The letters reveal Nirod's unique relationship with his guru. The exchanges are suffused with a special humour.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Nirodbaran's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began in February 1933 and continued till November 1938, when Sri Aurobindo injured his leg and Nirod became one of his attendants. The entire correspondence, which was carried on in three separate notebooks according to topics - private, medical, and literary - is presented in chronological order, revealing the unique relationship Nirod enjoyed with his guru, replete with free and frank exchanges and liberal doses of humour. Covering a wide range of topics, both serious and light-hearted, these letters reveal the infinite care Sri Aurobindo devoted to the spiritual development of his disciple.
THEME/S
I have worked today from 1-30 to 6-15 p.m.—5 hours!—and composed only 16 lines!
But that is quite magnificent—16 lines in one day, 3⅕ lines an hour about! Remember that Virgil used only to write 9 lines a day. At this rate you will end by being twice as inspired and fluent as Virgil.
Saurin has hurt his thumb in the train and it seems to be in a bad condition. Go and see and give the necessary treatment.
April 1, 1936
By the way, I hope you didn't intend to make me an April-fool mentioning Virgil and Nirod in the same pen-stroke!
[In pencil.] What a modest poet! Most think themselves the superior of Homer, Milton and Shakespeare all added together.
Another letter from Jatin. He has asked for the reply to his previous letter. Please do write something tonight, Sir. I request you, I beseech you, I entreat you, I pray to you.
Do find out his letter from your heap—I can see it from here—and just a few marks and remarks will do. That's like the Divine! Give that time you would have spent on the long letter I was going to write, but I suspend it for getting this chance!
Sorry, but your luck is not brilliant. Had a whole night i.e. after 3 no work—was ready to write. Light went off, in my rooms only, mark—tried candle power, no go. The Age of Candles is evidently over. So "requests, beseeches, entreats" were all in vain. Not my fault. Blame Fate! However, I had a delightful time, 3 hours of undisturbed concentration on my real work, a luxury denied to me for ages. Don't tear your hair. Will be done another day with luck.
And what about the rooms in the Asram for him and his wife?
By himself accommodation in Asram easy—with wife difficult, in fact seems impossible. Can't put them together.
April 2, 1936
[I sent back the letter of April 2, 1936 to Sri Aurobindo.] I could not read what you wrote yesterday, Sir. Absolutely unreadable! Not even by Nolini was it possible!
I repeat then from memory. "What a modest poet! Most think in their heart of hearts that they are superior to Homer, Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare all piled upon and fused into each other."183
Tomorrow is 4th April!184 We are commemorating it thus: 1) Nishikanta sends a big poem—splendid, exquisite. By Jove, what allow and what a poem! Do read it at once, Sir, and let the correspondence go to H—for one day!
Correspondence can't be sent to H, either way, unless the light goes out—and then where will the poems go?
2) A poem by my humble self. I don't like it much, and Amal says that it is rather jerky and rough.185
Yes, the rhythm is defective in many places.
Apart from it, what about the rhyme scheme and the conclusion?
The rhyme scheme all right. The conclusion is all right too.
Nishikanta suggests that I should add a few more lines. If that would enhance the beauty I shall try.
No, it would spoil the force of the contrast you have made by minimising it.
In the last line, is the idea clear?
No. But it is much better with the meaning I have now put into it.
Yes, I was almost going to tear my hair but your "delightful time" prevented me from doing it! But I hold J's reply till Sunday after which I will tear my hair certainly.
Preserve it—preserve your precious hair. Be calm, be patient!
I don't understand whether it is the yogic or accommodation trouble that stands in the way of putting them together.
Who is "them"—your hairs? What an abrupt Tacitean writer you are.
Well, you can put them separately, I am sure Jatin will agree so long as he and his wife are given rooms in the Asram.
It is because we can't put them together that it is impossible. There is no sufficient separate room for ladies.
I shall tell him the situation, unless you don't want her at all to stay in the Asram, in which case he will be compelled to stay outside.
It is not a question of wanting, but of space.
I don't think he will object to staying out. So?
Then it is all right.
Sorry. Nishikanta was too vast for me. Very fine though. Shall send on next time.
I hear R.K. has walked ofr and one of the reasons is his eyes! Why are they not cured? etc. God knows—we have tried our best and he was practically all right. I don't understand why there was the relapse suddenly, do you?
He was already wanting to go when they were all right and then turned round and said he had conquered the devil and would never leave—So the devil probably got into his eyes and made him blink towards the Panjab. His eyes were not the cause but an excuse. He had not much vocation for Yoga and the Mother had sent him off twice as unfit, but he came back as R.B.'s escort and sat down, and now he has got up and gone. But B.P. has no intention of going.
April 3, 1936
But you don't say anything about the poem as it is now—bad, good, very good, or what?
As it is now, very good.
You see, all our values depend on how you appraise them. If Mother smiles at somebody, we think him good, if she doesn't, well, must be wrong somewhere, we conclude and be on our guard.
What a blunder! Don't you know that the Divine smiles equally on the wicked and the good together?
About poetry it would be more so, specially in my case.
What a coupling of disparates
You know I'm a self-depreciating fellow, so your silence would worsen matters. But presuming it to be good, where does my credit lie after so much correction? Can I call the original version good poetry?
Your credit lies in a substance which could not realise its possibilities because of your damnable errors in rhythm—It was good poetry in substance but spoiled by errors of form.
Even in the original the lines from, "As one stands rapt—" to "The Infinite" are very good—except when they become rhythmically very bad. What the hell do you mean by trying trochees like
[Image 9]
Do you think you are adult enough yet for such Hitlerian violences to English metre?
Do you find in my piece any influence of your poem "The Rishi" which I read a few days ago? Permissible, such influence?
It may be there but I did not find it. The only result was a greater elevation and strength in the poetic speech. No objection can be made to an influence like that. It is imitation and reproduction that are objectionable.
By the way, Sir, you couldn't write to me [2.4.36] because your lights went off. I thought you have a kerosene lamp with a pumping business and burner—God knows the name.
[Sri Aurobindo put question marks above 'pumping" and "business".]
Who gives these wonderful news?
Of course I have a lamp but it is not available at 2.30. Do you think I am going to wake up the whole house at that hour?
I intended long ago to procure one for your emergency use. Shall I try? That would only crush all your chances of a "delightful time"!
No, sir, no pumping business for me!
But concentration on "real work" [2.4.36]? Good Lord, you do that from 9 or 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. God alone knows what you do then.
What is this transcendental rubbish?
Perhaps you send Force to Germany, Abyssinia, or make a leap to the Supramental?
That is not my real work. Who except the devil is going to give force to Germany? Do you think I am in league with Hitler and his howling tribe of Nazis?
We speculate and speculate. Next, you concentrate from 6 p.m.-11 or 12. Still not enough?
Who gave you this wonderful programme? Invented it all by your ingenious self? From 4 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. afternoon correspondence, meal, newspapers. Evening correspondence from 7 or 7.30 to 9. From 9 to 10 p.m. concentration, 10 to 12 correspondence, 12 to 2.30 bath, meal, rest, 2.30 to 5 or 6 a.m. correspondence unless I am lucky. Where is the sufficient time for concentration?
B.P. complains of aches in the whole body. Since his going is not yet settled, shall we give him pot. iod + mercury?
Use your discretion. I am thinking after a time when R has got through his present long and difficult cases outside, of asking him to take this hopeless fellow up, but it is not yet a firm decision.
Again a boil on my left cheek, good Heavens! No improvement.
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "no improvement".]
As Rene's doctor says "Tut tut tut! Tut tut tut!"
Punishment for too much talking or eating or subconscious welling out?
Probably
April 4, 1936
Boil a little ripe, but still— Hard and big as hazel-nut, In spite of your tut, tut, tut! Give one more dose at the least, Or I howl on like a beast!
Tut nut tut not nut tut tut! Hope this will have the effect of a Tantric mantra which it resembles. So if you like OM ling bling hring kring! Just try repeating either of these 15000 times concentrating on your boil (bling) at the time.
April 5, 1936
"Remnants that throbbed once with sweet songs of life Bespeak now tragic dooms and ghastly tales Of travellers—still roam their wounded wails Echoing in the desolate air and cliff."
This is too tragic, ghastly and romantic. It sounds like the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe.
Yes, that wonderful programme was partly my ingenious discovery and partly contribution and speculation by others. Anyway, from what you first wrote and cancelled, I find that from 8.30 a.m. to 2.30 or 3 p.m. you do your real work—for earth-consciousness.
How do you find that? After 8.30 a.m. I have nothing to do with the earth-consciousness.
Hard, throbbing, painful boil. Slight fever, headache in the morning. Hot fomentation etc. Went to the miracle doctor, 4 powders! Added to these the Force! Does it budge? The game must be over tomorrow, Sir. Otherwise I have to lie flat!
All this for a poor little boil? What would it be if you were put to roast?
By the way, what do you mean by deceiving me about E in the Hyderabad fever chart? Rene wrote that E is the entry in the "Motions" column; it evidently means enema. Poetry indeed! sunset colours indeed! Enema, sir! Motions, sir! Compared with that ling Ming is epically poetic.
[A reply to Jatin Bats letter discussed on March 19, 1936.]
I shall only comment briefly—I am obliged to be brief—on your friend Latin's experiences.
He is to be congratulated on the victory in the matter of sex—it is very important to have that when the intense definitive experiences are beginning. For if once the actual penetrative descent is felt, the less the higher consciousness is met by the sex force the better, for then a dangerous mixture may take place or else a struggle which is better avoided.
The description of the Power he feels—which is obviously the true thing—is very accurate—it is so, like rain or a fall of snow, that it often comes at first. I take it from his use of the word "around", that it is an enveloping power that he feels. It does not begin for all in the same way—some only feel it above their heads occasionally descending on them and entering.
About the contact with the world and the hostile forces, that is of course always one of the sadhak's chief difficulties, but to transform the world and the hostile powers is too big a task and the personal transformation cannot wait for it. What has to be done is to come to live in the Power that these things, these disturbing elements cannot penetrate, or, if they penetrate, cannot disturb, and to be so purified and strengthened by it that there is in oneself no response to anything hostile. If there is a protecting envelopment, an inner purifying descent and, as a result, a settling of the higher consciousness in the inner being and finally, its substitution even in the most external outwardly active parts in place of the old ignorant consciousness, then the world and the hostile forces will no longer matter—for one's own soul at least; for there is a larger work not personal in which of course they will have to be dealt with; but that need not be a main preoccupation at the present stage.
I have already answered to you about his coming for darshan in August; so I need not repeat that here.
April 6, 1936
What would it be if I were put to roast? Anilkumar is rubbing hard his formula every day saying—very difficult! Now your threat comes. If it comes to that I shall exclaim: গুরুপাদপদ্মায় নমো নমঃ186
Why singular? A respected person is supposed to have more than 2 feet—witness the formula—শ্রীচরণেষু187
But let me add that my roasting has already begun, not in your spiritual oven, but in the barometric oven. Dilip and myself have decided to cycle of to the Lake in the early hours of the morning. As it is not possible to get a cycle at that hour from outside, what about getting it from here?
Can't ask Benjamin for a cycle at that time. He would eat our heads off and yours too. This cyclo-mania is becoming too epidemic—we won't be able to supply at that rate.
And this time it's not a "melancholiac" that asks but a maniac, you may say!
Melancholomania.
Boil has burst today! Swelling less, pain none but still it is oozing and oozing. By tomorrow it will be over, I hope. R's treatment continues.
R has written to me insisting that you should continue the treatment for a fortnight even after the oozing is past history—so as to erect a barrier against farther boilings.
I beg your pardon, Sir! Enema didn't strike me at all. But I hope it didn't make any difference in the working of your Force unless you enematised the patient too much. It is a pleasure to learn that one can deceive the Divine, however!
If the Divine chooses to be deceived, anyone can deceive him—just as he can run away from the battle; পলায়েনমপি188 You are evidently not up to the tricks of the Lila.
April 7, 1936
Have you heard anything about S of Dayalbagh?...
Certainly, I have been hearing about him or his sect for ages. He is, besides the Guru of M's family.
According to Paul Brunton's account, he is doing some genuine work. It seems S's principle is—"... I am attempting to show the world... that a man can be perfectly spiritual without running away to caves, and that he can reach the highest attainments in Yoga while carrying on with worldly avocations."189 He has founded an elaborate system of factories, textiles, machines, scientific instruments, electric fans, run by his disciples.
How does he show it? The world can see his textiles and machines and electric fans, but how is it to know that his men are perfectly spiritual? "Showing the world" is a dangerous aim to start with—it ends generally in the world as it is and always was + a show.
Isn't it similar to your doctrine or to that of Karmayoga?
More like the latter much modernised. Or rather he is carrying out without knowing it the plan I had laid down for Motilal Roy...
One sees perhaps a glimpse of your future work here.
[Underlining "your future work":] Good Lord, man! don't make such dismal prophecies. As I have said, it is an American magnification of my past work, nothing to do with my future work at all.
And the Yoga they follow is the "Sound-Yoga". What is this new business again? He says, "... a current of sound was the first activity of the Supreme Being at the beginning of creation..."190
Not new at all—as old as the Himalayas. You seem to be remarkably ignorant of the past history of Yoga in India. It is only a specialised statement of the general Tantric theory of the Seed Sounds. Something like my OM Tut tut tut bring kring, which you refused to try. If you had—
He says that Kabir also taught Sound-Yoga.
The basic idea is at least three thousand years older than Kabir It is simply a big name for the use of the mantra.
Anyway I am not very much interested in all this. There is something else now about which I want your opinion"... that the innermost parts of our brain centres are associated with subtle worlds of being... that the most important centre of all enables us to obtain divine consciousness of the highest order."191
Nothing new in that—except that it ignores the part played by the subtle body and packs all into the gross physical. But that too has been done before.
"The most important of these centres is the pineal gland... It is the seat of the spirit-entity in man."192
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "pineal gland."]
Ancient, ancient, very ancient! The Theosophists, I believe, made a big noise about the pineal gland.
It is said that if you shoot a man through this gland, he instantaneously dies.
So he does if you shoot him in other places, the heart for instance So the spirit entity is there too?
"It is the focus of the individual spirit-entity which gives life and vitality to man's mind and body. It is when this spirit-entity recedes from the pineal gland that the conditions of dream, deep sleep or trance supervene, and when it finally leaves the gland the body falls dead."193
Christ!! But how can it recede without leaving the gland?
"When it [the spirit-entity] leaves the pineal gland and passes upwards, its passage through the grey matter of the brain brings it into contact with the region of universal mind, and its passage through the white matter exalts its consciousness to lofty spiritual realities..."194
Sounds rather stuffy, but it may be true for all I know. These theosophic and other modern attempts to square physical Science with Yoga (Yogis formerly did not bother to differentiate the spiritual functions of grey matter and white matter) make me always suspicious. It looks like manufacture of the mind, pseudo-science.
It is true however that a passage in the Upanishads is supposed to give the soul hired lodgings in the pineal gland.
You know that medical men are still hazy about the definite functions of this gland. Some consider it a useless piece of matter like the appendix; others attribute vague functions to it. But according to Yoga, it seems to be a very important organ. What's your idea?
I have no idea. Never bothered about the pineal gland. In fact my spirit entity "receded from" it and even "finally left" it long ago without my dying—at least I seem to myself to be alive still.
You will add sarcastically: "There are many more things in heaven and earth etc. than in your medical Science!" Do tell us about a few of them.
I absolutely refuse.
The Kundalini business also seems a mystery to me. I read somewhere that the soul sojourns in the brain! Heard of it?
Now for the first time. Did hear that it might be somewhere up there in a thing called a chakra or lotus.
Is this spirit-entity the same as the soul, residing in the pineal gland?
Maybe. But the soul is also supposed to be somewhere in or behind the heart, i.e. cardiac centre. But perhaps that is only the soul-entity and not the spirit-entity? God knows—and perhaps S also. I don't.
Allow me to state my difficulty. How the devil can a spirit-entity be enclosed in a material gland? So far as I know the self or spirit is not enclosed in the body, rather the body is in the self. When we have the full experience of the self, we feel it as a wide consciousness in which the body is a very small thing, an adjunct or a thing contained, not a container. What then is this spirit-entity? There can be a small formation which stands for the self or spirit, like the Upanishads' Purusha no bigger than a man's thumb. Is this the spirit-entity? But even then in what sense, in what relativity of space can it be said to be in the very material pineal gland? A spirit confined in a gland and dislodged from it by a pistol shot is a kind of language which I buck at. A spirit touching grey brain matter and so entering into contact with universal mind and touching white matter and so entering into contact with loftier spiritual realities is also too weird a conception for my intelligence. What happens to it when it has no matter to touch? Dissolution? laya?
When we speak of the Purusha in the head, heart etc., we are using a figure. The Muladhara from which the Kundalini rises is not in the physical body, but in the subtle body—(the subtle body is that in which the being goes out in deep trance or more radically, at the time of death); so also are all the centres. But as the subtle body penetrates and is interfused with the gross body, there is a certain correspondence between these chakras and certain centres in the physical proper. So figuratively we speak of the Purusha in this or that centre of the body. Owing to this correspondence, again, when the Ananda or anything else comes down into the being, it is the subtle body that it pervades, but it communicates itself through it to the gross body and its consciousness, so that it is felt as if pervading the body. But all that is very different from saying that the spirit is lodged in a gland. The gross body is an engine, a means of communication and action of the spirit upon the world and it is only a small part of the instrumentation. It is absurd to make so much of it as all that. It is a sort of false materialism intended to placate minds that have a scanty knowledge of science. But what is the use of that? Everybody now knows that science is not a statement of the truth of things, but only a language expressing a certain experience of object§, their structure, their mathematics, a co-ordinated and utilisable impression of their processes—it is nothing more. Matter itself is something (a formation of energy perhaps?) of which we know superficially the structure as it appears to our mind and senses and to certain examining instruments (about which it is now suspected that they largely determine their own results, Nature adapting its replies to the instrument used), but more than that no scientist knows nor can know. If the Radhaswami affirmations are meant to be another kind of language expressing certain psycho-physical experiences, I have no objection. But why all this pineal glandism and talk about entities and bullets?
N.B. If I say the Purusha is in the heart, do I mean it is there in the physical heart, tumbling about in the flow of the blood or stuck in the valves or the muscular portions and when a bullet lodges in the heart it jumps up with an Ooah! and tumbles down dead or goes off skating and swimming into some grey or white matter worlds beyond? Certainly not. I am using a. significant language which expresses certain relations between the psychic consciousness and the physical of which we become aware by Yoga.
April 8, 1936
My big photo requires Sanjiban's treatment. Granted permission?
What? which? where? how? What disease? what medicine wanted?
Amrita says no water should drain into the street except rain water. But we have to wash frequently the Dispensary courtyard as it's too hot. What's the solution of the impasse?
If it is for coolness, sprinkling ought to be sufficient. Why Noah flood in a dispensary courtyard merely for antidoting heat?
April 9, 1936
By "my big photo" I meant your photo, which would be drawn by Sanjiban.
You are always plunging me into new mysteries. If it is a photo, how can it be "drawn" by anybody? And what is the tense, connotation and psychological and metaphysical annotation of "would be" here?
You see the photo is being eaten up by insects, so it has to be tightened and papered, I suppose. I should have written Biren's treatment, but since Sanjiban has drawn it, I thought it was his case. So all interrogations answered, permission granted?
Yes.
Why did you stop your treatment—or rather R's?
Did you really want me to chant the mantra? I took it as a big piece of a hearty joke. Who knew that so much Biblical significance and value were hiding behind this simple mantra?...
You couldn't realise that Tut Tut Tut was a serious mantra with immense possibilities? Why, it is the modern form of तत्195 and everybody knows that a ऊँ196 is a mantra of great power. Only you should as a penance for not having accepted at once do it, not 15,000, but 150,000 times a day—at a gallop, e.g. OM Tut a Tut, TUT a TUT, TUT a TUT and so on at an increasing pace and pitch till you reach either Berhampur197 or Nirvana.
I am not only ignorant about all things spiritual, Atma, Yog-biyog etc., but they are as nauseating to me as quinine which I had to gulp in childhood. And see the trick of Fate, it is such things now that I am called upon to do.
You are justly punished—but what is Yog-biyog? I thought that had to do with mathematics, not spiritual philosophy.
Is it for nothing that I see the Red Light burning in the subtle worlds, as the outcome of my misadventure?
Take courage. Say Tut tut tut to the misadventure and go ahead.
April 10, 1936
I stopped R's treatment because the boil has boiled down. Now he wants to protect me against "farther boilings" of which I am rather doubtful. Still I will surrender myself to him.
Could try at any rate,—as these things are always coming back.
But then I am afraid because I hear he has been rather too free with his hands and mouth of late!
Are you referring to the baptism of S? What has that to do with treatment?
April 11, 1936
I have resumed R's treatment. Yes, I meant "S's baptism" by R as well as his hooliganism on the rickshaw-wala. Why, surely you have heard of it? No connection with the treatment? What connection was there between R and the rick shaw-wala? but the incident occurred!
Well, as for S the surprising thing is that nobody baptised him before. R says, I hear, that he jumped on the ricksha-wala in order to save N from battle, murder and sudden death, and N ungratefully misreported the whole affair!! But R has always been a violent man with much of the character of the adventurer as I wrote to you once,—so the things you write don't surprise me. However, he has not (yet, at least) beaten David's198 mother or baptised the Vice President's wife or even Amaladasan. So I hope that a certain amount of non-connection can be expected when he is treating a case.
Since we are talking about R, let me relate another incident. S had borrowed my copy of Anami and then came and avowed that R had taken it from him and never returned it. When asked, R flatly denied. He also took S's Chambers's dictionary. I myself have seen that it is S's for he had underlined many words in it, as is his practice. I am really amazed!
What is there amazing? My experience is that in India more people than not keep the books of others and feel under no obligation to return them.
But could it be that S himself presented it to R and at the last moment drew back due to some hitch? But S is not the man to present anybody with anything. A riddle, Sir!
Quite possible. S is capable of anything, so is R. The difference in that respect between them is that R has a good side to him and that he is conscious of the large share in himself of what he calls "the pig and tiger instincts".
By the way, what does your newspaper say about Abyssinia? It seems to be sinking into the abyss. Another black country swallowed by the whites? Prayers, entreaties to God, of no avail! The devils are too strong for God? What?
Why all this sentimental fury? This and worse has been happening ever since mankind replaced and improved on the ape and the tiger. So long as men are what they are, these things will happen. What do you expect God to do about it? The Abyssinians have conquered others, Italy conquers the Abyssinians, other people have conquered the Italians and they will probably be sat upon again hereafter. It is the Law, sir, and the Great Wheel and everything else. Keep your head cool in the heat. If you want to change things, you will have to change humanity first and I can assure you you will find it a job. Yes, even to change 150 people in an Asram and get them to surmount their instincts.
You will perhaps say that justice and retribution will come in time.
Good Lord, why should I say such things? Was I ever a moralist or a preacher? Justice was never the determinative factor in a war.
S the head mason is having a headache and vomiting for the last two years. Seems to be due to dietetic indiscretion, but queer that it persists so long...
Probably persistence due to want of dieting. But impossible to diet a Tamilian—too many spices and things.
If you advise any treatment here, we can try to cure his constipation by a mild laxative, and liver by. Lithinée.
Lithinée probably too mild for such a case. Are there no specific medicines from France with Pavitra—you might ask him.
April 12, 1936
[In the medical note-book:]
Sir, couldn't finish what I began with your other book, so kept it. Will see tonight if Time and the Gods are favourable. Pray to them meanwhile.
April 14, 1936
What, Sir? Mistake? Where is my medical report book? I suppose and conclude from the unfinished nature of the writing199 that you wanted to detain this book and send back the other one. Right?
Kept the wrong book. (Reminds me of the Sultan of Johore who when the Englishmen on board his ship were inveighing in fury against the murder of Sir Curzon Wylie by an Indian, wanted to sympathise and moaned out "Very bad! very bad! shot the wrong man!")
April 15, 1936
The trouble is that I can't tell J all that I think of her poetry, so I keep silent, whereas she goes on with her flourishes.
Well, let her flourish while you maintain a wise silence!
April 16, 1936
Jatin Bal has sent two photos of his wife. She seems to have a calm, cool and comely face, along with a simplicity in bearing.
It is rather gentle and simple than calm; but not strong. Can't say anything more at present.
April 17, 1936
Venkatraman's temperature is 102˚. He feels "wretched". I've prescribed some fever mixture.
If the fever continues, I suppose there must be mixture
He's begging for the Mother's Mercy, Compassion, Grace, Force, etc., etc. Is it coming?
Is he receiving it?
A simple pharyngitis running its course of 4-5 days.
Venkatraman's illness is that? However simple not surprising he should be wretched.
Then the Force is playing the same part as the medicines—if at all, Sir, I am thinking.
Think on! think hard! Think, brothers, think!
Mulshankar is having headache, pain as if his left eye were coming out, strong constipation,—when headache, then inability to eat or drink water without vomiting. I have told him to go to you. You know it is extremely important to prevent constipation and a watch must be kept on that head of his. Needn't tell him anything except to come to you at once if there are these things.
April 18, 1936
Venkatraman had an experience of "something solid being pushed in him, at pranam". Now, that's something. I wonder why the Mother didn't do the same before.
I wonder why he didn't receive it before.
Why, Sir, seems you don't read the reports well? I told you his was a congested throat—that means tonsils, pharynx—everything. And when I said pharyngitis—you asked whether his illness was that.
Then why do you say a simple pharyngitis when it is "everything' under the sun?
Feeling a bit worried, Sir, about H. He is absolutely stationary! Fault of the medicine or the instrument? He also doesn't receive the Force?
Never did except by an occasional accident of which he immediately repents.
Noni came today for ringworm and incidentally showed sores on the soles. He said he was under R's treatment—the sores were getting better when R stopped treatment. When they became worse, Noni approached R who refused further treatment as he had "written to Mother" about his cure.
My information is Noni was cured first time, but there was a relapse which was treated—I don't remember with what result. Have heard nothing about it afterwards.
Noni asked, "Shall I write again?" to which R said, "No, I have no time." So he has come to the non-miracle doctor! But why no time, please?
Can't say—it is true he has been vet), much occupied recently.
By Jove, what a fright you gave me, Sir, about Mulshankar! He told me that this business [headache, constipation, etc.] has been his companion for about 14 years. It's neither worse now nor less severe. All the same his accident makes it more important... I have emphasised on this constipation to be relieved as soon as it pokes its belly up!
All right.
But queer to think that the fellow discussed the matter with V (specialist in constipation), while I was sitting just there. Not a word to me! Funny, strange, curious!
Especially as I have told him that V "talks foolishly" and asked him not to listen to him.
April 19, 1936
Noni came to enquire if I had told you anything! Can he go to R? Wouldn't it be better since he cured him once?
If R is willing to take him up.
How is it that my patients go on lingering and lingering even with a trifling thing? Some don't receive Force, others repent it, others receiving have no effect, etc., etc., and I have to quarrel with you for a dose? Whereas R has it in a flood simply for the asking or even without. R cures cancer in 10 days, goitre in 2 weeks and diabetes in 7 days.
Hallo! 10 days?
Which was the diabetes case? I have forgotten.
Immense energy, enthusiasm, vital force, 100 miles an hour determination to succeed and a 2000 horse power confidence, "I will do it"—vital absolutely convinced of the Force, mind constantly finding reasons for belief in it (not as you and others do equally or more, admitting reasons against); rapid intuitions getting there in spite of any errors of speculation, decision of mind and will accompanied by a mobile and plastic observing mind suiting itself to the circumstances and then overcoming them—that's the secret of a powerful instrumentalism—at least in a rajasic man. A sattwic fellow would do it also but on other lines. You—ahem!
Doctor in the same boat as the patients? When will you put me on the "Queen Mary"?
When will you walk in? Very dawdling and deliberate gait, sir!
April 20, 1936
The qualities you enumerate of the rajasic man's instrumentalism are more inborn than acquired, it seems to me.
Obviously.
I doubt whether they can be acquired to the same extent except by Yoga.
If they are acquired to a sufficient extent, that is enough.
Even if acquired by Yoga, won't there be a difference between the instrumentalism of the one born with them and the other who has acquired them?
There may be a difference, but this ip after all not a competitive examination. If one can be a good and strong instrument, that is enough.
These qualities seem very well on a piece of paper, but not so easy to get in practical life.
They are not easy for those who have not got them; quite easy for those who have.
For instance, the intuition you speak of, is a deuced difficult thing to make out, and in the field of application all mobilily, plasticity, observation play false, or make a mess unless one knows the business very well.
Naturally one must know the business. But there is an enormous difference between a man who knows his business and has confidence and intuition and one who knows his business but has not. I have known doctors with an excellent knowledge of medicine who succeeded much less than others who had far less but had dash, decision and drive.
At times I try to analyse myself to find out my defect—lack of adequate knowledge? Lack of experience? Lack of confidence?
Even if you had knowledge and experience, you would still hesitate. There would be always an "after all", "is it this or that?", "I may be off the mark", "Is it this, is it that?" etc.
I blame the first two, but you seem to think they are secondary, and confidence is the essential requisite. Suppose I am given a case whose exact nature I don't know, and without knowing it I can't cure. How will my self-confidence help in such a case?
The self-confident doctor decides as best he can and acts—if he finds he is making fausse route, he retraces his steps and corrects. He develops in himself the coup d'oeil which does not depend only on reasoning and finally manages to be right in the majority of cases. You may say that he may kill his patients when he is wrong. But so does the hesitant doctor by his hesitation—e.g. by not taking a step which is urgently required.
All this is of course, general. I am not asking you to imitate the quick step people—because without their confidence and savoir faire you would only bungle it. স্বধর্ম্মে নিধনং শ্রেয়ঃ (of the patient, of course), পরধর্ম্মো ভয়াবহঃ200
I had hoped that the Force would drop in one day and dynamise the being. That illusion has gone. Now I find that I shall have to work for it slowly, slowly, bit by bit till one day, one year, one decade my labour culminates in what I hope for now. That is how, I suppose, the faith in the Force, higher Shakti, etc. fulfil themselves.
"One century, one millennium"—be complete please in your enumeration.
That is just it. It is the "slowly slowly" mind and "let us consider all the facts and reason the whole thing and its possibilities and impossibilities" mind, that stands in your way.
You have said, "A sattwic fellow would do it also, but on other lines." Will you tell us how?
I would prefer to wait till I have the said sattwic man in my hand. The sattwic man would have less vital rush, more balance, harmony, even working out of the Force—He might do less surprising things or rather give them a less surprising appearance, but possibly he would be more quietly sure.
You have said to J that my natural bent is pessimistic. But why then is there such an ambition, aspiration, desire to be pure and perfect in life as well as in literature? What a paradox!
It is two different portions of your being—One wants to climb mountains, the other which stands at the foot or is climbing or rather being haled up the first steps of ascent, pulls back, groans, grunts, growls, wails and cries "That? all that height? Tchah! pooh! I'll never be able to negotiate one ten thousandth part of that! Let me sit down and lament."
Took H to hospital. Oculist says atropine not necessary.
His eyes seem to be worse rather than better.
What about asking R to take up B.P.'s trachoma case, if he is free now?
I would rather not for the moment. R has Ambu on his hands, two heavy baggages still in the town and other lighter items.
April 21, 1936
By Jove, that handwriting of yours is a brilliantly unique specimen! So I have to send back the note-book! Well, but what's the cure? That impossible mantra [10.4.36] which you gave me, I am trying by fits and starts!
Good Lord! What mantra? OM Tut a tut to to towhit tuwhoo? Man! But it is to be recited only when you are taking tea in the company of four Brahmins pure of all sex ideas and 5 ft. 7 inches tall, with a stomach in proportion. Otherwise it can't be effective.
Waiting patiently for the blue moon, should I all the while cry out "damn it, damn it!"?
But that's another mantra. One for which the blue moon has a special dislike.
I have checked one wave so far. Any more coming on the top of it?
Wave of what? Wave of genius? wave of poetry? Wave of the blues? For heaven's sake write comprehensibly!
Is it really an illusion I am cherishing that the Force will one day galvanise the consciousness? Is it a vain hope? But that's how I console myself and find relief at present—never mind if I can't do this or that, feel sleepy, vital is too lazy: let me slide on some day, some day... What do you say about this "some day"? But I suppose this attitude takes time to be fulfilled...
Well, it is an admirable exercise in faith! As for results, some day, one day, many days, no day—why bother? মা ফলেষু কদাচন201
April 22, 1936
Please ask Mother to give blessings to this hopeless self
R
Vin. Ashirv. — m. VII. Recept. Chlor. — gr. XXV Aqua jollity — ad lib. Tinc. Faith — m. XV Syr. Opt. — Zss.
12 doses every hour.
AUROBINDO202 April 23, 1936
What is the second item in your prescription, Sir? Too Latinic for my poor knowledge.
Chlorate of Receptivity.
And I would put Aqua at the end to make it an absolutely pucca academical prescription.
Yes, but I thought of the two last ingredients afterwards
And 12 doses every hour—these tinctures and vinums?
12 doses—every hour (one each hour). Plagiarised from your language, sir.
And where is the cost to be supplied from?
Gratis—for the poor.
I have composed a sort of a poem:
"Once swayed unmeasured insolent hopes in my breast: Melting like snows heaped upon Himalaya-crest Songs of my glory would o'erflow land and sea In tempestuous floods bursting the limits of Eternity..."
Too grandiloquent?
Yes. But, man alive, what is the metre? It seems to be neither pentametric fish, nor lyrical red herring. I have turned it into Alexandrines.
"Once swayed an insolent hope unmeasured in my breast: That like bright snows high-heaped upon Himalay's crest Songs of my glory overflowing land and sea Would break in deathless floods through long Eternity."
April 24, 1936
In one of your letters you spoke of fictitious stresses. What is meant by them?
I meant simply stresses which are conventionally supposed to be there for the sake of the metre.
Can you not illustrate them in a poem? I am enclosing a carte blanche for the purpose.
What are you dreaming of, sir? A poem as an illustration of my bit of prosodic grammar? Inspiration would run away to Pelion and never return if I did such a shocking thing.
I am keeping your carte blanche but the odds are that it may be fitted to quite another purpose.
April 25, 1936
R. Reddy has fever and headache. Advised eau de cologne on the forehead. As soon as he had applied it, his eyelids swelled so much that the eyes closed. The nose began to water and rapid breathing started—almost an asthmatic attack. At 4.30 p.m. it came down.
Will not eau sédative (it has comphor) be suitable and replace these other things for the head? Eau de Cologne can easily upset one who is quite unaccustomed to alcoholic treatment.
What are the odds of the poem? Stuck up in the clods of correspondence?
What poem?
April 26, 1936
Again "What poem?" strange, strange, very strange! Didn't you receive a carte blanche from me day before yesterday? Perhaps you will ask "What carte blanche?" and I will utter—"Oh Fate! If guru is so forgetful, the shishya can be worse."
And didn't I tell you that it was an extravagant and unwarrantable idea to demand a poem for such a grammatical purpose and I kept the carte blanche that I might use it for other purposes? What's this shishya who doesn't read his guru's objurgations however illegible?!
Somebody writing the biography of Confucius in Bengali says: "Why do the Dharmagurus marry, we can't understand. Buddha did and his wife's tale is হৃদয় বিদারক...203
Why? What is there বিদারক in it?
He goes on: "Sri Aurobindo, though not Dharmaguru, has done it too, and can be called ধর্ম্ম পাগল204 Well, Sir?
Well, it is better to be ধর্ম্ম পাগল than to be a sententious ass and pronounce on what one does not understand.
"We feel so sad about his wife, so too about the wife of Confucius."
Poor sorrowful fellows!
"It is the same about কং.205 He had even a son and two daughters.
[Sri Aurobindo put a? above "কং".]
Who is this gentleman? Is it Wrong? Or is it Kong, by any chance?
"So we don't understand why they marry and why this change comes soon after marriage."
Perfectly natural—they marry before the change—then the change comes and the marriage belongs to the past self, not to the new one.
"The wives of Buddha and Ramakrishna felt proud when they were deserted."
Then what's the harm?
"If married life is an obstacle to spirituality, then they might as well not marry."
No doubt. But then when they marry, there is not an omniscient ass like this biographer to tell them that they were going to be ধর্ম্মগুরু or ধর্ম্মপাগল or in any way concerned with any other ধর্ম্ম than the biographer's.
So according to this biographer, all of you, except Christ, showed a lack of wisdom by marrying!
Well, if a biographer of Confucius can be such an unmitigated ass, Confucius may be allowed to be unwise once or twice, I suppose.
I touch upon a delicate subject, but it is a puzzle.
Why delicate? and why a puzzle? Do you think that Buddha or Confucius or myself were born with a prevision that they or I would take to the spiritual life? So long as one is in the ordinary consciousness, one lives the ordinary life—when the awakening and the new consciousness come, one leaves it—nothing puzzling in that.
B finds that the power of his glasses has to be increased. Shall I take him to the hospital? He will bear the cost of the glasses. But the power will go on increasing steadily.
Yes; you can get him examined and take the expert's opinion. One can react against the necessity of increase.
What do you think of Bates' system? Shall we try it for B?
No. Bates is successful when done "under" a Bates man or with a conscientious perseverence and intelligence, but it doesn't succeed with many under other circumstances.
April 27, 1936
Manubhai has slight temperature, headache and pain in limbs. I gave him some purgative and he had 11 watery motions.
Why not enema? Purgative in fever is not always safe.
Should he go on with his work, or should he take rest?
He should rest.
It seems the Mother "rolled her eyes" at Venkataram's sea bath. But you wrote back to him, "It is too small an incident."
That is a polite way of putting it. I intimated to him that he was a silly ass to think Mother would get excited about his sea bath. But this silly assness is incorrigible in V. He is doing it all the time and weeping and raging over his imaginations.
He came and asked me what I had written to Mother about his sea bath, and what were Mother's remarks. I told him I would not say anything.
No Sadhak has a right to cross-examine the doctor about his reports to the Mother. They must be treated as confidential.
April 28, 1936
I was called in at 1 p.m. by Bala, because of severe pain in the left arm. She was crying, squeezing her arm. It is a case of neuralgia... I thought, "What will the Force do, after all? she will have to suffer..." and just read what happened! I applied Liniment chloroform locally and gave a pill of aspirin. In about 15 minutes she fell asleep—had beautiful sleep till 3 p.m., when someone woke her up; and lo! the pain had gone! What do you think?
Refuse to think—lost the habit.
Do you know what my weight is? Only 51 kg—112 lbs—8 st. I was staggered to find it so low, wondered how I was walking about!
Quite a respectable weight. I used in the nineteenth century to walk about with less than 100—found no difficulty.
Here is a letter from Mulshankar in answer to my question enumerating the troubles of his leg. What do you say to it as a doctor and especially to the behaviour of the two bones? Kindly return the document along with your remarks.
April 29, 1936
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