Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II

Barindra Kumar Ghose’s Reminiscences

Since his arrival in India in 1893 Sri Aurobindo used to visit our maternal grandfather Rishi Rajnarain Bose's house at Deoghar. My first meeting with him took place there. My patriotic inspiration was largely derived from his deep and charming personality. We used to go out for long in the mornings and in the evenings. Sri Aurobindo would speak then in fervent language about the suffering of our Motherland, her degradation and the need to free her from her shackles.

Sri Aurobindo himself initiated me by placing an open sword and the Gita in my hand and reading out an oath written in Sanskrit on a piece of paper. The gist of the oath was this: "As long as there is life in my body as long as this country is not liberated from the fetters of subjection to a foreign power, I vow to carry on the mission of this revolution. If ever I give out any word or fact of this secret society or harm the interests ( organisation in any way, I shall forfeit my life at the hands of the assassin assigned by the society."

After being there [in Barodaj for a year I came back to Bengal with the idea of preaching the cause of independence as a Political Missionary. I moved about from District to District and started gymnasiums. There young men were brought together to learn physical exercises and study politics I went on preaching the cause of independence for nearly two years. By that time I had been through almost all the Districts of Bengal; I got tired of it and went back to Baroda and studied for one year. I then returned to Bengal convinced that a purely political propaganda would not do for the country and that people must be trained up spiritually to face dangers. I had an idea of starting a religious institution. By that time the Swaideshi and Boycott agitation had begun. I thought of taking men under my own instruction to teach them and so I began to collect this band which has been arrested.

[In Alipore Jail] I was in a state of sweet self-intoxication, almost beside myself in a sort of overwhelming beatitude, when I was counting my last days, with the halter round my neck and shut up in the 'condemned cell'. I was then face to face with Death, and alone and away from the world, I was playing with it most amorously and trying to snatch the veil of the beloved one. For pain, its messenger had already whispered into my ears, "Behind that dark veil there is the most radiant and soul-entrancing beauty."

[In the Andamans] our sorrows were many. The greatest of them was the want of company. The orders were strict that we should not talk to each other, even though we might be close together and in the same block. What a wail we smothered in our hearts when we walked together, ate together and worked together and yet could not open our mouths!

And yet our delight was not small even in the midst of such sorrows. For it is a thing that belongs to one's own self. One may gather it as much as one likes from the inexhaustible fund that is within and drink of it to one's heart's content. Not that, however, the lashes of sorrow were an illusion to us. Even the Maya of Vedanta did not always explain them away, so often had they a solemn ring of reality about them. But a tree requires for its growth not only the touch of the gentle spring, but the rude shock of storm and rain and the scalding of the summer heat. Man remains frail and weak and ill developed if he has an easy and even life. The hammer of God that builds up a soul in divine strength and might is one of the Supreme realities.