12 NOVEMBER 1939
SRI AUROBINDO (apropos of an article by a devotee named Buddhadev): I have never heard that Shakespeare was popular among the peasants. His popularity was due to his power of speech. Everything he said was said with force and energy and that appealed to the people. But he is not so successful in his sonnets. His dramas alone have that quality. Shelley has that gift only in rare places. Wordsworth also, and those are the things that become popular but not with the peasants. Shakespeare easy? And he was enjoyed by all? That is news.
It is true that dhvani (rhythmic suggestion) is an important element of poetry but it is not everything. There must be something that appeals to the mind, man being mental.
Poetry to be popular must be good poetry.
NIRODBARAN: You have said in your Synthesis of Yoga that all love and adoration is good — it is a preparation and aspiration, even partial realisation.
SRI AUROBINDO: Not for a Yogi.
NIRODBARAN : No, I mean in ordinary human life how can it be a preparation and aspiration?
SRI AUROBINDO : I meant true love, not vital love with desire and possessiveness, or physical love. That of course can't be —
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though Blake says the physical act of love is part of divine love or its fulfilment. If it is true love with a psychic or higher element in it, then it helps to awaken the Divine in oneself or bring a high uplifting of one's nature. I said there "love and adoration". Love, adoration and desire for union are the three features of that love.
NIRODBARAN: Sometimes even when there is a true spark, that gets lost afterwards by vital mixture, sometimes with disastrous consequences to the parties concerned.
SRI AUROBINDO: In so far as there is truth in the love, it will have its reward in the evolution of the being.
NIRODBARAN: If that love helps to turn one towards the Divine, can it be said it was an unconscious seeking for the Divine?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, or it may be a seeking for love itself and its realisation or fulfilment.
NIRODBARAN: I have read a novel where the hero-an artist-has been depicted as unconsciously seeking for the Divine through human love but every fresh contact or relation seems to disillusion him because he finds jealously, pettiness, etc. coming in. Could it be said it was really a seeking or was it merely a vital play?
SRI AUROBINDO: Can't say, it depends on the particular psychological case. Which novel was it?
NIRODBARAN: J's. There the hero has been represented in that light and turned towards the Divine at the end.
SRI AUROBINDO: That's all mental.
NIRODBARAN: I have a few more questions on yesterday's topic. First, it seems that so long as love can be kept more or less psychic and mental it tends to remain high, noble and constant. But if it is brought down to the physical it tends to be vitiated and gets lost. So the physical relation seems to be predominantly responsible for the breaking of the union.
SRI AUROBINDO: The vital can also be responsible for it without any physical element. You can't say the physical is predominantly so. Blake and others actually say that spiritual love should be sanctified by vital and physical action. They are part of divine love.
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NIRODBARAN: In woman, people say, a moment comes when she surrenders everything to the beloved. The physical being is a part of that surrender.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is the attitude of submission of the female to the male. Real surrender is a different thing, more psychic in character.
NIRODBARAN: In a psychic relation, when sex action takes place, is it only for procreation?
SRI AUROBINDO: The psychic element may be extended into the physical.
NIRODBARAN: But is there not a danger of the psychic element being lost?
SRI AUROBINDO: That depends on the strength of the psychic. The psychic relation is itself very rare, but it can get overclouded.
NIRODBARAN: If a person has been disappointed in love in the world and that element is not satisfied, and after turning to the Divine he finds somebody whom he loves and adores, can it be called a need or necessity of the being?
SRI AUROBINDO: Not need or necessity. All depends on the particular case. If there is the psychic element in it, it can help. The Vaishnavas brought even sexual relations into their Yoga in order to sublimate them. The result in their case was a failure.
NIRODBARAN: But in spite of the psychic element, there is a risk. The "thing" may be lost.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know what this "thing" is as I don't know the case.
SATYENDRA: Nirod is speaking very guardedly!
SATYENDRA: Nirod has a few more questions to ask: he is trying to formulate them, it seems.
PURANI: Schomburg is a great woman-hater, it appears. On every occasion he brings in the question of woman's shortcomings.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is yours also a misogynist question?
NIRODBARAN: Misogynist means woman-hater?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
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NIRODBARAN: No, my question is not that. Someone asked me, "If love is a seeking for the Divine, why does one seek human love after taking up Yoga?"
SRI AUROBINDO: But is the man conscious of the Divine? If he is, either of two things may happen. All human relations may fall off or, keeping the divine love, he may keep human love as an appendage trying to raise it towards the Divine. I am not speaking of sex relations.
NIRODBARAN: He may have faith that here is the Divine.
SRI AUROBINDO: Faith is not consciousness. It is a preliminary element.
NIRODBARAN: And if he is unconscious?
SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on particular types. Some persons, as I said, after being conscious of the Divine don't want any other relation with anyone else; at the same time they can keep a universal love for everybody. Others may keep a special relation with some, keeping it pure and trying to centralise everything towards the Divine.
NIRODBARAN: It should be then predominantly psychic?
SRI AUROBINDO: No, it can be higher vital, free from all desires, attachments, etc.
SATYENDRA: There is the other extreme also. People here say that there should not be love for anyone else except for the Divine!
SRI AUROBINDO: As I said, it depends on the type. It does not mean that one should give up friendship with somebody for the sake of the Divine.
NIRODBARAN: But friendship with the other sex involves danger.
PURANI: There his Schomberg is coming in!
NIRODBARAN: If you mean I am a woman-hater, no! Besides, we are speaking from different viewpoints.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is speaking from the viewpoint of fear! ,
NIRODBARAN: A last question: When people are united by love and come to lead a divine life but then their relation breaks off and each goes his or her own way, is it because the purpose of love has been served that the separation occurs?
SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. There are cases where their old lower nature has dropped away and they are going side by side. In other cases it may be that one has not entered the path. There
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are also examples where one has come for the Divine and the other hasn't or has formed fresh attachments after taking up Yoga.
NIRODBARAN: Could it be said that in their united life for the Divine, there may be a mixture in such cases? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, there may be a mixture and, under cover of the Divine call, they may satisfy the vital.Dr. Manilal arrived in the afternoon from Baroda. After doing pranam to Sri Aurobindo, he spoke with him.
DR. MANILAL: How are you. Sir? SRI AUROBINDO(smiling): Status quo. DR. MANILAL: Is the leg better? SRI AUROBINDO: In some ways better, in some ways not. And how are you? DR. MANILAL: Getting on, Sir. How do you find me? SRI AUROBINDO: You look flourishing!Page-251
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me to resume the daily correspondence and eight hours' Darshan again.
DR. MANILAL: Would it not be possible to cure everything in the wink of an eye by the Supramental Force? (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO : It will have to be the supreme Supramental Force. I am not a Tirthankar. DR. MANILAL: In Jainism (laughter by all) a story is told of a Yogi curing his leprosy with his own saliva. SRI AUROBINDO: Christ is also said to have cured someone's blindness with his saliva. DR. MANILAL: But he was crucified. SRI AUROBINDO: What of it? DR. MANILAL: Didn't he suffer then? SRI AUROBINDO: He didn't say no to the crucifixion. DR. MANILAL: Why didn't he prevent it!? Wasn't it due to his past Karma? SRI AUROBINDO: How can it be when he said he was the Son of God? He said he had come down to be crucified for your sins. He took upon himself (with emphasis) all your sins. DR. MANILAL: They say Gandhi is an incarnation of Christ. SRI AUROBINDO: Incarnation? What can be said is that there are things in his teachings which are similar to Christ's. DR. MANILAL: What about the Congress? Will it succeed? (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: You seem to be jumping the subject. SRI AUROBINDO (after a while): Not exactly. Gandhi provided the transition.Page-254
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EVENING
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DR. MANILAL: No. Sir.
SRI AUROBINDO: But you had two, one after the other, and yet you say you haven't progressed? As I said, when one falls into the physical consciousness, everything seems to disappear. And after the physical consciousness, there is the subconscient. Are you aware of your subconscient?
DR. MANILAL: No, Sir. But how to get out of this physical consciousness?
SRI AUROBINDO: You have to get rid of ideas of the mind, desires of the vital and attachments of the physical.
DR. MANILAL: But it seems to take such a long time and I don't think it is possible to do it by our own effort. I believe in Grace.
PURANI: Yes, without doing anything ourselves, we want the Grace to do everything.
DR. MANILAL: Why, I have been trying.
SRI AUROBINDO: Are you sure?
DR. MANILAL: Well, Sir, not in that sense. (Laughter)
CHAMPAKLAL: What about you, Nirod? How did you feel at Darshan?
NIRODBARAN: Don't touch the sore.
CHAMPAKLAL: Let us hear.
NIRODBARAN: I am in the same boat with Manilal. So I think I must be in the physical consciousness.
SRI AUROBINDO: Very possibly both in the same doctoral consciousness.
DR. MANILAL (after some time): You don't approve of that exercise. Sir — raising the thigh and letting the leg hang?
SRI AUROBINDO: I stopped it during Darshan as I had things to do, and after Darshan I have been feeling lazy. I will try to do it again.
PURANI (after Dr. Manilal had left and Sri Aurobindo started resting in bed): Champaklal wants to know if Manilal's condition of being in the physical consciousness began after his direct contact with you; that is, after your accident.
SRI AUROBINDO: No, no. It was there long before.
NIRODBARAN: It seems to be a great ordeal for those who begin with the physical consciousness, for it takes a very long time to get out of it.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, sometimes it takes many years.
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NIRODBARAN: Unfortunately I have rarely had a single Darshan which could be called unusual and in this consciousness one is quite unconscious of what is happening.
SRI AUROBINDO: Because it is a very thick crust -as I said, the thickness of the body. Usually it is because of this physical consciousness that people don't take to Yoga. Some people are predominantly mental, some vital and some physical. But it doesn't mean that those who are mental or vital won't have difficulties to face. They may have experiences on those planes but difficulties will come up later on.
NIRODBARAN : Perhaps the yogic force works according to the characteristic feature of the individual.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, of course. Stability is the nature of the physical consciousness. So, when anything is gained there, it is solid and stable. Experiences may be exhilarating but they don't always solve difficulties. H had many experiences on the mental plane but his vital revolted when it was touched.
NIRODBARAN: When one is unconscious of what is happening one doesn't get the push. One swings back and forth, no steady progress can be maintained.
SRI AUROBINDO: Very few people can maintain steady progress. Ups and downs are everywhere.
NIRODBARAN: But they are more frequent here.
SRI AUROBINDO: No, they are as frequent in other Yogas. What happens is that when the Force works the difficulties rise to face so that they may be dealt with, and one may not feel the progress though the work still goes on behind.
NIRODBARAN : You said one has to get rid of desires and attachment in order to open the physical consciousness. If I am not deceived it seems my desires are not as strong as before and yet I don't feel the progress or rather I am not conscious of what is happening.
SRI AUROBINDO: When I speak of the physical consciousness I mean the stuff of the consciousness, whether it is fine, coarse or thick. That stuff may get thinner and thinner and an opening may be made.
EVENING
DR. Manilal's departure day. Sri Aurobindo was massaging his knee. Dr. Manilal leaning against the bed. It was unusual for Sri Aurobindo to ask
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anything at this time, but as Dr. Manilal was to go he perhaps gave him a chance by asking, "Any more bumps?" Dr. Manilal replied, "No, Sir, no more of them." Taking the opportunity given, all gathered round the bed.
DR. MANILAL: By our contact with you, all our physical troubles should have gone. Sir.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why?
DR. MANILAL: The physical contact gives something directly to the physical, doesn't it?
SRI AUROBINDO: Do you mean to say that if a person is touched by a Yogi, he should be all right for the rest of his life?
DR. MANILAL: No, but if the yogi gives something, there should be an improvement in one's physical condition.
SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on the person and the contact.
DR. MANILAL: (moving his hand to connect Sri Aurobindo to himself): Here is the person and here is the contact.
SRI AUROBINDO: In that case you don't seem to have benefited much by the contact. (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: Satuda was lamenting the plight of Bengali Hindus. He says there is a cultural conquest taking place.
SRI AUROBINDO: How? Hindus are becoming Muslims?
NIRODBARAN: No, not religious conquest but cultural; Hindu culture being replaced by Muslim. At schools and colleges, books on Muslim culture are being forced on the students.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why don't the Hindus react?
PURANI : Instead of lamenting they should also organise something.
SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so.
NIRODBARAN: They have no leaders; that's the trouble. Satuda appeals to you to do something.
SRI AUROBINDO: Bah!
NIRODBARAN: Satuda had a small cut on his finger which made him so nervous that he postponed going back to Bengal by one day.
PURANI : What will he do if war breaks out in India?
SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps he will go to Burma!
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NIRODBARAN (when Sri Aurobindo laid down after walking): Dakshinapada had a vision: he saw you sitting high up radiating great power and light, as if by a slight movement of your body you could break the world and remake it. All the gods and goddesses stood around in adoration. Hitherto he has considered the Shakti greater than the Bhagavan. Now he thinks the reverse.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is going to the other extreme now.
NIRODBARAN: But he saw the Shaktis adoring you.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but they are Shaktis.
NIRODBARAN: He feels some intense yearning within for something he can't reach due to some obstruction.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is the psychic yearning, and the obstruction is the vital. He has to make the vital quiet to get rid of the obstruction.
NIRODBARAN: Sisir Mitra asks if there is any difference in quality between a vegetarian diet and a meat and fish diet.
SRI AUROBINDO: A meat and fish diet is good for fighters. But it makes the body-consciousness heavy — I mean the psychological stuff of that consciousness.
NIRODBARAN: You have said before that the nature of food doesn't matter much in Yoga and that people here used to eat everything.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but all the same it has that effect.
NIRODBARAN: What is the significance of the experience in which the being is uplifted from the crust of the physical?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is the liberation of consciousness by its rising upwards, free from the physical crust. Ordinarily it is this physical crust that prevents the consciousness from going within or upwards. What makes you ask?
NIRODBARAN: Sahana had the experience, and she wants to know the significance. Just before Darshan she felt as if her whole being were uplifted from the physical crust which appeared like a hollow case. The experience lasted one or two days.
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SRI AUROBINDO: When any descent takes place, this crust prevents one from feeling it, but when the crust is removed the ascent can take place more easily and the higher force can also be brought down. It is the physical crust that gives the most opposition. There is, of course, the vital opposition too but the physical is stronger. Did Sahana have no such experience before?
NIRODBARAN: I don't know. When such a liberation takes place, does it mean that the physical crust also becomes thinner?
SATYENDRA: What did you say? Liberation makes the body thin?
SRI AUROBINDO: Then the complete liberation will make the body ultimately disappear!
NIRODBARAN: No, I said the "crust".
SATYENDRA: Is it in continuation of your other day's question?
SRI AUROBINDO: No, somebody had an experience of liberation. (To Nirodbaran) You passed her experience on and kept the crust perhaps for yourself?
NIRODBARAN: Her experience came first.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then she passed on to you the crust.
NIRODBARAN: Does this experience mean anew stage in sadhana?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
SATYENDRA: You said to somebody that the Adya Shakti, the Primal Goddess-Power of the Supermind, brings down the Supermind.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
SATYENDRA: Brings from where?
SRI AUROBINDO: From the higher planes.
SATYENDRA: There is also the Unmanifest?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, from the Unmanifest comes the Manifest.
NIRODBARAN: Some people find your book The Mother very difficult.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't see what is the difficulty there.
NIRODBARAN: No, it is not the style but the idea that they find difficult to grasp. The Chinese professor who is here read it and couldn't follow. After reading Anilbaran's book Songs from the Soul, many things became clear to him.
SRI AUROBINDO : Then it must be the difficulty of the mind which is not prepared.
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A small ulceration had formed during the two preceding days on Sri Aurobindo's right shin.
SRI AUROBINDO (when his leg was being sponged): How is the ulcer?
NIRODBARAN: Looks better.
SRI AUROBINDO : It is the physical crust going the wrong way? (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: I thought it was the starting-point of eczema.
SRI AUROBINDO: No, eczema starts with a vesicle.
SATYENDRA: You had eczema there?
SRI AUROBINDO: That was due to blankets and mosquito bites in jail.
DR. BECHARLAL (after a long preparatory silence): How to see God in others ? You say it can't be done by the mind.
SRI AUROBINDO: By increasing the consciousness and making psychic more active.
Just as this point the Mother came in and the talk was suspended.
PURANI: (while sponging Sri Aurobindo): There is a story, told originally by Lalji, of a Mahratta lady. In ecstatic moments of some descent from above, she can explain the Gita and other scriptures, though she herself is not educated. In those moments her face takes on a blue colour. She says the descent is that other of true Divine Self. But what is this blue colour?
SRI AUROBINDO: The Divine Self means the Atman. Does she follow the Adwaita path? The Atman has no colour. Maybe the blue is of some being. She doesn't know herself?
PURANI: No. Could it be Krishna's light?
SRI AUROBINDO: Possibly-or Vishnu's.
PURANI: Krishnamurti is giving some new principles now, but they are so amorphous. He says that to realise the Reality a Guru is not necessary. One has only to get rid of preconceived notions and ideas.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is nothing new and can be easily understood. What further?
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PURANI: Then one will find one's own Truth and Reality. But when someone asked, "What is this Reality?", he replied, "No one can say. One has to find it out for oneself."
SRI AUROBINDO: Then what is the necessity of his saying the rest also? He may as well say nothing. Each one will find out his own path and Truth.
SATYENDRA: Though he has relinquished Theosophy and Messiahhood, old disciples still seem to run after him.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why doesn't he close his doors against them? He can stop speaking to them.
SATYENDRA: He has started with a handicap—having been proclaimed a Messiah.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is why he is disgusted with Guruship perhaps. The Reality he speaks of seems to be like Tao. When you realise it you can't speak about it. It is simply "nothing at all".
NIRODBARAN (while Sri Aurobindo was waiting for the Mother to come): Nolini Sen is practically all right. Yesterday I told you that he was feeling a vague irritation and restlessness and a sense of sadness all day long, and badly needed assistance. He didn't know the cause of the irritation but yesterday he began to think of what wrongs he had done to others in the past. Then he felt as if somebody had touched him on the shoulder, after which he felt calm. He didn't know whose hand it was!
SRI AUROBINDO (after laughing): He seems to be receptive.
NIRODBARAN: He doesn't understand what is meant by the mental, vital, and physical consciousness. As for his wife, she says the intensity of pain and pleasure seems to have diminished in her. But at the same time she feels disinclined to do any work.
SRI AUROBINDO: Does she feel like that after taking up Yoga?
NIRODBARAN: Yes.
SRI AUROBINDO: That often happens. When the motive that supplied the incentive to work or gave energy in the ordinary life is lost, such a condition sets in until that energy is replaced by another energy.
CHAMPAKLAL : How to know whether or not it is Tamas?
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SRI AUROBINDO: There is a certain element of Tamas in it. The physical is being driven by the rajasic vital energy and when that energy is not there the physical may fall into Tamas or inactivity.
NIRODBARAN: What to do in such cases?
SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on circumstances.. If one has no work to do, he can retire into silence.
NIRODBARAN: But she can't do that with so many children to look after! (Laughter)
SRI AUROBINDO: No, she can call in the higher energy and do whatever she has to do without being involved in the work or getting attached to it.
NIRODBARAN: I told her that she could do everything as the Mother's work.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
At this point the Mother came. While sponging Sri Aurobindo, Purani took up the previous day's talk about the colour blue.
PURANI: I asked Lalji about the woman. She seems to be a devotee of Sri Krishna.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then it is clear.
NIRODBARAN: But why is only the face blue?
SRI AUROBINDO: Because it is the mind that receives the light when she talks of the Gita and of other things in her ecstatic mood.
SATYENDRA: You said yesterday that the blue colour might be of Vishnu or of Krishna. What is the difference between them?
SRI AUROBINDO: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva manifest certain powers of cosmic consciousness. Krishna manifests the Ananda. Krishna is said to be the Avatar of Vishnu, which means that he manifests the Vishnu aspect rather than the Shiva aspect.
SATYENDRA: Are Vishnu and Krishna Gods of the overmind.?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that is, they manifest through the Overmind.
Purani then related a few more experiences of that Mahratta lady. There was no comment from Sri Aurobindo. After some time Sri Aurobindo himself started to speak.
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SRI AUROBINDO: About Nolini Sen. I don't understand what the difficulty is about the vital. What is it he doesn't understand? Just as there is the mind with its ideas and perceptions, so there is the vital with its forces of action, emotions, aesthesis. Is it so difficult? Perhaps he wants to know by experience?
NIRODBARAN: Probably. He gave me one instance. He wants to know, when he hears music and gets joy, whether it is due to the song or the singer.
SRI AUROBINDO: That has nothing to do with the vital. If there were no music but only the musician, would he feel that joy? Of course it is his vital—his aesthetic vital—that feels it and the musician also may be expressing his songs through his vital.
PURANI: He told me about his difficulty with thoughts.
SRI AUROBINDO: What sort of difficulty?
PURANI: It is not a difficulty of intellectual ideas or perceptions; simply of the control of thoughts.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is the life-mind. Of course his irritation and restlessness are due to the pressure of the psychic on his vital. His brooding or thinking about the wrongs he has done and the yearning within means that.
NIRODBARAN: But the wrongs were done in the past.
SRI AUROBINDO: That doesn't matter. It means that the psychic is putting pressure on the vital to change. (After some time ) Restlessness, irritation don't matter, but he must get some sleep.
NIRODBARAN: He says he can't understand your English; he has to translate it into Bengali first to understand.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why? Doesn't he know English well enough?
NIRODBARAN: That's what he says. He was a science student, a classmate of Satyen Bose.
SRI AUROBINDO: Which Satyen Bose?
NIRODBARAN: Dilip's friend, the scientist. I think it is your terminology that he finds difficult to grasp-mental, vital, physical.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is a demarcation which is not rigidly fixed. Each overflows into the others. In man, all are differentiated aspects or states of the mental consciousness in general.
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The Mother came in with a telegram for Sri Aurobindo, smiled and said, "Another problem to be solved." The telegram said, "Praying permission for our residence."
THE MOTHER: Permission for residence where? Shall I ask back?
SRI AUROBINDO: Don't know. Does residence mean the Ashram? (Laughing) It can be asked "Who are you?" (General laughter)
Then Purani read the radio news about Russia attacking Finland, and about the All India Sugar Conference being postponed.
SATYENDRA: Plenty of sugar has been destroyed because of a surplus.
SRI AUROBINDO: Instead of destroying it, they could have given it free to the Ashram. (Laughter)
While sponging Sri Aurobindo, Purani brought up the war news.
PURANI: Molotov said Russia has no territorial claims.
SRI AUROBINDO: Who? Vallabhbhai? (Laughter)
PURANI: No, Molotov.
SRI AUROBINDO: No territorial claims? Is it just a territorial walk then? Or is he going to deliver the Finnish people as he did the Ukrainians? I don't understand why these people don't clearly declare their objectives.
PURANI: I hope the Americans will do something.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't think so. They can only talk.
PURANI (when some of the others had gone and Sri Aurobindo was resting): There's a lady who used to feel your presence in her own home, just as at Darshan; but last time on her way home from here saw Ramana Maharshi and then lost that feeling.
SRI AUROBINDO: Naturally.
PURANI: At first she couldn't detect the reason why. Then she suspected the cause and I told her the Mother didn't approve of mixing up things. Now she thinks it must have been due to that visit.
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SRI AUROBINDO: That was another influence. Besides, if Maharshi had been alone, it would have been different. But there are always other people around.
NIRODBARAN: But the purpose is the same - seeking for spirituality—and it is in the same line.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is not the question. (After some time) Purani received something from Lele.
PURANI : Oh yes, I know to my cost. He gave me a terrible fever just when I was in the peak of health; the fever left me only after I received a letter from here. My encounter with another Yogi gave me vomiting, giddiness, etc. Otherwise I got nothing from them.
SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): But Lele did give you something after all.
PURANI: Yes-but I didn't go to him again. Another friend after coming here asked me if he should go to see some Yogi. I told him he should not. He replied, "What's the harm? It is the same spirituality." I explained, "Maybe, but there are different spiritual energies and one may oppose another."
SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so.
PURANI: But the man didn't believe me. And he has paid the penalty for five years. He still hasn't come here again!
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