SRI AUROBINDO'S INTERVIEW OF 15 AUGUST 1908   On pages 114 and 115 we reproduce the transcript of an interview given by Sri Aurobindo to a correspondent of the Anglo-Indian evening newspaper Empire on 15 August 1908. This day was doubly significant: first it was Sri Aurobindo's thirty-sixth birthday, secondly it was the last day on which evidence was admitted in the magistrate's enquiry that preceded the Alipore Bomb Trial. Sri Aurobindo once remarked in a letter: "15th August is usually a turning point or a notable day for me personally either in sadhana or life." (Supplement, p. 433) In the Empire interview he made the same point, mentioning important events that had taken place on

        Yoga Diary                                          August 14 [-September 24]                      1919.   August 14th Thursday         The ideality is advancing in the same steps. Thought is perfectly fixed in the gnosis and rises to the hermetic logistic and the seer logistic ideality. T2 is being transformed by the logistic drashta,— not the seer logistis, but with a touch of the hermeneusis. The old mentalities recur in the idealised incertitudes, but only to be interpreted by the light of gnosis. There is no relapse to mentality, but only some lapse to this admissibility of idealised mental suggestions; they come f

       Yoga Diary                                July 27 to Aug 13                          1919   July 27th Sunday.         The complete fulfilment of the programme for July has been prevented by the sudden relapse towards the intuitive mentality. T2 has indeed developed an initial firmness, but this is very insufficient in universality owing to the mental interference. The two first chatus-thayas have again been contradicted by the invasion of the external mentality, which brings in an element of asraddha, tamas, dissatisfaction, and some broken hints of the revolt of the mental will and its old duhkha at asatya and asiddhi, the only

      Record of Yoga   15 July—24 September 1919           Yoga Diary                             July 15-July 26                                1919         Diary of Yoga. July 1919.         July 15th Tuesday.         Today is supposed to begin the finality of initial perfect gnosis in the highest logistic ideality by the firm beginning of T2. This is due for fulfilment in the second half of July. The two first chatusthayas are at the same time to begin their higher and fuller perfection,— they have already the fundamental perfection in samara, the fundamental completeness. K. A is to confirm its c

 

Notes on the Texts       Record of Yoga ("Yoga Diary"): 15 July-24 September 1919. NB R21, 1-32; NB R22, 1-32; NB R23, 1-22. The Record of this period was kept neatly in three identical notebooks which were used exclusively for this purpose. The ruled pages of these thin exercise books have a vertical red line demarcating the left margin. At the top of each entry, Sri Aurobindo usually wrote the month and date to the left of this line and the day of the week to the right of it (occasionally the reverse). The margin was otherwise left blank.         On the cover of each notebook, Sri Aurobindo wrote "Yoga Diary", a heading not used previously. Below this are the dates of t

    1-29 February 1920   1st Feb.         Thought to be set entirely free       T2 to be thoroughly idealised and given certitude.       Tapas siddhi to be made luminously effective.       Physicality to be brought under control of Tapas.       Rupasiddhi and samadhi.         First get rid of the physical lapse.         The craddha has to be firm and absolute         First week of February       Three chatusthayas.       Perfection of 2d chatusthaya.       Shakti. Idealised and intellectual perfection.         The highest ideality in the highest log[ist]ical ideality.         Lipi, thoug

GLOSSARY         This glossary explains Sanskrit and other non-English words occurring in the present instalment of Record of Yoga. Quotations in Devanagari script are omitted, except for words and short phrases transliterated in brackets in the text. Also omitted are some terms which are common in Sri Aurobindo's writings and do not have a special sense in the Record. Sanskrit words are spelled in the glossary according to the standard international system of transliteration. In the text of the Record, the spellings and diacritics are those of the manuscript.         Words are defined in this glossary only in the senses relevant to the portion of the Record published in

The Heart of Nationalism         THE NICKNAMES of party warfare have often passed into the accepted terminology used by serious politicians and perpetuated by history, and it is possible that the same immortality may await the designations of Moderate and Extremist by which the two parties now contending for the mind of the nation are commonly known. The forward party       Nationalism: but what is Nationalism? The word has only recently begun to figure as an ordinary term of our politics and it has been brought into vogue by the new, forward or extreme party which, casting about for a convenient description of themselves, selected the name as the only one covering