29 JANUARY 1940

SRI AUROBINDO (addressing Purani): I have been reading a book of prophecy on the war.

PURANI: Prophecy by studying planets?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the author says that there is going to be peace but it won't be a satisfactory peace. Germany will fare badly, Hitler will go down and the Third Reich will come to power. Peace is likely to come by March, it will certainly make headway by September. Then he says that Stalin will win. After that he says catastrophic things will happen. There will be terrible destruction — communism will be established everywhere, in England, France, Germany. In England there will be two more dynasties of kings. There will be two more Popes. A new race will come but only after a long age. The time-factor, he says, is problematic. Calculating according to the human year, the astrologers can only speak of events near at hand; far-off events can be predicted accurately only according to the year of the gods. This year of the gods, the author says, is well known to the Hindus in India and by that calculation things have always been correctly predicted.

At the end of the book he brings in my name and says that I have also said that after the violence, destruction and storm, a new race will come.

SATYENDRA: He has quoted just what suits him.

SRI AUROBINDO: Do you know anything about the year of the gods?

PURANI: No, I will ask Kapali if he knows anything.

SATYENDRA: Does he say anything about America?

SRI AUROBINDO: He says America will also be involved in the war.

SATYENDRA: There "won't be any communism there?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, they will have a mystic evolution. This man brings out a book of prophecy every year and sends me a copy every time. He is a friend of Maurice Magre. He says that in this dark world I am the only one who can be called a real man. (Sri Aurobindo said this laughing.)

SATYENDRA: The Life Divine has come out at the right time then.

NIRODBARAN: Your books have a good sale.

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SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, not only my books; the Ramakrishna Mission books also are selling well now.

NIRODBARAN: But according to this astrologer the supramental race is still far away.

SATYENDRA (smiling): I told you so.

PURANI: He doesn't speak of the supramental race.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, by the new race he means a being more highly evolved than man.

NIRODBARAN: Satyendra's prediction is correct.

SRI AUROBINDO: But he doesn't say on what basis he makes that prediction.

SATYENDRA: By looking at ourselves.

PURANI: England and France speak of attacking Germany from the south.

SRI AUROBINDO: Through Rumania?

PURANI: Yes.

SRI AUROBINDO: They will have to violate the Rumanians' neutrality. Even then it won't be enough. They will have to pass through Bulgaria also.

PURANI: But if Rumania is attacked by Russia the allies may help Rumania.

SRI AUROBINDO: In that case they will have to take in Turkey. Turkey is not willing to fight Russia.

PURANI: England is building a naval Maginot Line.

SRI AUROBINDO: For what? Against German marines?

PURANI : Perhaps to prevent the landing of troops in England.

SRI AUROBINDO: Troops?

PURANI : Or to prevent an attack by the German Navy.

SRI AUROBINDO: The German Navy can't attack. If it comes out into the open, it will be smashed. And the Russian Navy is also nothing to speak of. No, it may be to prevent the laying of mines by German aeroplanes.

We had with us Krishnaprem's letter to Dilip on Grace versus Tapasya. Nirodbaran was looking up a word in the dictionary.

SATYENDRA: Do you want to know the meaning of "androgynous" in Krishnaprem's statement: "Male and female are the two elements of our androgynous psyche"?

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SRI AUROBINDO (looking at Satyendra): How do you feel about it?

SATYENDRA: It may be true. Receptiveness, it seems, characterises the soul and that is a feminine quality. Krishnaprem says that Newman refers to the soul as a woman. Krishnaprem also speaks of the Vaishnavas trying to identify themselves with the Gopis in order to love Krishna.

SRI AUROBINDO: The soul, he says, may be considered a marriage of receptiveness and Tapasya—it is a married couple. The Upanishad also speaks of eko vaśi (one controller).

PURANI: Can receptiveness be said to be the same as Grace?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, Grace is conditioned by receptiveness.

PURANI: What Krishnaprem means by receptiveness appears to be the same as Bhakti, devotion.

SRI AUROBINDO: People who follow the path of love and Bhakti rely most on Grace.

PURANI: We hear that Grace is always present. Whenever one opens to it, one gets the response.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, you have to open to it.

NIRODBARAN: Krishnaprem makes a distinction between power, which is the reward of Tapasya, and Grace, which is the reward of receptiveness. Does it mean that only receptive persons get Grace?

SRI AUROBINDO: How can you have Grace without receptiveness? Even if there is Tapasya, the result doesn't depend on Tapasya. As they say, only the Grace of Brahman can give the result.

PURANI: The Upanishad also says: "To him whom the Spirit chooses, He reveals Himself."

NIRODBARAN: The Buddhists don't believe in Grace.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. They say you have to do everything by yourself. They don't believe in the soul, so male-female doesn't count.

CHAMPAKLAL: If a man is not receptive, the Grace won't act?

SRI AUROBINDO: It acts in order to make him receptive.

CHAMPAKLAL: He receives the Grace then?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but it doesn't descend into him.

CHAMPAKLAL: How is that?

NIRODBARAN: It means it acts only from above.

SATYENDRA: From behind also, till he gets an opening, and then it descends.

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DR. BECHARLAL: Just as, whether a man is conscious or not, the Agni burns in him, doesn't Grace act irrespective of everything?

SRI AUROBINDO: It doesn't follow that there is no difference in its action in a conscious man and an unconscious one.

NIRODBARAN: You mean there is a difference in the degree of action? A man who is more conscious receives more?

SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. That goes without saying. Otherwise there would be no difference between a worldly man and a seeker. Grace could as well make the worldly man realise the Divine and it would act equally in both. As the consciousness increases, one becomes more and more receptive and the progress also is quicker.

NIRODBARAN: How does it act more effectively? Because it creates faith?

SRI AUROBINDO: It acts in every way.

CHAMPAKLAL: There are some people who have no faith in you or the Mother. Even then they receive something from a flower sent to them.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, even if there is no faith, Grace can act. You know about St. Paul. He used to persecute the Christians. Once in the midst of his persecution he suddenly got a vision and was converted. Sarat Chatterji had no faith; yet he was saved twice by a flower and he came to believe and feel that there was something. Everybody is receptive in some way or other.

CHAMPAKLAL: Sometimes one finds that an outsider who has come here feels or receives something from a flower while a sadhak doesn't. Does it mean that the outsider is more receptive?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, in that particular respect.

PURANI: Krishnaprem's distinction is rather strange, because Tantra implies just the opposite of what he says. Tantra makes the female the active part.

SRI AUROBINDO: There are two ways of seeing it. In one, the masculine is active and the feminine is passive, while, in the other, Prakriti, the feminine, is the executive force and Purusha, the masculine, is the witness.

SATYENDRA: In commenting on the Veda you have interpreted the Supreme as male, female and neither.

SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): Yes—the Gita also makes the Divine appear variously: the Divine says, "I am in everybody",

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and then, "Everybody is in me ", and finally, "Everybody is in me but I am not in them."

SATYENDRA: Krishnaprem's view is that one element should not be subordinate to the other.

SRI AUROBINDO: That doesn't rule out the fact that one element may be predominant and outweigh the other.

NIRODBARAN: I somehow doesn't like the clear-cut distinction made by him. He says that the flow of the power comes to make Tapasya. But that itself is due to the receptivity of the one who does the Tapasya and consequently due to Grace.

SRI AUROBINDO: No, it is not the whole truth; it contains only an element. The truth is infinite, and Krishnaprem states one aspect of the infinite truth. Infinite factors enters into it and there are infinite ways of action.

Krishnaprem has objected to the word Grace as taken and understood by the Christians. The Christians say that nothing can be done or achieved except by Grace and they leave everything to it..

The morning talk did not satisfy Nirodbaran: there were still some points to be cleared up, especially regarding Grace versus effort. Nirodbaran told Champaklal that he would raise the topic again and inform Sri Aurobindo that Champaklal also did not believe in Tapasya. Champaklal said that Nirodbaran could tell this to Sri Aurobindo but only when champaklal was present. In the evening Champaklal himself was in the mood to ask something and everybody saw him slowly approaching Sri Aurobindo: his expression made Nirodbaran laugh.

SRI AUROBINDO: What is the matter?

NIRODBARAN: Champaklal is going to ask something.

CHAMPAKLAL: No, no. (immediately afterwards) Can a person receive something without his knowledge?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes; man doesn't know everything. He doesn't know what he is or can be.

CHAMPAKLAL: Sometimes is it not better that he doesn't know?

SRI AUROBINDO: ( smiling with a stress): Sometimes

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Later, after Purani had come, there was an expectation that Nirodbaran would ask a question. All were looking at one another. The situation was so funny that Nirodbaran burst into laughter.

PURANI: Nirodbaran is on the point of asking some question.

SRI AUROBINDO: Is it a formidable question?

NIRODBARAN: Oh, no. But did you say in the morning that the female element Krishnaprem speaks of corresponds or is equivalent to love, devotion, etc.?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, I didn't say that. Why should it be so?

SATYENDRA: Yes, why? Doesn't Sachchidananda have love!

NIRODBARAN: As Krishnaprem speaks of the Vaishnavas' self-identification with the Gopis, I thought it comes to that. Otherwise, why does he associate receptiveness with the female element?

SRI AUROBINDO: Because the female is passive, dependent though she may be passively active! The male is active, strong and self-reliant. That, at any rate, is what the word "male" suggests in English.

SATYENDRA: Receptiveness includes these things and is a way of representing the inner life and working.

PURANI: Even if you accept that, you can't say that the male aspect is without love.

SRI AUROBINDO: The male aspect also loves-it is devoted to a woman—but in a different way. Similarly the female has other aspects than love.

PURANI: We have to consider the Tantric idea of Shakti.

SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so.

NIRODBARAN: At the end of his letter Krishnaprem says that both the elements should be equal; one mustn't stress one aspect more. Is this true?

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by "true"? If you mean true as a fact, then it is not. But he says "should be."

NIRODBARAN: But is the idea correct?

PURANI: Perhaps he means that in an ideal case there would be equality.

NIRODBARAN: But why? There may be people, even if exceptional, who don't believe in the male element, that is, in Tapasya. For instance, Girish Ghosh refused point-blank to take Ramakrishna's name when asked to. He said, "I can't. You have to

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do everything for me." And, as far as I know, there was a great change in his life.

PURANI: I have heard that he wasn't able to give himself completely to Ramkrishna.

SRI AUROBINDO: You mean that he made some personal effort?

PURANI: He found at the end that he hadn't left everything to Ramkrishna.

SRI AUROBINDO: That means he put in some effort of his

NIRODBARAN: I haven't heard this.

SATYENDRA: Then he must have had entire faith in Ramkrishna.

NIRODBARAN: Yes. So I say that if one has a living faith, one is not required to do Tapasya. Isn't that true?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.

SATYENDRA: But aren't some effort and straining inevitable?

NIRODBARAN: As for myself, I have found that many things have dropped away—maybe temporarily—from me without my making any effort worth the name.

SRI AUROBINDO: But you wanted sincerely to drop them.

NIRODBARAN: Yes, I did, but without making any effort. So I say it was due to Grace.

SRI AUROBINDO: That may be so in your case.

NIRODBARAN: No. In many cases I have known things to have happened in this way.

PURANI: That was some effort. Only, you can say that the effort was negligible in proportion to the success.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is not a question of proportion. One may have put in a great deal of effort and yet there could be no result because there was not a complete and total sincerity. On the other hand when the result comes with little effort it is because the whole being is responded - and Grace found it possible to act. All the same effort is a contributory factor. Sometimes one goes on making an effort with no result or even the condition becomes worse. And when one has given it up, one finds suddenly that the result has come. It may be that the effort was keeping up the resistance too. And when the effort is given up, the resistance says, "This fellow has given up effort. what is the use of resisting any more?" (Laughter)

NIRODBARAN: Champaklal also doesn't believe in Tapasya.

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SRI AUROBINDO: But when one wants something, one has to concentrate one's energies on a particular point.

NIRODBARAN: That, of course; but is that the sense of the word Tapasya? By "Tapasya" we mean something done against one's nature, something unpleasant and requiring effort.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is the popular idea of Tapasya. People think it means standing on their heads, sitting on nails, etc. It is not the correct idea. The correct idea is: concentration of all one's energies in order to gain a particular object or aim which one wants, and this is not always unpleasant or difficult.

PURANI: Why does Nirodbaran think that effort is always associated with struggle, unpleasantness?

SRI AUROBINDO: Tapasya can surely be done for something one likes or wishes to have.

NIRODBARAN: But when I sit in meditation, for instance, I have to make an effort to gather up my scattered mind which is moving about. And it is an unpleasant laborious effort.

SRI AUROBINDO: But something in you wants to do it, otherwise you wouldn't do it. You gather up your energies and put them on a particular point.

NIRODBARAN: Yes, but even for that gathering up, some effort is necessary, which is not always easy.

SRI AUROBINDO: When you want a thing, effort will always be there to get it. It is more a concentration of energy, I should say..

CHAMPAKLAL: A man may find it easy to meditate for many hours.

SRI AUROBINDO: But there also you have to concentrate all your energy. A man who is playing cricket has to concentrate on the ball, the bat, the wicket, etc., gathering up all his energies from other fields.

NIRODBARAN: That is comparatively easy because he finds interest in the game.

PURANI: But it wouldn't be easy for a man who doesn't like cricket but likes hockey.

NIRODBARAN: A sportsman can shift his interest without much difficulty.

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SRI AUROBINDO: It is said in the Upanishad that God created the world by Tapas. I believe he didn't find it difficult, though he had to make an effort.(Laughter)

NIRODBARAN: If you bring in God, we mortals have no chance.

PURANI: That is only an illustration.

SRI AUROBINDO: I myself have to make an effort to read and interpret the Vedas, but I don't find it unpleasant; another may. (To Nirodbaran) When you write poetry, you have to make an effort, but it is not unpleasant.

NIRODBARAN: Sometimes I am on the verge of kicking away pencil and book.

SATYENDRA: There are instances in literature to explain some points about concentration of energy. For example, a woman goes about doing various works while she keeps a pitcher on her head. Her inner mind is concentrated on the pitcher though the outer is otherwise engaged.

NIRODBARAN: But she had to practise keeping the pitcher on her head.

SATYENDRA: In the case of the Gopis, it was not that they had to make difficult effort to remember Krishna: they spontaneously fell in love with him and something in them was on fire. So when something in the being is touched the concentration doesn't require labour or effort.

By the way, at times one may make an effort for a thing, but the result comes in quite a different way.

SRI AUROBINDO: That very often happens. In my ease, Lele wanted me to get devotion, love and hear the inner voice, but instead I got the experience of the silent Brahman.

SATYENDRA: And he prayed with incantations, etc., to pull you up to the other condition. (Laughter).

SRI AUROBINDO: No rigid rule is possible to make in these matters.

NIRODBARAN: That is why I don't quite like the last part of Krishnaprem's letter where he says that male and female must be equal and that one can't be without the other, and such things.

SRI AUROBINDO: He says 'should be". not "must be".

NIRODBARAN: But why should it be?

SRI AUROBINDO: That is his point of view. He is free to hold it.

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30 JANUARY 1940

NIRODBARAN: X was converted from Tapasya to Grace by the effectivity of Grace in stopping his chess-playing! He says that all his resolutions were of no avail and so he prayed and prayed one night for help to stop it. From the next day till now he has played chess only two or three times. The result, he says, can't but be due to Grace.

SRI AUROBINDO (enjoying the story): The salvation from chess was the starting point of his belief in Grace! Is that the only instance he has had?

NIRODBARAN: He particularly remembers this one. Now to return to the subject of poetry. Did you not say that, taken poem by poem, Villon's work is as great as any other poet's while, taken in a mass, one can't justify the comparison?

SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't speak about mass. Villon is considered a great poet in France and certainly he is the greatest that preceded Corneille and Racine.

NIRODBARAN: But I thought you said that his poems taken singly are as great as those of any other poet.

SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't put it in that way, but that is the impression he creates. (After a pause) His life is very interesting. He was a murderer, robber, vagabond. It was almost his profession. He was a profligate of the worst type throughout his life, belonging to the lowest criminal class.

NIRODBARAN: Maupassant also was like that?

SRI AUROBINDO: Like that?

NIRODBARAN: I mean a loose character.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, many writers are pretty loose in character.

NIRODBARAN: Dilip says his idea of the greatness of a poet is still hazy. He wants to know if by writing a single great poem one can deserve to be called a great poet.

SRI AUROBINDO: Haven't we already dealt with this question? All depends on the poem. If a poet has written a few perfect lyrics he can be called great. Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" makes him great. We spoke also of Sappho and Simonides.

NIRODBARAN: Yes, I told Dilip about Sappho and about the fragments Simonides wrote.

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SRI AUROBINDO: simonides did not write fragments, but only fragments are left of what he wrote. And from them one can judge that he is a great poet.

NIRODBARAN: Dilip says these are Greek poets and we know nothing of Greek, so we can't judge them.

SRI AUROBINDO: But we know about them and by that we can call them great.

NIRODBARAN: Now take the Bengali poet Govind Das, he says. His poem beginning, " I love you with your bone and flesh," is regarded as a great poem. It has much power but this is the only poem that is great in his works. The others are no good. Can we call him a great poet?

SRI AUROBINDO: oh! that Govind Das! I have read some of his poems. But, I don't think this poem is as great as "The Hound of Heaven.

NIRODBARAN: When I said that Petrarch is considered second in greatness to Dante, Dilip replied "That may be, but surely there is a vast difference between their greatnesses."

SRI AUROBINDO: Still, both are great.

NIRODBARAN: The Difference is that Dante has reached a very great height which Petrarch hasn't.

SRI AUROBINDO: Petrarch is a great poet all the same. There are people who hold that Petrarch has a greater perfection of form than Dante.

NIRODBARAN: But say if Tagore had written only "Urvasi" and nothing else, could he have been called a great poet?

SRI AUROBINDO: Urvasi is not such a great poem that it could take its place in world literature.

NIRODBARAN: Dilip's idea of a great poet is that he must have what he calls " girth" (parishar) , wideness, volume, just as Wordsworth and Shelley have.

SRI AUROBINDO: Poetry can also have height, depth and intensity: It need not have "girth". Besides, nowadays people consider that mass, volume, is a heavy baggage that weighs poetry down.

NIRODBARAN: Dilip says he does not know how to define greatness but one can say that Shakespeare, Dante, Wordsworth, Shelley are great and one should reserve the epithet for such men only.

SRI AUROBINDO: Shakespeare and Dante are among the greatest. A poet like Browning has plenty of mass, volume,

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"girth" as you say, but he is a different case. Once he used to be rated a great poet.

NIRODBARAN: Browning?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Both Browning and Tennyson ranked as great—they 'were just below Shakespeare and Milton. But can Browning be taken to be a greater poet than Thompson? Has he any single poem as great as "The Hound of Heaven"?

NIRODBARAN: Satyendra Dutt was also called a great poet once.

SRI AUROBINDO : Is he equal to Browning?

NIRODBARAN: Dilip says English critics don't think of Thompson as a great poet, certainly not as being on a level with Wordsworth and Shelley.

SRI AUROBINDO: Who are these English critics? Wordsworth and Shelley have an established reputation. I consider Thompson a great poet because he has expressed an aspect of Truth with such force and richness as no other poet before him has done, and he has dealt with one of the greatest subjects the human mind can take up. But what is the general opinion of his other poems?

NIRODBARAN: I don't know. Dilip doesn't find much in them, Thompson is known only by this one poem, he says.

PURANI: His other poems also are very good.

SRI AUROBINDO: Amal also says that several of Thompson's poems are original and inspired.

NIRODBARAN: Apropos of Madhusudan you seem to have written to Dilip that to be a great poet power is not enough.

SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on the content of the power. The Subject Madhusudan deals with is poor in substance. I don't say he is not a great poet, but with his power of style, expression and rhythm he should have got the first rank like Milton, but he didn't because of the lack of substance. He has said things in a great way but what he has said is not great.

31 JANUARY 1940

PURANI: I asked Kapali if he knew anything about the year of the gods. He says he can't exactly make out what is meant and doubts if it was Indian at all and wonders whether the astrologer has not simply put India's name to it. He will look up Varahamihira.

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SRI AUROBINDO: No, it can't simply be imaginary because the astrologer has given exact and precise details and says that things have come out true according to it.

PURANI: Science has discovered many new planes now which weren't known before and couldn't be used by astrologers.

SRI AUROBINDO: He speaks of Uranus as well as Neptune; there is one Kutsa which I haven't heard of. But he has placed all these new planets in his calculations. Uranus seems to be the planet of dictators. Stalin is one and Daladier also.

PURANI: Daladier also?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he is now coming forth as a dictator and is practical one.

PURANI: Kapali says instead of asking him you could yourself say something about the time of the year of the gods.

SRI AUROBINDO: The gods perhaps don't know anything about it.

SATYENDRA: They may have a different time-value.

SRI AUROBINDO: Based on astrological data perhaps, and so it is the astrologers who shouldn't know about it.

NIRODBARAN: Nishicanto had another letter from Tagore in reply to his. Nishicanto, advised by Dilip wrote to Tagore informing him of the refusal of Viswa Bharati to publish his book.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why? Tagore didn't know about it?

NIRODBARAN: They say he may not have as it is under the management of the committee with which Tagore has nothing to do.

SRI AUROBINDO: What does he write?

NIRODBARAN: Tagore says the same thing - that he has nothing to do with them. Any publication depends on financial considerations. They don't want to incur any loss over any book and that is why they refused Nishikanto's book. The next point he writes about is that Nisikanto, being a Yogi, shouldn't mind if some people don't like his poems; different people have different tastes; It is a foolishness to go out with a stick and fight with people who don't appreciate one's poetry. He says he has had to face people's criticism.

SRI AUROBINDO: He felt very bitter, didn't he?

NIRODBARAN: Yes, he admits that. By the way, I had a vision in which you were giving a hypothetical medical guidance. In medication I was discussing with somebody the diagnosis of a case.

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Suddenly I heard your voice saying, "Are you sure it is not typhoid?" There was no possibility of typhoid but because of your suggestion I had to think about it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Was it a vision or a dream?

NIRODBARAN: I don't know; it may have been either but I heard your voice distinctly.

SRI AUROBINDO: When was it?

NIRODBARAN: "While you were walking. Does it indicate your possible future guidance or any cases coming?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know; it may possibly be guidance.

PURANI : Champaklal had a vision.

CHAMPAKLAL: I saw Nirodbaran meditating under a canopy in a Buddha-like posture. Does it mean anything?

SRI AUROBINDO: I can't say.

CHAMPAKLAL: I also saw him doing pranam, and you patting him.

SRI AUROBINDO: Do you see many visions of him?

CHAMPAKLAL: I have had three or four.

While Sri Aurobindo was lying in bed, Nirodbaran read out Tagore's letter.

SRI AUROBINDO: It seems Nishikanto was vexed because his book was not published.

NIRODBARAN: Nishikanto told me he didn't write about any vexation but he must have been vexed and a little of it must have found expression in the letter.

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