|
6 JANUARY 1940
SATYENDRA: There are plenty of advertisements for curing baldness, but the problem remains. Perhaps Nirodbaran can discover something. NIRODBARAN: I may when I get my intuition opened or when the Supermind opens. SATYENDRA: The Supermind opening is a long affair. SRI AUROBINDO: Intuition would be easier to get. PURANI: If one gets the Supermind, there will be no need to find anything out. NIRODBARAN: Yes, the hair will grow itself. There will be a change in every cell. PURANI: You will be all golden, I suppose. SRI AUROBINDO: As they say in the Upanishad, the Supreme Being with the golden beard, etc. When Sri Aurobindo was lying down, Nirodbaran read to him a letter from Tagore to Sahana on mystic poetry. NIRODBARAN: Tagore says: "Mostly we see that those whose spiritual realisation is new cannot express that new experience in the simple and easy old ways. In their manner of expression there is something laboured." SRI AUROBINDO: That is not true. If there is any obscurity in a truly mystic poem, it is because the poet tries to express faithfully his extraordinary vision, what he has inwardly seen. Others may find difficulty in understanding it, but it is not consciously written with a view to making it unintelligible. It is not a laboured work. On the contrary, if one tries to make it easily intelligible it becomes laboured. NIRODBARAN: Tagore goes on: "The sculptor who erects a chapel does it on the common soil. He does not think that unless he constructs it on Kanchanjunga his art is in vain." SRI AUROBINDO: Can't he have a private chapel of his own wherever he wants it? NIRODBARAN: Besides, does an artist have all these motives and plans beforehand? SRI AUROBINDO: No. He creates moved by an inner urge. What else does the letter say? NIRODBARAN: One who has tasted heaven, if he is an artist, will build this paradise on the earth which is accessible to all and
Page-333
make ordinary clay heavenly. Language is a vessel meant to be enjoyed by all. Even if ambrosia is served, it must be in this common vessel." SRI AUROBINDO: The artist can base his poem on heaven: why necessarily on earth? Does Tagore mean to say that everybody understands or appreciates all poetry? How many appreciate Milton and other great poets? Besides, one must have the power of understanding. NIRODBARAN: Tagore further writes about the Ashram poets; "Among you, Nishikanto alone has proved his easy mastery over language." SRI AUROBINDO: That is a different matter from writing with easy intelligibility for everybody. NIRODBARAN: Why does he want us to follow the simple and easy old ways — the beaten track? SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps poets when they grow very old want old ways to be followed? PURANI: But Tagore has himself gone off the beaten track. And what about his prose-poetry? What age-old way is there in it? In Gujarat, Kalelkar and Gandhi also say the same thing-that poetry must be for the masses. Kalelkar says that even the Ramayana was written for them. SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! PURANI: Yes, Kalelkar explains that Valmiki used to go from cottage to cottage reciting the Ramayana and that when the epic was finished the Rishis presented him with a Kamandalu (water pot), a Kaupin (loin-cloth) and a Parnakutir (thatched hut) SRI AUROBINDO: But the Rishis were not the common people and they had retired from ordinary society. Kalelkar's is an entirely unheard-of interpretation of the Ramayana. PURANI: He claims to have found evidence in the poem itself for his theory. SRI AUROBINDO: Where is it said in the Ramayana? If Valmiki meant it for the masses he kept his meaning a secret. Nor did he recite it to the masses. There were the professional reciters who carried it from door to door and popularised it. That is a different thing. PURANI: At the Ahmedabad Literary Conference, Gandhi as President asked, "What has literature done for the man who draws water from the well?"
SRI AUROBINDO: How much has the President done? The man is still drawing water! (Laughter) Do the masses understand Kalelkar's own writings? PURANI: Not quite. Gandhi alone can be said to be understood by them. NIRODBARAN: All this seems to be an attempt by people to apply the principle of democracy everywhere. But it is democracy in terms of socialism and communism. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. PURANI: Tagore has also taken up the cry now, but formerly he was not quite for the common man. SRI AUROBINDO: I suppose he has further developed his idea of the Vishwa-manava (universal man). But, truly speaking, the universal man includes the best as well as the worst, the highest no less than the lowest, whereas the Jana-sadharana, (common man) appears to leave out the best and highest. NIRODBARAN: But Tagore's literary works—for example, his novels - can hardly be appreciated by the masses. In that sense, Sarat Chandra Chatterji can be considered more successful in living up to the democratic ideal. PURANI: In Hindi, somebody wrote on art recently under the title "Kasmai Devaya?" ("To What God?") and said, "Janardana", the God of the people. But in practice only "the people" are insisted on; "God" is left out of the account. Possibly there is the echo here of Vivekananda's idea of serving Daridranarayana (God the Poor). NIRODBARAN: Vivekananda did perhaps see Narayana in the Daridra. SRI AUROBINDO: But ordinarily, in the man drawing water from the well, people hardly have the vision of the Divine at work: they see only the peasant. PURANI: Kalelkar says that substance is more important than form in art. He gives the analogy of the vessel and the food in it, and emphasises that the food is the real thing. I don't understand how in art the two can be separated. SRI AUROBINDO: This is something like Tagore's ambrosia and the earthen vessel. But there can't be art without form. If substance alone counts, we don't have art. An artist has to give a body to his vision, which is the soul of his art; but in art you can't take soul and body as separate things. Those images—food and
vessel — can be applied to physical processes, not to any inner process like art creation. PURANI: When Valmiki had the vision, he was busier giving form to it than going from cottage to cottage and popularising the Ramayana. By the way, there is a point made by someone about Vyasa and his Mahabharata. He says that Vyasa was greater than Sri Krishna because he had universal sympathy: Vyasa expresses his sympathy with every character he created in the Mahabharata. SRI AUROBINDO: Where does Vyasa say that? This looks like Valmiki's intention to write for the masses. Both poets have kept their meaning a secret! As for Vyasa's universal sympathy, one has to understand an important distinction in art. Every creator has to identify himself with his characters in order to make them live and bring out their essential points. This doesn't mean that he has sympathy with each and every character created. Homer put many good things into his Hector's mouth. But his sympathy was, if at all anywhere, on the side of Achilles.
A few days ago Nirodbaran showed to Sri Aurobindo Nishikanto's new poem in mantra-vritta blank verse, a new experiment. SRI AUROBINDO: How do you find the rhythm? NIRODBARAN: It seems all right. How do you find it? SRI AUROBINDO: I can't say as I am not familiar with this chhanda (rhythm and metre). NIRODBARAN: I asked Dilip today what he thought about Nishikanto's new chhanda. Nishikanto had told me Dilip had found it very successful. Dilip said, "It is a misrepresentation. Please tell Guru about it. (Laughter) I told him that his overflows were very good but here and there there was roughness. I gave him a hint but he didn't take it." SRI AUROBINDO: I also had the impression that there was much weightage and crowding of things. NIRODBARAN: I also thought there must be something wrong. Otherwise you wouldn't have asked me. (Laughter) Dilip says that
Page-336
when Nishikanto tries to do something consciously he makes mistakes. He is trying many new things. SRI AUROBINDO: He is trying to put force and strength into his poetry. One has to be very careful when trying new things that they don't become heavy. He has a remarkable gift of rhythm, hasn't he? NIRODBARAN: Yes. I had again a talk with D about effort and told him about your emphasis on effort. He was very glad. He says Krishnaprem also lays stress on effort and that people, according to Krishnaprem, justify their supine laziness by saying they rely only on the Grace. "What is this idea," D says, "that Mother and Sri Aurobindo will do everything for us and we have only to look up at their faces?" (Laughter) SATYENDRA: But there is no guarantee either that by effort we shall realise the Divine. A sloka in the Upanishad says: "The Self gives realisation to those whom the Self chooses." SRI AUROBINDO: But it also says later on that one can't get realisation without effort. NIRODBARAN: Effort alone may not lead to realisation. Grace is necessary. But all the same there is no Grace without effort. A little contradictory! SATYENDRA: There are cases where people have got realisation without effort. Suddenly they got brilliant experiences and that opened them to higher planes. NIRODBARAN: Dilip challenges anybody to show a single example. SATYENDRA: Why? What about Ramana Maharshi? NIRODBARAN: I thought he had to make a tremendous effort. He himself says he did forty years' meditation sitting in one fixed place. SATYENDRA: That was after the realisation which came suddenly and then the experience itself pulled up his lower consciousness into the higher. SRI AUROBINDO: There are cases where the opening may come suddenly, or there is a certain passage from one consciousness to another. NIRODBARAN: But the opening may close again. SRI AUROBINDO: Not if it is a definitive experience. It remains permanently. If there is only a glimpse it can close up. In my own case, I got a definitive experience in three days quite suddenly. That was not the result of effort.
NIRODBARAN: But you must have been making effort before. SRI AUROBINDO: Not for this result. Lele asked me to silence the mind and throw away the thoughts if they came. I did it-in three days — and the result was that the whole being became quiet and in seven days I got the Nirvanic experience which remained with me for a long time. I couldn't have got, out of it even if I had wanted to. Even afterwards, this experience remained in the background in the midst of all my activities. NIRODBARAN: You must have been doing some Yoga. SRI AUROBINDO: All I was doing was Pranayama for two years and the only result of it was good health and a lot of poetry. As that didn't satisfy me, I went in search of people who could help me. CHAMPAKLAL: What does Dilip mean by effort? Effort maybe the result of Grace. Formerly Nirodbaran was unable to meditate, now he can because of the Grace. NIRODBARAN: I don't deny the Grace but I say that effort is also necessary for the Grace to be effective. From Champaklal's standpoint the fact of my being alive is the result of Grace. I don't refute this. SRI AUROBINDO: Kanai may say his Asanas are also the result of Grace, so also Dilip's mental Asanas! NIRODBARAN: If effort is not necessary, why does Sri Aurobindo bombard me for being lazy, for being leisurely, etc.? CHAMPAKLAL: I can give you an opposite answer. The Mother said that one must have complete reliance on the Divine Grace and the Grace will do everything. PURANI: Even that reliance requires effort. NIRODBARAN: In Champaklal's case it may be complete reliance but in my case Sri Aurobindo will ask me to make effort. SATYENDRA: Sri Aurobindo's answers are contradictory; his legal acumen nobody can question. (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Plenty of people complain about it. They say he says one thing to one man and quite the opposite to another, (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: Naturally, what else do they expect? SATYENDRA: That, I suppose, regards your answering letters; there are no such contradictions in your philosophy. SRI AUROBINDO: No, there one has to deal with general principles.
CHAMPAKLAL: There are persons who see visions and have experiences as soon as they start Yoga. Others have to wait and wait. SRI AUROBINDO : Quite true; wait, as Satyendra says, for forty years. You may go on making effort for a long time without any result and when you have given up all effort, suddenly you get the result. But the result is not due to the effort, but to the Grace. NIRODBARAN: Dilip may come to realise that after all effort is not everything. Grace is necessary and without it effort has no value. SRI AUROBINDO: But he believes in Grace. He himself said that it was by the Grace that he was saved in that accident. NIRODBARAN: Yes, he did say that, but at present effort has come to the front. SRI AUROBINDO: One day he will find that his mind has become quiet and he has started getting experiences. Not that he had no experiences before. His body used to be absolutely still at one time and he felt the peace. PURANI: Yes, when he was meditating with the Mother. CHAMPAKLAL (when Sri Aurohindo was lying in bed after his sponging): What is then meant by complete reliance on the Divine Grace? SRI AUROBINDO: It means what it says. (Laughter) CHAMPAKLAL: No, no, I am asking a question. SRI AUROBINDO: I am also answering. (Laughter) You know what is meant by reliance and what is meant by complete. CHAMPAKLAL: Then how does effort come in? SRI AUROBINDO: Even if you make effort, you rely on the Grace for the result. (After a pause) If you have to run a race you run the race but the result does not depend on the running. You have to rely on the Grace for the result. The same is the case with medicines. One of my cousins (Krishna Kumar Mitra's daughter) was on the point of death due to typhoid. Nil Ratan and everybody else gave up hope and said, "The only thing is to pray." They prayed; after the prayer they found that her consciousness had revived and she was all right. I was at Baroda at that time. They wired to me about her hopeless condition. And then there is what happened to Madhavrao's son. He was dying; the doctors had given up hope. Madhavrao wired to them to stop medicines all and pray to God. They did it and the son was cured. I know this as a fact. Madhavrao himself showed me the telegram.
PURANI: In your first quotation on Dawn in The Life Divine Anilbaran finds a contradiction. He says, how can there be a dawn if there is an eternal succession of dawns? I told him that it is the first for those who awaken to it. SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): It is like the hen's egg. It is the first for those who are coming and last for those who are passing. The world also has no beginning and no end. Yet they speak of the world as being created. PURANI: He was also asking about the three births of Agni. First we thought it was Agni born in the physical, vital and mental. After looking it up, I found it was the three supreme births. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is the birth of Agni above in the Infinite. PURANI: He referred to Sayana and found that the three are Indra, Vayu and Agni. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, if he goes by Sayana, he will be finished. PURANI: He says people won't accept your interpretation of the Veda.. SATYENDRA: Everybody has interpreted the Veda according to his own knowledge. SRI AUROBINDO: These are matters of experience; they can't be understood by the mind. PURANI: In The Life Divine there is a quotation where you have said, "May the restrainers tell us to go to other fields and conquer them." Anilbaran thought "restrainers" refers only to Yogis and Tapaswis. SRI AUROBINDO: "Restrainers" is perhaps not the right word. "Binders" would have been better. The obstacles bind you down and point out your imperfections. When you have overcome they tell you as it were, "Now you have got the right to conquer other fields."
EVENING It seemed the morning talk on effort didn't satisfy Champakalal still in favour of Grace. So he raised the subject again; his tone was a little excited. All the while he was asking the question, Sri Aurobindo kept looking at the time because he did not understand what Champaklal was driving at by his analogy.
CHAMPAKLAL: If a man goes on doing physical exercise every day and increases the hours of his exercise every day or week, he will improve his health. Can it be said that if a man meditates more and more he will get concrete results? SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. CHAMPAKLAL: Then where is the place for effort? SRI AUROBINDO: It's not like that. If a man is able to meditate one hour at first, he will be able to meditate two hours later and then whole day. CHAMPAKLAL: If he simply sits on? SRI AUROBINDO: I said "meditate". Meditation means getting into a certain state of consciousness. Simply sitting is not meditation; if he can get into that consciousness, then he can remain there or go still further as he increases the time. NIRODBARAN: What do you mean by "simply sitting"? Meditation doesn't come all of a sudden. One has to try to reject thoughts, concentrate, etc. CHAMPAKLAL: There are people who go into meditation suddenly. Some people are quite unaware of themselves in meditation; they become unconscious and go into a state of sleep. What is that state? SRI AUROBINDO: That is the first stage. One has to pass through that to the conscious stage. CHAMPAKLAL: How can one do that? SRI AUROBINDO: By aspiration. Aspiration is a great thing. If one is satisfied with that unconsciousness, he will remain there. NIRODBARAN: Champaklal, I find, goes at once within and his body sways this side and that. CHAMPAKLAL: Sometimes I am quite unconscious of everything. I forget myself. SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by unconscious? Nothing happens inside? PURANI: Sometimes it does. He gets a nightmare. SRI AUROBINDO: From the tone of his speech, it seems there may be a lot of activity inside. (Laughter) CHAMPAKLAL: Sometimes I am quite conscious of my physical posture changing or bending, but I don't correct it. SRI AUROBINDO: The inner state doesn't take notice of the change of the body. Rajangam also has no control.
CHAMPAKLAL: No, but it is better now.
SRI AUROBINDO: Some people have to support their neck against something. CHAMPAKLAL: Why is it so? SRI AUROBINDO: It is habitual with some people; when they go inside they lose control of the body. CHAMPAKLAL: Sometimes, when one is enjoying peace in meditation and somebody pokes him, he comes out of his meditation and gets disturbed, even angry. Does it mean that he had no real peace in meditation? SRI AUROBINDO (Laughing): It means that his vital hadn't the peace and it needs it. CHAMPAKLAL: But sometimes I feel an actual shock. SRI AUROBINDO: Then you may have been in deep Samadhi CHAMPAKLAL: I remember once when Rajangam poked Radhananda, the Mother said, "If you poke like that you will sent him into another world." NIRODBARAN: The trouble is not so much about meditation, which I admit is difficult, but about the rest of the day. One doesn't remember the Divine at all, say, in reading, writing, etc. SRI AUROBINDO: You have to practise Abhyasa Yoga.¹ SATYENDRA: Nirodbaran is very much in earnest. You should give him some help, Sir. PURANI : His friends say that he is completely changed. NIRODBARAN: Yes, yes! SRI AUROBINDO: You are outraging his modesty. He is not making progress in the way he wants perhaps. The talk then came to art and democracy. PURANI: There is a contradiction in these people who advocate art for the masses. SRI AUROBINDO: How? PURANI: If they really want art to be accessible to the mass why don't they like cinema and radio? NIRODBARAN: Perhaps they think that they will lower their moral standards. SRI AUROBINDO: Common people are not concerned with morality. PURANI: If all that is going to spoil their morality, then what should art deal with to appeal to the masses? ¹Yoga of continuous practice.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why, Charkha, non-violence, Satyagraha.
PURANI: Have you read C. V. Raman's address? SRI AUROBINDO: I believe so. PURANI: He says they have discovered two new elements—I don't know how. SRI AUROBINDO: Not discovered, but created, by changing the position of the particles in the atom and making new combinations. But what are they going to do with them? PURANI: The cost of making anything will be prohibitive, though the method of breaking the atom by means of cyclotrons is very easy. Raman has supported Einstein's theory about the unity of matter and energy. SRI AUROBINDO: Has anybody cast doubt on it? PURANI: No. SRI AUROBINDO: But what is energy? PURANI: Modern scientists have stopped asking that question. They only answer now, not why or what. But their own discoveries will make the question more pointed. SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so, because the problem is why a different combination of particles within the atom should make a new element. PURANI: Energy was once said to be lines of force. SRI AUROBINDO: That means force in movement and when force is in motion we come to know energy. But what is force? PURANI: They don't answer that question, either. SRI AUROBINDO: Unless you accept a Being who applies the force and becomes matter, there can be no real explanation. But when this answer is given, people say, "What's this nonsense about Somebody behind?" They say that it is only the force of Nature. They, however, don't know what Nature is. Nature stands for a magic formula. Everything is supposed to be explained by that formula! PURANI: They once held rigorously to the law of causation. But now they find it difficult to apply in the new investigations. SRI AUROBINDO: The law of causation only means that certain conditions follow certain other conditions.
NIRODBARAN: How can one prove the existence of the Somebody you have spoken of? SRI AUROBINDO: The proof is that there is no other explanation. SATYENDRA: There is no "body", but only Being. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. I have said in The Life Divine that you can't explain the appearance of consciousness out of matter unless you accept a Being behind. That Being may either be unmanifest and involved in matter or it may become manifest. SATYENDRA: It is Brahman playing in Brahman or with it. SRI AUROBINDO: They will accept a playing within Brahman but not outside it. NIRODBARAN: They want to catch Brahman with their scientific instruments. PURANI: Even of that they have despaired now. They are now moving towards mathematics and speak of tensor equations!
EVENING PURANI: Training of the recruited people seems to have been postponed. X and Y were very happy. X was saying that after all there is not much difference between Hitlerism and British and French imperialism. When their self-interest is at stake, they go on killing people mercilessly. I told him the British people don't go to such extremes as Hitler does. SRI AUROBINDO: He doesn't find any difference between Hitlerism and the French Revolution? The French Revolution was only a revolutionary paroxysm which settled soon into a normal life. There were also persecutions but they were not like Hitler's persecutions. Hitler's persecution is on principle. He wants power to be kept in the hands of a few people who will rule over the whole world and thus perpetuate the rule of power, while the French Revolution, as soon as its purpose was served, established or paved the way for democracy and the democratic form of government.
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.
|