21 DECEMBER 1940

DR. MANILAL : In the Gita Sri Krishna says that he knows all about Arjuna's past lives.

SRI AUROBINDO: What about it? A past life can be known.

DR. MANILAL : Then he knew all the details of his past life?

SRI AUROBINDO: Who says that? Does Krishna say that? (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : He knew at least the salient features.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily; he may have known only the general features.

DR. MANILAL : Simply from general features one won't be able to make out the character and quality of a man.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? The first impression one gets, on knowing the general features of a man's past life, is that of character.

PURANI: He wants to say that one must be able to know what he had for his breakfast.

NIRODBARAN: What was your point in that question?

DR. MANILAL : I wanted to say that Krishna was Sarvajna. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: Then that girl from Mathura who knew all the details of her past life was also Sarvajna. When Arjuna said to Krishna, "Will you tell me again all you told me about Kurukshetra etc.,etc.?" Krishna replied, "Good Lord, do I remember all that blessed lot now? At that time I was in Yoga."

DR. MANILAL : But he was always in Yoga.

SRI AUROBINDO: He didn't say that. He said he had forgotten.

DR. MANILAL : How could he have heard Draupadi's lamentation then during Vastraharan?

SRI AUROBINDO: His subliminal heard it! (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Is that story true, Sir, and not an allegory?

SRI AUROBINDO: Why an allegory?

DR. MANILAL : Of course you yourself have said somewhere that all these stories are true.

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SRI AUROBINDO: Where have I said that? What I have said is that the Gita was recorded as a fact in the Mahabharata, intended to be a fact of life, not an allegory. But do you mean that Hanuman's taking the sun under his armpit and jumping into Lanka and burning Lanka by his tail-fire were all facts?

DR. MANILAL : What are they then? Poetry?

Purani narrated the story of the ex-Maharani of Porbandar who had come here. It is said she commuted the death-sentence of a criminal in her court because she was so moved by the piteous cry of his wife.

DR. MANILAL : Could this be called a Punya karma or Kuta karma, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: Which part of her action?

DR. MANILAL : This pardon and release of the murderer.

DR. MANILAL : It is an act of mercy. Mercy is a Punya karma.

DR. MANILAL : But can the release of an archmurderer be called Punya karma?

SRI AUROBINDO: How do you know he was an archmurderer? He may have been innocent.

DR. MANILAL : Let us take for granted he was an archmurderer.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why should you take it for granted?

DR. MANILAL : Suppose an archmurderer is released under such circumstances, he may go on committing more murders. Can that be called a Punya karma?

SRI AUROBINDO: It may be both. (Laughter) You are looking at it from the social point of view and don't see the character or nature of the act itself. Compassion is a virtue and an act of compassion is a virtuous act.

DR. MANILAL : Suppose a man is asked by a hunter about an antelope that has passed his way —

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, that old story of the Yogi? A Yogi was asked by some murderers if he had seen a man running away. He said "Yes", and showed the way. The man was caught and killed. The Yogi after his death was taken to hell.

DR. MANILAL : Was he right in telling the truth?

SRI AUROBINDO: There was no necessity.

DR. MANILAL : Should one speak the truth in all circumstances?

SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on the circumstances. Every action has to be judged on its own merits.

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DR. MANILAL : But in this case?

SRI AUROBINDO: He need not have told the truth as he knew what would be the consequence of his doing so.

DR. MANILAL : According to Jainism, one could have remained quiet.

SRI AUBOBINDO: Quite so. In this case he told the truth, not for the sake of telling the truth but from ethical vanity.

NIRODBARAN: Or perhaps for fear of his own life.

SRI AUROBINDO: That can't be a virtue either. To endanger another's life in order to save one's own can't be a Punya karma.

EVENING

DR. MANILAL : Have you read Professor N. N. Sen's lecture at the Madras Philosophy Conference?

SRI AUROBINDO: I have waded through it.

DR. MANILAL : The Hindu gives a short note on it, but I don't grasp it myself very well. It says, "What is mind? No matter" and "What is matter? Never mind." Something like that.

SRI AUROBINDO: It means mind and matter are not the same.

DR. MANILAL : But one thing I can't understand, Sir, about life and existence. If a living organism consists of living cells and each living cell has a soul -

SRI AUROBINDO: A cell has a soul?

DR. MANILAL : Yes, Sir, otherwise how could it live?

SRI AUROBINDO: It lives because of the life in it, not because of the soul in it. You can ask "What is life?"

DR. MANILAL : What is life then?

SRI AUROBINDO: For that you have to read The Life Divine (Laughter)

PURANI: He wants a shortcut.

NIRODBARAN: If each cell has a soul, then there are so many thousands of souls in the body?

SRI AUROBINDO: He is referring to Nigodh or Jiva. (Laughter) In that case one can say everything existing has a soul. A tree has a soul, a stone has a soul. That may be but it is not self-evident.

DR. MANILAL : That is what Jainism says. (Laughter) J. C. Bose has shown that the tree has a nervous system.

SRI AUROBINDO: A nervous system is not a soul. It is capable of response to a stimulus. If a cell dies, what happens to the soul?

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DR. MANILAL : It also dies. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: So body and soul are the same: both are destructible. If one dies, the other follows? That is the Western idea which makes no distinction between body and soul and life.

DR. MANILAL : What is your idea then?

SRI AUROBINDO: As I said, read The Life Divine. (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Is there no shortcut to it? (Laughter) When a person dies —

SRI AUROBINDO: A person dies? You mean the body dies?

DR. MANILAL : No, Sir! Say, when a human being dies -

SRI AUROBINDO: A human being dies? What is a human being?

DR. MANILAL : When the Atman departs - (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: That means the body dies. If the Atman or soul departs, it does not die; it is the body that dies. Either the body dies because the soul departs or the soul departs because the body is destroyed. According to one conception the soul is a portion of the Divine, and hence indestructible, while mind, life and body are instruments of its self-expression. It is the materialist's conception that soul and body are the same so that when the body dies existence ceases.

Dr. Manilal was so thoroughly battered that he had no more words to utter after this. After a short while he made his usual pranam and departed.

22 DECEMBER 1940

DR. MANILAL : Have unicellular organisms like the amoeba no soul. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, they have a psychic spark, not a developed soul or a psychic being.

DR. MANILAL : According to Jainism there are different types or grades of lives with grades of development of senses. Thus some creatures have only one sense, such as touch; some have two, touch and smell, and so on, till we come to the human grade with five senses. Is that true. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: It is for the scientists to say.

DR. MANILAL : Perhaps it is the underlying principle of the evolution of life that they want to show. But is it by any sort of virtuous act that a lower form of life becomes a higher one?

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SRI AUROBINDO: Virtuous act? No, it is a question of consciousness, a change from a lower to a higher consciousness.

DR. MANILAL (after a while): My shoulder is still resistant. Sir. The pain in the joint continues.

SRI AUROBINDO: Apply the Force.

DR. MANILAL : I have done so. Sir, but no result!

NIRODBARAN: Is the Force weak or the shoulder resistant?

DR. MANILAL : Both.

SRI AUROBINDO: I got rid of my shoulder trouble by a triple process: the Force, the doing of those movements that bring on pain, and perspiration!

DR. MANILAL : I have tried all that.

NIRODBARAN: You have added another - salicylates. (Laughter)

PURANI: He leaves nothing to chance - try everything so that one at least may hit.

DR. MANILAL : Yes. Fomentation, embrocation, massage, etc.

SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps you tried too many things, each reacting with the other and producing no result.

EVENING

Awobindo had finished his lunch earlier than usual today. Mridu, the cook, came late with her preparations, so Sri Awobindo could not take the fritters. Nirodbaran foolishly told Mridu that Sri Awobindo had finished his meal and that ivas enough to send her away weeping and lamenting. She repeated the story to Dr. Manilal.

SRI AUROBINDO: She shouldn't have been told.

NIRODBARAN: It was I who unguardedly told her about it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oosh, these things should not be told.

DR. MANILAL : But she has already recovered. I must say she has improved. Formerly I used to hear her threatening of suicide two or three times a week. This was the first time in one month. She says

CHAMPAKLAL: She will eat all right.

DR. MANILAL : She counts everything - how many luchis she had given, how many you have taken.

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SRI AUROBINDO: She won't be able to know how many I have taken and how many others have taken. But there is no reason why she should cry. It is I who ought to cry as I didn't have the fritters. (Laughter)

23 DECEMBER 1940

DR. MANILAL : Has Trikalajna no knowledge of the future?

SRI AUROBINDO: It means knowledge of all past, present and future.

DR. MANILAL : But if we can change the future by effort -

SRI AUROBINDO: Who says that?

DR. MANILAL : I think you have said it, Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: I! What about it then?

DR. MANILAL : Then how can one read the future completely?

SRI AUROBINDO: What does "completely" mean?

DR. MANILAL : It means in every detail.

SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't say in every detail. As I said, one has the faculty of knowing.

After this there was miscellaneous talk about this and that, about the Philosophical Congress at Madras, etc. Radhakrishnan then came into the discussion.

NIRODBARAN: Radhakrishnan seems to have said that he doesn't believe there is anyone who can challenge Shankara. It was in a talk in Belur Math regarding Sri Aurobindo.

SRI AUROBINDO: There have been many people who have challenged Shankara.

PURANI: Yes, Vaishnavas, Ramanuja, Madhava, etc.

After this Nirodbaran referred to Professor Amarnath Jha's lecture in the Hindu on Indian English where he has mentioned Gandhi's prose style as simple, sincere, almost Biblical.

DR. MANILAL : I must say Gandhi has improved Gujarati literature remarkably.

On this topic Manilal had an argument with Purani. All the recent stylists of Gujarat came into it: Kanu Munshi, Musriwalla, Kalelkar, etc.

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DR. MANILAL : What has happened to Kalelkar? He hasn't come back here after his first visit.

SRI AUROBINDO: Harm has frightened him away.

PURANI: What about B. K. Thakore?

DR. MANILAL : Oh yes, he is a great stylist. (After a pause) He is a great drunkard, too.

PURANI

DR. MANILAL : Oh no, he can't do without it. He used to go every day to a Bombay station and drink heavily in the station restaurant. Of course he didn't get tipsy.

SRI AUROBINDO: If not tipsy, how is he a drunkard?

DR. MANILAL : He drinks so heavily -

SRI AUROBINDO: But drinking heavily doesn't make him a drunkard; you can call him a heavy drinker.

DR. MANILAL : He drinks in excess.

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by excess? Excess for somebody else. But if the quantity doesn't affect him, it can't be excess for him.

DR. MANILAL : I submit, Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: In Plato's Symposium, Socrates, Aristophanes, Agathon and others meet and discuss the nature of love, and drink wine. Everybody gets drunk except Socrates. Even after heavy drinking he keeps on discussing philosophy with some friends, while the rest fall asleep. You can't call him a drunkard!

EVENING

Dr.Manilal has wrapped a piece of cloth around his head because of the cold.

NIRODBARAN: Dr. Manilal is looking like a Maharaja.

SRI AUROBINDO: I thought he looked like a college professor.

DR. MANILAL : I feel cold in the head. Sir; that's why I have put this cloth on it. Usually I catch cold in the chest and head.

NIRODBARAN : In spite of so many layers of garments? He has at least five on.

DR. MANILAL : Only one is warm.

SRI AUROBINDO: Even there he doesn't hold the record. I remember in London that the strength of Sarat Ghose - one of the Christian Ghoses — was disputed in some talk. He began to take his

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garments off. He took off his coat, waistcoat, shirt, one vest, then another, and still another and so on — altogether eleven! (Laughter)

Purani started a talk about some evening procession of the Selvaraju family.

DR. MANILAL : Did the family ever come to you, Sir, I mean in your early days here?

SRI AUROBINDO: Come to me? It is said that the father of the family tried to kidnap me into British territory, if that is what you mean by coming to me.

DR. MANILAL : I saw the Governor today. He looks absolutely like a bulldog with a ruddy face.

PURANI: That is due to drink!

DR. MANILAL : He drinks?

SRI AUROBINDO: He is a heavy drinker, not a drunkard (laughter), but he goes on to the point of apoplexy.

DR. MANILAL (after a while): They speak of Gandharvaloka, Sir. Is there any such world?

SRI AUROBINDO: Supposed to be.

DR. MANILAL : Have you seen it, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: I have not been there.

DR. MANILAL

SRI AUROBINDO: It is not necessary: there are many musicians in the Ashram. (Laughter)

PURANI: Professor Indra Sen, who has come for the Philosophical Conference at Madras, says that nowadays anybody who has written on any subject, economics, social reform, is being called a philosopher. Gandhi and Tagore are being called philosophers.

SRI AUROBINDO: Karl Marx is also a philosopher and all the communists too.

PURANI: Yes. Indra Sen is asking if by the supramental descent the whole of humanity is going to be transformed and how humanity is going to be benefited by it. By a change in consciousness?

SRI AUROBINDO: If he means supramental transformation, no.

NIRODBARAN: I thought there would be a general heightened consciousness.

SRI AUROBINDO : Yes, in some persons.

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PURANI: I told him there would be a move towards a higher consciousness through the influence of people who have attained to that consciousness.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is what I have said myself.

PURANI: He wants also to know how humanity today is better fitted for the change than before. I replied that nowadays one has to conceive of the whole of humanity as one unit: one can't think of it in separate terms or divide it into so many compartments. Nature won't allow any such division. .

SRI AUROBINDO: The main question is one of the development of mind. There has been a general development more than before -of course it is nothing exceptional. I am speaking of the masses. That is the first necessary condition.

PURANI : Yes, I told him how in Buddha's time or in the classical period of the Greeks, teaching and culture were limited to a small area, the greater part of the race had no access to them. Now, communication being so easy, there is no such obstacle. One can hear Roosevelt here in India.

There was a Muslim professor who spoke in the Philosophical Congress. He spoke on Freud. He has criticised Freud's theory that everything is due to the subconscient. Freud says that Moses turned into a prophet because of his personal sufferings, the repression in his childhood. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: Repression complex.

PURANI: The professor says that Freud's theory doesn't explain Moses.

SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): Not at all. It explains Freud. (Laughter) He himself had so many complexes that he couldn't find any other theory than that for every human action. He says that the sense of injustice in children is born from their inability to retain their excrement. (Laughter) And what is surprising is that everybody in Europe believes it. His real contribution is about the subconscient. Even there some of his disciples, such as Jung, are throwing out many things.

PURANI: And the professor says that the idea that in primitive races men used to kill their fathers in order to marry their mothers is not true.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, that old thing!

PURANI: Everyone didn't kill his father.

SRI AUROBINDO: Neither did everyone marry his mother.

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24 DECEMBER 1940

DR. MANILAL: Is there, Sir, such a condition of detachment that one is not disturbed or perturbed by anything whatsoever?

SRI AUROBINDO: Why not?

DR. MANILAL : Practicable, Sir? (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: Is it only a theory, then? An ideal not realisable in practice? As with Tagore who is reported to have said that yogic realisations are only ideals, not realisable, not meant for practice?

DR. MANILAL : Has anybody achieved it. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: It is one of the aims of Yoga.

DR. MANILAL : I know, but it is possible? (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: If it is impossible, why should it be an aim of Yoga? Merely as an ideal? Honesty is an ideal to be observed in commercial transactions. Does it mean you must observe it only when it suits you? (Laughter)

PURANI: Is the synopsis ready?

SRI AUROBINDO: No, I have just made a summary from which the synopsis will be made. After it is done, we can try it on Manilal and see if he understands it.

DR. MANILAL : If you make me understand, I will, Sir.

After some time Nirodbaran asked what was meant by space being coexistent with souls. Sri Aurobindo explained it but Nirodbaran could not follow.

DR. MANILAL : Souls have no space. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: There is a theory to that effect.

DR. MANILAL : According to jainism they have no space.

SRI AUROBINDO: What is space then according to jainism?

DR. MANILAL : Akasha.

SRI AUROBINDO: What is Akasha?

DR. MANILAL : Empty space.

SRI AUROBINDO: How is it empty?

DR. MANILAL : There are many atoms pervading it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Where do the atoms come from?

DR. MANILAL : They don't come from anywhere. They have been always there from time immemorial.

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SRI AUROBINDO: From time immemorial? How do they get there?

DR. MANILAL : They have been there. Sir. We have to take it for granted. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: What is time then according to jainism?

DR. MANILAL : There is no time; it is indivisible. What we see as present becomes past and what is future becomes present.

SRI AUROBINDO: So there is past and present.

DR. MANILAL : How, Sir? What we call "just now" has already become past. So there is no present. Mahavira and Buddha were at one time present but they no longer exist.

SRI AUROBINDO: If time were indivisible, they should exist now. You speak of from moment to moment.

DR. MANILAL : Relatively, Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by relatively? Otherwise it is absolute timelessness.

(Here there was talk about a discussion of Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine by philosophers.)

DR. MANILAL : Is space indivisible?

SRI AUROBINDO: Not unless it is useful for it to be so (laughter), otherwise you have to go on walking for three miles without stopping.

If you have to take everything for granted, take my philosophy also for granted and don't discuss it. (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : That requires a lot of Shraddha, Sir. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: Then should I be asked to have Shraddha, in your Jain philosophy? (Laughter) There are some postulates that are taken for granted. After a time they are given up in favour of some other postulates. For instance, matter was at one time thought to be the source and origin of everything. Now they have upset that theory.

Space is indivisible in the sense that existence is indivisible. If you look at existence as a whole, as the one Being, then space and time are indivisible. But if you look at the individual being, they are divided when you want to do anything. India is indivisible but it is very much divided! (Laughter)

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EVENING

SRI AUROBINDO (to Purani): What is the news of the world?

PURANI (smiling a little): I have no news. You have read Lloyd George's speech?

DR. MANILAL : It is a very balanced speech. Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: Very balanced? Nonsense! The one thing he lacks is balance. The one thing he has is vigour.

DR. MANILAL : He has made a strong attack on the Government. Chamberlain, Churchill and others are saying that they have committed big mistakes.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, everybody makes mistakes except him. Who doesn't make mistakes? Gandhi has also admitted that he has made "Himalayan blunders".

PURANI : Lloyd George is asking the Government to state its war aims and peace terms. How can one do that now?

DR. MANILAL : And he refers to his own Government in 1917.

PURANI: Yes, but that was when they were winning the war, while now they are just in the thick of the fight, with at most a fifty percent chance of success. And if they start stating war aims and peace terms now, division and quarrel will start among them giving a handle to Hitler to break up their alliance.

SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. What peace terms did Lloy George offer?

DR. MANILAL : It was the Versailles treaty and this war is result. Perhaps he wants to be the Prime Minister.

SRI AUROBINDO: He is too old for that. Besides, he is most unreliable.

DR. MANILAL (after a short while): There is a Jain sloka which means that mind is a bondage to Mukti. Can it be true, Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: Bondage? Instrument, if you like. But mind is not the only instrument of Mukti; it is the power of the Spirit also that brings Mukti. You can say that mind is an instrument of bondage in the sense that it is the dividing principle that separates itself from the Unity and brings in division and ignorance. Life can properly be more said to be the real instrument. The life principle is the principle of desire, a straining after various objects of desire. Life is the root of all desires with which it affects the mind. The desires of the mind are not really its desires because its business is to know, to perceive.

Page -984

DR. MANILAL : Life is the seat of emotions, I thought.

SRI AUROBINDO: Emotions, sensations and several other things. That is the mistake most people usually commit, especially those influenced by Western ideas. They don't make any distinction between mind and life, they consider them the same. This President of the Philosophical Congress at Madras says that mind is hungry. Mind is not hungry; it is the life and body that are hungry.

PURANI: Professor Atreya calls Krishnamurti a philosopher.

SRI AUROBINDO (chuckling): Bhagwan Das also and Radhakrishnan. Is Radhakrishnan really a philosopher? Has he contributed anything new?

PURANI: No, he is only an exponent of Indian philosophy.

SRI AUROBINDO: That's what I thought. He is one of the highest authorities on Indian philosophy but I don't know that he has produced any new philosophy. He is a Shankarite, isn't he?

PURANI: Yes.

DR. MANILAL : He may have realised Shankara's philosophy.

SRI AUROBINDO: Realised? You mean he is a Yogi? Everybody knows he is not. He is only an interpreter.

DR. MANILAL : He could be both. Sir?

SRI AUROBINDO: He is not! What do you mean by could be? Anybody could be, you could be, Lloyd George could be. (Laughter)

PURANI: A Ceylonese young man, a Buddhist has come to see the Ashram. He says Buddha didn't teach that the world was full of evil.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh!

PURANI: But I asked him whether or not Buddha said that the world is "full of sorrow" and that "one must escape from it"?

SRI AUROBINDO: Not full of evil but that it is undesirable.

PURANI: He also makes out that Buddha spoke of a divine consciousness.

SRI AUROBINDO: I see!

DR. MANILAL : He meant Nirvana, probably.

SRI AUROBINDO: Buddha didn't mean that by Nirvana. Of course he didn't say what Nirvana is.

PURANI: This man doesn't believe in the Jataka stories of Buddha.

NIRODBARAN: Tell it to Dr. Manilal.

DR. MANILAL : Why? I believe in them.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is just the point.

Page -985

DR. MANILAL : Are there no previous births. Sir?

PURANI: The point is whether all that is said is true.

After this Dr. Manilal was going away. Suddenly he came back and said, "Mother has said to Sir Hukum Chand, 'I know you.'"

SRI AUROBINDO: Well, what about it?

DR. MANILAL : That means there are previous births.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nobody denies it.

DR. MANILAL : Nirod doesn't believe it.

NIRODBARAN: I didn't say that.

PURANI : He doesn't deny the principle of rebirth but is doubtful about all that is said about the knowledge possessed by Yogis or Tirthankaras about so many previous births; for example, that Manilal's Adishwar knew about all his previous births and that his mother was a banana tree. (Laughter)

DR. MANILAL : Why, a Tirthankara is supposed to be Sarvajna.

SRI AUROBINDO: How do you know that?

DR. MANILAL : It is said in the books. Sir. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: Who said it?

DR. MANILAL : If it was not true and if Krishna and Arjuna didn't exist, you would not have written Essays on the Gita, Sir.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? Whether they existed or not I would still have written the book if the truth of the Gita was there.

NIRODBARAN: Sri Aurobindo himself has said in the preface that the important point is not whether Krishna and Arjuna did actually exist but whether the things said in the Gita are true.

At this point Dr. Manilal left.

SRI AUROBINDO: I have been reading today Plotinus on Matter by Dean Inge. It is curious that what he was trying to describe in various ways with much difficulty is what we call the Inconscient in Matter. But as he had no knowledge of the Inconscient he couldn't express it properly. Of course he is speaking of Matter as a. principle, not as a form. This Dean Inge has a confused mind, he can't state his thoughts clearly and logically and bungles the whole thing. But what Plotinus says is that Matter is infinite, indeterminate and non-being - that means the Inconscient; and if Matter is raised to the level of

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the Spirit it could become divine, that is to say. Matter itself is the Divine.

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