27 November 1969 [A talk given to the students of Mother's School, Delhi, during their visit to the Ashram. Kireet bhai first introduced Nirod-da.] I'll tell you a few words about Nirod-da. He came to the Ashram several decades ago. When he came back from England, he returned with a medical degree. But he turned to poetry under Sri Aurobindo's guidance. He began to write poetry - and he is known to us, first and foremost, as a poet. It is important to tell you the value of the privilege that he had. He wrote hundreds of letters to Sri Aurobindo, and he got answers from Him, on a number of subjects. He also used to be with Sri Aurobindo for many, many years

14 May 1969 Last week I had read to you the life story of a remarkable yogi, which all of you had enjoyed and cherished. [Mahatma Krishnashram's story]. It seems that our photographer, Vidyavrata,1 has met this yogi and that much of the story is true. He doesn't talk with visitors, and to the chagrin of Vidyavrata, he doesn't allow himself to be photographed! He was a witness to the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, so now you can calculate his age! Now that we're in this mood of storytelling and you children like nothing better, I intend to tell you a story. I feel a little sense of guilt for pushing the Lord from our midst by this digression, but I hope He won't mind, for He has

30 July 1969 Well, I don't know why, but I enter this room every time with a certain kind of nervousness, in spite of all that Mother says about being calm. I've not been able to analyse the reason for my nervousness, though - I am sufficiently old in experience as well as in age. Perhaps I expect or I fear some newcomers. I try to release my tension by laughing away my nervousness; that is one of the reasons why I have tried to be cheerful at your cost. Anyhow, today I've taken a very pious resolution to become more serious; but as you know, all these pious resolutions (as your experience may have told you) often end in brilliant failure! And it is particula

17 December 1969 Friends, shall I greet you with namaskar or "bonjour" or "good morning" or "salaam"? Sisir was telling me just now that, in Shantiniketan, Rabindranath instructed the teachers to greet the students with namaskar. According to Tagore, the teachers must greet the students with namaskar - that way, it can help to awaken the soul in the students. And here, Pranab, as you know very well, greets you always with a namaskar and a broad smile. I don't know whether he smiles broadly at all of you or not, but I am fortunate in seeing his broad smile as well as his folded hands each time he greets me. Well then, at last we meet. Some of you, I underst

11 September 1969 Yet shall they look up as to peaks of God And feel God like a circumambient air And rest on God as on a motionless base.213 [After having written the above quotation on the board] What a feat of memory! Friends, comrades and fellow-travellers! (I am becoming Shakespearean!) Because I've been suffering from some troubles and since you are my very, very good friends, I will as usual lay down my heart of troubles before you and hope that you will shed some sympathetic tears (which is very common among you) over my problems. Although I say 'my heart of troubles', it is not my 'sweet heart' that troubles me, to quote Amrita-da;214 i

9 July 1969 Well, I hope you young people have got over the shock that I gave you the other day,75 but it seems to me that you have enjoyed the shock. I take it that you are not so much shocked over the expression as by my utterance of it. You didn't expect it perhaps from my mouth, thinking me to be a 'goody-goody' fellow. Perhaps you 74Grandmother. 75He is referring to his usage of the word 'sala, which is a rude word in Hindi. Page-39 did not expect me to use such unparliamentary language. Anyhow, shocks, they say, don't shock any more - we get them so often these days. Besides, Mother and Sri Aurobindo have said, sometimes knocks and shocks are good f

22 July 1969 I remember, long, long ago, somebody lost something and Mother told him, "Don't go by your small mind: 'I left it here and then there, etc.' Rather go by intuition." I've tried to put this into practice, in my own small way: sometimes I don't succeed; sometimes I'm right. You have to practise and learn how to interpret such messages. I have had many queer indications of that sort - dream-revelations. Suddenly you get a flash. It's strange how things are revealed. Once, I wrote a poem and sent it out for publication. I didn't know that it would be published. I wasn't at all sure. I dreamed I saw the journal and the poem. And really it was publishe

27 October 1969 Well, friends, today is our last-but-one sitting - our swan song for this term will be on Wednesday. I am very grateful to you, first of all, for giving me some respite, some breathing space. To speak for three consecutive days, for a man who is not used to doing so, and particularly on a subject that is very high and sublime, is not easy. I am not at all reluctant to speak to you about our beloved Lord, about whom you are so eager to know something. Out of the four or five of us who came into close contact with Him, only two or three are still alive, and of these few, I am taking the burden of speaking to you. My friend Champaklal doesn't believe

2 July 1969 Well, I confessed to you the other day my weakness for green vegetables; by putting such lovely flowers on the table, you'll help me to outgrow this weakness and uphold my nature. Only I can't say like Wordsworth (I might misquote, that's my habit!): To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.51 In my previous talk, you remember, I told you about one or two of my experiences in dream and in sleep. I will tell you today about another incident, a very minor one, to show you how the guidance comes sometimes in a very amusing manner. It happened after our talk here. Perhaps He wanted to give me mo

23 October 1969 I don't know whether I am happy or sad to find the room so unexpectedly packed, but Sri Aurobindo says that it is always the unexpected that happens, of course, in appearance only. I don't know who has tom-tommed about this talk! Among this crowd, there are quite a number of distinguished guests, as you have noticed, from our great poet's Home of Peace to our home of rain.267 But, as Mother says, rain is the symbol of new life, new creation, so we welcome them here. But I'll warn them, at the same time, that the subject matter will be a bit personal. By the way, it is not a speech, it is supposed to be a talk. 267 Home of Peace: literal tra