Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV

Foreword

Sri Aurobindo was surely one of the most remarkable personalities to emerge anywhere in the world in the 20^th century. A brilliant scholar in England in his youth, he returned to India after 14 years and immediately became deeply involved in the freedom movement. When Lord Curzon implemented the controversial decision for the partition of Bengal – the Bang Bhang – Sri Aurobindo left his academic assignment in Baroda and moved to Calcutta where for five years he shone like a meteor in the darkening sky. In 1910, after an epiphany in the Alipore Jail he left for Pondicherry where he lived for the next 40 years until he passed away in 1950. During those 40 years he produced his great classics including The Life Divine, The Human Cycle, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and the extraordinary epic poem Savitri.

The Mother joined him as his spiritual collaborator in 1920 and the number of disciples grew substantially. In 1926 he ceased meeting with them and withdrew into his private chambers where for 24 years he pursued his extraordinary adventure of consciousness into what he called the Supra-mental plane, his attempt being to bring down this great force and fix it in the real consciousness so that it could help in speeding up the evolutionary destiny of humanity.

Interestingly, there is a common belief that during those 24 years Sri Aurobindo was not in touch with his disciples. In fact as is evident from the 3^rd volume published so far of Sri Aurobindo to Dilip, he wrote letters constantly, and in particular was engaged in a massive correspondence with one of his favourite and favoured disciples, the famous Bengali poet and writer Dilip Kumar Roy

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whom he called “a friend and a son”. In these letters, which are full of humour and humanity, Sri Aurobindo covers a wide range of matters and ideas. For the first time the unabridged letters of Sri Aurobindo to Dilip Kumar are being published jointly by Hari Krishna Mandir and Mira Aditi. This is the fourth volume of the series.

Here I must recount my own close association with Dilipda. It was through his book Among the Great that, in the early 50s, I first learnt of Sri Aurobindo and of Dilipda’s very close personal friend, an English swami Sri Krishnaprem who lived in an Ashram in Mirtola near Almora. In fact I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dilipda, because it was this book as well as a subsequent one that he sent me entitled Sri Aurobindo Came to Me that aroused my interest in Sri Aurobindo and led me later to do my doctoral thesis on the Political Thought of Sri Aurobindo which as been published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan under the title Prophet of Indian Nationalism. This also led me to visit Pondicherry where I had the privilege of several meetings with the Mother.

Also, the book led me to enter into correspondence with Sri Krishnaprem, visit Mirtola and interact with one of the most remarkable persons that I have ever met. The correspondence between Sri Krishnaprem and Dilipda is most charming and fascinating and has been reproduced extensively in many of Dilipda’s books.

I had occasion to meet with Dilipda and his talented disciple Indira Devi on many occasions right until he passed away, and to hear him singing bhajansin his distinctive style of which Sri Aurobindo was so fond. I would meet both of them whenever an occasion arose, in Delhi, Hardwar and elsewhere. After Dilipda left his body I continued to interact with Indira Devi who herself was a highly spiritually developed person. All in all, therefore, Dilip Kumar Roy has had a major impact on my life and I consider it a privilege to be asked to write a short foreword for the Fourth Volume of these letters. They represent a treasure trove of inspiration and interest for spiritual seekers around the world and will richly repay the reader. I close by paying my deep personal homage to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as well as to the memory of Dilipda and Indira Devi.

Dr. Karan Singh 29 February 2008

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