Autobiographical Notes

To and about Punamchand M. Shah

[1]

To
Punamchand

I. Separation of Purusha and Prakriti to establish tranquility of heart and mind.

(a) Separated Purusha, calm, observing Prakriti.

(b) Prakriti in the heart and mind attending calmness.

II. Offering of all the actions, all that is done in your life as a sacrifice to the Lord.

III. Realisation of the Higher Divine Shakti doing all the works.

(a) Living with the constant idea that it is the Shakti which does the work.

(b) Feeling of the Divine Shakti descending from above the mind and moving the whole being.

1921

[2]

Pondicherry
August 15th 1923

The bearer Punamchand Mohanlal Shah is my disciple and is now with me practising Yoga in Pondicherry. He is trustworthy and faithful in all matters and enjoys my entire confidence.

Aurobindo Ghose

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[3]

Punamchand

The ornaments offered by Chandulal's mother.

Certainly, you can accept and send them. I do not know why you felt any scruple in this matter. Whatever is given with Bhakti can and ought to be received and not rejected whether it is money, things of value or useful things. There may be exceptions, as for instance where the gift is of a quite unsuitable or cumbrous kind, but this is obviously not the case here.

(2) The talk with Haribhai

Think no more about it except to retain the lesson. Your mistake was to interfere with your ignorant mind in a matter which had been decided by the Mother, as if it could know better than she did. As usually happens when the physical mind acts in this way, it made wrong reasoning and foolish blunder. It was as if you gave Haribhai a choice between giving money or giving the clothes and other articles. He was to give both and there was no question of a choice between them; nor could this kind of balancing and reduction on one side or the other be good for his spiritual progress. The fact that other clothes were coming from a Mill could make no difference: that was quite another list and did not meet the same needs. As for the other possibilities you speak of, they have nothing to do with previous arrangements and present requirements; they are only a possibility of the future. I write this much only to show you how mistaken these mental movements are; but you need not worry about it any longer.

(3) The "Four Aspects" is half written and will be finished in a few days. It has been decided to publish these four writings with the February message in Calcutta. Motilal Mehta can use them instead of the August 15th utterances.

October 3, 1927

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[4]

Pondicherry
1st January 1928

To
Punamchand. M. Shah.

I have received your letter and am sending this answer with Haribhai. I do not consider it necessary or advisable to make a public appeal for the sum of money I have asked you to raise for me in Gujerat. If a public appeal is to be made, it can only be when the time comes for my work to be laid on larger foundations and I can create the model form or outward material organisation of the new life which will be multiplied throughout India and, with India as a spiritual nucleus and centre, in other countries. Then large sums of money will be indispensable and a public appeal may become advisable.

At present I am making a smaller preliminary foundation, a spiritual training-ground and the first form of a community of spiritual workers. Here they will practise and grow in the Yoga and learn to act from the true consciousness and with the true knowledge and power. Here too some first work will be undertaken and institutions founded on a small scale which will prepare for the larger and more definite work of the future. I need money to buy land and houses, to get equipment for these first institutions and to accommodate and maintain an increasing number of sadhakas and workers. A public appeal is not necessary to raise the sums that are at present indispensable. I prefer to make it only when I have already created a sufficient external form that all can see. It will be easy for you to raise privately the money I now want if you are inspired to get into touch with the right and chosen people.

As you can judge, even this preliminary work will be a matter not of one but several lakhs, but I have named one lakh as the minimum immediately needed in order that we may start solidly and go on without being hampered at each step for want of funds. If you can raise more than the initial minimum, so much the better. The work will proceed more easily and quickly and with a surer immediate prospect. Preserve the right

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consciousness and attitude, keep yourself open to the Divine Shakti and let her will be done through you.

[5]

Punamchand

I am surprised to see from your letter that you have received from Vithaldas an offer of Rs 500 a month towards the expenses of the Asram and that you have not immediately accepted it. In fact the language of the letter would almost mean that it was rejected almost with impolite disdain; but I suppose this could be a wrong impression. It is precisely help of this kind that we are feeling the most need of just now. For so long as this monthly deficit is not filled, we are obliged to spend on our monthly upkeep sums that ought to go for capital outlay and under such circumstances the very foundation of the Asram from the pecuniary point of view remains insecure. If the monthly expenses are secured, the Asram will be put on a safe foundation and the work for bringing the lakh and other large sums can go forward on a much sounder basis. Besides the forces will not be diverted from their proper work by the harassment of daily needs. Therefore, recently, it is just contributions of this kind that we have been pressing for as the first necessity. Vithaldas seems to have received an inspiration from this pressure and made a magnificent answer. And you do not immediately seize on this response! This is an example of what I meant when I warned you to keep yourself open to the Mother's force and not to follow merely your own ideas and plans. Now the only thing to do is to speak to Vithaldas at once and see whether he keeps to his offer. If so, you should accept it at once. The sooner we get the money the better. Our deficit is really more than Rs 800, for the number of disciples is constantly increasing and the expenses also. If Vithaldas can be relied upon to give regularly Rs 500 a month, the gap will be almost filled and once that is done, the obstruction we have felt hitherto in this matter is likely to disappear and the rest to come in with greater ease. If you have not already accepted his offer and made arrangements for

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the regular transmission of the money, then act at once.

The Mother does not want to buy saris for herself with the money raised; in the present state of the finances the idea is altogether out of the question. The income and expenses must be balanced; money must be found for the work of building up the Asram. All the rest comes after.

Sri Aurobindo

Pondicherry
June 2. 1928

[6]

Punamchand

As regards the amount of Rs 500/– monthly from Vithaldas and your note in the account, I presume it is clearly understood that this sum has nothing to do with the account. It must be kept quite separate and remitted here every month as soon as it is received; it must on no account and in no circumstances be detained or used for any other purpose whatsoever.

As to the expenses shown in the account, you asked originally for Rs 70/– a month in Bombay or Rs 30/– in Patan; but the actual expenditure has been for months above Rs 200/–. This is an enormous amount and, as I have already pointed out, it is swallowing up all you collect. I do not see how you expect to be able to maintain this rate of expenditure for an indefinite period or what purpose it serves.

[7]

Champaklal

Write to Punamchand that now that Vithaldas has seen the Mother, he should communicate his experience or his difficulties direct to her. It is not desirable that in matters of the Sadhana Punamchand or anybody else should come in between, even as a channel of communication. The Mother's force must go direct undisturbed by any other influence.

December 1928

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[8]

Champaklal

As regards the Vedic "Dictionary" write to Punamchand that I do not want anything of this kind to be made out of my unfinished work. If it is to be done, it will be in the future and must be only under my express directions and supervision.

December 1928

[9]

Write to Punamchand asking what are the Rs 500 that reached us today. Whenever he sends money, he should inform us at the same time what it is and who has given it.

Write to him also with regard to the letter he wrote about the detective's visit and his proposals. He has only to send regular accounts with details of sums, names etc to me, and he is on safe ground. He can simply answer that all moneys given are accounted for and full details sent to me. If on the other hand he is loose in his accounts and dealings with the money, he gives room for this kind of rumour and creates a wrong atmosphere. Nor in the absence of accounts can I myself have any ground to go upon if I am questioned whether I received or not the sums paid to him for me. In this connection note that he has not sent, as promised, the accounts for the last few months. Since his visit and return we have received nothing.

16 April 1929

[10]

Punamchand

If you wish to take your monthly expenses from the money of Vithaldas, you ought first to try to persuade him to assign separately a sum of Rs 150 for the purpose without diminishing his contribution to Pondicherry. If he is not willing, then you may take from him the sum of Rs 150 and send Rs 550 to Pondicherry, but on the following conditions.

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(1) You will take this money from s' contribution only and you will draw on no other sum.

(2) All other sums of money contributed through you must be sent without fail and without delay to Pondicherry.

(3) There must be no expenditure for yourself beyond the amount fixed and no borrowing of money for which you will make us responsible or draw for its return on money contributed for the Asram.

(4) The Mother will enter into her accounts Rs 550 only as Vithaldas's contribution. The Rs 150 must be considered as his help to you directly.

As regards Narangi, it was evident that he had no enthusiasm for helping you in the way you propose. He must have his own reasons for that and the Mother did not care to press him to do it. He is already doing wholeheartedly as much as can be reasonably asked from him; it is no use exacting from him what he has no heart for. It seems to me that if you can make yourself a true channel for the force, you ought to be able to succeed without his assistance.

In this connection I feel it necessary to say one thing once for all, which I have refrained from writing before because I did not think it would be of much use. The difficulties you have experienced in the work you undertook arose partly from the general opposition of the money-power to the divine call, but also and very largely from your own vital being and its desires and self-regarding attitude. This vital nature of yours was always full of demands and desires and it came to regard their satisfaction as perfectly legitimate and even the right thing to do. As respects money, it had the habit of spending loosely and freely whatever came into your hand; it had the habit too of borrowing and lending freely without regard to your capacity either to give or to repay; and, as always results from this kind of looseness, it treated whatever money came into your hands as it would have treated your own—I may give as a slight but significant example your lending to your personal friends out of the Mother's money which was never intended for such a purpose. These habits might pass in a man freely supplied by

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Fortune with resources; but they were bound to have undesirable effects in your position and especially in one entrusted with your task and practising Yoga.

At first you had some, though not a large success; but, with money flowing through your hands, you could not refrain from a free and increasing expenditure on yourself, Champa and Dikshit. Instead of the Rs 70 allowed to you by the Mother, you began to spend more and more, the amount of your total expenses rising in the end to well above Rs 200 in a single month. This need created by you for yourself—of course, with all sorts of plausible reasons to back it—affected your whole attitude. The right attitude would have been to put the Mother's work first and yourself last. Your whole and sole desire should have been to send as much money as possible to the Asram and spend as little as possible on yourself, only your actual needs and the collection expenses. If that had remained your attitude, circumstances moulded by the Divine Force would have arranged themselves accordingly and you would have had enough and to spare for your personal expenses. But in practice the position became quite the opposite. Your first care was to draw money for your expenses there; if anything remained, it could be sent to the Mother. Only express contributions marked for the Asram like Vithaldas' and Kanta's escaped this law—up till now. As a matter of fact except these sums and some two or three thousand rupees at the beginning, you have, acting on these lines, been unable to send money or to do anything except to meet with the sums given to you your Bombay expenses. For the consequences of this attitude were inevitable. Circumstances shaped themselves accordingly; money came in for your personal expenditure, but for the Asram it dwindled and grew less and less; only Vithaldas' money saved it from becoming a zero. Next, the money for your expenses became more and more difficult to get and for that too you are compelled now to fall back on the contribution of Vithaldas. That was the first result; the second was that people in Bombay lost all confidence in you and in the collection for the Asram and began even to suspect your bona fides. And the last result was that your attitude came

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between the people you approached and us, keeping them tied to you but cut off from our influence. It was only as a result of our putting a strong force out that some change has become possible and even now the resistance is very great in the Bombay atmosphere.

I am perfectly aware that you can advance many explanations justifying your action as against what I have written. All that makes no difference. It is always the habit of the vital being to find out things by which it persuades the mind and justifies its desires; and circumstances usually shape themselves to justify it still farther. For what we have within us creates the circumstances outside us. What matters is that you should take inwardly a different position in the future. If nothing happens to prevent this arrangement of Vithaldas's money, you must see to it that henceforward you confine yourself to the arrangement, keeping to it strictly, put all preoccupation with yourself behind and think only of the work you went for which is to get support for the Asram—that and nothing else. You have no other work in Gujerat—as you have sometimes vainly imagined. You may be right in thinking that the only thing you can do now is to get people with means interested in the Asram, but in that case you must see that they are put into direct touch without which the interest cannot be real and effective. Their money must come here and not stop in Bombay and when they are ready, they themselves must come and receive what they can of the influence.

The vision of which you give a description is the indication of a vital attack or of a vital danger throwing itself upon you. The form you saw was evidently a strong Power of the hostile vital world—a red hot copper-like bust can mean nothing else. If you thought it was your being, it must have been because something in your vital nature responded to the force which this form embodied. The serpent was the indication of the evil force contained in him. The nature of the bust would seem to indicate that the force was that of vital greed (lobha of all kinds) and desire. The fact that the blow given was on the mouth would confirm this interpretation—but that would also be consistent with the force being that of falsehood, (moha, mithyâ). The

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grace and protection have always been with you in spite of everything, but for it to work fully you must get rid of all in you that responds to the power that threatens you. The blow and the smashing of the face or hood and drawing out and upward of the serpent are an indication that now you have a chance of getting free from this force and throwing away from your vital nature greed, egoism and desire. It is for you to fulfil the favourable end of the vision by taking the chance.

Sri Aurobindo
Pondicherry
14 September 1930

[11]

Re Punamchand.

(1) To give up his Bombay work and stay here.

(2) To return to Bombay. If so, for what work and in what conditions?

For (1)—

I doubt whether he will be able, after the very different conditions to which he has been accustomed in Bombay, to settle down to the discipline of the Asram which itself is very different from what it was when he was last here. And where to put them, if they stay?

For (2)

On the other hand, if he goes back, how is he to live? It is out of the question for us to send him money and he must not even think of it. In future also we cannot make ourselves responsible for any loans he may contract; that too must be understood clearly.

If he collects money and spends all or most of what he gets on his own expenses, that is about the worst thing that can be done. It discredits him in people's eyes and discredits the collection and the Asram. As soon as it is known people cease

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to give money. Moreover, what is the meaning of a collection in which all the money realised goes to collection expenses and nothing goes to the fund for which the collection is made.

There is therefore only one possible solution, for him to fix a maximum amount for his expenses and find someone (now that Vithaldas is no more) who will give him that sum monthly. All other amounts must be strictly sent here. And on no account must his expenses exceed the sum fixed. This seems to me the only solution if he goes back to Bombay.

For the work—

It seems no longer possible for him to collect money in the way he and Dixit first did—approaching anybody and everybody for contributions. The one thing he might possibly do is what he has done with Narainji and Ramnarayan,—to make the acquaintance of people, get them interested in the Asram and its work, and prepare them for coming over here for us to see what can be done with them; if he can get them meanwhile to contribute, so much the better. But they must be men who can give assistance, either in a large sum or as a substantial assistance to the monthly expenses.

[12]

Pondicherry, September 1931

He (Punamchand) can let Narainji have Veda translations, but I do not want them widely circulated because they are a first draft, not final. Messages and letters he may have. But the evening talks must not get about. I have not seen these reports and therefore they are not authorised, and there must be any number of things in them which either ought not to be published or for which in the form they have there, I cannot accept responsibility.

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[13]

Punamchand

No use doing the Vocabulary of the Atri Hymns till the new translation is ready. The old translation is too free for this purpose.

Atri hymns not yet ready.

Not much use to collect words from the Secret of the Veda.

The Vocabulary of the Bharadwaja hymns is very well done; perhaps it is best to do all like that and they could be put together afterwards.

No. The Vocabularies of the Revised Hymns have to be kept separate from the others. I shall look through the others when I have time and see what is to be done.

The comma is a mistake; it has to be omitted.

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