24 JANUARY 1939

NIRODBARAN: As far as I remember, Ramakrishna spoke of loka hita, "the good of the world".

SRI AUROBINDO: But that is not the same as service of humanity. The Gita also asks us to work for the good of the world. Loka hita can be done in many ways.

PURANI: So far as I know, Ramakrishna didn't say anything about service of humanity. The phrase daridra narayana—"God the poor"—was Vivekananda's. It seems not all the disciples of Ramakrishna were agreeable to the idea. But some submitted, saying, "Vivekananda should know best."

Satyeyndra: Even from those who didn't object, all didn't take active part in the service. Brahmananda,¹ for example. We have heard that his spiritual realisation was higher than Vivekananda's.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, I think he was spiritually higher. I once met him when I went to see Belur Math. He asked me about some letter he had received from the Government. I don't remember what it was about. I advised him to keep silent and not give any reply.

PURANI: Nowadays in many places people feed the poor. On the birthdays of saints and Yogis, there is what Vivekananda called seva of daridra narayana.

SRI AUROBINDO: What is the use of feeding people one day when they have to go without sufficient food all the year round? Those who feed them satisfy their own conscience, I suppose. If you could find out the cause of poverty and try to remove it, that would do some real work.

Satyeyndra: But that is not easy. Sir; there are so many difficulties, political, economic, etc.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't think it is so insoluble a problem as all that. If you give people education—I mean proper education, not the current type—then the problem can be solved. People in England or France don't have the kind of poverty we have in India. That is because of their education; they are not so helpless.

CHAMPAKLAL: About six thousand people were fed during the last birthday of Ramana Maharshi. But they say nobody is allowed to touch him; they have to stand at a distance, make

¹This Brahmananda should be distinguished from Brahmananda of Chandod,

Page-200

pranam, have darshan and go away. Special consideration is shown in a few cases.

SRI AUROBINDO: If all were allowed to touch him, he might feel like the President of America who recently had to shake hands with thousands of people and got an ache in the hand! I have heard that Maharshi complained of stomach trouble from eating the prasad of various people and that the pile of prasad was one of the causes of his trying to fly away from the world!

SATYENDRA: But destiny brought him back. People give a lot of money to Maharshi but, curiously enough, we don't get any. A man actually told me we don't require money, since we have so many buildings.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that is the impression. They think like Lady Batesman that the Ashram is the work of a genius and genius can do without money! Actually, it is only the rich minority and the poor who give money. G, for example, earns hardly enough to maintain her family, but whenever she finds an opportunity, the first thing she does is to send some amount here. There is a rumour in Pondicherry that we have a lot of money stored away under Pavitra's cellar!

PURANI: The question of the Ashram's wealth reminds me of X. I wanted some printing-blocks from him and he charged me so heavily that I had to write to Y to explain to X my financial position.

SRI AUROBINDO: You should have written about the pocket expense you get, and said that your monthly income is two rupees.

PURANI: Yes, I was just thinking of that. Anyhow, he gave me some blocks free but advised me that it is futile in India to bring out art books. One is sure to run into debt. People don't understand art.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, people look at art as Nirodbaran looks at philosophy. (Laughter)

PURANI: Elie Faure says that Greek art is an expression of unrestrained passion and has no mystery about it.

SRI AUROBINDO : What is he talking about? He seems to have a queer mind. Where is the expression of passion in the art of the Greeks? On the contrary it is precisely their restraint that is so very evident everywhere in their art. The Greeks are well-known for restraint and control. Compared to the art of other peoples, theirs is almost cold. It is its remarkable beauty that saves it from real coldness. This applies to the whole period from Phidias down to in which the Laocoon was sculptured. It is only when you

Page-201

come to the Laocoon that you find the expression of strong feeling or passion.

PURANI: Perhaps Elie Faure makes that remark because of the satyrs.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is quite another matter. The satyrs are symbolic.

PURANI: He also argues, rather queerly, that the poisoning of Socrates, the banishment of Themistocles and the killing of other great men, were an expression of unrestrained passion.

SRI AUROBINDO: What has that to do with art?

PURANI: He means that the Greek mind being such must have found the same expression in art also.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is rather the opposite. It is a sign of the Greek's sense of control that they checked their leaders from committing what they considered excesses. When two leaders became powerful and combined, the Greeks ostracised one.

Then there was a pause. Sri Aurobindo seemed to have gone into a reverie. We were expecting him to come out of it with something for us. He started speaking on his own.

SRI AUROBINDO: I was thinking how some races have the sense of beauty in their very bones. Judging from what is left to us, it seems that all people had once a keen perception of beauty. For example, take pottery or Indian wood-carving which, I am afraid, is dying out now. Greece and ancient Italy had a wonderful sense of beauty. Japan, you know, is remarkable. Even the poorest people have that sense. If the Japanese produce anything ugly, they export it to other countries! But I am afraid they are losing their aesthetic sense because of the general vulgarisation. By the way, the Chinese and the Japanese originally got their artistic impulse from India. Their Buddhist images have Indian inspiration: it is only later that they developed their own lines.

Modern artists are putting an end to art. Vulgarisation every where!

NIRODBARAN: Indian painting is not yet so bad as European. People are not following the leaders of modernism here, Rabindranath Tagore as a painter is not much imitated. Perhaps because of Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose.

SRI AUROBINDO: They, I suppose, praise Rabindranath but don't encourage others to follow him. (Laughter)

Page-202

In Europe, apart from vulgarisation, there is dictatorship acting against art. In Germany Hitler must have crushed everything fine out of existence—music, philosophy, etc. How can anything develop where there is no freedom? People in Germany have to admire only one thing: Nazism! I hope Mussolini has still kept some freedom for art.

PURANI: Mussolini speaks of "our art, our poets". He seems to be proud of Italians as a nation of artists and has tried to preserve the old tradition. A friend of mine recently visited Italy found that the Italians still have a great sense of painting and sculpture.

SRI AUROBINDO: And of music also. Painting and music are their passion. The Mother had a striking experience of their love of music. She stayed in North Italy for some time and was once playing on the organ all alone in a church. After she had finished, there was a big applause. She found that a crowd had gathered behind her and was enthusiastic in appreciation.

PURANI: Indian music, especially South Indian, has been preserved by the temples; expert musicians come there on occasions and play and sing.

Nishtha (Miss Wilson) is all praise for many Indian things she sees here. For example, she finds great beauty in the way Indian women walk. She said to me, "You won't understand it, but I can because I have seen our European women walking. Your women walk as if they were born dancers. They have a beautiful rhythm in their movements."

SRI AUROBINDO: That is true. It is, I suppose, due to their having to carry pots on their heads. This practice requires balance of the whole body.

PURANI: Nishtha praises the Indian saris and says that our women have a keen sense of colour.

SRI AUROBINDO: She is right. I hope our women are not going to give up saris under the Western influence.

NIRODBARAN: But, saris, though graceful, don't seem to be good for active work; they are inconvenient.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why? The Romans conquered the world in their togas! Plenty of Indian women do their work with their saris on. When this craze for utility comes, beauty goes to the dogs.This is the modern tendency. The moderns look at everything from point of view of utility, as if beauty were nothing.

Page-203

NIRODBARAN: But beauty and utility can be combined.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but in the end utility gets the upper hand.

NIRODBARAN: I at any rate have found that the European male dress gives a push for work and activity, while the Indian dhoti produces lethargy, sense of ease, etc.

SRI AUROBINDO: That doesn't prevent the European dress from being the ugliest in the world. I have seen plenty of people leading active lives with the dhoti on. The Europeans are now putting on just shorts and a shirt—most utilitarian, I think.

PURANI: Some Indian women also put on the European dress

SRI AUROBINDO: Indian women's putting on the European dress is horrible.

PURANI: Nowadays European women also go about in shorts.

SRI AUROBINDO: Is that so? I understand they are giving stockings too. Yet at one time their whole body used to be covered up excepting the hands and the face. I remember an experience Bapubhai Majumdar's in London. He was coming down from the bathroom in his hotel with bare feet. Suddenly a lady who came out of a room saw him. She ran away at once and complained to the manager that a man was going about half naked in the house. The manager called Bapubhai and asked him not to do so again. Do you know Bapubhai?

PURANI: I think I do. Once I saw him being stopped in street by the police for breaking a traffic rule. He gave the police man a long lecture in English, leaving the fellow flabbergasted.

SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): That must be him. It is very characteristic of him. He was my first friend in Baroda. He took me to his house and I stayed there for some time. He was a nice man, but what people call volatile and mercurial.

25 JANUARY 1939

There was no talk till after 7.00 p.m., when the Mother went for the general meditation.

PURANI: After our talk yesterday I suddenly rememberd Ramakrishna's phrase, "Lok na pok?" "Men or insects?". So he could not have commanded Vivekananda to do humanitarian work.

Page-204

NIRODBARAN: Anilbaran says the idea of service of humanity is Christian and was brought in by Vivekananda on his own. I am told Ramakrishna asked him to do more Tapasya, achieve greater Yogic realisation.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know exactly what Yogic realisation he had. I have read many books about him but couldn't gather a precise idea of it. Even the official biography of him doesn't give any definite information.

PURANI: People say he did a lot of Tapasya at the time he was a parivrajaka, a wandering Yogi.

SRI AUROBINDO: Was it this kind of Tapasya Ramakrishna meant?

SATYENDRA: Vivekananda had a sort of Nirvanic experience. He has himself mentioned something about it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that experience is the only one definitely known.

PURANI: He also had a vision at Amarnath. But he seemed always torn between two tendencies — world-work and direct sadhana.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. And he used to put more intuitive flashes into his conversations than into his writings. That's what I found on reading Nivedita's book, The Master As I Saw Him. As a rule, it is in talk that such flashes come—at least in his case it was so.

NIRODBARAN: You said the other day that his spirit visited you in Alipore Jail and told you about the higher consciousness from which, I suppose, these intuitive flashes come.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he did tell me. I had no idea about things of the higher consciousness. I never expected him and yet he came to teach me. And he was exact and precise even in the minutest details.

NIRODBARAN: That is very interesting. He has nowhere in his books or conversations spoken of these things. Could his spirit know after death what he didn't know in life?

SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? He may have got it afterwards.

SATYENDRA: Can the spirit evolve after death?

SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. But either he may not have known in life or else he may have known and kept silent. A Yogi doesn't say all that he knows. He says only what is necessary. If I wrote all that I know, then it would be ten times the amount I have written.

Page-205

SATYENDRA: People will judge you by what you have written.

SRI AUROBINDO (Laughing): That doesn't matter.

PURANI: Lok na Pok!

NIRODBARAN: Then we shalln't know all that you know?

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, realise first what I have written.

NIRODBARAN: Isn't it possible for those who live in a spiritual consciousness to know about the realisations of other Yogis?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. If one establishes a special contact, it is possible.

PURANI: Vivekananda, in his writings, stresses the realisation of the Brahman in all and says in particular, "I worship my God the poor, the down-trodden, the pariah."

SRI AUROBINDO: Are we to understand that the Brahman is more in the poor and the down-trodden than in others?

PURANI: If the Brahman is at all present, it is samam brahma, Equal Brahman.

SRI AUROBINDO: Anilbaran is right. Vivekananda brought in the idea of service of humanity from Christianity—and also from Buddhism. Both Vivekananda and Gandhi derive it from them. But I don't understand why they speak of serving humanity only! Buddhism, as well as Jainism, includes animals also in its idea of service. Even then the chief idea in Buddhism is Karuna, compassion.

The ancient sages too were less exclusive. They said, sarve bhuteshu, meaning all creatures, not men alone.

SATYENDRA: But how is one to make a practical application of it?

SRI AUROBINDO: That depends upon the individual and his temperament.

SATYENDRA: Buddha wanted liberation not only for himself but for the whole of mankind.

SRI AUROBINDO: It was not liberation he wanted; what he wanted was to be beyond the suffering of existence.

SATYENDRA: Still, that was not only for himself but for all.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, yet he had to do it for himself before he could do it for others.

SATYENDRA: Tibetan Buddhists say, "Nirvana is only a stage."

SRI AUROBINDO (surprised): Is that so?

PURANI: In Buddhism they have two paths: knowledge and devotion. They consider Buddha an Avatar.

Page-206

SRI AUROBINDO: It is the Mahayana path that goes through devotion. But isn't it a fact that all Buddhists utter: Buddham saranam gacchami, dharmam saranam gacchami, sangham saranam gacchami?¹ Buddha himself couldn't have said it, for he said that one to do everything by one's own effort.

SATYENDRA: It is said that Buddha turned back from the gate Nirvana.

SRI AUROBINDO: I thought it was Amitabha Buddha who refused to enter Nirvana. He is venerated very deeply in Japan. Modern European scholars are now trying to prove that Budddha's life-story was a later invention.

PURANI: The Tibetan Lamas are believed to be in a direct line from Buddha. But to find the true Dalai Lama is not easy at all. You know about the various signs by which he has to be recognised?

SATYENDRA: Is Zen Buddhism alive in Japan?

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh yes. Lady Batesman is going there to study it. The Zen Buddhists have a very severe discipline.

PURANI: I am told that in Lamas the meditation is very rigorous and the monks are thrashed for breaking the discipline.

SRI AUROBINDO: We might also begin that here! Purani could be deputed as one of the thrashers.

PURANI: Madame David-Neel divides the Lamas into three classes the low and ordinary, who are the commonest and care only for food and comfort; the intellectual and artistic; the mystic or Yogi.

SRI AUROBINDO: But that applies to all monastic orders. I remember the description of a feast in which the Sannyasins got drunk and began to dance. Also the Sannyasin who is a Pundit is a well known type. In the Christian orders too, you have the professional monks who practise professional piety; the second type of monks are those who study religion and philosophy; only a very few are dedicated to spiritual practice.

The Carmelite Order has given and is still giving many saints to Roman Catholic Christianity. The latest is St. Theresa of Lisieux.

SATYENDRA: There are two Saint Theresas. One is the great and famous saint, she was Spanish. The recent Theresa is French.

¹''I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha."

Page-207

The Spanish Theresa's life was very quiet but intense. She said, "I will spend my heaven for mankind." Many miracles happened after her death.

SRI AUROBINDO: The Spanish have produced many remarkable saints. Some of them had very powerful experiences. The German mystics show more the knowledge aspect of mysticism because they are more philosophic-minded. Boehme and Eckhart are examples. Among the French saints you find more love and charity and a flaming intensity. But the English saints are tremendous politicians. I don't know how they manage to become saints at all. They either kill or get killed. St. Thomas Beckett was murdered. St. Duncan was a minister to a king but was in fact the real ruler.

The Irish or Celtic saints and preachers converted the greatest part of the European continent to Christianity. They have also given the greatest Christian philosopher. They were like the Vedantins. They followed a discipline very similar to the Indian. They were first suppressed by the Roman emperors who suspected. they would help resistance to Roman rule, and afterwards by the Christian authorities themselves.

The Jews have many mystic symbols in their Cabbala. Originally they had no mysticism and didn't believe in the immortality of the soul. They believed that God breathes life into you at birth and takes it away at death. There is no future life or reincarnation. You are rewarded or punished in this single life on earth. The Jews got their mysticism from the Chaldeans and from the Persians. They were captives in Babylon and the Persians freed them. They got their mysticism from contact with these peoples.

There is a similarity between Chaldean occultism and Egyptian,

26 JANUARY 1939

PURANI : Barcelona is going! The French people are waking up at the eleventh hour.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. The democracies are not showing much courage at present at any rate.

SATYENDRA: It seems political ideas are not worth fighting for. Today one fights for democracy, tomorrow for monarchy or, dictatorship.

Page-208

SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. All human values are half-values. They are relative. They have no permanence or durability in them.

SATYENDRA: Perhaps if men became more mentalised they would understand better.

SRI AUROBINDO: Mentalised? No! The difficulty is that they don't follow the principles of life.

SATYENDRA: How is that?

SRI AUROBINDO: Life compromises between elements but mind acting on its own doesn't. Mind takes up one thing and makes it absolute, considers it as apart from and opposed to all other things and sets it above all. Hegel boasted that in Europe they had succeeded in separating reason from life—and you see what their philosophy has become. It has nothing to do with life; it is all intellectual gymnastics without forming a part of living reality. On the contrary, in India philosophy has always been a part of life; it had an aim to realise everything. So in the political philosophy of the West you find that if they accept democracy, it is democracy alone; all the rest is set against it. If they take to monarchy, then monarchy is all in all. The same thing happened in ancient Greece. They fought for democracy, aristocracy, monarchy — and in the end they were conquered by the Romans.

SATYENDRA: Then what is the truth in all these attempts at political organisation?

SRI AUROBINDO: If you want to arrive at something true and lasting, you have to look at life and learn from it: that is to say, learn the nature of the oppositions and contradictions and then reconcile them. As regards government, life shows that there is a truth in monarchy whether hereditary or elective. In other words, there is a man at the top who governs. Life also shows that there is a truth in aristocracy whether of strong men or rich men or intellectuals. The fiction is that it is the majority that rules, but the fact that it is the minority, the aristocracy. Life shows again that the rule of the monarch or the aristocrats should be with the consent, silent or vocal, of the people. In addition, life shows that there is a Vaishya class (the merchants and industrialists). This class too has a play in government.

In ancient India the truth of these things was recognised. That is why India has lasted through millenniums—and China also.

English politics is successful because the English have always found one or two men who had the power to lead the minority

Page-209

ruling class. During the Victorian period, it was either Gladstone or Disraeli. And even when one party changes, the one that comes into power does not follow a radically changed policy. It continues the same policy with a slight modification.

In France no government lasts. Sometimes it changes within a few days. The new government becomes a repetition of the one it replaces. Blum is the only man who wanted to do something radical and he was knocked out.

PURANI: Have you seen X's (an Indian political leader) statement?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. He seems to have a queer logic. Because the rightists have a majority, he says that the president should be elected from the leftists! And there is also no sense in his saying, "We will fight the government to the end." When there is a revolution, there can be no compromise. But once you have accepted a compromise, what meaning is there in such a statement? One has to work out things on the basis of what one has gained. Satyamurti's idea of Federation seems all right to me. If the States people are given seats in the Centre and if the Government exercises no veto in the provinces, then it is practically Home Rule.

PURANI: The Viceroy's long stay at Bombay seems significant. I think there is something behind it. He perhaps wants to make Dr. Kher or Rajagopalachari head of the Central Assembly in a Federation.

SRI AUROBINDO: Is that so? Dr. Kher seems to be a very able man. He appears to have escaped the Socialist trap.

PURANI: Vallabhbhai Patel is terribly anti-Socialist. He crushed the Socialists at Baroda.

SRI AUROBINDO: These Socialists don't know what Socialism is.

PURANI: There were very humorous speeches in the Sind Assembly. The Muslim League has been exposed.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. The Sind Premier—I always forget his name—strikes me as a strong man. He stands up for his ideas at the risk of unpopularity. That means some strength. The Sind Muslims were anxious to join the Congress. The Congress should try to do something to make a coalition there. The Congress Ministry is successful almost everywhere. That shows the capacity to govern if the powers are given.

Page-210

NIRODBARAN: Only Bengal and the Punjab remain now under the Muslim League.

SRI AUROBINDO: The Muslim League is not so strong in Bengal, for there is the Praja Party. And in the Punjab, Sikander Hyat Khan looks like an able man. Only in the United Provinces does the Muslim League seem strong. If the Congress could win in Sind, then the Bengal and Punjab Premiers will stand on two sides of India and make faces at each other.

NIRODBARAN: I wonder how Fazlul Hu could become a Premier. Nazimuddin appears to be more capable.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nazimuddin can't make a popular figure.

PURANI: Gandhi has definitely said that any compromise with the Muslim League is impossible now.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't understand why the Congress opened negotiations with the League. The League has been given undue importance. How is it that the Congress is so weak in the Punjab?

PURANI: Because of the Socialists and the Old Group.

The Jaipur affair is starting again. Bajaj is going to offer satyagraha and Gandhi is giving his approval.

SRI AUROBINDO: Since he is a Congressman I suppose the Congress will have to back him. If the States people get power, the Princes will have no work except to sign papers and shoot animals. The Gaekwar will have to stop making buildings.

NIRODBARAN : Where will they shoot animals? The forests are being destroyed nowadays.

SRI AUROBINDO: Forests have to be preserved. Otherwise animals will become extinct. China has lost her forests and there is a flood every year.

NIRODBARAN: There are so many Maharajas, Chiefs, Nawabs and other rulers dotting India everywhere.

SRI AUROBINDO: Germany was like that at one time. Napoleon swept away one half and Hitler the other half—not Hitler exactly but the post-war period. Japan also had the same thing, but the princes voluntarily abdicated their powers and titles for the sake of duty-duty to their country.

NIRODBARAN: How far back in history do the Japanese rulers go?

SRI AUROBINDO: The Mikado claims to be a descendant of the Goddess of the sun. The Mikado named Magi used to

Page-211

believe that and feel that the inspiration above was doing whatever was necessary.

There are two types of men in Japan. One is tall, with a long nose and finely cut aristocratic face. It was they who gave the Samurai culture to Japan. I met at Tagore's place one of this type: he had magnificent features. The second type is the usual Mongol type. They haven't a particularly handsome face.

Purani now brought in the question of the dictator and traced Hitler's genealogy, as it were.

PURANI: The dictator's psychology is centred in the authority-complex. People feel that they are great and Hitler is fighting for them, not that they are fighting for Hitler. The dictators also find a competitor in God and religion.

SRI AUROBINDO: But Mussolini didn't, though Mustafa Kamil did. Mussolini has, on the contrary, given more powers to the Pope and the Vatican. He has recognised the Roman Catholic Church as the State religion.

PURANI: I read somewhere that Kamil in one of his drinking moods slapped an Egyptian because he came to the party with a fez on.

SRI AUROBINDO: You haven't heard the story of the journalist?

PURANI: No.

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, a young journalist criticised the government of Turkey, saying that Turkey was governed by a number of drunkards. Kamil came to know about it and sent him an invitation to dinner. After the dinner was over, Kamil said, "Young man, you have written that Turkey is governed by a number of drunkards. It is not a number of drunkards but just one drunkard.

PURANI: Kamil at one time tried to play off Italy against Russia.

SRI AUROBINDO: But Russia has all along helped Turkey.

PURANI: Stalin, in order to enforce collectivisation starved the the Ukraine to death because the Ukrainians didn't pay their dues. He said, "Once we submit to the peasants, they will catch hold of us."

SRI AUROBINDO: That is what happens when Socialism comes. Communism-the system of communes-is quite a

Page-212

different thing. If they had been successful in carrying out the original idea of the Soviet, it would have been a great success. Mussolini at the beginning tried to form a corporate State but he gave up.

PURANI: In Ahmedabad the Socialists didn't succeed in breaking the trade unions. The Indian agriculturists won't have them.

SRI AUROBINDO: Socialism has no chance with the Indian peasant. He will side with you so long as you promise him land and want to end the landlord system. But once he has got the land, no more of Socialism. Communism is another thing. In Socialism you have the State which intervenes at every step with its officials who rob you of money.

NIRODBARAN: They know the Government machinery and manipulate it as to keep power in their own hands.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is the State bureaucracy that dictates its policy irrespective of the good of the commune; while in communism the land is held as the common property of the whole unit and each one in it is entitled to labour and have his share from the produce.

In our country they had a kind of Communism in the villages. The whole country was like a big family and the lowest had his right as a member of the family. The washerman, the carpenter, the blacksrmith, all got what they wanted.

Each such commune can be independent and many such communes can be scattered all over the country and combine or coordinate their activities for a common purpose.

27 JANUARY 1939

This evening a letter written by Vivekananda on April 18, 1900, R Alameda, California, to Miss Josephine Macleod was read out to Sri Aurobindo. It was a very moving letter containing the following passages:

" I am well, very well mentally. I feel the rest of the soul more than that of the body. The battles are lost and won. I have bundled my things and am waiting for the great deliverer.

"' Siva, O Siva, carry my boat to the other shore.'

Page-213

"After all, Joe, I am only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the Banyan at Dakshineswar. That is my true nature; works and activities, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear his voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking—love dying, work becoming tasteless-the glamour off life. Now only the voice of the master calling. 'I come, Lord, come.'—'Let the dead bury the dead, follow thou Me.' 'I come, my beloved Lord, I come.'

"Yes, I come. Nirvana is before me. I feel it at times, the same infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath."

"I am glad I was born, glad I suffered so, glad I did make big blunders, glad to enter peace. I leave none bound, I take no bonds. Whether this body will fall and release me or I enter into freedom in the body, the old man is gone, gone for ever, never to come back again!

"The guide, the Guru, the leader, the teacher, has passed away; the boy, the student, the servant, is left behind.

"... Who am I to meddle with any, Joe? I have long given up my place as a leader, — I have no right to raise my voice. Since the beginning of this year I have not dictated anything in India. You know that.... The sweetest memories of my life have been when I was drifting; I am drifting again—with the bright warm sun aid, and masses of vegetation around—and in the heat everything is so still, so calm—and I am drifting, languidly—in the warm heart of the river. I dare not make a splash with my hands or feet- for fear of breaking the wonderful stillness, stillness that makes you feel sure it is an illusion!

"Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst of power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come, Mother, I come in Thy warm bosom, floating wheresoever Thou takest me, in the voiceless, in the strange, in the wonderland, I come- a spectator, no more an actor.

"Oh, it is so calm! My thoughts seem to come from a great, great distance in the interior of my own heart. They seem like faint, distant whispers, and peace is upon everything, sweet, peace—like that one feels for a few moments just before falling into sleep, when things are seen and felt like shadows - without

Page-214

fear, without love, without emotion.-Peace that one feels alone, surrounded with statues and pictures . ..."

SATYENDRA: It must have been a passing mood in Vivekananda to see ambition, personality, fear and thirst for power in himself. Besides, since he died two years later, these things could not have been there always, for by that time he must have realised some higher consciousness setting him free from them.

NIRODBARAN: It may not have been merely a passing mood. These things he must have noticed in himself, and he wrote about them because he perceived or saw them.

PURANI: Simultaneously with a higher consciousness, one can see these things in one's nature.

NIRODBARAN: He had a double strain in his being—the turn inward and the urge towards work. Moreover, he admitted that he was doing things driven blindly by some unseen Force.

SRI AUROBINDO (after some time): It is not easy to get rid of these things. Even when the higher consciousness comes, they can go on in the lower nature. And if Vivekananda found himself driven blindly by some unseen Force, as you say, then it is quite possible for them to remain in the nature and get mixed up in the working out of that driving Power.

SATYENDRA: It is curious that he speaks of "freedom in the body" as something in the future. How is it that he says this so late in life-only a short time before his death and long after he had had the experience of Nirvana? I thought he had become liberated much earlier.

SRI AUROBINDO: There are two kinds of liberation. The usual conception of liberation is that it comes after the death of the body. That is to say, you may have attained liberation in consciousness and yet something in the nature continues in the old bondage and this ignorance is usually supported by the body- consciousness. When the body drops off, the man becomes entirely free or liberated.

The other kind of liberation is Jivanmukti: one realises liberation while remaining in the body and in life and action, and that is supposed to be more difficult.

SATYENDRA: But I suppose there is a distinction between Videhamukti and Jivanmukti. Videhamukti answers to your definition. Janaka is called a Videhamukta and that is considered more difficult than being a Jivanmukta.

Page-215

SRI AUROBINDO: I thought it is the reverse.

SATYENDRA: Then there might be a confusion of terms. Souls like Vivekananda are said to come down from a higher plane for a specific work in the world. Is that possible?

NIRODBARAN: Ramakrishna called him an Ishwarakoti.

SRI AUROBINDO: There is a plane of liberation from which beings can come down and perhaps that is what Ramakrishna meant by souls that are Ishwarakoti or Nityamukta — those that are eternally liberated and can go up and down the ladder of the planes.

SATYENDRA: Is there any evolution in these planes—I mean evolution of the sort we have on earth?

SRI AUROBINDO: No; there are only types there. If the typal beings want to evolve they have to take birth here. Even the Gods are compelled to take human birth for the purpose of evolving.

NIRODBARAN: But why should the Gods want to evolve? They are quite happy in their own state.

SRI AUROBINDO: They may get tired of their own kind of happiness and want another kind: for instance Nirvana.

NIRODBARAN: But then one may get tired of Nirvana too!

SRI AUROBINDO: There is no "one" in Nirvana. So who will get tired? That was the difficulty I had with Amal at one time. He could not get it into his head that the personality does not exist in the experience of Nirvana. He would ask, "Who has the experience of Nirvana if there is no being in that state? The answer is, "Nobody has it; something in you drops off and Nirvana takes its place." In fact, there is no "getting" but a "dropping off'. Amal was probably thinking that he would be sitting with his mental personality somewhere, looking at Nirvana and saying, "Ah, this is Nirvana!" But so long as "you" are there, you haven't got Nirvana. One has to get rid of all attachments and personalities before Nirvana can come and that is extremely difficult for one who is attached to his mental personality like Amal.

SATYENDRA: If Nirvana is such a negative state, what is the difference between one who has it and one who hasn't?

PURANI: From the point of view of Nirvana there is no difference.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. You find the difference because it is "you" who gets blotted out in Nirvana and not somebody else.

Page-216

(After a pause) In this letter of Vivekananda, there is at least one thing precise about his spiritual experience: he speaks of the calm and stillness of Nirvana and before it everything seems an illusion.

PURANI: The division of consciousness into two parts—one being fundamentally free and the other imperfect or impure—is a very common experience.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is not only common, it is the inevitable experience unless one is able to take all action with equanimity. In order that one may be able to act without ambition, one should not be perturbed whether the action is done or not. There should be something like the Gita's "inaction in action"—and yet, as the Gita says, one must go on acting. The test is that even if the work is taken away or destroyed, it must make no difference to the condition of your consciousness.

SATYENDRA : Isn't Nirvana a fundamental spiritual experience?

SRI AUROBINDO: Nirvana, as I know it, is an experience in which the separative personality is blotted out and one acts according to what is necessary to be done. It is only a passage for reaching a state in which the true individuality can be attained. That individuality is vast, infinite, and can contain the whole world within itself. It is not the small narrow limited individual self in Nature. When you attain that true individuality you can remain in the world and yet be above it. You can act and still be not bound by your action. For getting rid of the separative personality Nirvana is a powerful experience. After Nirvana you can go on to realise yourself as both the One in all and the One who is Many-and yet that One is also He.

SATYENDRA: What you have called "multiple unity"?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.

SATYENDRA: The trouble is that we are so much attached to our body and bound up with our ego and passions that it seems hardly possible to get out of a life filled with them. Such a life alone appears real then.

SRI AUROBINDO: You have to give it its place in Reality. And to come out of it or get beyond it there are conditions laid down: for example, rejection and surrender. You have to get rid of desires and passions to arrive at the higher consciousness.

Page-217

SATYENDRA: And when in addition to our own burdens and difficulties and egoism we are asked to work for the Divine, for you and the Mother, the trouble increases!

SRI AUROBINDO: There again the same conditions are applicable. You have to work with the right attitude, without personal ambition, without ego. Necessarily, that can't be done in a day.

There are people here whose egos take a new turn—what may be called "egoism for the Divine"; thus, instead of saying "I" and "mine", they say "our work", "our Ashram" etc. But this form of ego too must go.

PURANI: I think Satyendra was not talking of that.

SATYENDRA: I was referring to our difficulty.

SRI AUROBINDO: And I was referring to mine. (Laughter) Several people here make it their main business to get hold of people and make them do Yoga. Their enthusiasm is something enormous. However much you may check them, they can't help propagandising,

PURANI: Shouldn't something be done to stop Veerabhadra doing that?

SRI AUROBINDO: Do you think you can stop him? I have threatened him with expulsion and even that seems to make no difference! (Laughter)

CHAMPAKLAL: I hear he is holding classes in the town and giving lectures on Yoga.

PURANI: He is explaining everything on a blackboard.

SRI AUROBINDO: What? Explaining the Brahman on a blackboard? As for his lecturing, he used to inflict letters on me never less than thirty pages!

PURANI: That means he had some consideration for you. To Reddy, the Minister of Madras, he wrote a letter of eighty page just to tell him to release a prisoner!

SRI AUROBINDO: I wonder how the Minister found time to go through his letter.

PURANI: The Minister wrote back regretting he had no time to read it. His secretary may have given him the list.

SRI AUROBINDO: Poor secretary! I sympathise with tea.

PURANI: One day Amrita told X that Mother had instructed all gate-keepers not to sit on the chairs or read or write when on duty.

Page-218

SRI AUROBINDO: That's true. Y and others used to reply to visitors, sitting on an easy chair. There were many complaints from outsiders about the gate-keepers.

PURANI: When Amrita asked X why he was not carrying out Mother's instructions, X replied, "That is just my difficulty."

SRI AUROBINDO: I have heard that he has become a Guru. If you tell these people to go somewhere else and start an Ashram of heir own they won't do it. They must remain here and become Gurus.

SATYENDRA : Some people try to impose their ideas on others.

NIRODBARAN: Not only impose but beat if you don't accept them. I heard that A gave a good beating to B for not accepting you as an Avatar.

SRI AUROBINDO: And after the beating did B feel like accepting me?

SATYENDRA: I don't understand how that sort of acceptance can help. If, without experiencing anything, one says about anybody 'He is an Avatar," it hasn't much value.

SRI AUROBINDO: Experience is not always necessary in order to believe a thing. One may have faith. But the trouble comes when you force your faith on others. You can say, "I believe so and so is an Avatar." But you can't say, "If you don't believe, I will thrash you."

As I said, some people have the habit of forcing themselves on others and propagandising.

NIRODBARAN: I am afraid Y is one of them.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. When R was here, he was going on quite well, having experiences and progressing in his own way, though he didn't know much about the nature of this Yoga. Y hold of him one day and gave a long lecture. R was extremely surprised and said, "What is all this now?'' And everything stopped.

NIRODBARAN: This sort of thing comes in the way of your work , I fear.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, tremendously! If instead of allowing a man to proceed on his own lines, one forces him to accept one's viewpoints for which he is not prepared, it interferes with the work.

SATYENDRA: Most probably the man turns against you.

Page-219

SRI AUROBINDO: Either he shuts himself up or he gets false ideas.

There are people who want to bring their whole families into Yoga. I don't see the logic of it. And there are husbands who get angry with their wives because they can't take to Yoga together with them. They want to make it a family affair.

SATYENDRA: They want to go to heaven with their families like Yudhisthira.

SRI AUROBINDO: That may be all right for going to heaven, but not for attaining salvation.

SATYENDRA: I suppose they have got the idea from the fact that a family follows one religion. If all follow it, the atmosphere becomes harmonious.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but such harmony is suitable only for the religious life. As for the family, even if there are religious differences, they don't matter, as D. L. Roy shows in his song, "Buro, budi doojanate".¹

Then there are people like X who, when the Mother refuses admission to somebody, go on saying, "Stick on, stick on! You see, I was refused but I have got in."

PURANI: Yes, it is a case of testing the faith.

SATYENDRA: Or perhaps he has the old idea that Yogis generally test their disciples and so the rejected ones have to pass the test.

SRI AUROBINDO: In that way some people are wonderful. There are a few from outside who write and write even if we do give any answer. If we ask them to go and seek another Guru, they won't.

SATYENDRA: Then why not accept them?

SRI AUROBINDO: Theirs is not a real call. In some it is only surface movement, and they are just obstinate. Others are sheer eccentrics or even lunatics.

After thhis, there was a pause in the talk. Some left the room at 8.30 p.m.

PURANI : That letter of Vivekananda is very sincere. One have freedom from ambition and other weaknesses unless one has the dynamic presence of the Divine.

¹"Old man, old woman, the two together. "

Page-220

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, I find that most people have difficulty in understanding this. Those weaknesses are very hard to get rid of. They may not always manifest in the surface consciousness but that doesn't mean they are not there. They can be there even if you live in a higher consciousness; the dynamic presence of the Divine is needed. Or else, if without the dynamic realisation you can establish, as I have already said, equanimity and calm right down to your body-consciousness so that nothing stirs whatever happens, then also you can be free from them.

After I had the Nirvanic experience at Baroda and came to Calcutta for work, I thought I had no ambition — I mean personal ambition. But the Voice which I used to hear within would point out to me at every step how personal ambition was there in my movements. These things can hide for a long time without being detected.

It is like the contest for the Congress Presidentship. Everyone says, "It is not out of ambition but from sense of duty, call of the country, demand of principles!" (Laughter)

28 JANUARY 1939

In the morning, during the sponging, Champaklal and Purani were engaged in killing flies. They were making a clapping sound. Champaklal burst into laughter. We reported the cause of the laughter to Aurobindo.

SRI AUROBINDO: This is not Ahimsa. Champaklal should be sent to Vinoba at the Gandhi Ashram.

PURANI: Oh, he will be given severe punishment.

SRI AUROBINDO: He should be stopped from laughing for six months.

In the evening, after the Mother had left for the general meditation, we were ready to begin talking. But Sri Aurobindo seemed preoccupied with something, or was thinking, or perhaps just in a mood of silence. Nirodbaran said to Purani, "Come out with your news." Purani kept smiling. After a few minutes Sri Aurobindo looked at us and broke into a spontaneous smile. Then Nirodbaran started speaking.

Page-221

NIRODBARAN: Purani seems to have some news.

SRI AUROBINDO: Then why doesn't he blurt it out?

PURANI: No, nothing today.

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, there is a cure for your cold in Sunday Times. You have to get into an aeroplane, take some rounds, get down—and you are cured.

SATYENDRA: Permanently?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if the aeroplane comes down with a crash!

NIRODBARAN: V used to put a string up his nose for his cold.

SATYENDRA: That is a Hathayogic process.

SRI AUROBINDO: The Hathayogis also insert a long piece cloth into the stomach, pass it through the intestine and bring it out from the anus to clean the whole system. And there have been authentic cases of their eating poisons like nitric acid, cyanide, etc., and also things like nails and bits of glass.

SATYENDRA: I wonder how the scientists will explain all this. Somewhere they were invited to a demonstration, but they refused to go.

SRI AUROBINDO: They can't go—for fear of getting the present convictions shaken.

NIRODBARAN: The Hathayogins perhaps know some process to prevent absorption of the poisons.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they have the power to stop the action of the poisons and to eliminate them. They have to carry out some secret process immediately after their demonstration.

NIRODBARAN: Probably you have heard that Sir William Crookes invited scientists to his mediumistic seances. But refused to have anything to do with that sort of thing.

SRI AUROBINDO: The same happened in Germany. In some German village there was a horse which could do mathematical calculations. The owner of the horse invited scientists. They not only pooh-poohed the thing and turned down the invitation but also complained to the Government, saying such matters should be stopped because they were scientifically unorthodox.

PURANI: Maurice Maeterlinck went to see the performance and said he had himself not believed before seeing it, but he tested the animal by giving his own figures and the animal answered correctly by signs.

Page-222