For two days we had no conversation. Sri Aurobindo had suddenly developed some swelling on his injured leg and we were all anxious about it. Nobody was in a mood to talk. At last Sri Aurobindo himself came out with a reference to politics and the talk started.
PURANI: X (an Indian political leader), has sent a telegram to Y, saying this is the end of Fascism and the beginning of true democracy and declaring: "You will be a true president."
SRI AUROBINDO: Does it mean that the true president follow his followers? That is true democracy! He will choose his followers choose and then follow them.
SATYENDRA: Instead of Fascism of the Right, what the haps want is a Fascism of the Left.
PURANI: The question of the Indian Princes and the States has become a live one now.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. If the Princes could come to a settlement with the Congress, things would be much better. My opinion is that there should be, as some Princes have suggested, an Advisory Board with all the interests represented, as in the old Indian democracies. But nowadays people want the modern type of democracy—the parliamentary form of government. The parliamentary system is doomed. It has brought Europe to its present sorry pass. It has succeeded only in the North—in England Scandinavian countries. That is because they are practical materialistic people: they don't live on ideas and theories. In France you find about thirty parties, and if a new man comes along, he starts the thirty-first. But it is difficult to see where one party differs from another.
PURANI: A friend of mine was telling me that in Norway and Sweden the Socialists and the Agrarians have made common cause and evolved a common scheme. They find, for instance margin of profit of the industrialists, and then see how much wages can be raised.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is because they are practical people. For in every other place you will find the Socialists Agrarians at daggers drawn. If Socialism is to succeed, it has to be on these lines. In other countries the Socialists would demand a raise in the wages without looking into the profits and if thus the
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industries are killed so much the better according to them: they will be out of the way.
PURANI: Did Jean Herbert bring any news of Europe?
SRI AUROBINDO: He says that France is lost. She has no friends now. No one trusts her after the betrayal of Czechoslovakia. They didn't expect anything from England because everybody knows that she cares only for her own interests and, besides, she didn't commit herself to anything. But France has backed out of her promise. Herbert also says that France has now become a second-rate power because of the loss of her allies. She is following England's lead but in the end England may leave her in the lurch. He adds that if the dictators are clever enough they will get all they want because France cannot fight them alone.
PURANI: But cannot England and France combined meet them?
SRI AUROBINDO: No. Even the two are no match for the dictators. And, besides, one doesn't know what England will do. As I said, she may leave France in the lurch. Blum and Daladier made the worst possible blunders, the one by his non-intervention policy in Spain, the other by betraying the Czechs. Franco' s victory is most dangerous for France.
PURANI: But when the two dictators stand together, why is it not possible for England and France to do the same?
SRI AUROBINDO: The dictators know their own interests. There is no one to oppose them in their own countries and they can't be separated. England and France tried the game of separating them. England wanted to placate Italy while France tried to win over Germany but both failed. It is not that Germany and Italy like each other. The Germans despise the Italians and the Italians hate the Germans. But they know on which side their bread is buttered. England is quite unreliable under her present leadership.
Another possibility is the departure of the dictators. A prophetess freind of Suryakumari says that she doesn't see any future for Mussolini: she sees his body covered with blood. And about Hitler astrological predictions are that his stars are with him up to december. After that his decline will begin. But these prophecies and predictions can't be fully relied on. If by any chance the the dictators go, they won't have any successors.
PURANI: Papers report that although Germany has military power economic position is unsatisfactory.
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SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that is Germany's weak point. The question is whether the economic structure will last long enough to allow her military strength to tell. If the Germans can win a war quickly, they can go on winning.
And dictators are not people who give things up easily. They have nobody to oppose them or say "No" to their demands. Once a country is involved in war, economic factors don't count very much. For instance, Italy was badly hit by the League of Nations when they applied sanctions in the Abyssinian War. But she persisted and carried the war through.
PURANI: And what has happened to the military power of France? We used to hear so much about her preparedness.
SRI AUROBINDO: She foolishly stopped building aeroplanes and then started producing only 250 per month while Germany was producing 1000 and England about 500 per month. Now they are trying to make up the deficit, but it will take a long time to catch up with Germany. However, it is not always preparedness that wins a war. As General Gamelin said, "Though we are not prepared, we shall win." He was for intervention in Czechoslovakia because in war-time you can get things done at tremendous speed. If France goes on yielding Djibouti, Tunis, etc., there may be an internal revolution in France and perhaps a stroll, dictator will come and retrieve the disaster. If you want to keep your place and prestige in the world you must stand by your pledges and obligations.
The problem is to save the world from domination by Asuric Forces. It would be awful to be ruled by the Nazis and Fascists. Their domination will let loose on mankind what are called the Four Powers of Hell-obscurantism, falsehood, suffering and death. Suffering and death mean the horrors of war.
Herbert also says that in Germany the people know absolutely nothing about world opinion. He has been to Germany, so he should be well-informed about it. The Germans know only what Goebbels allows them to know. In Italy too not a single foreign paper is allowed to enter.
PURANI: Jwalanti was saying that if one wants to discuss politics or criticise the government, one must look round carefully to see if anybody is overhearing; one must shut the doors and windows.
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SRI AUROBINDO: These are the Powers of obscurantism and falsehood.
PURANI: America is alarmed after the Fascist success in Spain. She is afraid of trouble in Latin America.
Have you seen Roosevelt's statement? The French paper reports that it has not appeared in the English papers. Roosevelt has said that if the dictators become too powerful in Europe and Japan in Asia it will be the end of America. She will be attacked from both the Atlantic and the Pacific. They will begin trouble first in Latin America and then in North America. There are many Germans and Italians there and they will start Nazi propaganda.
Roosevelt has foreseen the whole thing and has taken his decision to back the democracies. But it is doubtful whether he can carry the American nation with him. The Americans won't come into the war unless some Americans are killed by Hitler, and Hitler won't do that. If they remain aloof, then it will merely be a question of being eaten up last. France will come first, then England, and finally America. Do you know of the three dreams Washington had? First, a war of independence; second, civil war; third, America attacked by many nations, including the yellow races, and her cities destroyed. He dreamt that by a supreme effort she shook herself free. It seems at present as if the third dream were coming true. But if England, France and America stand together, they have a chance of success. For America has the biggest navy, enormous economic resources and huge man-power. She may not have enough military strength on land, but the economic resources and man-power will make up for it.
PURANI: Roosevelt is supplying armaments to France and that he can do even if America doesn't come into a war.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but Americans may object to it because it may involve them in war.
PURANI: Jwalanti was praising Mussolini for what he has done for Italy. She hates his international policy but declares he has done wonderful work for his country.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh yes, especially at the beginning he did very good work. You haven't read Brailsford's article about what he did in Libya? Very great efficiency— of course without freedom: each house of the same pattern as the other, all regimented. (After a pause) By the way, who is this Wazir Hossain we read of?
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PURANI: He is a retired High Court judge in U.P., a leader of the Shias and a Congressman. His son is a Socialist and imprisoned by the last administration. He comes from Alighar University.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is Aligarh University nationalist?
PURANI: Yes, but Dara says its nationalism is very unreliable, like that of the Ali brothers who remained with Gandhi as long as he was agitating for Khilafat.
SRI AUROBINDO: But now the percentage of nationalist among the Muslims is increasing. Look at U.P. and Bihar. The number of nationalists is surely greater than some years ago?
NIRODBARAN: Was Dara at Aligarh University?
PURANI: You seem to doubt it by your question.
SRI AUROBINDO: He wrote an article when he was there. He said that Newton discovered the law of gravitation when the apple fell, but he, Dara, would have been busy eating it rather thinking out anything.
NIRODBARAN: He has written a short drama about Cyclone and the Flowers—very amusing.
PURANI: His rhymes are most original. But he says that with "Supramental" only "dental" can rhyme.
SRI AUROBINDO: That concerns Satyendra and establishes his connection with the Supramental. But why only "dental"? There is "transcendental".
PURANI: That is again "dental"—at the end.
SRI AUROBINDO: What about "rental"?
SATYENDRA: That will be rather prosaic.
SRI AUROBINDO: "Oriental"? Is that all right? Sometimes Dara writes clever things.
PURANI: To return to the Princes. The States are not coming forward with any progressive policy. Bikanir is trying to crush the nationalist movement. Udaipur also.
SRI AUROBINDO: Udaipur is understandable; he is old-fashioned. But Bikanir has knocked about in the world. If Chamber of Princes gives some reforms, it will forestall Vallabhbhai Patel. One should begin with the old Panchayet system in the villages and then work up to the top. Panchayet system and the guilds are more representative and they have a living contact with people. They are part of the people's ideas. On the contrary, the parliamentary system, with local
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bodies—the municipal councils—is not workable. These councils have no living contact with the people. The councillors make only platform speeches and nobody knows what they do for three or four years. At the end they reshuffle and rearrange the whole thing, making their own pile during their period of power. The old British parliamentary system was more representative. The man chosen belonged to the country and had a more living touch with his electors.
NIRODBARAN: A sadhika has written a letter. She relates in it her experience: losing consciousness and the mind floating about, as it were, lightning strokes in the head, feeling some Presence. But she says that all these experiences give her a terrible fear, and she complains of bad health. The experiences have come to her at the very start of her practice of Yoga.
SRI AUROBINDO: You may tell her that what she calls losing consciousness is the going inward of consciousness, the state of Samadhi. It is extraordinary to get these experiences at the very outset. Usually one takes months and months to make the mind quiet-and she has done it at the first sitting! The lightning stroke is the very action of the Higher Power of the Yoga Shakti to make the Adahar fit for Yoga. All this shows that she has capacity and can do Yoga. But she must get rid of fear. Otherwise all experiences will stop. The fear indicates that though her inner mind is ready, her vital and physical beings are not—the one is full of fear and the other is suffering from bad health, as she says. A conflict is produced in her, which is not desirable. It may be better not to take up Yoga seriously until she has restored her health. But the most important thing is to get rid of fear.
NIRODBARAN: But how is one to get rid of it?
SRI AUROBINDO: That is the difficulty many complain of. When one takes up Yoga, all sorts of experiences come which are beyond the ordinary consciousness. And if one fears, Yoga is impossible. It has to be got rid of by the mind, by a psychological training and by will-power. Any human being worth the name has a will, and this will has to be exercised or developed. She can ask the protection of the Divine, lay herself in the hands of the
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Divine. As Vivekananda very insistently said, "Abhi". The Yogi has no fear.
I don't know whether I have told you of an experience of mine. After my meeting with Lele, I was once meditating at Calcutta felt a tremendous calm and then it seemed as if my breath would stop. A silly fear or rather an apprehension caught hold of me and said, "If my breath stops, how shall I live?" At once the experience ceased and never came back.
There are all sorts of experiences. What, for instance, would you do if you felt your head being drilled as if a nail were being thrust in? One feels also the splitting of the head in two or the bursting of.
NIRODBARAN: Why can't the experiences come in quietly?
SRI AUROBINDO: They do come in quietly but then you make a row. If your physical body or head were being split, you could object; but you ought to know by now that all these Yogic experiences are in the subtle body.
NIRODBARAN: I also once or twice had such a fear as the lady speaks of—the fear of a Presence. As soon as I sat to meditate before going to bed at about midnight, I felt everything so still and as if there were some Presence. That frightened me.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why? Did you think it was the Devil that brought in the stillness? But the Devil usually makes a commotion. Two things are necessary in Yoga: one is to get rid of fear and the other to know the ordinary symbols. (Addressing Purani) You know W. Once in meditation he saw golden gods coming down and telling him, "We will cut up your body and make it new." He cried out, "Never! Never!" He thought his physical body will going to be cut up. But the symbolism is quite clear. It means that the old things in W's nature were to be thrown away and new things brought in.
PURANI: I was surprised to hear that later he turned to jainism,
SRI AUROBINDO: Well, such changes often happen. In one's vital and physical nature there remains a stamp of one's ancestral religion and it comes out after some time. The Christians usually turn towards Roman Catholicism. A Frenchman-I forget his name—tried all sorts of things, European mysticism, Tibetan occultism, etc., and came into touch with Pavitra. Pavitra wrote to him, saying that these things wouldn't go with Yoga. The man broke the contact and turned towards Catholicism
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He wrote a book, stealing passages from Pavitra's letters and using them in support of Catholicism. It was this that disgusted Pavitra.
My grandfather started by being a Brahmo and ended by writing a book on Hinduism and proclaiming it the best religion. Devendranath Tagore became rather anxious and feared he might run into an excess of zeal.
After this the talk turned to politics and the work of the Leftists.
SRI AUROBINDO: The Leftists will probably pass laws abolishing the Zamindars and the capitalists and spoil all the work done by the Ministers. They will try to introduce social legislation and that will force the Governors to use their powers. Or the Leftists may keep out of the assemblies. It would be foolish to throw away the power given. I wrote before I left politics that if you get real power, take it and fight for more, like De Valera in Ireland. De Valera took what was given and grabbed for more. In the present international situation, when the Government wants to come to a compromise with the Congress you should accept what they give. Accept the Federation and fight against it afterwards.
NIRODBARAN: That is also X's opinion, but he says that now is the time to press for independence.
SRI AUROBINDO: That would be all right if the country were prepared for revolution, so that even if X and a few others were hanged, the movement would go on and ultimately the government would yield as in Ireland. There the people fighting against the Government risked their lives. If one is not prepared for that, one has to proceed in subtler ways. At present what X demands is impossible to get. It will only set the Government against you and they will try to crush the movement.
PURANI: But if we work this provincial programme and prepare the country and at the same time press the Princely States to give rights to the people, then we might get what we want without all that revolution.
SRI AUROBINDO: Exactly. It is a very clever drive to bring in the States question and if it can be carried through, the Federation with the Princes will break down and then only the Muslim question will remain.
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In Ireland also the British came to a compromise. Even Conservatives turned round. France gave in in Syria but Syrians had to fight for it after the last war. In Tunisia they have clapped the Destourians in prison, but if the nationalists keep it up, France will give in.
PURANI: Roosevelt's speech seems to have been a declaration for democracy. In that case the three powers combined may stem the tide of the dictators.
NIRODBARAN: Now Hitler will think twice before he tries to do anything.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if he is capable of thinking. His voice may ask him to push on. Mussolini may think twice, he is too Hitlerised. But then Hitler may say to him, "I have given you a chance for colonies. If you don't take it, I will go to the Ukraine." Mussolini may not like that. But Hitler may not go to war. During the Czech crisis it was by mere bluff that he succeeded. He knew from private sources that England and France wouldn't fight.
PURANI:: Roosevelt has promised France armaments America is selling aeroplanes, etc. That means they may come to her help in case she is attacked.
SRI AUROBINDO: But it is doubtful if Roosevelt can carry the nation with him. America has increased her armaments for her own defence. But if they are exported the American people think that it will involve them in a war. At any rate his speech come as a great blow to both Germany and Italy. Chamberlain may think of supporting France now. A remarkable man, Roosevelt, very bold and ready to experiment and take risks. It is
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the old Roosevelt blood. Only, the first Roosevelt was brutally Fascist. This one is more refined.
PURANI: Jean Herbert says there may not be any war after all.
SRI AUROBINDO: If the British and French leaders go on yielding to the demands of the dictators, there may not be any war. Perhaps the British may say to Germany, "We shall supply you with raw materials, you can come and settle comfortably here.
The topic of corruption in public life came up. Somebody said that in most countries the people in political power confer favours on their own supporters and are open to bribes.
SRI AUROBINDO: You will never find such corruption in England. Public life there is honest and sincere. Englishmen may tell lies and break their promises but bribery and appropriation of money hardly exist in their public or political administration. As they say "These things are not done." If a political leader does them, he is finished for life. Thomas, you know, is wiped out. The English judges make no distinction between a rich criminal and a poor one.
PURANI : I have here a letter of Lala Lajpat Rai to Birla, written a few days before his death. In it he lays bare his inmost thoughts about life, action, God, etc. He has lost his old standard of values of life and action and finds himself an advocate of the theory of illusionism against which he, a prominent leader of the Arya Samaj and a monotheist, had preached all his life. His relatives and friends have all become unreal, impermanent, and he asks in "What are these worldly relations based on? How can an all powerful and all-merciful God create this world of misery, suffering and poverty? Is there any use praying to God? Are not prayers only for consoling ourselves? And do I not act because I can't remain without doing something and because mere enjoyments don't give me peace? I feel for my countrymen and I work for them - but don't I work more for myself than for them?"
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SRI AUROBINDO: I see. So if God were omnipotent and all merciful, he would not create this world!
But I wonder why people in India at the end of their lives come to the same conclusion as Lajpat Rai. Almost all come to regard life and the world as an illusion. Is it the ancestral Indian blood or is it the atmosphere of the place or something personal, a psychological change? I suppose there may be a strain running in the blood.
But the Christians also have nearly the same idea when they say "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
PURANI: Lajpat Rai was a Jain by birth. That might account for his turning away from the world.
After this there was some talk about Jainism, Illusionism, liberation, multiplicity of souls and Vedantic unity.
For two or three days there was no long conversation. Either the attendants did not have much to ask or Sri Aurobindo was not in the same mood as before. But one thing was noticed: the Mother could come to meditate very early—at about 6.15 p.m.—and both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother concentrated together till 7.00 or thereabouts. So Nirodbaran was obliged to massage Sri Aurobindo's leg after 7.00 which left hardly any time for conversation. This evening Purani began telling Sri Aurobindo about Jean Herbert's wife.
PURANI: She is collecting Sister Nivedita's letters in order to publish them. In one of them it seems to be said that you gave Nivedita the charge of editing Bande Mataram after you left Calcutta.
SRI AUROBINDO: No. It was the Karmayoin. You can tell her that. There is no harm now in saying it, as it is all a long time ago I saw Nivedita before I left Calcutta for Chandernagore and asked her to take charge of the paper, which she did. It was from her that I had got the news of my contemplated arrest. She had many friends in Government circles. On getting that news I wrote the article "My Political Will" which stopped my arrest.
PURANI: In one of her letters Nivedita says that Vivekananda tried to dedicate her to Shiva but found her not ready.
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SRI AUROBINDO: How not ready? Not ready means either unwilling or not fit to fulfil the conditions.
PURANI: Perhaps unwilling.
SRI AUROBINDO (after a pause): We were talking about Jainism yesterday. Well, don't the Jains do those violent Tapasyas with the idea of transcending Nature and conquering it and not from the idea of world-illusion?
PURANI: That's right.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then the aim is the same as ours in some respects: only the method is different.
PURANI: But how does that explain Lajpat Rai's sense of illusion?
SRI AUROBINDO: No, it doesn't. His sense of illusion may have been seen from something in his blood or perhaps from the atmosphere of the place. At London, when I was reading Max Müller's translation of Vedanta I came upon the idea of Atman, the Self, and thought that this was the true thing to be realised in life. Before that, I was an agnostic and even an atheist. How do you explain this? You can't say it was the atmosphere of the place. It was in the blood or perhaps carried over from a past life. And the curious thing is that as soon as I set my foot on Apollo Bunder in Bombay the experience of the Self began in me - it was a sense of calm and vastness pervading everywhere.
There is a contact with a place that gives you an experience and sometimes the experience is appropriate to the place. For instance, the sense of the Infinite I had on the Sankaracharya Hill in Kashmir or on the Parvati hills at Poona, and the perception of the reality of Goddess at the Karnali temple.
PURANI (after a pause): To return to the Herberts: I asked Hubert why the Jews are so much repressed and persecuted in Germanv. He says the same thing as you did — that they are a rich minority and so they are made a scapegoat. The same was done, he tells me, to the French aristocracy during the Revolution. In Spain also at present there is a movement against a certain class.
SRI AUROBINDO: The comparison with France and Spain cannot be made. In France it was not against the aristocracy in particular that there was a revolt: the revolt was against the whole history of the past, and in Spain it is against the past repression by the Church.
PURANI: I asked Herbert's wife about the condition of Switzerland. She is Swiss. She says Switzerland is passing through
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a critical time. She fears that in case of war the Germans may pass through Switzerland. During the War of 1914—1918 the Swiss had to pass some anxious days. When the Germans chose Belgium as their route, the Swiss felt relieved.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if the dictators decide to take a course of action, it may be through Switzerland.
It is said that Czechoslovakia's frontier was so strongly fortified that Germany would have found it difficult to pierce it.
PURANI: It is a pity the Czechoslovakians gave in without a fight. Hitler is now asking for colonies equivalent to those of other powers.
SRI AUROBINDO: But from where will he get them?
PURANI: From Belgium, Portugal or Holland.
SRI AUROBINDO: Holland has no colonies. Portugal's colonies in Africa are so small that Hitler will hardly be satisfied. The Belgian Congo is big, but England won't dare to do anything with it to placate Hitler, for that will make Belgium furious and she may side with Germany. England can't risk that, for if Germany takes possession of Antwerp it will be a pistol pointed at the heart of England. The same will hold for France.
(Turning to Purani) Roosevelt has backed out. I thought that in his message to the Congress he had taken up the cause of the democracies, but now he says America has nothing to do with European problems.
PURANI: It may be that the financial interests are behind this.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is not in their hands.
PURANI: What is the basic explanation of an attitude like Lajpat Rai's?¹
SRI AUROBINDO: Generally it is Tamasic Vairagya,² if it is due to a sense of failure in life. Most people get this kind of world-repulsion when they fail to succeed in life. Failure and frustration
¹The following comments on Lajpat Rai are based on A. B. Purani's record of this talk.
²World-repulsion arising from the Guna (quality) of Tamas (ignorance and inertia) in one's nature: the two other Gunas are Rajas (dynamism) and Sattwa (refinement and poise).
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lead to what is called Smashan Vairagya—the feeling of renunciation that comes to one in a cemetery—a temporary state of world- disgust.
But in Lajpat Rai's case perhaps it is Sattwic and not Tamasic disgust. To the mind at this stage everything seems impermanent, fleeting, and the old motives of action are no longer sufficient. This may be the result of a spiritual development through one's actions in life. It is the mind turning to know things. Gautama Buddha saw human suffering and asked, "Why this suffering?" and then, "How is one to get out of it?" That is Sattwic Vairagya. Pure Sattwic Vairagya is when one gets the perception of the littleness of everything personal—actions, desires, thoughts—and when one sees the vast world, eternal time and infinite space spread out before oneself and feels all human action as if it were nought.
The same truth is behind the saying, "It will be the same a hundred years hence"; and it is true so far as the personal aspect of action is concerned.
PURANI: Can it be said that personal actions and other personal things have an importance in so far as through them an impersonal consciousness, or a divine purpose, works itself out?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, in the impersonal aspect even a small personal action may have a significance. Personal actions have an importance in the evolution of the individual. But it is difficult to persuade ordinary men to take this view.
PURANI: Lajpat Rai seems in his letter to doubt even the existence of God.
SRI AUROBINDO: That does not matter. It only means he wants to understand the way of God's working and the nature of this world.
There is a line in Dante which says that even eternal hell is a creation of the Divine Love. I wonder what Lajpat Rai would say to that. And what does Dante mean by it? I don't understand it myself. One can understand being thrown into hell in order that one may rise up to heaven from it; but how can the Divine Love create eternal hell?¹
¹ Sri Aurobindo's reference is to the sentence in Canto III of Inferno, occurring among the words seen by Dante written on the gate of hell. Dorothy Sayers renders the sentence:
Justice moved my Great Maker; God Eternal
Wrought me: the Power, and the unsearchably
High Wisdom, and the Primal Love Supernal.
The attributes of the Trinity are mentioned here. Charles Williams in the Figure of Beatrice, comments thus: "If there is God, if there is free-will, then man is able to choose the opposite of God. Power, Wisdom, Love, gave man free-will: therefore Power, Wisdom, Love, created the gate of hell and the possibility of hell." But Sri Aurobindo's point about the eternity of hell is not answered. That in the divine dispensation hell should be possible or actual is one thing: but it is quite another that the hell-gate in Dante should read:
Through me the road to everlasting woe,
and
Abandon hope, all ye that enter here.
How can the Supreme Power, Wisdom and Love condemn a soul to ever lasting woe and an utter abandonment of hope to get out of hell?
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PURANI: Your reference to Dante reminds me of Lascellers Abercrombie's book. The Idea of Great Poetry. There he says that poetry to be great requires vitality and intensity of experience and expression, as well as range and variety. According to him, Shelley is not equal in range to Milton.
SRI AUROBINDO: Range? What does he mean by range? If he means a certain largeness of vision, then Shelley does not have it. Homer, Shakespeare, the Ramayana and the Mahabhara have range. But neither Virgil nor Milton has range in the same measure. Their range is not so great. Dante's range too is partial.
PURANI : Abercrombie says that although Goethe has range his hero Faust begins as a character and ends as an idea.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is not quite correct. Faust is character throughout the first part of Goethe's poem. Only in the second part does he become an idea. And the two parts are really two separate books. Goethe wrote the second part in his old age. It is entirely different from the first, just as Milton's Paradise Regained is different from his Paradise Lost. Keats also has two versions of his Hyperion: in the later version Hyperion tends to become an idea..
PURANI: Abercrombie remarks about Paradise Lost that its Satan is a symbol of human will struggling against Fate.
SRI AUROBINDO: Human will? I always thought it was super human will.
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