Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1)

24

You have asked me to clarify Sri Aurobindo's statement: "...to be able to take, without insistence or seeking, any food given and to find in it (whether pronounced good or bad by others) the equal rasa, not of the food for its own sake, but of the universal Ananda."¹

The words "any food" have puzzled you. They imply that we must get rid of preference for a particular stuff to eat or for a special style of cooking. A certain equanimity should be there and an inner feeling that whatever has come on the table has come from the Divine and is an expression of the Divine's undiminishable delight in all that He has made. An attempt to participate in that delight would constitute "the equal rasa", the self-same enjoyment, spoken of by Sri Aurobindo. He wants us to get over the usual habit of the palate, the likes and dislikes of the tongue. He does not encourage us, as you seem to think, to test ourselves by going in for what is considered unwholesome food and taking it in an undisturbed way. Some hygienic sense has to be present, but in case we get something unpleasant and we need to eat it in order to have sustenance, we should have no shrinking. Surely we should not compel ourselves to seek it out. Furthermore, when we set it aside in any situation, the setting aside should be done on hygienic grounds, with a calm mind, and not because of a vitalistic reaction. What Sri Aurobindo means is that our usual likes and dislikes should be transcended and eating done with a quiet attitude and a movement of aspiration towards the Divine through whatever is set before us.

Knowing what both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have taught, I would add that food has to be taken with a gesture of inner offering of it to the Divine and of praying that it may go to the growth of His Consciousness within us.

If something is cooked in a slipshod way we may seek to

1. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 24, p. 1468.

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correct the way, but everything must be done without the ordinary sensational response. Sri Aurobindo always said that cooking should be done cleanly and efficiently, but we are not supposed to fly into a temper if there is a mistake.

Sri Aurobindo's statement must always be understood as advising samata and a healthy confrontation of circumstances. Extremist interpretations would be out of tune with the supreme poise and the profound insight as well as the highly inspired common sense that are behind his pronouncements.

Apropos of the subject of food I may recall some words of the Mother. When, after six and a half years of Ashram life with its vegetarian regime I went to Bombay for a short stay, I asked the Mother how I should live there - what my attitude should be to food and drink. She said: "Live as people in Bombay do. Don't do anything unusual." True, the Mother enjoined vegetarianism on the Ashram, but she had no rigidity of mind. She never made a fad out of vegetarianism, least of all believed like some people that by being strictly vegetarian they were ipso facto more spiritual. There can be greed for food even in a vegetarian. It is this greed that is primarily banned in the spiritual life - and, along with greed, marked preferences. The Mother has disapproved of "the constant thinking by people of what they will eat and when they will eat and whether they are eating enough". To conquer the greed for food, she wants "an equanimity in the being" to be developed.² She has also recommended the attitude: "I eat what I am given, and I don't bother about it"¹ As for non-vegetarian food, she has freely allowed a fixed quota of eggs. If really from the point of view of health something other than eggs is necessary she has put no bar. In a case of persistent diarrhoea she is known to have ordered a certain type of fish, called "sole", to be cooked according to her directions and given to the sufferer. It is amusing to

2,Health and Healing in Yoga - Selections from the Writings arid Talks of the Mother (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1979), p. 187.

3.Ibid., p. 189.

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recount how insistent she was. When the girl told the Mother that she could not bear the smell of the fish given to her and had vomited, the Mother said: "You vomited? All right, vomit - and then go back and sit down and finish it. Each time you vomit go back to eat."⁴

In general, the Mother has said: "Everything is allowed. I haven't refused meat to one who needed it. There were people who ate it because they needed it. But if someone comes asking me for something just in order to satisfy a desire, I say 'No', whatever it may be, even ice-cream!"5

Lastly, there is a point worth noting. The Mother has remarked: "For an ordinary man, living an ordinary life, having ordinary activities.... it is all right for him to eat anything at all, whatever agrees with him, whatever does him good. But if one wishes to pass from his ordinary life to a higher one, the problem begins to become interesting; and if, after having come to a higher life, one tries to prepare oneself for the transformation, then it becomes very important. For there certainly are foods which help the body to become subtle and others which keep it in a state of animality. But it is only at that particular time that this becomes very important, not before; and before reaching that moment, there are many other things to do. Certainly it is better to purify one's mind and purify one's vital before thinking of purifying one's body. For even if you take all possible precautions and live physically taking care not to absorb anything except what will help to subtilise your body, if your mind and vital remain in a state of desire, inconscience, darkness, passion and all the rest, that won't be of any use at all. Only, your body will become weak, dislocated from the inner life and one fine day it will fall ill."⁶

The point I would like you to note is that as we are pretty

4.Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: Three Hundred and Sixty True Stories, Compiled by Shyam Kumari {Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1989), p. 112.

5.Health and Healing, p. 196

6.Ibid., p. 197.

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tar from the stage when bodily transformation begins to be a concrete fact, it is absurd to make much of small deviations in food from the Ashram regime. "Oh, he is sometimes taking fish, he goes in occasionally even for meat!" This kind of exclamation must wait for a long while indeed to become relevant and carry significance. Surely the inner life can be as intense with these "lapses" or "peccadillos" as without them. But, of course, one must not veer in the opposite direction and cock a snook at the Ashram regime, as if it were a mere superficiality, a sheer superfluity to be waved away in favour of an "uncharted freedom". I am only having a dig at long faces of disapproval on the slightest pretext. The Mother puts everything right when she says: "One must begin from above, first purify the higher and then purify the lower. I am not saying that one must indulge in all sorts of degrading things in the body. That's not what I am telling you. Don't take it as an advice not to exercise control over your desires! It isn't that at all. But what I mean is, do not try to be an angel in the body if you are not already just a little of an angel in your mind and vital; for that would dislocate you in a different way from the usual one, but not one that is better. We said the other day that what is most important is to keep the equilibrium. Well, to keep the equilibrium everything must progress at the same time."⁷

The two master-words in regard to food as in regard to everything else are: "equilibrium" and "equanimity", a sense of balance and proportion, a sense of poised detachment.

(5.5.1989)

You have asked me: "How should I tackle objections - some from members of my own family - to my interest in the Aurobindonian Yoga which they think more akin to Hinduism, when in their opinion the religion into which I was bom shows the easier way?"

7. ibid., pp. 197-98.

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What is meant by "the easier way"? One does not adopt a way just because it is easier. One goes after what one considers a greater Light, as you yourself term what is "being set forth in all the books received from the Ashram". Perhaps the members of your family mean the lack of necessity according to them to go after another "religion" than the one revealed to One's ancestors and in which one has grown up. But they overlook an important historical fact.

.From time to time spiritual teachers who have entered into a more than human consciousness appear on earth. If we stick always to the religion into which we were born, no such teacher would be able to get a following. When Jesus appeared, what would have been his effect if everyone had insisted on sticking to Moses? Or - to be more relevant to your case - in Mohammed's time, would there have been any Islam if people had clung to the religion prevalent among the Arabs in that period? We have to be plastic to new messages.

Then there is another point. Sri Aurobindo is not only one more teacher with direct spiritual experience: he is also quite evidently a master of the widest spirituality compassed so far on earth. I am a Zoroastrian by birth, a member of the Parsi community. Compared to what Sri Aurobindo discloses, Zoroastrianism is elementary. And, in the light of my study, so too is every other religion of the past. Hinduism itself, though providing a background to Sri Aurobindo, falls short in spite of its admirably broad outlook.) When I finished reading for the first time The Life Divine, which seems to be your own favourite, the impact of its multi-dimensional knowledge conveyed in a language of unfailing inspiration -at once precise, sweeping, symphonic - was such that I could not help crying to myself: "The author of this book must be the author of the universe!"

You have asked about having a guru from amongst your associates for practical day-to-day spiritual guidance. This is a ticklish business. If there is an Aurobindonian who is sufficiently immersed in the Integral Yoga, you may seek his help and advice. But to open yourself to somebody out of

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tune with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is not a prospect I would encourage. Of course, one may always take an example from whoever you feel is leading a more-than-ordinary life of the inner consciousness, but you should be careful to note that the person is not entrenched bigotedly in any presently prevalent system of creed and dogma and ritual. The living awareness of someone consciously leading a spiritual life is always a help, but how will you find among your associates a companion with an inner wideness, an inner freedom from current religiosity? An open-minded, deep-hearted aspirant towards spiritual light can alone be of genuine assistance to you. The best way is to feel more and more the subtle presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother within you and around you and above you. Their books are the best guru.

The ending of your letter is indeed poetic: "We are into another Iranian New Year. Our old year climaxed with several falls of abundant snow and the mountains around here still keep their wonderful pure whiteness, which is all so calm and helps the inner calm too. With God's help and protection always things move along well and hopefully for us all to the vistaed future for which we long and pray always."

(April 1989)

Your wise as well as witty remarks about "thrice-blessed stumbles" and about "rogues and scoundrels" fathering saints in themselves remind me of Oscar Wilde's epigram: "Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future." There is also the great Christian theme of "Felix Culpa" - "the Happy Blunder", "the Fortunate Fall" of Adam without which there would have been no need for a Saviour to come on earth, for the "Son of God" to visit man's world in order to atone for the "Original Sin". I recall too a poem of Longfellow's which begins -

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Saint Augustine! well hast thou said

That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame -

and ends:

Standing on what too long we bore

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We may discern, unseen before, A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past

As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

You have very well put a certain aspect of the situation between us all and our gracious Gurus, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: "Once a stray thought occurred to me to the effect: 'What if They desert me?' Immediately a response arose from within: 'But I will never desert Them,' And something within me laughed. If we are hopelessly captive to the Divine, one senses in an infallible way that the Divine is equally captive to us." This shows admirable insight and amounts to that well-known and deeply reassuring statement by Sri Aurobindo: "He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite/'

My own dealing with this problem in the past had a slightly different shade. It was an earnest prayer to her never to loosen her hold on me even if by any chance I was tempted to move away from her. Whenever I left Pondicherry - and the last time I did so I stayed away for sixteen years, excepting a few short visits back - the link between the Mother and me never broke although outwardly I may be said to have strayed from the Path and got myself entangled in "mortal coils". Throughout those sixteen years my contact

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with my Gurus remained firm and both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother treated me as if I had been sitting at their feet every moment. Once when there was a fairly long interval of non-communication by letters after an illness of mine, Sri Aurobindo went out of his way to write me a letter which in addition to its momentous opening part in relation to me - a colossal though tiny-seeming act of grace - may be quoted in extenso tor its remarks on a very promising young Englishman (soon to get killed in World War II) whose letter and picture had been sent from Cambridge by my younger brother, as well as for its sidelight on the Ashram at the rime and the slowly developing Savitri, instalments of which Sri Aurobindo had been sending me privately when I had been in Pondicherry. The letter's last para is a simple spontaneous gesture of the Master's compassion for airing humanity. Here is the whole document:

Pondicherry 1

3.11.38

Amal

I write to get news about your progress in recovery -1

I have not yet been able to answer Homi's letter. You can tell him from me that the Mother and I were both extremely well-impressed by Bosanquet's photograph which shows a remarkable personality and great spiritual possibilities. I may be able to write about his (Bosanquet's) letter in a few days. If he comes here, we shall be glad to give him help in his spiritual aspiration.

There is nothing much to say in other matters. The Ashram increases always, but its finances are as they were, which is a mathematical equation of doubtful validity and is not so much an equation as an equivoque.

I have done an enormous amount of work with Savitri. The third section has been recast - not rewritten - so as to give it a more consistent epic swing and amplitude and

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elevation of level. The fourth section, the Worlds, is undergoing transformation. The "Life" part is in a way finished, though I shall have to go over the ground perhaps some five or six times more to ensure perfection of detail. I am now starting a recasting of the "Mind" part of which I had only made a sort of basic rough draft. I hope that this time the work wil] stand as more final and definitive.

In sending news of yourself, you will no doubt send news of your mother also. I saw a notice of a remedy (in the Marin) for hernia which they say has succeeded in America and is introduced in France, very much resembling the defunct Doctor's discovery⁸ (the one who treated Lalita's father), but perhaps more assuredly scientific; it is reported to get rid for good of belts and operations and to have made millions of cures. It will be a great thing for many if it turns out to be reliable.

Sri Aurobindo

Pertinent to the first para of this letter is a communication from the Mother at a time when I was in two minds about my return to the Ashram. The communication is most memorable for resolving the perplexity in which I had been struggling. She wrote on a Darshan day:

24.4.39

Amal, my dear child, Blessings of the day.

Just received your letter of 21st; it came to me directly (without the words) three days ago, probably when you were writing it, and my silent answer was categorical: remain there until the necessity of being here will become so imperative that all else will completely lose all value for you.

My answer now is exactly the same. I want only to

8. Sri Aurobindo's actual written word was "recovery" - quite obviously a slip of the pen in the context - I

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assure you that we are not abandoning you and that you

will always have our help and protection.

With our love and blessings.

MIRA

Today is April 20. Four days ahead is again April 24, fifty years after this letter. The letter brings forward three truths. One is that the Mother's cosciousness could catch our thoughts and feelings at any distance without any verbal transmission by us. Secondly, she wanted our choice of the spiritual life to be not only free but also whole-hearted. In the third place, her Grace, extending to us help and protection, could not be accounted for by our small-sighted vision: it did not depend on surface circumstances but acted from its own absolute depths of light.

When I look back, the numberless acts of grace during that half-century from 24.4.39 crowd upon my memory. After the accident to Sri Aurobindo's right leg on the night of November 23, 1938, all correspondence with him was stopped except in the case of Dilip Kumar Roy and myself. We were allowed to keep writing to him up to the time he left his body. Through Nirod he replied to every letter from me and commented on whatever poetry or prose I sent him. Not only spiritual questions but also literary ones drew him out. The two longest letters I ever got from him were discussions on poetic problems, one of twenty typed sheets and the other of twenty-four - both received during my supposedly renegade stay in Bombay.

How steadily the inner contact with him and the Mother persisted may be guessed from a statement she made in one of her twice-weekly talks at the Playground to the Ashram children. On 23 December 1953 she spoke about accidents and how their damage gets minimised if one is constantly in touch with her through the "consciousness" remaining "wide-awake" and "in contact with one's psychic being". In the course of her talk she said: "I knew someone who, indeed, should have died and did not die because of this. For

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his consciousness reacted very fast. He had taken poison by mistake: instead of taking one dose of a certain medicine, he had taken twelve and it was a poison; he should have died, the heart should have stopped (it was many years ago) and he is still quite alive! He reacted in the right way. If these things were narrated they would be called miracles. They are not miracles: it is an awakened consciousness."

The letter I have quoted from Sri Aurobindo indicates what the Mother meant by "many years ago". The "mistake" of which she speaks occurred about six months before that letter of 13.11.1938. How serious it was may be understood from the fact that the Mother's mention of twelve times the dose was an oversight due perhaps to the information given to her years earlier that the normal dose of the potent drug was one-twelfth of a grain. Under a misconception I had taken four grains, a dose forty-eight times the normal quantity! According to the heart-specialist Dr. Gilder, onetime attendant of Mahatma Gandhi, this was four times the dose prescribed to stimulate a horse.

The Mother has referred to the consciousness being awake and surely the sense of her presence has to be there for extraordinary interventions by her to take place, but where I am concerned I would attribute them not so much to her being in my consciousness as to my being in hers in continuous response to that earnest appeal of mine to her: "Please never give me up." It is easy for me to think of you as saying to yourself: "I will never desert Them." You are, psychologically, a strongly-built person. Mentally and morally you are master of yourself. I am not making out of you a paragon incapable of any lapse, but centrally you have a solid, determined character with the will-power to carry out whatever you plan. You have certainly an artistic and literary side too, but they don't make for any marked weakness or variability. I am by nature a denizen of the Latin Quarter of Paris - extremely susceptible, chameleonish, a-moral (that is, free from conventional rules), a predominantly artistic nature, though luckily lacking in the so-called "artistic

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temperament" which means really a creature of moods, irresponsible, swayed by every gust of circumstance. The chameleon in me is receptive and responsive to all kinds of life's demands and can adapt itself to diverse calls and needs of people and feel at home in the strangest of situations, but it is never prone to misunderstanding, never easily hurt, never wrapped up in its own likes and dislikes, never fickle in friendship, as is the temperament usually ascribed to the artist nature. The freedom from such a temperament has helped my attempt as a sadhak to move towards an equanimity which would have no personal reaction, no twinge of resentment, no impulse of retaliation, no shadow of frustration. But whatever degree of equanimity I may have caught from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the person who went out of the Ashram's precincts and lived in Bombay for years was exposed in the sensational part of him to life's "glamours" as much as any dweller on the Left Bank of the Seine. Yet all the time the Mother's assurance that she would ever keep her grip on him was like a secret flame in him burning always upward. So sure was he of her clasp that he ran blithely into danger zones and came out essentially unscathed. The Mother had at last to pull him up and tell him: "We have saved you again and again, but don't exploit our protection as you have been doing."

I have written at some length in an autobiographical vein just to contrast my weakness with your strength. I am not making a brief for my turn of character - nor do I mean by speaking of my non-retaliatory attitude that you should not fight against the varied infamy you find rampant in places. Follow your own heroic dharma.

(19.4.1989)

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