EVENING TALKS

with

SRI AUROBINDO

Recorded by A. B. PURANI

To the Reader

The reader is requested to note that Sri Aurobindo is not responsible for these records as he had no opportunity to see them. So, it is not as if Sri Aurobindo said exactly these things but that I remember him to have said them. All I can say is that I have tried to be as faithful in recording them as I was humanly capable. That does not minimize my personal responsibility which I fully accept.

A. B. PURANI

Names of participants in the evening talks:

From 1938-1950

1. Nirod Baran

2. Champaklal

3. Satyendra Thakore

4. Mulshankar

5. A. B. Purani

6. Becharlal

Occassional Participants:

1. Dr. Manilal Parikh

2. Dr. Srinivas Rao

3. Dr. Savoor

INTRODUCTION

The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita (2nd Chap.) occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: "What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?" Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment,--the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also that the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature. So, all the parts of nature--including the physical and the external--are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.

The Evening-Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from

the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose--all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950--a span of forty years--he had led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practicing some kind of very special yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as "public", "altruistic" or "beneficial." Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.

But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening--from 1900 to 1910--could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.

This period of outer retirement was one of intense Sadhana and of intellectual activity--it was also one during which he acted on external events,--though he was not dedicated outwardly to a public cause. About his own retirement he writes, "But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he (Sri Aurobindo) had

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retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in life. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his yoga is not only to realize the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world-activity into the scope of this Spiritual Consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual Force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that, besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic Power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness,--though all do not care to possess, or possessing, to use it, and this Power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which Sri Aurobindo used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards, in a constant action upon the world forces.1

Twice he found it necessary to go out of his way to make public pronouncements on important world-issues, which shows distinctly that renunciation of life is not a part of his yoga. "The first was in relation to the second world-war. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene."2

The second was with regard to Sir Stafford Cripps' proposal for the transfer of power to India.

Over and above Sadhana, writing-work and rendering spiritual help to the world during his apparent retirement there

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1. Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram

2. Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram

were plenty of other activities of which the outside world has no knowledge. Many prominent as well as less known persons sought and obtained interviews with him during these years. Thus, among the well-known persons may be mentioned C. R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, Sarala Devi, Dr. Munje, Khasirao Jadhava, Tagore Sylvain Levy. The great national poet of Tamilnad, S. Subramanya Bharati, was in contact with Sri Aurobindo for some years during his stay at Pondicherry; so was V. V. S. Aiyar. The famous V. Ramaswamy Aiyangar--Va. Ra. of Tamil literature--stayed with Sri Aurobindo for nearly three years and was influenced by him. Some of these facts have been already mentioned in "A Life of Sri Aurobindo."

Jung has admitted that there is an element of mystery, something that baffles the reason, in human personality. One finds that the greater the personality the greater is the complexity. And this is especially so with regard to spiritual personalities, what the Gita calls "Vibhutis" and "Avatars."

Sri Aurobindo has explained the mystery of personality in some of his writings. Ordinarily by a personality we mean something which can be described as "a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character." In one view personality is regarded as a fixed structure of recognizable qualities expressing a power of being;" another idea regards "personality as a flux of self-expressive or sensitive and responsive being." "But flux of nature and fixity of nature--which some call character--are two aspects of being, neither of which, nor indeed both together, can be a definition of personality." Besides this flux and this fixity there is also a third and occult element, the Person behind of whom the personality is a self-expression; the Person puts forward the personality as his role, character, persona, in the present act of his long drama of manifested existence. But the Person is larger than his personality, and it may happen that this inner largeness overflows into the surface formation; the result is a self-expression of being which

can no longer be described by fixed qualities, normalities of mood, exact lineaments, or marked out structural limits."1

The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual sadhana, he has shown us that practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a "divine" status. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.

The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of over coming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti,--the embodiment of a divine quality or power,--and the Avatar--the divine incarnation--are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.

In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says about the Avatar: "He may on the other hand descend as an incarnation of divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama and Krishna; but always then his descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner and Spiritual rebirth."2

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1. The Life Divine, P. 833

2. Essays on the Gita, P. 258

"He comes as the divine power and love which calls men to itself, so that they may take refuge in that and no longer in the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their human fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all the unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine."1

"The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in men above their lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine loves. He comes as a divine personality, which shall fill the consciousness of the human being, to replace the limited egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality,"2

It is clear that Sri Aurobindo interpreted the traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of the evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the "gnostic individual" in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A Supramental gnostic individual will be a Spiritual Person, but not a personality, in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the Universal and the Transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says: "we feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of Personality the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognizable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul a Purusha."3

One feels that he was describing the feeling of some of us--his disciples--with regard to him in his inimitable way.

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1. Essays on the Gita, p. 258

2. Ibid, p. 258

3. The Life Divine, p. 883

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This transformation of the human personality into the Divine--perhaps even the mere connection of the human with the Divine--is probably regarded as a chimera by the modern mind. To the modern mind it would appear as the apotheosis of a human personality which is against its idea of equality of men. Its difficulty is partly due to the notion that the Divine is unlimited and illimitable while a "personality", however high and grand, seems to demand imposition, or assumption, of limitation. In this connection Sri Aurobindo said during an Evening Talk: "No human manifestation can be illimitable and unlimited but the manifestation in the limited should reflect the unlimited, the "Transcendent Beyond." (28-4-1923)

This possibility of the human touching and manifesting the Divine has been realized during the course of human history whenever a great spiritual Light has appeared on earth. One of the purposes of this book is to show how Sri Aurobindo himself reflected the unlimited Beyond in his own self.

Greatness is magnetic and in a sense contagious. Whenever manifested, greatness is claimed by humanity as something that reveals the possibility of the race. The highest quality of greatness is not merely to attract us but to inspire us to follow it and rise to our own highest spiritual stature. To the majority of men Truth remains abstract, impersonal and far unless it is seen and felt concretely in a human personality. A man never knows a truth actively except through a person and by embodying it in his personality. Some glimpse of the Truth-Consciousness which Sri Aurobindo embodied may be caught in these Evening Talks.

Guru griha vasa--"staying in the home of the Guru"--is a very old Indian ideal maintained by seekers through the ages. The Aranyakas--"the ancient teachings in the forest groves"--are perhaps the oldest records of the institution. It was

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not for "education" in the modern sense of the term that men went to live with the Guru; for the Guru is not a "teacher". The Guru is one who is "enlightened," who is a seer, a Rishi, one who has the vision of and has lived the Truth. He has, thus, the knowledge of the goal of human life and has learnt true values in life by living the truth. He can impart both these to the willing seeker. In ancient times seekers went to the Guru with many questions, difficulties and doubts but also with earnestness. Their questions were preliminary to the quest.

The Master the Guru, set at rest the puzzled human mind by his illuminating answers, perhaps even more by his silent consciousness, so that it might be able to pursue unhampered the path of realization of the Truth. Those ancient discourses answer the mind of man to-day even across the ages. They have rightly acquired--as everything of the past does--a certain sanctity. But sometimes that very reverence prevents men from properly evaluating, and living in, the present. This happens when the mind instead of seeking the Spirit looks at the form. For instance, it is not necessary for such discourses that they take place in forest groves in order to be highly spiritual. Wherever the Master is, there is Light And Gura griha--the house of the Master--can be his private dwelling place. So much was this feeling a part of Sri Aurobindo's nature and so particular was he to maintain the personal character of his work that during the first few years--after 1923--he did not like his house to be called an "Ashram", as the word had acquired the sense of a public institution to the modern mind. But there was no doubt that the flower of Divinity had blossomed in him; and disciples, likes bees seeking honey, came to him. It is no exaggeration to say that these Evening-Talks were to the small company of disciples what the Aranyakas were to the ancient seekers. Seeking the Light, they came to the dwelling place of their Guru, the greatest seer of the age, and found it their spiritual home--the home of their parents, for, the Mother, his companion in the great mission, had come. And these spiritual parents bestowed upon the disciples freely of their Light, their consciousness, their

power and their grace. The modern reader may find that the form of these discourses differs from those of the past but it was bound to be so for the simple reason that the times have changed and the problems that puzzle the modern mind are so different. Even though the disciples may be very imperfect representations of what he aimed at in them, still they are his creations. It is in order to repay, in however infinitesimal a degree, the debt which we owe to him that the effort is made to partake of the joy of his company--the Evening-Talks--with a larger public.

III

EVENING SITTINGS

Sri Aurobindo was never a social man in the current sense of the term and definitely he was not a man of the crowd. This was due to his grave temperament, not to any feeling of superiority or to repulsion for men. At Baroda there was an Officer's Club which was patronized by the Maharajah and though Sri Aurobindo enrolled himself as a member he hardly went to the Club even on special occasions. He rather liked a small congenial circle of friends and spent most of his evenings with them whenever he was free and not occupied with his studies of other works. After Baroda when he went to Calcutta there was hardly any time in the storm and stress of revolutionary politics to permit him to lead a "social life." What little time he could spare from his incessant activities was spent in the house of Raja Subodh Malick or at the Grey Street house. In the Karma yogin office he used to sit after the office hours till late chatting with a few persons or trying automatic writing. Strange dictations used to be received sometimes: one of them was the following: "Moni (Suresh Chakarvarty) will bomb Sir Edward Grey when he will come as the Viceroy of India." In later years at Pondicherry there used to be a joke that Sir Edward took such a fright at the prospect of Moni's bombing him that he never came to India!

After Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry from Chandranagore he entered upon an intense period of spiritual sadhana and for a few months he refused to receive anyone. After a time he used to sit down to talk in the evening and on some days tried automatic writing. Yogic Sadhana--a small book--was the result. In 1913 Sri Aurobindo removed to Rue Francois Martin No. 41 where he used to receive persons at fixed times. This was generally in the morning between 9 and 10. 30.

But, over and above newcomers, some local people and the few inmates of the house used to have informal talk with Sri Aurobindo in the evening. In the beginning the inmates used to go out for playing foot-ball, and during their absence known local individuals would come in and wait for Sri Aurobindo. Afterwards regular meditation began at about 4. p. m. in which practically all the inmates participated. After the meditation all of the members and those who were permitted shared in the evening sitting. This was a very informal gathering depending entirely upon Sri Aurobindo's leisure.

When Sri Aurobindo and the Mother removed to No. 9 Rue de la Marine in 1922 the same routine of informal evening sittings after meditation continued. I came to Pondicherry for Sadhana in the beginning of 1923. I kept notes of the important talks I had with the four or five disciples who were already there. Besides, I used to take detailed notes of the evening-talks which we all had with the Master. They were not intended by him to be noted down. I took them down because of the importance I felt about everything connected with him, no matter how insignificant to the outer view. I also felt that everything he did would acquire for those who would come to know his mission a very great significance.

As years passed the evening sittings went on changing their time and often those disciples who came from outside for a temporary stay for Sadhana were allowed to join them. And, as the number of Sadhaks practicing the yoga increased, the

evening sittings also became more full, the small verandah upstairs in the main building was found insufficient. Members of the household would gather every day at the fixed time with some sense of expectancy and start chatting in low tones. Sri Aurobindo used to come last and it was after his coming that the session would really commence.

He came dressed as usual in Dhoti, part of which was used by him to cover the upper part of his body. Very rarely he came out with Chaddar or Shawl and then it was "in deference to the climate" as he sometimes put it. At times for minutes he would be gazing at the sky from a small opening at the top of the grass-curtains that covered the verandah of the upstairs in No. 9 Rue de la Marine. How much were these sittings dependent on him may be gathered from the fact that there were days when more than three-fourths of the time passed in complete silence without any outer suggestion from him, or there was only an abrupt "Yes" or "No" to all attempts at drawing him out in conversation. And even when he participated in the talk one always felt that his voice was that of one who does not let his whole being flow into his words; there was a reserve and what was left unsaid was perhaps more than what was spoken. What was spoken was what he felt necessary to speak.

These sittings, in fact, furnished Sri Aurobindo with an occasion to admit and feel the outer atmosphere and that of the

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group living with him. It brought to him the much-needed direct contact of the mental and vital make-up of the disciples, enabling him to act on the atmosphere in general and to the individual in particular. He could thus help to remould their mental make-up by removing the limitations of their minds and opinions, and correct temperamental tendencies and formations. Thus, these sittings contributed at least partly to the creation of an atmosphere amenable to the working of the Higher Consciousness. Far more important than the actual talk and its content was the personal contact, the influence of the Master, and the divine atmosphere he emanated; for through his outer personality it was the Divine Consciousness that he allowed to act. All along behind the outer manifestation that appeared human, there was the influence and presence of the Divine.

What was talked in the small group informally was not intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result of some talks very often was to point out to the disciple the inherent incapacity of the human intellect and its secondary place in the search for the ultimate Reality.

But there were occasions when he did give his independently personal views on some problems, on events and other subjects. Even then it was never an authoritarian pronouncement. Most often it appeared to be a logically worked out and almost inevitable conclusion expressed quite impersonally though with firm and sincere conviction. This impersonality was such a prominent trait of his personality! Even in such matters as dispatching a letter or a telegram it would not be a command from him to a disciple to carry out the task. Most often during his usual passage to the dining room he would stop on the way, drop in on the company of four or five disciples and, holding out

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the letter or the telegram, would say in the most amiable and yet the most impersonal way: "I suppose this has to be sent." And it would be for some one in the group instantly to volunteer and take it. The expression very often he used was "It was done", "It happened" not "I did."

There were two places where these sittings took place. At the third place there was no sitting but informal talk to a small number of disciples who were attending him after the accident in November 1938.

From 1918 to 1922 we gathered at No: 41 Rue Francois Martin, called the Guest House, upstairs, on a broad verandah into which four rooms opened and whose main piece of furniture was a small table 3'/x 1 1/2', covered with a blue cotton cloth. That is where Sri Aurobindo used to sit in a hard wooden chair behind the table with a few chairs in front for the visitors or for the disciples.

From 1922 to 1926 No. 9 Rue de la Marine, where he and the Mother had shifted, was the place where the sittings were held. There, also upstairs, was a less broad verandah than at the Guest House, a little bigger table in front of the central door out of three, and a broad Japanese chair--the table covered with a better cloth than the one in the Guest House, a small flower vase, an ash-tray, a block calendar indicating the date and an ordinary time-piece, a number of chairs in front in a line. The evening sittings used to be after meditation at 4 or 4-30 p.m. After November 24, 1926, the sitting began to get later and later, till the limit of 1 o'clock at night was reached. Then the curtain fell. Sri Aurobindo retired completely after December 1926 and the evening sittings came to a close.

* * *

Then, on November 23, 1938 I got up at 2 o'clock to prepare hot water for the Mother's early bath because the 24th

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was Darshan day. Between 2.20 and 2.30 the Mother rang the bell. I ran up the staircase to be told about an accident that had happened to Sri Aurobindo's foot and to be asked to fetch the doctor. This accident brought about a change in his complete retirement, and rendered him available to those who had to attend on him. This opened out a long period of 12 years during which his retirement was modified owing to circumstances, inner and outer, that made it possible for him to have direct physical contacts with the world outside.

The long period of the second world war with all its vicissitudes passed through these years. It was a priceless experience to see how he devoted his energies to the task of saving humanity from the threatened reign of Nazism. It was a practical lesson of solid work done for humanity without any thought of return or reward, without even letting humanity know what he was doing for it! Thus he lived the Divine and showed us how the Divine cares for the world, how he comes down and works for man. I shall never forget how he who was at one time--in his own words--"not merely a non-co-operator but an enemy of British Imperialism" bestowed such anxious care on the health of Churchill, listening carefully to the health bulletins! It was the work of the Divine, it was the Divine's work for the world.

There were no formal evening sittings during these years but what appeared to me important in the talks was recorded and has been incorporated in this book.

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DECEMBER, 1938

10-12-1938.

Disciple: Why did you choose Pondicherry as the place for your Sadhana?

Sri Aurobindo: Because it was by an Adesh--command from Above--I was asked to come here. When I was leaving Bombay for Calcutta I asked Lele what I should do regarding my Sadhana. He kept silent for some time [probably waiting to hear a voice from the heart] and replied, "Meditate at a fixed time and hear the voice in the heart."

I did not hear the voice from the heart, but a different voice and I dropped meditation at fixed time because meditation was going on all the time. When Lele came to Calcutta and heard about it, he said that the devil had caught hold of me. I said, "If it is the devil, I will follow him."

Disciple: People say that 'Yogic Sadhan' was written by the being of Keshab Sen?

Sri Aurobindo: Keshab Sen? When I was writing it, every time at the beginning and at the end the image of Ram Mohan Roy came before me. So perhaps, Ram Mohan has been changed to Keshab Sen.

Do you know the origin of the name "Uttara Yogi?"

Disciple: No, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: There was a famous Yogi in the South who while dying said to his disciples that a Purna Yogi from the North would come down to the South and he would be known by his three sayings. The three sayings were those I had written to my wife. A Zamindar--disciple of that Yogi--found me out and bore the cost of the book "Yogic Sadhan."

Disciple: Tagore never spoke at any time about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda except recently when he wrote a very ordinary poem on Ramakrishna during his centenary. He used to tell girls that Ramakrishna used very often to deride women saying "Kamini Kanchan" are the roots of bondage and still women worshipped him.

Sri Aurobindo: I understand that Ramakrishna used to say "Kama Kanchana". When the division came after his death one party said that he never uttered "Kamani" but "Kama". I don't think there was any one in Brahmo Samaj with spiritual realization. Dwijendra Nath had something in him and Shiva Nath Shastri too and perhaps Kesab Sen. Bejoy Goswami ceased to be a Brahmo.

Disciple: Lele had realization?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, he had some, but as I said he had ambition and ego.

Disciple: It is said that Christ used to heal simply by a touch. Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? There are many instances of such cures. Of course, faith is necessary. Christ himself said "Thy faith has made thee whole."

Disciple: Is faith always necessary for such a cure?

Sri Aurobindo: No, cure can be done without faith, especially when one does not know what is being done. Faith

is above the mind so that any discussion or dispute spoils the action of the faith.

Disciple: I knew also such instances of cure or help by faith. When I came to see you first, you told me to remember you in my difficulties. As I returned I did so and I passed through all the difficulties, but as soon as I came here I heard many things from Sadhaks and did not get the same result. I thought, perhaps, I was, not able to open myself to you.

Sri Aurobindo: That is called simple faith, or as some call it, "blind faith." When Ramakrishna was asked about faith, he said, "all faith is blind otherwise there is no faith." He was quite right.

Disciple: Is it because there is something in the nature of environmental influence that doubt come and one does not get the same result as before?

Sri Aurobindo: Both; the physical mind has these things, doubt, etc. and they come up at one time or the other. And by contact with other people also faith gets obscured. I knew a shocking instance in the Ashram. A truthful man came here. A Sadhak told him that speaking of the truth always is a superstition. One must be free to say what one likes. And then there is another instance of a Sadhak who said that sex indulgence is no hindrance to yoga, it can be allowed, and everyone must have his Shakti. When such ideas are prevalent no wonder that they cast bad influence on others.

Disciple: Such people ought to be quarantined?

Sri Aurobindo: I thought of that but it is not possible. Mother at one time tried to impose some restrictions and regulations but it did not work. One has to change from within. There are, of course, other yogic systems which have such strict regulations. Buddhism is unique

in that respect. There is a school in France [Labratte?] which enjoins strict silence.

Disciple: Is such exterior imposition good?

Sri Aurobindo: It can be good provided one sincerely keeps to it. For instance, in that school in France, people who enter there know what they want and so keep to the regulation that are meant to help them in achieving their aim.

The world has to change,--people here are epitomes of the world. Each one represents a type of humanity and if one type is conquered that means a great victory for the work. And for this change a constant will is required. If that is there, lots of things can be done for the Sadhak as they were done.

Disciple: Things became sluggish afterwards.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is when the Sadhana came down in the physical and the subconscient that things became very difficult. I myself had to struggle for two years; for the subconscient is absolutely inert like stone. Though my mind was quite awake above, it could not exert and influence down below. It is a Herculean labour, for when one enters there, it is a sort of an unexplored continent. Previous Yogis came down to the vital. If I had been made to see it before, probably, I would have been less enthusiastic about it. That is the instance of blind faith. The ancients were quite right perhaps in leaving the physical, but if I had left it there, the real work would have remained undone. And once it is conquered, it becomes easy for people who come after me, which is what is meant by realization of one in all.

Disciple: Then we can wait for that victory!!

Sri Aurobindo: You want an easy path!

Disciple: Not only easy but like a baby we want to be carried about. Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but one has to be a baby--and a genuine baby.

Disciple: Ramakrishna has said a Yogi need not be always like a drawn sword.

Sri Aurobindo: When did he say that and what did he mean by that? A Yogi has always to be vigilant, especially in the early part of one's Sadhana. Otherwise all one has gained can come down like a thud. People here usually don't make Sadhana the one part of their life. They have two parts: one, the internal and other external, which goes on with ordinary movements, social contacts, etc. Sadhana must be made the one part of the being.

Disciple: You spoke about the brilliant period of the Ashram.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it was when Sadhana was going on in the vital and when it is that, everything is joy, peace, etc. and if I had stopped there, we could have started a big religion, or something like it. But the real work would have been left undone.

Disciple: Why did you retire? To concentrate more on your work?

Sri Aurobindo: No, to withdraw from the physical atmosphere. If I had to do the work the Mother is doing, I would have hardly time to do my own work, besides its being a tremendous labour.

Disciple: Vishudhanand of Banares is said to be able to produce all sorts of perfumes, scents, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to know if they (perfumes) are all materialization or subtle perfumes projected into the physical or on the senses.

Paul Brunton saw always some pressure accompanying him. When he saw my photo, it had nothing to resemble it but when he saw me at the Darshan, he at once recognized me as that pressure.

Disciple: Why does one rise and fall physically in meditation?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the physical but the vital body separating itself from the body. At one time I thought physical Siddhi was impossible. But in Alipore jail, once I found that my body had occupied a position which it was physically impossible to have. Then again; I was practicing to raise my hands and keep them suspended without any muscular control. Once in that raised condition of hands I fell off to sleep. The warder saw this condition and reported that I had died. Authorities came and found me quite alive. I told them he was a fool.

There is a French author Joules Romain. He is a medical man and a mystic. He can see with other parts of the body with eyes closed. He says, "Eyes are only a specialized organ." Other parts can as well be trained to see. But scientists refused to admit his demonstration.

Disciple: Ramana Maharshi does not believe in the descent (of the Supermind).

Sri Aurobindo: It--the descent is the experience of many Sadhaks even outside our Yoga. An old Sanyasi of the Ramakrishna Mission saw a flood of light descending and when he asked he was told it was all the work of the devil and the whole experience stopped afterwards.

In Maharshi's case he has received the thing in the heart and has worked with it, so he does not feel the descent.

Disciple: I believe that grace is without condition.

Sri Aurobindo: That may be true from the side of the

Divine but the man must try to fulfill the condition under which alone grace can act.

[In this respect Sir Aurobindo's writing in The Mother was quoted by a disciple where he lays down that "the grace will work under the conditions of the Truth, not under those imposed upon it by falsehood."

Disciple: Grace is grace, but one need not sit with folded hands. What is achieved is by the divine grace.

Sri Aurobindo: Grace is of course unconditional, but it is for men to fulfill the conditions. It is as if man was continually spilling from a cup in which something was being poured.

11-12-1938

Disciple: Is there no justice for the misdeeds of people like S, V and N? Surely they will have to bear the consequences of their actions? And yet how is it these people succeed in life?

Sri Aurobindo: Justice in this life? May not be. Most probably not. But justice is not what most people believe it to be. It is said that virtuous people will have happiness, prosperity etc. in another life while in this life they have the opposite effects. In that case, the people you speak of must have been virtuous in their previous life. There is justice in the sense that the virtuous and pious people advance towards Sattwic nature while the contrary one goes down the scale of humanity and become more and more Asuric. That is what I have said in the "Arya."

(At this moment Mother came in and asked what was the subject of talk.)

Sri Aurobindo replied that X was asking about justice,

--whether it exists. After some moments' pause Mother said: "Of course, there is justice; these people suffer, they are tormented and not happy within. But that unhappiness does not seem to change them. They go from worse to worse; yes; but in some cases as the divine pressure goes on acting, at some time, especially during some impending catastrophe, suddenly some change takes place in these people. We saw a number of people like that. e.g. those who were trying to persecute Sri Aurobindo.

Disciple: You have said in your Prayers that justice exists. One cannot avoid the law of Karma except by Divine Grace.

Sri Aurobindo: N. may be a scoundrel but he has capacity and cleverness and so he will surely succeed. It is that capacity and cleverness that succeeds in life not virtues etc.

Disciple: To cheat people and get money? Is it cleverness?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, it is cleverness or you may say, misuse of cleverness. But I don't say that cleverness will not have its consequences, but at the same time it is these qualities that succeed in life.

Disciple: Why does not one believe in Grace?

Mother: It is because the human mind arranges and combines things and does not leave any room for the Grace. For instance, when one is cured of a disease or passes an examination, he thinks it is due to medicine or some chance. He does not see that in between, or behind, there may be Grace acting on him. Is it not so?

Sri Aurobindo: They would call it luck.

Mother: If you don't recognize the Grace how can it work? It is as if you had shut your doors against it, Of course, it can work below, underneath so to say.

Disciple: Doesn't it act unconditionally?

Mother: It does, especially in those people who have been

predestined for some thing; but if one recognizes and expresses gratitude, it acts more forcefully and quickly.

Disciple: Isn't it because we are ignorant?

Mother: No, I know many ignorant people having the Grace expressing a deep gratitude rising from the heart.

Disciple: We would like the Grace to act like a mother feeding a hungry baby, giving things when it needs etc.

Sri Aurobindo: And who is the baby? (loud laughter)

Mother: But the Grace does not work according to human demands or conceptions. It has its own law and way. How can it? Very often what seems to be a great blow or calamity at the present moment may appear to be a great blessing after ten years and people say that their real life began after that.

Sri Aurobindo: Grace is unconditional but at the same time, how will it work if a man is throwing away the Grace, or does not recognize it? It is like a man spilling away from the cup in which something is being poured. Mother said that she is interested to see the reactions with the two fellows. It may have different results in both. She can't say how it will be different.

Disciple: Will it be a question of a degree?

Sri Aurobindo: No, difference of quality also. One is more stupid and blind than the other who knows consciously what he is aiming at. So the former has less power to harm.

Disciple: Perhaps one may change for the better during life?

Mother: That is romance.

Disciple: Especially S. may return to Ashram again.

Mother: {looked very amused and said) Do you think so? When a man turns his back he has no chance, no possibility. One who is given a chance may have a

possibility.

Disciple: The law of Karma according to Jainism is inexorable. Even the Tirthankars can't escape it, and have to pay in exact mathematical proportion.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a great thing. But too wonderful and mathematical to be true. e.g. a son who lived for a short time cost a great deal of money to the father for his ill-health. It was said that the father had been the debtor to the son in previous life and the son realized exactly the same amount of money which he had lent by means of his illness and died. (Laughter)

Disciple: There is what is Nikachit Karma or Utkata Karma which cannot be avoided. It is like a knot that cannot be untied. It is like a silk thread tied and burnt.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be this Utkata Karma that brought about the accident (to his foot).

Disciple: What is incomprehensible is the unmerited suffering of the physical consciousness in your case.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know it is unmerited? Perhaps it was to give me knowledge of what intense pain is. I had ordinary pains before which I could turn into Ananda. But this was intense. I never had the experience when it came suddenly and abruptly, I could not change it into Ananda. When it became of steady nature I could. Besides, we shall see afterwards the full significance. Of course, I accept it as a part of the battle.

Disciple: When will you be cured?

Sri Aurobindo: Don't ask me the question. It is just what I can't know, for, immediately I say something the hostile forces would at once rush to prevent it. That is why I don't want to prophesy. Not that things are not known, or possibilities not seen. For instance, there are things about which I had definitely said. But where it

is a question of possibilities, I don't tie myself to that chain of possibilities For if I do that I commit myself in advance to certain lines of movement and the result of it may not be what I want, and I won't be able to bring down that for which I am striving, it may not be the highest but something partial. But plenty of people can prophesy. That capacity is common among Yogis. When I was arrested, my maternal-grand-aunt asked Swami Bhaskaranand, "What will happen to our Aurobindo?" He replied, "The Divine Mother has taken him in her arms; nothing will happen to him. But he is not your Aurobindo. He is world's Aurobindo and the world will be filled with his perfume.". Another time I was taken by Jatin Banerji to a Swami Narayan Jyotishi who foretold about my three trials, white enemies and also my release. When my horoscope was shown he said that there was some mistake about time and when the time was corrected he replied, "Oh, the lead is turned into gold now."

Disciple: Have you had any prophesy in dreams? Many people get dreams or vision of coming events.

Disciple: I know the instance of A's daughter-in-law who saw him carried to cemetery and exactly two hours after he died of heart failure.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is a good instance of that.

Disciple: Even without knowing the person concerned can one prophesy like that? i.e. like Bhaskaranand?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is an intuitive power. I once tried to see a man who was to be elected and saw a figure seated in the office but quite different and unknown, not the one elected. After some time a quarrel took place between my brother-in-law and a Government official and he was called. But my mistake "Bose"

became "Ghose", and I had to go and see the man. I found the same man of my vision sitting as the Governor and I was much surprised.

On another occasion a friend of X. (V. Ramaswamy Aiyanger) was coming to see me and I wanted to have a vision of the man. I saw him as having clean shaven head, bull-dog face; but when he came, I found his appearance quite different, regular South Indian Brahmin features. But curiously enough, exactly after two years I saw that the man had changed to what I had seen of him in vision. These thing are thrown out from the subtle world to the surface consciousness. There is another instance; I was a great tea addict and could not do any work without a cup of tea. The management of tea was in charge of my brother-in-law. He used to bring the tea at any time he woke up from sleep. One day though I had much work to do I was thinking, "When will he bring tea?" "Why does he not come?" and looked at the watch when exactly, at the very moment, the tea was brought. I had made a rule never to ask anything from anybody.

Disciple: Is consciousness of the Divine possible in the physical cells even?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the cells can have peace, joy, etc. and when they are quite conscious, they can throw out the opposing forces. When peace descends in the physical it is a great force for cure.

Disciple: Can one have peace without knowing it?

Sri Aurobindo: That is natural peace which is more than quietude. But there is a positive peace which one knows and feels. Truth also can descend in the physical, and also Power, but very few can bear Power. Light also descends. I remember a disciple telling his Guru about the descent of Light in him.

The Guru said, "The devil has caught hold of you", and from that time the disciple lost everything.

There is an infinite sea of peace, ananda, above the head; if one is in contact with it one can get them always.

Disciple: Do any thoughts or suggestions come to you?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? Thoughts and suggestions come to me from every side and I don't refuse them. I accept them and see what they are. But what you call "thinking" that I never do. Thinking in that sense had ceased long ago since I had that experience with Lele. Thoughts, as I said; come to me from all sides and from above and the transmitting mind remains quiet, or it enlarges to receive them. True thoughts come in this way. You can't think out such thoughts, what Mother call "mental-constructions."

Disciple: Was "Arya" written in that way?

Sri Aurobindo: No, it was directly transmitted into the pen. It is a great relief to get out of that responsibility.

Disciple: Yes, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't mean responsibility in general but that of thinking about everything. Some thoughts are given or reflected from outside. It is not that I don't ask for knowledge. When I want knowledge I call for it. The Higher faculty sees thoughts as if written on a wall.

13-12-1938

Mother came at 5-55 and meditated till after 7-5. It is difficult to say whether the feast of silent meditation was more precious than the conversation which happened to take place after Mother left for evening meditation.

Sri Aurobindo: (with a smile to X.) Meditating?

Disciple: I am trying hard; Sir, for the last three-fourths of an hour but have not succeeded. Many unwanted thoughts come.

Sri Aurobindo: What are they?

Disciple: Some nonsense.

Sri Aurobindo: Some extraordinary non-sense like perpetual attendance on the Maharajah or successor to Mussolini?

Disciple: No sir, the thought of the Maharajah comes very rarely. But why does not one succeed in meditating even after so many trials? The last time I had fine meditation was when Dr. N. came from Madras.

But I see my friend N. at once bends his head down and I believe he is merged in Satchidananda.

Disciple: Yes, in despair, perhaps. I go to sleep.

Sri Aurobindo: But there is power of deep concentration on your face (laughter).

Disciple: Can one go to sleep in despair?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, as a refuge out of the despair. Apart from that, it happens to everybody except for yogis who have made it their business to meditate. And even they find there are periods of blankness when nothing seems to be done or going on.

Disciple: As he is a poet he may be living in higher regions.

Sri Aurobindo: You must no forget Shakespeare's saying that "All poetry is telling lies." (laughter)

Disciple: He is not a poet of that sort.

Disciple: Perhaps you had a dose of meditation last week which you are now assimilating; you are suffering from spiritual dyspepsia.

Disciple: But some people go into unconsciousness as soon

as they begin meditation. For example R. and C. Even P. when he used to join became unconscious of the body.

Sri Aurobindo: Some yogis require a support to prevent their bodies from falling while they are in meditation. Those who practice Asan can remain erect.

There are some who go to sleep standing like the horse. My grand-father, Raj Narayan Bose, was like that. One day we were walking together at night. Suddenly we missed him. When we came back we saw him sleeping standing.

Disciple: It is a question of habit and convenience, I think.

Disciple: Was Raj Narayan practicing meditation?

Sri Aurobindo: Not much. It was a Brahmo-meditation. (Laughter)

Disciple: Sometimes meditation used to come to me spontaneously at my place and I used to get into a condition when I would be compelled to sit down to meditate.

Sri Aurobindo: It was probably the inner being insisting on it. It is always better to allow it to work.

Disciple: It used to happen even when I would be leaving for my work. For days I used to feel that my head was resting on the Mother's feet. What is that?

Sri Aurobindo: It was the experience of Psychic Bhakti.

Disciple: But then it went away. How to retain that experience?

Sri Aurobindo: The condition is "to want that and nothing else." If you have that intense passion for union with the Divine then it can remain. It is too difficult, is it? So, it is better to allow the higher Power to work.

Disciple: We have been trying hard to make him remain here for three months but he is all the time thinking of his family.

Disciple: I feel a pull upward in the head while meditating.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the mind trying to ascend to the Higher consciousness.

Disciple: Sometimes I feel myself widening.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, sometimes one feels the head opening or expanding. That is the sign of the mental being opening to the Power.

Disciple: Sometimes I see sky, ocean, or mountains and forests.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. One sees many things i.e. by the inner sight. These are symbols of life or energy. Sky is the symbol of the mind. Mountain is the symbol of the being with its different planes and parts with the Divine as the summit. Forests are symbols of the vital.

Disciple: These visions are seen by many (quite common).

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, as the mind expands so also the heart expands and also the vital. If one sees those things outside oneself then that has only symbolic significance but if one feels the widening or coming of Light in himself then that increases the opening and the receptivity of the being.

Disciple: What do you mean by the Divine or the Supreme?

Sri Aurobindo: I mean by it a consciousness of which the Gita speaks as Param Bhavam, Purushottama, Parabrahman, Paramatman. That is to say, the origin and the support and cause of every thing. It is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, everywhere, You can't define it. You limit it if you define it. It can be described as Satchidananda. It is everything, it is everywhere, it is in everything. It is impersonal, 'Neti, Neti;' it is also 'Iti, Iti'. You can have the experience of Satchidananda on any plane. These things cannot be known by the mind or by discussion. The "Golden lid has to be broken".

Disciple: What will happen if one realizes the divine consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: First thing, you will become calm, quiet; secondly, there will be the feeling of strength, I mean the presence of a Force. Thirdly, the sense of the Infinite will be felt, you will feel yourself as the Infinite. Fourthly, something will be always there behind which will be able to govern the nature. Also the sense of Eternity and of yourself as Immortal. Even though the body dies you know you are immortal. Also there are many things more. For example, freedom from every thing even from the world. You realize the Transcendental and the Universal consciousness.

Realization of the fundamental being may be the beginning i.e. of the Essential being, Consciousness and Delight. Then, everything is divine, you are divine, you live in the divine: it is one of the most Anandamaya experiences. It is a concrete and real thing and not an idea. You cannot explain these things. You can't explain even a stone in spite of your science. Everything is not material but mystical at bottom.

Disciple: Is it that this experience formulates itself differently in different Yogis to suit their personalities? or the difference is due to nature or personality itself?

Sri Aurobindo: There, personality is no longer separate. It is the One putting itself forward with a special quality, stress or emphasis. Nimbarka's Bhedabheda means that.

Disciple: You have also spoken of the veil in the heart.

Sri Aurobindo: It is also true. It sometimes requires removing the veil and breaking the wall (in the heart).

Sometimes after this experience of opening it seems to close again. Most of the obstruction comes from the

vital. So, the being is prepared behind the veil and when everything is ready it is projected in the outer nature. But the demand of this Yoga is much more than in any other and so it takes a long time. All yoga requires patience above everything else.

Disciple: We must have been working for it for many lives.

Sri Aurobindo: According to some yogas you have no right to the result for twelve years. After twelve years you have to see if anything has happened or not.

Disciple: When the preparation is being done behind, can we say that some of the Sadhaks have achieved very great advance like the Vedic Rishis.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? Their outer nature is not ready and so they can't be said to have realized the Truth. Nature is full of difficulties and obstacles and so the Higher Power works behind. If it worked in the outer nature, it would meet too many obstacles.

Disciple: So it is the Bhedabheda philosophy?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not merely philosophy, but the fact is there corresponding to the philosophy. The Gita speaks of it as "Avibhaktam Vibhkteshu Vibhaktam iva cha Sthitam", "Undivided in the midst of divided things, appearing as if divided." This is not an illusion. I see a tree. The tree appears to me as separate from me. But it is the One, because one with Him. It is myself. It is something else than a tree. It is impossible to think of it as something else than the Brahman.

When I cast my eyes round the room everything,--objects and the persons--, appears the Brahman. I call you so and so but you are not that.

Ordinarily, one tags on everything to the "ego". But in that higher state you understand the divine working

better than when you are a separate "ego". It is when you can become "nobody" and have experience of the Divine that you can be free. That is Mukti. I realized the One, my self disappeared. It is difficult to think of my self as so and so, son of so and so. It is a relief and freedom to be "That" and to remain in "It".

Disciple: Can it be called Shankara's Vedantic realization?

Sri Aurobindo: About Shankara's Vedanta, difficulty is that there are different explanations by various people. The world is an illusion--and the Illusion is indescribable. This is the common basis of all Shankara Adwaita--monism. According to him soul also is Maya--as it has no real existence. But I found that the experience behind this idea is quite different. I had that experience at Baroda, and if I had stopped there I would have been an orthodox Vedantin.*

14-12-1938. Time: about 5-30 P. M.

Silent atmosphere. M. meditating, P. sitting by his side. Sri Aurobindo cast a glance at M. After few minutes P. tried to kill a mosquito with a clapping of hands. Sri Aurobindo looked at P. M. opened his eyes. P. felt much embarrassed.

Disciple: Were you ever a Free Mason, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: My eldest brother was; from him I gathered that it was nothing. But Free Masons had something when it was started. Have you heard of Kaliostro? He was a mystic and a Free Mason with a great prophetic

______________

* Shankar's followers disagree. According to Sri Aurobindo, God is one and many at the same time--they may say, "a logical contradiction". So is Maya--true and false at the same time. That also is a logical contradiction.

power. He prophesied about the French Revolution, the raising of Bastille and guillotining of the King and Queen. He used to prophesy about race-horses. He got into trouble and was imprisoned and died in prison. He never charged any money from any one and yet he was affluent. It was said he knew alchemy and could make gold. (There was a few minutes silence.)

Sri Aurobindo: Have you heard about Nosterdamus? No? He was a Jew. At that time Jews had great knowledge. He wrote a book of prophecy in some obscure language and prophesied about the execution of Charles I, the end of the British Empire and the lasting of the Empire for about 330 years.

Disciple: Then there is still a long time?

Sri Aurobindo: No, it was to be counted from the beginning of her colonies. That means from James I. In that case it should end now.

Disciple: From Chamberlain's speech today it seems Britain is not obliged to side with France in case of war,--it looks like it.

Sri Aurobindo: The English always keep their policy open so that they may change and correct as they like or want.

Disciple: But they cannot join Italy or Germany?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? They can share with them France's African Colonies.

(At this time Mother came. We looked towards her and changed our position from near Sri Aurobindo's head.) She said, "Don't move, don't move."

Disciple: We have decided to meditate when you come. (Mother made big eyes and we all laughed.)

Mother: But if I want to hear the talk?

Disciple: Then we will talk.

Sri Aurobindo: (addressing the Mother): I am giving him a few prophecies of Kaliostro and Nosterdamus whom he has never read, he says.

Disciple: You know Bhikshu X was quite illogical; he called me back from here?

Sri Aurobindo: All preachers are illogical. Were you a fervent Buddhist? Is there much Buddhism in your parts?

Disciple: About one or two million people are Buddhists and there is nothing of Buddhism in what they follow.

Mother: Nothing or something of Buddhism?

Disciple: Something.

Mother: In China and Japan also no Buddhism is left. Only ceremonies remain. In Ceylon they say there is still some authentic Buddhism.

Disciple: In Burma also the same is the case. There, people put on ochre clothes at day and throw them away at night. But the Burmese people show a great respect for their Bikshus.

Disciple: Yes. Respect to dress and not to the reality.

Sri Aurobindo: Lele used to have the same idea. Once I met a Sanyasi with him. Lele asked me: "You don't bow down to him?" I replied: "I don't believe in the man". Lele said: "But you must respect the yellow robe". The Sanyasi was one of the three people whom Vivekananda drove out of his house and they became Avatars in one day (Laughter). Is he just the man to be so treated?

(As Mother had fallen into meditation we all tried to

meditate with her. At about 7 P. M. she went for the group meditation and we rallied again round Sri Aurobindo.)

Addressing X,

Sri Aurobindo: You seemed to have Ananda in your meditation. Your face is beaming with it.

Disciple: Yes Sir. He is nowadays beaming with Ananda.

Disciple: (shyly), "I fell into deep sleep I think, but I had some visions also which seem to be quite distinctly outside.

Sri Aurobindo: Then why do you call it sleep? It may be the psychic being, or the inner being watching what is happening. Sometimes one goes into deeper state and remembers nothing in his outer consciousness, though many things may be going on within. What is called dreamless sleep is really a sleep in which dreams are passing on, only one does not know. Sometimes one discusses problems in such a condition, gets the ecstasy of union, etc. One may also go into other worlds with one part of this being and meet other forms etc. This is of course the first condition and a kind of a beginning of Samadhi. From what you describe it may be an inner being's experience and not psychic. Even then, no doubt that your face is beaming with Ananda, seeing which I thought you went within.

Disciple: Can one get the diagnosis of diseases in such states?

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes. Many people are said to have their problems solved in this way. I remember a peculiar experience of mine. As I was meditating I saw some writings crossing over my head Then a blank. Then again these writings with a gap in the middle which meant that things were going on though I was not conscious of it.

Sri Aurobindo (turning to another disciple): Now what about your meditation?

Disciple: Not successful, sir.

Sri Aurobindo: How? I saw you going in and powerfully wrestling your way towards the Brahman (laughter).

Disciple: Plenty of thoughts invaded me. I tried to reject them and make myself empty.

Sri Aurobindo: The result was emptiness? (laughter)

Disciple: But that is meditation, surely?

Disciple: NO, no, it is not, I could not go into nothingness. I did not feel the Presence; was it meditation, sir?

Sri Aurobindo: That is the beginning, the first condition, The mind must first be quiet for the other things to come down. But one must not dictate to meditation what it should be or not. One must accept whatever it brings.

Disciple: But was I right?

Sri Aurobindo: Right about what?

Disciple: That I was able to reject thoughts.

Sri Aurobindo: (laughing) How do I know? You are to say that. I was only making comments on your statement.

Disciple: You don't know? We consider you as Omniscient.

Sri Aurobindo: You don't expect me to know how many fish the fishermen have caught. How much they have made out of it? People from Bombay used to ask me if the price of cotton would go up, about race horses and about their lost children. What is the use of knowing all that? You know Ramakrishna's story of the Sanyasi's crossing the river. He said it was a Siddhi worth half an anna! Of course if necessary one can know these things, in a way, but I am not occupied with these sort of things. I have left it to the Mother. She hears what is being said at a

distance, meets Sadhaks in subtle planes, talks to them. She said exactly what was going to happen in the recent European trouble. We know what we have got to know for our work.

Disciple: What puzzles me is that you never told me when asked about the diagnosis of a patient.

Sri Aurobindo: Why do you expect us to do your work?

Disciple: Oh, that is different. But you said you have no latent medico in you and hence you can't say. I thought you could say by your intuition.

Sri Aurobindo (addressing X): I was telling you we know what we have got to know. But it is not always good to know. For instance, if I know a thing is going to happen I am bound to it, and even if it is not what I wanted, I have to accept it, and this prevents my having a greater or another possibility. So I want to keep myself free and deal with various possibilities. Below the Supermind everything is a question of possibilities; so if I keep myself free, I can accept or reject as I like. Destiny is not a thing fixed. It is just a complex of forces which can be changed.

Disciple: Without knowledge of the thing how shall one work? After knowing what is to happen cannot one reject it?

Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge comes by intuition. One can reject but the result is not sure though failure may show the way for later success.

Disciple: You have said in an August conversation that you have conquered death by natural process but you have no control over accident.

Sri Aurobindo: Where? What did I say?

Disciple: If I remember rightly, you wrote to me that dise-

ases can't end your life but still you have no control over accidents.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh! Diseases usually run a long course so one has time to act on them, but if there is a disease suddenly of severe nature that ends life immediately, then conquest is not possible. And about accidents the body has its own consciousness and is always alert. But if the mind is occupied with other things, then an accident can take one unawares. As regards violence e.g. of a riot, I would have to concentrate for four or five days to protect myself.

The hostile forces have tried many times to prevent the Darshan but I have succeeded in warding off all those attacks. This time I was more occupied with guarding the Mother and I forgot about myself. I did not think that they would attack me. That was my mistake. As regards the Ashram, I have been extremely successful but while I have tried to work in the world, results have been varied. In Spain I was splendidly successful. General Miaca was an admirable instrument to work on. Working of the Force depends on the instrument. Basque was an utter failure. Negus was a good instrument but people around him though good warriors were too ill organized and ill occupied. Egypt was not successful. Ireland and Turkey a tremendous success. In Ireland I have done exactly what I wanted to do in Bengal. Turks are a silent race.

Disciple: What do you think of the China-Japan war?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't think much of the either party. They are like six and half-a-dozen. Both too much materialistic. But if I had to choose; I would side with Japan. Japan at one time had an ideal. Their powers of self-sacrifice, patriotism, self-abnegation and silence are

remarkable. They would never lose temper in front of anybody. If his honour is injured he would stab, but he must not lose self-control. They can work so silently and secretly that no one knew anything before the Russo-Japan war broke out, how they had prepared themselves. All on a sudden they broke out into war. They are Kshatriyas and their aesthetic sense is of course well known.

But the European influence has spoiled all that. They are now very materialistic. Now how brutal they have become, which is thoroughly un-Japanese.

Look at Japanese soldier slapping the European officers, though they deserve it. The Japanese commander challenging Chiang-Kai-Sheik to come out in the open field. The Japanese men attacking their political leaders--all this is unconceivable. This sort of swaggering is not at all Japanese. In old times, the Japanese, even while fighting, had perfect sympathy with those with whom they fought.

Disciple: But without brutalities (killing innocent inhabitants) it would be difficult to win the war.

Sri Aurobindo: God knows. They are such fine warriors and a patriotic and self-sacrificing nation that one would believe the contrary. But they are doing these things because of two reasons probably: 1. Financial shortage which is not very convincing because of their immense power of sacrifice. 2. Population of China.

Disciple: Foreign help to China e.g. Soviet?

Sri Aurobindo: That is a possibility but the Soviet's internal condition is such that it can't think of giving much help from out side.

Disciple: What about India's independence? Is it developing along your lines?

Sri Aurobindo: Surely not, India is now going towards European Socialism which is dangerous for her; while we were trying to evolve true genius of the race along Indian lines and all working for independence.

Take the Bengal movement. The whole race was awakened within a short time. People who were such cowards and trembled before the sight of a revolver were in a short period so much changed that police officials used to say "Insolent Barisal". It was the soul of the race that woke up throwing up very fine personalities. The leaders of the movement were either Yogis or disciples of Yogis e.g. Monoranjan Guha Thakurate disciple of B. Goswami.

Disciple: Was he a nationalist?

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord. He was my fellow-worker. He also took part in secret society. Then Brahmo Bandhava Upadhayay etc. Ramkrishna and Vivekananda's influence worked from behind. The movement with the secret society became so formidable that in any other country with a political past it would have led to something like the French Revolution. The sympathy of the whole race was on our side. Even shopkeepers were reading Yugantar. I will tell you an instance; while a young man was running away after killing a police officer in Shambazar, he forgot to throw away his revolver. It remained in his hand. One shop-keeper cried out: "Hide your revolver, hide your revolver." Then you have heard of Jatin Mukerjee's exploit.

Disciple: Yes Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: A wonderful man. He was a man who would belong to the front rank of humanity. Such beauty and strength together I have not seen, and his stature was like that of a warrior.

Disciple: You told me Dr. R. uses mental intuition. So there may be various levels of intuition.

Sri Aurobindo: By mental intuition I mean the Intuition which comes from Above. Don't get mixed in the mind. I don't say that mental intuition is not correct but it is always limited because of the mixture. There is also the vital influence which very often becomes mixed up with one's desires.

Disciple: How to get the intuition? By calmness of mind?

Sri Aurobindo: Calmness is not enough. Mind must be silent.

Disciple: It will then take a long time.

Sri Aurobindo: Can't say. Can take a short time, or a long time.

Disciple: But it won't be possible to keep the silence until one has realized the spirit.

Sri Aurobindo: One can train one's mind to be silent.

(Dr. X took his leave and as Mother lapsed into meditation we all tried to do the same. Then after Mother had departed by 7 P.M., we rallied around Sri Aurobindo. He looked once or twice at M.)

Disciple: M. is beaming to-day.

Disciple: That must be Kundalini then.

Disciple: I don't believe it. Is this vibration the Higher Force, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It was trying to cure your lumbago, perhaps, and the first sign was a little aggravation (we all laughed). You don't believe in Kundalini?

Disciple: No, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: But you were telling about your "ascent and descent" experience.

Disciple: Is that Kundalini? I did not know it (laughter). But Kundalini is not the line of our yoga and you have not mentioned about it any where.

Disciple: Oh yes, he has in the "Lights on Yoga".

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Kundalini is, of course, the Tantrik idea: The Shakti lying coiled in Muladhara awakes, rises up and carries the consciousness upward opening all the chakras up to Brahmarandhra and then meets the Brahman, and then the descent begins. The Tantrik process is more technical.

It is curious to see the action of the Force in some cases. Some feel as if a drilling were being done in the brain. Some people can't keep the Force in. They sway from side to side, make peculiar sounds. I remember one practicing Pranayama rigourously and making horrible sound. I did not hear of his getting any good results. Sometimes the Force raises up what lies below--in the lower nature--in order to be able to deal with it.

18th December 1938 (4-30 P. M.)

Disciple: It is surprising that Swami Nikhilananda should write about you. (There was an article in the Hindu by Swami Nikhilananda)

Sri Aurobindo: It is Nishha (Miss Wilson) who arranged for its publication through him, her friend, before she came here. (After some silence) It is peculiar how they give an American turn to everything (Ref. to the article)

Disciple: How is that the Americans seem to be more open?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, because they are a new nation and have no past tradition to bind them. France and Czech-

oslovakia also are open. Many are writing from there to do yoga.

Disciple: Nisha was in communication with you for some time?

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, for three or four years she has been in touch with us. She has very clear ideas about Yoga and is practicing it there. (At this point X. arrived and remarked that she must be very disappointed because there was no Darshan this time.)

Sri Aurobindo: No. She has taken it in the right yogic attitude, unlike others.

Then X. went on asking how is it that there are no Maharashtrian Sadhaks here in spite of Sri Aurobindo's being in contact with Tilak and remaining a long time in Baroda.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; it is strange. They are more vital in their nature. The Bengali, Gujarati and Tamil people are more in numbers. It is now spreading in other parts C. P. Punjab, Behar.

(The talk then passed on to Supermind)

Disciple: I hope we shall live to see the glorious day of the Supermind. When will it descend, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo (remained silent to this question and said): How can it descend? The nearer it comes the greater becomes the resistance to it!

Disciple: On the contrary the law of gravitation should pull it down.

Sri Aurobindo: That theory does not apply to it for it has levitation tendency and if it comes down in spite of that it does so against tremendous resistance.

Disciple: Have you realized Supermind?

Sri Aurobindo: You know I was talking about the tail of the Supermind to Y. I know what it is, I had flashes and glimpses of it. I have been trying to Supramentalize the Overmind. Not that the Supermind is not acting. It is doing so through Overmind and Intuition and the intermediate powers have come down. Supermind is above the Overmind (He showed it by placing one palm above the other) so that one may mistake one for the other. I remember the day when people here claimed to have got it. I myself had made mistakes about it in the beginning, and I did not know about the many planes. It was Vivekananda who used to come to me in Alipore Jail and showed to me Intuitive plane and for about two to three weeks or so gave me training as regards Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see still higher planes. I am not satisfied with only a part, or a flash of Supermind but I want to bring down the whole mass of the Supermind pure, and that is an extremely difficult business.

Disciple: We hear that there will be a selected number of people who will first receive the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo (made a peculiar expression with his eyes and asked): Selected by whom?

Disciple: By the Supermind, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo (Laughingly): Oh, that is for the Supermind to decide. Whatever is the Truth will be done by it, for Supermind is Truth-Consciousness and things are established in the course by it so that your complaint about the disappearance of calm etc. will disappear, for they will be established by the Supermind.

Disciple: Will the descent of Supermind make things easier for us?

Sri Aurobindo: It will do so to those who receive the Supermind, who are open to it; for example, if there

are thirty or forty people ready it could descend.

Disciple: You said that in 1934 Supermind was ready to descend but not a single Sadhak was found prepared. So it withdrew. But you told me once that the descent of Supermind does not depend on readiness of Sadhaks.

Sri Aurobindo: If none is ready to receive how will the Supermind manifest itself? But instead of thinking of Supermind one has first to open oneself to Intuition.

(At this time Mother came and asked what were we talking.)

Sri Aurobindo: About intuition etc. (Then as Mother lapsed into meditation we all joined. Mother departed for meditation at about 7 P. M.)

Sri Aurobindo: "Does any one know about S.? I am curious to know how his blood came out drop by drop from the body. He seems to have Elizabethan turn of expression". Then the topic turned to the question of fear of death with S. and N's example. How they cover their body for fear of catching cold etc.

Sri Aurobindo told a story that at Cambridge they were discussing about physical development. Then one fellow in order to show his own courage began taking out his genji one after another and they found that there were about 10 or 12 on his body!!

Disciple: There are people who think that as soon as they have entered the Ashram they have become immortal! We must develop our consciousness in order to conquer death, is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: People think so, because for a long time no death took place in the Ashram. Those who died were either visitors or who had gone back from here. In the beginning people had strong faith but as the number increased, the faith began to diminish. But why one should fear death?

Besides fear has no place in yoga. The soul is immortal and the body passes. The soul goes from one life to another.

Disciple: We fear because of our attachments.

Sri Aurobindo: One must have no attachments in yoga.

Disciple: How to conquer fear?

Sri Aurobindo: By mental strength, will and spiritual power. In my own case, whenever there was any fear I used to do the very things that I was afraid of even if it entailed a violent death. Barin also had much fear while he was in the terrorist activity. But he would compel himself to do those things. When death sentence was passed on him he took it very cheerfully. Henry IV, King of France, had a great physical fear but by his mental will he would compel himself to rush into thick of the battle and was known as a great warrior. Napoleon and Caesar had no fear. Once when Caesar was fighting the forces of Pompeii in Albania, Caesar's army was faring badly. Caesar was at that time in Italy. He jumped into the sea, took a fisherman's boat and asked him to carry him there. On the way a storm rose and the fisherman was mortally afraid. The Caesar said "Why do you fear? You are carrying the fortunes of Caesar."

I remember one Sadhaka under an attack of hiccoup saying "If it goes on I will die." I told him "What does it matter if you die?" and the hiccoup stopped! Very often, these fears and suggestions bring in the adverse forces which then catch hold of the subject. By my blunt statement the Sadhaka realized his folly and did not, perhaps, allow any more suggestions.

Disciple: Is Barin still doing yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't know, he used to do some sort of yoga even before I began. My yoga he took up only after coming to Pondicherry. In the Andamans also he

D. P.-3

was practicing it. You know he was Lele's disciple. Once he took Lele to Calcutta among the young people of the secret society. Lele did not know that they were revolutionaries. One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practicing shooting. As soon as Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. If Barin did not listen to him, Lele said, he would fall into a ditch and he did fall.

Disciple: Barin, I heard, had a lot of experiences.

Sri Aurobindo: They were mere mental and he gathered some knowledge, much information or understanding out of them. I heard that when he had begun yoga he had an experience of Kamananda. Lele was surprised to hear about it. For he said that experience comes usually at the end. It is a descent like any other experience but unless one's sex centre is sufficiently controlled it may produce bad results etc. emission and other disturbances.

Disciple: Yes. He had brilliance.

Sri Aurobindo: But he was always narrow and limited. He would not widen himself, (Sri Aurobindo showed it by the movement of hands above the head) that is why his things won't last. e.g. he was brilliant writer and he also wrote devotional poetry. But nothing that will last because of this limitation. He was an amazing amateur in many things e.g. music, revolutionary activity. He was also a painter, though it did not come to much in spite of his exhibitions. He did well in all these but nothing more.

Disciple: Barin in his paper "Dawn" began to write your biography.

Sri Aurobindo: I don't know that. Did he publish a paper?

I would have been interested to see what he writes about me.

Disciple: It ceased after a short time.

Disciple: You wrote back exclaiming great surprise that what everyone knows I do not know.

Sri Aurobindo: In fact it is not true. That is, what it is. Barin does not give the true state of things. I was neither the founder nor the leader. It was P. Mittra and Miss Ghosal that started it at the inspiration of Baron Okakura. They had already started and when I visited Bengal I cam to know about it. I simply kept myself informed of their work. My idea was an open armed revolution in the whole of India. What they did at that time was very childish. e.g. beating magistrates and so on. Later it turned into terrorism and dacoities etc. which were not at all my idea or intention. Bengal is too emotional, wants quick results, can't prepare through a long course of years. We wanted to give battle through creating a spirit in the race through guerrilla warfare. But at the present stage of warfare such things are impossible and bound to fail.

Disciple: Then why did you not check it?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not good to check such things that press for strong expression, when they have taken a strong step, for, something good may come out of it.

Disciple: You did not appear in the riding test in your I. C. S.?

Sri Aurobindo: No, they gave me another chance. But

again I did not appear and finally they rejected me.

Disciple: But why then did you appear in the I.C.S.? Was it by some intuition that you did not come for the riding test?

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. I knew nothing of yoga at that time. I appeared for I.C.S. because my father wanted it and I was too young to understand. Later I found out what sort of work it is and I had disgust for administrative life and I had no interest in administrative work. My interest was in poetry and literature and study of languages and patriotic action.

Disciple: We heard that you and C.R. Das used to make plans of revolution in India while in England.

Sri Aurobindo: Not only C.R. Das but many others. Deshpande was one.

Disciple: You used to write very strong memoranda for the Gaikewad; you once asked him to go and give it to the Resident personally.

Sri Aurobindo: That is legend. I could not have said so. Of course, I wrote many memoranda for the Maharajah. Generally he used to indicate the lines and I used to follow them. But I myself was not much interested in administration. My interest lay outside in Sanskrit, literature, in the national movement. When I came to Baroda from England I found out what the Congress was at that time and formed a contempt for it. Then I came in touch with Deshpande, Tilak, Madhav Rao etc. There I strongly criticized the Congress for its moderate policy. The articles were so furious that M.G. Ranade, the great Maharashtra leader, asked the proprietor of the paper (through Deshpande) not to allow such seditious things to appear in the paper, otherwise he might be arrested and imprisoned. Deshpande approached me with

the news and requested me to write something less violent. I then began to write about philosophy of politics, leaving aside the practical part of politics. But I soon got disgusted with it.

Along with Tilak, Madhav Rao, Deshmukh and Joshi who became a moderate later, we were planning to work on more extreme lines than the Congress. We brought Jatin Banerji from Bengal and put him in the Baroda army. Our idea was to drive moderates from the Congress and capture it.

As soon as I heard that National College had been started in Bengal, I found my opportunity, threw off the Baroda job and went to Calcutta as the Principal. There I came in contact with B. Pal who was editing the "Bande mataram." But its financial condition was precarious and when B. Pal was going on a tour he asked me to take up the paper. I asked Subodh Mullick and others to finance the paper and went on editing it.

Then some people wanted to oust Bipin Chandra Pal from the Bande Matram and they connected my name also with it. I called the sub-editor and gave him a severe thrashing, of course metaphorically. But the mischief was done. Bipin Pal was a great orator, and at that time his speeches were highly inspired, a sort of a descent. Later on his power of oration also got diminished. I remember he never used the word independence but always said "Autonomy without British control." Later on when after Barisal Conference we brought in the peasants in the movement, forty to fifty thousand of them used to gather to hear Pal; Suren Banerjee can not stand comparison with Pal. He has never done anything like it. But he also lost his power later on. He was more an orator. He had not the qualities of a leader. Then Shyamsundar and some other people

came in. It soon drew the attention of large number of people and became an All-India paper. One day I called the Bengal leaders and said, "It is no use simply going on like this. We must capture the Congress and throw out these moderate leaders from it." Then we decided to follow Tilak as the All-India leader.

They at once jumped at the idea. Tilak who was not well known in the Northern parts was chosen for leadership. He was a real great man who was disinterested and a rare great man.

Disciple: What do you think of his Gita? Was it inspired?

Sri Aurobindo: I must say I have not read it.

Disciple: You have reviewed it.

Sri Aurobindo: Then I have reviewed it without having read it (loud laughter). Of course I might have glanced through it and I don't think it is inspired. It is more a mental interpretation and he had a brilliant mind.

Disciple: When some one asked Tilak what he would do when India got Swaraj, he said he would again become a professor of Mathematics.

Disciple: What about A. B. Patrika? It was also an extremist paper.

Sri Aurobindo: Never, it was impossible for A. B. Patrika to write openly like the "Bande Mataram" and Jugantar about independence, guerrilla warfare, day after day in a paper. It wanted safety first. At that time three papers were running in Bengal 1. "Jugantar" 2. Bande Mataram 3. And Sandhya. Brahma Bandhava. Upadhyaya editor of Sandhya was another great man. He used to write so cleverly the Government could not charge him; and our financial condition was so bad and yet we carried on for five to six years.

Disciple: But did the Government not try to arrest you?

Sri Aurobindo: It could not. There was no such law and the press had more liberty. Besides there was nothing in the papers that could be directly charged against--so cleverly were they written. "Statesman" used to complain that the paper Bande Mataram was full of seditious matter from end to end. But yet so cleverly was it written that one could not arrest the editor. Moreover the name of editor was never published. So they could arrest only the printer. But when one was arrested another came to take his place. Later on Upen Banerjee, Sub-editor, published some correspondence for which I was arrested on sedition charge, but as nothing could be proved I was acquitted. But in my absence as they were disastrously up against finance they wrote something very strong and the paper was suppressed. After another arrest I published the "Karmayogin". There I wrote an article "Open letter to my countrymen." for which the Government wanted to prosecute me. While the prosecution was pending I went secretly to Chandranagore and there some friends were thinking of sending me to France. I was thinking want to do next. There I heard the Adesh to go to Pondicherry.

Disciple: Why to Pondicherry?

Sri Aurobindo: I could not question. It was Sri Krishna's Adesh. I had to obey. Later on I found it was for the Ashram and for the Work.

I had to apply for a pass-port under a false name. The Ship Company required Medical Certificate by an English Doctor. After a great deal of trouble I found out one and went to his house. He told me that I could speak English remarkably well. I replied that I had been to England.

Disciple: You took the certificate under a false name. (I was a little surprised to hear he had disguised under a false name. So the question.)

Sri Aurobindo: Of course. If I had given my name, I would have been at once arrested. With due respect to Gandhi's truth I could not be exactly precise about my name, otherwise you can't be a revolutionary.

Accompanied by Bijoy and preceded by Moni and followed by my brother-in-law I arrived in Pondicherry but had to assume false names for some time.

22nd December 1938.

(All of us assembled in 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 and he replied: It seems to me the other way about. If we have the right attitude other things come by themselves. Right attitude is necessary; what is important is the inner attitude. Spiritual and ethical principles are quite different, for every thing depends on whether it is done for the sake of the Spirit or ethical reasons.

One may observe mental control in dealings etc. but the inner state may be quite different e.g. he may not show anger, may be humble externally, but internally he may be proud and full of anger. For

example A. when he came here he was full of humility outside. It is the psychic control that is required and when that is there right attitude follows in one's external behaviour. Conduct must flow from within outwards and the more one opens to the psychic influence the more it gains over the outer nature. Mental control may or may not lead to the spiritual. In people of a certain type it may be the first step towards psychic control.

Disciple: How to get psychic control?

Sri Aurobindo: By constant remembrance, consecration of ourselves to the Divine, rejection of all that stands in the way of the psychic influence. Generally, it is the vital that stands in the way with its desires and demands. And once the psychic opens it shows at every step what is to be done. (At the later stage of the conversation Mother came and soon after we all lapsed into meditation with the Mother.

After her departure at about 7 P.M. Sri Aurobindo asked X. "What is the idea behind your question? Something personal or a general question?"

Disciple: I meant, for instance, how to see good in every body, how to love all and have good-will for all.

Sri Aurobindo: One has to start with the idea of good-will for all; to consecrate oneself to the Divine, try to see God in others, have a psychic good-will and in oneself reject all vital and mental impulses, and on that basis proceed towards the realization. The idea must pass into experience. Even then, it is easy in static aspect, but when it comes to the dynamic experience it becomes difficult. For example, when one finds a man behaving like a brute it is very difficult to see God in him unless one separates him from outer nature and sees the Divine behind.

One can repeat the name of the Divine and come to divine consciousness.

Disciple: How does name do it?

Sri Aurobindo: Name has a power like Mantra. Everything in the world is power. There are others who do Pranayama along with the name. After a time the repetition behind the Pranayama becomes automatic and one feels Divine presence etc. Here people once began to feel tremendous force in their work. They would work without fatigue for hours and hours, but they began to overdo it. One has to be reasonable even in spirituality. That was when the Sadhana was in the vital. But when it began in the physical then things were different. Physical is like a stone, full of inertia and resistance.

Disciple: Sometimes one feels a sort of love for everybody, though the feeling lasts for a second it gives a great joy.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the wave from the psychic. But what is your attitude towards it? Do you take it as a passing mood or does it stimulate you to further experience of that sort?

Disciple: It stimulates but sometimes vital mixture tries to come in. Fortunately I could drive it out.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the risk. The fact that mixture tried to come in means that the wave came through the inner vital and thus took something from the vital. One has to be very careful in order to avoid these sex impurities. In spite of his occasional outburst of violence X was a very nice and affectionate man; but he used to get these things mixed up with sex-impulse and the experience was spoiled. This happens because sometimes one gives a semi-justification to sex-impulse. But sex is absolutely out of place in Yoga. In ordinary life it has a certain place for a certain purpose. Of course, if you

adopt the Sahaja Marga, it is different.

While in jail I know of a man who had a power of concentration trying to make everyone love him and he succeeded. The warder and all the people around him were drawn towards him.

Disciple: That is what we don't know (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: The mind must be made quiet and the consciousness turned-not mentally-towards the aim. It no doubt takes time but that is the way. There are no devices for these things.

Disciple: What difference is there between modification of nature and its transformation?

Sri Aurobindo: Transformation is the casting of the whole nature in the mould of realization. What you realize you project out in your nature. Christian Saints speak of the presence in the heart. That presence can change the nature.

I speak of three transformations: 1. Psychic, 2. Spiritual and 3. Supramental. Psychic transformation many had; spiritual is the realization of the Self, the Infinite above, with its dynamic side of peace, knowledge, ananda etc. That transformation is spiritual transformation and above that is the Supramental transformation. It is Truth-consciousness working for a Divine aim or purpose.

Disciple: If one has inner realization does transformation follow in the light of the realization?

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. There may be some modification in the nature-part but the transformation is not automatic. It is not so easy as all that. My experience of peace and calm in the first contact with Lele has never left me, but in my outer nature there were many agitations and every time I had to make an effort to establish peace. From that time onwards the

whole object of my yoga was to change nature into the mould of the inner realization. I had to try to change or transform these by the influence of my realization.

Disciple: Even then a man with inner realization,--I don't mean experience--won't have grave difficulties such as sex in his nature.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? There can be anger, like Durvasa's or sex. You have not heard of the fall of Rishis through anger or through sex? The Yogis pass beyond the stage of good and evil. Ordinary questions of morality don't arise in them. They look upon outer nature as a child behaving according to its wants. I think X's fall came in that way. He had gone into the higher mind, I do not know, if not even to the overmind state; he used to be guided by an inner voice which he accepted as the voice of the Divine and did everything in the light of that voice. When people were asking him about his conduct I am told he replied that it was by the voice of God and that every Siddha had done that. You have heard of Agymananda Swami who went to London? He was arrested in England for making love to girls.

Disciple: Would not the inner realization stop because of these outer indulgences.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on how far one has gone in the path in spiritual realization. There are any number of passages, crossways and paths; one may be at liberty to whatever yoga one likes. But in our yoga we insist on the transformation of outer nature as well. And when I say something is necessary in yoga, it means in "our yoga"; it does not apply to yoga with other aims.

(There was lull for some time after this.)

Then Sri Aurobindo asked: Do you know

anything about M.?

Disciple: My impression was not favourable. I was not personally attracted by him.

Sri Aurobindo: When I saw his photo I had an impression that he is a man with strong vital power. When I saw that he was advertising about himself as Messiah I began to doubt his genuineness. His sadhana seems to be in the vital and it is in these cases that the power descends and unfortunately people are attracted by these powers. In the spiritual and the psychics even in mental sadhana, power can come, but it comes automatically without one asking for it.

Y. was another M. with a powerful vital being. At one time I had strong hopes about him. But people whose sadhana is on a vital basis pass into what I have called the Intermediate Zone and hardly go beyond the vital. It is like a jungle and it is comparatively much easy with those people who are weak and have no such power. He used to think that he had put himself in the Divine's hand and the Divine is in him. We had to be severe with him to disillusion him of his idea. That is why he could not remain here. He went back and became a guru with about thirty or forty disciples around him. Gurugiri (Master-ship) comes very often to these people. He did all that in my name which I heartily disliked. Unfortunately his mind was not equally powerfully developed as his vital. He had the fighter's mind not the thinker's. We often put a strong force on him and as a result he used to become very lucid for a time and he could see his wrongs. But immediately his vital rushed back and took control of his mind, it all used to be wiped out. If his mind had been as developed perhaps he would have been able to retain the clarity. The intellect helps one to

separate oneself from the vital and look at it dispassionately. The mind also can deceive but not so much. M. is another of this type.

Disciple: Why did he go away from here?

Sri Aurobindo: Because he wanted to be an Avatar and because he could not get rid of the attachment to his work. He is very unscrupulous.

Disciple: Has he some power?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But not an occult power like the others. Before that he was quite an ordinary man with some possibilities. When I came out of the jail, you know, I was staying in his house and I was full of certain force. He got a share of it.

Disciple: How?

Sri Aurobindo: He was doing some kind of yoga. I gave him some instructions. From them he got his power.

Disciple: Was he working on your idea?

Sri Aurobindo: When I was leaving Bengal I thought it might be possible to work through him on condition that he remained faithful to me. That he could never be. His own self came to the front though the original push was from me, now it is not my force that is working there. These things become easily unspiritualised.

Disciple: In his "Jivan Sangini" he makes a lot of fuss over his wife.

Sri Aurobindo: She struck me as a common-place woman though a good woman. She was a better woman than he as a man. I saw her only once by chance as she was not used to come out before people.

Disciple: He had developed a powerful Bengali style.

Sri Aurobindo: Is that so? He was once Translating the Veda in Bengali.

Disciple: His Bengali, you know, was like Christian Missionary's Bengali. You know what it is like.

23rd December 1938

We have assembled as usual, and are eager to resume the talk. But nobody could begin without some hint or gesture from Sri Aurobindo. He was lying calmly in his bed.

A disciple made an approach to Sri Aurobindo half-hesitatingly. This made another disciple roar with laughter (Sri Aurobindo heard the laughter)

Disciple: X. is roaring with laughter.

Sri Aurobindo: Descent of Ananda?

This primary breaking of the ice made the atmosphere a little encouraging So, X catching the chance shot the following question with a beaming face:

Disciple: Because the hostile forces offer resistance to the Divine manifestation in the world and some of them become sometimes victorious (at least for the time being) can one logically say that the Divine lacks Omnipotence? It is not my question but somebody else's.

Sri Aurobindo: (turning his head to him) It depends on what you mean by Omnipotence. If the idea is that God must always succeed then we must conclude that he is not Omnipotent. Do you mean to say that he must always succeed against the resistance and then only he may be called Omnipotent? People have very queer ideas of Omnipotence. Resistance is the law of evolution. Resistance comes from ignorance and ignorance is a part of inconscience: the whole thing starts from

ignorance that is inconscience. At the very beginning when the opposition between ignorance and knowledge was created, there was the very denial of the Divine. It is his Lila that the manifestation shall proceed through resistance and struggle: what kind of Lila, or play, it is in which side goes on winning? Divine Omnipotence generally works through the universal law. There are forces of Light and forces of Darkness. To say that the forces of Light shall always succeed is the same as saying that truth and good shall always succeed, though there is no such thing as unmixed truth and unmixed good. Divine Omnipotence intervenes only at critical or decisive moments.

Every time the Light has tried to descend it has met with resistance and opposition. Christ was crucified. You may say, "Why should it be like that when he was innocent?" and yet that was the Divine dispensation. Buddha was denied; sons of Light come, the earth denies them, rejects them in substance. Only a small minority grows towards a spiritual birth. It is through them the Divine manifestation takes place. What remains of Buddhism today except a few decrees of Asoka and a few hundred thousand Buddhists?

Disciple: Asoka helped in propagating Buddhism.

Sri Aurobindo: Anybody could have done that.

Disciple: But it is through his aid that it became all-powerful.

Sri Aurobindo: If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual it would have been much better for real Buddhism. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline. The king of Norway, on whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all people who were not Christians

and thus succeeded in establishing Christianity! The same happened to Mohammedanism. When it succeeded the followers of the Prophet became Khalifas, then the religion declined. It is not kings and emperors that keep alive spirituality but people who are really spiritual that do so.

Disciple: Asoka sacrificed everything for Buddhism.

Sri Aurobindo: But he remained emperor till the end. When kings and emperors try to spread religion they become like Asoka i.e. make whole thing mechanical and the inner truth is lost.

Disciple: Raman Maharshi was known to no one. It was Brunton who made him widely known.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a strange measure of success, people adopt in judging people by the number of disciples. Who was great--Raman Maharshi who did his Sadhana in seclusion for years or Raman Maharshi surrounded by all sorts of disciples? Success to be real must be spiritual. At times, when some spiritual movement begins to succeed then the real thing begins to be lost.

The talk turned to Ramanashram.

Sri Aurobindo: (related a story here) Mrs. K. went to see Maharshi and was seen driving mosquitoes at the time of meditation. She complained to him about mosquito bites. The Maharshi told her that if she couldn't bear mosquito bites she couldn't do yoga. Mrs. K. could not understand the significance of the statement. She wanted spirituality without mosquitoes!

There are reports that those who stay there permanently are not all in agreement with each other.

Do you know that famous story about Maharshi "when being disgusted with the Ashram and the disciples," he was going away into the mountain. He was passing through a narrow path flanked by the hills. He came upon an old woman sitting with her legs across the path. Maharshi begged her to draw her legs but she would not. Then Maharshi in anger passed across her. She then became very angry and said "Why are you so restless? Why can't you sit in one place at Arunachala instead of moving about, go back to your place and worship Shiva there?" Her remarks struck him and he retraced his steps. After going some distance he looked back and found that there was nobody. Suddenly it struck him that it was the Divine Mother herself who wanted him to remain at Arunachala.

Of course it was the Divine Mother who asked him to go back. Maharshi was intended to lead this sort of life. He has nothing to do with what happens around him. He remains calm and detached. The man is what he was. By the way, I am glad to hear Maharshi shouting with the Indian Christian (we all laughed with him); it means he also can become dynamic. The only Ashram in which there was great unity, I heard, was Thakur Dayanand's. There was a strong sense of unity among them. I wrote an article on the "Avatar" in Karmayogin. Mahendra Dey, Dayanand's disciple, seeing the article wrote to me "he is the

Avatar". He was very enthusiastic about it. And when there was police firing and arrests, Mahendra Dey after his imprisonment became changed and said that he was hypnotized by Dayananda.

Disciple: Why are the Gurus obliged to work with imperfect and defective people like us? Here the difficulty seems to be more keen.

Sri Aurobindo: That has been a puzzle to me also. But it is so. Our case is a little different. Our aim is to change the world, not universally, of course. Hence every one here represents human nature with all its difficulties and capacities. That's how your difficulties are explained, (He said looking at X).

26th December 1938.

Four disciples were seated on the carpet talking in low whispers at about 5. 30 P. M. One of the group broke into suppressed laughter in course of talk.

At 6. 30 P. M. we all assembled by the side of Sri Aurobindo, He looked round and referring to the laughter asked: "What was the divine descent about?"

Disciple: X. had his usual outburst of laughter.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, it was the descent of Vishnu's ananda.

Disciple: It is very peculiar how I break out into uncontrolled laughter so easily. Formerly, I used to weep at the slightest provocation. I think because I live in the external consciousness only I laugh so easily. Is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the reaction of the superficial vital which is touched easily by simple, outward things; there is a child in nature that bursts out like that. It is the same as the Balabhava--the child-like nature. The deeper vital being does not get so easily touched.

The topic was changed at this point.

Disciple: What is meant by self-offering? How to do it?

Sri Aurobindo: How to do it! One offers one's vital, mind and heart, attachment, passions, and grows into the Divine consciousness.

Disciple: What time is more propitious for meditation,--day-time or night-time? I get more concentrated at night.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be due to the calm and quiet atmosphere and also because you are accustomed to it. Nights and early mornings are supposed to be the best for meditation.

We ask people to have a fixed time for meditation, for, if they are habituated to it then the response comes at that time due to Abhyas. Lele asked me to meditate twice but when he came to Calcutta he heard that I did not do it. He did not give me time to explain that my meditation was going on all the time. He simply said: "the devil has caught you."

Disciple: Sometimes meditation is automatic.

Sri Aurobindo: At that time you must sit, otherwise you feel uneasy.

Disciple: The other day I was having peace, and ananda, and I saw many visions. But I had to go to sleep, for I thought, if I kept up at night I might fall ill. I saw the flower signifying sincerity in my vision.

Sri Aurobindo: Sincerity means to lift all our movements towards the Divine.

Disciple: That fear of falling ill by keeping awake, is it not a mental fear?

Sri Aurobindo: The thing is, the physical being has got a limit. The vital being can feel the energy, peace, etc. but

the physical cannot be taxed beyond its capacity. That is what happened to many Sadhaks here. They overworked till a reaction took place. The force comes for your particular work, not to increase the work and keep it for the other purposes. If you go on overdoing it then the natural reaction will come. There is a certain amount of reasonableness even in spirituality.

Disciple: At one time I also used to feel a lot of energy while I was working with the Mother and I was never fatigued even working day and night, only one or two hours sleep was sufficient and I would feel as fresh as ever.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is because you opened to the Energy. About sleep, even ten minutes of sleep may be enough, but of course, it is not ordinary sleep but going within. If you can draw the Force with equanimity and conserve it, these things can be done. As I said many Sadhaks felt that sort of thing when we were dealing with the vital. But when the Sadhana came into the physical there was not that push any more and people began to feel easily fatigued, lazy, and unwilling to work. They began to complain about ill-health due to overwork and were helped by the doctor. Do you know the idea of "H?" He says people have come here not for work but for meditation.

I dare say if we had not come down into the physical and remained in the vital and mental like other Yogis without trying to transform them then things would have been different.

(At this hour Mother came in and we meditated for sometime. After she went away, our talk was resumed. Someone remarked N. had a good meditation. He did not know that Mother has gone.)

Sri Aurobindo: Good meditation?

Disciple: How do you know?

Sri Aurobindo: By the inclination of your head, perhaps.

Disciple: I can't say; I was having many incoherent dreams and visions--that is all I can say, perhaps it was in the surface consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: Surface consciousness of the inner vital being. Such things are very common; of course, when one goes still deeper one does not see them. There is a point between the surface consciousness and the deeper vital which is full of these fantasies and dreams. They are apparently incoherent. In the physical a mouse turning into an elephant may have no meaning but it is not so in the vital. They have no coherence of the physical plane but they have their own coherence of the vital plane. But when one gets the clue one finds that everything is a linked whole. That I have seen many times in my own case. It is this world from which Tagore's painting came,--what Europeans call the Goblin world.

Disciple: Does Tagore see them before drawing them?

Sri Aurobindo: I do not think so. Some see them but do not draw them. But they come to him. Anybody who has the least experience of these planes can at once say from where they come.

Disciple: But how is it that people think and he himself calls it great paintings?

Sri Aurobindo: Everybody calls it "great and wonderful", so he himself comes to think it so.

Then we began to talk about headache either due to physical cause or resistance.

Disciple: I have seen many times my headache start after Mother's touch at Pranam.

Sri Aurobindo: That may be because you passed from one state of consciousness to another.

Disciple: Unconsciously?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? When from a state of concentration you mix yourself just after the Pranam you can easily pass to another state. That is why Mother advises people to remain calm and quiet for some time after Pranam or meditation.

Disciple: I felt once as if the head were suspended in the air and that parts of body did not resist.

Sri Aurobindo: That is separation of the mental consciousness.

Disciple: Are you able to know what experiences Sadhaks are having, especially if they are some decisive ones?

Sri Aurobindo: I don't. But Mother knows. Whenever it is a question of consciousness she can see in the Sadhak whatever changes are taking place. When she meditates (with the Sadhak) she can know what line he is following, the line she indicates or the Sadhak's own and afterwards what changes have been brought in the consciousness.

Disciple: And when the Sadhaka experiences something, is it imparted to you?

Sri Aurobindo: What is the use of giving our own things to them? Let them have their own growth. I may put in a Force for people who are in habitual bad condition, people who are always going in the wrong and try to work it out so that the condition might improve. If the

Sadhak co-operates then it is comparatively easy. Otherwise, if the Sadhak is passive then the result takes a long time, it comes, goes again, returns like that and ultimately the Force prevails. In case of people like "X." we used to put in a strong Force then he became lucid and then the whole vital used to rush up and catch hold of him. Whereas if the Sadhak actively participates then it takes only one-tenth of the time.

27th December 1938.

Sri Aurobindo himself opened the talk to-day by addressing X and said "I hear D. going about in his car with a guard by his side, two cyclist policemen in front and back." Then the talk continued regarding Pondicherry politics, most of talk being by us. Then Sri Aurobindo remarked. "When I see Pondicherry and Calcutta Corporation I begin to wonder why I was so eager for democracy. Pondicherry and Calcutta Corporation are the two object lessons which can take away all enthusiasm for self-government."

Disciple: Was the Calcutta Corporation so bad before the Congress came there?

Sri Aurobindo: No. There was not so much scope for it,--at least we did not know of such scandals. It is the same thing with other municipal Governments. In New York and Chicago the whole machinery is corrupt. Sometimes the head of the institution is like that. Sometimes a Mayor comes up with the intention of cleaning out the whole, but one does not know after cleaning which one was better. The Mayor of Chicago was a great criminal but all judges and police-officers were under his pay. In France also it is about the same thing. It

is not surprising that people got disgusted with Democracy.

England is comparatively less corrupt. The English are the only people who know how to work the Parliamentary system. Parliamentary Government is in their blood.

Disciple: It seems that our old Indian system was the best for us. How could it succeed so well?

Sri Aurobindo: The old Indian system grew out of life, it had room for everything and every interest. There were monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. Every interest was represented in the Government. While in Europe the Western System grew out of the mind. They are led by reason and want to make everything cut and dried without any chance of freedom or variation. If it is democracy, then democracy only. No room for anything else. They cannot be plastic.

India is now trying to imitate the West. Parliamentary Government is not suited to India. But we always take up what the west has thrown off. Sir Akabar wanted to try a new sort of Government with an impartial authority at the head. There, in Hyderabad, the Hindu majority complains that though Mohammedens are in minority they occupy most of the offices in the state. By Sir Akabar's method almost every interest would have been represented in the Government and automatically the Hindus would have come in, but because of their cry of responsible Government the scheme failed. They have a fixed idea in the mind and want to fit everything to it. They can't think for themselves and so take up what the others are throwing off.

Disciple: What is your idea of an ideal Government for India? It is possible in Hyderabad which has a Nizam.

But how to do the same in an Indian Constitution?

Sri Aurobindo: Sir Akabar's is as good as any. My idea is like what Tagore once wrote. There may be one Rashtrapati at the top with considerable powers so as to secure a continuity of policy and an Assembly representative of the nation. The provinces will contribute to a Federation, united at the top, leaving ample scope to local bodies to make laws according to their local problems. Mussolini started with a fundamental of the Indian System but afterwards began bullying and bluffing other nations for the sake of imperialism. If he had persisted in his original idea, he would have been a great creator.

Disciple: Dr. Bhagwandas suggested that there should be legislators above the age of 40, completely disinterested like the Rishis.

Sri Aurobindo: A chamber of Rishis! That would not be very promising. They will at once begin to quarrel. As they say; Rishis in ancient times could guide kings because they were distributed over various places.

Disciple: His idea is of gathering all great men together.

Sri Aurobindo: And let them quarrel like Kilkeni cats. I suppose. (said laughing).

The Congress at the present stage--what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I wan't say like Hitler. What Gandhi says they accept and even Working Committee follows him. Then it goes to A. I. C. C. which adopts it and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion except for Socialists who are allowed to differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the

provinces whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Every thing is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it like Stalin's Parliament. When we started the movement we began with the idea of throwing out the Congress oligarchy and open the whole organization to the general mass.

Disciple: Srinivas Ayyanger retired from Congress because of his difference with Gandhi. He objected to Gandhi's giving the movement a religious turn and bringing in religion in Politics.

Sri Aurobindo: He made Charka a religious article of faith and excluded all people from Congress Membership who could not spin. How many believe in his gospel of Charka? Such a tremendous waste of energy, just for the sake of a few annas is most unreasonable.

Disciple: He made that rule perhaps to enforce discipline?

Sri Aurobindo: Discipline is all right but once you centralize you go on centralizing.

Disciple: It failed in agricultural provinces and seems to have succeeded in other places especially where people had no occupation.

Disciple: In Bengal it did not succeed.

Sri Aurobindo: In Bengal it did not. It may be all right as a famine-relief measure. But when it takes the form of an All-India programme it looks absurd. If you form a programme that is suited to the condition of the agricultural people it sounds something reasonable. Give them education, technical training and give them (Fundamentals or Principles of) organization not on political but on business lines. But Gandhi does not want any

such industrial organization and so comes in with his magical formula "spin, spin, spin." C. R. Das and others could act as a balance against him. It is all a fetish.

Denmark and Ireland organized in the same way. Only now they are going to suffer because other nations are trying to be self-sufficient. I don't believe in that sort of self-sufficiency. For that is against the principles of life. It is not possible for nations to be self-sufficient like that.

Disciple: What do you think of Hindi being the common language? It seems to me English has occupied so much place that it will be unwise and difficult to replace it.

Sri Aurobindo: English will be all right and even necessary if India is to be on an international state. In that case English has to be the medium of expression, especially as English is now replacing French as a world-language. But the national spirit won't allow it and also it s a foreign language. At the same time Hindi can't replace English in the universities nor the provincial languages. When the national spirit grows it is difficult to say what will happen. In Ireland before the revolution they wanted to abolish English and adopt Gaeli