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
Have you ever had a headache by giving up tea?...
Yes, of course. Whenever you stop it suddenly, gives headache in revenge.
Today I stopped the habit of morning tea. The result: a headache since 11 a.m. Or is it the Force trying to break my precious head?
No, it is the tea-habit, furious at being given up.
About K's baby—there seems hardly any improvement in the number of stools, except that blood has stopped. Don't you think the number should decrease now; if possible, stop altogether?
Decrease certainly—slow down to nothing—but sudden stoppage might not be so good—although usually if it is the right medicine it does happen.
Does Mother favour Dover's powder? That will reduce the number which was 20 today.
Can't suggest anything,—since medicine needed, must find your way.
20 motions in a day too much for a child of that age.
April 1, 1937
4.30 p.m.
Guru, finished! My concentration, peace, bliss, all gone! At this moment I am dull, dull like clay and hence am compelled to write and groan.
After I wrote about the experience, the thing gradually melted away. Why? The devil knows. All I have done, if they can come under any criminal section, is that I have enjoyed some food with Anilkumar and Nishikanta, and narrated the experience to X.
That would have been better left undone.
... Suddenly to drop into an underground cell is, I don't know what.
Everybody drops. I have dropped myself thousands of times during the sadhana. What rose-leaf princess sadhaks you all are!
Sometimes I cannot but subscribe to S's opinion that this Yoga is not for us... Some say the preliminary stage is the same in all Yogas; only the later stage is difficult here. I don't think it is true, for here, from the very start, it works for the change of nature, working to the very details, which other Yogas know nothing about. They leave the nature out altogether.
According to those who have practised them, in the old Yogas one has to be prepared to pass 12 years simply disciplining, disciplining without a single experience before one can expect as a right any single experience. If one gets experiences so much the better, but one can't expect or claim.
Therefore one has to build a strong foundation; consequently more time, more bricks, more work, more money, etc., are needed. Then how can the initial stage be the same as in other Yogas?
Allow me to point out that here there are any number of people who have had experiences which would be highly prized outside. There are even one or two who have had the Brahman realisation in a single year. But it is the fashion here to shout and despair and say we have got nothing and nobody can get anything in this Yoga. I believe the pretensions of the Pondicherry sadhaks to have an easy and jolly canter to the goal or else think themselves baffled martyrs would be stared at with surprise in any other Asram.
Perhaps or certainly, you are giving Force to K's baby, but why no visible effect? He is an infant, no resistance on his side... You cured D's acute abscess in the abdomen, simply by your Force and no medicine. Where is the trouble here?
Don't talk nonsense. It is because he is an infant that the Force cannot work easily on him D is not an infant.
I am rather worried. No blessed opening in any direction. One has to grope and grope. You don't give any blessed intuition either!
The Mother has no intuition for medicines for infants—You must find out yourself.
If you like, I will completely stop all medicines and leave him to you and Mother.
That we cannot tell you to do. It could only have been guaranteed at the beginning and with a proper mental atmosphere in the people.
Shall I report twice a day about the baby?
Yes, certainly.
April 2, 1937
(1.30. p.m.)
I thought breast milk should be suspended for K's baby, when you said that milk is heavy [31.3.37].
It was supposed that you meant cow's milk. Mother's milk, if the mother is healthy, is the best medicine for these things—Calomel is not to be given. Also it is better not to follow R's advice in these matters or to try too many medicines. The mother's milk and sleep are the most important things for cure—some medicine is a help at the most. More—too many medicines—make things worse rather than better. Anyhow what the Mother wants is for it to be possible for the mother and child to go to Madras tomorrow night with D. She has ordered K to that effect.
[Evening]
[After the summary of A's prolonged treatment had been given:]
So is it hopeful or hopeless?
Hopeful on the whole.
I could not write poetry for 2 days. Along with the heavy work, a disgust for poetry has seized me, just when things were coming up. Misfortunes are usual with me, so no use complaining, what?
Rubbish! Such "misfortunes" are usual with everybody—including myself.
April 3, 1937
[Afternoon]
... It seems K and her child may go, though perhaps a little risky, as absolute rest is indicated...
He will not be running about in the train. What is meant by absolute rest for a child of 4 months? To stay here is much more risky.
Mother's milk and sleep are now available, though the former not much. What about the number of stools? Can you help that?
Medically, the effective treatment for the case and the person has not been found—Yogically, the mother has proved to be not a receptive instrument and the child also does not answer to the Force except for a short while and in a slight degree—the wisest thing for them is therefore to go.
For heaven's sake don't include yourself in the misfortunes!
But I never said that I was one of the misfortunes.
I am not Brahma to take them as part of the lila!
I thought everybody was Brahma, সর্ব্বমিদং ব্রহ্ম.113 Anyway you are trying to do Yoga, so the sooner you adopt the lila attitude the better. Moreover, plenty of people undergo these "misfortunes" without lamentations—take them as the ordinary stuff of life.
No poetry today either! Hellish!
Well, you can try to straddle back into heaven tomorrow.
For K's baby, by "absolute rest" I meant that the jerkings in the train may not be very desirable.
I don't see why it should be worse than other rockings.
I have consulted all the writings on diarrhoea, all give only symptomatic treatment.
There you are in company for once with the homeopaths.
But whatever little the doctors have found by experience to be effective, is not acceptable to you. For instance they recommend Calomel, you say not to be given...
It is no use discussing these matters—the Mother's views are too far removed from the traditional nostrums to be understood by a medical mind, except 'those that have got out of the traditional groove or those who after long experience have seen things and can become devastatingly frank about the limitations of their own "science".
You remember Valle's treatment of Valentine? He gave all the blessed things one after another—2 or 3 emetine in spite of negative stools, opium, etc., till he cured her.
That is to say, he experimented at random—till Valentine cured in spite of all this ill-treatment of her body. And yet you call medicine a "science".
If I had dealt with the case, I think you wouldn't have allowed me emetine at all? Why? Because of my inexperience or you don't want that anything drastic should happen by our treatment?
Certainly not, under your responsibility. Doctors acting on their own can try the kill or cure method—it's their own business.
I admit it is quite possible for Science to be wrong as it has been shown repeatedly.
Very obviously.
I would have tried anti-serum and astringents, opium etc. and I think most of the doctors would have done that.
Try everything one after the other and together and see if any hits—that seems to be the method.
K doesn't believe that milk of magnesia is the predisposing cause of the child's illness.
Of course she won't, as that would make her responsible.
D says it is quite harmless. But it may be harmful also and it was so here.
If it may be harmful, how can it be declared harmless?
Otherwise I don't see why after 6 or 8 motions, diarrhoea should have started.
Ideas differ. Both the Mother and Pavitra were horrified at the idea of a child of 4 months being given a purgative. The leading Children's doctor in France told the Mother no child under 12 months should be given a purgative, as it is likely to do great harm and may be dangerous. But here, we understand, it is the practice to dose children freely with purgatives from their day of birth almost. Perhaps that and overadministration of medicines is one cause of excessive infant mortality.
You didn't say anything about the medicines for S.
What medicines? Sudarshan? you say she refuses.
April 4, 1937
Have you observed that the bodies of sadhaks and sadhikas have become abnormally sensitive? Even a small dose of medicine produces reactions. Good or bad?
It shows a more sensitive body consciousness—good, if it becomes more sensitive also to the Force.
Last evening's curry of potato and tomato didn't keep well, I am afraid. I took it at about 8.30 p.m. and found a bad smell.
Mother tasted it just after meditation—it was then very good still. But tomatoes can't be kept too long, especially in this hot weather—unless it is very carefully done. Up to 8.30 was probably too long and it must have turned.
April 5, 1937
I have scratched the whole poem out of existence! And yet when I completed it, I was so happy thinking it was something great! Fool!
Every poet is such a fool. His work is done in an exalting excitement of the vital mind—judgment and criticism can only come when he has cooled down.
Well, Sir, any good this poem, or goes to the same basket?
This one is very fine. No W.P.B., please.
I can't get the current back. Even the taste has disappeared. On the contrary a fear has grown, lest my poems be good-for-nothing.
Nonsense! No poet can always write well—If even Homer nods, Nirod can often doze—that's no reason for getting morally bilious
Once I asked you to give some advice as regards the treatment of a patient, you replied: "... I have no medico in me, not even a latent medico." [1.4.35]
Of course not. If it were there, I would develop it and run the Dispensary myself. What would be the need of a Nirod or Becharlal or Ramchandra?
Then the other day regarding K's baby you wrote that the Mother has no intuition for infants.
No intuition for stuffing infants with heterogeneous medicines.
Well then, if you have no latent medico and Mother has no intuition for infants, can you tell me how by the force of devotion, faith, surrender, etc., is one going to get guidance from you? If the Divine hasn't got it, where the deuce will it come from?
What logic! Because Mother and myself are not Engineers, therefore Chandulal can't develop the right intuition in engineering? or because neither I nor Mother are experts in Gujerati prosody, therefore Punjalal can't develop the inspiration for his poems?
If the Divine can't guide me externally which is much easier, how can he guide internally, and if he has no medico, wherefrom will the medico come to him within?
Oh Lord! what a question! To guide internally is a million times easier than to guide externally. Let us suppose I want General Miaja to beat Franco's fellows back at Guadalajara (please pronounce properly), I put the right force on him and he wakes up and, with his military knowledge and capacity, does the right thing and it's done. But if I, having no latent or patent military genius or knowledge in me, write to him saying "Do this, do that", he won't do it and I wouldn't be able to do it either. It is operations of two quite different spheres of consciousness. You absolutely refuse to make the necessary distinction between the two fields and their processes and then you jumble the two together and call it logic.
If the medico can be revealed from within, why could it not be revealed from without and tell me to give antidys. serum to K's baby, which I hear has been administered and found to be effective?
Damn it, man! Intuition and revelation are inner things—they don't belong to the outer mind.
If you or Mother can't guide me concretely, how will the guidance come later on, I wonder.
Do you imagine that I tell you inwardly or outwardly what expressions to use in your Bengali poems when you are writing? Still you write from an inspiration which I have set going.
Can you satisfy my logical brain box, Sir?
Your logical brain box, sir, is such a rule-of-thumb, Dr. Johnsonian sort of affair that it is quite impossible to satisfy. If ever you succeed in emptying the brain box of its miscellaneous contents and being mentally silent, then you will discover how these things are done.
If I am to carry on the medical work well, I would like and expect to have an opening in that line... Please don't say that I cogitate and hesitate. It is precisely that that I want to avoid. Shall I adopt the surrealistic method, i.e. to keep quiet for a moment and whatever strikes first, go ahead with it; only be careful in case of poisons?
There is a vegetable called "bubble and squeak". That describes the two methods you propose. "Bubble" is to go on tossing symptoms about in the head and trying to discover what they point to—that's your method. "Squeak" is to dash at a conclusion (supported by a quotation) and ram some inappropriate medicine down the patient's throat,—that's X's method—But the proper method is neither to bubble nor to squeak.
You remember once I told you of this surrealistic method and you cried Good Lord!? [28.10.35, p. 365]
I did and I repeat it; I don't want this Asram transferred to the next world by your powerful agency.
Once Mother asked me to try this method, i.e. instead of analysing the various possibilities and probabilities and then diagnosing by elimination etc., just keep quiet and go at it.
Well, so that's how the Mother's statements are understood! A free permit for anything and everything calling itself an intuition to go crashing into the field of action! Go at it, indeed! Poor it!
What the Mother says in the matter is what she said to Dr. Manilal with his entire agreement—viz. Reading from symptoms by the doctors is usually a mere balancing between possibilities (of course except in clear and simple cases) and the conclusion is a guess. It may be a right guess and then it will be all right, or it may be a wrong guess and then all will be wrong unless Nature is too strong for the doctor and overcomes the consequences of his error—or at the least the treatment will be ineffective. On the contrary if one develops the diagnostic flair, one can see at once what is the real thing among the possibilities and see what is to be done. That is what the most successful doctors have; they have this flashlight which shows them the true point. Manilal agreed and said the cause of the guessing was that there were whole sets of symptoms which could belong to any one of several diseases and to decide is a most delicate and subtle business, no amount of book knowledge or reasoning will ensure a right decision. A special insight is needed that looks through the symptoms and not merely at them—This last sentence, by the way, is my own, not Manilal's. About development of intuition, afterwards—no time tonight.
Regarding the vaccination you referred to, shall I ask the hospital doctor to come and do a few cases and then from the next day I can do; or shall I ask them to show me a few cases at the hospital? Either can be arranged for. Valle says all the members have to be vaccinated. André says all are not necessary. He has asked me to see him tomorrow morning.
The letter sent to us by Valle with Gaffiero's counter-signature expressly offered to us the management of the whole affair by our own doctors, so that there should be no intervention of the authorities with all its inconveniences—we have only to make a report of the persons vaccinated and their reactions. They, if we have to vaccinate at all, are just the conditions Mother wants. She does not want their doctors or infirmiers114 to come in. So you will avoid that. Ask them to show you a few cases so that you can do the thing yourself—that is the only course Mother sanctions.
Valle of course had to say that everybody was to be vaccinated, but really they are offering us by this arrangement some freedom in the matter which we shall not have if they come in. The Mother proposes to have the workmen and servants vaccinated and a small number of the sadhaks, especially those who go out and mix with the town people—enough to make a sufficient show on paper. She expects that Gaffiero will pass the thing and let the matter drop without insisting more—he is very favourable to the Asram. Only the thing had better be completed before he goes to Europe.
April 6, 1937
Valle seemed to say that one of their members has to be present, to write down the reports etc. which has to be done in a special way and on the spot. It can't be done by one person. I said we have assistants, we can very well manage it, once shown how. As I pressed my point, Valle seemed rather annoyed thinking, perhaps, "What's the harm if just a compounder or infirmier comes?"
In their letter they very distinctly stated that they did not want to impose their doctors and infirmiers on us, we could do it well enough on our own and they wanted only our report as to persons vaccinated, reactions, etc. Now they are going back on what they said. I suppose it is because you have shown too clearly that you were somewhat new over the matter—
He also said, "It may not be effective, for the vaccine may solidify or get spoilt in some way."
It is true of course about the vaccine.
André seemed more liberal yesterday. He said he would come and do the whole thing. He will perhaps bring an assistant.
Do the whole? In a single day? with the same knife? with what kind of sterilisation?
He didn't insist on all the members. So I suppose he can bring the compounder and finish the servants in one day.
Certainly, all the members are not to be vaccinated. There are people in ill health, some with weak hearts etc. You are going to expose them also to the risk of 'the reactions'? Sometimes the vaccination knocks people ill for a day or two. If many of the workers are to be down together, who will do the work? People in a state of debility, e.g., N, T, L, X, A, S, those who have already fever, or skin disease, those who are otherwise contra-indicated are all to be included in the hecatomb? The whole thing is preposterous and you must not allow yourself to be hustled into doing anything they tell you. We must first know what we are prepared to do, who have not on any account to be exposed to this poisoning, etc., etc. and do only what we consent to, not what they insist on. I am farther informed that for two days after vaccination one is supposed not to do any physical work or exertion. How then are you going to vaccinate all the servants or workmen in one day? If there are 20 or 30 people down with fever together are you going to trot about all day and night looking after all? This won't do at all. Everything will have to be carefully considered and arranged beforehand and you must not allow yourself to be hustled into any premature action and arrangements. There is no epidemic raging that all should be done in maddening haste—it must be done little by little in a manageable way. We have not to take them into confidence as to whom we vaccinate and whom we don't, either, or let them know that we are not doing it to all—unless they themselves say it need not be done to all.
The only way out for the vaccination seems to be that the compounder can come and do a few servants at a time (3 or 4) and you can be there and learn and afterwards you can take up the rest of the thing yourself.
Guru, C's letter! Do you notice what he says about outside disciples and D's going? Any truth?
Can't make out anything from 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.
April 7, 1937
Today 4 persons were vaccinated. It is a very simple affair, but there is going to be trouble, it seems. The assistant says it is not possible for him to come every day only for 4 persons, neither can he leave the vaccines etc. without Valle's permission. He says there's hardly any reaction, except a slight fever in children. So what's the harm in vaccinating more people?... The thing is that they have stock vaccine tubes (sealed) for 50 people—not less than that. Once a tube is unsealed, it has to be used up in a day, or discarded. Today already we had to throw away some. If, by chance, there is none one day, we can simply drop that day. But for that, the assistant said, Valle's permission is required, otherwise we can buy from the pharmacy. If Valle doesn't allow the first, we'll be compelled to buy. But what a cost it'll be! I'm sceptical about Valle's permission, because he insists on the staff's presence and I don't know that he would like only 4 persons at a time. So what's to be done about it? Gaffiero will have no objection, I think. But Valle is in charge. And the difficulty is how to say all this in French.
And yet it was Valle himself who wrote saying that they would not impose their doctors or infirmiers upon us!
Valle and Gaffiero don't pull on well together.
Mother has asked Pavitra to see Gaffiero tomorrow. Pavitra will be going at 9, so you must go to Pavitra's before 9.
April 8, 1937
"Creating language from the sleep of God", how can one do that?
From where else are you going to do it? The Word comes out of the Silence. I have myself written about Inspiration bringing "thoughts Hewn from the silence of the Ineffable."115 If anybody can't understand, tant pis pour lui.116
I have fallen into the old pit of lack of enthusiasm. Source exhausted, it appears!
Source of enthusiasm? The source of poetry seems to be there, all right.
The vaccination business has been now fixed. If we do only 4 persons, it will take too long. (Can't be finished before Gaffiero goes in May.) Suppose, after seeing the reaction, if any, of the fellows done, we increase the number to 10—half from B.S. and half domestic, or half domestic and half sadhaks?
Workmen not to be touched till the roof is finished—on Tuesday. Then you can have 4 + 4 servants and workmen, + 2 sadhaks. But get a list of sadhaks done (in consultation with Amrita) and we will mark off those who must not be poisoned. For the rest you will have to do those whom you can induce to make themselves victims on the sacred altar of Science, so that Valle can say with self-satisfaction "Ah ha! the Asram has been vaccinated."
How funny that Valle acceded to Pavitra and was an adamantine rock to me!
Valle said it was only out of compassion for you because you said you knew nothing about it and were so much at sea! He did not put it in that figurative language but it was the purport of his plea.
I am afraid D [a child] has obstinate constipation. I am damned, for, except enema, castor-oil is the drug for children in our "Science".
All "science" does not recommend castor-oil for children—I think it is a nineteenth century fad which has prolonged itself. The Mother's "children's doctor" told her it should not be done—also in her own case when a child the doctors peremptorily stopped it on the ground that it spoiled the stomach and liver. I suppose you will say doctors. disagree? They do! When K's child reached Madras, the first doctor said "Stop mother's milk for three days", the second said "Mother's milk to be taken at once, at once!" So, sir. Anyhow for D Mother proposes diet first—small bananas Pavitra will give, very good for constipation—papaiya if available in the garden. Also as he is pimply, cocoanut water on an empty stomach. Afterwards we can see if medicine is necessary.
April 9, 1937
I wonder why you flared up at the idea of my using the surrealist method in treating patients.
I didn't flare up. I was cold with horror.
By "go at it" I obviously didn't mean sending your Asram to the next world! No, not at all. I meant only this: say a case comes with pain in the stomach, loss of appetite, etc., I simply keep silent, suddenly comes to me the suggestion—gastritis, without any analysis of symptoms.
Doctors don't mean it, when they do that kind of thing. It is not deliberate murder with them, but involuntary or, shall we say, experimental homicide.
Mother told me to practise the intuitive method, I thought. "Go at it" was simply my military language! I thought this is one of the ways to develop intuition—if it can be developed. Otherwise how the deuce is it going to come? Going to open suddenly?
She said that you have to stop jumping about from guess to guess and develop the diagnostic insight—seeing what comes from the intuition and then looking at the case to see if it is right. But to take the first thing that comes and act on it, is guessing pure and simple. If after a time you find that your perceptions turn out to have been automatically right each time, then you can be confident that you have got the thing.
How do the most successful doctors have intuition, by a flash or what you call an inner sight?
Some have it by nature and develop it by experience.
Or do they get it by plenty of experience, treating, curing, killing, etc.?
Well, there are some who after killing a few hundreds, learn to kill only a few. But that is not intuition; that is simply learning from experience.
Rajangam thinks that behind their success there is plenty of experience; their familiarity with various diseases, and manifestations, shows them immediately what's wrong with a case.
Of course, experience is of great importance, but still it is not everything.
Book knowledge will not always succeed in practice, experience will do; but experience must stand on adequate book knowledge. Since you have neither book knowledge nor experience, you have no medico—so no intuition, I suppose.
Excuse me, you can have intuitions—with book-knowledge or even experience.
You will perhaps say that there are plenty of doctors with plenty of experience, but that they are not all successful. True, but the other thing is also true that successful doctors are supported by their varied experience.
Some succeed from the beginning.
How do you solve the tangle?
What is the difficulty? Experience is necessary, book-knowledge is useful for the man who wants to be a perfect doctor; observation and discrimination are also excellent provided they are correct observation and discrimination; but all these are only helps for the flair to move about supported by a perfect mental confidence in the flair.
Then about the inner and outer guidance: of course all this trouble comes from not knowing anything about the queer action of the complex Force formula.
There is also some inability to grasp the philosophy of things.
The internal guidance is possible only when the subject has sufficient receptivity, isn't it?
Certainly.
When one hasn't that receptivity, outer guidance will surely be the only course.
How is the outer guidance to give intuition? It only by itself supplies a ready-made course of action which the person blindly follows.
For instance, you give me Force for English poetry—some lines come all right, others are jumbled, wrong, etc., and these things you correct by outer guidance, i.e. by correcting, changing, etc. till I become sufficiently receptive and then only a few changes will be necessary.
I do so in your English poetry because I am an select I nowadays avoid poetry. In Bengali poetry, I don't do it. I only natives offered by yourself. Mark that for Amal correcting or changing as far as possible—that is in order to encourage the inspiration to act in himself. Sometimes I see what he should have written but do not tell it to him, leaving him to get it or not from my silence.
You say the same thing about Gen. Miaja with his military knowledge and capacity. Exactly, if he has these things, he can receive your right Force.
It does not follow. Another man may have the knowledge and receive nothing—If he receives, his knowledge and capacity help the Force to work out the details.
It seems that though you have no patent or latent military capacity, your Force has, and it wakes up in the man the right judgments etc.
Not in this life.
This is all a mystery beyond my ken.
May I ask why? Your idea is that either I must inspire him specifically in every detail, making a mere automaton of him, or if I don't do that, I can do nothing with him? What is this stupid mechanical notion of things?
The Force having military knowledge, poetic power, healing virtues, etc., the embodiment of the Force also must have the latent general, poet, medico, etc.—sounds strange to me otherwise.
Because you have the damnably false idea that nothing can be done in the world except by mental means—that Force must necessarily be a mental Force and can't be anything else.
The strangest thing of all is that if the Divine wills, why can't an effective drug in a case be revealed to him, medico or no medico?
Why the devil should He will like that in all cases?
I am to induce the victims for the sacrifice? Good heavens! Do you want me to be sacrificed by your disciples? Please mark off those who are to be vaccinated, instead of the other way round.
Can't do that.
Of course my suggestion of voluntary sacrifice was a joke. It is an official order from the Government department, and we can't contemptuously wave it aside—we can only minimise its incidence.
As to Force let me point out a few elementary notions which you ignore.
(1) The Force is a divine Force, so obviously it can apply itself in any direction; it can inspire the poet, set in motion the soldier, doctor, scientist, everybody.
(2) The Force is not a mental Force—it is not bound to go out from the Communicator with every detail mentally arranged, precise in its place, and communicate it mentally to the Recipient. It can go out as a global Force containing in itself the thing to be done, but working out the details in the recipient and the action as the action progresses. It is not necessary for the Communicant to accompany mentally the Force, plant himself mentally in the mind of the Recipient and work out mentally there the details. He can send the Force or put on the Force, leave it to do its work and attend himself to other matters. In the world most things are worked out by such a global Force containing the results in itself, but involved, concealed, and working them out in a subsequent operation. The seed contains the whole potentiality of the tree, the gene contains the potentiality of the living form that it initiates, etc., etc., but if you examine the seed and gene ad infinitum, still you will not find there either the tree or the living being. All the same the Force has put all these potentialities there in a certain evolution which works itself out automatically.
(3) In the case of a man acting as an instrument of the Force the action is more complicated, because consciously or unconsciously the man must receive, also he must be able to work out what the Force puts through him. He is a living complex instrument, not a simple machine. So if he has responsiveness, capacity, etc. he can work out the Force perfectly, if not he does it imperfectly or frustrates it. That is why we speak of and insist on the perfectioning of the instrument. Otherwise there would be no need of sadhana or anything else—any fellow would do for any blessed work and one would simply have to ram things into him and see them coining out in action.
(4) The Communicant need not be an all-round many-sided Encyclopaedia in order to communicate the Force for various purposes. If we want to help a lawyer to succeed in a case, we need not be perfect lawyers ourselves knowing all law, Roman, English or Indian and supply him all his arguments, questions, etc., doing consciously and mentally through him his whole examination, cross-examination and pleading. Such a process would be absurdly cumbrous, incompetent and wasteful. The prearrangement of the eventful result and the capacity for making him work his instruments in the right way and for arranging events also so as to aid towards the result are put into the Force when it goes to him, they are therefore inherent in its action and the rest is a question of his own receptivity, responsiveness etc. Naturally the best instrument even is imperfect (unless he is a perfected Adhar), and mistakes may be committed, other suggestions accepted etc., etc., but if the instrument is sufficiently open, the Force can set the thing to rights and the result still comes. In some or many cases the Force has to be renewed from time to time or supported by fresh Force. In some directions particular details have to be consciously attended to by the Communicant. All that depends on circumstances too multitudinous and variable to be reduced to rule. There are general lines, in these matters, but no rules; the working of a non-mental Force has necessarily to be plastic, not rigid and tied to formulas. If you want to reduce things to patterns and formulas, you will necessarily fail to understand the workings of a spiritual (non-mental) Force.
(5) All that I say here refers to spiritual Force. I am not speaking of the Supramental.
(6) Also please note that this is all about the working of Force on or through people: it has nothing to do with intuition which is quite another matter. Also it does not preclude always and altogether a plenary and detailed inspiration from a Communicant to a recipient—such things happen, but it is not necessary to proceed in that way, nor below the Supermind or supramentalised Overmind can it be the ordinary , process.
[I sent a translation of C's Bengali letter where he wrote about his lapses.]
...Well, well, I am not so bad after all, am I?
No,—I should say that compared with most people you are quite decent!
But C seems to have made a lot of progress, hasn't he?
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".)
April 10, 1937
You may read, if you like, my letter of 2.4.37. The first part of the letter hardly requires the answer you gave, as fortunately I have got back the condition. But I would like to know if telling of experiences may have a bad effect.
It may.
The difficulty of your Yoga, even in the first stage, seems to me to be greater compared with the other yogas.
The difficulty is a myth. The difficulty is in the change of Nature or transformation which comes afterwards. Otherwise the difficulty in the beginning is the same for this or any other Yoga. Some go fast, some go slow here, also elsewhere.
Sir, here is the enlightenment on C's letter [7.4.37]: "I have heard from Benoy that Sri Aurobindo is now concentrating on outside sadhaks. A day may come when his work may be done even by those staying outside. Benoy has heard it from Bishwanath who has been told by the Mother, that is why D and a few others have been allowed to come out. Any truth in it?"
No truth whatever! Mother said nothing to Radhakanta.117 It is probably one of Benoy's romances or it may have been built on some casual remark of R—which was immediately turned into "Mother's saying" with additional superstructures.
This sort of notion is unfortunately current even in the Asram.
There are hundreds of false notions current in the Asram.
The other day K was saying that you have written to him that, even living outside, sadhana can be done, for it is done by the psychic which can receive from anywhere.
Of course it can—there are plenty of people doing it outside in Rangpur, Chittagong, Gujerat and elsewhere. How far they will get is another matter.
So staying here is not absolutely necessary; and simple staying won't give anything either.
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "simple".]
Of course not. If simple staying did it, the servants and workmen would be yogis by this time.
... I told him that there is surely a difference between doing sadhana here and doing it outside. There is a great thing in the Mother's touch etc... He said all that is ভাঁওতা!118
? Don't know the word.
Is it only for physical transformation that staying here is necessary? Otherwise sincere sadhana can be done elsewhere as well as here.
I don't suppose the later stages of the transformation including the physical would be possible elsewhere. In fact in those outside none of the three transformations seems to have begun. They are all preparing. Here there are at least a few who have started one or two of them. Only that does not show outside. The physical or external alone shows outside.
About the vaccination, Chandulal says some carpenters and painters will not be working on the roof building. So shall I start with them?
That is all right.
Then, as to the sadhaks, if you don't give a notice, I am afraid everyone will refuse or individually approach you for permission to be left out.
A notice would have to be given, of course. I am marking on the list with a red dot those whom we positively want omitted (but it does not mean all else have to be vaccinated) and with a blue dot those who ought to vaccinate without doubt because they go out and mix with town people or mix with them in some other way. A red line means visitors or short time residents who need not be bothered. Over the rest I am still cogitating.
Can your letter on Force be read out to a limited few?
Yes, but only a few. No copies.
April 11, 1937
Guru, another wire from Chand! "Nirod Asram Pondicherry Biswanath asks look arya Correspondence Tomorrow blessings." If you understand what he means, please give an answer, if any!
You can wire to him that it is not sanctioned. Nolini will write to Radhakanta.
Besides those whom you have vetoed for vaccination, I'm afraid many others have to be done so. I had to exclude M, J, B and S, for they had pox before.
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "had pox before".]
Those who have had pox once are not vaccinated? That's all right. I forgot myself, I think, old Laxmi. Shailaja says he had "got it" (I don't know whether vaccination or smallpox) a year ago—I have told him to report the fact to you. Vithalbhai has, I suppose, to be exempted, he has several ailments; he says he has been twice vaccinated. Ambu and Nagin are under R's treatment, the latter for debility—they also I suppose go out. There may be others.
April 12, 1937
Why, Sir, you didn't know that smallpox fellows are not required to be vaccinated?... A book says one attack generally protects for life, but second attacks are not very uncommon and the protection tends to wear off in time. My theory smashed? Well, exception proves the rule, what?
Well, there are people who say that smallpox attacks immunise for only a few years. But if it is as you say, then there are others, I suppose. There is Amani119 among the servants for instance who nearly died of smallpox. I myself had a slight attack in Baroda soon after I came from England—so you needn't try to come up and vaccinate me.
You have written to Shailaja that the effect of vaccination lasts 5 years, and revaccination is not required within that period.
That is what one book says.
But I gather that French regulation requires vaccination every year...
Why not every week?
Whom are you vaccinating? Mother wants to have the report every day.
How do you like this poem,120 Sir?
Well, the rhythm seems to me all right and the poem is exceedingly beautiful. Al.
Why the devil am I having a headache these last 2 days?
Supramental trying to find a place in your head?
[Regarding the interpretation of a poem of J's:] When there is no fire of Aspiration, the psychic opens the door?
It can, by a pressure from above. It may be that the preparation was over, so that the fire like everything else had sunk into silence, waiting for the descent under whose pressure the psychic door flew open.
That is hardly possible in your Yoga. No aspiration, no nothing—says your teaching.
Never taught anything of the kind. I got the blessed Nirvana without even wanting it. Aspiration is the first or usual means, that is all.
April 13, 1937
You seem to be, by the way, like Bernard Shaw in matters of vaccination. Do you deny the profits of one of the greatest discoveries of medicine? Not for yogis, but for the public?
Can't discuss that. Have not denied partial effectivity, though complete it is not, since it has to be renewed every year, as you say. The whole Pasteurian affair is to me antipathetic—it is dark and dangerous in principle, however effective.
You struck me dumb with surprise, Sir! That poem was exceedingly fine? I thought absolutely otherwise. What does your "A" mean at the end?
It is you who surprise me. I should have thought the poetical quality of these stanzas would have been self-evident. On metre etc. I cannot pronounce, for in Bengali metre I am not an expert—so I only wrote that it seemed all right. What I wrote was of the poetical quality and after reading it 2 or 3 times to make sure, the estimate remains. It is Al (not A)—A1 means of the first quality.
April 14, 1937
We are short of three persons for vaccination; I propose to make them up tomorrow.
Make up—how? I thought you had daily only enough for tell vaccinations, and, if all were not used, those remaining over have to be thrown away?
Well, don't discuss the effectivity of vaccination, if you don't like, but please enlighten us with your Supramental Light as we are rather hidebound in our glorious "science".
No time for showing the glorious Science its errors. Too busy trying to get the supramental Light down to waste time on that. Afterwards, sir, afterwards.
Sada & Co. refuse the vaccination point blank! Till now none has succeeded in doing them, they say! Well?
Nothing to be said, unless you tell them to go and be d—d in their own way!
After reading so many Bengali poems and Dilipda's learned lessons on metre, you ought not to say that you are not an expert in Bengali metre, Sir!
Read them? Flip-flopped through them, you mean—how could all that strenuous technicality remain in the head?
Look at this Bengali sonnet. How is it?
Very fine indeed except for the concluding couplet which might be called a flat drop! What the deuce, sir!? What kind of coupletitis is this illness of yours? anaemia finalis.
Another letter from C, saying that your chiding had wonderful effect, Sir. Lots of worries gone! So it is not my "abortioning", Sir! [10.4.37] 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"!
Can't be, can't be! You must have misread it. I stick to the abortion.
Can the observing of these moral obligations which C mentions be a help in Yoga?
Yes, sir, if done in the right spirit, it will.
J says you called her also "sir"!
So I did—but I was answering to you.
Guru, this poem seems a very fine poem, though I can't follow it.
You are a very difficult follower. It is because you follow your own mind instead of identifying with the mind of the poem.
[Against a portion of the interpretation I had cancelled:]
!!! What a confusion!
... Rather complicated, this.
No, sir; it is your mind that has got complicated.
...After a talk with J, the poem seems clear and my criticism wrong ...
Luckily I thought of reading the end first, otherwise I would have had to swear at you at length all the way instead of growling slightly here and there.
April 15, 1937
Identifying with the mind of the poem or the poet or with anything else—are all fine phrases to me, Sir.
It is the only way in which poetry can be read—every lover of poetry does it.
But how to do it? God alone knows. From your remark it seems to be very easy. Any process?
No process needed; it is done automatically. Never heard of entering into the spirit of a poem? If you can enter into its spirit, what is so difficult in entering into its mind?
You couldn't still resist swearing even when I cancelled a portion and corrected myself? Beast of Burden?
Who? I? or you?
Swore a little first, then went into the cancel. Had intended to come back and swear more, but cancelled the farther intention of swear.
What is it, Sir, Sada & Co. to be dead? dead!
No, sir, not dead, but damned! damned! damned!
Very glad to hear, Sir, that you are "too busy". Only we have been hearing that so often and so long since, that by now the Supramental or any Light should have tumbled down!
It isn't so easy to make it tumble.
But jokes apart, I hear, from reliable authority, that the Supramental Descent is very near. Is it true, Sir?
I am very glad to hear it on reliable authority. It is a great relief.
What is this medical word, Sir? "What kind of coupletitis"?
Yes, that's it—like neuritis, laryngitis etc. so coupletitis, illness of the couplet.
It appears that D [a child] is getting 4 motions a day and today blood. Something will have to be done before it gets worse.
April 16, 1937
When we were discussing about the Force and the Spanish General Miaja [6.4.37], you said: "Let us suppose... I put the right force on him...", why did you say "right"? Is there also a wrong Force? Can't be, for it is the Divine Force.
Don't remember what exactly I wrote—so can't say very well. But of course there can be a wrong Force. There are Asuric Forces, rajasic Forces, all sorts of Forces. Apart from that one can use a mental or vital Force which may not be the right thing. Or one may use the Force in such a way that it does not succeed or does not hit the General on the head or is not commensurate with the opposing Forces. (Opposing Forces need not be Asuric, they may be quite gentlemanly Forces thinking they are in the right. Or two Divine Forces might knock at each other for the fun of the thing. Infinite possibilities, sir, in the play of Forces.)
Even if it can't be wrong, its efficacy will vary with the power of the communicant. For instance there will be a difference between Ramakrishna's and Vivekananda's Force, and therefore in the resultant effectivity or ineffectivity.
Naturally.
What I want to know is whether the Force, applied or directed, is always the right Force. Can there be any mistake in the Force, in its misapplication or in its failure to get the desired result?...
What is a mistake? Eventually the Force used is always the Force that was destined to be used. If it succeeds, it does its work in the whole and if it fails it has also done its work in the whole. ন তত্র শোচতে বুধঃ ।121
My main point is the Intuition. The Force has evidently a close connection with the intuition or any other faculties which are awakened by the action of the Force.
In what way? A Force may be applied without any intuition—an intuition can come without any close connection with a Force, except the force of intuition itself which is another matter. Moreover a Force may be applied from a higher plane than that of any Intuition.
By the way, it seems your Supramental is a magnificent something wide apart by gulfs and seas from all other Powers and Forces.
Certainly, otherwise I wouldn't be after it.
You won't say anything about the Supramental till it descends. It is this great mystery about it that makes us pin all our faith on it and the word Supermind goes from mouth to mouth. Ah, if we could have faint glimpses of it!
Not much utility in this mouth to mouth business. If people set themselves seriously to the task of psychic or spiritual opening or development, it would be much more useful—even for the coming of the Supramental. If I tried to explain about the Supramental, it would be all UP with the Supramental. The rest of the lives of the sadhalcs would be spent in discussing the supramental and how near Nirod or Nishikanta or Anilbaran was to the Supramental and whether this was supramental or that was supramental or whether it was supramental to drink tea or not etc., etc. and there would be no more chance of any sadhana.
In my Bengali poem of yesterday, you asked me: "What's this word?" Well, I meant it to be ত্রস্ত,122 but wrote instead ত্রস্ত ।123 A স124 sat on top, you could have cut it off.
Thought it ought to go off, but it snapped its fingers and said it was too big and clear and positive to be treated in that way.
Any necessity of making মূর্চ্ছিতা125 feminine?
Hallo! I thought you were in favour of the feminine being used for everything, even words which were originally masculine and neuter?
স্মৃতি126 personified?
স্মৃতি or memory is in all languages feminine and is personified as a goddess or a feminine form—yet you object! Queer! Anyway if she can have a বক্ষ127 why can't she be figured as a person?
We examined D's stools—not dysenteric at all...
As regards treatment, how about trying one or two days greens? Boil them in water and give with rice?
Very good idea.
After that we may try a dose of castor-oil. I wonder if he has an anal fissure ... The pain he complains of is at the anus and not around the umbilicus.
If so, can't it be discovered? If that's the thing Anthenor pommade is indicated after quarter litre wash—if he's too young for enema with the tube, a poire might be used.
S has a hard red swelling about the left elbow joint; no cause...
Sir, in this world there is nothing without a cause—unless you hold the ultra-modern view that causation does not exist.
We have been giving some perfumed toilet powder to C for sweating. K asked for it; now S also has asked for it. Don't know if it is for sweating or "contagion". Can't go on at this rate, can we?
No. Can't give to everybody. They must get their anti-perspiration from the Prosperity normally.
April 17, 1937
D has no fissure. I have advised green vegetables for him.
I forgot to say that the Mother puts her entire veto on castor oil for D.
No luck about Intuition?
None! Too thorny a subject to tackle without leisure and space.
April 18, 1937
By the way S must be added to the list of vaccination impossibles. R asks me to warn you and Amal that if you vaccinate, you will get back your old friends the boils and Amal his old companion the stye. I pass on the warning to you without farther piling up the agony. A very nasty affair this vaccination, in any case.
Guru, this poem is in blank verse. The rhythm seems quite all right. Still the austerity and force have to come, I think, no?
Yes, good rhythm, fine poetry.
Of course, it is not the epic style, but in its kind it is very good.
I don't like the sound of phāṭi ṭuṭi, do you?
Sounds somewhat too much like somebody dropping and breaking cups and saucers—doesn't fit in with the rest of the style.
"I go mad when I see a deer in the spring woods ..."
Not really?!!
April 19, 1937
Why ask and exclaim "Not really"? You told us that sincerity is not indispensable in poetry, neither true facts. You should have appreciated the beautiful figure of expression in that line.
Well, it was not a question of reality, but of verisimilitude. And then the vision of you gone mad over a deer was a little upsetting.
I have changed the line to: "In the spring woods I get excited like the bees ..."
Umph! This is less upsetting.
I don't understand the poem. It says the swans, flowing in the shoreless vast, tumble into the sleep of creation. What is this sleep of creation? The swans don't seem to have come into creation at all, as they are still asleep. Or is it that after aeonic travels high up, the soul comes down into this Ignorance of creation?
Confound it sir, it was when it was above creation that it was awake—in creation it is asleep and dreaming—as you are when you are vaccinating people, though you mayn't think it—the vaccination is only an ugly dream. You were high up for ages in the Above and then you came down into the cosmic Dream to vaccinate people and write poetry. You are a Swan (or is it a Goose? হংস128 you know) who fell asleep in the moonlight and tumbled into a dream of medicine.
What is the epic style? What elements are required for successful blank verse?
I spoke of epic style because you talked of austerity and force.
Special austerity and ojas needed for epic style, not necessary in other blank verse.
Speak of English blank verse, if you plead ignorance of Bengali.
Good Lord! you don't want me to expatiate on all that now? I believe I wrote about it to Amal129—I mean for English blank verse. For Bengali I decline all authority.
Greens seem to have no effect on D. He still has 4 or 5 motions, but no blood. We have to go into the details regarding his diet, the number of motions and their relation.
Yes. What about pastilles charbon both to help against diarrhoea and also to fix time taken for digestion?
I quite agree with you, Sir, about the beastly nastiness of vaccination, though in which way, we may disagree.
It is beastly and nastly in all ways, so there is no room for disagreement.
S has been put out of the ring and so also Amal.
Then add Ishwarbhai and Madanlal to the Vaccinatory Untouchables.
April 20, 1937
What is this I hear—U decamped last night! D's departure seems to have come as a tempest and blown away many. Victory of the hostile force you can't yet handle?
I am not handling any hostile force.
U and A were apparently doing very sincere sadhana, no question about that.
What is meant by sincere sadhana? In the Mother's definition of sincere, it means "opening only to the Divine Forces" i.e. rejecting the others even if they come. If A and U were like that, how did they go? It would indeed be a miracle.
A seems to have gone for health...
A went, not only for health, but to see his dear Guru who is preparing to shuffle off the mortal coil and for other motives of that kind. Quite natural, isn't it?
As for U, he has been going some dozen or dozen and a half times, only pulled back with great difficulty. Wants immediate siddhi in perfect surrender, absolute faith, unshakable peace. If all that is going to take time, can't do the Yoga. Feels himself unfit. Not being allowed to reach the Paratpara Brahman at once, had better rush out into the world and dissipate himself into the Nihil. Besides got upset by every trifle and, as soon as upset, lost faith in the Mother—and without faith no Yoga possible. Reasoning, sir, reasoning—the mighty intellect in its full stupidity. Understand now?
Each time somebody leaves the Asram, I feel a kick, a shock, a heartquake...
May I ask why? People have been leaving the Asram since it began, not only now. Say 30 or 40 people have gone, 130 or 140 others have come. The big Maharattas, B, Y, H departed from this too damnable Asram where great men are not allowed to do as they like. The damnable Asram survives and grows. A and B and C130 fail in their Yoga—but the Yoga proceeds on its way, advances, develops. Why then kick, shock and heartquake?
You said long ago that the Supramental won't tolerate any nonsense of freedom of movement or wrong movement. Is this the kick he is imparting from high up?... In these two months he has struck a tall tower like K and a fat buoy like D; how many of these!
And what then?
In NK's letter you wrote that it is the hostile Force that is snatching away people, not the Divine Force that is driving them away. I hold the view that the Supramental is descending concentratedly and that those who resist, who are between two fires, have either to quit or to submit.
Not so strongly or concentratedly as it ought, but better than before.
Even if it were so, that is their own business. The Divine is driving nobody out except in rare cases where their staying would be a calamity, to the Asram (for instance it could decide one day to drive H out); if they cannot bear the pressure and rush away, listening to the "Go away, go away" push and suggestion of the Hostiles can it be said then that it was the Divine who drove them away and the push and suggestion of the Hostile is that of the Divine? A singular logic! The "Go, go" push and suggestion have been successfully there ever since the Asram started and even before when there was no Asram. How does that square with your theory that it is due to the concentrated descent of the Force?
The Supramental not tolerating any nonsense comes to that, doesn't it?... But really, if the more you are busy with getting down the Supramental Light, the more such things are happening, I am afraid you will have to stop the business or let whosoever drops be hanged.
Why should I stop the business—that is to say postpone the possibility for another millennium because A or U gets shaky or many others look homeward? Will that postponement change the lower nature or get rid of the Asuras?
What's the idea? What's the occult secret? You promised to give me some lessons in Occultism—here is an occasion. Please expatiate, and pacify my nervous shocks. Otherwise I have to close down my poetry, vaccination, patients and every blessed thing, and gaze at the sky and exclaim—what? what? what chance?
What occult secret? It is a fact always known to all Yogis and occultists since the beginning of time, in Europe and Africa as in India, that wherever Yoga or Yajna is done, there the hostile forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature—it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile Forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard the siddhi. It has been said as long ago as the Upanishads "Hard is this path to tread, sharp like a razor's edge"; it was said later by Christ "Hard is the way and narrow the gate" by which one enters into the kingdom of heaven and also "Many are called, few chosen"—because of these difficulties. But it has also always been known that those who are sincere and faithful in heart and remain so and those who rely on the Divine will arrive in spite of all difficulties, stumbles or falls. That is the occult knowledge pertinent here.
I have expatiated—but in the line of common sense, not occultism.
I have written 5 sonnets, Sir. Record! Gave a big dose? But are they only great in number, as in your young days?...
Eh?
We are staggered at Romen's success in poetry. Metre free, blank verse, whatever he touches, comes out remarkable!
Regular metre he has not yet done, but he succeeded remarkably in the free metre of his lyric.
While, in my case, after so many lessons in metre, you damned each one of them!
Surely that's a misstatement. I believe I gave several of them nice compliments.
Don't you think D eats too much for his age?
Morning—some raisins, cocoa, 4 slices of bread + banana Noon—3/4 bowl rice, curds, greens Afternoon—fruits Evening—4 slices of bread, greens, milk Night—oranges
Greens and raisins can be stopped. But the diet does not seem otherwise excessive. Raisins may easily irritate.
April 21, 1937
By the way, you didn't understand me. I didn't mean that you damned my poems, but my metres or rather my innovations in metres.
Oh that! Of course. Your irregulars were very rough with the poor English language. As for Romen, I understand he simply hooks on to the source and lets it tumble through him. That explains his success: যোগঃ কর্ম্মসু কৌশলং131—যোগ = joining on, hooking on.
Charcoal given to D. He has had 3 motions—all healthy, but rather bulky for his age. What does Mother say to a small dose of Mag. Sulph. or Soda Sulph.?
No.
Sometimes deficient fat digestion, due to liver derangement, may produce bulky stools; but then it would be clay colour. Enema won't have action on liver.
What is the need of purge or enema, when there is free motion, healthy, though in excess?
Do you know beforehand whom you will vaccinate? If so Mother also would like to know beforehand. (Question of experiments with Force.)
I am afraid I have to multiply exemptions—Khirod, (too busy to have leisure for fever,) Dikshit (do, also very bad health); Atal (do, too busy, also frequent previous vaccination).
By the way, I suppose you enquire before vaccinating, whether they ever had smallpox. Dasaratha Reddy, I believe had some kind of pox here just before going but don't know if it was small or chicken.
Isn't it high time that you opened up the medical channel in me, Sir? I feel ashamed that being a doctor I can't cure cases!
Medical channel? Rather rocky perhaps and sanded—but if poetry could open, why not medicine?
April 22, 1937
How is this sestet, Guru?
Very pleasing. (Going to use new adjectives occasionally).
And this poem, how is it?
Very pleasing also.
I dreamt last night that you said it was an exceedingly beautiful poem. Will it be fulfilled?
I have already said it—so it would be nothing new.
Medical channel rather "vichy"? "Vichy"? and—wha It means anyhow the thing is not easy, but why not?
Rocky, sir, rocky. Sanded—silted up with sand from both sides.
No place for the current. Have to blast rocks, dig out channel, embank.
What about D? He says you gave him a medicine—what medicine? And the result of the charbon? He says it came out after 5 hours. Is that correct? If so, the conclusion?
April 23, 1937
Some other new adjectives? Oh Lord, no! Have enough, your "pleasing" pleases me not!
Dear me, dear me! I was tired of writing fine and beautiful (you forbid "good") and thought I was very clever in getting a variation. You are hard to please! What do you say to "nice"? "exhilarating"? "épatant", "joli, très joli", "surprenant, mon cher"?132 Let's have some variety, Sir.
Romen hooks on and Nirod cooks on? No, Sir, I too let it tumble now!
Well, this has tumbled very well.
I am damned, Sir! The only medicine I gave D was one pill of charbon...
As regards diet, I would favour stopping banana and papaya, for they are laxatives, as you know.
Yes, unless it is likely to lead to constipation. Anyhow you can try and see the result.
If Mother sanctions, we can give small doses of Bromide and Tinc. Belladonna to inhibit the excessive nervous stimulation.
No medicine.
By the way, M has sprained his foot. You might enquire whether he needs or wants any medical assistance.
April 24, 1937
D doesn't seem to be digesting curry ... Why not try some olive oil?
Yes. If olive oil difficult to digest, could mix a little lemon juice.
In place of banana and papaya, oranges can be increased.
Yes.
[P had the point of a needle stuck in her palm.] Can't take it out. Tomorrow is X-ray. What does Mother say?
You can take the X-ray.
M is all right. No medical service required.
Yes. He says it became suddenly and miraculously all right in the last hours of the night's sleep.
April 25, 1937
[A poem.] What adjectives, Sir? New or old?
Very pleasing again.
P's X-ray taken. Philaire will see the X-ray plate. If he decides to operate, can it be done? Or should the plate be shown to Mother first?
Mother would certainly like to know before any operation is made, where the thing is, how deep and what the operation would involve.
Some improvement in D's condition. He wants to eat something in the afternoon. Mangoes are laxative, so I disagree.
Mangoes—no! But care must be taken that it does not swing round to constipation again.
What can we give? Biscuits? He wants sweet biscuits.
Glaxo biscuits perhaps.
One thing, people from the Washing Dt. should not be vaccinated together or immediately one upon the other; but at intervals of a few days, so as to prevent any difficulty in the work in case of hives. The Aroumé depts. are those in which one has most trouble because of dropping off of workers for illness or.any other cause.
April 26, 1937
What about this poem, Sir? Pleasing or pleasant?
Both at once and very!
Sadhaks are getting rare for vaccination. Whomever we approach, says "no", alors?
What's to be done? Must make the best of it.
Philaire says that P's needle can be extracted by operation under local anaesthesia.
I suppose it has to be done and we can only hope that Philaire will really prove skilful and manage with least trouble and least unfavourable incidence.
P is of the nervous type and with them there is usually the maximum of trouble.
D had 4 motions ... given half an oz. of olive oil.
Thought he was better!
April 27, 1937
By the way, am I also going into the Amalian relapse? These blessed poems don't seem to catch. I have now a positive distaste for writing.
I don't see any relapse. Your Matra-brittas133 are always excellent, sonnets up to the mark—Perhaps you miss the glories of surrealism—the magnificent images and smiting lines? Anyhow you have gained in harmony and finish. Perhaps when you magnify and smite again, it will be in a more perfect way.
A spree will improve matters?
Spree, sir, spree! what do you mean?
P's operation tomorrow at 9.30 a.m. Please circulate some Force!
P in order to facilitate matters for tomorrow, has started menses today. What cheer, brothers? In view of the fact that anaesthetic may be necessary it might be safer to postpone for two or three days—what?
Tomorrow's list of people for vaccination: Krishnayya Premanand, Nishikanta ...
Krishnayya? not an unhealthy subject? won't bite? Besides D.R. badly off for workers. Leave it to you, sir.
K has swelling of left ankle (old injury).
Why revived? She is talking of bone injury etc.
Amrita was to have offered himself as a victim on the altar of vaccination, but he has been kindly bitten by the dog of the Privy Councillor, so although there is no hydrophobic danger, it is better for him to cure before being bitten by the vaccinator.
April 28, 1937
"What cheer brothers or bothers!" Never heard of such a phrase, Sir! Most 21st century, I am sure. Even Wodehouse hasn't that!
It is both. You don't know the story of Pavitra and Khitish and the bother? Pavitra who had just come here with a rather French pronunciation of English, said to K "I am a brother to you all" and Khitish cried out "Oh, no, no!" Pavitra insisted, but Khitish still cried out with pain and politeness in his voice "Oh, no! no! no!" It turned out K had heard all through "I am a bother to you all"! so brothers are bothers and bothers are constant brothers to us, insisting on inhabiting the Asram—or at least visiting it, like the vaccination P's needle etc.
"Why revived?" [K's swelling in the ankle.] God knows! If I know, it is her dancing gait that has brought it by some twist there. Bone injury indeed!
She has been weeping and saying nobody cares for her because you said it was nothing and I didn't jump to her bone suggestion. So Mother gave her Siju to embalm her wounded feelings.
A few D.R. workers remain to be vaccinated: N, S, I.K. etc.
Not very eager to have them bitten—what will become of D.R kitchen if they go over? You don't want to eat?
...Vaccination today—if you allow Krishnayya.
Allowed.
Here is an English poem134 written between dozes!
Compliments! you have reached the summit with one bound! Magnificent.
Don't quite follow what you meant by "magnify" and "smite again".
Refer back to "magnificent" images and "smiting" lines.135
This poem [J's] is sent as an illustration of what follows.
Tonight there is a mass of correspondence and I have not been able to deal with even half of it. So tomorrow.
J asks why it should be called blank verse. Is it simply because rhymes are absent?
Blank verse means verse without rhyme; it is applied usually in English to the unrhymed pentameter.
Is this absence of rhyme made up for by other things?
That is a question of the success of the blank verse as poetry—not of the metrical category into which a poem falls.
Is there a variation of pauses?
In English variation of pauses is not indispensable to blank verse. There is much blank verse of the first quality in which it is eschewed or minimised, much also of the first quality in which it is freely used. Shakespeare has both kinds.
Where is this poem different from a sonnet, except in rhymes lacking?
That is because the sonnet turn or flow has been used without the rhyme which is an essential part of the sonnet structure.
J says she doesn't think she is really a poet. By Mother's pressure she has been led to write things.
Mother's pressure means what? She wanted to write poetry and attempted, at first without much success. Afterwards the channel opened as it did with others.
If she were a poet, she wouldn't write with so much difficulty. She would spontaneously go on writing like a well gushing out.
Every poet does not write like that. Some of the greatest have written with labour and constant self-correction.
She adds that she would not always fear Mother's displeasure if she didn't write etc., etc.
Why should Mother be displeased if she didn't write? Is it a task that Mother or I have set her against her will?
She says that with the difficulty of blank verse, the dissatisfaction has grown to such a height that she feels like giving up poetry.
Whether to write blank verse or not or to write poetry or not, is purely a matter for her choice. She asked for poetic, inspiration and it was given her. Now she seems to complain because it has been given her—it is not her own, therefore not valuable.
Well, Sir, she was saying that before writing today, she had some fear, a lack of confidence lest the blank verse become again unsuccessful.
Why? The one hope of doing well is to write in a cheerful attitude, without too much mental insistence and open herself to the Inspiration quietly and confidently till it comes. Fretting and fuming can only block the passage.
Please give the factors that make blank verse successful. We have read your letter to Amal. Is that all?
I don't know any factors by which blank verse can be built up. When good blank verse comes one can analyse it and assign certain elements of technique, but these come in the course of the formation of the verse. Each poet finds his own technique—that of Shakespeare differs from Marlowe's, both from Milton's and all from Keats'. In English I can say that variations of rhythm, of lengths of syllable, of caesura, of the structure of lines help and neglect of them hinders—so too with pause variations if used; but to explain all that would mean a treatise. Nor could anyone make himself a great blank verse writer by following the instructions deliberately and constructing his verse. Only if he knows, the inspiration answers better and if there is failure in the inspiration he can see and call again and the thing will come. But I am no expert in Bengali blank verse.
April 29, 1937136
I told you that D.R. and B.S. workers have almost all been vaccinated. Sadhaks, 30 done, and no more forthcoming. So shall we close the show here?
I suppose it can be closed.
Thank you sir, for the compliments! I have reached the summit, but next time you will find me in the abyss!
The abyss can also produce poetry.
If one could remain there!
In the abyss? why?
April 30, 1937
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