A Clear Ray of Sri Aurobindo
I KNEW hardly anything about Amal Kiran in those days - in 1958. I had just joined the Ashram School and I was slowly getting into the rhythm of Ashram life. One such important rhythm was the Balcony Darshan.
My room-mate and I used to wake up in the nick of time, brush our teeth quickly, and then we used to run, jog, fast-walk to the Balcony street. Most of the time we were well in time and we even had some time to sit down on the footpath below the Balcony. Only on a very few occasions did we catch the last glimpse of the Mother withdrawing from the Balcony because we were a bit too late!
There, under the Balcony, I noted a very impressive personality, tallish, handsome with curly hair - although with a walking stick in hand. He would sit every day on the foot-path waiting for Her. When the footfalls of the Mother were felt over us, he would jump up and stand right beneath the Mother, the spot where the Mother stood during the Darshan. Looking up at Her, he would stand arrested in concentration, pulling down the Force and Light that was the Mother. I could not reach him, but I thought the best way to attract the Mother's attention on me would be to stand just beside the statue of concentration and prayer that was Amal Kiran. Thus, day after day I stood in his borrowed light!
As days passed by and my mind opened up to literature and philosophy, Amal Kiran once again got focussed in my consciousness. I started discovering Amal the critic, for, I had read his book Sri Aurobindo - The Poet in order to get a deeper understanding of Sri Aurobindo's poetry. His depth of analysis, his passion to deal with the subtleties and nuances of words and imagery, and his very special capacity to feel the
Page 33
rhythm and metre were amazing. His insights into the feeling and thought and imagination behind each verse impressed my young mind and I became Amal-the-critic's fan! There was none better than him who could bring forth the 'poetical beauty and the technical mastery' embedded in each verse of Sri Aurobindo's poetry
It is only much later that I started discovering the multi-faceted genius that is Amal Kiran. Most of all these facets have been briefly but very clearly sketched by Jugal Kishore Mukherjee in his book The Wonder that is K.D. Sethna alias Amal Kiran as well as by Nirodbaran and R.Y. Deshpande in their edited book Amal-kiran: Poet and Critic. In these works much has been written by different authors and critics about Amal Kiran's "radiant multifaceted personality and universal genius". (The Wonder that is K.D. Sethna...)
What I am interested in here is to get a glimpse of the person behind the 'multifaceted personality'. Not that one can separate easily the person from the personality in Amal Kiran's case, but I feel that while one may won-der at Amal Kiran's personality, one cannot but fall in love with the person that is Amal Kiran.
I used to go to him for several things —for discussions on Savitri's verses to other mundane matters. Each time I used to just barge into his room, almost without courtesy, and he would in a gentle voice ask me to take my seat while he would complete his next sentence on his type-writer or finish reading the paragraph he was reading or give the strike-order to the proofs of Mother India journal.
Those few moments of waiting for Amal Kiran to finish his work in hand were the ones during which an indelible image of Amal was engraved in my mental consciousness: a radiant face with delight in its eyes! He would turn around and with a welcoming smile he would ask me the purpose of my visit. It was as if he had suspended the avalanche of higher thoughts and come down to my level fully and whole-heartedly. There was no distance between us; he was with me and for me during those few minutes! That established an immediate rapport, maybe, a deeper identity with me.
Page 34
This way we could speak to each other without tension, with-out my being in awe of a great critic, poet, historian, etc. His face hardly showed all these.
His conversations were full of wit interspersed with mirth. When speaking on Savitri, he would floor me with his flow of recitations of the verses from Savitri. When he talked about mundane issues, there was great sympathy in his heart although he never compromised on the level of right advice and judgement.
Well, at the end of the precious moments, he would invariably shake my hand and wish me a warm bye-bye! He would then re-ascend to his level of thoughts and intuitions received from his Master - Sri Aurobindo - that is the impression he gave me.
Speaking of intuitions, well I am not very much off the track. Read his poems from the "Overhead Poetry" Poems (The Secret Splendour) and one would be mind-boggled to read Sri Aurobindo's comments. For instance take the poem "Pool of Lonelinesses":
I have become a secret pool
Of lonelinesses mountain-cool,
A dream-poise of unuttered song
Lifted above the restless throng
Of human moods' dark pitchers wrought
Of fragile and of flawful thought.
........
And in their crystalline control
Of heaven-mooded ecstasy
Carry the waters of my soul
Unto God's sacred thirst for me!
(Pp. 72-73)
Sri Aurobindo commented: "It is a very fine poem. It comes from the intuitive plane - belonging to the Intuition proper which brings with it a sort of subdued inspiration -I mean inspiration of the more quiet, not the more vivid kind and a great felicity of language...."
Another poem selected at random, "This Errant Life", reads:
Page 35
This errant life is dear although it dies;
.....
I fear to soar lest tender bonds decrease.
If Thou desirest my weak self to outgrow
Its mortal longings, lean down from above,
Temper the unborn light no thought can trace,
Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow.
For 'tis with mouth of clay I supplicate:
Speak to me heart to heart words intimate,
And all Thy formless glory turn to love
And mould Thy love into a human face.
(pp. 70-71)
And Sri Aurobindo said about the last eight lines:".. .one may say even the last eight, are absolutely perfect. If you could always write like that, you would take your place among English poets and no low place either. I consider they rank - these eight lines - with the very best in English poetry."
Such height of praise from Sri Aurobindo only shows Amal's Himalayan poetic consciousness and it goes to prove that he is truly a clear ray of Sri Aurobindo's poetic dimension. It seems that the Master brought down his own apostles to manifest his multifaceted aspects and Amal Kiran is surely His ray of poetic genius!
And yet, this genius, whom the world will discover only in the far future, was all humble and he came down to en-courage the younger minds. Once, in 1969, when I had writ-ten an article on Sri Aurobindo's poem "Love and Death" he spent caring moments to correct it and even published it in Mother India! Another time I ventured to send him a few of my poems and the master of rhythm selected some and even gave a few comments on some of them. Such is his tender heart behind all that 'trumpeting' voice!
Yes, this is what he said once about himself: "At times I am a bit of a musician too: as you have just seen, I can blow my own trumpet." (Some Talks at Pondicherry)
Page 36
During my personal meetings he hardly ever bragged or blew his own trumpet! It was during his talks in the Ashram School, in 1970 and 1971, that we heard his melodious trumpeting. He hid himself constantly behind wit, humour, comic incidents, and laughing at himself, but, as peeps the sun from behind the radiant clouds, so his true self peeped out with utter devotion and dedication to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
I shall quote here a few examples from his talks published as Some Talks at Pondicherry (compiled by K. L. Gambhir, 1972) to illustrate my point:
a) Let me whisper into your ears at the top of my voice an unbelievable secret. It is this: twice in Savitri, which is a legend and a symbol, Sri Aurobindo has referred to the present speaker, symbolically, although the speaker is very far yet from being legendary, (laughter) The first reference runs:
But Mind, a glorious traveller in the sky,
Walks lamely on the earth with footsteps slow.
Surely the person intended is unmistakable, (laughter) The lines indicate an inequality between the intellectual aspiration and the physical achievement. Not that the possibility of physical achievement is denied, but what is implied is that the glorious sky-traveller puts up a pretty poor show on the world-stage. The second reference is also more or less like the first, not very complimentary but on the other hand not altogether unappreciative and after all to be mentioned in Savitri in any way, however veiled or even unrecognisable, is itself a compliment, (laughter) The second reference goes:
A limping Yes through the aeons journeys still
Accompanied by an eternal No.
Page 37
Lest you should misunderstand, I must hurry to say that if the "limping Yes" is Amal Kiran, the "eternal No" accompanying him is not his wife! (laughter) I may admit that my wife does have a strong restraining influence on many of my extravagances and recklessnesses; but here I take Sri Aurobindo to be speaking of two sides of a movement within one single person - yes, a person single, even if married!
b) After our brief talk, the Mother got up. "I am going," she said and moved towards the door. "No, please wait," I urged. Then I started to indulge in my habit of falling. It was taking a new turn, for I was preparing to fall - as I have already told you - at her feet. She seemed a little surprised at a man clad in European clothes, with a neck-tie and so on, wanting to fall like that. Seeing the surprise on her face I made an explanation: "You see, Mother, we Indians always do this to our spiritual Masters." (laughter) I taught her what was the right thing to be done. Afterwards I learned that the Mother at that time couldn't move from one room to another without 20 people fall-ing at her feet! (laughter) When she found me determined she said: "All right" - and let me go down. Then she put her hand on my head and I got up. At home I thought I had done something very important: I had asserted my Indianness, I had shown my Indianness in spite of those clothes, and I was sure the Mother must have appreciated it. It seems the Mother went and told Sri Aurobindo: "There is a young man here who came to see me and taught me how Indians do pranam.'" (laughter) Sri Aurobindo was much amused.
c) I knelt down at her feet, she blessed me; then I went to Sri Aurobindo's feet and looked at him. My physical mind came right to the front: "What sort of a person is Sri Aurobindo? How does he look?" I saw him sitting very
Page 38
grandly, with an aquiline nose, smallish eyes, fine moustaches and a thin beard... I was examining him thoroughly. At length I made my pranam. He put both his hands on my head - that was his way - a most delightful way with his very soft palms. I took my leave, looking at him again. I observed to myself: "Quite an impressive Guru: (laughter) he is very fine in appearance, very grand - I think I can accept him!" (laughter)
The next day I met the Mother and asked her: "Mother, did Sri Aurobindo say anything about me?" (laughter) She answered: "Well, he just said that you had a good face." (laughter) Here was a piquant situation. When I was examining him, he was examining me - on the same level, it seems, (laughter) He had come down, as it were, to meet my physical mind.
d) Indeed Dara was quite a character - a very extraordinary character with a lot of eccentricity. He was also a poet, of course: at that time poets were budding all over the place. But he was a very original kind of poet. His themes al-ways used to be like how he sat in his canvas chair and the canvas tore apart, (laughter) Such exciting events be-came the subject matter of his poetry. On another occasion, as you might have heard, he exhausted his stock of tea, so he penned a furious poem to the Mother:
Mother Almighty,
I have finished all my tea. (laughter)
e) To return to my friend Nirod - it was after some time that he got the dispensary. I don't know whether he wanted it, or liked it or not, but he established his reputation as the frowning physician, (laughter) People used to come to him with a cold and he would stand and glare at them, and say, "What? you have a cold!" Poor people, they would simply shiver (laughter) and this had a very salutary
Page 39
effect because they thought that it was better not to fall ill than face the doctor's drastic disapproval of any kind of illness which would give him any botheration, (laugh-ter) But he did his job all right, and every time he fright-ened off a patient he went to his room and started trying to write poetry (laughter) - because that, he thought, was his most important job. And, whether he succeeded as a doctor or not, as a poet he has eminently succeeded. Sri Aurobindo has really made him a poet.
f) There was a Telugu gentleman whom I had come to know because he and I used to eat opposite each other at a small table outside the Reading Room. We would bring our food from the Dining Room which was where Prithwi Singh stays now. This chap used to bring with him some ghee every time and pour it on all that he ate. When I look at people I always try to fix them in my mind by comparing them to some author or other. And this person looked liked the famous novel-ist H.G. Wells. So I began to call him H. Ghee Wells! (laughter) Now, he was a man who used to be very sen-sitive and very impulsive. One evening he was found missing. And people wondered where he had gone. Those who were staying in the same house as he - that is, in Tresor House - came home at about 8 o'clock and heard shouts and screams. They didn't know from where the sounds came, they could only recognise the voice. They looked in every room but couldn't find him. Then at last they found him sitting at the bottom of a well (laughter) and howling, "Please take me out!" "Why the hell did you get in there?" "I heard Sri Aurobindo's command and jumped into the well." (laughter) It was indeed very creditable that he had obeyed immediately, but it wasn't Sri Aurobindo tell-ing him. Though proverbially Truth is found at the bottom of a well, (laughter) it cannot be the Supramental
Page 40
Truth; this Truth is to be found somewhere high up. (laughter) They had to haul him up.
g) No doubt, I always had the ambition in my younger days to took like Bernard Shaw whom I admired a great deal. But when I was in Bombay I could not grow a beard -beards at that time were not in fashion for people who were rather young and perhaps inclined to be romantic, (laughter) Even when I returned to Bombay after a six and a half years' stay here and met my future wife Sehra, whom I had known earlier, she was indignant on seeing me bearded, though not long-haired any more. She made a disgusted face and said: "What is this?" Then I very calmly explained to her: "You see, I am a Yogi, (laughter) God thrust on me the spiritual favour of a lame leg so that I might not run after anybody glamorous (laughter) and I have spiritu-ally favoured myself with a beard so that nobody glamorous may run after me!"
h) By the way, my beard did not last all my life, as you can see for yourselves. Actually the first shaving of it marked the first spiritual fall I had, because after a year and a half my people from Bombay came on a visit and they brought the Bombay atmosphere. Although I agreed to see them only twice a week, I was afraid I might lose or spoil my Yogic halo. And those few meetings made me open myself to the Bombay atmosphere and I said: "Why should I not shave off my beard? I'll be better-looking without it!" My brother had no beard, the friend accompanying my family had none, either. So one morning I just cleared mine away. But when I looked in the mirror it seemed as if half my face had been cut off! (laughter) So much removed from under the chin so suddenly made the face look horribly small. And it was with this face that I went to the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo. He was a little puzzled: "Who is this funny-looking fellow with a face familiar but inexplicably
Page 41
halved?" (laughter) Then he concentrated a little and recognised that here was Amal Kiran. Seeing his expression, I on my return home wrote at once to him: "How did you find me?" He replied: "Grow back your beard as fast as you can!" (laughter) And I started re-growing it by what-ever means I could - even watering my face at times in my desperation. (laughter) In a fortnight there was some result to show of all my pains and prayers.
Gradually as I grew out of the complex of fear I felt that the beard which formed part of the early-Christian ensemble of my face did not fit in with the new look I was acquiring. But now I was wiser by that first abrupt change from hirsute to clean-shaven: so I began to trim my beard. Every month it became shorter and shorter, (laughter) Finally, on the eve of my third visit to Bombay during the first ten years of my Ashram-life, I asked the Mother: "What shall I do? Do you think I could shave off my beard?" She said: "There is hardly any beard left. You might as well shave off what you call a beard. Do what you like; it won't make any difference." (laughter) So that was the end of the beard. And since then I am afraid to grow it because now I think most of it will come out white and make me look even more old than I am.
One could perhaps go on and on with these delightful narrations each of which gives us a glimpse of the person that is Amal Kiran. It is interesting to note how he would prefer himself to be seen:
Sitting in the midst of profuse reading-matter and absorbed in the craft of endless writing and turned as much as his numerous human weaknesses allow towards the all-healing and all-fulfilling infinity of that dual divine presence - Sri Aurobindo and the Mother - such is Amal Kiran...
(Jugal Kishore Mukherjee,
The Wonder that is K.D. Sethna p. 2)
Page 42
And to turn towards that 'dual presence', the best way, advises Amal Kiran, is:
If you ask me what is the simplest way, I shall quote to you three words of the Mother - "Remember and Offer." Wherever you are, whatever you do, you can always think of the Divine, and you can always make an offering of yourself and your doings. There is nothing too small, too trivial to be offering. Suppose I put this walking stick of mine in some place. Well, even that action can be and should be a gesture of offer-ing. The inward movement has to be - "I am giving my stick to you, O God." To take in everything into the practice of offering is to make Yoga an integral part of your life.
It is not by cutting yourself off from people or by shut-ting out activity and locking yourself up in an impen-=etrable Samadhi that you meet the Divine. Yoga means being in touch with the Divine's presence every minute. It is an all-time job, as Sri Aurobindo has often said.
And, if you live out the Mother's formula of remembering and offering, you will feel that something ex-tremely sweet and at the same time extremely strong is awakening in you. Soon you will feel as if a bright nec-tar were welling in your heart and flowing everywhere in your body. The whole of you will feel perpetually blessed and everything you lay your hands on will ap-pear to you as if it were receiving blessedness. What awakens in you is - to use Sri Aurobindo's phrase -"the psychic being", the true soul in you.
(Some Talks at Pondicherry)
In one of my last meetings with him, when he was in his house near Minku-Boarding, he confirmed that he was con-stantly being guided by his psychic being. For this constant inner guidance he must have prepared for long, as is seen in one of his prayer-poems:
Page 43
"O Silent Love..."
Because You never claim of us a tear,
O silent Love, how often we forget
The eyes of countless centuries were wet
To bring Your smile so near!
Forgive if I remember not the blaze,
Imperishable, perfect, infinite,
Of far Omnipotence from which You lit
Your lamp of human face!
Make me a worship-vigil everywhere,
Slumber and wakefulness one memory
That You are God: O let each pore of me
Become a mouth of prayer!
(The Secret Splendour, p. 459)
He has walked miles in consciousness to cherish the Rose of Light and the Rose of Love as seen in his poem, "At Last":
At last the unfading Rose -
Felt mine yet sought afar
In the flowering of forms
That proved but surface-sheens,
Mirrors of a mystery
That never broke to a star.
Now wakes a sudden sky
In the centre of my chest.
Bliss-wafts that never die
Float from a petalled fire
Rooted in godlike rest.
They spread in the whole world's air,
Cold distances breathe close,
Worship burns everywhere.
Life flows to the Eternal's face.
Page 44
Unveiled within, light's spire,
At last the unfading Rose.
(The Secret Splendour, p. 651)
With worship burning in his entire being, he now spends his hours in the Ashram's Nursing Home with an absolute equanimity to life and death:
I am doing my best to live long both because I am happy and can give happiness and because I want as much time as possible to go nearer to Sri Aurobindo's luminous Truth and the Mother's radiant Beauty. All the same I am ready to say "Hurrah" whenever they tell me, "Your time is up.
"(Jugal Kishore Mukherjee,
The Wonder that is K.D. Sethna)
And to put it in his own poetic verses:
Farewell, sweet earth, but I shall find you sweeter
When I return
With eyes in which all heaven's farnesses
Intimately burn.
Then you will show in all I once held dear
The cause of my keen flame:
The holy hush my poet tongue miscalled
Name on poor mortal name.
w
The Secret Splendour, p. 751)
Such is Amal Kiran, a pure ray of Sri Aurobindo's consciousness.
Page 45
Home
Disciples
Amal Kiran
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.