XI I PLAYED FOOTBALL (1) Some of you have asked to hear about my performance in football. I have already told you something on an earlier occasion. Let us have a little more today. I have dabbled in football almost since my birth or, to be more exact, from the time I barely completed five. My hand was introduced to the pen or chalk and my feet touched the ball practically at one and the same time. Would you believe it, I had my formal initiation into studies, not once but twice, and on both occasions it was performed with due ceremony on a Saraswati Puja day, as has been the custom with us. The first time it took place, I was only four years old a

 I SUBHAS — OATEN ULLAS — RUSSELL The Subhash-Oaten encounter has attained some notoriety, as a number of people have on several occasions given an account of how Subhash Chandra once gave a thrashing with his shoe to one of his British professors, Oaten. But it seems to have almost been forgotten by the general public that this incident was a mere replica or imitation of an earlier and identical performance. Subhash did not institute anything new; he was simply following in the footsteps of eminent and heroic predecessors. Today I propose to give an account of that original performance. It was in the year 1905. The Swadeshi movement was in full ti

IlI MURARIPUKUR (2) Now I come to the last phase of our life at Manicktolla Gardens, that is when we turned towards terroristic activities like the manufacture of bombs, collecting pistols and rifles and making good use of them. The first chapter had already begun with the Yugantar newspaper. As we took up these revolutionary activities, we discovered that it was not easy to carry on this kind of secret work unless there was, common in the country as a whole, a keen desire and hope for freedom. What was needed was a favourable atmosphere from which the revolutionaries could get the desired sympathy and support. One could not expect anything but opposition from

v SHYAMPUKUR On coming out of jail, Sri Aurobindo found shelter in the house of his maternal uncle, Krishna Kumar Mitra; the place was known as the Sanjivani Office. Bejoy Nag and myself had got our release along with him, but we could not yet make up our minds as to what we should do next; we were still wandering about like floating weeds or moss. But both of us used to go and see him every afternoon. About this time, he went out on a tour for a short while in the Assam area in connection with political work and he took the two of us along. I shall speak about that on another occasion. On return from the tour he told me one day that he had decided to bring out t

VIII PONDICHERRY CYCLONE I have once spoken to you of an earthquake and a small fire. Today I shall say something about two or three other inclement natural phenomena of which I have had direct personal experience. The first was when I was a child, it has left a clear imprint on my mind. Many of you, no doubt, are familiar with storms and hurricanes. But have you ever seen a whirlwind, what they call a tornado? This word has been rendered by a Pundit into tūrna-da, a thing that is swift in its flight. I have had a chance to see the thing with my own eyes. Just listen, you will see how terrible a thing it is and how well in keeping with its formidable

I THE WORLD WAR (1939-1945)* ITS INNER BEARINGS This is a war to which even spiritual seekers can hardly remain indifferent with impunity. There are spiritual paths, however, that ask to render unto God what is God's and unto Satan what belongs to Satan; in other words, spirituality is kept apart from what is called worldliness, clean and untouched by the dust and murk of Ignorance—Maya. The injunction accordingly is that they who are worldly must remain worldly, they have no business, no right to meddle with spirituality, and they who are spiritual should, on the other hand, remain strictly spiritual, should have nothing to do with worldli

V I PONDICHERRY (1) Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry1 and took shelter here. We might say of course from another point of view that it was he who gave shelter to Pondicherry within his own consciousness. But why this city in particular? There is indeed the usual view that he retired into French territory to escape the wrath of the British bureaucracy. But actually, all he wanted was to find a quiet spot where he might give himself to his own work undisturbed. The place was so quiet that we can hardly imagine now what it was really like. It was not quiet, it was actually dead; they used to call it a dead city. There was hardly any traffic, particularly in the ar

MURARIPUKUR—(1) At last I made up my mind finally to take the plunge, that I must now join the Manicktolla Gardens in Muraripukur. That meant goodbye to College, goodbye to the ordinary life. A little while ago, Prafulla Chakravarti had come and joined. Both of us belonged to Rungpore, both were of nearly the same age, and intimate friends. This too pushed me to my decision. I had already taken a vow about a year ago, in front of a picture of Kali at a secret ceremony at dead of night, a vow written out in blood drawn from the chest, that I should dedicate my life to the whole-hearted service of the Motherland. With me there was a companion, and also a local leader who had read

THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY The Malady of the Century I   WHAT is the malady of our age? It is that man has lost touch with his soul. There were ages no doubt in the past, dark periods, when man's soul retired into the background, was obscured or veiled; but only today there seems to have occurred a definite cleavage, a clear sundering. Man no longer drags the lengthening chain that tied him, in spite of everything, to his divine essence; he has cut it clean and let himself adrift.   The Eternal Enemy appeared and spread out before our enchanted eyes the panorama of earth's riches and glories, not merely riches of comfort and pleasure and well-being, but glor

The Spiritual Genius of India WHAT is it that we precisely mean when we say that India is spiritual? For, that is how we are accustomed to express India's special genius – her backbone, as Vivekananda puts it – the fundamental note of her cultute and nature, which distinguishes her from the rest of the world. What then are the distinguishing marks of spirituality? How does a spiritual collectivity live and move – kim âsita vrajeta kim? And do we find its characteristic gait and feature exclusively or even chiefly in India?   Was not Europe also in her theocratic and mediaeval ages as largely spiritual and as fundamentally religious as India? Churches and cathedrals and monaster