NIRODBARAN: There is a letter from Dr. Manilal.
SRI AUROBINDO: I see. What does he write?
NIRODBARAN: He says: "The Life Divine must now be in the press. So Sri Aurobindo must be having time to do the exercise I have recommended."
SRI AUROBINDO: Which exercise?
NIRODBARAN: Hanging the leg from above the knee-joint.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh! But my Life Divine is still hanging. I still have two chapters to labour at.
NIRODBARAN: There's another letter—from Anilbaran— regarding the people of the Gita Prachar Party who are coming to visit the Ashram. Somebody wants you to answer the question, "Is there any effect of repeating a sacred Name and doing Kirtan even unconsciously or unwillingly?" Tulsidas says there is.
SRI AUROBINDO: If it had been so easy, it would have been delightful.
Here we all cited stories in support of Tulsidas. Satyendra narrated Ajamil's story.
NIRODBARAN: What is the upshot then?
SRI AUROBINDO: It all depends on the psychic being. If the psychic being is touched and wakens and throws its influence on the other parts, then the Name-repeating will have an effect.
CHAMPAKLAL: Then mechanical repetition has no effect.
SRI AUROBINDO: If somehow it touches the psychic being, yes.
NIRODBARAN: In Kirtan, people easily go into Dasha (a kind of trance).
SRI AUROBINDO: There are other effects too—sometimes undesirable sexual ones. Very often the vital being, instead of the psychic, is roused.
EVENING
PURANI: Some people conjecture that Hore-Belisha has resigned because of his difference with the generals.
SRI AUROBINDO: But, isn't the War Ministry that directs the war policy?
PURANI: Lloyd George in his memoirs has severely criticised the military technicians . He says in the last war the generals didn't want to attack Germany from the South because it wasn't the right technique.
SRI AUROBINDO: In the last war the generals didn't come up to much. Only Foch and Petain stood out. Napolean had against him all the technician generals of Europe. That is why he could defeat them.
NIRODBARAN: Have you seen the latest New Statesman and Nation? John Mair condemns Huxley's After many a Summer as a witty parody thrown into the philosophical form.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then the criticism is no worse than Anthony West's. He doesn't admit even the wit. These people seem to dislike the present famous authors. Forster also, they say, is philosophical.
NIRODBARAN: Like Tagore, they don't seem to like intellectual novels; but Tagore's own novels are intellectual.
SRI AUROBINDO: Do people want stupid rather than intellectual novels to be written?
PURANI: Tagore in his novels analyses in detail the various psychologies which common people can't understand. Sarat Chatterji can be said to be non-intellectual writer.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, except for Shesh Prashna (The Last Question).
SRI AUROBINDO: His last novel?
NIRODBARAN: Yes; this book is seen differently by the two parties. One condemns it, the other praises it.
PURANI: So far as I have read, it doesn't appear to be very intellectual.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is not much of a thinker.
NIRODBARAN: He seems to have pleaded the cause of Western civilisation and made the arguments against it very weak. For instance, his heroine doesn't find anything grand in the conception behind the Taj Mahal.
SRI AUROBINDO: What is Western about this attitude of the heroine? If there is one thing the Europeans like in India, it is the Taj.
NIRODBARAN: I don't mean the architectural beauty. What the heroine ridicules is the ideal of immortal love.
SRI AUROBINDO: Even from that point of view, the Europeans like it. Love has a great place in their life.
NIRODBARAN: But love, in the sense of being faithful to one person alone, even if that person is dead—it is this that the heroine can't bear. Isn't this a European attitude?
PURANI: Sarat Chatterji advocates free marriage or no marriage. He is for free love, as far as I can understand.
SRI AUROBINDO: But why is free love European? In Europe no one advocates such an idea except a few intellectuals. If you want to abolish the marriage system, then the Europeans will raise a hue and cry.
Today we showed Sri Aurobindo the Amrita Bazar Patrika "Forecast of the Year" by one Capricornicus.
SRI AUROBINDO (after reading it): Hitler, it says, will be crushed in March; it may happen but there is no sign of it at present. Most of the things will happen, it seems, in the first quarter of the year.
NIRODBARAN: Congress will come to power again, it says.
SATYENDRA: Dominion Status is near perhaps. The Viceroy has promised that it will be established in the minimum amount of time but we must come to an agreement with the minorities. Is he a Scotsman?
PURANI: Yes, why?
SATYENDRA: He has donated Rs. 200 in Bombay. (Laughter)
PURANI: He is said to be a very good man, very polite, etc. Lalji met him in Bombay; he said that our Indian Princes are not like the old English aristocrats.
SRI AUROBINDO: The Princes are given a very bad education.
PURANI: Lalji says he is not so young as he looks in newspaper photos. He has given a ten-year-old block perhaps.
SRI AUROBINDO: He is doing like me. (Laughter)
Purani was shaking a finger from behind at Sri Aurobindo with much mirth.
SATYENDRA: Purani is very glad. Sir!
SRI AUROBINDO: Why?
PURANI: Because of that statement of yours.
SATYENDRA: People grumble about your photos.
PURANI : They say you look quite different when they see you at Darshan, they don't recognise you.
SRI AUROBINDO: Photos are not for recognition any more than the portraitures of modern painters. This man doesn't forecast anything about Russo-Finnish War. Perhaps it is too hazardous! But who is this Indian religious leader who is going to meet a violent death? Abul Kalam Azad?
PURANI: And who is the cinema star? Shanta Apte will again fast?
SRI AUROBINDO: And the director will kill her in a fit of rag (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: Some Dev, a friend of Mohini, has come to see the the Ashram.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is he one of the three brilliant students! P. C. Roy?
PURANI: He is a student of Meghnad Saha.
NIRODBARAN: He is a professor or lecturer of climatology in Calcutta University.
SRI AUROBINDO: He has come to study the climate?
NIRODBARAN: The climate of the Ashram perhaps.
EVENING
CHAMPAKLAL: It seems the Bengali professor was very much impressed by the meditation. He said, "I know now what meditation is." After the meditation he couldn't move, it seems. He a made pranam to Anilbaran.
Sri Aurobindo smiled when he heard that the man had made pranam to Anilbaran, and looked at Champaklal.
CHAMPAKLAL: Yes, he touched his feet, I am told.
NIRODBARAN: Oh, that is the Bengali manner.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is very common in Bengal. They do that to an elderly or a respectable person. It doesn't mean that he is doing it because Anilbaran is a big Yogi.
CHAMPAKLAL: But in our parts they very rarely do it. If they do pranam like that, it means only one thing. It is a sign of great respect.
SATYENDRA: It is done commonly among Sadhus.
CHAMPAKLAL: In Gujarat?
SATYENDRA: Yes, why do you doubt it?
CHAMPAKLAL: I didn't know it.
SATYENDRA: In the circles I have moved I saw it done.
SRI AUROBINDO (after a while and looking at Satyendra): You have read the forecast?
SATYENDRA: Yes, Sir.
SRI AUROBINDO: How do you find it?
SATYENDRA: It is too vague throughout. He speaks of a secret socialistic movement in England and India.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't find anything secret about it. Everybody knows of it.
SATYENDRA : Yes, I thought first he meant some secret organisation. But it is not so. He also speaks of Congress coming to power again. There may be some truth there.
SRI AUROBINDO: How?
SATYENDRA: Because of the Viceroy's statement. Some people seem to take it as an advance upon his previous statement.
NIRODBARAN: Because he has said that Dominion Status will be given as soon as possible?
SRI AUROBINDO: Within the minimum time, though what the minimum time is nobody knows.
SATYENDRA: Yes, that is something new though he has asked the leaders to come to an agreement with the minorities.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he has moved a little.
SATYENDRA: There is something else too.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh yes, that point about India's Dominion Status being equivalent to the Westminster Act?
SATYENDRA: Yes, and then he has agreed to give a few seats to the leaders in his Assembly.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is another concession, in place of his previous panel system.
SATYENDRA: But the minority problem is not the only obstacle. He also speaks of the Scheduled Castes.
SRI AUROBINDO: You mean the Rajas?
SATYENDRA: Yes and then the Princes.
SRI AUROBINDO: Let us see how. He has conceded, though it does not come to much, that Dominion Status will be given within a minimum time if we come to an agreement with the Muslims Rajas and Princes.
NIRODBARAN: I think he has declared these little conecessions in order to prevent Congress from precipitating into action.
SRI AUROBINDO: Possibly.
SATYENDRA: This man has made one good hit about the date— about the change of British Ministry between 5th and 10th January.
SRI AUROBINDO: About the change of Ministry, there is nothing remarkable. In war-time there are always these reshufflings and changes. The date has been a bit of good luck.
SATYENDRA: He must have heard from somebody.
SRI AUROBINDO: He doesn't mention any other date except Hitler's fall in March and Congress coming to power in March..
PURANI: One of the members of the Gita Prachar Party is a Shankarite. He asked me why we don't recognise Shankara's philosophy. I told him, "We recognise it but we also hold that it is only truth. There are other aspects of the Truth." He says, Yoga is one of surrender. Is surrender a Bhava (feeling) or a Kriya.(action)?"
SRI AUROBINDO: You should have said, "It is Bhava and Kriya and everything else."
PURANI : He says there can't be Bhava without a Bhavuka (one who feels), or Kriya without Karta (doer) so perhaps it is Bodha (understanding). I said there can't be Bodha without a Bodhaka who understands).
SRI AUROBINDO: And there can't be surrender without surrender.
PURANI: I told him not to try to understand what this or that is, but to try to feel something here.
Nirodbaran read out Nolini Sen's letter to Sri Aurobindo, wherein he has written that he can't remember anything he reads. He is very elated to hear that Guru has called him an intellectual. He doesn't know how he is one.
SRI AUROBINDO: I have not used the word in the sense of intellectuality, neither have I made that statement as a result of seeing his translation of his wife's letter. "Intellectual" does not mean that one should be able to remember things. He is taking it in the sense of being educated. Nor have I used it in the sense of "clear mind".
NIRODBARAN: Nishikanto says he has changed the rhythm of his poem and avoided compound words as far as possible. I don't know who told him about it.
SRI AUROBINDO: He used too many compounds, making it seem like Sanskrit. (To Purani) What is the name of that Indian whom Raman mentions in his address?
SATYENDRA: It is Dr. Krishna perhaps.
SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps. I don't remember the name. Raman mentions him as the first to experiment with the Cavendish cyclotron.
PURANI: Yes, it is he. He is a doctor of science of Madras University and was sent by Raman to England. There is a lot of research now going on in India; of course there is nothing epoch-making. In some places, they are going only into details. In the Punjab they are working on the solubility of dyes.
SRI AUROBINDO: They can do some research on the beard too: what are the different varieties and colours and what makes it long or short, or they may try to find out what is the cause of Nirodbaran's baldness. (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: The cause won't do.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why? One must know the cause first.
NIRODBARAN: Oh, they have found out many causes but no cure. That is what is wanted and I don't think they will find out any cure.
SATYENDRA: I read the story of a vendor of patent drugs for baldness. Somebody asked him, "Why then are you bald?" He replied, "My baldness is there to advertise drugs against hairiness; it is to show the ladies how to get rid of the hair which they don't want to show through their short sleeves." (Laughter)
PURANI: It seems Mahadev Desai has asked for a copy of The life Divine.
NIRODBARAN: For Gandhi?
PURANI: No, for himself. He doesn't think that in the strict sense Gandhi has any spiritual experience or knowledge. Desai has his own Guru.
SRI AUROBINDO: One won't get anything spiritual unless o recognises that one's ideas are only ideas.
EVENING
PURANI: Nolini had a strange experience.
SRI AUROBINDO: What was it?
PURANI: Dilip brought a retired Bengali judge to introduce him to Nolini. The judge is a member of the Gita Prachar Party. The man looked at Nolini for an instant and then suddenly embraced and kissed him; then he said, "I have read your writings and I like them very much." Nolini was so surprised.
SRI AUROBINDO: Nolini didn't return the kiss? He should have returned the compliment. (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: If X were paid a compliment like that for his writings, he would be in ecstasy.
SRI AUROBINDO: Nolini could have said, "I am flattered by your reading my books."
NIRODBARAN: There is again another hitch in Bengal between Congress and Sarat Bose over the Bengal Congress parliament fund. Rajendra Prasad has asked Bose to hand over the fund to Congress Parliamentary Committee and to have the accounts audited by some auditing company employed by Rajendra Prasad. Bose takes it as an insult and as loss of confidence in him. He wants to know why they have suddenly taken that step.
SRI AUROBINDO: But, I suppose, Congress can do that because the money really belongs to their fund. They don't suspect that Bose will swallow that money. He has plenty himself.
NIRODBARAN: No, they don't suspect that. I think they fear that the Bengal Congress Committee may try to get that money. It has already passed such a resolution and Rajendra Prasad has especially asked Bose not to hand over that money to the Bengal Congress Committee. In any case, Bose is hurt because he takes it personally as a lack of confidence in him and especially now when they want to have the accounts audited.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why? Congress regularly gets all accounts of its branches checked by its auditors. Accounts have to be checked. That is the only way to keep the politicians straight.
NIRODBARAN: Bose's point is that it is a method suddenly adopted by the President and it discredits the regular auditors of
the Bengal Congress Committee and the whole thing has been done without telling him anything.
SRI AUROBINDO: What is there to mind about it? I suppose the Working Committee has the power to do such things. These people mix up social questions with politics.
PURANI: I don't know why he should object to showing the accounts. If you are sincere, the accounts will prove that. That was one strong point of VaIlabhbhai. Whenever his enemies asked him to show the accounts, he was always ready.
SRI AUROBINDO: There has been a lot of misappropriation of money. A strong check is absolutely necessary. If Congress had not exercised it, its funds would have been in a much sorrier state.
NIRODBARAN: Now from your non-committal answer Nishikanto understood that there was something wrong with his rhythm. (Sri Aurobindo began to smile when he heard this.) He was depressed for three days. He has now rewritten it.
After a long time I read an appreciation of X's new novel by a man who counts. He says it is not a novel in the conventional sense. It may be called an "intellectual novel". He has praised X's insight and his power of analysis, but at the same time he says that X has fallen victim to that power by overuse, so that it becomes monotonous and fatiguing to the reader.
SRI AUROBINDO: Do X's novels have a good sale?
NIRODBARAN: Well, his own publishers say they have a pretty small sale, while another firm says they sell very well. I personally think intellectual novels can't be popular.
SRI AUROBINDO: Somebody has said that X expresses all his psychology through the mouths of his characters in dialogue form and there is little left of the story itself. That is the difficulty with intellectual novels. They may have a lot of analysis and acute discussion but lack the life-push. And it is always difficult to put this life-push in dialogue form. Novels without the life-push cannot grip the public as a whole. It is not that stories with the life-push have no intellectual theme. Both can go together; but the intellectual theme is now enmeshed in the story itself and does not stick out. I understand Proust was an intellectual novelist.
NIRODBARAN: X puts in a lot of incidents and most of characters are rich people.
SRI AUROBINDO: There may be a lot of incidents, but everything depends on how they are put in.
PURANI: Nowadays there is an attempt to write novels about the common people, the masses—socialistic novels.
SRI AUROBINDO: But the Socialists themselves have got tired of such novels.
PURANI: These books try to be realistic, depicting things as they actually are.
SRI AUROBINDO: They often exaggerate things.
SATYENDRA (after a lull): Some of the members of the Gita Prachar Party have died on a pilgrimage.
SRI AUROBINDO: Died?
SATYENDRA: Yes, Sir. They consider it a great virtue to have such a death—death while on a pilgrimage. They are all well-to-do people.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, then they can afford to die. (Laughter)
EVENING
NIRODBARAN: This old judge who has come here seems to a typical Bengali. He said that Y has some high realisations. He saw A on the way and declared that she had established peace in herself.
SATYENDRA: Didn't he want to meet N?
SRI AUROBINDO: N is a Buddhist. The judge should have been told that. He would have said to N, "I see Buddha in your face. Somebody should have told the judge, "By your ready embrace seems you have realised Bhakti." He should have been given so compliments, too.
NIRODBARAN: X is not able to get rid of his age-old idea that Y and Z are not doing your Yoga.
SRI AUROBINDO: How is that? What is his reason for thinking so?
NIRODBARAN: He says they don't mix with people, don't behave well with people, they are not courteous or sociable.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is sociableness part of my Yoga?
NIRODBARAN: I don't think he goes so far as to say that. His grievance is that they are not easy in their behaviour with others. If he makes some allowance for Y, he yet sees no excuse for Z. "Z", he
Pge-354
says, "lives in seclusion, isolation, which is not the aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga."
SRI AUROBINDO: But I myself live in isolation!
NIRODBARAN: You do it for a special purpose, he will contend.
SRI AUROBINDO: Z's isolation also may be a part of his Yoga. Besides, he has isolated himself with the consent of the Mother. And what is meant by "Sri Aurobindo's Yoga"?
PURANI: Different people have different temperaments and isolation may be a temporary necessity for Z.
CHAMPAKLAL: But he is not really isolated. He talks with many people, jokes and laughs freely.
NIRODBARAN: X asks why Z shouldn't be free and easy with people. He quotes one instance. Z, it seems, went to the length of writing five or six pages to someone on some difficulty in Yoga when he could have cleared it up by half an hour or less of talk.
SRI AUROBINDO: If he wrote, perhaps he thought that was the best way. By writing, things are cleared up more easily than by talking. If Y and Z are not doing my Yoga, then who is doing it?
NIRODBARAN: Exactly what I said.
SRI AUROBINDO (after a pause): X claims to be a psychologist. Why doesn't he understand that temperaments differ with people? Y and Z may be all he says, but what I object to is bringing my Yoga in. My Yoga cannot be rigidly formulated like that. Even if Y hadn't been doing Yoga, he wouldn't have run after people.
NIRODBARAN: Have you seen Amal's recent article "Can Indians Write English Poetry?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. He has paid a compliment to the Ashram. He has said that there is a growing band of gifted poets here. Perhaps he is paying a compliment to himself! (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: He says one must know English prose in order to write English poetry.
SRI AUROBINDO: The English language rather.
NIRODBARAN: Suresh Dev was Vishuddhananda's disciple, it seems.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then how could he say he didn't know what meditation was?
NIRODBARAN: That is what I asked Yogananda.
SRI AUROBINDO: I wondered how he could have had that experience he spoke of if he had not done meditation before.
NIRODBARAN: Perhaps he hadn't such a decisive experience as it seems.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is Vishuddhananda dead?
NIRODBARAN: Yes.
SATYENDRA: What were his methods?
NIRODBARAN: A book I read about him was full of the miracles he used to do.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is it he who is said to have brought out jewels from his body?
NIRODBARAN: Yes, he spoke of doing some experiment with the sun's rays and called it Suryavijnana (Solar Science).
PURANI: Yes, he seems to have started a laboratory to utilise the sun's rays for material and spiritual purposes, but the laboratory was not completed.
SRI AUROBINDO: Material purposes possible, but how spiritual?
PURANI: I don't know.
SRI AUROBINDO: If he wanted to remove some physical obstacles in the body that prevent the inner opening, that may be possible. Or was it by changing the secretion of the glands?
PURANI: The glands have now gone out of fashion, perhaps.
NIRODBARAN: No, they-are still going strong. Plenty of researches are still being done.
SRI AUROBINDO: Possibly after some time they will also be quite antiquated.
PURANI: Yes, the researchers may even say the glands don't exist.
SRI AUROBINDO: When I began taking an interest in science, scientists used to believe in a material Monism and Determinism Now they speak of Indeterminism, Pluralism and the Quantum Theory. Now they say electrons are the basis of Matter. One or two decades hence, they will find that electrons are no longer the basis.
PURANI (after a pause): I was looking through Father Heras'
pamphlet on the Mohenjodaro script. He says that the sign looking
somewhat like an open bracket stands for the Tamil kal and that the
opposite sign stands for lak —and together they mean "union".
Page-356
SRI AUROBINDO: If you set your mind to it, you can make up any theory.
SRI AUROBINDO (beginning the talk):
Have you seen the prophecy by a "Seeker of Truth" in today's paper? He says that
Congress will come to power on 16th January. There will be
peace in India and then peace in the world. The war will stop. He
gives a definite date. He has the courage of his convictions.
NIRODBARAN: Peace in India will lead to peace in the world?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, through Gandhi, I suppose, and perhaps Gandhi will be accepted as the saviour of the world!
SATYENDRA: There are only two days more. I asked a friend
what had become of N. C. Vakil's horoscope.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes?
PURANI: He writes that Vakil is very busy with a very important
thing, which is that his cat has fallen ill and then his wife and other
relatives, and he has tried homeopathy on them all.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, his cat is the most important thing for
him?
PURANI: His wife also is occupying his attention. She is worried
because of the war. She is English. She is thinking of her relatives at
home.
SRI AUROBINDO: He can then make a horoscope of the war
and tell how the relatives will be affected by it.
NIRODBARAN: I was wondering how he could be so busy with
a cat, but when Purani said he has an English wife it became clear to
me.
SRI AUROBINDO: How? She belongs to the same species, you
mean? (Laughter)
PURANI: I wrote back that now Vakil would have to make a
horoscope for the reading of his horoscope.
SRI AUROBINDO: That is to say?
PURANI : Judging by the present circumstances, the stars have all
changed. Everything is in a muddle.
After this Purani brought in again the issue of the Mohenjodaro script. Sri
Aurobindo said that the linguistic scheme built up by the Roman Catholic father
seemed
to be a play of imagination.
NIRODBARAN: There is a difference of opinion between A and
P regarding something A has written. The sentence is: "What we
give in dross we get back in gold." A means that even if our
devotion, our love for the Divine, is not pure at the beginning,
the Divine accepts them and gives the rewards. Purani is unable to
accept it. Purani says, "The sentence should begin: 'What we give
up as dross...' "
SRI AUROBINDO (after a little while): Well?
NIRODBARAN: "Well? Which is correct?
SRI AUROBINDO: It may be either. A has written it and he
knows what he means.
CHAMPAKLAL: I think A wants to know whether what he says
is a fact. K was telling me — she studies with P — that she understood it
in A's sense while Purani doesn't agree. Purani says it can't be true.
SRI AUROBINDO: Does Purani mean to say that only when one
is perfect the Divine will accept the offering and give the reward?
Then it would be very difficult for any human being. A is quite
correct and it is a fact. Human nature is imperfect and impure.
Whatever one offers at the beginning will be flawed because it is
an offering of an inferior nature: the Divine accepts it and gives His
response.
NIRODBARAN: X will now withdraw his objection against Z,
which we discussed yesterday.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why?
NIRODBARAN: He met him yesterday at a social function at M's
place. How can he say now that Z is not doing your Yoga?
CHAMPAKLAL: I hear
X also had an hour's interview with Z.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then he may have thrashed out the question. But what the objection is I don't understand. Z is doing my
Yoga in his own way. All people haven't the same nature.
Everybody has his own way of doing my Yoga.
NIRODBARAN: If you put it that way, I suppose he won't have
any objection. Only he won't call it your Yoga. He seems to say that
in your Yoga you stress the acceptance of life.
SRI AUROBINDO: We don't accept life as it is. In that case what
is the use of the Ashram? We may as well be at Calcutta. Does X
object to Z's seclusion?
NIRODBARAN: Yes, and also Z doesn't do any work.
SRI AUROBINDO: But Y, to whom has also X objected, has
heavy work to do. There are other disciples who are not doing any
direct work for the Ashram. What about them?
NIRODBARAN: From his point of view they are not doing your
Yoga.
SATYENDRA: Work or no work, the chief thing is somehow to realise the Divine. Each may do it according to his own way.
SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so.
NIRODBARAN: But then one can realise God in utter seclusion.
That won't be this Yoga.
SATYENDRA: Sri Aurobindo's Yoga will begin after the realisation.
NIRODBARAN: There is another charge we hear very often
from some people. They say that they don't find any outward sign
of progress even in people who have been staying here and doing
Yoga for ten to fifteen years.
SRI AUROBINDO:
Have they the vision to see the inner progress?
NIRODBARAN: But there should be some sign in the outer
being. They say they are just as angry, jealous, egoistic as other
people.
SRI AUROBINDO:
These things belong to the outer being and
they are the last to change. That doesn't mean that there is no inner
progress or experience.
NIRODBARAN: Nothing should be visible outside? In Ramana Maharshi, for instance, they say one can see or feel peace, calm, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is there nobody in the Ashram who is quiet
and peaceful?
SATYENDRA: In the world also you find people who are not
jealous, who are peaceful, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: How will you know then without inner
perception? Maurice Magre saw peace and inner beauty in many
faces, which he didn't see outside the Ashram. For us it is nothing
compared to what is yet to be done. All the same, it is something. I
see light in many people here which I don't see in worldly people.
NIRODBARAN: They say about Z also that they don't find any
sign by which he can be said to have made any progress.
SRI AUROBINDO: But every time I see him I see the stamp of a
Yogi on him. Of course he is not a Siddha but one who is doing Yoga.
PURANI: It is not always easy to make out, especially in
people who follow an ordinary profession. I met Lele; nobody
could say that he was a Yogi. He moved about just like an ordinary
man.
SRI AUROBINDO: One must have the vision. There are signs
also, signs in the eyes and face, which one must know.
SATYENDRA: Yes, one must have the vision. But for a long
time, I hear, you have been dealing with the physical. So there
should be some reflection in the outer.
SRI AUROBINDO:
The physical means the physical consciousness. When that work is done, the effect may be seen on the outer
physical.
NIRODBARAN: But something may be reflected before the final
achievement?
SRI AUROBINDO: May be or may not.
CHAMPAKLAL: Many thefts are committed in the Ashram. Do
you know who the thief is? Or perhaps you don't want to know
and wish to play the part of Ignorance?
SRI AUROBINDO: Why would I know? It is not my work. It is
the concern of the police. You are asking like those who ask me
about the share-market or horse-racing in Bombay.
CHAMPAKLAL: The Mother said she is much bothered by these
thefts. She wants to know—
SRI AUROBINDO: Does she?
CHAMPAKLAL: She sees and knows many things-
SRI AUROBINDO:
Yes, she sees many things that she doesn't
want to see. It doesn't mean that she will see this too. We are not
concerned with it and she does not use her inner power for these
things.
CHAMPAKLAL: Then it is not that you can't know; only
you are not concerned with it. That is what I wanted to find
out.
SRI AUROBINDO (after
some time): What is the result of the
conference between the two great powers—X and Z? (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: I don't know. I haven't met X.
I meet him only
once a week.
PURANI: Then he will complain about you too.
NIRODBARAN: On the contrary, it is he who is not available
now.
PURANI : Then he is
not doing Sri Aurobindo's Yoga either.
Page-360
PURANI:
Vakil has written a letter. SRI
AUROBINDO: What does he
say? PURANI:
He was for a long time suffering from boils, he says. After homeopathy had
failed, he went to a surgeon who cured him. Other troubles too were there.
SRI
AUROBINDO: I hope it is not
the result of meddling with my horoscope, like Manilal who meddled with my knee.
(Laughter) PURANI:
I read in Kalyan that somebody has conquered death. SRI
AUROBINDO: Conquered death?
How? PURANI:
He knew exactly when he was going to die and he died at the very date and hour.
How is that a conquest of death, I wonder. SRI
AUROBINDO: That is knowing
the date of death, not conquest. PURANI:
They write that he was, according to his own calculation, to die on a certain
day but it was found that that day was inauspicious, so he postponed his death
to a few days later and on that day he died. So they say he conquered death.
SRI
AUROBINDO: Conquest of
death is prolongation of life, not the knowing of the date of death. That many
people know. Kasherao Jadhav's father died according to the exact date and
moment predicted by an astrologer.
PURANI:
Dayananda Saraswati also had control over his death. He was poisoned by his cook
at the instigation of a Maharaja's concubine. Dayananda was the Guru of this
Maharaja and he rebuked the Maharaja for his passion and his running after
women. So this concubine was enraged and tried to poison him. He was poisoned
many times before this but somehow he knew in time and used to vomit out the
poison. But this time he was off his guard. The doctor examined his blood and
said that it was humanly impossible for anyone to be alive with such a big
quantity of poison in his blood. But Dayananda controlled his whole system. What
happened after some days was that eruptions came out all over his body and he
died as a result. He came to know about the cook and asked him to leave the
place. Otherwise he would have been caught and punished.
Page - 361
SRI
AUROBINDO: Sakaria Swami also
had Yogic control. One day he saw a mad dog coming towards him. He held out his
hand for the dog to bite. After the bite he didn't allow the poison go into the
system but localised it. When the Surat Congress was over, he got exited and
thus lost control and the poison spread in his body. He got hydrophobia and
couldn't drink water. He said "What is this nonsense? I, who was a trooper in
the Mutiny and drank water from the puddles, can't drink water?" He drank water
and died. SATYENDRA:
Could he exercise that control in sleep also? SRI
AUROBINDO: Yes, Barin knew
him . At one time he was his disciple. SATYENDRA:
Yes, Barin has written about him. SRI
AUROBINDO: Bejoy Goswmi
also was poisoned by sannyasins but by the process called stambhan he controlled
the effect, they say. SATYENDRA:
Barin speaks of Lele also. He recounts how Lele warned him against terrorism. SRI AUROBINDO:
Doesn't he speak of the ditch? And do you know the story of how he was asked to
cut his tongue loose from the lower palate? PURANI: They do
that in Khechari Mudra. SRI AUROBINDO:
Yes, he simply refused. They said, "You Bengali coward!" He replied, "Bengali
or no Bengali,
I am not doing it." (Laughter) PURANI: But
this Mudra is very dangerous unless one's vital being is pure. SRI AUROBINDO:
I am afraid Barin's wasn't quite pure! (Laughter) PURANI: (After
some time): To go back to X and Z: X said to Z that he could remain without
company, etc., like Z. This is rather a compliment to Z. NIRODBARAN:
It seems people from outside are at once impressed by Z but not by Y. Only after
they have had a talk with him they are much impressed.
SRI AUROBINDO:
That is partly due to appearance. Z has an impressive appearance. Y has a wide
and subtle mind. (After a while) He has remarkable mind-original.
EVENING
15 JANUARY 1940
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JANUARY 1940