of Vasudeva who is in all and Vasudeva who is the Supreme Absolute. Both are the same.

Bhakti for the impersonal Divine may not be so powerful for the change of nature; it tends to be more etherealised. Nor does it seem to be very powerful as regards Knowledge. Here Bhakti predominates over Knowledge.

Satyeyndra: I have seen many instances of Bhakti and Knowledge combined.

SRI AUROBINDO: I am not speaking of exceptions.

Satyeyndra: We have heard that you had guidance from Sri Krishna. Was it the Brindavan Krishna or the Kurukshetra Krishna?

SRI AUROBINDO: I should think it was the Kurkshetra Krishna. I had an experience of Krishna-Kali in Alipore Jail. It was a very powerful vision.

PURANI: These distinctions between the personalities of Krishna seem to be of later growth: I mean, later Vaishnavism.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they regard Balagopal as the delight- aspect or delight-consciousness, but there were other older schools, who regarded Krishna as an Avatar of Vishnu, and they were also Vaishnavas.

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Satyeyndra: It is the Kurukshetra Krishna who spoke the Gita.

SRI AUROBINDO: The one who spoke the Gita is the Vishnu aspect. In the Vishnu Purana all these aspects are very finely described. The Vishnu Purana is the only Purana I have carefully read through. I wonder how it has escaped general notice that it is also magnificent poetry.

There are also some very humorous passages. In one a disciple asks his Guru whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant on the king.

PURANI: The king must be a Ramamurti if the elephant were to be on him.

SRI AUROBINDO: The Guru jumps upon the shoulders of the disciple and asks, Am I on you or you on me? (Laughter)

Satyeyndra: The description of Jadabharata is also fine. Was there such a person, as Jadabharata?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. But he sounds very real in the Purana. This Purana is most anti-Buddhist.

Satyeyndra: Then it must have been very late.

PURANI: Buddha was born 550 B.C.

SRI AUROBINDO: This Purana is not so early as that. All the Puranas in fact are posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Bramanical revival which came in the Gupta period as a reaction to Buddhism.

PURANI: They are supposed to have been written about the third or fourth century A. D.

SRI AUROBINDO: Probably. In the Vishnu Purana Buddha is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by his own name but called Mayamoha. The Purana says, "Buddhasya, Buddhasya", which evidently refers to Buddha.

SRI AUROBINDO : The principle of Tantra may be as old as the Vedas, but the known Tantras are a later development.

PURANI: The Vedas are regarded as the highest authority in India. So everything wants to peg itself on to the Vedas

SRI AUROBINDO: Why is there this passion for antiquity? Truth is Truth whenever it may be found.

Satyeyndra: The Vedas are considered eternal

SRI AUROBINDO: Because the source of their inspiration is eternal.

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Satyeyndra: Somebody has said that the eternal Veda is in everybody's heart.

PURANI: You are quoting Sri Aurobindo to himself. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: The Upanishads came after the Vedas and they put in more plain language the same truth that was in the Veda. In the Veda it is in symbolic language. But the Upanishads, of course, are equally great. Even in the Veda there are passages which clearly show that the Vedantic or Upanishadic truth was contained in it. It is surprising that scholars miss the meaning. For instance, the Veda says, "Hidden by your truth is the Truth that is constant for ever where they unyoke the horses of the Sun. There the ten thousands stand together. That is the One: I have seen the Supreme Godhead of the embodied gods." It is clear that this refers to the Vedantic truth. Similarly the Upanishads speak of the Sun, Surya, and Fire, Agni, which are Vedic symbols, and the significance of these expressions in the Upanishads is the same as in the Veda.¹

Satyeyndra: The Europeans can't imagine that the Vedic Rishis were so advanced in those primitive times.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they are so satisfied when they find a historical interpretation that they ignore many obvious indications of the true meaning. In dealing with these deeper things they make an awful muddle. But some of our Indians are not far behind. You must admire one Indian writer's interpretation of the Gods as Gases—magnificently ingenious!

PURANI: Many Riks of Dirghatamas are untranslated even today by European commentators.

SRI AUROBINDO: You can't understand or translate them unless you have the key to their symbolism.

PURANI: In several Riks he speaks of the largest or highest step of the cow.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is certainly symbolic. Everyone knows that the cow is a symbol of divine light and consciousness, and its highest step is their highest level.

¹Sri Aurobindo has often emphasised the Isha Upanishad's parrellel passage:The face of the truth is covered with the brlliant golden lid: O fostering Sun, that uncover for the law of the truth, for sight. O Fosterer, O Sole Rishi, O Controlling Yama, O Surya, O Son of the Father of creatures, marshal and mass the rays: the Lustre that is the most blessed form of all, that I see, He who is this, this Purusha, He am I."

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PURANI: Dirghatamas is to me a great stumbling-block on the whole, though some of his Riks are clear in their symbolism.

SRI AUROBINDO: He has justified his name which means "Long in the darkness".

PURANI: There was an article about Saraswati in a magazine, saying that it was a river that flowed both into the Bay of Bengal and the Bay of Cambay.

SRI AUROBINDO: What? Saraswati going through both Bengal and Cambay? That would be possible only if the inspiration ran riot.

PURANI: I have tried to show that Saraswati of the Veda may after all be the flood of inspiration. Dirghatamas requests the rivers to become shallow and they comply with his request.

SRI AUROBINDO: They would be funny rivers if they were material ones. And remember what they carried in them—all sorts of things, the rays, the sun, the Soma-wine, wisdom, wealth.

PURANI: Do you remember a Madrasi departmental commissioner of police trying to prove that Christ was a Tamilian?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and also that the Tamilians were Jews! Do you know that now the Germans claim Christ as a German?

PURANI: But I thought Hitler and Ludendorf were trying to give up Christianity and go back to the old Norse religion.

SRI AUROBINDO: That's because they found Christ inconvenient in many ways. The Turks also tried, when they became free, to go back to everything of old Turkey. It was Mustapha Kemal who modernised Mohammedanism.

NIRODBARAN: Poor Amanullah of Afghanistan attempted to follow him and got kicked out.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is the case of a weak man imitating a strong one. Kemal was a liberator of Turkey with an army to back him up.

PURANI: Indian Muslims praise Kemal but don't learn anything from his life and the reforms be introduced.

SRI AUROBINDO: In Turkey now they enter the mosques with shoes on and the Muezzin has been abolished.

PURANI: Coming to Europe, I want to ask you if it can be said that there was an inrush of forces from the subtle worlds at the time of the French Revolution and in Napoleon's time, changing the course of History.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, There was. It changed the course of European history and gave the world new political and social ideas.

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NIRODBARAN: Aldous Huxley says Napoleon and Caesar were bandits.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nonsense.

NIRODBARAN: He also says all evil, economic and otherwise, of the modern age are due to Napoleon..

PURANI: That is going too far.

SRI AUROBINDO: If he does say so, it shows a mind that is pedantic and without plasticity.

PURANI: Anatole France, though not an imperialist, says Napoleon gave glory to France.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not only glory. He gave peace and order, stable government and security to France. He was not only one of the conquerors but also one of the greatest administrators and organisers the world has seen. If it had not been for him, the whole idea of French Revolution would have been crushed by the European Powers. It was he who stabilised the ideas of the Revolution.

The only trouble was that he was not bold enough. If he had pushed on with the idea of unification of all Europe, which he had at the back of his mind, then the present Spanish struggle would not have been necessary. Italy would have been united much earlier and Germany would have been more civilised. If instead of proclaiming himself Emperor he had remained the First Consul, he would have met with better success. But, he was not like Hitler, he could not carry out things in a ruthless fashion. Even after his overthrow, the Germans on the Rhine were unwilling to give up the Code Napoleon and the institutions he had brought into existence.

Satyeyndra: They say his Russian Campaign was a proof that he was not a military genius. It is Tolstoy who belittles him in his War and Peace.

SRI AUROBINDO: War and Peace is a novel after all.

Satyeyndra: There Tolstoi says that Napoleon blundered by burning Moscow.

SRI AUROBINDO: But, history says that the Russians themselves burnt Moscow to deprive Napoleon of the gains of his victory. He conquered Moscow though he couldn't conquer Russia. Even his retreat at Leipzig is regarded as a feat of military genius. But, there is now a tendency to belittle even his military genius. They say it was his generals who were the military genius of his campaigns and not he. In the same way they belittle Genghis Khan and call him a cut-throat.

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He organised the whole of Asia and part of Europe and made commerce safe. He was successful because he was supported by all the trading agencies who badly wanted safe commercial highways along the banks of rivers.

It is true about Napoleon that his physical capacity failed towards the end owing to his disease.

NIRODBARAN: Napoleon had a pituitary tumour, as a result of which his mental powers declined.

SRI AUROBINDO: History says it was cancer of the stomach. But who says he lost his mental powers? It is an historical fact that his mind remained clear and powerful up to the last. All talk of his mental decline is nonsense.

NIRODBARAN: Yesterday we spoke about materialisation. But is it possible to materialise even ten years after death?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if the spirit has not gone far away from the earth. Generally up to three years it remains near the earth, they say. The Guru's power can materialise the subtle body more easily. Sometimes another force can take up a vital form.

18 JANUARY 1939

Nirodbaran read out to Sri Aurobindo some passages from Aldous Huxley's Ends and Means. They were on war, passive resistance, non-attachment, the Jacobins, Caesar, Napoleon and dictators in general. The last was: "More hooks have been written about Napoleon than about any other human being. The fact is deeply and alarmingly significant. . . . Duces and Fuhrers will cease to plague the world only when the majority of its inhabitants regard such adventurers with the same disgust as they now bestow on swindlers and pimps. So long as men worship Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable."

SRI AUROBINDO: All that is shallow, it is mere moralising. If Caesar and Napoleon are not to be admired, then it means that human capacity and attainment are not to be admired. Caesar and Napoleon have been admired not merely because they were successful: plenty of successful people are not admired. Caesar has won admiration because it was he who founded the greatness of Imperial Rome which gave us one of the greatest periods of human civilisation. And we admire Napoleon because he was a

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great organiser and he stabilised the French Revolution. He organised France and, through France, the whole of Europe. His immense powers and abilities - are these things not great?

PURANI: I suppose men admire them because they find in them the realisation of their own potential greatness,

SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. But Huxley speaks of Caesar and Napoleon as if they were the first dictators the world had seen. There have been dictators since the beginning of the world. And they are of various kinds. Kernal, Pilsudski, all the kings of Balkan states, as well as Stalin and Hitler, are all dictators. Even Gandhi, if he were put at the head of a free India, could be a dictator. My own father can be called the dictator of Rangppur or Khulna! The dictators come in answer to the necessity of the hour. When men and nations are in conflict with their surrounding conditions, when there is confusion all about, the dictators come, it set things right and pull the race out of its difficulties.

As for the Jacobins, with whom Huxley finds fault, I have been thinking of Laski's view. Laski is perfectly right in saying that the Jacobins saved the Republic. If they had not concentrated power in their hands, the Germans would have marched on Paris and crushed the new Republic at the very start and restored the old monarchy. It was because of the Jacobins that the Bourbons even when they returned, had to accept constitutional monarchy. Louis XVIII and all the kings in Europe were obliged, more or less, to accept the principles of democracy,

It is true that in Napoleon's time the Assembly was only a shadow, but the full Republic, although delayed for some time, was in fact already established. Politics is only a shadow at the top: the real changes that matter are those that come in society. The social laws introduced by Napoleon have continued till this day. It was he who made for the first time all men equal before the Law. The Code Napoleon bridged the gulf between the rich and the poor. This kind of equality seems very natural now, but when he introduced it, it was something revolutionary. The laws he laid down still hold. What he established may not have been democracy in the sense of government by the masses, but it was democracy in the sense of government by the middle class, the bourgeoisie.

On the topic of war, Huxley speaks as if there were always an alternative between military violence and non-violent peaceful development. But things are never like that: they don't move in

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a perfect way. If Napoleon had not come, the Republic would have been smothered in its infancy and democracy would have suffered a setback. No, the Cosmic Spirit is not so foolish as to allow that. Carlyle puts the situation more realistically when he says that the condition was, "I kill you or you kill me. So it is better that I kill you than get killed by you."

PURANI: Huxley says war is always avoidable.

SRI AUROBINDO: When intellectuals talk of these things, they get into a muddle. How is war avoidable? How can you prevent war so long as the other fellow wants to fight? You can prevent it only by becoming stronger than he or (smiling), as Gandhi says, by changing his heart by passive resistance. And even there Gandhi has been forced to admit that none has understood his passive resistance except himself. It is not very promising for Satyagraha; in fact, it is a condemnation of it, considering that it is intended to be a general solution for all men. What some did in several places in India is not Satyagraha but Duragraha (obstinacy).

NIRODBARAN: Huxley speaks of spirituality.

SRI AUROBINDO: Spirituality is all right, but in what way is it to be got?

PURANI: He speaks of the ideal non-attached men who must practise virtue disinterestedly.

SRI AUROBINDO: No doubt, no doubt! But how are you to get them? And when you have got them how are the attached people to accept the non-attached? And how will the non-attached men get their decisions accepted and carried out by the attached?

It is all a solution by the mind. The mind has not been able to change human nature fundamentally. It cannot succeed so long as it works on its own principles. It accepts an ideal and tries to work it out but it is not a sovereign consciousness. You can go on changing human institutions and yet the imperfection will break through all your institutions.

PURANI: The other day you spoke of the inrush of Forces during certain periods of history—the Greek and the Arab periods, for example. Can we speak similarly not of an inrush but of a descent of some Higher Force in the cases of men like Buddha and Christ?

SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. It is a descent of a Higher Force, which works at first in one man, then in a group and then extends its influence to mankind. In the case of Mohammed — and here is another dictator for you!—the descent corresponded with the

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extension, the expansion, in life. But the descent may be just an inner one in the beginning and only gradually spread to other men and later extend outwards.

Satyeyndra: Many spiritual figures have come and tried to make our life spiritual. But the world remains the same.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Here also what happens is that the new Force gets mixed up with the powers that are already there. What happens is that the powers of Falsehood try at first to resist the spiritual descent. When they fail, they accept it in order to break it. Look, for instance, at Christianity. When it came, it was much oppressed, and afterwards it in its turn became oppressive. Never has there been so much oppression and persecution. I dare say many of the Christian martyrs who died for the cause had a spirit of revenge—the feeling that if they got a chance they would take revenge for what they were made to suffer. And the Christians did take revenge when they got the power. So the passive resistance of Christianity became in the end a movement of persecution. It is the vital mixture — the mixture of the life-forces — that comes in and corrupts the whole spiritual movement.

Even Lenin had an idea of this truth. He said, "We must keep our ideal absolutely pure. So long as we with our 150,000-strong Communist Party remain pure and are faithful to our ideal, nothing can resist us." And it was quite true; for as long as they were able to do that, Communism was really successful.

Hitler too had a glimpse of the same truth. When he killed one of his prominent followers for immorality, he was not quite hypocritical even though he had known about it before. In some vague way he felt that the Nazi Party must be kept pure if it were to succeed.

It is because of the vital mixture that I want to bring down a Power which I call the Truth-Consciousness, which will admit none of it, no compromise with the lower forces, the powers of Falsehood. By the Truth-Consciousness I mean a dynamic divine Consciousness. This Power must govern even the minutest detail of the life and action of man. The question is to bring it down and establish it on earth and keep it pure. For there is always a gravitational pull downwards. So the spiritual power must be such that it can not only resist but overcome that pull.

This is the solution that I propose. It is a spiritual solution that aims at changing the whole basis of human nature. But it is not a

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question of a moment or a few years. There can be no real solution unless you establish spirituality as the whole basis of life.

Satyeyndra: So the Truth-Consciousness will take a long time to act upon the whole world?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. But there must be a few-a race of Gods on earth—who will at first embody the new Power and then radiate it throughout the world like waves. When this force of action is established in the world, humanity will gradually turn towards it.

It was because of the difficulty of changing human nature—the crooked human nature which Vivekananda called "the dog's curled tail"-that the ascetic path advocated flying from the world as the only remedy. No one thought it possible to change human nature and so everybody said, "Drop it."

Satyeyndra: There is an idea among some people here that even those who have gone into Laya (dissolution) will have to come back to change their nature.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why should they come back?

PURANI: I believe what is meant is that Buddha, Shankara and others who went into Laya and accepted escape from Nature have not really got liberation.

SRI AUROBINDO: They got the liberation of the spirit and that is what they wanted.

PURANI: The question may be put like this: Could their escape be considered to be against the fiat of the Divine?

SRI AUROBINDO: But why should it be so considered? If the Divine in them chose that path the question settles itself.

PURANI: Could they really drop their nature? What becomes the mind, the vital being and the physical?

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by "their nature"? They no longer have any nature when they enter into Laya; they drop it.

Satyeyndra: Cannot the human soul, the psychic being, escape?

SRI AUROBINDO: As I say, if you-want to escape, you may. To accept transformation or to escape is your own affair, but if you accept my idea of the world the truth of evolution stands.

Satyeyndra: But the solution is very difficult. Sir—at least to me.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is not at all easy. One way of looking at transformation is as the Tamil saint Nammalwar puts it: Vishnu

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comes down with all the Gods and takes possession of the earth. My way is the other: to change the human being by some sort of evolution into what I call a race of Gods. The Hindu vision of the last Avatar Kalki destroying everybody is an easy but rather drastic solution.

The Divine Consciousness has entered into the Inconscient by a process of involution. It is only apparently inconscient. It is also superconscient. From the Inconscience it is trying to evolve and that process thus becomes a process of manifestation. But if one does not want to manifest the Divine, it is his own affair. Someone asked the Mother about Ramana Maharshi. The Mother said, "If the Divine in him does not want to undertake the transformation, it is not necessary for him." ;

Satyeyndra: When S. D. asked Maharshi, he said, "There is not Sankalpa (will) in me." The Spirit can't be compelled to choose a fixed path. Each one must follow the Divine within.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is not necessary for all to do this Yoga. It is a mistaken idea that I want everybody to do this Yoga.

Satyeyndra : They believe that Buddha or Shankara will have to be born again to do it.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't say that they won't be reborn, but there is no compulsion. As Ramakrishna said, the Ishwarakoti can go up and down as he chooses. It is therefore wrong to suppose that this Yoga is for everybody.

Satyeyndra: Your effort may also end in becoming a religion, wanting to convert all. Already there are signs.

SRI AUROBINDO: But I have never wanted to start a religion, I have said nothing new in philosophy. In fact, I am not a philosopher by temperament. Richard came and said, "Let us have a synthesis of knowledge." I said, "All right. Let us synthesise." I have written everything not from thought but from experience as it developed in my practice of Yoga. I have not cared even to be consistent or to see whether all my thoughts hung together.

Somebody has said that I have a great similarity to Hegel because I used the word "synthesis" and he speaks of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But I must confess I have no idea of what Hegel says.

Western philosophies are so mental and dry. They seem to lead to nothing, only mental gymnastics trying to find out things like, "What is judgment?" and "What is not judgment?" They appear to

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be written for the purpose of using the mind, not for finding or arriving at the Truth.

People speak of Platonism as a philosophy. Plato simply expresses what he thought and knew about life and men. You hear of Neoplatonisrn, etc., etc. I must say I got a shock when I read Adhar Das describing my philosophy as "Aurobindoism"!

NIRODBARAN: It can't be helped. It is a convenient simplification.

Satyeyndra: They are entitled to call you a philosopher, for you have followed the tradition of the Acharyas and written about the Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that is true.

Satyeyndra: Besides, each one thinks you support his own school.

SRI AUROBINDO: The other day a follower of Nimbarka wrote to me that what I have said agrees very well with Nimbarka's philosophy. Even the followers of Madhwa say that I belong to them.

Satyeyndra: But if they knew your philosophy properly, perhaps all of them would attack you.

SRI AUROBINDO: I have said nothing new in my philosophy. I have not put my philosophy into the Gita. I have only tried o explain what seems to be the sense of the Gita in the light of By own experience. But I do admit to a new way of Yoga.

I can't say that I like Indian commentaries on philosophies. They are very academic and pedantic, an abstract rigmarole, a maze of words, the authors trying to get rid of whatever spiritual experiences they don't recognise. For example, Ramanuja says at one place that no such thing as consciousness exists and that nobody can experience pure consciousness! It is staggering.

Satyeyndra: You have made a translation of the Katha Upanishad. It is very fine. Why haven't you republished it since it first came out?

SRI AUROBINDO: It was translated when I was very young. I wanted to convey the literary merit of the original in the translation. But now a revision and many changes would be necessary.

Satyeyndra: This Upanishad speaks of three Nachiketa fires. What are they?

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SRI AUROBINDO: One is the fire in the heart. Another is above, and the two ends of the third are not known but only the middle term. This middle term is the physical, vital and mental - Bhur, Bhuvar and Swar — including the highest mind regions. I wanted to explain other things also but at present the whole matter remains pending.

Satyeyndra: Why did you take up the Isha Upanishad?

SRI AUROBINDO: Because it agreed with my line of sadhana and experience.

Satyeyndra: So many paths have been tried and I believe the other Yogas also have some truth.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? All are parts of the same Truth.

Satyeyndra: But several sadhaks here tend to be so exclusive.

NIRODBARAN: That is because we have not got the Truth-Consciousness yet.

SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so.

19 JANUARY 1939

It was again the day of Dr. Rao's visit. Whenever he came, we had some fun, as he never forgot to bring up his pet subject: the removal of Sri Aurobindo's splints. In the course of the talk he remarked, in connection with the swollen knee, that all disease or illness is an inflammation. After he had gone, Sri Aurobindo asked, "In what sense is all illness an inflammation? Nirodbaran explained as well as he could.

After this, Purani continued yesterday's topic: Aldous Huxley's ideas. He quoted from his book Ends and Means. Huxley suggests two ways of change. One is to change existing institutions of education, industry, etc, and thus bring about a change in the individual. For industries he suggests small industrial units federated in a central organisation, so as to do away with large-scale productions which are the root of all trouble. The other way is to change the individual and make him, as he puts it, a non-attached ideal man. Purani also mentioned a French author who advocated small industrial institutions.

SRI AUROBINDO: That was my idea too, which I proposed to Motilal namely, a spiritual commune. I did not call it a commune but a Sangha, based on spirituality and living its own economic life. It would develop its small-scale industries, agriculture, etc., and have an interchange of products with other communes.

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NIRODBARAN: Did you also give X the idea of the paper he is bringing out?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't remember. I asked him to start handlooms and weaving.

NIRODBARAN: But now he is producing Khaddar.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is because of Gandhism, and he took it up after he had been cut off from us. We used to call our cloth Swadeshi; now they call it Khaddar.

Satyeyndra: Was the commune something like the Dayalbagh Centre? But there they don't seem to have much spirituality.

SRI AUROBINDO: That may be due to their large-scale productivity. I have heard also that Anukul Thakur has started to work out the same idea.

NIRODBARAN: Doesn't he belong to the Dayalbagh Centre?

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh no! He may be of what they call the Radhaswami School.

Satyeyndra: But to start that sort of commune, one must have some spiritual realisation first, and hence it will take a long. time.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. Obviously if one has to wait for spiritual realisation, especially the highest or supramental realisation, it will take time. Spiritual experience is enough for the purpose and that is not difficult to have. I told Motilal, "Spirituality must be the basis; otherwise your success will be your failure."

There were religious communes of this sort before. The Dukhobor commune in Russia was very powerful and very well organised and very strong in its faith. Its members held together in spite of all persecution. At last they had to migrate to Canada. One of their tenets was nudism, which the Canadian Government didn't like and so they got into trouble with it.

Then there were the Mormons, who became famous in the United States. The name of their founder was Joseph Smith — a prosaic name for a prophet! But it was Brigham Young, a most remarkable man, who really made this commune. Curiously enough, one of their tenets was again unacceptable; it was polygamy. Their religion was based on the Old Testament. But -when they were made to give up polygamy, they became quite like ordinary men. They lost their special characteristics. Mark Twain

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said that when the chief was interrogated, he used to reply that he knew his children by numbers and not by their names!

There was yet another commune in America which didn't allow any marriage.

Satyeyndra: Do you know of any such commune in India?

SRI AUROBINDO: India? The Sikhs are the only community here organised on a religious basis. .

Thakur Dayanand established or tried to establish an order of married Sannyasins. I don't know if sexual union was advocated too.

NIRODBARAN: I have heard that Anukul Thakur also adopted it for his disciples.

SRI AUROBINDO: Disciples are another matter.

Satyeyndra: I think it was for his Sannyasins as well, if I remember rightly.

SRI AUROBINDO: There is the same principle among the Vaishnavas too: they accept a Vaishnavi.

Satyeyndra: All sorts of attempts seem to have been made and one is driven to despair like the man who looking at Edward VII's bald head said, "I give it up! I give it up!" (Laughter) No hope now except your Supermind. Have you any idea how the Supermind will proceed?

SRI AUROBINDO: No idea. If one has an idea the result will be what has been in the past. We must leave the Supermind to work everything out.

Satyeyndra: But that sort of work has to be based on love; one must have love for everyone.

SRI AUROBINDO: Love is not enough. What is more important is the unity of consciousness.

Satyeyndra: The trouble is that as soon as one begins something one tends to become egocentric: quarrels start, like the "aggravations" in homoeopathy.

SRI AUROBINDO: And love also leads to quarrels. Nobody quarrels more than lovers do! (Then looking at Purani) You know the Latin proverb that each quarrel is a renewal of love? (Laughter) Love is a fine flower, but unity of consciousness is the root.

People become egocentric because, when they receive something of the higher power, they gather it into their vital being and turn it over to their lower nature. They think the power is their own.

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When we were only a few people and the Ashram had not grown much, A and B tried to convert all sorts of people to spirituality. They were great propagandists. C and D were quiet. B caught anyone he could and made him do yoga and didn't consider such a thing as Adhikara. He once caught hold of a young sheepish Tamilian. After a few months of contact with us, we found that he was no longer a sheep. He became a lion-quarrelsome, violent—a great transformation had taken place in him! (Laughter) It was A who got hold of a politician here and made him what he is now. One thing he did, at any rate, was to make him get rid of all scruples about right and wrong, good and evil! This politician once said to Dr. LM, "It is impossible for me to fail. I am Sri Aurobindo's disciple." All say that he has power and that he is the one man who can do something if he wants to. It was from the Mother he got his power. He considers himself a Godman—to use an American phrase.

Even people staying here for some time get that egocentric outlook. Mrs. R writes, "What has Nakas come to? He is writing to us, 'Do this, do that' and keeps finding fault with us in our work." Of course, they were quarrelling in Japan too.

PURANI: We had a hard tussle with Gandhi's followers over the question of morality, etc. They think that going beyond the dualities of the world is immoral. All that does not correspond to their moral code is immoral.

Satyeyndra: That is the usual ethical standpoint.

SRI AUROBINDO: Of course all can't go beyond the dualities. The ethical standpoint is true in its own field. It follows a mental rule and so long as one cannot come into contact with the dynamic divine source of action in oneself, one has to be aided by a mental law of conduct. Otherwise one may take up the attitude, "There is no virtue, no sin. So let us indulge ourselves merrily!" What Krishna says in the Gita — "Abandon all dharmas" — is at the end of the Gita, not the beginning. And he does not say this only; he also says, "Take refuge in me." The stage at which the ethicists are is the sattwic. Most people have to pass through it. Only a very few can start from the beginning without the dualities.

Satyeyndra: Does the psychic being always want transformaation? It is Doraiswamy's question. He says, "Yes, because the

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psychic being is in the evolution, while the spirit can merge in Laya."

SRI AUROBINDO: The psychic being wants transformation if it is developed and in front. But it can also take any spiritual turn and not necessarily that towards transformation.

NIRODBARAN: What sort of transformation? Transformation of the psychic being itself or of the lower nature in general?

Satyeyndra: Of the psychic being itself.

SRI AUROBINDO: Many Yogis have had that. All saints had the psychic transformation: they have the pure Bhakta nature. But many spiritual men have not had such transformation. All spiritual men are not saints. Of course one can be both spiritual and saintly.

NIRODBARAN: You make a distinction between saints and spiritual men?

SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly. Saints are limited by their psychic realisation. The spiritual men remain above in the higher spiritual consciousness. The saints are Bhaktas.

Satyeyndra: It is not very clear to me, Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, the psychic being means the Purusha in the heart, not in the spirit. I never feel like a saint myself, though Maurice Magre calls me a saint and a philosopher. Krishna was not called a saint, and spiritual men may not behave like saints-say, for example, Durvasa. He may have many other things in him.

Satyeyndra: Saints are, I suppose, nearer to earth and are at the top of the human ladder. In our Yoga it seems one has to face a Kurukshetra, I mean an inner Kurukshetra, and everyone has to be a fighter like Arjuna.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily; it depends on the nature of the being. For instance, some people in their vital beings or during dreams fight with the attacking forces, while others call for protection. Those who have the psychic attitude need not fight. It is the vital and mental types that make the fighter: the mental type of course fights against ideas.

NIRODBARAN: Some people regard quarrelling with the Divine for the fulfillment of their aspiration as the psychic way.

SRI AUROBINDO: In that case all people here are psychic!

PURANI: I remember Dilip writing a long letter to you in which he refers to Ramprasad's song claiming that the Divine

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