11 FEBRUARY 1940
PURANI: Paul Brunton has come out again with an article on Yoga in the Indian Review.
SRI AUROBINDO: What does he say?
PURANI: The same old thing — that Yoga must be practised for humanity, so that humanity may benefit.
SRI AUROBINDO: He has always said that.
PURANI: He says that now he is under the guidance of a great Yogi who doesn't want to reveal himself. The Yogi has an eminent disciple whom everybody knows If the disciple's name is disclosed , the Yogi will immediately be spotted. I wonder if he is hinting at you.
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SRI AUROBINDO: Me? But I have no eminent disciple!
PURANI: What about Sir Akbar Hydari?
SRI AUROBINDO: He is not exactly a disciple.
SATYENDRA: Perhaps Brunton himself is a disciple eminent enough?
PURANI: He also says that he is not after money. The proof he gives is that if he were, he would not be contradicting his own past statements, as he is doing, and thereby risking his popularity.
SRI AUROBINDO: Are people complaining that he is contradicting himself for the sake of money?
PURANI: Yes. But he is contradicting himself, he says, for the sake of Truth.
SATYENDRA: The trouble is that he has started being a teacher before being sufficiently a student of Yoga.
PURANI: Wasn't he giving directions to people from the beginning?
SRI AUROBINDO: He has formed a group of his own, I believe.
PURANI: He doesn't accept the theory of World-Illusion. He says it is a theory difficult to practise in life.
SRI AUROBINDO: Practise in life? Nobody practises it. No Illusionist ever does.
PURANI: What Brunton means is that he cannot carry out in life the theory of Illusion.
SRI AUROBINDO: He means to accept of life only as much as is needed for the body?
SATYENDRA: He has spoken of an Egyptian stranger who talked to him in an Oxford accent and even knew his name. Hansraj also has written a book where another such instance is given. When he went to the Himalayas he met a Sannyasi who at once addressed him by his name and then spoke in Marathi fluently although he wasn't a Maratha. What surprised Hansraj was that he soon began to speak in English. How did he know that Hansraj knew English?
SRI AUROBINDO: If he knew Hansraj's name, it was not difficult to know other things.
SATYENDRA: Yes. That didn't strike me.
EVENING
SATYENDRA: The 13th seems to be an important date because Mars and Saturn are coming very close together on that day. Already
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they are pretty close. Astrologers fear some catastrophic destruction on that occasion, a great upheaval. But Jupiter and Venus are coming together on the 21st counteract Mars and Saturn.
NIRODBARAN: How can they counteract after the upheaval has taken place.
SRI AUROBINDO: After the upheaval, there will be a deheaval? (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: Meennakshi's comment was, "See the goodness of God!"
SATYENDRA: I replied "If God is so good, why has He planned the destruction
SRI AUROBINDO: In order that you may appreciate His goodness: (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: (to Satyendra) Did you say on the 21st?
SATYENDRA: Yes
NIRODBARAN: On 21stFebruary it can only be my long expected Supramental Descent. (Sri Aurobindo smiled.)
SATYENDRA: N is not satisfied with anything less.
NIRODBARAN: Mars and Saturn must be Hitler.
SRI AUROBINDO: And Stalin? By the way, the author of that book, Inside Europe, seems pro-Stalin. He says that Stalin is almost ideal except for a touch of blood thirstiness.
NIRODBARAN: What will he say now?
SATYENDRA: He will say that the principles are all right. The man who practises them may turn bad.
NIRODBARAN: Nehru has been disillusioned. But Bose, it seems, is supporting Russia against the Finns.
PURANI: Viswanath brought a proposal from Arthur Moore. Moore said to him, "Why don't you bring out a Sri Aurobindo memorial Volume on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, just as they have done for Tagore and Gandhi?" Viswanath replied, "It needs plenty of money." To this, Moore said, "All right, I will offer Rs. 500." ( Sri Aurobindo kept silent.) Various people will be asked to contribute. Perhaps Sircar will come in too.
SRI AUROBINDO: Isn't Memorial meant for those who have gone away? Does Moore want me also to go away? (Laughter)
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PURANI: Well, we'll call it then an Anniversary Volume.
NIRODBARAN: For Tagore it is all right, because he is on the point of going away.
SRI AUROBINDO: He has been going away for the last twenty years. It is like in the theatres: "Today: Last Night Performance."
NIRODBARAN: Gandhi is a well-known figure and there will be many contributors.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, everybody has met him and knows about him. That is not the case with me.
NIRODBARAN: Perhaps Nolini, Anilbaran and Purani will have to write in your case. (Laughter)
SRI AUROBINDO: And each will understand my philosophy in his own way and produce his own interpretation. Mahendra Sircar will come in too and there will be Veerabhadra after him. (Laughter)
PURANI: Veerabhadra will equate you with Shankara or he will say that you have explained what Shankara meant.
SRI AUROBINDO: That will be easier. Or it may be like the Theosophists' idea of Buddha and Shankara. You don't know what it is?
PURANI: No.
SRI AUROBINDO: They say that Shankara came as a disguised Buddha in order to correct what he said. Shankara, according to them, was born in the first century B.C. or A. D., I don't remember which, but in any case not long after Buddha's death. That means that Buddha realised he had committed some errors in his philosophy and came back soon to rectify them. And now it shall be supposed that I have come back as another Shankara to correct what the first Shankara said and that I am explaining either what he meant but didn't say or what he said but didn't mean.
NIRODBARAN: Isn't that what Avatars do? If we accept Ramakrishna as an Avatar, we have his saying that the body is an iron cage and now you as an Avatar are saying that it is a golden temple!
SRI AUROBINDO: Not quite. I say that it is an instrument of the Spirit.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, an instrument to be transformed for divine service.
SATYENDRA : But that transformation comes last. Some people want it to be first. The early sages called life in the body unreal because it was too much with them. They had to hammer and
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hammer away at the idea that it was unreal. But after all, it is a secondary thing to achieve is the divine consciousness and not body transformation.
NIRODBARAN: Sotuda has offered his pranams and informs you that he is stagnating but his body doesn't seem to be doing so.
SRI AUROBINDO: Is that why he feels he is stagnating? The flesh is becoming too heavy for the Spirit?
SATYENDRA: But his face is shining.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then his body must be getting transformed!
SATYENDRA: I hope transformation won't stop with the face.
PURANI: He says it is a shame that you call him Sotuda. How can a father call a son that?
SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? A father calls his daughter "Ma". Does he want me to drop the "da" and just say "Sotu"?
CHAMPAKLAL: Why not? There is Bapu here — and the Mother calls him Bapu. It doesn't mean he is the Mother's father. Bapu has simply become his name.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
NIRODBARAN: Sotuda is not brother Sotu.
SATYENDRA: Sotuda said he saw some prophecies in which it was foretold the war would last till 1941 or 1943.
SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord!
SATYENDRA: The whole world will be destroyed and Satyayuga will reign at the end of 1943.
SRI AUROBINDO: Nobody will be left then to enjoy the Satyayuga.
CHAMPAKLAL: It doesn't matter much to Satyendra if the world is destroyed.
SATYENDRA (smiling): No, what is the use of repeating and repeating the same old thing?
PURANI: To go back to the idea of Moore: there is another proposal by Nolini and me to make an anthology out of all your works. People who have read your books will select passages and from these a final selection will be made.
SATYENDRA: This is something like Raja Rao's idea.
PURANI: Yes, but he seems to have dropped away.
SATYENDRA: Because he wasn't encouraged.
SRI AUROBINDO: He found it impossible to make popular edition perhaps. I don't know how can it be done.
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NIRODBARAN: Dilip says that an English friend of his writes that Aldous Huxley has lost all his influence with publishers and modern writers since his turning a mystic.
SRI AUROBINDO: Except in the New Statesman where his books are still well-reviewed.
SATYENDRA: He has written only two books of a mystical kind: Ends and Means and After Many a Summer.
SRI AUROBINDO: Eyeless in Gaza also.
SATYENDRA: Is that mystical too?
NIRODBARAN: That was the first.
Meher Baba has declared Mysore to be the spiritual capital of the world.
SATYENDRA: Yes, in the Sunday Times.
SRI AUROBINDO: Where?
SATYENDRA: Yes, Sir, it is there. You haven't seen it?
SRI AUROBINDO: No.
NIRODBARAN: It is in that article on birth-control.
SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't see it.
NIRODBARAN: It's at the end.
SRI AUROBINDO: He has said that before.
NIRODBARAN: He is against birth-control, calls it artificial. He advocates mental control.
SATYENDRA: He also says that married life can be a great step forward in spirituality.
NIRODBARAN: And that we should consider the children as the gifts of God.
SRI AUROBINDO: In advocating mental control, he means that people should not have children but that if they do they must be accepted.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, as God's gifts.
SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. If anything happens in spite of yourself you must call it God's gift.
NIRODBARAN: I don't understand how birth-control can prevent incentive to mental control.
SRI AUROBINDO: He means that without birth-control there will be a fear of consequences and so one has to exercise mental control.
NIRODBARAN: Is that necessarily true?
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SRI AUROBINDO: I don't think so. When one has an erotic impulse, one satisfy it somehow, in spite of the fear of consequences That fear won't stand in the way.
NIRODBARAN: One other argument against birth-control is promiscuous illegitimate indulgence.
SRI AUROBINDO: There is plenty of it already; a little increase won't matter.
NIRODBARAN: But in India there is not so much. In Europe, may be. Vivekananda said that there is not a single virgin in Europe.
SATYENDRA: That is too much to say.
SRI AUROBINDO: Did Vivekananda really say that?
NIRODBARAN: Yes, I have read it.
SATYENDRA: But he said that in America many women are pure.
NIRODBARAN: That may be in America. He spoke of Europe.
SRI AUROBINDO: America is no better or worse than Europe. I don't know if it was different in his time.
PURANI: Anilbaran was saying that in Europe couples are changing their partners. There was a case in the court about it.
SRI AUROBINDO: You mean trial marriages?
PURANI: No, A member of one couple is exchanged for a couple after having five or six children.
SRI AUROBINDO: After having children?
PURANI: Yes. The original members don't agree well, so they want to change.
SRI AUROBINDO: Like having a change of air, I suppose. (Laughter)
SATYENDRA: In Europe there are trial marriages.
SRI AUROBINDO: Companionate marriages. The artists in Paris very often have them.
NIRODBARAN: What is companionate marriage? Freedom to separate?
SRI AUROBINDO: They live together as husband and wife but whenever one wants to separate one can do so. It has been found that these can be as lasting as the usual thing.
NIRODBARAN: During their stay together, do they have no freedom?
SRI AUROBINDO: They live just as ordinary husbands and wives do. Even in the usual marriage, each sometimes has an independent life mutual consent.
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NIRODBARAN: Yes, I have read of it in Romain Rolland.
SRI AUROBINDO: Bertrand Russell is an advocate of this kind of companionate marriage, with freedom to do whatever one likes.
NIRODBARAN: That is why he has divorced his wife and married his secretary.
SRI AUROBINDO: Has he? I didn't know that. When?
NIRODBARAN: Some years ago.
PURANI: It came as a great shock to Dilip. Russell had spoken to him of his happy ideal married life.
SRI AUROBINDO: I suppose it is like wanting to have vriddasya taruni barya¹ though the wife may not be barya. You know Maeterlinck did the same. In his old age he took up a beautiful young girl who was not at all intellectual and he forsook the wife who had inspired all his earlier works. He brought the girl home. The wife didn't object-but ultimately the girl drove her out of the house.
EVENING
Dr. Manilal had advised Sri Aurobindo to hang the injured leg from the edge of the bed. This was meant to increase the flexion of the knee. Sri Aurobindo did it for one day and then stopped. He said, "After finishing The Life Divine I'll take it up again." In the meantime Manilal once inquired from Gujarat if Sri Aurobindo had started hanging the leg again. To this Sri Aurobindo replied, "The Life Divine is still hanging." Now Nirodbaran announced that Manilal was due to arrive on the 10th or the 12th.
SRI AUROBINDO: And I am going to start hanging my leg tomorrow. (Laughter) The last two chapters of The Life Divine were sent off today.
SATYENDRA (laughing): Manilal seems to strike terror into you. (Sri Aurobindo laughed.) When is Dr. Rao coming? Both will meet now.
NIRODBARAN: Dr. Rao has got badly entangled in the State.
SRI AUROBINDO: He will carry pleasant memories of his State service just before retirement. Now his sympathy for the Congress Government will increase.
SATYENDRA: He seems to be hanging too.
¹Old man's young wife.
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SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and the Personal Assistant is throwing stones at him in an attempt to dislodge him.
NIRODBARAN: We thought this promotion of his was a divine but he is having plenty of thorns.
SRI AUROBINDO: Divine gifts are like that.
SATYENDRA: It may divine gift because whatever desires he may still have will be driven out by it. Tomorrow, by the way, is 13th, the day of catastrophes.
SRI AUROBINDO: After all, nothing may happen.
NIRODBARAN: Or perhaps some more patrol activity on the western front.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the Germans will claim to have brought down 300 planes and England will deny it.
When the others had gone, Purani brought up again the subject of Non-Being.
PURANI: Did you say the other day that by following the affirmative way one also arrives at Non-Being? I was not very clear about it.
SRI AUROBINDO: (with a surprised look): No. Only by the negative path you arrive at Non-Being, or what the Gita calls the Indeterminate. As I said, it is the same as in Taoism and Buddhism. But it is not really Nothing. What we can say is that no attribute of Being can be posited of it. Taoism says that Non-Being is Everything rather than Nothing. By the affirmative path you come through Supermind to Sachchidananda which is both static and dynamic, while through the negative path you come to Non-Being.
PURANI: Then the the negative path doesn't lead to Sachchidananda.
SRI AUROBINDO: No.
NIRODBARAN: Is Non-Being the final stage of the negative path or does one pass through it to something else?
SRI AUROBINDO: Non-Being is only a term of the mind to express the Supreme Existence. It is the Buddhists' way of expressing the Supreme they contact. In reality it is nothing but an aspect of the Supreme. What is called the Indeterminate is not really indeterminate. It can be called so because it is not limited or confined to any one determination, not because it is incapable of
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any determination. That is what I have tried to show in The Life Divine.
PURANI: In fact, it is the source of infinite determination. How is Non-Being related to the Supermind, etc., of the affirmative way?
SRI AUROBINDO: Both are gates to the Absolute. Non-Being is an aspect of the Absolute. When you enter the Absolute you can't describe it.
PURANI: Jayantilal's friend was asking if the inner mind, inner vital and physical are psychic in their nature.
SRI AUROBINDO: No, they are supported by the psychic. These inner parts can have good and bad things, both light and darkness.
PURANI: The psychic coming to the front acts through them?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
PURANI: He was also asking how the six chakras are related to the three parts of the being—the mental, the vital, the physical.
SRI AUROBINDO: In fact, there are seven chakras. But you can take eye and throat together, and also heart and navel, and the last two centres as one.
NIRODBARAN: If there was a medical chakra, I would try to open it.
SRI AUROBINDO: In that case you should call in Dhanwantari or Ashwinikumar.
PURANI: R says he is Dhanwantari.
NIRODBARAN: If I call him, he will come then.
SRI AUROBINDO: He will sit on the top of your head and swear at you. (Laughter)
R. N. wrote an English poem for the special number that the Indian Express will bring out on February 21. The poem was given to Sri Aurobindo by Purani.
SRI AUROBINDO: (after, reading it): How can he rhyme "era" with "aura"?
NIRODBARAN: Modern rhymes, I suppose. Dilip was surprised that a poem with so many metrical errors was being sent for publication.
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PURANI: Nolini has kept it back. Of course R. N. doesn't know of it yet.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is not a poem at all. His French poems are very beautiful. That is because he has training from the Mother. In English he has no training.
SATYENDRA: He is a very prolific writer, I hear -with a great flow.
SRI AUROBINDO: A tremendous flow. "Flow" is too mild a term. The energy is tremendous.
SATYENDRA: He has written many books in Tamil. He is considered a great Tamil writer.
NIRODBARAN: Dilip says his English is very bad.
SATYENDRA: He has written an English book on Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. It contains everything-chapters on Asanas, on Pranayama, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is not on my Yoga in particular. It is just on Yoga. His English is Tamil English. One must have the true English style to make things effective.
SATYENDRA: He always speaks in superlatives. But he seems to be a great figure. He has many admirers and followers in South India.
NIRODBARAN: You must have seen in yesterday's Hindu the the review of an annual of English literature. It is a symposium of many writers of the British Empire. From India four names have been chosen- one Kashi Prasad Ghose, Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu and yourself. Do you know this Kashi Prasad Ghose?
SRI AUROBINDO: No. Who is he?
NIRODBARAN: Only poets have been included, and the Indian selection has been made by an Indian professor.
SRI AUROBINDO: I wonder which poems of mine he has taken. Does he not mention Harin or my brother?
NIRODBARAN: No.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then I don't understand the rationale of the selection. Sarojini is alright. But, except for a few things, Toru Dutt does not come to much. And, if Toru can be included, surely Harin and Manmohan ought to be. They are better writers than she. If Romesh Dutt still alive, he would have protested against his exclusion. He could have said, "If Toru, .why not Romesh too?"
NIRODBARAN: The Hindu reviewer has complained that only poets have been mentioned and not prose writers when there are many good English prose writers in India.
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SRI AUROBINDO: I don't see a single really good prose writer.
NIRODBARAN: The Hindu says there are some among the moderns.
SRI AUROBINDO: Does it mean Nehru and Gandhi?
NIRODBARAN: I don't know.
SRI AUROBINDO: They are good, but they can't be ranked as literary prose writers.
NIRODBARAN: What about Amal?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but he is not known.
NIRODBARAN: Nor has he written much.
SRI AUROBINDO: No.
SATYENDRA: But his style seems to have a sense of effort.
PURANI: Yes, it seems to give an impression of hammering.
SATYENDRA: Hammering may be allowed but there should not be any sense of effort.
SRI AUROBINDO: He writes in the Victorian style.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, it is not a modem style.
SRI AUROBINDO: No.
SATYENDRA: Radhakrishnan seems to have a modem style.
SRI AUROBINDO: No, he also has a Victorian stamp.
NIRODBARAN: People call Sri Aurobindo's style heavy, while according to them Nehru is the best writer.
PURANI: If the "best" writers wrote on philosophy instead of topical subjects, people would find them difficult too.
SATYENDRA: Amal, before he first came here in 1927, brought out a book of poems which, I hear, had to be suppressed.
SRI AUROBINDO: Or did it suppress itself ? (Laughter)
SATYENDRA: The publishers didn't realise beforehand what sort of a book it was and when it came out they felt scandalised.
PURANI: Amal told me about this book when he first came. He was persuaded by his friends to stop its circulation. Otherwise he would have lost his name. His motto was, like Oscar Wilde's, to write on anything he liked.
SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on how you write. Wilde would have been the last man to approve of writing anything in any way.
PURANI: I mean writing about erotic things.
SATYENDRA: In English books whenever they have to say anything erotic they put the French word for it, not the English.
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Take the Decameron. In the English translation there are so many things in French.
SRI AUROBINDO: I am reminded of Gibbon. Whenever he wanted to quote anything which might offend the current taste, he used its Latin form. But in English there are more outspoken things than in Boccaccio's Decameron. Many English novels deal with erotic, even vulgar, matters.
NIRODBARAN: Why then did they make such a fuss over Lawrence' Lady Chatterly 's Lover?
SRI AUROBINDO: Because it made a public noise. The English people's puritanism, I suppose, came out against it.
PURANI: In French such things are quite commonly said now. People have become accustomed to them.
SRI AUROBINDO: In France it has always been so. Except in England and America you find free expression of them everywhere. Our ancient literature also dealt with them and nobody took any particular notice. The English write of them more crudely than the French - as a reaction, I suppose, to the suppression. It is during the Puritan and Non-conformist period that people suddenly became self-conscious and felt ashamed.
EVENING
SRI AUROBINDO (after trying out flexion of his knee, as medically advised): Can't see if the flexion is increasing. It is a very slow process.
SATYENDRA: Yes, Sir. Something like the opening of Nirod's physical crust.
SRI AUROBINDO: What?
NIRODBARAN: Satyendra is giving an analogy. He means that your knee-flexion is as slow as the opening of my physical crust. (Sri Aurobindo laughed.)
SATYENDRA: N is all the time muttering about his crust.
PURANI: He is trying to open his medical chakra to get some intuition.
SRI AUROBINDO: Or the medical plane?
NIRODBARAN: No, not plane. I said that if there was a medical chakras I would try to open it and get some intuition.
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SATYENDRA: If you can open the other chakras they will do the job you want.
SRI AUROBINDO (after laughing): It depends on what intuition is wanted. There are many kinds of intuition: vital intuition, heart intuition and others.
NIRODBARAN: Vital intuition is mixed. I want a pure intuition which can be had with comparatively greater ease.
SRI AUROBINDO: Vital intuitions are sometimes extremely correct and pure. Animals are guided by them—animals and Englishmen. Then there is physical intuition.
SATYENDRA (after a long pause): The l3th is passing away, but nothing has happened. The astrologers have proved faulty. Of course, something has happened to me.
SRI AUROBINDO: What is it?
SATYENDRA: I had a knock. (Laughter) Modern architecture is going in for everything plain, sharp and clear-cut. (Puzzled look on all faces) That's why I got the knock. The sharp edge of my bed gave it.
SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): You can call it a modernistic knock.
SATYENDRA: Purani also had a knock some time back.
PURANI : Yes, and it is still giving me pain.
SRI AUROBINDO: Purani! Oh, Purani has an athletic movement. He knocks against anything and everything. He would even knock against the Mannerheim Line. (Laughter)
PURANI: Some Chakravarthy, a final year medical student, has written to you through Nolini that his father Bhuban Mohan Chakravarthy had been your Bengali teacher.
SRI AUROBINDO (extremely surprised): How? When? Where?
PURANI: That is the mystery.
SRI AUROBINDO: My only Bengali teacher was Dinen Roy unless he had another name.
PURANI: "Chakravarthy" and "Roy" are a little far off from each other.
SATYENDRA: Besides, how can he be the son of that teacher? Sri Aurobindo has been here for a long time.
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SRI AUROBINDO: That won't be a test, for he could have been a teacher long before the son was born..
PURANI: He writes that he can produce a most authentic proof -a letter you have written to his father.
SRI AUROBINDO: I?
PURANI: Yes, and he can send the letter if you want. He has asked for a loan from you to carry out his studies. He will repay you afterwards.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, that is the reason! (After some time, to Purani) Have those articles been sent off to the Indian Express for the special number of February 21?
PURANI: I don't know. I shall ask Nolini. Is there anything wrong?
SRI AUROBINDO: Radhanand, in his article on the Mother, has claimed that she is an Incarnation. That is something we have not said publicly.
PURANI: Radhanand said that whatever he had written had been gathered from talks, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: The body of the article is all right. But at the beginning he makes this claim.
PURANI: We can then send a modification.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. State simply that it is the birthday of the Mother.
Two days later we saw that the article was published as it was, along with a poem by Radhanand.
In the morning the Mother told a very interesting story to Sri Aurobindo.
THE MOTHER: J has written that she and her son want to go on an outing for a few days, stay in a bunglow and return just two or three days before Darshan. She wants to know what I would say. I have seen that she doesn't want to know. Already they went once and found that the bungalow was occupied by another European. Finding no room they came back and said that they would start again after few days. I clearly saw that if she went again some accident would happen to her and she would miss the Darshan as she had done before.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh., did she miss it once before?
THE MOTHER: Yes, it was when she went to see her son. They don't take a hint. Then she wrote to me that they couldn't go as they
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couldn't get hold of a chauffeur. I was tempted to write to her that the Divine Grace (here the Mother spoke in French; the sense seemed to be that the Divine Grace had saved her.)
NIRODBARAN: Sotuda has brought the news that Nishikanto's book is selling now.
PURANI: It is still too soon to expect any sales. No reviews have come out yet, though reviews don't influence the sale.
SRI AUROBINDO: In England they do. Plenty of people read the reviews. Any book recommended by the Book Club has a good sale.
EVENING
PURANI: Jinnah is getting impossible. He says that India is one country but with two nations in it — Hindu and Muslim.
SRI AUROBINDO: Two heads on one body? Why two only? As the Hindu points out, there are other minorities that can also claim to be separate nations—five or six heads!
PURANI: Vallabhbhai Patel says that the British Government is keeping up the division by playing one party against the other.
SRI AUROBINDO: What else does he expect? So long as there are different parties, the Government will act like that. If they don't do so but simply leave India, the Russians may come in and do the same thing.
NIRODBARAN: I met Charu Dutt this morning. He seems to be an interesting man.
SRI AUROBINDO: In what way?
NIRODBARAN: Well, the way he talks, the unlimited stock of anecdotes he seems to have. He was saying that when they were starting the Bande Mataram C. R. Das insisted that Bipin Pal should be the editor, while they insisted that Sri Aurobindo should be the
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editor. Dutt told Das, "We have persuaded him to come from Baroda to take up the editorship of the paper."
SRI AUROBINDO: What? Who persuaded me? I came on my own to start a nationalist movement. There was no C. R. Das at that time. In fact, Bipin Pal had himself started the paper with Rs. 500 as capital. When he went on a tour of West Bengal he asked me to edit it for the time being. I had accepted the principalship of the National College for Rs. 150 a month.
Tilak was coming to Calcutta as President of the Congress. We wanted to have a militant programme and our own organ. So I called a meeting of the extremist leaders - there we decided to have a paper and Subodh Mullick offered to finance it.
Shyam Sundar and Hem Ghose were not pleased with Pal's editorship. They said he was too moderate and when I was dangerously ill — the illness almost took me away — they published my name as editor without my consent and in Pal's absence. I called them and remonstrated strongly. They said they wouldn't have anything to do with the paper if Pal remained editor, and so he was pushed out.
NIRODBARAN: Dutt also said to Das, "We have brought Sri Aurobindo from Baroda almost against the Maharaja's wishes. The Maharaja is coming to the Congress. What will he say?
SRI AUROBINDO: Which Congress ? How could he attend the Congress?
PURANI: Perhaps some Industrial Congress or Exhibition. Some such thing was taking place at that time in Calcutta.
SRI AUROBINDO: In Calcutta?
PURANI: I am not sure if in Calcutta. But on that side.
SRI AUROBINDO: Dutt seems to have a strong imagination. He can't be entrusted with writing my biography. I think it should be made a rule that nobody shall write a biography without the consent of the man.
EVENING
NIRODBARAN: X has suddenly developed a soft corner for Anilbaran. He was saying to Dutt, "Have a talk with him. He is the one man whom we can present to others."
SRI AUROBINDO: Because of his shining face? (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: He has made surrender practicable in his own life X says. One day Anilbaran asked X to sing and then gave a high
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tribute to his songs—psychic, wonderful development, etc. that day perhaps X softened down. (Sri Aurobindo began to laugh.)
CHAMPAKLAL: Anilbaran is extremely clever. He knows very well how to please a man. Looking at my pictures, he would exclaim, "O Champaklal, it is wonderful, marvellous!" Then looking from increasing distances of one foot, Two feet and three feet would go on, "Admirable, excellent!"
SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): And you were pleased in spite of yourself. (Laughter)
CHAMPAKLAL: Now I don't believe what he says. Akbar Hydari told him, "Only the Mother shows my faults and mistakes; everybody else praises me." Anilbaran asked me, Was Hydari hinting to me?" (Laughter)
SATYENDRA: Where did he learn this art?
SRI AUROBINDO: You mean it may be a Yogic Sidhi. (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN: It seems Tagore was asked his opinion of The Life Divine and he said, "All that about sadhana in solitude I don't understand." Charu Dutt replied, "How is that? You yourself had to retire to a boat to write poetry. And I have seen you meditating all alone in the early morning. Then how can you make that remark? Can you write poetry in the market-place?
SRI AUROBINDO: I was doing Yoga even during my political activity. Solitude is only a temporary period in sadhana.
NIRODBARAN: Dutt had a discussion with Tagore over Nishikanto's book Alakananda. Tagore's point is that he can't believe that a man can remain unmoved and calm and tranquil amidst pain and suffering, sorrow and distress. If a man falls from a height, how can he escape being hurt?" he asks
SRI AUROBINDO: It is not a question of being hurt. The question is of remaining unmoved and unshaken by the hurt.
NIRODBARAN: Tagore himself in Prabasi speaks of unpurterbed peace.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but that should be the ideal, it is not realisable in life: that is perhaps his view.
NIRODBARAN: But he says one must have it.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, have it as an ideal.
NIRODBARAN: Am I to believe in the long period of his life he has not met a single man like that?
SATYENDRA: He may not have.
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SRI AUROBINDO: Why shouldn't he have? If he hasn't he should be sent to Finland and he will see many people there remaining calm and tranquil in the midst of all knocks and attacks.
NIRODBARAN: Tagore says Nishikanto's poetry is not for the mass, that it is not within their experience. By 'mass' he means himself and a few hundred people like him, Dutt said, while the rest, like Dutt himself, understand it quite well. Another funny thing Dutt said was that Nishikanto could have written equally well in Shantiniketan and with better substance too.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, substance which the mass would understand, perhaps.
NIRODBARAN: It is reported by Dutt that, apprehensive of a big row at the Surat Congress and the risk of physical injury to you, your friends made special arrangements with Barin to keep you safe.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know about any row. A Maratha leader-a lieutenant-came to me and asked me whether they should break the Congress. I said, "You must either swamp it or break it." They couldn't swamp it as the other party was too strong in number. So they broke it: There was no question of any row.
I had very little personal contact with Dutt. I think I met him and Mullick first at Thana. I mixed intimately with Mullick. Dutt was most of the time occupied with his judgeship; he was known as a revolutionary judge.
NIRODBARAN: People say you had three very intimate friends. One of them is dead, one still alive. We don't know about the remaining one.
SRI AUROBINDO: One was Deshpande who was very intimate: he is dead. Madhavrao was another: he is also dead. Who was the third?
PURANI: Kasherao?
SRI AUROBINDO: Kasherao was not so intimate.
NIRODBARAN: Dutt speaks of going back once more and then coming to stay here.
SRI AUROBINDO: I hear he wants to end his last days here which I don't approve of .This is not Benares.
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SATYENDRA: But if people want to come here for that purpose, Sir, why should you object?
CHAMPAKLAL: A's mother came with that object.
NIRODBARAN: There is a precedent then. But it will be terrible for us. We can't welcome them.
SRI AUROBINDO: Nirod will be presiding over the deaths of people. They say in English, "Dying on the Doctor's hands." It will be on Nirod's hands.
Purani brought a collection of Nandalal Bose's and Abanindranath Tagore's paintings for Sri Aurobindo's inspection
SRI AUROBINDO (after seeing one or two of Abanindranath's): Obviously, on the whole he is a greater
PURANI: Jayantilal says that in some individual paintings Nandalal has shown greater genius, and he considers him potentially a greater artist than Tagore but his potentialities haven't fulfilled themselves.
SRI AUROBINDO: Abanindranath has more force of imagination and a greater power of expression.
PURANI: Jayantilal says that he doesn't hold the modernist view of art.
SRI AUROBINDO: Art for the mass?
PURANI: Yes, he is more aristocrat and conservative. How do you find Gaganendranath Tagore?
SRI AUROBINDO: He has rather brilliant fancy than true imagination. Sometimes he is imaginative, but mostly he is fanciful. In Bengal art, these are the three great artists.
PURANI: Gandhi is now going to Shantiniketan. It seems the tie between Gandhi and Tagore will get stronger now. You know that it was through Gandhi that Tagore will get stronger now. You know that it was through Gandhi that Tagore got Rs. 60,000 for his Shantiniketan. When Gandhi went to Delhi and saw that Tagore had come there at such an old age to collect money, he said to him, "You go back. I will arrange for the money." And he asked Birla to pay the sum. In America people generously donate money for such public things.
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SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
NIRODBARAN: But in America people who give away their wealth are businessmen.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but they know something of life too.
PURANI: Gandhi has come out with a strong comment on Zetland's statement. He says, "If such is the mentality of Englishmen I don't see why I should pray for their victory."
SRI AUROBINDO: I see! Zetland is making blunders. If he had left it to Linlithgow, he would have managed it much better.
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