6 DECEMBER 1940

DR . MANILAL : When the Gita says "I shall deliver you from all papa", does papa mean sin, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, from all evils. Sin is a religious conception, an offence against God. Arjuna's refusal to fight can't be called an offence against God; it is an offence against morality, you can say. Virtue and vice are moral conceptions.

MULSHANKAR: What type of Yogi is Gandhi, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yogi? He is not a Yogi; he is an ethical man.

MULSHANKAR: He is guided by voices.

SRI AUROBINDO: Then everybody who is guided by voices would be a Yogi. Then all Quakers are Yogis. Those who are possessed by strong vital forces, good or bad, can hear voices. Gandhi himself says that when he is so possessed he can't resist. These are voices which come from various sources. One voice says one thing, another contradicts it.

EVENING

Dr. Manilal was sitting with a warm cloth tied round his head to protect it against a cold draught.

SRI AUROBINDO: You have the expression of Schopenhauer on your face. (Laughter)

DR . MANILAL : How, Sir?

Page -950

SRI AUROBINDO: The world, according to him, is full of suffering and sorrow, and life is an insanity.

DR . MANILAL : It is just the contrary with me. I thought I caught an infection of hilarity from Ravindra.

SRI AUROBINDO: Then you are trying to suppress it. (Laughter)

DR . MANILAL: Are German philosophers influenced by Vedanta? Vivekananda said that Max Müller was a reborn Sayanacharya.

SRI AUROBINDO: How? It is more than a compliment.

DR . MANILAL : Sylvan Levi is also a Sanskrit scholar. He came to Baroda. The Gaekwar used to refer to you, Sir, as "my secretary".

SRI AUROBINDO: Not a troublesome one? (Laughter)

DR . MANILAL : No, Sir. Vallabbhai once said that you were fined Rs. 50 by the Gaekwar in Kashmir.

SRI AUROBINDO: In Kashmir? No, it was in Baroda. I refused to attend office on Sundays and holidays, so he fined me Rs. 50. I said, "Let him fine me as much as he likes", and when he heard about it he stopped fining me.

7 DECEMBER 1940

DR . MANILAL : Is not the taking of life a sin, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: You are all the time thinking of sin. It depends on circumstances. English doctors advocate giving injections to cases of incurable suffering in order to cut short their lives.

PURANI : Gandhi also advocated it in case of the Ashram cow and there was a row among the Jains.

DR . MANILAL : What about suicide?

SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on the spirit in which it is done. If it is done in a vital spirit or with a vital motive it may be sin. Would you say that the Sannyasi who committed suicide in the story about Alexander engaged in an act of sin?

DR . MANILAL : I don't know the story.

SRI AUROBINDO: When Alexander was returning to Greece he wanted to take with him two Sannyasis. One refused, the other accompanied him. But after some time the latter had a severe attack of colic. He said his body was betraying him. So he decided to give up his body by immolating himself. In spite of pleadings he carried out his decision.

Page -951

12 DECEMBER 1940

The talk started with the release of Mrs. Naidu from prison.

SRI AUROBINDO: As I remarked, the Government has not given her the chance of a rest cure in jail. The Government refuses to take up responsibility for her.

DR. MANILAL : Instead of getting a rest cure she would rather feel restless in jail after some time. She is a brilliant speaker. She can do more valuable work outside the Congress.

SRI AUROBINDO: Much more! She has done nothing in the Congress.

DR . MANILAL : I heard her in Baroda. She has a fine voice too.

The talk proceeded to B. L. Gupta, also a good speaker, a former Dewan of the late Gaekwar. Then the Gaekwar himself came into the talk, how he had been humiliated at the Durbar due to the foolishness of B. L. Gupta. It was reported that after this humiliation the Gaekwar had begun to go downhill.

DR . MANILAL : Before this he was really great. A speech he made at the Industrial Exhibition was marvellous.

SRI AUROBINDO: Which Industrial Exhibition?

DR . MANILAL : At Ahmedabad.

SRI AUROBINDO: That was the speech I prepared for him. (Roar of laughter)

MULSHANKAR: I heard your lecture at Bombay after the Surat Congress. You had some paper in your hand.

SRI AUROBINDO: That was the speech I made from an entire silence of the mind. It was my first experience of the kind. You didn't hear me at Baroda?

DR. MANILAL : Yes, Sir, once only. I was in the Matric class then. I remember only one sentence of that speech. Dr. Mullick had come to Baroda. The meeting was held in his honour. Professor Saha proposed you to the chair saying, "Dr. Mullick is a Bengali and Mr. Ghose is a Bengali. So I propose him to the chair." You replied, "I consent to take the chair not because Dr. Mullick is a Bengali and I am a Bengali, but because I am an Indian and Dr. Mullick is an Indian."

When did you conceive of doing the Yoga, Sir?

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SRI AUROBINDO: Conceive of it? You mean when I started it?

DR. MANILAL : All right, Sir. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: It was Deshpande who wanted me to do Yoga. But when I came to know it would mean withdrawal from the world I didn't want to do it as I wanted to do political work. Then I took to Pranayama. But it didn't carry me far and I came to a point beyond which I couldn't proceed further. I gave it up and fell dangerously ill! I was on the point of death. I asked Barin if he knew anyone who could help me in Yoga. This was in Surat where I had attended the Surat Congress. Barin knew of Lele who was in Gwalior. He wired to him and asked him to meet us at Baroda. Pranayama had given me good health, a lot of poetry and various experiences. Now Lele took me to a quiet room upstairs in Khaserao Jadhav's house. I told him that I wanted Yoga to help me in my political work, for inspiration and power and capacity. I didn't want to give up my activities for the sake of Yoga. He said, "You are a poet; it will be very easy for you." Then he said, "Sit still and try to make your mind quiet and empty of thoughts. You will see that all your thoughts come from outside. As you perceive them, simply throw them away before they can enter into you." I tried and did it. In three days my mind became entirely quiet and vacant, without any thoughts at all, and it was in that condition of Nirvanic silence that I went first to Poona and then to Bombay. Everything seemed to me unreal; I was absorbed in the One Reality.

In that state of mind I told Lele, "I have been asked to deliver a lecture. How am I going to speak? Not a single thought is coming to me. I cannot make a speech." He held a day of prayer with other disciples for me and at the end he said, "Make a pranam to Narayana in the audience before you start, with your mind completely vacant. Then you will see that everything will come down and some power speak through you." I did as he had said and found that the whole speech came down from above; not a single thought or expression was mine. It got hold of my organ of speech and expressed itself through it from beginning to end. In my tour from Bombay to Calcutta all the speeches I made were from that condition of silence.

While I was parting from Lele I asked him what I should do, how I should be guided. He said, "Surrender yourself to the Divine and be guided by Him. If you can do that, you needn't do anything else." I replied, "I can easily do that." And when I did that, everything came from above and I was guided by that. After some time

Page -953

when Lele came to Calcutta, he asked me how I was getting on, whether I was meditating or not according to his advice. He had asked me to meditate twice a day and to be guided by the voice within. When I told him that I had given up medication —in fact the meditation was going on all the time - he said, "Ah, the devil has got hold of you." (Laughter) He did not wait for me to explain anything to him. Since then we began to follow our own ways. Evidently he had something in him and it was he who opened up and gave me the silence experience after my failure to advance further. Only, he wanted me to follow his path. He didn't want me to have the Nirvanic experience.

EVENING

DR. MANILAL : What is the reason for your failure in the riding test in the I.C.S., Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: I appeared late for the test.

DR. MANILAL : Why? Was it under any inspiration?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, (laughing) it was intentional. I wasn't dealing in inspiration then. I didn't want to be in the British Government Service. I had a strong dislike for the British.

DR. MANILAL : But then why did you appear for the I.C.S. exam at all?

SRI AUROBINDO: I had no intention to do it. It was my father who wanted me to be a civilian. I had to play this trick; otherwise my father and everybody would have howled. My poet brother was horrified to see me, along with my elder brother, smoking and playing cards at the Liberal Club after avoiding the riding test.

DR. MANILAL : Was your father alive at that time?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he was arranging with Sir Henry Cotton a post for me in Bihar under Sir Henry. But he died of shock soon after.

DR. MANILAL : What shock?

SRI AUROBINDO: He asked me to return to India by a particular ship. I don't know why on that ship. The ship was wrecked off the Portuguese coast. He thought I was on it. But I hadn't sailed on it at all.

DR. MANILAL : Why?

SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't intend to.

Page -954

NIRODBARAN: Did your father know of your failure in the test?

SRI AUROBINDO: No.

DR. MANILAL : Then he would have been shocked in any case.

SRI AUROBINDO: When they came to know, they all asked me to try again. But I didn't want to and I knew too that the British Government wouldn't give me another chance.

DR. MANILAL : Why?

SRI AUROBINDO: My record was too bad.

DR. MANILAL : How?

SRI AUROBINDO: They thought that I was a revolutionary, giving seditious speeches in the Indian Majlis. There was a man named Mehedi Hussain, an Indian deputy magistrate — I don't know why he went to England — who used to come to the Majlis and was supposed to be a spy. He may have reported me to the Government.

DR. MANILAL : How did you get the job in Baroda?

SRI AUROBINDO: I think I applied for it when the Gaekwar was in England. Sir Henry Cotton's brother asked me to do it and through his influence I came in contact with the Gaekwar.

DR. MANILAL : I thought that your political career began with the Bengal Partition.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh no! It began long before in Baroda. It was our men who got hold of the movement in Bengal and gave it a revolutionary character. Otherwise it would have been a moderate movement. We were training people in our secret society started by Tilak.

DR. MANILAL : Servants of India Society? (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: No, no, a secret society which I and some others joined along with some Rajput Thakurs. While in Bengal the revolutionary party was started by Okakura and joined by Nandy, Suren Tagore and others. The Swadeshi movement started before the Bengal Partition. I was coming and going between Bengal and Gujarat. Gujarat was very moderate at that time. With Pherozeshah Mehta it was just beginning to be revolutionary.

DR. MANILAL : What about Dadabhai Nowroji? He was an extremist.

SRI AUROBINDO: No, Moderate, ardent Moderate. Ardent of the non-ardent type. Moderate of the middle kind, like Gokhale.

Page -955

13 DECEMBER 1940

DR. MANILAL : Sir, was the Mother doing your Yoga in Europe?

SRI AUROBINDO: Why my Yoga? She was doing Yoga, though the Europeans don't call it Yoga.

NIRODBARAN: There is such a striking similarity between your ideas and the Mother's.

DR. MANILAL : Yes, that is why I ask.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yoga is everywhere the same.

NIRODBARAN: Yes, but what I mean is that the Mother also stressed the need of divine manifestation, of not considering the world as Maya. Did she have any teacher?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, Jnan Chakravarty, the husband of Krishnaprem's Guru, gave her the Gita's Yoga in Paris. And she used to come in contact with Abdul Baha in Paris. As a matter of fact, it was she who was leading and organising the Bahai group in Europe. In one of their group meditations Mother had some experience which none of the others had.

DR. MANILAL : What is Bahaism, Sir? I find it mentioned in the Sunday Times too.

SRI AUROBINDO: I think Abdul Baha was the son or grandson of Baha-ullah who established the Bahai sect. It is a modernised and liberalised form of Mohammedanism. They believe there is truth in every religion, and they believe themselves to have gathered all the essential religious truths. This Baha-ullah was imprisoned in Turkey for thirty or forty years. He was kept in a tower; about thirty to forty thousand people used to come to see him and he used to give them his blessings standing at the tower window.

NIRODBARAN: I heard that Mother used to see you in visions, but could not make out the exact identity. She thought it might be a Chinese figure.

SRI AUROBINDO: No, it was not like that. Every day somebody used to appear to her calling himself Krishna. As soon as she saw me, she recognised that it was myself.

EVENING

DR. MANILAL : Could Hitler be called as great as Napoleon, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: What? How can he be compared with Napoleon? He can't stand any comparison with Napoleon. Hitler

Page -956

is a man of one idea; he has no other capacity or activity except that he is also a house-painter, while Napoleon had many sides: he was not only a military general, but also an administrator, organiser, legislator and many other things. It was he who organised France and Europe, stabilised the French Revolution. Besides being a legislator he established the bases of social laws, administration and finance which are followed even today. He is not only the greatest military genius in history but one of the greatest men, with manifold capacities. Hitler is a man of one idea, with no intellect, which he applies with strong force and violence; he has no control over his emotions. He hesitates in his policies which some call cautiousness. And all his power comes from the Asura by whom he is possessed and guided while Napoleon was a normal human being acting through the power of his brain which reached the highest development possible in a human being.

DR. MANILAL : Napoleon is said to have been immoral.

SRI AUROBINDO: If you mean that he was not chaste, it is true. As I said, he was a normal human being with enormous many-sided powers and capacities which very few people have possessed.

Hitler's idea of the Nazi order is also not his. It is the idea of a Jew whom he murdered later on.

PURANI: And you can see in Europe the type of New Order and civilisation he wants to establish.

NIRODBARAN: But as regards military genius they say he is as great as Napoleon.

SRI AUROBINDO: How? One can say that he has developed a new technique which he has pursued with great audacity. Even that new technique is not his. It was discovered by a Frenchman and was passed on to the German generals. They hesitated to act on it while Hitler pursued it boldly, disregarding the advice of the generals.

Hitler is a new type, an infra-rational mystic, representing the dark counterpart of what we are striving to arrive at: a supra-rational mysticism. (Looking at Dr. Manilal) Do you know that in his secluded residence he has a cinema and enjoys and gloats on the horrors and sufferings he has inflicted on people? That is the story told by his maidservant who was with him all the time.

Page -957

16 DECEMBER 1940

Anilbaran in an article on the Gita has tried to bring into it Sri Aurobindo's ideas of transformation, The Life Divine, etc. Sri Aurobindo commented on this.

SRI AUROBINDO: The Gita doesn't speak of transformation. It is his own reading of the Gita. One can say that the Gita shows the way to something further or to our Yoga. What it speaks of is the need to act from a spiritual consciousness using the instruments of the human mind, vital, etc., but not of the transformation of these instruments.

PURANI: Anilbaran admits this but he says that here and there in the Gita there are hints beyond it.

SRI AUROBINDO: In that case my claim that our Yoga is new doesn't hold good, and the man who said that the Gita speaks of transformation would be right.

Purani conveyed Sri Aurobindo's views to Anilbaran. Anilbaran admitted his mistake and said that in the future he would be more cautious and accurate in his statements.

17 DECEMBER 1940

Today Anilbaran asked through Purani: "What is the limit of transformation which the Gita speaks of?"

SRI AUROBINDO: Limit of transformation? But the Gita, as I said, doesn't speak of transformation. It goes as far as the Buddhi.

PURANI : Krishna says, puta madbhavam agatah — "They come to My nature" - doesn't this mean transformation of nature?

SRI AUROBINDO: That is not transformation. Puta, being purified, you attain to My nature - the Divine nature - but such an attainment is not transformation.

PURANI: When one is acting from the Divine nature, the Divine spiritual consciousness is the background. Is it not the transformed nature?

SRI AUROBINDO: What is the Divine nature? Transformation does not mean the change of ordinary nature into it. At least that is not the sense in which I have used the term.

Page -958

PURANI: The Vaishnavas speak of getting the nature of the Divine.

SRI AUROBINDO: Then is that transformation? If so, the Vaishnavas have the supramental transformation of the nature! And any change of nature can be called that. In that case, attaining a sattwic nature is also transformation.

NIRODBARAN: Most of us don't quite understand what is meant by this transformation.

SRI AUROBINDO: When there is an entire change in the basis of one's consciousness and a radical change in the dynamic movement of one's nature; in other words one is no longer acting from the ordinary or even the enlightened human consciousness and its ignorance.

NIRODBARAN: Couldn't people like Ramakrishna, who have attained to the Divine consciousness and been living in and acting from it, be said to have transformed their nature? He didn't act from a human motive or from egoism or selfishness.

SRI AUROBINDO: Was he correct in all his actions? Did he not commit any mistakes? At least he didn't claim to be in such a state. He didn't have selfishness in the ordinary human sense of the term, but was he completely free from the separative I? He himself said that the shadow or form of the I is necessary for action. In the supramental transformation the ego is not indispensable for action.

People always confuse a change of nature with transformation. If a change of nature means transformation, then many sadhaks here have got transformation.

NIRODBARAN: What then is transformation?

SRI AUROBINDO: Transformation is that state in which everything is based on the Truth-Consciousness; the whole instrumentality is that. One lives in that and acts from that; one has it both in its static and dynamic aspects.

It is said that Ramakrishna had a cold while travelling in a train. Somebody asked him to put his head out the window and his cold would be cured. He did that.

NIRODBARAN: He was quite childlike in many such matters.

SRI AUROBINDO: But was it acting from the Divine Consciousness?

DR. MANILAL : What about Buddha, Sir? Was he not transformed?

Page -959

SRI AUROBINDO: He had knowledge. Knowledge is not transformation. People are using the word in any sense just like the word supramental. It is I who have first used it and in the special sense I have given to it. If everybody has attained to the transformation I speak of, the supramental transformation has already been done and everybody is supramental. They don't make the distinction between action from a spiritual consciousness which is above mind but acts through human instruments, and the supramental action from the Truth-Consciousness.

DR. MANILAL : There may be sadhaks here who act from the spiritual consciousness.

SRI AUROBINDO: Who? Nirod? (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Yes, Nirod and Anilbaran, etc. (Laughter)

PURANI: What Ramakrishna and others did came at most from the intuitive consciousness. They were open to that plane and got inspiration for action from those levels.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, their static consciousness may have been transformed, but it is the dynamic nature, too, that has to undergo transformation.

PURANI: That is why they called this world Ignorance. It is Sri Aurobindo, alone, who said that Ignorance is growing knowledge.

SRI AUROBINDO: If they had believed in and known about transformation, they wouldn't have condemned the world as Maya.

People get shocked when they hear that something more has to be achieved.

PURANI: Yes, they think Ramkrishna and everybody else had all the knowledge and realisation. What more can there be?

DR. MANILAL : But you have got transformation even down to the Inconscience, Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: Have I? I am glad to hear of it.

MULSHANKAR: If you haven't, how can you write or know about it?

SRI AUROBINDO: One can't have the knowledge of a thing, without first getting the thing? If you are asking whether I have the experience of the Inconscience, I say I have and so I can write from my experience of it.

NIRODBARAN (to Dr.Manilal): You have an idea of peace, you know about it but you haven't got it yet.

DR. MANILAL : As I see the sea, have an idea of it and know about it without plunging into it?

Page -960

SRI AUROBINDO: Even seeing it, you may not know it is the sea. As some people from Punjab saw the sea and asked, "What is that blue thing?" (Laughter)

EVENING

DR. MANILAL : How shall we be able to know whether one's nature has been transformed?

SRI AUROBINDO: By being transformed yourself! (Laughter)

MULSHANKAR: Could Buddha be said to have a transformed nature? His actions and discourses don't seem to have been inspired from the human mind.

SRI AUROBINDO: He used human reason and logic in his discourses.

DR. MANILAL : Nirod won't agree that Buddha didn't have a transformed nature, being a Buddhist himself. He will take the side of Buddha.

SRI AUROBINDO: Well?

NIRODBARAN: I didn't say that Buddha was transformed. But as for applying human reason and logic, you also do the same with us.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is because I have to speak to the human mind, so I have to apply human logic.

DR. MANILAL : By what tests or actions could one judge that one's nature is transformed? Is there no such criterion?

SRI AUROBINDO: You are asking like Arjuna in the Gita, "How does a liberated man walk or speak?" As I said, you have to be transformed yourself to know that. (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL (laughing): That is what I too said to Nirod. That shows I have become transformed.

SRI AUROBINDO: That doesn't show that.

DR. MANILAL : Are we a help or hindrance, Sir, in your work? (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): You are asking a delicate personal question. You may be either or both. Or your help may be a hindrance and your hindrance a help. (Laughter) You have to be transformed in order to realise that.

In the last issue of the Sunday Times there are some stories related by Europeans about incidents of their previous births. They have given corroborative proofs by which the stories have been verified. (Sri Aurobindo cited an example.)

Page -961

DR. MANILAL : I also heard of a story, Sir. In our part a deputy magistrate's grandson, who is now a student, related that he had been a parrot in a previous birth, residing in a particular banyan tree and bowing before the image of Vishnu. The wife of this magistrate, while passing beneath that tree, had seen a parrot and after hearing about its religious character prayed that it might be born as her grandson. The grandson related the story when he was only four years of age.

APPENDIX

Apropos of Sri Aurobindo's mention of his "experience of the Inconscience", we may quote a sonnet of his dating to the same period as these Talks.

THE INCONSCIENT FOUNDATION

My mind beholds its veiled subconscient base;

All the dead obstinate symbols of the past,

The hereditary moulds, the stamps of race

Are upheld to sight, the old imprints effaced.

In a downpour of supernal light it reads

The black Inconscient's enigmatic script —

Recorded in a hundred shadowy screeds

An inert world's obscure enormous drift;

All flames, is torn and burned and cast away.

There slept the tables of the Ignorance,

There the dumb dragon edicts other sway,

The scriptures of Necessity and Chance.

Pure is the huge foundation now and nude,

A boundless mirror of God's infinitude.

18 October 1939, 7 February 1940

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18 DECEMBER 1940

This evening Sri Aurobindo broached the subject of rebirth by addressing Dr. Manilal.

SRI AUROBINDO: Your story about the parrot being reborn as magistrate may not be true.

DR. MANILAL : Not as a magistrate but as his grandson. (Laughter)

MULSHANKAR: Why not true. Sir? You mean that a parrot can't be born as a human?

SRI AUROBINDO: Because there is no evidence by which to verify it. It may be the simple imagination of the boy, whereas in other cases ample proof is given.

DR. MANILAL : Can't a parrot or and animal be reborn as a human? You don't believe in the evolution of life, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, I do.

DR. MANILAL : In a Jain story it is said that the mother of our first Tirthankara was born as a banana tree. By the side of that tree there was another tree full of thorns. Those thorns used to prick the banana tree so much —

NIRODBARAN: Good Lord! Do you believe in these stories?

DR. MANILAL : — but in spite of the pain and suffering the tree used to remain calm.

PURANI: As a reward it was reborn as a Tirthankara's mother.

SRI AUROBINDO: You are asked whether you believe in these stories.

DR. MANILAL (looking at Nirodbaran): Why not? When there is no proof to the contrary.

NIRODBARAN: But there is no proof in their favour either.

DR. MANILAL : Why? This story has been told by the Tirthankara himself who is a Sarvajna, that is, one who knows the past, present and future.

SRI AUROBINDO: How do you know it was told by a Tirthankara?

DR. MANILAL : Why? It is in the Shastra. (Laughter)

PURANI: Everything in the Shastra is true?

DR. MANILAL : Otherwise why should it be stated?

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SRI AUROBINDO: For the sake of pleasure. Besides, what proof is there that it was told by a Sarvajna or that what the Sarvajna said was true?

DR. MANILAL : Why not? A Sarvajna is supposed to know everything. You don't think Sarvajnas exist?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know, I have never met one.

DR. MANILAL : If these stories can't be believed, then Buddha's recounting of all his past lives is also not true, not correct.

SRI AUROBINDO: How to know whether they were correct or not?

PURANI: Besides, who reports those stories? Is it Buddha himself?

DR. MANILAL : Then all that is said about Krishna and Arjuna and the Gita can't be believed.

PURANI: It is not necessary to believe everything. The point is whether or not the principle laid down there is true.

SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. The important question is whether the truth or principle laid down in the Gita is valid, can be verified. The rest is unessential, legendary, unimportant.

DR. MANILAL : Buddha says -

NIRODBARAN: Where?

DR. MANILAL : In the book. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: You remind me of a British worker who said, "It must be true because I saw it in print." (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : In that case all Buddhism and jainism are false.

NIRODBARAN: Not Buddhism!

PURANI: Why false? There are records by which it could be proved that Buddha did exist whereas there is no proof of his previous births, of the existence of other Bodhisattvas. Only after Gautama Buddha appealed did we come to know that he was the thirty-second Bodhisattva, while Dipankar was the first. But all that depends on who has said it and whether there is any proof of it.

DR. MANILAL (to Sri Aurobindo): Do you disbelieve it?

SRI AUROBINDO: Disbeliefis easy. Beliefis difficult. But it does not matter at all whether Buddha and other Bodhisattvas existed. The thing is whether what has been said as regards Buddhism can be verified by experience. That is the important thing.

PURANI: They usually regard four things as possible proof of a fact — Shruti, Anumana, Anubhava, Aptavakya.

Page -964

DR. MANILAL : Aptavakya alone is enough. What do you say, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO (beginning to shake his head): What is meant by Aptavakya?

DR. MANILAL : Words of a realised soul.

SRI AUROBINDO: How to know if someone is realised and from whom the words come — from him or from somebody who reports them? Annie Besant, for instance, calls herself a saviour and knows all about her past, present and future —

DR. MANILAL : I think even the Theosophists don't believe in that.

NIRODBARAN: Why? Some may and some may not, just as some Jains may not believe in the Tirthankara stories. (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Oh no, every Jain believes in them.

SRI AUROBINDO: It was said that Mohammed was born some three or four thousand years prior to what is now presumed to be his date of birth. Only after sorting through all the documents and spurious evidence, has the date been cut down so many years now. So which is the Aptavakya and how to believe in it unless there is some proof to substantiate it?

DR. MANILAL : But if Purani reports something you have said, can't it be taken as true?

SRI AUROBINDO: It depends. It may or may not be true. Depends on the reporter. The report is not only from Purani, but from Purani to somebody else, and then from somebody to somebody again and so on! In that case the miracles that have been added to my life by Motilal Mehta may be considered true.

DR. MANILAL : Yes, Sir, as he was your disciple and came in direct contact with you. But miracles are associated with the life of realised souls. Alice told me once of a miracle in Hydrabad. She said that for a long time there was no rain in Hyderabad. Then she said to people, "You will see, in twenty-four hours there will be rain." (As Dr. Manilal was narrating the story Sri Aurobindo was saying all the time, "Yes, yes.") Then she began to pray to the Mother, pray, and pray very intensely, and then came a heavy downpour. Was it not a miracle by the Mother?

SRI AUROBINDO: Well! It was a response to Alice's prayer, but any and every prayer doesn't get such a response - it must be an intense prayer. One may go on praying and praying without any result. But it was not a miracle.

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DR. MANILAL : It was not done by the intervention of the Mother?

SRI : Maybe, but it was not a miracle, it was the result of a Contact with some forces that brought down the rain. It was a play of forces. Any number of people have done that sort of thing. There is the story of some European who prayed to save the ship he was on in the midst of a heavy storm, and it was saved. Then the well-known story of a Christian minister who began to pray for rain. There was such a downpour that it wouldn't stop for days. Then the minister cried out, "Oh, God, this is just ridiculous." (Sri Aurobindo said this with great amusement.)

NIRODBARAN: What happened as a result of his outcry?

SRI : That is not reported. The healing by Christ is not a miracle for that matter. Many people have done that.

CHAMPAKLAL: What is a miracle then?

SRI AUROBINDO: Something that happens contrary to any laws of nature.

DR. MANILAL : If on the new moon day, the moon can be seen?

SRI AUROBINDO: That is not miraculous - may be hypnotic? (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : If not hypnotic?

SRI AUROBINDO: Then it could be a miracle.

DR. MANILAL : The raising of the table cloth from the table and suspending it in the air as narrated in the Mother's conversation?

SRI AUROBINDO: That is not a miracle either. It is simply done by putting out some force. Where there is a method, a process, it can't be called a miracle. Otherwise levitation is also a miracle.

19 DECEMBER 1940

DR. MANILAL : Gandhi has asked people to stop the satyagraha during Christmas.

SRI AUROBINDO: I see. The Government can also release the prisoners for that period.

DR. MANILAL : This may be Gandhi's first step towards a compromise.

SRI AUROBINDO: How?

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DR. MANILAL : He may stop the movement and join hands with the Government.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not likely. I don't think he will.

After some time Dr. Manilal began again.

DR. MANILAL : There is then no such thing as Sarvajna, Sir! (Laughter)

After so much battering last night by all of us when he again raised the subject, we couldn't help but burst out laughing.

NIRODBARAN: Did you have good sleep last night? (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Is there no such thing. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know.

DR. MANILAL : How could the word come then? And what could be the meaning of it?

SRI AUROBINDO: It is for them to say who have used the word.

DR. MANILAL: Have you not used it?

SRI AUROBINDO: I may have.

DR. MANILAL : Are not those who have realisation Sarvajna?

SRI AUROBINDO: What realisation?

DR. MANILAL : Nirvana, for instance.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why should one who has separated himself from everything know everything?

DR. MANILAL : What then could be the meaning of Sarvajna, Sir?

NIRODBARAN: As he has said, knowledge of everything.

DR. MANILAL : What everything?

SRI AUROBINDO: Everything means everything.

PURANI: Their meaning of Sarvajnatva is knowing all the facts of existence.

SRI AUROBINDO: Even what Lloyd George had for his break-fast or knowledge of the share markets?

Then some other talk intervened. After this Dr. Manilal again resumed the topic.

DR. MANILAL : What are the meanings of the English words omniscient, omnipotent, etc.?

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SRI AUROBINDO: They are applied in English to God.

DR. MANILAL : We are being asked, "Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present." What could be its meaning then?

PURANI: It means the sadhak should feel as if he was before the Mother -

DR. MANILAL : Don't mix up the meaning.

SRI AUROBINDO: Does it mean that the Mother is expected to know what one is doing in the Working Committee?

DR. MANILAL : But doesn't it mean that she can know?

SRI AUROBINDO: That is a different thing. She can know if she wants to.

DR. MANILAL : She can know then everything?

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by everything? She can know what is necessary for her to know. She may not know everything in her physical body, but in her universal entity she can know. Sarvajnatva doesn't mean knowledge of everything. It usually means knowledge of the Trikala. When the Gita says Sarvavid, it doesn't mean knowledge of everything.

DR. MANILAL : But Trikala would mean all time.

SRI AUROBINDO: No, it may mean that one knows whatever it is necessary to know, what one is concerned with in the past, present or future; beyond that he is not concerned with anything.

If Mother wants to know a particular thing she has to concentrate. A yogi can know, but by a process of concentration. It is a power, not a state of preoccupied knowledge of things. But that doesn't mean that he knows everything.

NIRODBARAN: When one gets into contact with the subliminal self, one can know whatever he wants without any concentration.

SRI AUROBINDO: How?

NIRODBARAN: Isn't the knowledge there automatic?

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by automatic?

NIRODBARAN: I mean without any need for concentration one knows a thing directly.

DR. MANILAL : He means, for instance, that when one sees a gold ring, he will know at once that it is made of gold.

SRI AUROBINDO: But it may not be made of gold, it may only appear to be so.

NIRODBARAN: No, what I mean-suppose I see Dr. Manilal,! will at once be able to know without any concentration that-

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SRI AUROBINDO: All about his life?

NIRODBARAN: No, say, what he has been doing.

DR. MANILAL : He may know about the essential parts of my being or consciousness.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why? It may be the most inessential part also.

DR. MANILAL : Or for instance, if he visits a patient, he will be able to diagnose without any exam that it is a case of T.B.

SRI AUROBINDO: It may not be a case of T.B. The subliminal consciousness is not all true knowledge. It is mixed with Ignorance. Also you have to develop the capacity to know. Even if you know, the capacity of utilisation may be absent; or if you have the knowledge, you may cure in some cases but it doesn't mean you will be successful in every case.

NIRODBARAN: In other words, awareness of the subliminal may give knowledge but not power?

SRI AUROBINDO: You have to develop the power. It doesn't come by itself. Even then, as I said, you may not be successful in every case. As, for example, when Christ came to some parts of Judea, he couldn't cure. He said, "These people have no faith."

DR. MANILAL : Faith is then always a preliminary to cure?

SRI AUROBINDO : Not necessarily. Without faith one may also be cured. Many patients get cured without their knowing about the action of the Force. Lack of faith may be an obstacle too, especially a positive disbelief.

CHAMPAKLAL: Is one born with faith?

SRI AUROBINDO: One is not born with it, but one may be born with a capacity for faith.

EVENING

DR. MANILAL : The Sarvajnas - (Laughter. Sri Aurobindo exclaimed, "Oh!") — are they concerned with only a higher plane of knowledge. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: How do you mean?

DR. MANILAL : I mean, are they concerned only with the higher planes of existence, not our day-to-day mundane affairs?

SRI AUROBINDO: By clairvoyance also one can see things. But what is your idea about Sarvajna? Who, according to you, is Sarvajna?

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DR. MANILAL : Those who have realisation.

SRI AUROBINDO: What realisation?

DR. MANILAL : Of Nirvana or Kaivalyajnan.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know what Kaivalyajnan is.

DR. MANILAL : One who has a solitary realisation of the One.

SRI AUROBINDO: If he has a solitary realisation of the One, how can he be expected to have knowledge of the many?-

DR. MANILAL : I mean the One and the many.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is not solitary. That is a comprehensive realisation.

DR. MANILAL : I mean that; it was a wrong expression.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not expression, but a wrong statement. Even if one has knowledge of the many, it doesn't mean he has knowledge of the all. That is, he may know what he has to know or wants to know.

DR. MANILAL : Like Vyasa's shadow-reader who could by studying someone's shadow tell his past and present, etc.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, he can say everything! (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Nirod says that by knowledge of the subliminal one can know everything. Isn't it so, Nirod?

NIRODBARAN: No, no, I must read the chapter again.

SRI AUROBINDO: What I have said in The Life Divine is that when you get into contact with the subliminal self, you get into contact with a greater source of knowledge. But it is not all pure and correct knowledge because the subliminal is also mixed with Ignorance and it has many parts and depths.

PURANI: What Nirod told me was something like this -by getting into the subliminal one can project into the physical whatever incident or event one comes in contact with.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is too mechanical a way of seeing it. Besides, there are so many ways of approaching and knowing the subliminal - by penetrating, by enveloping, and then there are various depths of the subliminal.

NIRODBARAN: What I wanted to say was that the knowledge of the subliminal gives one a direct automatic knowledge without any need for concentration. That is how I understood the matter.

SRI AUROBINDO: You may or may not have to concentrate.

DR. MANILAL : How far is the supramental from the subliminal, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by "far"?

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DR. MANILAL : How distant, I mean.

SRI AUROBINDO: Ten thousand miles. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL : There is a jain story about two yogis who went to Mahavideha Kshetra and met Padmadevi and asked her how distant their realisation was. She said to one three years and to the other as many years as there are leaves on a tree. The latter began to dance -

SRI AUROBINDO : Oh, that is Narada's story of the Tapaswi and the Bhakta.

CHAMPAKLAL: That story you told me when I asked you on my first visit, "Shall I have realisation?"

SRI AUROBINDO: This is more pointed than the Jain story.

At this stage Dr. Manilal departed.

NIRODBARAN: But a contact with the subliminal may give me direct knowledge — say, correct diagnosis of a case as T.B. without any exam.

SRI AUROBINDO: It may, but it is only a knowledge. How will you have the power to cure? Besides, knowledge is not necessary for cure. Plenty of people can cure without knowledge.

PURANI: That is what I too told him.

NIRODBARAN: How does one get the power to cure?

SRI AUROBINDO: By getting the Force.

NIRODBARAN: But the subliminal may give me the knowledge of the right drug.

SRI AUROBINDO: If you know the right drug, will it always cure a case? Are there no failures in spite of the right drug being administered? Are all diseases curable?

NIRODBARAN: So says homoeopathy, that every disease has a right drug and is curable unless the organs are too damaged.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know about homoeopathy. But there are any number of instances where cases have failed in spite of the right treatment.

NIRODBARAN: Did you say in the morning that the Mother may not know something in her body but know it in her universal entity?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. It is not necessary for her to know in her body. There are many people whom the Mother has not met or seen but who call the Mother and get help.

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CHAMPAKLAL: Yes, Mother told us such a story in the stores, that some people were calling her.

PURANI: I remember distinctly her other story while sitting among us. Suddenly she went into a trance and returned after twenty minutes or so. Then she said to us that she had gone to the Himalayas to help a Yogi who had been calling her. We saw her actually shivering due to the cold of the Himalayas. Mother said she didn't know who the Yogi was.

SRI AUROBINDO: In her sleep Mother goes to various places. It doesn't mean that she knows or remembers in her waking moments all the places and persons she visits.

NIRODBARAN: Now it is clear. But how will the knowledge in her universal entity be practically applied in her physical which may not know about that knowledge? I mean her universal entity may have the knowledge of a particular act done by such and such a person. How will she be able to say which particular person has done it?

SRI AUROBINDO: If it is necessary for her to know, she can know by concentration. The physical brain is an instrument of the true individuality. Even the Yogis are not concerned with what is happening on Jupiter or Venus.

BECHARLAL: Does an Avatar know everything?

SRI AUROBINDO: What everything? It is the same question. Did Rama know it was not a real deer?

BECHARLAL: They say that he knew it was a false deer but in order to set an example -

SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! You mean to say that all he has done, the fight with Ravana and the rescue of Sita, is all deception in order to set an example? Then the Ramayana and Rama lose all their value. And his lamentation for Sita is also a pretension? Does an Avatar resort to deception in order to teach people?

PURANI: What about Sita's Agniparisha?¹

BECHARLAL: That was real, they say. But the Sita that was stolen by Ravana was not the real Sita, but her shadow. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: So all the time the real Sita was with Rama? And why then did Rama play that deception with Hanuman about Gandhamadan parvat? He could have told him straight away that it was in such and such a place, instead of Hanuman having to search for it everywhere.

¹Ordeal by fire.

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The shadow-of-Sita story reminds me of Helen of Troy's story. Someone — perhaps Euripides — says that it was not the real Helen but her image that was taken by Paris and that after the battle was over she rejoined her husband.

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