22 JANUARY 1940
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he didn't starve the public services. NIRODBARAN: Only, he spent a lot of money in going frequently to Europe, and has also erected a lot of buildings. SRI AUROBINDO: His European visits and the buildings have been good for the State. PURANI: Sir Sikandar has frankly admitted that the question is after all about the loaves and fishes of office and is no religious at all. NIRODBARAN: The Muslims don't really trust the Hindus, it seems. Even Sir Akbar said he couldn't trust Gandhi. SRI AUROBINDO: He doesn't trust Gandhi because of his way of life and philosophy. PURANI: It seems The Life Divine is finished now. SRI AUROBINDO: Not yet; only the first draft is done. PURANI: The Psychology of Social Development won't take much time. SRI AUROBINDO: No. NIRODBARAN: Is that the next book? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. (Then looking at Purani) The Ideal of Human Unity will have to be rewritten perhaps. Things have changed and Hitler is mainly responsible.
23 JANUARY 1940
NIRODBARAN: Nishikanto asks why at times he is seized with a repugnance for writing poetry. He burned a lot of his works at Santiniketan during such seizures. Here also attacks come occasion- ally and he questions himself, "What is the use of writing after all?" And this hampers his work, he says. SRI AUROBINDO: These moods come to many people. They are a kind of Tamas (inertia) which should not be indulged in. NIRODBARAN: Nishikanto says that it would be useful not to write if he could meditate or think of the Divine instead. This he can't do. "Then why not write?" he argues, but the feeling of repugnance conies all the same.
SRI AUROBINDO: It has to be rejected. Page-386 PURANI: Somebody from Gujarat has written that after you took your first few lessons in Sanskrit your teacher found that you were progressing with extreme rapidity and there was no need of a teacher any more. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't remember having any teacher in Sanskrit. I think I learnt it by myself. Many languages, in fact, I learnt by myself—German and Italian, for instance. For Bengali, however, I had a teacher. CHAMPAKLAL: Did you learn Gujarati in Pondicherry? SRI AUROBINDO: No. I picked it up in Baroda, as I had to read the Maharajah's files. NIRODBARAN: Nishikanto was asking if you would write an appreciation of his book. SRI AUROBINDO: For publication? NIRODBARAN: Yes. I replied that you would never do it. He argued that you had done it for Dilip. I asked: "Where?" And I added, "Sri Aurobindo has only given his opinion poem by poem as he has also done in your case. If Dilip published the opinions, it was his own doing." SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. I cannot write a public appreciation for a member of my own Ashram. Tagore has given his appreciation. That should be enough. PURANI: Jinnah has threatened the Viceroy that if the Congress comes back to power there will be a revolution in India. SRI AUROBINDO: The Congress, once it has resigned, can't come back to power even if it has a majority. PURANI: Jinnah says that Gandhi is making a compromise with the Viceroy and will then crush the Muslims and other minorities. He won't tolerate this. SRI AUROBINDO: I suppose Jinnah means: "Make me a king or-" PURANI: "I will kick up a row." SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. PURANI: Different people have given different solutions regarding this problem. Professor Saha says, "A Constituent
Assembly will succeed." Sikandar Hyat proposes a committee of some seventeen persons. SRI AUROBINDO: And let them be shut up in a room until they are able to come to a settlement. (Laughter) EVENING Professor Naren Das Gupta reviewed Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine in the Hindustan Standard. SRI AUROBINDO: Who is this Das Gupta? PURANI: It is Naren Das Gupta of Feni College, in Noakhali, SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, he was Bejoy's friend. PURANI: Here, in Pondy? SRI AUROBINDO: No—when he first came to Calcutta. PURANI (to Nirodbaran): Have you read the review? NIRODBARAN: Yes, and Satyendra has also seen it. SATYENDRA: The reviewer has discovered an important coincidence. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. PURANI: What coincidence? SRI AUROBINDO: The Arya came out just at the beginning of the last World War and The Life Divine at the beginning of the present one. SATYENDRA (to Nirodbaron)-. How is it that the Hindustan Standard has put the review on the leading page? I thought it was a Socialist paper supporting Subhas Bose. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is a Leftist paper. But Subhas Bose has a corner in him which has a respect for spiritual things. He is not an ordinary atheistic Socialist. NIRODBARAN: Nishikanto has bucked up. He says, "After all, Sri Aurobindo pressed me to publish my poems. So whether they sell or not is not my look out." He believes that you gave some Force to Tagore which made Tagore change his mind about his poetry. I also believe this. SRI AUROBINDO: You mean I put my Force on him? Anybody who has some poetic feeling will appreciate the book. NIRODBARAN: But did you put your Force on Tagore or not? SRI AUROBINDO (smiling a little): In a way. Has the book been sent for review? If it has, the monthlies are sure to notice it.
PURANI: Mahadev Desai has advised poor people to wear paper if cloth runs short. NIRODBARAN: Why wear anything at all? PURANI: He has got this idea from Gandhi. Once Gandhi put a piece of paper in between the two folds of his loin cloth. People say that paper will be short now. SRI AUROBINDO: Doesn't matter. Was it not Gandhi's idea once not to wear anything? NIRODBARAN: In that way, life's problems become very much simplified, and for food one can eat grass like that English barrister. SRI AUROBINDO: Thus two problems of life are solved. But what about the third: shelter? PURANI: People can sleep under the stars. SRI AUROBINDO: Not possible during the monsoon. Even Sannyasis have to seek caves. SATYENDRA: If one could really simplify life, things would be so much better. Even if as Yogis we accept life, simplification is necessary. If one makes life complex, complexities increase and increase. The Europeans, having accepted life, have increased its complexities enormously. SRI AUROBINDO: But to what extent to simplify? — that is the question. The Sannyasi's standpoint is to accept only what is necessary. This is understandable. But the Sannyasi does not quite accept life. If you do accept it, how far will you simplify it? SATYENDRA: If you don't simplify it drastically, you have to accept life as the Europeans do—with complexities multiplying. SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. The Europeans have accepted life in the wrong way - that is, along with its disorders. SATYENDRA: Some people in India, no less than in Europe, have wanted to introduce nudity. But it is hardly necessary in India. NIRODBARAN: All the same, it would be rather comfortable, I think. SRI AUROBINDO: A French woman went to Germany to study the nudists. When she came back she wrote an article in a paper: "Les bonheurs de la nudité" ("The Happiness of Nudity"). Blake also wanted to establish nudity as the rule of life. He succeeded only in taking some promenades with his wife in his own garden. (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: By the way, some people are going to celebrate Bejoy Goswami's birth-centenary at Calcutta. SATYENDRA: Are there no translations of his works? NIRODBARAN: I haven't seen any. SRI AUROBINDO: I have read neither any translation nor his original work. During his time, there was quite a strong cult of him. NIRODBARAN: Brahmo Samaj? SRI AUROBINDO: No. He was Brahmo only at the beginning, The three nationalist leaders of the day were his disciples-the first, I forgot his name, started the nationalist university, the second was Bipin Pal and the third Monoranjan Guha Thakurtha. It is said that the nationalist revolutionary movement was the outcome of his own movement. NIRODBARAN: How? SRI AUROBINDO: Because he used to stress work, action! ; NIRODBARAN: The Calcutta people, the organisers of the celebration, want to know where in your writings you have referred to him. I read in one book your saying that the work begun Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Bejoy Goswami hasn't been finished. Jayantilal was telling me that you have said somewhere that Goswami couldn't give to others what he had received. SRI AUROBINDO: Where have I said that? NIRODBARAN: Jayantilal thinks it is in a book by Barin. SRI AUROBINDO: The report is unreliable. SATYENDRA: Somebody here was saying that a friend of his saw Goswami's presence standing behind a person. SRI AUROBINDO: Goswami was a very powerful man. NIRODBARAN: I have read that his soul was thrice brought back to life by the Brahmachari of Baradi. SATYENDRA: You mean Lokanath? NIRODBARAN: Yes. SATYENDRA: Jayantilal told me that Lokanath got his realisation at the age of eighty, but that his Guru had no realisation, for which Lokanath was very sorry. NIRODBARAN: Yes. Lokanath's Guru was Jnanamargi. Lokanath used to say, "You, my Guru, are still bound while I your disciple am free. I feel very sad about it." This Lokanath seems to have travelled to Sumeru. SATYENDRA: Yes, he wanted to go to heaven like Yudhishthir,
Page-390 SRI AUROBINDO: Did he believe that he could go to heaven bodily? NIRODBARAN: It looks like it. And so with a friend he started along the Himalayas and, crossing them, came wandering to Sumeru where they met some people only half a yard tall who lived on vegetable roots growing beneath the snows. I believe they were Eskimos. SRI AUROBINDO: Eskimos? But Eskimos eat fish. Who has written all this?
EVENING PURANI: Have you read that book of poems by Udar's friend, Armando Menezes? SRI AUROBINDO: I have glanced through it. He has a mastery over the language and technique, but the work still seems to be derivative except in a few places. NIRODBARAN: Do you mean that he has no inspiration? SRI AUROBINDO: No. He has inspiration and he has power too. Perhaps the word "derivative" is wrong. For it would mean imitation, though there is an influence of Shelley. What then shall I call his work? Perhaps I may say it is not authentic yet. It has everything else short of this, and he may achieve something. PURANI: He is afraid to come here lest he shouldn't be able to go back. SRI AUROBINDO: He's afraid like Nandalal Bose? PURANI: Yes. He says he has a family and if he takes up poetry here and doesn't go back - (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: He is one of the best among Indians who are writing in English. There is another from your part of the country. PURANI: Jehangir Vakil? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. But he didn't arrive at anything. NIRODBARAN: Armando Menezes' mother tongue, as well as Amal's, is practically English. SRI AUROBINDO: That is not everything, nor does it count for much. Many Englishmen can't write poetry. The point is that Indians writing in English must do something extraordinary to be reorgnised while that is not so for an Englishman. Page 391 PURANI: Anilbaran was asking if you would send your blessings to the centenary celebration of Bejoy Goswami's birth. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't send any blessings publicly. Ask him to send his on his own behalf. PURANI: He asks if he can write to them that you have read their letter. SRI AUROBINDO: What is the use? NIRODBARAN: Somebody has written a letter to Anilbaran, in which he has put many metaphysical questions to you. (Nirodbaran read out the letter but nobody could make head or tail of the questions.) SRI AUROBINDO: Let Anilbaran have the pleasure of answering them.
EVENING The radio news said that Germany had built 2,000 pocket battleships, We were cutting jokes on that unbelievable figure. SRI AUROBINDO: The commentator should have said a 2,000- pocket battleship—a battleship with 2,000 pockets, whatever that might mean. One battleship takes one and a half to two years to build. How could Germany have built 2,000? NIRODBARAN (after a while): I understand Dilip sent you some extracts from Huxley's book After Many a Summer. He wants to know how you found them. Anilkumar says that he doesn't find anything there to indicate that Huxley has had any spiritual experience or has written from such experience. Dilip maintains that he must have done some sadhana in order to be able to write like that. SRI AUROBINDO (after some silence): All I can say is that he has thought about the problem. And he himself says that experience is necessary. How can you say from his writings whether he has had any experience or not? You know what my uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra said? When The Synthesis of Yoga in the Arya came out, he said that it was all philosophy; there was nothing of Yoga in it. NIRODBARAN: Did he do any Yoga? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he had some experiences in jail. NIRODBARAN: P wants to know how you found the criticism of his recent book.
SRI AUROBINDO: How can I say anything without reading the book? But does the critic know anything about the Veda on which there is an article in P's book? PURANI: No, and he says that in the criticism. These people hold the socialistic theory in literature. The style and the subject of the book must be approachable by the mass. Kalelkar has developed a racy style. Munshi's style also is very good. NIRODBARAN: Modern writers are more bent on perfecting style. SRI AUROBINDO: That is because they have nothing to say. And what is queer, especially about the modern poets, is that they talk of writing in a popular style and about popular literature but they take care to see that their own writings may not be understandable to the people. And their popular style makes a muddle when they begin to write about serious things. NIRODBARAN: Basanta Chatterji has left Anilbaran and has now taken up his pen against you. He has written an article, "The Veda and Sri Aurobindo", in which he says that like Westerners you have not accepted the reality of the gods. You have interpreted Agni : as representing Tapa Shakti, etc. SRI AUROBINDO: If I have spoken of Agni as representing Tapa Shakti, it doesn't mean that he is not a god. If Saraswati is represented as a symbol of learning, does it mean she is not a goddess? Where have I said that the Vedic gods are unreal? PURANI: Sri Aurobindo has nowhere said that; on the contrary, he has spoken of them as personalities. Chatterji hasn't read anything. In The Life Divine itself there is a passage on this point. (Purani read out the passage.) PURANI: Anilbaran was asking if a contradiction of Basanta Chatterji could be written, pointing out his mistake or his ignorance. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that can be done. SATYENDRA: Who is this man? SRI AUROBINDO: He is Anilbaran's pet controversialist. (Laughter) SATYENDRA: He hasn't read your Hymns of the Atris probably. There you have distinctly spoken about the Vedic gods. Page-393 PURANI: In The Life Divine's chapter on the Overmind, too. SATYENDRA: He can be referred to that chapter. PURANI: Better not refer him to it. He will say, "Now what is this Overmind?" NIRODBARAN: He is sure to misunderstand it. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know what he will not misunderstand. NIRODBARAN: He says the Gita is Sri Aurobindo's favourite book. But the Gita also speaks of the gods. SRI AUROBINDO: Not only the Gita, but also Sri Aurobindo speaks of them. (Laughter) After the sponging Sri Aurobindo asked for the Hymns of the Atris. He said he had forgotten what he had written there and wanted to verify Satyendra's reference. NIRODBARAN: Your critic also says that you have criticised Sayana's polytheistic interpretation of the Vedas. SRI AUROBINDO: Where have I done so? NIRODBARAN: He doesn't say. PURANI: We find that you have translated most of the Suktas of the Swetashwatara Upanishad. SRI AUROBINDO: I translated this Upanishad long ago and the book came out from somewhere. I don't remember who published it, but I know that the publisher didn't even take my permission, I translated the Swetashwatara Upanishad while I was in Bengal. The manuscript is still with me.
EVENING SRI AUROBINDO (before Purani and Satyendra came in): I have read the Hymns. There I have distinctly said that the Vedic gods are no mere imageries but realities. I don't understand where this Basanta Chatterji found me denying them. NIRODBARAN: Satyendra has also shown me what you have written. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't remember if I have written anything against Sayana in my introduction to The Secret of the Veda. I have to ask Purani. When Purani came in, Sri Aurobindo asked him the question. Page--394 PURANI: I don't think you have written anything against Sayana's polytheism. However, I'll look up the introduction. SRI AUROBINDO: In the Hymns I have clearly held the gods to be realities and I have marked two or three passages saying so. PURANI: Going back to Armando Menezes and his work, do you know that Harin told Armando that his poetry has a mystic element? Armando replied that he wasn't aware of it. SRI AUROBINDO: What is meant by "mystic"? If you mean something beyond the external material existence, then there are several mystic passages in his poems. NIRODBARAN: Dilip asks whether Francis Thompson can be called a great poet. SRI AUROBINDO: Here, again, we must ask: what is meant by "great"? At any rate, Thompson has written one great poem, "The Hound of Heaven", and he who writes a great poem is necessarily great. NIRODBARAN: Dilip does admit that he has written a great poem. SRI AUROBINDO: But he holds, I suppose, that the writer is still a small poet? NIRODBARAN: No. What he wants to ascertain is whether by writing a single great poem one becomes a great poet. In that case Oscar Wilde and Chesterton are also great because they have each written a great poem. SRI AUROBINDO: Thompson's poem is great in a peculiar way. Of course, if you take the mass of his work into account you may say he is not great. "Greatness" too can be variously defined. NIRODBARAN: I can only say that poets like Shakespeare are great. Also Wordsworth and Shelley can be called great poets. PURANI: Through "The Hound of Heaven" Thompson has expressed a whole life-experience and has achieved the summit of art while doing so. Considering these two points I think he must be called great. SRI AUROBINDO: I may add that he has expressed a whole life-experience not only in an individual sense but also in a universal one. Whoever goes through the spiritual life experiences what he has expressed. And yet can one jump to an absolute assertion from single poems? As I said, greatness can be variously defined. Look at the French poet Villon. He is called great. If you take his poems one Page-395 by one he is equal in greatness to any other poet. But if you take his work in a mass you can't justify his greatness. Petrarch has written only sonnets and these too on merely one subject. And yet he is considered a great poet and given a place next to Dante. Simonides has not a single surviving complete poem; he is known only by his fragments. But he is ranked as a great poet, second only to Pindar who is the greatest Greek lyricist. Nor has Pindar himself written very much. Sappho has come down to us in only one complete poem: the rest of her is in mere snatches. Still, she is hailed as a great poet. So there can be no fixed standard by which one can judge the greatness of a poet. As to Thompson and Wilde and Chesterton, I believe "The Hound of Heaven" is greater than any poem by the last two. PURANI: I have read The Secret of the Veda. There is no pronouncement against Sayana. I don't know if Nolini's introduction to his own madhhuchanda has any reference to him. (Sri Aurobindo read the introduction.) Abhay has come; he had to go to Hyderabad and through the intercession of Sir Akbar managed to obtain the release of two local Arya Samaj prisoners. The Nizam by his reserve power refused to release them as he feared that they, being local people, might start trouble again. Sir Akbar told him through his secretary that if he didn't release them the people would again start the agitation and Sir Akbar shouldn't be held responsible. The Nizam, had to give way. NIRODBARAN: What about the Nizam's reforms? When do they come into operation? PURANI: I don't know. He seems to be thinking of an independent kingdom and of being a king like the king of England. SRI AUROBINDO: He wants to include Berar also—it seems very easy! PURANI: He has plans of conquering India too after the British have left. SRI AUROBINDO: But he seems to have said that the native states wouldn't exist for long if India got Dominion Status. In any case their existence is now at an end. He is a man who has moods; so he may say different things in different moods.
PURANI (showing a book): Abhay has given this Vedic concordance to us. A man is bringing out the Vedas at a very cheap rate — five rupees for the three Vedas. SRI AUROBINDO: We should get a copy then. PURANI: He will send it, I think. SRI AUROBINDO: To me or to the library? PURANI: To you. SRI AUROBINDO: Then it won't go to the library. (Laughter) PURANI: The library doesn't need it. Who will read such books? Those who are interested have copies—like Vedavrata and myself. NIRODBARAN: Why? We all may read it some day. SRI AUROBINDO: After the supramental? NIRODBARAN: Yes. SATYENDRA: A remote chance. NIRODBARAN: Everything is remote. The divine realisation is no less so. SATYENDRA: I am not concerned with these things or what will happen in the next life. NIRODBARAN: I am not talking of the next life. SATYENDRA: If the sun burns out after millions of years as scientists say, it doesn't interest me. I am concerned with this life. SRI AUROBINDO: The stars may collide. The astronomers are always predicting that. NIRODBARAN: You seem to mean that the divine realisation is quite possible in this life. PURANI: Everything is possible. NIRODBARAN: Then why not the supermind? SRI AUROBINDO: You mean you are within reach of the Divine? Satyendra couldn't give an answer and began to smile. PURANI: I heard of a chhaya-jyotish (shadow-astrologer) who by measuring the shadow of a person and then correlating the signs, can exactly predict the future. A friend of mine had the experience of such a prediction. SRI AUROBINDO: The bhrigu-jyotish also, by studying the lines of the hands, can predict things. The pattern of the lines of the thumb seem to indicate the individuality of persons and no two Page-397 patterns are alike. I showed my hand twice or thrice but the readings about the future didn't come true. NIRODBARAN (after a lull): Tagore will present a copy of his entire works to the Ashram. Sisir Mitra told him that since he gets a copy of every new book of yours, he should also present us with his own books. SRI AUROBINDO: Does he get my books? NIRODBARAN: Yes, the Arya Publishing House sends them to him. PURANI: It is a matter of common courtesy to return the compliment. SRI AUROBINDO: You can't expect uncommon people to act in the common way. PURANI : Some astrologers have said that Gandhi will see India realise her freedom during his lifetime. SRI AUROBINDO: That is quite possible. If by freedom is meant Dominion Status, India can get it tomorrow if Jinnah comes round. NIRODBARAN: It seems Gandhi is ready to accept Dominion Status. SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. That is common sense. If after Dominion Status you can secede from the British Government at any time and thus get without fighting what you want, what is the sense of fighting now? Only the defence question and British interests will remain. After a few years, when these problems have been solved, you can get rid of the British Government. NIRODBARAN: As Ireland did? PURANI: Yes. See how England can't force Ireland to enter the war. The Irish are quite independent, though so near to England. SRI AUROBINDO: Only, there is a Northern Ireland there. That is due to people—the Southerners—who didn't want to join the British Empire. Otherwise the British Government would have been willing to concede full Dominion Status to Ireland as one whole. In India, if Jinnah had had the good sense to come to an agreement with the Congress, the British Government would have granted Dominion Status. The real problem then would have been after Dominion Status, what? NIRODBARAN: Why? SRI AUROBINDO: There would have been a fight between the communities, and also the extreme Socialists would have had to be fought. Page-398 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. Page-399
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"?
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. Page-401 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", Page-402
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.. EVENING 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 Page-403 |