JANUARY, 1939 1st January, 1939 Disciple : How can one succeed in meditation? Sri Aurobindo :  By quietude of the mind. Above the Mind there is not only the Infinite in itself but infinite sea of peace, joy, light, etc. – above the head. The golden lid – Hiranmaya patra – intervenes between that which is above Mind and what is below. Once one can break that lid those elements can come down at any time one wills, and for that, quietude is necessary. There are people who get those things without quietude, but it is very difficult.  Disciple : It is said that there is also a veil in the heart, is it true? Sri Aurobindo :  Yes, a veil or a wall, if you like. Th

SEPTEMBER, 1940 15th September, 1940 Disciple : Has the individual no reality except as a puppet? Sri Aurobindo : That is Shanker's stand. Disciple : Another question is "If the Divine is already there and does everything then why yoga?" Because Sri Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita that you have only to become Nimitta – instrument. So the Christian's criticism is that the Individual is meaningless – without any justification or fulfillment. Gita is preaching pure mechanism or unconsciousness. Sri Aurobindo : But Gita does not say that you are "compelled" to become the Nimitta. It says "Bhava" – “become!" but it does not say that you have no existence

3rd January, 1939 There was hearty laugh over the thesis of a Marathi writer with Socialistic tendencies who tried to prove that Swami Ramdas was a socialist! Disciple : Some of the Sadhaks seem to become too delicate, – a small cut or even smell of burning ghee upsets them. Sometimes other people who cannot understand this say this is mere feinting. Sri Aurobindo :  They used to brand the body with hot iron to see if the man was in trance or not! They thought perhaps that it might be only deep trance and not Nirvikalpa Samadhi! (Laughter) Disciple : Can it be that the man would not feel anything? Page – 83 Sri Aurobindo :  There are cases of people who

FEBRUARY, 1939 3rd February, 1939 A letter from a lady disciple was read to Sri Aurobindo in which she related some of her experiences. She is losing consciousness, finds the mind floating about as it were, lightning strokes in the head and a feeling of some presence. But these experiences give her very great fear and she complains of bad health.  Sri Aurobindo : You can tell her that what she calls losing of consciousness is its movement inwards. It is rather unusual to get these experiences. Usually, one takes months and months to make the mind quiet and she did it at the first sitting. The lightning strokes is the action of the Higher Power, or Yoga Shakti to

14th January, 1941 Sri Aurobindo had seen a volume of Cezanne and one of the painters of the 20th Century representing the most modern trends of artistic movement in France. Page – 302  Cezanne had found "remarkable" models for his portraits. All of them were very fine and showed power. He didn't know drawing and so some of his things were imperfect. Colour is everything. (I showed him the small volume on Cezanne). He liked it better because of the colour plates. In the evening he said he had liked Matisse also. He found three things in modern art - 1. Ugliness, 2. Vulgarity, or what might be called coarseness,  3.  Absurdity. In their nu

19th January, 1939 Dr. R's visit : In course of his talk he remarked in connection with the swelling at the knee joint that all diseases are of the nature of inflammations. After he departed, Sri Aurobindo asked : "In what sense are all illnesses inflammations?  There could be any setisfactory explanation of it." The topic of Aldous Huxley's book "Ends & Means" was taken up by a disciple. Disciple : Huxley suggests two ways of solving the problems of man. One by changing the existing institutions of education, industries, in fact by modifying social, political, economic and religious institutions. This would bring about a change in the individual. So far as

JULY, 1940 21st July, 1940 There was a reference to C. R's article about the necessity of force for maintaining a state. Disciple : Blunchli in his book called "The State" puts it down as a fundamental principle. Every state is founded on force and President Wilson in his book also maintains, a little apologetically, that all human states are founded on force. Sri Aurobindo : Of course, so long as man is not too much cowed down or has not evolved beyond his present condition and is too high to use force, force will be indispensable. Disciple : In the Supramental creation will there be any force? Sri Aurobindo : No. Because there you are supposed to go be

22nd December, 1938. (All of us assembled in the hope of hearing something from Sri Aurobindo. I was actually praying for it. But he did not seem to be in a talking mood. So we were forced to keep quiet at the same time thinking how to draw him into conversation and by what question. Suddenly we find X. beaming with a smile and looking at Sri Aurobindo. Then he takes a few more moves nearer to Sri Aurobindo and we automatically follow him, he still nears and then he bursts out with a question : "To attain right attitude what principles should we follow in our dealing and behaviour with others?" Sri Aurobindo could not quite catch the question so it was repeated.

24th January, 1939. Sri Aurobindo : turning to X :  "Any news?" Usually the news of local politics and other subjects used to come through X, Disciple : No news except that Mahatma Gandhi advises the Japanese visitor Kagawa to include Shanti Niketan and Pondicherry in his itinerary, without seeing which his visit to India would be incomplete. Sri Aurobindo : O that! I have heard about it. At this juncture the Mother came and a meditation followed, After the Mother's departure Sri Aurobindo Page – 180  resumed :  "I can give you some news today, The French Ministry seems to be going against the political party in power. It is a mystery how the m

27th June, 1940. 27th Chapter of "Life Divine". The publishers in consultation with the Professor of English changed "founded in" into "founded on". Sri Aurobindo said when I told him about the change, "I have already used that in the previous paragraph and they have suggested "on" and I have not accepted the suggestion. I have used there "in" purposely. These people think that they know English better than I do. They are habituated to use current phrases and words in their usual sense but they do not know that a good writer does not always use current phrases and words in their usual meaning. Disciple : But they do it after consulting a Professor. Sri Aurobindo : Yes