Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV

Correspondence 1950

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January 13, 1950

I have found it difficult to understand fully from the facts and impressions written and wired by you what we are to think about Janak’s condition and her chances of outlasting the present long-continued crisis. On the one hand, there seems to be little hope and at any moment there may be the collapse and final end; on the other, there have been sometimes an appearance of improvement and a chance that her strong psychic resistance may bring her out of this terrible attack of many combined illnesses and other dangerous conditions surrounding her. But one thing we feel that so long as there is the slightest shadow of a hope we must fight to the end to save her. Her strong psychic resistance, her openness to the spiritual force is the element most in her favour in spite of the damage done by her past tendency to give up and leave the body; now that this has gone there is a greater chance of her coming through if she can survive the present danger created by the complications of asthma and lack of sleep and inability to take sufficient sustenance. But her other main support has been your presence and all that you have been doing for her: we feel that if she has been able to overcome these terrible assaults so long, it has been largely due to that. I can fully appreciate what a tremendous strain it has been on you and how painful to see her suffer with the feeling that has been growing on you of the hopelessness of her case in such circumstances; but without you things might have, I think, certainly would have been much worse and might have come already to the worst. Mother very strongly feels that your presence has been our best help and gives the greatest chance and she wants you to continue some time longer. It is these considerations and one other contingent, one which I will come to at the end of the letter, which made me ask you to stay a little longer. If it turns out that there is really no hope or that your remaining cannot really help and would only be an unnecessary strain on you, then it is different. Of course I will try to the end; for my experience is that even a hopeless effort in the fields of the working of the spiritual force is often better than none and can bring in the intervention of the miracle.

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One very serious difficulty has been the entire darkness in which the medical aspects of all this trouble have been wrapped by the inability of the doctors to account for the mortal seriousness of her case. None of the symptoms has been definitely accounted for, neither the osteoarthritis nor the pressure of the extra bone can have any mortal effect. The relapse into asthma is also not of itself a fatal illness and cannot account for the terrible pain in the heart, however serious may be the aggravation to which it has led owing to the sleeplessness and the inability to take sufficient sustenance. The doctors here are agreed that the bleeding from the mouth and nose can have nothing to do with any heart trouble and moreover it has now ceased. As for the heart itself one doctor finds there is no organic illness and the other speaks of dilatation but that by itself gives no clue. Dr. Satyavrata has seen the X-ray plate and noticed a shadow in the chest and suggested certain possibilities which could account for the more serious aspects that have actually developed without the doctors being able to give an elucidating diagnosis. To make certain it would be necessary to take another X-ray plate of the chest and under present conditions that is not possible. As for thrombosis if these formidable pains had been due to that, they would have finished her long ago. If one knew the exact seat and cause of illness that would help in the working of the force, because in spiritual working as well as in any other an exact direction in the light of a sure knowledge is always the most effective.

I come now to the thing from which I started. It is contingent on her coming out in spite of everything and escaping from the apparent hopelessness of the present conditions. It comes from our feeling that her stay in that house is dangerous for her and undesirable because of other considerations than those connected with her present illness. If she can recover sufficiently to make the movement possible and safe, then we think that she ought to be moved at least to another house where she can still be looked after and receive the care and comfort necessary for her. Her husband’s proposal of taking her to the Delhi hospital is of course out of the question since she refuses to submit to medical treatment and is determined to trust to the spiritual force alone; nor is medical treatment likely to be of much benefit in her case.

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But I suppose in his present attitude he would give his help and Surindar also and make the necessary arrangements. If she could recover by that time so much as to be able to leave Jubbulpore, that would be much the best; but this much at least we think to be very desirable. I will not enter into the reasons; some of them must be obvious but there are others of an occult order. It would not be necessary for you to wait long enough to carry out this arrangement yourself provided you get the cooperation of Mulkraj and Surindar.

I will write further if it is necessary, but I must send this letter at once if it has to go today.

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January 21, 1950

I have just finished hearing the Second Act of your drama of Sri Chaitanya; there is much fine poetry in it and the dramatic interest of the dialogue and of the presentation of character seems to me considerable. We have not had time yet to read the last Act; we shall do that tomorrow and then I can write about your drama with more finality, but it is already turning into a fine play. As for the historical question, I do not consider that any objections which might be raised from that standpoint would have much value. Poetry, drama, fiction also are not bound to be historically accurate; they cannot indeed develop themselves successfully unless they deal freely with any historical material they may choose to include or take for their subject. One can be faithful to history if one likes but even then one has to expand and deal creatively with characters and events, otherwise the work will come to nothing or little. In many of his dramas Shakespeare takes names from history or local tradition, but uses them as he chooses; he places his characters in known countries and surroundings, but their stories are either his own inventions, or the idea only is borrowed from facts and the rest is of his own making: or else he indulges in pure fantasy and cares nothing even for geographical accuracy or historical possibility. It is true that sometimes he follows closely the authorities he had at his disposal, such as Holin-shed or another and in plays like Julius Caesar he sticks to the main events and keeps many of the details, but not so as to fetter the play of his imagination. So I don’t think you need worry at all about either historians or biographers, even if “Chaitanya Charitamrita “ could be regarded as a biography. That is all, I think, for the present. I shall write again after hearing the Third Act of your drama.

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About Janak, I can write nothing today. Yesterday’s developments were a serious blow after there had been so much promise or at least some chance of better things.

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January 23, 1950

We have finished reading your Chaitanya. The Third Act which is the most remarkable of the three confirms the impression already made by the other two of a very fine and successful play well-written and constructed with many outbursts of high poetry and outstanding in its dramatic interest and its thought substance. The third is original in its design and structure, especially its idea, admirably conceived and worked out, of a whole scene of action with many persons and much movement shown in the vision of a single character sitting alone in her room; it was difficult to work out but it has fitted in extremely well. It has also at the same time a remarkable combination of the three unities of the Greek drama into which this distant scene, though not too distant, manages to dovetail very well – the unity of one place, sometimes one spot in the Greek play or a small restricted area, one time, one developing action completed in that one time and spot, an action rigorously developed and unified in its interest. Indeed, the play as a whole has this unity of action in a high degree.

Advocates of the old style drama might object to the great length of the discussions as detrimental to compactness and vividness of dramatic interest and dramatic action and they might object too that the action – though this does not apply to the Jagai Madhai episode – is more subjective and psychological than the external objective successions of happenings or interchanges represented on a stage would seem to demand; this was the objection made to Shaw’s most characteristic and important play. But where the dramatic interest is itself of a subjective and psychological character involving more elaboration of thought and speech than of rapid or intensive happenings and activities, this kind of objection is obviously invalid; what matters is how the subjective interest, the play or development of ideas, or if high ideals are involved that call to the soul is presented and made effective. Here it is great spiritual ideals and their action on the mind and lives of human beings that are put before us and all that matters is how they are presented and made living in their appeal. Here there is, I think, full success and that entirely justifies the method of the drama.

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For the rest I have only heard once rapidly read the play in three acts and it is not possible with that short reading to pass judgment on details of a purely literary character, so on that I can only give my personal impression. A drama has to accommodate itself to different levels and intensities of expression proper to the circumstances and different characters, moods and events: but here too, I think, the handling is quite successful. I believe the verdict must be, from every point of view, an admirable “Chaitanya. “

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January 24, 1950

An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious of the presence and power of the Divine born in him or descended into him and governing from within his will and life and action; he feels identified inwardly with this divine power and presence.

A Vibhuti is supposed to embody some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act with great force in the world, but that is all that is necessary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great, but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling Divinity. This is the distinction we can gather from the Gita which is the main authority on this subject. If we follow this distinction, we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him; Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna being within him. But Chaitanya’s case is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared himself a bhakta of Krishna and nothing more, but in great moments he manifested Krishna, grew luminous in mind and body and was Krishna himself and spoke and acted as the Lord. His contemporaries saw in him an Avatar of Krishna, a manifestation of the Divine Love.

Shankara and Vivekananda were certainly Vibhutis; they cannot be reckoned as more, though as Vibhutis they were very great.

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February 2, 1950

It was not my intention* to question in any degree Chait-anya’s position as an Avatar of Krishna and the Divine Love. That character of the manifestation appears very clearly from all the accounts about him and even, if what is related about the appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts of the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable in the story of the Avatar. As for Sri Ramakrishna, the manifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded from day to day by so competent an observer as Mahendranath Gupta.⁴⁹ I would not care to enter into any comparison as between these two great spiritual personalities; both exercised an extraordinary influence and did something supreme in their own sphere.

* Dilipda’s note: Sri Aurobindo writes in his Essays on the Gita in the Chapter entitled, “The Process of Avatarhood “:

“But also the higher divine consciousness of the Purushottama may itself descend into the humanity and that of the Jiva disappear into it. This is said by his contemporaries to have happened in the occasional transfigurations of Chaitanya when he who in his normal consciousness was only the lover and devotee of the Lord and rejected all deification, became in these abnormal moments the Lord himself and so spoke and acted, with all the outflooding light and love and power of the divine Presence. “

Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple in a letter dated November 13, 1936:

“He [Ramakrishnal never wrote an autobiography – what he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya. “

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February 11, 1950*

You will have with you for your work in Delhi my blessing and the Mother’s and all the spiritual support we can give. You can convey our blessings also to Jahar.⁵⁰ As to Janak Kumari’s coming here for the Darshan in this February, we have every sympathy with her desire, but the time is short and the journey a long and trying one and it is very doubtful whether it would be at all advisable or possible for her to make the attempt. It may be better for her to give herself time for full recovery of her health and strength so that she can be safely here in April when the next Darshan comes.

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April 4, 1950*

Certainly I will do all I can to help you to realise Krishna. There is nothing I want for you more than that, for the realisation of the Divine is the one thing needful and the rest is desirable only in so far as it helps or leads towards that or when it is realised, extends and manifests the realisation. Manifestation and organisation of the whole life for the divine work – first, the sadhana personal and collective necessary for the realisation and a common life of God-realised men, secondly for help to the world to move towards that, and to live in the Light – is the whole meaning and purpose of my Yoga. But the realisation is the first need and it is that round which all the rest moves, for apart from it all the rest would have no meaning. Neither the Mother nor myself ever dreamed or could dream of putting anything else in its place or neglecting it for anything else; most of the Mother’s day is in fact given to helping the sadhaks in one way or another towards that end, most of the rest is occupied with work for the Ashram which cannot be neglected or allowed to collapse; for this too is work for the Divine. As for the gymnasium, the playground and the rest of it, the Mother has made it plain from the beginning what place she assigned to these things; she has never done anything so imbecile as to replace essential things by these accessories. But of this I don’t wish to speak just now; I will confine myself to things of more pressing importance.

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I may stress one point, however, that there need not be only one way to the realisation of the Divine. If one does not succeed or has not yet succeeded in reaching him, feeling him or seeing him by the established process of meditation or by other processes like japa, yet one may have made progress towards it by the frequent welling up of bhakti in the heart or a constantly greater enlargement of it in the consciousness or by work for the Divine and dedication in service. You have certainly progressed in these two directions, increased in devotion and shown your capacity for service. You have also tried to get rid of obstacles in your vital nature and so effect a purification not without success in several difficult directions. The path of surrender is indeed difficult, but if one perseveres in it with sincerity, there is bound to be some success and a partial overcoming or diminution of the ego which may help greatly a further advance upon the way. I can see no sufficient reason for the discouragement which so often overtakes you and sometimes makes you think that you are not cut out for the path; to indulge such a thought is always a mistake. A too ready proneness to discouragement and a consequent despondency is one of the weaknesses of your vital nature and to get rid of it would be a great help. One must learn to go forward on the path of Yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency – anirvinnacetasa. Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the divine way. The attitude must be, “The Divine has promised Himself to me if I cleave to Him always; that I will never cease to do whatever may come. “

You have expressed in one of your letters your sense of the present darkness in the world round us and this must have been one of the things that contributed to your being so badly upset and unable immediately to repel the attack. For myself, the dark conditions do not discourage me or convince me of the vanity of my will to “help the world “, for I knew they had to come; they were there in the world-nature and had to rise up so that they might be exhausted or expelled so that a better world freed from them might be there. After all, something has been done in the outer field and that may help or prepare for getting something done in the inner field also. For instance, India is free and her freedom was necessary if the divine work was to be done. The difficulties that surround her now and may increase for a time, especially with regard to the Pakistan imbroglio, were also things that had to come and to be cleared out.

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Nehru’s efforts to prevent the inevitable clash are not likely to succeed for more than a short time and so it is not necessary to give him the slap you wanted to go to Delhi and administer to him. Here too there is sure to be a full clearance, though unfortunately, a considerable amount of human suffering in the process is inevitable. Afterwards the work for the divine will become more possible and it may well be that the dream, if it is a dream of leading the world towards the spiritual Light, may even become a reality. So I am not disposed even now, in these dark conditions to consider my will to help the world as condemned to failure.

I hope you have been able to recover or have begun to recover from the mass of suggestions that fell upon you with regard to the Mother’s relations with you and her feeling towards you which have not varied from a constant loving kindness, affection and good will. Especially since the time you returned from Bengal her appreciation of the good work you have done for us there has been constant and never varied for a moment. The suggestions that fell upon you were certainly the result of a passing despondency and nervous upset: there was nothing on our side, no coldness, no displeasure, no indifference and, [as] these or any similar feelings were not there, and there never was any reason for her feeling them, she could not have and had no wish to manifest anything of the kind either by gesture or otherwise. These were the suggestions of an adverse force which wanted to push you away from her and create a distance between her and you so that you might be discouraged in your sadhana and, if possible, induced to go away from us. It is impossible that we should ever accept the idea of your leaving us and unthinkable that we should ever admit any sunderance between us. This attack upon you, the depression and nervous upset and all these suggestions were part of a general attack which has been raging against us from adverse forces for some time past, but I hope that the worst of it is over for you and that you will be able to go on untroubled in your sadhana. It is needless then to insist that she never thought of you as excluded from her Light which is also mine; that Light will be with you and will, I hope, help to light you on your path towards the realisation you long for.

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April 13, 1950

Yes, certainly, you can withdraw into solitude as you propose and it is the best way for you; you can also continue it after the first spell of a week. Also Indira can continue to do the typing work for you and you need not have the least hesitation, nor she either with regard to that work. I was unable to speak to the Mother in private about these matters until late this evening after her return from the playground, but your letter was not available at the time and she will not be free till too late tonight for a reply. She wants to hear your letter tomorrow morning and after that I shall be able to give a full reply. Meanwhile I answer immediately on the two points which call for an immediate decision; there you have the Mother’s full support and approval and mine also.

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April 14, 1950

I was glad to get your letter and I think it is not necessary for me to write more than a few lines since all that is of practical importance in these matters has been sufficiently settled already – your withdrawal into solitude, Indira’s position and her work and the typing of your play. One thing only remains to say a word about: the Mother told me that she had already spoken to Rani,⁵¹ not this time but on a former occasion and pointed out to her that the attitude of a sadhika claiming to take possession of a sadhak in this way was untenable and contrary to the spirit of our Yoga. She fully recognised it and promised to take the right course and made an earnest attempt to do it. The Mother thinks her present action is only a temporary relapse and she will take the right course after a time, but she thinks she will take it up herself and that will be better than pressing her at the moment. So don’t say anything to Rani about it; she is fairly sure to come right in the end of her own accord.

My love and blessings

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April 22, 1950

Mother approved of your proposal about Indira’s departure to her father’s place and her return here after the heat is over. We give her our blessings for both her departure and her return and her stay over there. We hope that while over there her health will be finally reestablished and all physical weakness will disappear.

Our love and blessings

*

May 7, 1950

There would be nothing impossible in Mirabai manifesting in this way through the agency of Indira’s trance, provided she is still sufficiently in touch with this world to accompany Krishna where he manifests and in that case there would be no impossibility, either in her taking the part she did in Indira’s vision of her and her action. If Indira wrote in an old Hindi with which she was not ordinarily familiar or in which she was not used to write and it was under the influence of Mirabai that would be a fairly strong evidence of the reality of Mirabai’s presence and influence on her. If Mirabai was actually present her choosing the song presents no difficulty and Indira’s not knowing about it would not prevent that happening. If Mirabai was merely an image in Indira’s mind of trance, then it will be different; but even if she was not actually present, Indira and her trance might have drawn from Mirabai’s personality which we must still suppose to be existing in Krishna’s world a living figure and power of her which produced these phenomena. This is less probable, but it is just possible.

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May 7, 1950

I have been writing the continuation of the morning’s letter, but have not been able to finish; it is now midnight and I have not been able as yet to finish. I shall continue tomorrow morning and I hope you will not mind this delay.

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June 2, 1950

I am afraid I am unable at present to throw any new light on this matter that puzzles you, that is why I was not writing anything about it. It is evident on the fact stated by you that Indira is receiving inspiration for her Hindi songs from the Mira of her vision and that her consciousness and the consciousness of Mira are collaborating on some plane superconscient to the ordinary human mind, an occult plane; also this influence is not an illusion but a reality, otherwise the thing could not happen as it does in actual fact. Such things do happen on the occult plane, they are not new and unprecedented. But more than that it is difficult to say, and that explains nothing – it simply states the facts. It may be that if we wait for further light from the actual development of the phenomenon, it will eventually clear up the riddle. I hope I may be able to throw more light on the subject hereafter.

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June 11, 1950

I don’t quite know what comment to make on this dream or what it is you want to know about it, especially as, although it has a general sense, the precise import escapes me at many points. The relation she wants us to suppose between herself and Indira especially in this matter of rebirth, baffles me not a little, for she does not speak as Indira or as a part of her personality but throughout as herself as a distinct person intervening in her experiences and speaking to her and inspiring her, also intervening in your action and the experiences of others. Ordinarily I would take it that she is Mirabai, the Rajput queen liberated by a sort of salokya mukti and living with Krishna in Goloka or a divine Brindavan and able to accompany in any manifestation he chose to make of himself through the subtle physical to any of us in the human world.

That, I think, would be a satisfactory occult explanation of all that has been happening recently and would agree with the phenomenon of the inspiration of these songs and poems, with the trance-visions of Indira and the rest of it. But how can she be with Krishna liberated into a divine world and at the same time be born here in a human body as men get reborn under some law of karma?

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It is only if she is a shakti of Krishna able to remain with him and at the same time put an emanation of herself in a human body through a physical birth that the dual phenomenon could be partly understood. Otherwise ideas or memories about rebirth and the identifications accompanying them, although quite possible, have ordinarily to be examined with care because unless the memories are precise and indubitable, there is often much room left for imagination and error to enter in. So I have thought it best up to now to avoid any definite conclusion in this matter and to wait for further light.

In any case the poems Mirabai has written through Indira – for that much seems to be clear – are indeed beautiful and the whole phenomenon of Indira’s writing them in a language she does not well know and in a metrical prosody of which she is not the master is truly remarkable and very convincing of the genuineness of the whole thing. The Mother has sanctioned the publication of her poems in our press and so, that would be all right.

(From Indira Devi to Sri Aurobindo)

August 12, 1950

I write this not to thank you for the Divine compassion but to express my deep gratitude for making me conscious of the Divine Grace.

I am grateful to you not for your Mercy, for the Divine to be merciful is nothing new, but I thank you, Mother and Dada for the awakening that has come over me – the light you have given me to see and feel how blessed I am and how fortunate to be protected and tenderly guarded by the Divine.

How can I express my gratitude to you for your blessings and help. Your blessings and help are always there for all, but I thank you with all my heart for giving me the power to see how unworthy and undeserving I am of your help and how generously the Divine helps; helping those most who deserve least. Dada has made me see that the evil suggestions come only to harm me – though nothing can harm me now – darkness cannot envelope me when I face the glorious light of my Guru’s grace. It was a folly to even think of leaving before Darshan day. I have brought myself as an offering to be laid at the feet of Gurudev and Dada on Darshan day, and how can an offering how so ever humble be taken back from the temple door.

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Gurudev, I pray for the strength to be more and more loyal and sincere in my devotion and worship. Please make me worthy of the love and kindness showered on me by Dada, not to mention yourself and Mother.

Pranams,

*

(All subsequent letters are from Mother)

December 27, 1950

Read carefully your letter and understand quite well your point. But I do not see how I can replace you so far as Indira is concerned. She needs you and you alone can give her the help she needs. Of course I am always with you and will still more be with you – of that you can be quite certain.

With my love and blessings for you and for her.

PS. I can add that I am quite sure you will always do the right thing in connection with her.

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