Light and Laughter

TALK SEVEN

October 9, 1971

      When I was young I was considered a writer of poetry. I believe I am still a poet though very few may know it and my face can hardly show it.

      At times I am a bit of a musician too: as you have just seen, I can blow my own trumpet.

      Poets, musicians, painters — all artists — are credited with a very lively imagination. But by no stretch of imagination can I figure myself as still young and, therefore, as having the right to talk to you with a sympathetic spirit.

      In this age of dynamic disrespect for old fogeys, I could not help wondering why I had been picked on to address you. I asked myself: "Am I fit to do so?" Then I remembered Oscar Wilde. He does not exactly appear to be a writer coming naturally to the mind of an aspirant to spirituality. But, in the first place, we are in old French India, and in the French language the word "spiritual" — which is "spirituel" on French lips — most often means "intellectually sparkling". Oscar Wilde was surely that. And, in the second place, the memory of Wilde came to me in the form of his epigram: "The only way to remain young is to go on repeating the follies of our youth." Well, I committed one great folly in my youth — or so it was considered. And I have been repeating it for years and in that way I can certainly claim to be still a young man.

      Before I committed it I had the desire to go to Oxford for advanced studies after my B.A. in Bombay. My grandfather, on whom I was dependent, turned down my proposal. He said: "If you go to England you'll bring back an English wife. And I will never stand for that." I assured him that I would not bring back an English wife. He smelled sophistry there and remained negative. I had to accept the English-wifelessness. Then, after some time I began to be interested in Indian Yoga. For nearly a year my grandfather watched me. Seeing worse and worse signs of Yoga he at last came out with the suggestion that I should go to Oxford. According to him, an English wife was far preferable

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to the Divine Beloved!

      But I refused. He said Yoga was a great folly. It was a folly I wholeheartedly committed and, on the strength of its persistence even now, I can qualify by Oscar Wilde's standard to address you.

      In the days of Sri Krishna, the kind of folly I committed took the form of leaving everything the worldly-wise would value and running after his flute-music. So powerful was his flute that it has sounded through the centuries and it was its music that I also heard in my twenty-third year. Sri Aurobindo in a splendid line of poetry has referred to its call and to the secret sustenance and guidance it always gives us in our passage through the difficulties of life:

Ever we hear in the heart of the peril a flute go before us.

Following that lure I came to Pondicherry — to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

      To look for the Divine seems to the common eye a rather farfetched folly. Actually it is just the opposite. To drive that point home I cannot do better than bring in Sri Krishna again and make a small digression to an episode in the Mahabharata.

      You know that Draupadi was dragged to the court of Duryodhana and threatened that her sari would be taken off. Strip-tease had not yet come into fashion and so Draupadi was quite bashful. In full view of the court Duryodhana's henchman started pulling at her sari. Draupadi did not know to whom to turn. She thought of Sri Krishna the Avatar and appealed to him in her mind. She cried out: "O Lord of the highest heaven, come to my help!" There was no response. The poor girl became more desperate. She sent out again a cry: "O Master of the three worlds, help me!" No reply still — and more and more folds of the sari came out. Once again Draupadi raised her heart's plea: "O Ruler of the four quarters of the earth, rush to my rescue!" All in vain — nothing resulted. Draupadi was really at a loss. Then she cried out in a final intensity: "O You who dwell deep in my own heart, come!" At once Sri Krishna appeared before her with his hand gesturing abhaya — "Have no fear." And you know the sequel. The sari went on unwinding endlessly. Draupadi could not be stripped at all.

      Later she chided Sri Krishna: "Why did you take so long to come?" Sri Krishna sweetly and coolly replied: "If I had to

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come from the highest heaven or from the three worlds or even from the four quarters of the earth, wouldn't it take some time? But when you summoned me from your own heart, there was no distance to be crossed. Naturally I came at once."

      So, you see, to seek the Divine we do not have to go far. He dwells within ourselves. He is as near and natural as our own heart. His flute is always playing there. And hearing it there I found that Yoga was not at all an unusual thing to do. However young you may be, you can always get in touch with the Divine's luminous presence. And indeed the story of Brindavan where Sri Krishna lived and fluted is a story of young people. Sri Krishna himself was very, very young and young too were those who went after him. Most of them were girls. When I look around now, I see that most of you are young girls and thus to talk of seeking the Divine is quite apt on this occasion.

      How to get more and more in touch with the Supreme Indweller is the whole business of Sadhana. 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 offered. Suppose I put this walking stick of mine in some place. Well, even that action can be and should be a gesture of offering. 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 shutting out activity and locking yourself up in an impenetrable 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 extremely sweet and at the same time extremely strong is awakening in you. Soon you will feel as if a bright nectar 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 appear 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. This soul is a part of the Divine and has come with its spark of divinity into the substance of matter to lead through

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birth after birth the evolution of life and mind in a material form. It is this soul that links us to the Divine dwelling within ourselves. And I may tell you that to experience the true psyche in us is not only sheer bliss but a bliss that is self-existent, independent of object, circumstance or person. That is because it comes from the Divine Ananda that is infinite Existence and Consciousness. Once the true psyche has been touched, we lose the taste for other enjoyments. All other enjoyments become dust and ashes. Owing to our habitual attachments we may still go in for them, but now we know their absolute inferiority.

      It would be wonderful to live all the time in the great golden sense of the psyche. If we could do so, we should not have to do anything to convey to people that there is something in spirituality. When Vivekananda was asked how one was to know whether a man had realised God, he answered, "His very face will shine." Then, of course, there would be no need to talk — as I am doing now. The Mother precisely referred to the psychic being — which she called "the Divine incarnate deep within" — when she was questioned how we should show the reality of the Ashram life to visitors who are expected in thousands on the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo next year. She said we should live that reality — and the way to live it is to commune with the psychic being. All else, talking, etc., is useless, she added.

      Perhaps the only use of talking is to point to the necessity of going beyond all talk and being the self-expressive light of the soul.

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