11 JANUARY 1941There was some talk about Purushottam, a sadhak who had gone away. DR. MANILAL : Did he have any occult knowledge? SRI AUROBINDO: All his knowledge of previous births is humbug. What he had was some life-force which he could apply on the physical. DR. MANILAL : What does that mean, Sir? Page -1017 SRI AUROBINDO: You have to read The Life Divine for that. DR. MANILAL : How could he have this fall? SRI AUROBINDO: The physical mind. 12 JANUARY 1941There was a long story narrated by Purani about the ex-Maharani of Baroda, how her boxes were detained and opened by a Muslim judge in Madras and handed over to the Police. The Police also detained her valuable documents. DR. MANILAL : What type of past action makes innocent people suffer like this, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: Innocent people suffer everywhere! The law of Karma, perhaps. They may have been wicked in their previous lives. (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Then how can they be innocent in this life? SRI AUROBINDO: As a reaction. In the next life they may again be wicked and fortunate. (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: In her sleep X had an interesting experience of the action of the higher, and the lower forces on her body in connection with her haemorrhage. The lower forces wanted to make the physical being accept the suggestion that the bleeding should start again and the higher forces repelled the suggestion. DR. MANILAL : How can it be explained, Sir? (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: No explanation is required. It is a fact. Usually ordinary people get suggestions of illness from the subconscious in their sleep or dreams. They don't know it and get the disease. Moreover, the physical being is habituated to these things and easily accepts the suggestions; the vital being too. But if the inner consciousness is awake, the suggestions can't act. DR. MANILAL : I don't accept suggestions, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: Who is "you"? DR. MANILAL : I, Manilal, Sir! (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: Who is Manilal? The surface Manilal may not accept them but there are many other Manilals whom the surface Manilal doesn't know. DR. MANILAL : Last night I got a bit depressed, Sir, because of this shoulder pain. Page -1018 SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, you looked as if this world were Duhkhamaya.¹ (Larer on, to Nirodbaran) Now that X has got this experience she ought to be able to bring down the right kind of forces and prevent the disease from recurring. NIRODBARAN: But how can it be practically applied? SRI AUROBINDO: Once one has the experience, one can do it more easily. It is the power of the idea and will. If the physical consciousness is awake, it can act. EVENING DR. MANILAL: I am having no meditation, Sir, and no experiences. Formerly I used to feel so much peace and Ananda. SRI AUROBINDO: That means you have progressed. You may have reached the Inconscient! DR. MANILAL : Is the Inconscient something like Tamas? SRI AUROBINDO: Inertia. DR. MANILAL : How to get rid of it, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: By Utsaha and Kala.² (Laughter) DR. MANILAL : If my state is due to the Inconscient, how do other people get meditation and have experiences? SRI AUROBINDO: You have made more progress than them, progressed so much as to be as inconscient as you are. (Laughter) The Inconscient doesn't work in the same way with everybody. Are you becoming stupid? DR. MANILAL : Formerly I used to feel that I was always carrying away something with me. This time nothing at all, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: Aparigraha!³ (Laughter) Are you feeling stupid, forgetting things? DR. MANILAL : No, Sir! SRI AUROBINDO: Then it is all right. You have-been here only two months now. Nirod says he has been here for so many years and he is not getting results, only medical cases. NIRODBARAN: Ma phalesu!4 Even in my cases I am not making any progress. ¹Full of misery. ²Enthusiasm and time. ³Non-acceptance. 4Not for the results. Page -1019 SRI AUROBINDO: You can't say that now there are no cases. NIRODBARAN: No, but I am not profiting by the experience. 13 JANUARY 1941EVENINGDR. MANILAL : There are four principles of jainism, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, what are they? DR. MANILAL : Dana, Sila, Tapa and Bhavana. Bhavana is aspiration. This concerns our Yoga, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: Only this one? DR. MANILAL : Why only one, Sir? Dana also. SRI AUROBINDO: Dana is charity. We don't insist on charity to others. Ours is self-dana. DR. MANILAL : And Sila, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: What is Sila? Virtue? We don't insist on virtue. Virtue is a moral principle, not spiritual. DR. MANILAL : Morality is a consequence of spirituality. SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. Tapa is asceticism. We have nothing to do with asceticism. DR. MANILAL : No, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: So aspiration is the only common factor. DR. MANILAL : Yes, Sir. Shastri has recently been showing signs of unbalance. A few days ago Nirodbaran was asked by the Mother to go and see him about his health. He had not been sleeping well nor eating properly. He had been observing silence for a long time, in spite of the Mother's disapproval. The inevitable consequence happened: he lost his mental balance and this evening he came right inside the Ashram only to inquire if the Mother and Sri Aurohindo had called him. After that he seemed to have disappeared. News came later that he was wandering about in the bazar. DR. MANILAL: I don't know anything about this story. What's the matter with him? SRI AUROBINDO: First descent of the Supermind! (Laughter) Yes, that's what he said. He asked others to be valiant warriors and to Page -1020 write to Atreya to become one of his commanders-in-chief. (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Is it the result of the Inconscient? SRI AUROBINDO: No, the usual story. Going into silence and shutting himself up thinking that he is doing great Yoga and that everybody is inferior to him. This kind of silence is not good for our Yoga. DR. MANILAL : Radhanand also observes silence. CHAMPAKLAL: No, not this kind. He has communication with selected people. SRI AUROBINDO: Radhanand's is quite a different case. He knows what he is about. He had been doing Yoga for ages before he came here. All the cases I have seen of this nature have been due to one of two causes: excessive indulgence in sexual perversity or ambition. DR. MANILAL : Which was it in Shastri's case? SRI AUROBINDO: Ambition. He wanted to be a great Yogi. What happens in such cases is that they open to some intermediate zone before the vital is prepared. DR. MANILAL : G is said to have had the Overmind experience. Is it true, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: True, if he had it. (Laughter. Dr. Manilal thought that he had it, so Sri Aurobindo added:) The question is whether he had it. (Laughter) It is very easy to get into some vital plane and think oneself to have had all sorts of things. DR. MANILAL : I remember now. Sir, that Sila in jainism is not virtue but ekapatni vrata, being faithful to one's wife. SRI AUROBINDO: We have no wives, so we are not required to keep that commandment. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL : There are five other principles which can be said to be common with us. SRI AUROBINDO: What are they? DR. MANILAL : Truth. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, DR. MANILAL : Brahmahcarya. SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly. DR. MANILAL : Aparigraha. SRI AUROBINDO: Expected to be common, but isn't. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL : I forget the other one. NIRODBARAN: Ahimsa. Page -1021 DR. MANILAL : Yes, the most important. SRI AUROBINDO: That we half observe — for instance, the killing of mosquitoes and bugs is allowed! 14 JANUARY 1941DR. MANILAL : By the rejection of lower impulses, Sir, is it not the rejection of immoral impulses that is in view? SRI AUROBINDO: What is meant by immoral? What society does not like? Isn't that so? DR. MANILAL : Yes, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: We have nothing to do with society. Otherwise we can't do Yoga. NIRODBARAN: We couldn't leave our family and parents! It would be immoral. Of course in Dr. Manilal's case that problem doesn't arise. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL (massaging Sri Aurobindo's patella) :It has become more flexible, Sir. NIRODBARAN: Not much; far less than expected. We expected a miracle from you. DR. MANILAL : Me? SRI AUROBINDO: Kaivalyajnana.¹ (Laughter) News has been obtained that Shastri is somewhere in the town. The owner of the house in which he is lodged is in contact with the Ashram. He proposed to Shastri that he would bring him to the Ashram if he wished. Shastri replied that the Mother would send a car for him! SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and the next day he will ask for an elephant. (Laughter) PURANI : The best thing for such people is to send them home. Then they become all right. ¹Knowledge of the One. Page -1022 In January 1941 Nirodbaran stopped recording the talks on a regular basis. What follows are seven talks and a letter from the period 1941-48. All but one deal with a devotee from Calcutta. 10 AUGUST 1941NIRODBARAN: A, who has come for the first time, met Dilip in Calcutta in 1937 and 1938. After Dilip's return to the Ashram for the August Darshan of 1938, A wrote him a letter. He said he was. going through a severe crisis. He seemed to be enveloped by darkness twenty-four hours a day and felt that something was trying to throttle him. It is not that he did not see any daylight but that the feeling of darkness was overwhelming, and though there was no physical discomfort, the choking feeling was very real. He did not feel like doing anything though his B.A. examination was only a few months away. There was no earthly reason for his condition, he said. There was no dissension in the family, no lack of money, etc., so he wrote to Dilip that he thought it was owing to something in himself. He asked whether Sri Aurobindo could help and what he would have to do for it. Dilip, says A, gave a beautiful, encouraging and reassuring answer. He said he sympathised with A's anguish and hoped that it would-not last long. He said that he thought it was owing to something in A wanting a new birth. Till then forces of Nature had dominated him and now something in A, his Antaratma, was rebelling against that domination and naturally the old forces were reasserting themselves with redoubled vigour. Dilip said it was a very good sign and hoped that something really worthwhile would come out of the crisis. He asked A to write a letter, preferably typewritten, to Sri Aurobindo and, if he wished, to the Mother also and, if possible, to enclose a passport size photograph of himself. He assured A that Sri Aurobindo could certainly help. A did as Dilip had suggested and Dilip sent the letters to you. Dilip also enclosed for the Mother an introductory letter in which he gave his impression of A, his family background, etc., and enclosed the photograph. The Mother sent Dilip's letter back to him with this remark on the margin of the last page: "It is a beautiful face, he must be a charming boy. He may write of his experiences." He says he got the letter in the afternoon around half-past five and as soon as he opened it and took the blessing packet in his hand, Page -1023 something happened. He saw a column of white light which was at the same time a force coming down from above, touching the crown of his head and entering his body. Eventually it went down to his feet. He says this was Shaktti-sanchar (a movement of force). He has asked me to report this to you. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Anything else? NIRODBARAN: He says that he had more to report but that he is •waiting for your reaction: 11 AUGUST 1941NIRODBARAN: A says he is very grateful to you for your confirming his experience. He related something about you which he had heard from a friend of his. He went to see this friend who is a Tantrik-cum-astrologer. He had your book The Mother with him. The friend, on seeing the book, folded his hands and touched his forehead with them in the normal Indian manner. A asked the friend why he did so, was it the subject of the book or was it the author? The friend simply said, "Bhagabaner boi" ("God's book"). Then he became quite solemn and quietly said, "I have got his horoscope", to which A replied, "That's interesting, God's horoscope?" The friend chided him, "Don't be flippant, I really mean it, I have it." A realised that the friend was serious and he also becoming so, asked him, "All right, what is your reading?" "In 1947," answered the friend, "he will become the ekachatra adhipati (unchallenged sovereign of the whole world)." SRI AUROBINDO: 1947? Then I will do things quicker than Hitler! (Turning to Dr. Manilal) What post will you have Manilal? DR. MANILAL : Nothing, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO : No, you must have something to do. DR. MANILAL : Sir, I'll be at your feet. Sir, humbly. SRI AUROBINDO: I'll make you the Chief of the World Medical Service. 12 AUGUST 1941NIRODBARAN: A says that the day after he had his Diksha he started meditating without any apparent effort, even without any Page -1024 resolve to meditate. He says he got up at about four o'clock in the morning and then after having a wash he went down to his study and started to meditate. Soon he began to have experiences. He says that the first thing he noticed was that the walls of the room were vibrant, full of life and no longer made of solid matter. Two or three days later he experienced a force which was light, a kind of consciousness. After eight days he had a concrete experience of everything in the room being made of delight. He found it was the same substance of bliss which was in him and around him. He says this experience stayed with him for a month. He felt a joy always, and even for people he was not particularly fond of, he had a spontaneous sympathy and love. He felt great love even for animals he did not particularly like. SRI AUROBINDO: He has had one of the highest experiences of Yoga. 13 AUGUST 1941NIRODBARAN: A says that seventeen days after he had started meditating, he saw during the night when he was asleep a young woman standing by his bed. Even in his sleep he felt very alert and was sure that the apparition was not good though the woman seemed to be sad and her eyes appeared to appeal for help. A says he heard a voice within him saying, "Go away." He felt it was not his own voice and yet it sounded exactly like it. He now takes it to be a command from a deeper part of himself. The woman did not seem to hear it and became more appealing with her eyes. After a while she seemed to stir a bit as if she might go nearer the bed. The voice within A went on repeating all the while "Go away", but when the woman seemed to be on the point of moving, it shouted with great force, "GO AWAY." The woman crumpled away on to the floor without leaving any trace. A woke up, felt great relief, light and joy. He happened to look in a mirror in his room and saw a splendid light on his face. SRI AUROBINDO: His inner being has rejected sex altogether. NIRODBARAN: A has asked if the inner being means the psychic being. SRI AUROBINDO: It also means the inner physical, the inner vital and the inner mental being. The psychic is the inmost being. Page -1025 NIRODBARAN: A has asked if the gains in the inner consciousness are not to be worked out in the outer being. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the ultimate aim is to transform the total being and nature. NIRODBARAN: A has requested me to convey his gratitude to you and the Mother. (Sri Aurobindo looked pleased.) 28 SEPTEMBER 1941EVENINGOne L.D.M. has reviewed Sri Aurobindo's latest poems in the Hindu literary supplement. Dr. Manilal said at noon that it was a good review. Sri Aurobindo expressed a little surprise and said that the Hindu was usually not favourable to him. In the evening we read the paper and found that it was a very bad review. SRI AUROBINDO (to Dr. Manilal): You said it was a good review. There is nothing good there. In fact the writer says that this is not poetry at all. At the end he did what they call damning with faint praise. When I first heard about the review, my impression was correct — that it was not favourable. NIRODBARAN: This man doesn't seem to understand much about poetry. He says there is no colour! Good Lord, there is any amount of colour in "Rose of God" and in the very lines he quotes from "Thought the Paraclete". SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. And he says there is no emotion or feeling. The point is what he means by emotion. NIRODBARAN: There is tranquillity, he says, but that, according to him, is more an evidence of poetic failure than poetic gift! DR. MANILAL (rather abashed at his wrong appraisal): Of course, I don't understand poetry. But at the end doesn't he say that one ought to read and reread it? NIRODBARAN: Yes, that is the part damning with faint praise. SRI AUROBINDO: But what does he mean by emotion? PURANI: The usual sentimental stuff, I suppose. SRI AUROBINDO: If he means sentimental romantic emotion, that age has passed in poetry. Doesn't he know that? That is the concern of drama. Nowadays poetry is concerned with Truth and Page -1026 Beauty. If you are able to express them with sufficient power of language and rhythm, that is what is required of you. In drama one is concerned with drawing characters with life and its reactions. I suppose what he wants is something more like Francis Thompson's poetry. PURANI: And Gerard Hopkins? SRI AUROBINDO: No, for Hopkins has many compound words. The reviewer also thinks that Paraclete means advocate, and there is no advocacy in the poem! DR. MANILAL : The dictionary also says that. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that is the dictionary meaning. But one isn't always obliged to accept that meaning. Doraiswamy would then be a retired Paraclete? (Laughter) The Paraclete is also the Holy Ghost. What I have meant there is that thought is the intercessor between the Supreme Truth and the human consciousness. Thought flies to the Supreme Truth to connect its consciousness with the earth and after its departure all that is left behind is the Self. That is what I have meant there. SATYENDRA: The images, he says, have an intellectual setting difficult for the reviewer to appreciate. SRI AUROBINDO: The images I have used are, of course, not of a mental nature. What has been seen or realised is yogic through experience or vision, I have tried to express inner symbols. All the images are symbols of inner experience. And in these poems I always use yogic symbols. These experiences and visions have a form; the images have been used to give as correct a description of these forms as possible so that they may become a reality, even a being, so to say. NIRODBARAN: That is why the reviewer says "unconventional imagery"! SRI AUROBINDO: He means original, I suppose. DR. MANILAL : But certainly very few people will understand the poems, Sir. I have asked many here. SATYENDRA: The poems are like his prose works. But poems like "Baji Prabhou" Dr. Manilal will understand. DR. MANILAL (smiling): Oh yes, that even I can grasp. SRI AUROBINDO (smiling): You remind me of Molière. You know that story? DR. MANILAL : No, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO : He used to read all his plays to his maid-servant before publication. And if she understood and liked them, Page -1027 Molière was satisfied. He was then certain that everybody would enjoy them. (Laughter) 19 AUGUST 1944NIRODBARAN: A says that he went to see someone who was a reputable astrologer, a different person from the one about whom I spoke to you some years ago. A relation of his sent him to consult this man about her son. A had your book Essays on the Gita with him, and on seeing it, the astrologer made the gesture of namaskar. On being asked why he did so and whether it was for the author or the book, he replied, 'Bhagabaner boi." He also said that he not only had your horoscope but he had received your birth chart from you. SRI AUROBINDO: How? NIRODBARAN: A says the astrologer told the following story. Sometime before November 1926, he had written to you requesting you to send him the date and time of your birth. He also wrote that he analysed the birth charts of great people as a matter of scientific interest and not for financial gain. He asked you whether he could do the same in your case also. Then, A says, the astrologer appeared to be very moved and with obvious gratitude in his voice he said that besides sending him the date and time of your birth, you had drawn a chart, for him. But you said that you would rather that he did not write and publish anything about you. The man commented: "Sri Aurobindo could have just told me not to write about him, instead he requested me not to do so. That is a sign of greatness." Asked whether he had published anything about you, he answered, "How could I after Sri Aurobindo himself said that he would not like me to do so." A asked him what his reading was. His answer was: "In 1947 his philosophy will become the basis of a new world civilisation and culture. Nothing can stop that." He added that he had read thousands of horoscopes but had never seen the same time of birth as yours. He said it has all the signs of a unique greatness. A says he emphasised unique, ananyasadharan. 26 JUNE 1946One day in June 1945 around four a.m., A woke up from a sound sleep and found to his surprise something which had never happened before: Japa, Page -1028 the repetition, of the names of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, was occurring spontaneously within him. After some time he felt the life-force and a diffused consciousness in him rising up through his body from the feet towards the centre between the eyebrows (ajnachakra). The consciousness formed itself into a reddish golden ball and appeared right in front of that centre. A was still in bed. He saw the mosquito net, the pole holding it, the bedstead, the hooks on the shelves built into the walls and the walls themselves vanish into nothingness. After a while all that remained was bare Awareness. It was not awareness of anything, there was nothing to be aware of— nor did A feel he was experiencing Awareness. There was no experience but sheer consciousness. It was only later in the day when the intensity of Awareness became less and began to disappear gradually that A felt he had had an extraordinary experience. He felt a great detachment from everything and a strong disinclination to do anything. He carried on his domestic and professional duties — he was then teaching at a university in a town in north India — but had no sense of involvement in them. A had a strong streak of inertia in his nature. He knew that Sri Aurobindo's was a dynamic Yoga and that disinclination to work was not only no part of it but a great obstacle to progress. He felt a division in his being and nature which produced in him a sense of despair. So when he came to the Ashram in June 1946, after having experienced pure Awareness, he wrote to Sri Aurobindo describing the experience and also about the strong element of inertia in his nature and asked him whether his interpretation of the experience, that it was of the silent Self, was correct and told him that he wanted to shed his inertia and prayed to the Master to assign some work to him so that he could discipline himself. A's letter to Sri Aurobindo was read out to him by me and he dictated the reply given below. After it was read back to him, he asked me to give it to A. SRI AUROBINDO's LETTER Your analysis is perfectly correct. Realisation of the silent, inactive Brahman is no bar to the dynamic side of the Yoga; often it is the first step. One must not associate it with attachment to inertia. The silent Brahman is attached to nothing. Your mind is associated with inertia and attached to it. Work itself is no solution; the spirit behind the work is important. The real remedy is to open oneself to the Force. When one gets free Page -1029 through the silent Brahman, one does not go back to the old way of work. By this liberation one becomes free from the ego; one becomes an instrument of the Divine Force by receiving the Force and feels its working, then inertia goes away and work in a new way becomes possible. Until that can be, one has to work in the ordinary way. But becoming an instrument of the Divine is the proper way. I had the realisation of sublime Nirvana first. There was complete cittavritti nirodha, entire silence. Then came the experience of action, not my own, but from above. One has to grow into it unless it comes easily. 27 JUNE 1948A felt disappointed that Sri Aurobindo had not given him any guidance to do anything specific. His idea was that if Sri Aurobindo had told him to do something, whatever it might be, he would try to carry it out diligently and regularly and thus overcome the inertia in his nature. A later told me that he came to realise why Sri Aurobindo did not ask him to do anything. If he had and if A could not have fulfilled it, it would have been a failure to carry out the Guru's Adesh which might have meant spiritual disaster. A said that it was out of compassion that Sri Aurobindo did not grant his prayer for a clear "command" to do something. A discussed the matter with the Mother at the same time as he wrote to Sri Aurobindo about his problem. The Mother also did not assign any specific task, though A had asked her for one as he was going to stay in the Ashram for nearly two months. A few days passed, but the Mother only said she would consider what A might do. On being asked a third time she simply said, "You are not used to work, A, are you?" A answered quietly, "No, Mother, I am not." And A told me that they both had a laugh. A has reported to me that the Mother made the remark with such compassion and love and simple humour that he could not feel hurt or offended. He also said that the incident showed the Mother's great insight into people's characters. Incidentally, the Mother did tell him in response to his prayer for some guidance that if he wanted to get over his inertia he should make a resolution, for example, to read one paragraph of The Life Divine every day and then stick to the resolution with diligence. She further told him not to worry about work during that particular stay in the Ashram but to enjoy himself. Page -1030 NIRODBARAN: A has just written that five days back he was taking a bath in the afternoon and, when he had nearly finished, feeling cool and comfortable, he started singing a bhajan of Mirabai. Towards the end the word Mira occurred and he played on it, repeating it over and over again. He says his mind suddenly became very indrawn and he felt a descent of peace. He writes that he had to go to a meeting at the Pathamandir. He says he did all that he had to do in the milling crowd of Bowbazar and College Street but the feeling of peace never left him. He has written to me to ask you whether the Mother's name — but it did not occur to him that it was the Mother's name he was repeating - has the power to bring such experiences. SRI AUROBINDO: He has got it. Why does he ask? Of course, the Mother's name has the power. Page -1031 |