SRI AUROBINDO (hearing laughter): What is the matter?
NIRODBARAN: Purani and Champaklal are laughing together.
SRI AUROBINDO:: That is their usual business.
CHAMPAKLAL: Purani has hurt his big toe again.
PURANI: A plank fell on it.
SRI AUROBINDO: You are always knocking or pushing it over. (Laughter)
At
this moment, Nirodbaran, by inattention,, happened to spill some
water from a bowl.
SRI
AUROBINDO (laughing): What's the matter now? You are doing the same thing as
Purani along your line.
NIRODBARAN (as Sri Aurobindo started reclining): In the
New Statesman a reviewer quotes a line of Turner's poetry as an example of "careless and lazy inversion". The line is:
When the last tune is played and void the hall.
SRI AUROBINDO:
The inversion is rather deliberate. It's there for the sake of emphasis.
NIRODBARAN: I don't understand why the reviewer calls it "careless".
SRI AUROBINDO: It's certainly not careless. If he doesn't like it, he can say so, but he can't attribute it to carelessness. Who is the reviewer?
NIRODBARAN: He is another poet, Richard Church.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, these are all fads of different poets!
NIRODBARAN: In the review Church says that Yeats was very
enthusiastic over Turner's poetry. In his adventure through modern poetry he has made a discovery, Yeats says.
SRI AUROBINDO:
Yes, in rhymed verse Turner writes very well at times. But his prose-poetry comes to nothing.
NIRODBARAN: Turner seems to be a worshipper of "silence".
SRI AUROBINDO: Not quite, because he is a music critic!
SATYENDRA: Meher Baba says that Sai Baba and others were
moulding the events of the last war. But if so many spiritual figures
work at the same job like that, I wonder what the result will be. Each
will try in his own way and cut across the work of the others.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they may make a muddle of it.
PURANI : They can't make a "worse muddle than the politicians.
NIRODBARAN: But why a muddle at all if they work from
intuitive insight?
SATYENDRA: Even so, up to Overmind everything is a play of possibilities.
And one will counteract another.
SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. Dayanand had the idea
of establishing world peace by bringing all the nations together. He could have
said he established the League and some other Yogi disestablished it.
SATYENDRA: Did you meet Dayanand?
SRI AUROBINDO: No, I met one of his disciples, a scientist in
Calcutta National College. When I wrote about the future Avatar, he said Avatar was already there, meaning Dayanand.
NIRODBARAN: Weren't there two Dayanands?
SATYENDRA: Yes, the one Sri Aurobindo has written about was
an Arya Samajist, while there was another, a Bengali, who used to keep
nothing for the next day because he believed in never planning for the future.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is the man who started Sannyasi marriages.
I don't know whether they were real marriages or spiritual
ones. He had something genuine in him. Barin used to be in ecstasies over him.
SATYENDRA: Another Avatar is coming out from Poona. He
will declare himself in 1941.
SRI AUROBINDO: Who is that?
SATYENDRA: He is claimed by those people who dissociated from the Theosophists.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, one more of their romances!
SATYENDRA: Didn't Madame Blavatsky have something real in
her, something mystic?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but the romance was also there. When
one deals with mysticism one has to be very careful. There is any amount of truth and there is any amount of imagination. Nivedita
spoke of the Theosophists as "woolly-headed people."
SATYENDRA: The Rosicrucians too believe in the reality of
mystic experiences.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Arjava (John Chadwick) belonged to
one of their groups at Cambridge, and this created a lot of difficulty for him at
the beginning of his sadhana here. The Rosicrucians posit two principles in man- good and evil personas.
The evil person has to be raised up in order to be got rid of. There are
already enough bad things in
our nature to deal with without raising up other evil things. Europeans have
no knowledge of these matters. Even the
Christian mysticks seem to have no clear idea.
Page-305
SATYENDRA: I suppose it is because the Europeans don't want
to get rid of their individuality. SRI
AUROBINDO: They mix up the Self and the ego. Even
when they are identified with the Self, they think it is the ego that
has become that. Even Blake who had some idea of identity with the
Self appears to have made this mistake.
PURANI (after a lull in the talk): Anilbaran says that according to
Kant if one follows Reason one is free but if one follows Sense one is
bound. There is also the question: Is Buddhi or Intellect an instrument of Prakriti and can a man, so long as he follows Buddhi, be
free in the Gita's sense —that is, free from Nature?
SRI AUROBINDO: Does the Gita say that he can't be free?
PURANI: Well, there is a sloka which says that Sattwa, the
mental Guna, binds by happiness.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is quite a different thing. You are
mixing up two different things. The question is whether Buddhi
can help you to detach yourself from your nature and lead to the
perception of the Purusha, the free Witness.
PURANI : The text of the Gita will support this role of Buddhi.
SRI AUROBINDO: I should think so. Otherwise what is the
meaning of the Gita laying so much stress on Buddhi?
NIRODBARAN: Then does it mean that Buddhi is not an instrument of Nature?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is an instrument that helps one to rise to
the higher nature. You have to use the lower instruments to rise to
the higher.
PURANI: Anilbaran does not want to admit Sisir
Malta's contention that Kant's idea of following Reason is the same as the Gita's
Buddhi-Yoga.
SRI AUROBINDO :
He is quite a controversialist. (Laughter) But
in a controversy one has to see whatever truth there is in others'
points of view.
PURANI: Kant, it seems, changed his mind in later life and
admitted the necessity of Faith, which he deals with in his critique
of Practical Reason.
SRI AUROBINDO: I haven't read European philosophy carefully.
PURANI: Besides, it doesn't interest us, as it has no practical
bearing.
SRI AUROBINDO: That was Arjava's great complaint, that here
people always want something practical. They don't want to think
for the sake of thinking. (Laughter)
PURANI: Kant's notion of freedom is not the same as our Indian
notion of Mukti.
SRI AUROBINDO: The European idea is to arrive at the Truth.
SATYENDRA: They also have some idea of applying the Truth.
PURANI: Yes, a sort of idealism but not spirituality. In his
Practical Reason Kant maintains that Pure Reason is an abstract
faulty hardly to be found unmixed in men.
SRI AUROBINDO: What is it for then?
PURANI: It is just an ideal hardly attainable. So Practical
Reason is necessary. Kant's opponents say that everybody follows Reason
and so everybody is free. Everybody justifies his action by some
reasoning. But, in that case even a thief can justify his stealing by some
reasoning.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and a very practical reasoning too.
(Laughter)
PURANI: Even
the thief is free because he acts freely.
SRI AUROBINDO:
How?
PURANI: He decides out of his own free will.
SRI AUROBINDO: But merely by reasoning he can't be free. If
we apply the Gita, one is not free merely because one reasons about
stealing, but if one can steal disinterestedly and with detachment one can
be free.
SATYENDRA: Wouldn't it be difficult for Europeans to grasp
such ideas--for instance, that of killing people with detachment?
NIRODBARAN: In the New Statesman, the French author Gide speaks of
disinterested action, even criminal or any other kind of action.
EVENING
DR. BECHARLAL: Are trust and faith the same?
Sri Aurobindo kept silent, not giving an answer.
DR. BECHARLAL: In the Words of the Mother, it is said that trust
in the Divine brings the Grace. So isn't trust the key to having the Grace?
Page-307
SRI AUROBINDO: There is more than one key.
DR. BECHARLAL: Doesn't trust lead to surrender?
SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. If you trust a friend, it does not mean that you surrender to him.
DR. BECHARLAL: But as the trust increases you surrender more and more.
SRI AUROBINDO: If you trust a friend in a particular matter, it doesn't mean that you surrender to him in everything else.
The Mother told Sri Aurobindo that the prices of things have gone
up.
Vegetables are getting scarce and costly. When the soldiers come, it will be still
more difficult to get them. Champaklal remarked that the price of one house-
paint has gone up from two rupees to a thousand.
SRI AUROBINDO: That means that it is not available for purchase. But I don't know why vegetables should be scarce. The rise in
price one can understand, because of the general rise in the standard
of living. But why scarce? They are neither growing less, nor are
they being exported.
SATYENDRA: Luckily not. Neither is the British Army large
enough in India to consume more.
Somebody said that Russia had been threatened with expulsion from the
League of Nations.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Uruguay made the threat. Now
Paraguay should bring in a resolution to expel England and France. I wonder why the League exists at all.
PURANI: Herbert was very enthusiastic about the League.
SRI AUROBINDO: Naturally. He was directly affected by the League and we were indirectly affected through him because he translated our books. (Laughter)
PURANI: He said the League had done a lot of good work; for example it has established an International Labour Department.
SRI AUROBINDO: Labouring over nothing!
PURANI: It has gathered a good deal of information.
SRI AUROBINDO:
Then it may be called, instead of the League
is, the League of Informations.
EVENING
As usual Purani entered with a strong military step and took a few deep
looking at Sri Aurobindo. Champaklal and Nirodbaran were stealing a smile at each other over him when suddenly Champaklal burst
out laughing and Purani looked at him. Sri Aurobindo also looked and,
raising his right hand, made a gesture as if to say, "Don't know what to make
of it all."
PURANI: My presence seems to act as a catalytic agent without
one's knowledge.
SRI AUROBINDO: That
is how the subliminal self acts - without knowledge.
Sri Aurobindo started taking his short walk in the room. When
the walk was finished, Purani took up the thread of a past conversation.
PURANI:: Between Hegel and Kant, poor Nirodbaran's question
was lost.
SRI AUROBINDO:
What was it?
PURANI: Nirodbaran says that, just like reasonings, experiences
differ and come to different conclusions. How then can experience be a criterion any more than reason?
SRI AUROBINDO: Experience is not a criterion. It is a means of
arriving at the Truth. But experience is one thing and its expression
is another. You are again putting reason up as the true judge over
experience which is above reason. When people differ over experience
they differ in laying stress on or having a mental preference for
this or that side of the experience. It doesn't mean that the experience
itself is invalid. It is only when you try to put it in mental language that the differences arise, because such language is too
poor to express it. As soon as you bring in mental terms, you limit it.
Truth is infinite and
there are innumerable sides to it. Each conclusion of reason expresses something of that Infinite. Only
when reason claims that it contains the whole truth in a conclusion, it is wrong. If you find that experiences differ, you have to go on
adding experience after experience till you come to the reconciling
experience in which all others find their place.
When you want to describe a spiritual experience, you are
obliged to use mental terms which are quite inadequate. That is
why the Vedantins say that mind and speech can never express the
Truth. Still you can somehow manage to express something as long
as you have not gone beyond the level of the Overmind. When you
enter the Supermind, then (Sri Aurobindo began to shake his head, and
resumed after a pause) it is extremely difficult. And if you go still
further towards the Absolute, it is almost impossible.
Reason takes up one standpoint and declares the others to be false,
For instance, if it speaks of the Truth as impersonal, the Truth for it is
solely impersonal and can never be personal; or vice versa. Really,
both the personal and the impersonal are true; wherever there is the
personal there is also the impersonal, and this holds too the other
way round. When you transcend both you arrive at the Absolute.
SATYENDRA: Of which the two are aspects.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but it doesn't mean that they are less
true for being aspects or that the Absolute excludes them. "When you
throw aside reason you reach the all-inclusive Absolute.
One reasoner looks at a thing in one aspect and declares that that
alone is right, another in some other aspect and swears by that.
Reason to be really reasonable must have various points of view. It
can't be right if its accounts don't differ. As I said, there are various
sides to Reality. If the descriptions of several countries of the world
were the same, they wouldn't be true.
SATYENDRA: How?
PURANI: If you describe Switzerland and the U.S.A. in the same
manner, how would you be correct?
SRI AUROBINDO: And yet the earth is one and mankind is one!
SATYENDRA: It is good to have all these experiences.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but if you can't have all, it is
enough to have one — because each is an approach and can lead to the Absolute.
After this, Purani brought up the subject of the quotations from the
Vedas and Upanishads for Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine. He had been searching
suitable quotations for the opening of each chapter.
PURANI : About the quotation for the chapter, "Knowledge
by identity", there is a sloka which says, "One must become like an
arrow piercing its mark." I wonder if that will suit.
SRI AUROBINDO: It won't quite fit, because knowledge by
identity is more than that. When they speak of knowledge by
identity the Upanishads mean knowledge of the Self which is all,
but that is one part of such knowledge. If you can't find a quotation here, there
may be something for direct knowledge or knowledge by direct awareness. You can try and see if by some
luck you find any.
PURANI:
In Rajayoga, they speak of direct knowledge by
Samyama which perhaps means concentration.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is a different thing. That comes by
putting the pressure of consciousness on an object. But direct knowledge may not
require concentration on one's part. The consciousness simply comes into contact with a thing and knows
about it.
PURANI: Rajayoga speaks of Siddhis,
special powers, like conrol over Matter, knowledge of Suryaloka (the Sun-world) and
Chandraraloka (the Moon-world), conquest of death, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: Knowledge of Suryaloka and Chandraloka,
yes, but conquest of death is a very different matter. About Siddhis, it
is said that they flow into one when one enters a certain state of consciousness.
PURANI: The Upanishad also speaks of Yogis conquering disease
and death and having less stool and urine.
SRI AUROBINDO: In that case, I was going in that direction
regarding urine.
Satyendra drew Nirodbaran 's attention to a single thin thread hung by a
spider from the ceiling. Nirodbaran was reminded of a story in the New
Statesman and Nation of a spider listening to Paderewsky's music. Sri
Aurobindo was asked whether he had read it.
SRI AUROBINDO:.
No, what is it?
NIRODBARAN: Paderewsky
says that while he was playing a particular tune a spider came down from the ceiling and sat on the
piano-board. But when he began playing another tune the spider at once went up to the ceiling. This struck him as rather curious and to
see if the spider was really appreciating a particular tune he played
again the previous one. To his surprise, down came the spider and it
listened right to the end.
SRI AUROBINDO: Did Paderewsky play the other tune again or
anything else to see whether the spider climbed back up once more?
NIRODBARAN: No.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then Paderewsky is not a scientist.
SATYENDRA: In India they say snakes are attracted by the flute.
But scientists say snakes have no ears.
SRI AUROBINDO: Scientists say all sorts of things.
NIRODBARAN: The Greeks also used to say that animals are
attracted by music.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is a universal belief.
SATYENDRA: Snake-charmers in India have a particular kind of
instrument common among them and it produces a uniform tune
which seems to appeal to snakes. They catch the snakes by playing
that tune.
SRI AUROBINDO: If that story of the spider is true, it means that
different animals are sensitive to different kinds of music. To snakes,
perhaps Beethoven's sonatas would have no appeal, while this music
of the snake-charmers appeals to them, perhaps because of its being
current in Nagaloka!
There was a reference to the naval battle between the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee and some British cruisers. Reinforcements to
both sides
had been reported.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, now the British Ark Royal, which has
been sunk several times by the Germans according to their own
reports, is going there from Cape Town. This fight shows that at sea
the English are superior to the Germans. They fought with six-inch
guns against the Germans' eleven-inch guns. The Germans ought to
have sunk at least two cruisers.
PURANI: Especially when they say these pocket-battleships are
very light, more powerful and technically perfect.
SRI AUROBINDO: It means then that the training is deficient
and that the fighters couldn't make use of the superior power of their
ship. The Germans were outmanoeuvred.
SATYENDRA: The English are in their element at sea.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is in their blood. That means that,
besides training, there is something in heredity which one can't
acquire by training.
NIRODBARAN: Naval warfare is very thrilling.
SATYENDRA: Yes, from a distance.
SRI AUROBINDO: Much more thrilling when one reads of it in
newspapers!
Purani was busy helping Sri Aurobindo with quotations from the Veda,
etc. for The Life Divine chapter-epigraphs. He came with big volumes of
Sayana and others.
SRI AUROBINDO: Sayana, in spite of his many mistakes, is very
useful-though it is like going to ignorance for knowledge.
NIRODBARAN : Purani, with his glasses hanging on the tip of his
nose and fat volumes under his arm, looks like Sayana, doesn't he?
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, Sayana come back to undo his misdeeds? (Laughter )
EVENING
NIRODBARAN: Russia seems to have given no reply to
Finland's peace offer.
SRI AUROBINDO: Molotov says he has not heard it and is not
going to hear it.
NIRODBARAN: The poor Finns are fighting all alone. Nobody
gives military help. How long can they resist?
PURANI: Everybody is busy with his own interests and safety.
SRI AUROBINDO: Except Russia and Germany who are trying
to save others! But the Russians don't seem to have advanced much. It doesn't much credit on their army. Of course, in the long
run, Finland doesn't have any chance. Russia will throw in its huge mass. The
Finns have destroyed nearly two hundred of their tanks.
SATYENDRA: Premanand was showing me a picture of the
tanks. These can cross wide ditches, it seems.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but they are not so formidable now.
many weapons have been devised to destroy them and the Germans claim that the iron of the tanks can be melted.
NIRODBARAN: How could the German, pocket-battleship
escape from the strong British squadron?
SATYENDRA: British cruisers were
not near her. They had to
keep far away.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, about three miles from the coast, which
is the limit of the territorial waters. The ship was scuttled five miles
from the coast.
NIRODBARAN: It is surprising that they could hit accurately
from twelve miles distance, while German hits were all wide.
SRI AUROBINDO: The German ships were out manoeuvred.
The cruisers, being light and small, could easily change direction
while battleships take more time. It is a foolish thing to scuttle such a
ship. It could have remained interned during the war.
Then the talk turned to democracy and war aims.
NIRODBARAN: The Bengal Home Minister says the war is not
fought for democracy but for the protection of small nations.
SRI AUROBINDO: When the Muslim League thinks democracy is not suitable for India, how can he say otherwise?
NIRODBARAN: When some member asked whether it was the
Government opinion or his personal one, he said it was his personal
opinion. (Laughter)
Sisir Maitra had presented a copy of The Life Divine to Tagore
and
asked him to read it. Tagore told him that his eyesight was bad. But Maitra
forced the issue saying, "You said you were waiting to hear his word. This
book is his word." Then Tagore replied that he would try.
SRI AUROBINDO: Tan Sen¹ has written to Dilip praising him,
saying, "You have put stamps upon my heart." (Laughter} There
were some other queer phrases. He didn't tell you?
NIRODBARAN: No.
SATYENDRA: It is not that people don't understand The
Life
Divine but that they find it difficult to apply to life.
SRI AUROBINDO: Somebody has said - I don't know who -
ideals are to be held but not to be applied.
¹A Chinese professor at Viswa Bharati. His real name is Tan-un-Sang.
SATYENDRA:
Tagore can make a last attempt.
NIRODBARAN: I
think I too will again make an honest attempt to understand it.
SRI AUROBINDO:
But it is, I think, easier than books by Kant or other philosopher.
EVENING
We learnt that N. R. Sarkar had resigned. So the talk
centered on that, it being the most important news of the day. Purani suggested
that he may now join theHindu Mahasabha and do something against the
Bengal ministry. That led the talk to the Hindu-Muslim problem and the
charges of the Muslims against the Congress Ministries.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, but what about the charges of the Bengal
Hindus against the Muslims? But strangely enough nobody knows or talks about
that.
SRI AUROBINDO: No; no Indian paper gives publicity to these things.
They simply make a brief statement.
NIRODBARAN:
New Statesman says that there is no mishap in Bengal during this ministry.
SRI AUROBINDO: because there are no riots?
NIRODBARAN:
Perhaps.
SATYENDRA:
Huq has now given a list of charges which are not charges, They are all vague
and general.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
SATYENDRA: I
don't see how any solution can be reached.
Democracy doesn't seem to fit India, yet dictatorship is also not
without its dangers.
SRI AUROBINDO: Democracy is a failure. It suits only those people who are born
to it like England and the Scandinavian countries. Even in America it has
failed. That is a proof of its corruption.
PURANI:
It is astonishing how gangsters are so powerful there.
SRI AUROBINDO: Not only are there gangsters, but intrigue and corruption
even among the members of the the Senate.
SATYENDRA: But who and what sort of dictatorship
do you think will suit India?
SRI AUROBINDO:
I don't know; when a dictator is there he will start
it .(Laughter)
Later, when Purani and Nirodbaran were alone with Sri Aurobindo,
Nirodbaran spoke of Sarkar again.
NIRODBARAN: Sarkar's resignation seems a little
inopportune.
SRI AUROBINDO: How?
NIRODBARAN: If he had remained he could have exercised
some restraint on the Muslim Ministers.
SRI AUROBINDO: Do you think so? What about the other
Hindu Ministers? Will they side with him?
NIRODBARAN: I don't know. But two of them were supposed
to belong to his group, though not politically.
PURANI: If he can break the Ministry -
SRI AUROBINDO: How? He may not be able to carry the other
Hindu Ministers with him as he hasn't resigned due to a communal
issue.
PURANI: It seems Sarkar has resigned on the minority question.
He objected to the last clause of the Government resolution which
says that no further political development should be made without
the full consent of the minorities. Nehru and Sir Stafford Cripps say
that the British Government is not trying for democracy.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then for what?
PURANI: For its own self-interest.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is ancient history.
NIRODBARAN: Cripps seems to justify Russia's claim on
Finland because Finland once belonged to Russia, though he
doesn't approve of the method.
SRI AUROBINDO: In that case England can claim Ireland because it was once under its rule and now establish naval bases there,
The Finnish people are not Russian in origin nor were they ruled by
their willing consent. These people say whatever they like.
NIRODBARAN: Rajendra Prasad has said that the communal
problem must be solved in any way possible.
SRI AUROBINDO: In any way? Then it is very easy. All Hindus
can turn Mohammedans. Jinnah would like nothing better.
SATYENDRA:
Yes, and then they can again become Hindus by Shuddhi. Rajendra Prasad also says that if it can't be solved, it must
be
given up once for all.
PURANI: Hasrat Mohani has turned against the Congress and
become a Muslim Leaguer. I don't know why.
If these Muslims could be made to contact Muslims of other
countries they would then realise who is closer to them—the
Hindus or their co-religionists in other lands. Turkey and Egypt do not care for these Indian Muslims. Azad realised from his bitter
experience in Mecca that his religious brothers there were eager to exploit him.
SRI AUROBINDO (after a lull): Kant's idea of freedom is said to
be that one is free if one's actions are determined by oneself and not
by others Bet then what about the laws of morality? They are made
by others. And if one is supposed to act according to oneself and thus
be free, one may disobey them.
PURANI: Kant speaks also of heteronomy and gives the maxim
that one must follow only that rule which one can make a universal law.
SRI AUROBINDO: His idea of freedom is like the Sanskrit sloka: "Everything under
one's control is happiness, everything under another's control is sorrow." But the Gita's idea is to go beyond
oneself and one's own freedom.
PURANI:
Yes. Sisir Maitra concludes in his article that the Gita preaches: "Leaving all other dharmas, take refuge in Me." I don't see
then why should be any controversy between Anilbaran and him. I was wondering if this sloka, "Be my-minded, my
devotee." would do for a quotation for your chapter "The Triple
transformation". Though it is more related to Bhakti, I thought it could as
well as applied to psychic transformation because Bhakti may lead to it.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but Bhakti is only one aspect of the
psychic. One can go to the psychic through the mind also, not only
through the heart.
NIRODBARAN: Through the mind also?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the psychic produces the mental transformation too.
As soon as
the word "psychic" was heard, Satyendra began to smile to
himself. What's the matter?" we asked him. He didn't reply but continued
to smile.
PURANI:
Perhaps you are thinking, "Where is this psychic gentleman hiding?"
NIRODBARAN: That would be more in Dr. Manilal's vein.
SRI AUROBINDO
(laughing): Dr. Manilal's psychic gentleman: too apt to take medicines for coming forth.
SATYENDRA (after a while): The psychic or the Divine is like
dictator.
PURANI: How?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is more like a constitutional monarch who
allows you to do whatever you like.
SATYENDRA: But it doesn't come out.
SRI AUROBINDO:
Because it waits for the consent of all the
members of the Cabinet. (Laughter)
SATYENDRA: God is very difficult to get.
NIRODBARAN:
He is also very clever in argument!
EVENING
Purani had given Sri Aurobindo Sisir Maitra's article on Kant and the
Gita. Later he asked Sri Aurobindo how he found it.
SRI AUROBINDO: He has overstressed the ethical part and left
out the spiritual and explained the spiritual idea from the ethical
standpoint. For instance, he has interpreted the Gita's idea of doing
work as duty for duty's sake — an ethical view. Doing work from any
other motive and without desire for its fruit is too subtle for the
mind to understand.
In the West, they don't make much distinction between the true
self and the separative ego. If the separative ego is acting, why
shouldn't one desire the fruit?
SATYENDRA: The idea of doing work for duty's sake may be an
influence of the Christian idea of service.
SRI AUROBINDO: But the Christian idea is quite different from
that. The Christians want to do what is God's will. That is a sort of
religious law to them, while here it is a moral law, seen from the
standpoint of Reason.
SATYENDRA: Christians have the idea of going to heaven by
doing their duty.
SRI AUROBINDO: Their idea is more than that. They want to
do what bears the seal of God's will on it, as they say. A religious law
is there. When Reason got the upper hand on religion it began to
question religion's foundations, and the rationalists advocated the
doing of duty from the ethical, the moral point of view, as a social
demand. The rationalists have very fragmentary notions of what is involved.
PURANI: This German steamer Columbus was suspected of supplying oil to German cruisers and submarines and that is why it has
been scuttled.
SRI AUROBINDO: It has been scuttled?
PURANI:Yes. The commander of the
Graf Spee scuttled it on his
own. He has committed harakiri.
SRI AUROBINDO: I thought Hitler had asked him to do it.
PURANI: No, Hitler left the entire decision to him asking him to
do what he thought best.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't understand these scuttles and suicides.
NIRODBARAN: Perhaps the German naval authorities said that
the ship must not fall into British hands.
SRI AUROBINDO: But it could have been interned and then,
after the war is over, could have been returned to the owner. That is
the international law unless the British wanted to seize it as they did
with other ships after the last war. But this time they are not likely to
do the same because they prefer to be moral.
SATYENDRA: They are professing too much.
SRI AUROBINDO (addressing Satyendra): You have read that
Hitler has proclaimed a naval victory over fishing boats and trawlers?
(Laughter)
SATYENDRA: Yes, Hitler speaks of his victories; his losses he
suppresses or denies and invents all sorts of lies. Churchill seems to
try to give true news.
SRI AUROBINDO: He declares the losses correctly but about
the gains he is silent because he says he doesn't want to give such
news to the Germans.
SATYENDRA : An English submarine torpedoed a German cruiser and Hitler denied it.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he said there was some explosion
underwater. (Laughter)
Page-319
NIRODBARAN: Somebody has said Hitler is such a liar that one
can accept the opposite of what he says as true. (Laughter) Anyway,
the war is getting more lively now.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is only at sea.
NIRODBARAN: In the air too, the recent attack on the German
navy at Helgoland.
SATYENDRA (after some time): Tomorrow is the 22nd.
NIRODBARAN: Why do you mention it?.
SATYENDRA:
Jinnah will heave a sigh of relief from mourning.
NIRODBARAN: Oh!
PURANI: Malaviya has asked to observe it as the Gita day also.
NIRODBARAN: Some members of the League have tried to
tone down.
SRI AUROBINDO: Jinnah himself has done it.
NIRODBARAN: What struck me as inconsistent in the Bengal
Government's war resolution yesterday has been noted by The
Hindu too. The resolution calling for the immediate grant of
Dominion Status says that no further political development should
be made without the full consent of the minorities.
SRI AUROBINDO: It means that the Dominion Status should
make provision for the protection of the rights of the minorities,
There is no inconsistency. They want to insert such a clause into the
Constitution. But what does the resolution mean? That nothing
should be given which doesn't satisfy the Muslims and everything
should be given which satisfies them? Is it that? But then there
are other minorities who will come in and say the same and
their demands may be granted subject to the consent of the
Muslims?
PURANI: Looks like it. Some Muslim will say Urdu must be
common language and Ramaswamy will say Tamil.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he
will but he knows that it has no chance.
PURANI: Vijay Raghavacharya has asked why these communal
troubles in U. P., C. P. and Bihar occur. Why not in the Punjab
and Bengal? And he asserts that these troubles are engineered by the Muslims
themselves.
SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. Or the Muslims will perhaps say
that their Government was very popular and there were no grievances and the Hindus fell in love with the Muslims.
NIRODBARAN: Huq has called the
Congress dishonest.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he is a judge of honesty or rather an expert!
PURANI: Sir Sikandar has gone to Bombay to see
Jinnah, perhaps for some compromise between Congress and the League, and
the Aga Khan also is starting for India. He too may try for some rapprochment.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is no use unless they can get rid of
Jinnah
from the League.
SATYENDRA:
The Sindh Premier is trying to get Congress
support for his Ministry but the Congress refuses. He is very anxious
and he remarks that the Congress is throwing him to the wolves,
meaning the League. But the Congress hesitates to give any support
for fear of alienating the sympathy of the people by taking sides.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is a
stupid folly of the Congress. By lending support they will, on the contrary, help the people.
PURANI: Some Madrasi has come to see X to learn Pranayama
from him as he has written a book on the subject. X replied by signs that
he has taken a vow of silence and couldn't teach. People will say that he is vowed to silence and yet has written so many books!
SRI AUROBINDO: The vow is
not supposed to apply to speaking through books. Carlyle not only wrote thirty-seven volumes but
also spoke profusely on the value of silence!
NIRODBARAN: Poets write poems on silence.
SRI AUROBINDO: In 1914 when the
Mother came here, there also came a Dutch painter who drew a sketch of me. At
the end of every meditation, he used to say, "Let us now talk of the Ineffable."
Then Purani brought in the subject of Sanskrit quotations.
SATYENDRA: Sri Aurobindo is not known by orthodox Pundits
as a philosopher, but as a Yogi.
NIRODBARAN: They say he doesn't know enough Sanskrit!
SRI AUROBINDO
(smiling): The editor of the Bengali paper
made that remark. He also said that I don't know enough about
sex; if I did, I wouldn't have started a mixed Ashram, because in a
mixed Ashram, sex-energy interferes.
EVENING
NIRODBARAN: There is a
lot of controversy going on regarding war aims. Have you seen Shaw's article? Is the declaration of war
aims now going to be helpful?
SRI AUROBINDO: Nonsense! How can war aims be declared
now? Who is going to agree at present to the idea of a federation of
Europe which Shaw is advocating? That is all the talk of intellectuals. Besides, Russia will want a Communist federation, Italy a
Fascist one, Rumania another form and some will even want a
federation of autarchy. I don't know that the German people themselves are keen about federation. Of course some form of it has to be
found afterwards.
We found nothing to talk about. So Purani suddenly
tried to set the ball
rolling by remarking, "Nirodbaran says his mind is getting dull and stupid."
Nirodbaran hissed and tried to stop him.
PURANI : He is threatening me. (Sri Aurobindo began to laugh.)
SRI AUROBINDO: It is perhaps a Jadabhava¹
NIRODBARAN: He has been putting all sorts of things into my
mouth.
PURANI: Why? You didn't say that?
NIRODBARAN: Yes, I did, but I didn't say the other thing the
other day. What I mean is that I seem to be going down to another
level of stupidity. It is not Jadabhava, because here only the mind is Jada and the rest is very active.
SRI AUROBINDO:
Then perhaps it is due to the effort of reading Kant and trying to understand him.
(Laughter)
¹state of inertia.
NIRODBARAN (after some time):
What does Blake mean by self annihilation?
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know, perhaps annihilation of the
ego.
NIRODBARAN: And by "identity" does he mean perception of
the One in all?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but that identity seems to include in it
all things, as held at the end of the Chhandogya Upanishad.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, Blake says that even physical love is quite
justified if there is love and if one perceives identity in the other. He
perceived identity in his wife but his wife didn't perceive this
identity. In that case what is the solution? Their life seems to have
been a tragedy because Blake loved someone else.
PURANI: I thought that they were a very happy pair.
SRI AUROBINDO:
I don't know why Middleton Murry says
that. His wife was an ordinary Christian and it took her a long time
to come to his standpoint. It was because she could not chime in
with him that there was the tragedy. All the Christian mystic poets
from Donne onward regard sex as permissible in the man-and-woman relation.
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