|
11 JANUARY 1940
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. EVENING 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.
Nirodbaran read out Tagore's letter to Nishikanto, in which Tagore says that Nishikanto's expression and rhythm are of a very high order and that he is a real artist but he complains of one thing - lack of variety: Nishikanto is like a one stringed lyre while the poetic mind demands a variety of tunes. Tagore quotes the Upanishad's " Raso vai sah" (He is verily the Delight.") and says that the poet's mind enters into everything. SRI AUROBINDO: ( After keeping silent for a while): It really comes to this: "You can't be a great poet unless you write like me!"( After a short pause) Take, for instance, Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven". How many people understand and appreciate it? Does it follow that Thompson is not a great poet? Milton is not understood by many. He is not a great poet then? NIRODBARAN: Tagore doesn't raise the question of understanding in this letter. He demands variety. SRI AUROBINDO: What does it matter if there is no variety? Homer has written only on war and action. Can Tagore say that he is a greater poet than Homer? Sappho wrote only on love: is she not a great poet? Milton also has no variety and yet he is one of the greatest poets. Mirabai has no variety either and she is still great. PURANI: What about the Upanishads themselves? They have only one strain. SRI AUROBINDO: Shakespeare too has his limitations. PURANI: All these people are trying to make art and literature democratic. They want them to be available to the masses, the proletariat. NIRODBARAN: Tagore doesn't mean that here. He lays stress on various sides of life as necessary parts of art. Otherwise art is like a one stringed lyre. SRI AUROBINDO: But why should a great poet write on everything - even on matters in which he is not interested? People who are leading a spiritual life naturally express the truth and experience of that life. And do the masses appreciate poetry? I think I told you the story of a Spainyard, a commercial man, who was my brother Manmohan's friend. Whenever he came to his room he saw books on Milton lying on table. He cried out, "What is this Milton, Milton? Can you eat Milton?" (Laughter)
Page-363 NIRODBARAN: Poetry without variety becomes, according to Tagore, limited, monotonous. SRI AUROBINDO: What does it matter? Greatness of poetry doesn't depend on that but on whether the thing that has been created is great or not. Browning has a lot of variety. Can you say that he is a greater poet than Milton? NIRODBARAN: No, but if a poet combines height, depth and variety, he reaches perfection. SRI AUROBINDO: That poet doesn't exist: and no poet is perfect. As I said, even Shakespeare has his limitations. NIRODBARAN: Amal says that Yeats is a greater poet than A. E, I think it is because of Yeats' variety. SRI AUROBINDO: No, it is because of his more perfect poetic style and expression. NIRODBARAN: Tagore means to say that everybody must have variety like himself. Nishikanto saw in a vision that Tagore was satirising Nishikanto's expressions like "light-fountain" before people and saying, "What is this light-fountain?" PURANI: But why? When he first wrote "Breaking of the fountains dream" he had to face the same criticism. NIRODBARAN: People say after reading our poems, "What is this God and God and God in every poem?" SRI AUROBINDO: What else do they expect us to write about? NIRODBARAN: We say about them, "What is all this love, love, love?" SRI AUROBINDO: What is wrong with love if they can express it with poetic feeling and power? They are not leading the spiritual life. NIRODBARAN: The only objection to limiting oneself to a single theme is that its appeal becomes circumscribed and not universal. SRI AUROBINDO: Do you mean to say that poetry is under- stood and appreciated by all? How many appreciate "The Hound of Heaven"? PURANI: That is the modern socialistic theory. These Socialist poets say poetry must be understood by the masses. They say Spender is very popular. SRI AUROBINDO: Popular? I thought these modem poets had a very restricted audience. PURANI: I think so too.
SRI AUROBINDO: If you want poetry to be appreciated by all, why stop with the masses? Why not the hill-tribes and children too? If you speak of popular poets, Martin Tupper was a very popular poet at one time but nobody remembers him now. So with every popular poet. Longfellow, for instance: his poem with the line, "Life is real, life is earnest" was in everybody's mouth and in every schoolbook. Everyone understood him and got the Rasa. NIRODBARAN: It has been translated into Bengali. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes? By Hem Banerji? NIRODBARAN: I don't know by whom. SATYENDRA: We had to commit it to memory. SRI AUROBINDO: But now? Nobody reads Longfellow. He is quite forgotten. PURANI: The Socialists themselves object to Longfellow's line: "Learn to labour and to wait." They won't wait. SRI AUROBINDO: No, it should rather be: "Learn to labour and be dictated to." ` PURANI: That should be Stalin's motto, but he himself doesn't labour. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh no, he labours tremendously but to dictate. So in Stalin's case the line should be: "Learn to labour and to dictate." (Laughter) (After a little time) This poetic theory about variety and mass appeal boils down to this, that if you have expression and rhythm, you should not only write on things which you feel within you and what you are interested in, you should not only express what is experienced in your inner consciousness and is true to your own self, but you should also express things that don't interest you, you should write in the romantic, erotic, classical, realistic styles for the sake of variety and for the masses. It looks rather absurd. NIRODBARAN: I heard a humorous story from X about the judgment of a critic. That critic is one of his relatives. She appreciates Nishikanto very much and says, "After all, there is someone after Tagore." About X's poems she says, "Yes, they are very good, they are very interesting, etc." X says, "I am not a fool so as not to know what it means." (Sri Aurobindo laughed.) What X did was to send her, under Nishikanto's name, a printed poem of his own , which he has quoted in his proposed book of rhythm. As it was in printed form, he thought she would take it for Nishikanto's and she did. She was simply in ecstasy over it. X said to me, "See, such are
the critics. How they go by the name!" (Sri Aurobindo enjoyed the story very much and laughed hilariously.) PURANI: Tagore himself did the same thing at the beginning of his poetic career when people were abusing him. He wrote those poems called Bhanu Sinha's songs and as soon as they came out people were enthusiastic. They were made to think that Bhanu Sinha was some unrecognised Bengali poet of Chandidas's time. SRI AUROBINDO: They are fine poems. I hear he has stopped publishing them.
NIRODBARAN: We had once heard from you that Blake is greater than Shakespeare. SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't say that. It is Housman who says Blake has more pure poetry than Shakespeare. NIRODBARAN: What does he mean by that? SRI AUROBINDO: He means that Blake's poetry is not vital or mental, it is not intellectual but comes from beyond the mind, expressing mystic or spiritual experiences. NIRODBARAN: Can one really compare Blake and Shakespeare? They have two quite different spheres. But if Blake has more pure poetry, is he greater? SRI AUROBINDO: Shakespeare is greater in some ways, Blake in other ways. Shakespeare is greater in that he has a larger poetic power and more creative force, while Blake is more expressive. NIRODBARAN: What difference do you intend to make between "creative" and "expressive"? SRI AUROBINDO: "Creative" is something which brings up a convincing picture of life, sets before us a whole living situation of the Spirit. "Expressive" is just that which communicates feeling, vision or experience. In Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven", for instance, you get a true creative picture. Blake was often confused and was a failure when he tried to be creative in his prophetic poems. NIRODBARAN: You wrote to X that where life is concerned, Shakespeare is everywhere and Blake nowhere. Page-366
SRI AUROBINDO: Quite true. PURANI: That is almost like Tagore's stand, his plea for variety, covering a lot of life. NIRODBARAN: But can one compare two or more poets and decide who is greater? SRI AUROBINDO: How can one? NIRODBARAN: You have said that Yeats is considered greater than A. E. because of his greater poetic style. SRI AUROBINDO: Yeats is more sustained. NIRODBARAN: Then there is some standard? SRI AUROBINDO: What standard? Some say Sophocles is greater than Shakespeare. Others favour Euripides. Still others say Euripides is nowhere near Sophocles. How can one decide whether Dante is greater or Shakespeare? PURANI: It is better to ask what the criterion of great poetry is. NIRODBARAN: All right. What is the criterion? SRI AUROBINDO: Is there any criterion? NIRODBARAN: Then how to judge? SRI AUROBINDO: One feels. NIRODBARAN: But different people feel differently. We say Nishikanto is a great poet. Tagore may not concede it. SRI AUROBINDO: So can there be any standard? Doesn't each one go by his own feeling or liking or opinion? PURANI: Abercrombie tries to give a general criterion. One point of his I remember: if the outlook of a poet is negative or pessimistic, his poetry can't be great. For example. Hardy's. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't see why. Usually, of course, great poets are not pessimistic. They have too much life-force in them. But generally every poet is dissatisfied with something or the other and has an element of pessimism. Sophocles said, "The best thing is not to be born." (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Our Satyendra here will like this. SATYENDRA : There is no harm in being born after one has had liberation in the previous birth. But for people like Nirod and myself- NIRODBARAN: How do you know I had no liberation in my previous birth? SATYENDRA: If you believe that, it is all right. PURANI: When Sri Aurobindo said that Y has a remarkable mind, Nirodbaran said: "I have a remarkably thick physical crust."
Page-367
SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): It is good to be remarkable in some way. NIRODBARAN: I fully agree. PURANI: Nirodbaran doesn't seem to be satisfied with your answers. SRI AUROBINDO: "Sarvadharman parityajya." ("Abandon all dharmas, all standards.") (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: You don't complete the sentence. SRI AUROBINDO: Because you haven't left all standards. NIRODBARAN: As regards poetry, I have. I want to know what your opinion is and I just abide by it. SRI AUROBINDO: Then why not be satisfied with what I have said? NIRODBARAN: The trouble is that some of us are always comparing Nishikanto and J. One party says the former is greater because of his mastery of rhythm, expression and variety, while others say no such comparison is possible, because the two have different domains. J is as great in the mystic field: one has to see if J has reached as great a height of perfection in that field as Nishikanto in his field. SRI AUROBINDO: All one can say is that Nishikanto has a greater mastery over the medium and greater creative force. Why not be satisfied with that? NIRODBARAN: What precisely did you say about creative poetry? SRI AUROBINDO: That a complete picture of life is given. Thus "The Hound of Heaven" brings intensely before us the picture of the life of a man when pursued by God. SATYENDRA: Thompson had some experience of what he has written. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, yes. NIRODBARAN: It seems to me that Nishikanto is not quite a success in what is called mystic poetry. SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by "mystic"? NIRODBARAN: I can't define it—it is, say, Blake's poetry or J's. SRI AUROBINDO: If you mean "occult", Nishikanto hasn't tried much in that line. But he has succeeded in what he has tried. NIRODBARAN: But is his work mystic? PURANI: By "mystic" Nirodbaran means perhaps the expression of the essence of things hidden behind.
|