Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master

Chapter 16

Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Compassionate Understanding

After long chapters of undiluted humour we have at last reached our penultimate station. We have by now had sufficient acquaintance with different aspects of the genius of humour that Sri. Aurobindo was. Whatever subject or situation or character his 'jollity' has touched has been made to shed sparkling laughter. His witty remarks, his ingenious word-play, his novel manipulation of ideas, and his production of pure fun almost out of nothing - all these have come to us as so many pleasant surprises and have helped to enliven our thoughts, sublimate our feelings and afford us relief against the imperfections and sadness of life that weigh heavily on anyone of keen and high sensibility.

Now, in this last but one chapter of our book, we shall come across another aspect of Sri Aurobindo's humour, - by far the highest and deepest and richest form at that, - where humour and human kindliness get fused in a close identity. This sublime humour does not betray even in the least any spitefulness, rudeness or personal animus. Indeed, it rises beyond the individual and the personal to contact the universal and thus acquires a total perspective. Then, as a detached and at the same time an amused observer it looks at the foibles of men and the imperfections of life as they are now and finds there materials to heartily laugh at. This humour does not seek to vex the world but divert it with a tolerant appraisal. It is not naively oblivious of the incongruities of man's conduct or of his concomitant weaknesses. It does not try to ignore the gap between the actually real and the ideally desirable. But it does not get irritated at that. For it is wise and sympathetic and kindly. It knows how to relax and laugh. It can even see the ludicrous in the pathos of life and mingle smiles and tears together. For it has the high philosophical reaction to adversity coupled with an

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innate optimism about the future. It does not wryly condemn man's folly but 'constructively' laughs at it. It has the dexterity of bringing the smile to our lips even when there is the tear on our eye. For, a compassionate understanding is its hallmark.

The following pages will provide us with specimens of this sort of sublime humour full of mellow geniality, all issuing forth from the pen of Sri Aurobindo. His incarceration in the hellish milieu of a solitary cell in the Alipore jail because of his participation in the freedom struggle of his motherland, his own disciples' ignorant and foolish digs at his philosophy and sadhana, a vainglorious intellectual's ill-informed criticism or the totally wayward behaviour of an erratic devotee, all, without exception, not only left Sri Aurobindo unruffled and benign but brought instead from him a shower of heart-warming Grace suffused with wondrous humour. And it was always so exhila-riting and invigorating for the recipient!

In this connection it should not be amiss, we think, if we quote in extenso a few extracts from Dilip Kumar's writings in which the repentant disciple ruefully describes his past conduct towards Sri Aurobindo and the latter's invariably kind and generous response to him. These extracts are revealing as regards what Amal Kiran, another disciple of Sri Aurobindo, has spoken of as the Master's "limidess understanding, compassion, mercy and love, his forgiveness and forbearance without end... that always flowed from the illumined and blissful depths of his being."¹

Here is what Dilip Kumar writes:

(1) "As he [Sri Aurobindo] knew to his cost what human nature was and how liable to be heading for disaster in its cussed moods, he always tried to efface promptly the aftermath of a froissement which even a gentle correction often brought in its train. So time and again he came out with the salve of his humour and irony after having dealt a blow.... For example after one such gende rebuke he went out of his way to plead for his inability to finish two promised letters in the small hours of the morning - one for myself and one for a friend of mine

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whom I had sponsored.

" 'The lights went out, the lights went out!' Sri Aurobindo hastened to write on the following morning. 'So I have to wait till tomorrow. Man proposes but the Pondicherry Municipality disposes. But there will be grace tomorrow, Pondicherry Municipality volente.' Then he went on to add the same night: J°y! !l°y! J°y!!' I have done it - both letters written - done they are this time'."²

(2) "What I wish to stress here is not simply his tolerance and patience, nor even his peerless capacity for understanding the rebel's point of view, but a gift, amounting to genius, of appraising in imaginative sympathy the latter's position as a questioning seeker and then coming down to his level of intelligence and receptivity. To give an instance in point:

"I had come to the Ashram with a strong mental formation in favour of asceticism. So... I wanted to debouch into inaction of the sattwic type, to shine as a living example of inaction, bhakti and wisdom!... [I wondered] why must Sri Aurobindo go on browbeating Nirod, the charming pessimist, with his Aurobindonian gospel of incessant karmal... As I went eloquent over the bliss of inaction, often... I looked like a disciple who even after accepting Sri Aurobindo's radiant lead, desired him (sometimes unwittingly, at others perversely!) to lead me in the way I thought proper. Did I not presume, time and time again, to give him a lead, as it were, as to how I should be led and to offer guidance about how I was to be guided?...

"Month after weary month I challenged him to prove his thesis... and insisted on flinging a deeper defiance every time he leaned down to accord me a kindlier hand-clasp. I aimed at him my crude jibes and he came down unperturbed to my level and met me with his smiling repartees. I doubted him but he blessed me in return.... Those who have even once come into contact with an authentic Guru can only testify to his overwhelming tolerance....

"But could it be right to take such liberties with one's Guru (and what a Guru!) because he tolerated them? And was it

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seemly to assume such a tone of banter if not irreverence, treating him as though he were something like an honourable colleague in the Parliament of Words...? So I apologised to Sri Aurobindo in a postscript: wouldn't he pardon my unpardonable temerity?..."³

Sri Aurobindo's indulgent reply to the above:

"Dilip, I do not understand why you should assume that I am displeased with the karma question. I castigated or fustigated Nirod not from displeasure nor even 'more in sorrow than in anger', but for fun and also from a high sense of duty; for that erring mortal was bold enough to generalise from his very limited experience and impose it as a definite law in Yoga, discrediting in the process my own immortal philosophy! What then could I do but to jump on him in a spirit of genial massacre?"⁴

Such was Sri Aurobindo, the Master with unparalleled tolerance. And how to characterise his humour except to say that it flowed down in soothing streams from the sublime heights of compassionate understanding? The latter portion of Sri Aurobindo's above reply is as illuminating as it is delicious as regards its humorously ironical tone. This is how he continued his rejoinder:

Sri Aurobindo riding his gleaming and dazzling chimera!

"I am afraid, Dilip, your letter too does very much the same thing. For in spite of your disclaimer, you practically come to the conclusion that all my nonsense about Integral Yoga and karma being as much a way to realisation as jnana and bhakti is either a gleaming chimera or practicable only by Avatars or else a sheer laborious superfluity - since one can jump straight into the Divine through the open door of bhakti or sweep majestically into him by the easy road of meditation, so why this scramble through the jungle of karma by which nobody reached anywhere? The old Yogas are true, are they not? Then why a new-fangled and more difficult one with this unheard-of talk

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about Supramental and God knows what else?

"There can be no answer to that; for I can only answer by a repetition of the statement of my own knowledge and experience. That is what I have done in my today's answer to Nirod and perhaps that amounts only to a perverse obstinacy in riding my gleaming and dazzling chimera and forcing my nuisance of a superfluity on a world weary of itself and anxious to get an easy short cut to the Divine. Unfortunately, I do not believe in short cuts - at any rate none ever led me where I wanted to go. However, let it rest there."⁵

Readers must have surely noted that in passages like the above, light and delight mingle together as inseparably as warp and weft. Let us quote here a few more passages from the writings of Sri Aurobindo manifesting the same quality of elevated sublime humour. These excerpts are from Sri Aurobindo's correspondence with Dilip Kumar.

(1)Mental consciousness viz-d-vis Divine Consciousness:

"I would ask one simple question of those who would make the intellectual mind the standard and judge of spiritual experience.

"Is the Divine something less than Mind or is He something greater? Is mental consciousness with its groping enquiry, endless argument, unquenchable doubt, stiff and unplastic logic something superior or even equal to the Divine Consciousness or is it something inferior in its action and status?

"If it is greater, then there is no reason to seek after the Divine. If it is equal, then spiritual experience is quite superfluous. But if it is inferior, how can it challenge, judge, make the Divine stand as an accused or a witness before the tribunal, summon it to appear as a candidate for admission before a Board of Examiners or pin it down like an insect under its examining microscope?"⁶

(2)DK's attitude characterised:

"The difficulty you feel or any sadhaka feels about sadhana is

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not really a question of meditation versus bhakti versus works, it is a difficulty of the attitude to be taken, the approach or whatever you call it. Yours seems to be characterised on one side by a tremendous effort in the mind, on the other a gloomy certitude in the vital which seems to watch and mutter under the breath if not aloud: 'Yes, yes, go ahead, my fine fellow, but -it will come to nothing,' and then at the end of meditation: 'What did I tell you, hasn't it come to nothing?' A vital so ready to despair that even after a 'glorious' flood of poetry it uses the occasion to preach the gospel of defeatism! I have passed through most of the difficulties of the sadhakas, but I cannot recollect to have looked on delight of poetical creation or concentration in it as something undivine and a cause for despair. This seems to be excessive. Even Shankaracharya would not agree with you here!"⁷

"Even Shankaracharya would not agree with you here." — What a delightful stroke! And how unexpected!

(3) Sri Ramakrishna becoming a half-full jar?

"You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But something puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction! - you see you are not the only puzzled person in the world. Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last few years of his life in talking about the Divine and receiving disciples - was that not action, not work? Did Ramakrishna become a half-full jar after being a full one or was he never full? Did he get far away from God and so begin work? Or had he reached a condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do, from the divine realisation, the divine works and speak, from the inner consciousness, of the divine world? If the last, then perhaps, in spite of the dictum, his example at least is rather in my favour....

"It is not the form of the work itself or mere activity but the consciousness and Godward will behind it that are the essence

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of Karma Yoga; the work is only the necessary instrumentation for the union with the Master of works, the transit to the pure will and power of Light from the will and power of the Ignorance....

"But I am unable to explain further today - so I break off these divagations. I am rather too overburdened with 'work' these days to have much time for the expression of 'knowledge'. This is simply a random answer."⁸

With what spontaneous ease Sri Aurobindo moves from the comic to the serious and back again to the comic! And how delectable and unexpected is the subtle dig in the last paragraph as quoted above!

(4) The Supramental is grand, aloof, cold and austere?

Dilip Kumar: "... I equate your Supramental with something grim and withering like a ruthless Dictator out to do good but with a devastating velocity, riding roughshod over all our cherished ideals of a sweet and liberal living and perhaps making us despise this beautiful earth as an utterly unsuitable place for its Kingdom of thunder and lightning...."

Sri Aurobindo: "It is curious that you admit your ignorance of what the Supramental can be, and yet in these moods you not only pronounce categorically what it is like, but reject emphatically my experience about it as if of no practical validity or not valid for anybody but myself!

"I have not insisted, I have answered only casually because I am not asking you now to be non-human and divine much less to be supramental; but as you are always returning to this point when you have these attacks and making it the pivot - or at least a main support - of your depression, I am obliged to answer.

"The Supramental is not grand, aloof, cold and austere; it is not something opposed to or inconsistent with a full vital and physical manifestation; on the contrary, it carries in it the only possibilities of the full fullness of the vital force and the physical life on earth.... The Supramental is simply the Truth-Conscious-

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ness and what it brings in its descent is the full truth of life, the full truth of consciousness in Matter. One has indeed to rise to high summits to reach it, but the more one rises, the more one can bring down below.

"No doubt, life and body have not to remain the ignorant, imperfect, impotent things they are now; but why should a change to a fuller life-power, a fuller body-power be considered something aloof, cold and undesirable?

"The utmost ananda the body and life are now capable of is a brief excitement of the vital mind or the nerves or the cells which is limited, imperfect and soon passes; with the supramental change all the cells, nerves, vital forces, embodied mental forces can become filled with a thousandfold ananda, capable of an intensity of bliss which passes description and which need not fade away. How aloof, repellent and undesirable!

"The Supramental love means an intense unity of soul with soul, mind with mind, life with life, and an entire flooding of the body-consciousness with the physical experience of oneness, the presence of the Beloved in every part, in every cell of the body. Is that too something aloof and grand and undesirable?

"With the supramental change, the very thing on which you insist, the possibility of the free physical meeting of the embodied Divine with the sadhaka without conflict of forces and without undesirable reactions becomes possible, assured and free. That too is, I suppose, something aloof and undesirable?

"I could go on for pages, but this is enough for the moment."⁹

Readers interested in the art of humour must have noted with pleasure how smoothly and unobtrusively Sri Aurobindo turns an otherwise serious discourse on the Supramental into a mildly ironical one, simply by the artifice of addition of a constant refrain at the end of successive paragraphs: "And that too is something aloof and cold and undesirable!" And this refrain possesses such a telling effect!

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Let us close this miscellany from DK's correspondence with a remarkable 'dialogue' between Sri Aurobindo and his errant disciple: this will show to us to what an absurd extent a blind and ignorant consciousness could travel in order to level preposterous charges against Sri Aurobindo; it will also unmistakably demonstrate what an unparalleled Guru Sri Aurobindo was, with how much of mercy, forbearance, forgiveness and unbounded compassion, and how he confronted and rebutted these silly charges with his usual salve of peerless humour. And this happened in the closing year of his physical life, in 1950 to be precise.

The background to the exchange between Sri Aurobindo and his disciple is as follows.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram was formally established at Pondicherry in the year 1926. Aspirants started flocking to the Ashram and stayed there with the avowed intention of practising the Integral Yoga as propounded by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. But from the early forties, due to exigencies created by the Second World War, young children too started coming to the Ashram. For their proper education the Mother established a school in the Ashram in the year 1943. And then to cope with the necessity of providing the growing number of students with facilities for physical education, a well-organised Physical Education Department was created in 1949. A regular course of gymnastic Marching for half an hour every evening became very soon a regular feature of the physical education imparted. Also, a quarterly journal started with the title of Bulletin of Physical Education. At the request of the Mother, Sri Aurobindo wrote a "Message" for the inaugural number of the "Bulletin". The two subsequent issues of the journal carried two other articles by Sri Aurobindo: these were respectively entitled "Perfection of the Body" and "The Divine Body".

In course of time many senior Ashramites too joined these physical educational activities but a few others resisted the move. They not only refused to participate in any physical education but went to the extent of dubbing any such activity as

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totally contrary to the spirit and principle of the Ashram. In their perverted logic they felt that the Mother was unwittingly trying to alter the 'spiritual' character of the Ashram. Following the subtle suggestion of the Hostile Forces they wanted to create a cleavage between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. And it so happened that Dilip Kumar being a highly gifted intellectual among them and being very close to Sri Aurobindo they chose him as their effective spokesman. Dilip Kumar took the bait and started sliding down the slippery path. He rationalised and legitimised all his biased antipathy against physical education in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and went to the absurd extent of suggesting to Sri Aurobindo that even he, at the persuasion of the Mother, had come to neglect the spiritual aspect of his Ashram and chosen to devote attention to physical education! And so on and so forth with all the perverse arguments human imbecility could conjure up!

We have entitled our present chapter "Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Compassionate Understanding". To understand in full the unimaginable range of this compassionate understanding let us now listen to Dilip Kumar's own account of the whole affair and then read Sri Aurobindo's long rejoinder to the charges levelled against him.

Dilip Kumar's Account

"No letters that Sri Aurobindo has written to me all these years were as soft with humility as his three or four recent ones on sports.... Yes, his humility and unassertiveness going hand in hand with firm vindication of his own vision....

"When the sports and athletics were first sponsored by the Mother and were being organised under her tireless personal supervision, I found myself, strangely, resenting their trespass into our peaceful Ashram.... from the very start I looked askance at these 'frivolous goings on' as I called them and vowed myself never to join the sports... As I strongly approved of my own wry mood, I found plausible arguments enough against what I decided to castigate.... I had indeed complained

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against the Mother many a time in the past but I do not think that I had ever attacked her so bitterly and defiantly tuning myself into a heroic pitch and flaunting a mood which nevertheless my heart intermittently suspected as being of the nature of a tragicomedy.... Mother had made it clear from the very start that joining the sports was not compulsory... And yet I went on inveighing against the Western ways being planted into our spiritual soil...

"But, calm as ever, Sri Aurobindo went on pointing out to me the unconscious paralogisms as well as wilful sophisms I perpetrated. I cannot quote all that he wrote to me from day to day to lead me back to his light, but a few excerpts from his letters will testify to his humility as well as to the vast catholicity of his spirit.... All the same I went on finding new reasons for my dissatisfaction... Once I even accused Sri Aurobindo of his preoccupation with sports.... To think that I could have actually framed a charge against Gurudev himself who never stirred out of his flat for over twenty years!... But the idea was abroad that the Supramental Yoga had taken a new orientation and therefore could no longer be practised by anyone who did not join at once in the Ashram drill and sports. So I asked Sri Aurobindo anxiously if there was any truth in the contention of these alarmist reporters.... I wrote to him:

'I hope that the croakers are wrong. But if so, will you kindly assure me in umambiguous terms that such statements are, indeed, mischievous rumours? It is high time too that you spoke out, for you know human nature too well to deny that an allegation, however silly and incredible, is quickly accepted as gospel truth by the multitude, if and when it is echoed often and loudly enough in chorus. And shall I tell you something more? You, yourself, Guru, by writing about the Divine Body in the second issue of the Bulletin have definitely lent weight to such facile fantasies. For many have been asseverating of late that this Divine Body can be manufactured only in the foundry of the collective drill and sports and athletics. I feel just dismayed what are things coming to?' "¹⁰

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Sri Aurobindo's Reply

"... It is not a fact that either the Mother or I are turning away from Yoga and intend to interest ourselves only in sports; we have no intention whatever of altering the fundamental character of the Ashram and replacing it by a sportive association. If we did that, it would be a most idiotic act and if anybody should have told you anything like that, he must be off his head or in a temporary crisis or delirious enthusiasm or obsessed by a very upside-down idea. The Mother told you very clearly once through Nirod that what was being done in the playground was not meditation for Yoga but only an ordinary concentration for the physical exercises alone....

"As for myself, it is surely absurd to think that I am neglecting my Yoga being interested only in running, jumping and marching! There seem to have been strange misunderstandings about my second message in the Bulletin. In the first I wrote about sports and their utility just as I have written on politics or social development or any other matter. In the second, I took up the question, incidentally, because people were expressing ignorance as to why the Ashram should concern itself with sports at all.... I indicated clearly that only by Yoga could there come a supreme and total perfection of all the instruments of the spirit and the ascent of the whole being to the highest level and a divine life on earth and the assumption of a divine body. I made it clear that by human and physical means such as sports only a limited and precarious human perfection could come.

"In all this there is nothing to justify the idea that sports could be a means of jumping on the Supermind or that the Supermind was going to descend into the playground and nowhere else and only those who are there will receive it; that would be a bad look-out for me as I would have no chance!

How sweet must have been this last sentence of Sri Aurobindo, how logically clinching and psychologically comforting! - "That would be a bad look-out for me as I would have no chance!"

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But Sri Aurobindo the Compassionate did not stop at that: he went on to assuage the self-inflicted hurt feelings of his wayward disciple by writing to him:

"... I write all this in the hope of clearing away all the strange misconceptions with which the air seems to have become thick and by some of which you may have been affected. I wish to assure you that my love and affection and the Mother's love and affection are constantly with you.... As for me, you should realise that the will to help you towards divine realisation is one of the things that has been constantly nearest to my heart and will always be there...."¹²

"... As to my silence, I do not think I have neglected anything you have asked for whenever you have written. Of late, I have been very much under pressure of work for the press which needed immediate attention and could not be postponed, mostly correction of manuscripts and proofs... I am conscious all the same that my remissness in writing [to you] had been excessive and that you have a just cause for your complaint; but I hope to remedy this remissness in future... and satisfy your just demand for more alertness in my correspondence with you."¹'

A sense of wonder cannot but make us speechless when we read these last lines of Sri Aurobindo addressed to his benighted disciple. Even after all the scathing and baseless accusation DK hurled at Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Sri Aurobindo voluntarily placing himself in the dock and almost apologising to the reckless disciple! And in such love-drenched words dripping humour as a constant strain!! This is simply unimaginable.

But such was Sri Aurobindo who was Compassion Incarnate in the words of the Mother. He did not know how to become angry or irritated; he did not know how to find fault with others. Even 'righteous indignation' was far from his nature. With a total and impersonal detachment he could observe and judge everything in its true and universal perspective and find scope for benign humour even in a situation of severest

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affliction. And this is what we shall see exemplified in the passages below. But first a short introduction.

On trumped-up charges of conspiracy and sedition against the British Government Sri Aurobindo, the then Principal of Bengal National College, was arrested on Friday, May 1, 1908 and put behind prison bars. After a successful defence put up by his friend, the famous barrister Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo was released from his incarceration after a full year. After coming out of his unjust detention in a solitary cell he wrote an intimate and revealing account of his prison life and .ailed it Kara-kahini or Tales of Prison Life. The following extracts are from that book. Yes, from that book but with an important difference.

The original book was written by Sri Aurobindo in his mother-tongue Bengali. Prof. Sisirkumar Ghose has translated it into English. Now, Sri Aurobindo's Kara-kahint, although purporting to give a detailed account of his trials and tribulations during his one-year prison term, is written in a style so liberally full of charming irony, sarcasm and humour, all expressed in inimitable Bengali, that one almost despairs of translating it into English. For is humour really translatable? As Prof. Leacock has aptly pointed out:

"... Translation, in the full literary sense, is almost impossible, and especially so in the field of humour. Translation can tell us, in a sense, what a person said but not how he said it.... Translation is all right when used for a railway time-table, all wrong when used for a sonnet.... Imaginative literature is suffused with uses of language involving such delicate shades of meaning that they refuse to recombine in other tongues.... The translation of humour... is an almost impossible feat."¹⁴

It is worth recalling here what the Mother once said as regards any attempt at translating Sri Aurobindo's 'English' humour into French. She observed:

"Sri Aurobindo's humour and irony cannot be translated into French. English humour when translated into French sounds stupid and flat; French humour when translated into English becomes cruel and meaningless. These two languages

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seem to be so similar and yet their genius is quite apart."¹⁵

If translating humour from English into French and vice versa proves so difficult, we can very well imagine how daunting a task it must be to translate Sri Aurobindo's humour originally expressed in Bengali into an altogether dissimilar tongue like English. But, as Prof. Sisirkumar Ghose himself has remarked in his "Translator's Note":

"Still the work had to be done and I have done it, with humility and awareness of the difficulty. If something of [the original flavour] comes through what must be an inadequate rendering, I shall consider myself fortunate."¹⁶

We may now proceed to have close acquaintance with what we have called 'Sri Aurobindo's humour of compassionate understanding'.

Sri Aurobindo on his prison cell and his life there:

"... Thereafter from the court we went to the jail and were surrendered to its officers. Before entering the jail compound we were given a bath, put into prison uniform, while our clothes, shirts, dhotis and kurtas were taken away for laundry. The bath, after four days, was a heavenly bliss. After that they took us to our respective cells. I went into mine and the doors were closed as soon as I went in. My prison life at Alipore began on May 5. Next year, on May 6, I was released.

"My solitary cell, nine feet long and five feet in width, had no windows; in front stood strong iron bars, this cage was to be my appointed abode. Outside was a small courtyard, with stony grounds, a high brick wall with a small wooden door. On top of that door, at eye level, there was a small hole or opening. After the door had been bolted the sentry peeped, from time to time, in order to find out what the convict was doing....

"Such was the place where we were lodged. As for fittings, our generous authorities had left nothing to be desired so far as our hospitable reception was concerned. One plate and bowl used to adorn the courtyard. Properly washed and cleaned, my Self-sufficing plate and bowl shone like silver, the solace of my life. In its impeccable, glowing radiance in the 'heavenly

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kingdom', in that symbol of impeccable British imperialism, I used to enjoy the pure bliss of loyalty to the Crown. Unfortunately, the plate too shared in the bliss, and if one pressed one's fingers a little hard on its surface it would start flying in a circle, like the whirling dervishes of Arabia. And then one had to use one hand for eating while the other held the plate in position. Else, while whirling, it would attempt to slip away with the incomparable grub provided by the prison authorities.

"But more dear and useful than the plate was the bowl. Among inert objects it was like the British civilian. Just as the civilian, ipso facto, is fit and able to undertake any administrative duty, be it as judge, magistrate, police, revenue officer, chairman of municipality, professor, preacher, whatever you ask him to do he can become at your merest bidding, - just as for him to be an investigator, complainant, police magistrate, even at times to be the counsel for defence, all these roles hold a friendly concourse in the same hospitable body, my dear bowl was equally multi-purpose. The bowl was free from all caste restrictions, beyond discrimination; in the prison cell it helped in the act of ablution, later with the same bowl I gargled, bathed, a little later when I had to take my food, the lentil soup or vegetable was poured into the same container, I drank water out of it and washed my mouth. Such an all-purpose priceless object can be had only in a British prison. Serving all my worldly needs the bowl became an aid in my spiritual discipline too. Where else could I find such an aid and preceptor to get rid of the sense of disgust?... I acquired an unsought lesson in controlling my sense of disgust. The entire procedure for defecation seemed to have been oriented towards the art of self-control. Solitary imprisonment, it has been said, must be counted among a special form of punishment and its guiding principle the avoidance of human company and the open sky. To arrange for ablution in the open or outside would involve a violation of that principle; hence two baskets, with tar coating, would be kept in the room itself. The sweeper would clean it up in the mornings and afternoons.... But if one went to the privy at odd hours, as penance one had to put up with the noxious and

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fetid smell.... Needless to say, because of all this arrangement in a small room, one had throughout to undergo considerable inconvenience, especially at meal times and during the night. Attached bathrooms are, I know, a mark of western culture; but to have in a small cell, a bedroom, dining room and W.C. rolled into one — this is what is called too much of a good thing! We Indians are full of regrettable customs, it is not easy for us to be so highly civilised....

"The arrangements for drinking water were even better than the bathing facilities. It was then hot summer, in my little cell the wind was almost forbidden to enter. But the fierce and blazing sunlight of May had free access to it. The entire room would burn like an oven. While being locked thus the only way to lessen one's irresistible thirst was the tepid water in the small tin enclosure. I would drink that water often and often, but this would not quench the thirst, rather there would be heavy sweating and soon after the thirst would be renewed....

"In this blazing room two prison blankets served for my beds. There was no pillow, so I would spread one of these as mattress and fold the other as a pillow, and sleep like that. When the heat became unbearable I would roll on the ground and enjoy it. Then did I know the joy of the cool touch of Mother Earth.... The days on which it rained were particularly delightful. But there was this difficulty that during rain and thunder, thanks to the danse macabre of the strong wind, full of dust, leaf and grass, a small-scale flood would take place inside my little room. After which there was no alternative but to rush to a corner with a wet blanket. Even after this game of nature was over, till the earth dried one had to seek refuge in reflection leaving aside all hope of sleep. The only dry areas were near the W.C, but one did not feel like placing the blankets near that area....

"The causes of hardship that I have described were no doubt there, but since my faith in divine mercy was strong, I had to suffer only for the first few days; thereafter... the mind had risen above these sufferings and grown incapable of feeling any hardship. That is why when I recollect my prison lire, instead of anger or sorrow I feel like laughing. When first of all I

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had to go into my cage dressed in the odd prison uniform, and notice the arrangements for my stay, this is what I felt. And laughed within myself....

"The first day in prison passed off peacefully. It was all so new as to be almost gay.... Since I had faith in God the loneliness did not weigh heavily on me. Even the strange spectacle of prison diet failed to disturb my attitude. Coarse rice, even that spiced with husk, pebbles, insects, hair, dirt and such other stuff, the tasteless lentil soup was heavily watered, among vegetables and greens mixed with grass and leaves. I never knew before that food could be so tasteless and without any nutritive value. Looking at its melancholy black visage I was appalled; and after two mouthfuls with a respectful salaam I took leave of it. All prisoners receive the same diet, and once a course gets going it goes on for ever.

"Then it was the Reign of Herbs. Days, fortnights and months pass by, but the same herbs, or shak, lentil or rice went on unchanged. What to speak of changing the menu, the preparation was not changed a jot or tittle, it was the same, immutable, Eternal, from beginning to end, a stable unique thing in itself. Within two evenings it was calculated to impress upon the prisoner the fragility of this world of may a....

"Next morning at four-fifteen the prison bell rang, this was the first bell to wake up the prisoners.... The bars were removed at five, and after washing I sat inside the cell once again. A little later lufsi or the prison gruel was served at my doorstep. That day I did not take it but had only a vision of what it looked like. It was after a few days that I had the first taste of the 'great dish'. Lufsi, boiled rice, along with water, is the prisoner's little breakfast. A Trinity, it takes three forms. On the first day it was lufsi in its Prajna or Wisdom aspect, unmixed, original element, pure, white Shiva. On the second, it was like Hiranyagarbha aspect, boiled along with lentils, called kedgeree, a yellowish medley. On the third day lufsi appeared in its aspect of Virat, a little mixed with jaggery, grey, slightly more fit for human consumption.

"I had thought the Wisdom and the Hiranyagarbha aspects

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to be beyond the capacity of average humanity and therefore made no efforts in that direction; but once in a while I had forced some of the Virat stuff within my system and marvelled, in delightful muse, about the many-splendoured virtues of British rule and the high level of Western humanitarianism. It should be added that that lufsi was the only nutritious diet for the Bengali prisoners, the rest were without any food value. But what of that? It had a taste, and one could eat this only out of sheer hunger; even then, one had to force and argue with oneself to be able to consume that stuff....

"Lunch was at eleven. The evening meal would be between five and five-thirty. From then on the door was not permitted to be opened. At seven rang the evening bell.... The tired prisoner then takes the refuge of sleep and in that has his only pleasure."¹⁷

We have for the theme of this chapter Sri Aurobindo's humour of compassionate understanding. This compassion, this human kindliness, also this sympathetic understanding Sri Aurobindo used to extend in full measure to all and sundry, whether he be the Ashram doctor or an erudite but hostile critic or even a simple-hearted devotee from outside, and in all situations, trivial or momentous, whether it concerns the irregular habits of the said doctor or the uninformed criticism levelled by the aforesaid critic against Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and life-work or even the most wayward or innocent requests of the devotee. And in all cases his repartees were packed with a sparkling humour of mellow kindliness. In Sri Aurobindo's writings of this nature humour and sublimity became one.

We propose to close this penultimate chapter of our book by citing three specimens of Sri Aurobindo's kindly humour. Apparently they belong to altogether different categories but the common shining thread running through all the three accounts is the Master's unfailing humour of compassionate understanding.

(1) Sri Aurobindo on the Ashram Dining Room's complaint against the Ashram doctor:

Sri Aurobindo: Complaint against the Ashram doctor [Sri

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Aurobindo's correspondent himself] from the D.R. servers. 'Often after we have served his dish, he would send a note saying, "My meals, please!" or a verbal message through any sadhak he might come across. Have to inform Dayabhai that the tiffin box in question has to be brought back.' etc., etc.

It is suggested that the said Doctor can have his food all the three times in the day in a tiffin box if he so desires.

Doctor! Doctor!

If you are so irregular and offhand how can you expect patients in the hospital to submit to have their bad eyes cut instead of their good kidneys?¹⁸

Ah, how sweet is the address, "Doctor! Doctor!" and how deliciously ingenious is the 'logic' involved in the persuasion. Sri Aurobindo signals the message and scores the point but without the least hint of offence anywhere!

Now a piece about Prof. Adhar Das who was a professor of philosophy in the University of Calcutta and wrote a book on the theme of Sri Aurobindo and the future of mankind. (Incidentally, the name 'Adhar' signifies 'lips' in the Sanskrit language.)

(2) Apropos Prof. Adhar Das's criticism:

NB: I wonder, Sir, if you have seen Prof. Adhar Das's inveighings against your Lights on Yoga} He does not look like having grasped your Light very well - or, shall we say, he grasped it like a typical pedagogue? For he seems to be in a veritable quandary when he goes all out for you — even his nearest misses are wider than the Pacific, aren't they?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I have read all these sweet things from the sweet Adhar.

NB: I gather that he is favourably disposed to your philosophy, so much so that he has written a book on it.

Sri Aurobindo: He was [favourable], without understanding much, before Anil Baran butted in and gored him into bitterness.

NB: He doesn't seem to have grasped well the thing, has he?

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Sri Aurobindo: "Methinks" he hasn't. Grasp of things is not his forte.

NB: His remark about the 'divinisation of the individual' and the 'emergence of the new race' does not seem to be correct.

Sri Aurobindo: He seems to think that D.I. = E.N.R. or C.S.R.* So if D.I. is possible, C.S.R. is superfluous or out of the question. But why, I have never been able to fathom, because it takes individuals to make a new race and if a certain number of individuals are not divinised, I don't see how you are going to get a divinised race. As for it being 'out of the question', the great Panjandrum alone knows why if an individual is divinised - (one obviously is not enough), it should be out of the question to go on divinising others until you have a 'new race'. But I suppose, unless you create unnecessary quibbles, there can be no 'intellectual philosophy'!

NB: I thought, Sir, that there is quite a difference between divinisation and supramentalisation, the former leading up to the latter; so you won't stop at divinisation.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course; only as I have never explained in these letters (in my Lights on Yoga) what I meant by Supermind, these critics are necessarily at sea. They think, pardonably enough, that anything above the human mind must be Supramental.

NB: I suppose it will be a presumption on my part to criticise a philosopher like Adhar Das from whom, it seems, you learnt 'your' philosophy!

Sri Aurobindo: No, no! Not learnt, — say rather that I am slowly learning from him. For he is kindly teaching me what / meant!

NB: But they are simply longing to see the first batch of the Supramental compound to be fabricated in your great laboratory, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: Go forward, go forward and show yourself.

NB: I draw your attention to Adhar Das's verdict that your

* Divinisation of the Individual = Emergence of a New Race or Creation of the Supramental Race.

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vision of the new race to be is an extravagant claim in as much as it gives the lie to logic as well as to the lives and experiences of past seers. Well, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I don't suppose the 'new race' can be created by or according to logic or that any race has been. But why should the idea of the creation of a new race be illogical? It is not only my ideas that baffle reason, but Adhar Das's also! -he must really be a superman, self-made of course, outside the laboratory.

As for the past seers, they don't trouble me. If going beyond the experiences of the past seers and sages is so shocking, each new seer or sage in turn has perpetrated that shocking thing -Buddha, Shankara, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda - all did that wicked act. If not, what was the necessity of their starting new philosophies, religions, schools of Yoga? If they were merely verifying and meekly repeating the lives and experiences of past seers and sages without bringing the world some new thing, why all that stir and pother?

Of course, you may say they were simply explaining the old truth but in the right way — but this would mean that nobody had explained or understood it rightly before - which is 'giving the lie to logic as well as to the lives and experiences of past seers'!

Or you may say that all the new sages (they were not among Adhar's cherished past ones in their day), e.g. Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva were each merely repeating the same blessed thing as the past seers and sages themselves had repeated with an unwearied monotony before them. Well, well, but why repeat it in such a way that each "gives the lie" to the others?

Truly, this shocked reverence for the past is a wonderful and fearful thing! After all, the Divine is infinite and the unrolling of the Truth may be an infinite process or at least, if not quite so much, yet with some room for new discovery and new statement, even perhaps new achievement, not a thing in a nutshell cracked and its contents exhausted once for all by the first seer or sage, while the others must religiously crack the same

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nutshell all over again, each tremblingly fearful not to give the lie to the "past" seers or sages!

NB: Adhar Das says: "Divinisation of the individual will be instrumental in the emergence of a new race." Is that what you mean by "Our Yoga is not for our sake but for the Divine"?

Sri Aurobindo: Not exactly.

NB: If "not exactly", what exactly then do you mean by that statement?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I once wrote in my callow days: "Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity" - that was in the Bande Mataram days. To get out of the self-created hole I had to amend and explain that it was no longer for humanity but for the Divine! The 'not for ourselves' remained intact...

NB: Why not write something about the Supermind, if only to give us an idea about it? Saying that it's a different con-sciousnesss is hardly enough. Any realisation of the Divine would mean that, I suppose.

Sri Aurobindo: What's the use? How much would anybody understand? Besides the present business is to bring down and establish the Supermind, not to explain it. If it establishes itself, it will explain itself - If it doesn't, there is no use in explaining it. I have said something about it in past writings, but without success in enlightening anybody. So why repeat the endeavour?"

There is a footnote to the above dialogue between Nirod-baran and Sri Aurobindo, which brings into clear focus Sri Aurobindo's kind consideration for the feelings of the critical professor.

When NB typed out all the above comments and observations made by Sri Aurobindo on the subject of Adhar Das and asked the Master's permission to send a copy of these to the professor, Sri Aurobindo wrote back:

"No, it is not meant for him. It is only a bit of fun between ourselves. If there is any danger of anyone doing that [sending to Prof. Das], it is better to keep it to yourself."

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One cannot sufficiently admire Sri Aurobindo for his limitless human kindliness!

Now our last piece for this chapter: this one concerns one Chand, a devotee from outside and a close friend of NB's. Chand was rather wayward and somewhat eccentric; yet the readers will not fail to note how Sri Aurobindo's compassion and generosity flowed towards him in profuse streams of humour. And that is again why we have entitled our chapter as "Sri Aurobindo's Humour of Compassionate Understanding".

(3) "What a fellow! Seems cleverer than myself!"

NB: Friend C again, with his woeful tale!

Sri Aurobindo: What a fellow! He blunders through life stumbling over every possible or impossible stone of offence with a conscientious thoroughness that is unimaginable and inimitable.

NB: One thing is clear that he requires your protection. Well?

Sri Aurobindo: Difficult to protect such an erratic genius. However.

NB: Guru, C's letter! Do you notice what he says about outside disciples and D's going? Any truth?

Sri Aurobindo: Can't make out anything trom the fellow's Bengali flourishes. What does he say? I can only make out that B has told to him what Bishwanath told to B about what Mother told to Bishwanath; but what it was I can't make out - Only that for that reason D and others were allowed to flit. Kindly enlighten.

NB: But C seems to have made a lot of progress, hasn't he?

Sri Aurobindo: Can't certify so long as the brothel walks about with him.

C writes about your letter "abortioning" him with regard to his falsehood. Can't you abortion him of his brothel? (I suppose it is some other word, but it reads like "abortioning"!)

NB: Another letter from C, saying that your chiding had wonderful effect, Sir. Lots of worries gone! So it is not my

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"abortioning", Sir! Yours entirely. I am not used to these things, not yet, at least! It was, by the way, 'chastising". Gracious, chastising is miles away from "abortioning"!

Sri Aurobindo: Can't be, can't be! You must have misread it. I stick to the abortion.

NB: There is a clash in him between ethics or spirituality and worldliness, so he seeks your advice.

Sri Aurobindo: Anyhow he seems to me to be the most loose and impractical and disorderly fellow that ever was, leaving his papers and debts and everything fluttering about all over the world. It will be no wonder if he loses all he has.

NB: Chand's wire to me: "Why silent great struggle protection". Guru, I don't know why he says "silent". I have sent the Darshan blessings on 23 rd or 24th which he must have received.

Sri Aurobindo: But you have not given him protection! NB: Chand's another wire: "Inspectors contact uncongenial Trying avoid."

Sri Aurobindo: What the hell! He seems to have plenty of money to waste on unnecessary telegrams! Why wire about the Inspector's contact?

NB: Chand's wire again: "Progressing again debt case Tomorrow." Voila, another, Sir! I wrote to him not to waste money on unnecessary registered letters and telegrams, but Chand is Chand! So!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, well, let us accept the inevitable. Prakrtim yanti bbutani which means All animals follow their nature.

NB: Guru, another telegraphic bombardment! — "Great inertia again letter follows." What an impulsive fellow! Almost unparalleled! I think he is another fellow who will find life extremely difficult here.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, there is no inertia in his wrong activities at any rate. He is full of energy there.

NB: Chand says that one day he will commit suicide due to lack of faith! My Gracious, are you specialising in a lot of sentimental screw-loose fellows as disciples?

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Sri Aurobindo: It looks like it! What a museum! But this kind of collectioning has been my luck and not my intention.

NB: Chand's telegram: "Embarkment enquiry 13th July protection." Guru, is he embarking for Mecca? Looks like embankment which, he said, he demolished, of a tenant.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the telegraph office here which is embarking him - otherwise there would be no enquiry. He must be in trouble over his arbitrary abolition of his neighbours' embankment.

NB: Chand's telegram: "Partial sex failure must succeed." Guru, after the "embarkment", "partial failure"!

Sri Aurobindo: What the deuce does he mean by "partial sex failure"? - beginning of the operation but no conclusion? "Embarkment for Cytherea" (land of Venus), and disembarkation in mid-sea? What a phenomenon of a fellow!

NB: Chand writes there is no letter from you. So, one word, Guru!

Sri Aurobindo: Well, well! - That's one word twice repeated.

NB: Chand writes: "You have said 'Well, well!' The meaning has appeared quite clear to me."

Sri Aurobindo: Queer! He seems cleverer than myself.

NB: You are surprised at Chand's cleverness! Well, Sir, your non-committal Supramental answers are sometimes damned puzzling, so I wouldn't blame him. Anyhow, shall I pass on the remark to him?

Sri Aurobindo: You can if you like. But he ought to have known that "Well, well" in English is not a shout of approbation, but philosophically non-committal.²⁰

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REFERENCES

NB. For what the abbreviations stand for please consult Bibliography on page 439.

1.SAC, pp. ix, x.

2.Ibid., pp. 299-300.

3.Ibid., pp. 252, 253, 254 (adapted).

4.Ibid., p. 255.

5.Ibid., pp. 255, 256.

6.Ibid., p. 174.

7./to., p. 262.

8.Ibid., pp. 258, 261, 263.

9./to., pp. 167, 168, 169.

10.Ibid., pp. 477, 478, 479, 484, 489, 496, 497, 498.

11.Ibid., pp. 500, 501.

12.Ibid., pp. 501, 502.

13.Ibid., pp. 497, 498.

14.HH, pp. 138, 139.

15.Mother, On Education (Cent. Ed.), pp. 219-20.

16.TP, p. 5.

17.Ibid., pp. 25-29, 30-32, 37-39, 41-43.

18.SAH, p. 209.

19.SAH, pp. 107-08; (b) C-Compl., pp. 341-45; (c) SAC, pp. 290-94.

20.C-CompL, pp. 540, 838, 890, 898, 904, 990, 1037, 1057, 1058, 1063, 1080, 1118, 1121, 1154-55, 1157, 1162.

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