Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

January 1935

I am rather shocked to hear of the behaviour of D.S. lacking all common sense, not to speak of Yogic attitude and that too after living here for so many years!

At any rate it is not Yoga that upset D.S. He never proposed to do any—he was interested only in medicine. That, he always said, was his Yoga, to read, to study, to experiment, to learn more and more about medicine. But perhaps you will say that Yoga of works is responsible.

Then I thought if one has big experiences, he will be safe, but G has shattered that delusion. This man is said to have had overmental experiences! And he also gone. I have heard that you don't approve of one's going.

He had no overmind experiences—he had something of the opening of the cosmic mind and vital in the intermediate zone and that plenty besides him have done and are doing. I have explained this before.

We approved of it. He went to arrange about his aunt's property as the family want to live here (not in the Asram, but outside).

At one time I thought that old people are better off since they have a less active vital, but Doctorbabu and Bhupalbabu have demolished that view. Doctor had a genuine seeking and went away for a flimsy reason! With A the same fate!

He has always been doing that—doing the navette between his family and the Asram.

A has left the Asram?

All these cases of failures prove what? I apprehend the same reasons may operate in me and I may behave exactly like an insane person.

What you say may apply to everybody because everybody has things in him which conflict with the Yoga. Logical conclusion—Nobody should try anything in which anybody has failed or in which there is a possibility of failure! I am afraid most human activities would stop on that principle except আহার নিদ্রা মিথুন²¹ and perhaps only the first two. But after all not even these—for people die in their sleep and others die of their food by poison, indigestion or otherwise. So to be safe one must neither eat, sleep nor [do] anything else—much less do Yoga. Q.E.D.

... I don't know really how I have dared such an adventure knowing full well the other side of my nature. Yet there has always seemed to have been something within which remains to be called up, touched and awakened. What is to be done? Believe in Thy Grace? But I am puzzled a little about the Grace itself.

I suppose you always avoided getting into a railway train because there might be a collision or into a steamer for similar reasons and certainly you would never dare go in an aeroplane!

January 2, 1935

In meditation, I had again a stillness of the inner and outer being, but the body was gradually bending down, as ill was in a light sleep. I could remember that you were there. Was that a state of sleep due to a full stomach?

You were going into the inner consciousness and away from the outer, that is all.

Is that the medical man's explanation of the experience? If a full stomach can produce experiences, you ought perhaps to treble or quadruple your rations.

A letter from C. Is it possible for him to come here without being completely cured?

No.

Can't decipher C. The Doctor has prescribed a treatment and he can't afford it? Is that it? Or what else?

January 4, 1935

Forgive me if I quarrel with you today; you have hinted that I am a coward.

There is a coward in every human being—precisely the part in him which insists on "safety"—for that is certainly not a brave attitude. I admit however that I would like safety myself if I could have it—perhaps that is why I have always managed instead to live dangerously and follow the dangerous paths dragging so many poor Nirods in my train.

I am stunned to see you mention Yoga and other human activities in the same breath. Is it not Sri Krishna who said that out of thousands very few seek him and still fewer get him?

There are lots who try for a Govt. post and only a few get them It is the same principle everywhere.

Let me tell you how a born yogi felt and feels about Yoga. He says often to us that on many occasions he has felt like running away never mind to which hell! What then about us, born-biyogis?

I was not aware that there are born Yogis and unborn Yogis. All have their vital and mental difficulties, whether born or unborn.

You have called around you or rather we have come to you, a jumble of assorted elements, (I call no one—says your thundering voice, but don't you really call even from within?) for yoga which seems to me a great gamble like that of Monte Carlo.

Whom have I called?

If they were not, they would not be representative of the world which has to be changed.

And this gambling fight is more against forces unseen than seen. We eat hostile forces, breathe them, feed them, exchange them, do everything except see and trample them—swarming micro-organisms!

So is all life on earth—a complex of seen and unseen forces and an obscure and ignorant struggle.

These forces drag us down from today's ecstasy to tomorrow's valley of depression and next day's abyss of doom. In Barinbabu's world gods and goddesses are seething, in ours hostile forces!

After all there are plenty of people here who are going pretty well; why emphasise only the comparatively few who have fallen out or are in serious trouble? Each has his difficulties, no doubt, but how on earth do you expect so high a path to be without them?

To add to all this, you hardly take an initiative and ask people to do this or that. Your principle is to give a long rope either to hang oneself or have a taste of the bitter cup.

I am to put everybody into leading strings and walk about with them—or should it be the rope in their nose? Supermen cannot be made like that—the long rope is needed.

When I went on reading and reading in the godown you said nothing till the blow came.

Reading in a godown does not end tragically as a rule.

D.S. is doing the same. Yet it can't be denied that he Originally came to do yoga. In spite of it he is caught in the intricate net of the blessed forces and gives up the greater pursuit for the lesser.

It is not reading medical books that was the cause of D.S.'s serious upset. It was the usual causes coupled with something else. But as all that is private, I can't go into it.

I come for yoga with all sincerity but end by being a tool in their hands. Isn't it tragic and pathetic? This side of the shield I request you to see.

Gracious heavens! you are really a poet.

"So, what is your point?" you may ask, "One shouldn't do yoga?" Certainly. Only, I am trying to establish my proposition that one is never sure in yoga, or only a few are.

One is never sure in anything. It is absurd in this world to say, "I will only do what is sure and absolutely safe—especially in anything great."

Your caustic satire about railways is, with all apology, a little off the point. Firstly I have dared yoga.

Why not go on daring—instead of wailing because there is no safety?

In railways etc., the journeys are safe hostile forces are not so villainous. But even after Herculean efforts, the path of yoga is not a jot easier.

You ought to read the Matin. Every now and then a tremendous collision and holocaust. I admit that in India railway is slow and scanty and therefore more though not quite safe. Anyway, what about aeroplanes?

Ramakrishna had a word of hope for his disciples and used to say, 'এখানে যারা এসেছে, সবার হবে'²² You don't or won't give any, not even a quarter. You might say it is a greater Truth but we have greater Divines as well.

He had a few disciples round him—here there is a crowd of 150—so his assurance was not a very big sporting flutter. But what did হবে mean?

For this greater Truth if some fall out, what matters? The Wheel of Jagannath²³ must roll on and the Divine has no tears for them, for he is beyond dualities.

Even if I fall out myself, I will not weep. I will try again.

It is very problematic, however, how many will reach your Heaven alive, like Yudhishthir.

And his dog. You have forgotten the dog.²⁴

I am afraid most of us will have the fate of the Pandavas,²⁵ unless the Divine is prepared to carry us all himself—barring the ladies!

What the deuce has sex to do here? Don't be too medical.

Because medical science says that their physiological apparatus is more suitable for the psychological attitude of self-abnegation which is also the essential desideratum for yoga.

That's the only thing for which their physiological apparatus works? I fear there are other things both in male and female which are not essential desiderata for Yoga.

Apart from all sense of humour—I have never said that Yoga or that this Yoga is a safe and easy path—what I say is that anyone who has the will to go through can go through. For the rest if you aim high, there is always the danger of a steep fall, if you misconduct your aeroplane. But the danger is for those who allow themselves to entertain a double being, aiming high but also indulging their lower outlook and hankerings. What else can you expect when people do that? You must become single-minded, then the difficulties of the mind and vital will be overcome. Otherwise those who oscillate between their heights and their abysses, will always be in danger till they have become single-minded—that applies to the "advanced" as well as to the beginner. These are facts of nature—I can't pretend for anybody's comfort that they are otherwise. But there is the fact also that nobody need keep himself in this danger. One-mindedness (एकनिष्ठा), surrender to the Divine, faith, true love for the Divine, complete sincerity in the will, spiritual humility (real, not formal) ; there are so many things that can be a safeguard against any chance of eventual downfall. Slips, stumbles, difficulties, up-settings everyone has; one can't be assured against these things, but if one has the safeguards, they are transitory, help the nature to learn and are followed by a better progress.

January 5, 1935

I hope you have understood the psychology behind all my wailings. My headache and fear are that you allow the other forces to take away some of the poor Nirods from your "train", being weary of the fight, perhaps.

Excuse me, I don't allow—the poor Nirods allow or they take themselves away in a huff

But I sincerely pray that you will drag this really poor Nirod in your train till his last breath!

What else am I doing, but dragging towards that?

You call me a poet? A poet without poems? A briefless barrister?

It was the uchchhwas²⁶ that extorted that exclamation from me.

What is double being or double nature? Are both the same? Is it, as you say, aiming high and aiming low simultaneously? In that case I am afraid most of us have it more or less!

Every man has a double nature except those who are born (not unborn) Asuras, Rakshasas, Pisachas²⁷ and even they have a psychic being concealed somewhere by virtue of their latent humanity. But a double being (or a double nature in the special sense) refers to those who have two sharply contrasted parts of their being without as yet such a linking control over them. Sometimes they are all for the heights and then they are quite all right—sometimes all for the abysses and then they care nothing for the heights, even sneer or rail at them and give full rein to the lower man. Or they substitute for the heights a smoky volcano summit in the abyss. These are extreme examples, but others while they do not go so far, yet are now one thing, now just the opposite. If they can convert the lower fellow or discover the central being in themselves, then a true harmonious whole can be created. (For a case of a double being who had no central organising part in him you can take R as an example.)

During meditation, I had again a strong feeling of pressure. As you had advised, I tried to enlarge my consciousness by thinking that I was as large as the universe. But is that the way?

Yes. At any rate it is a very good way—there may be others, but I think it is the best.

January 8, 1935

I don't know anything about the example you gave of a double being. You have read, I am sure, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Is that an instance of a double being?

Well, it is something very much like that—except that the possession of the consciousness by either personality is not always or often as complete as that.

Is Divine Force somewhat different from Ananda and Peace in its operation? When Peace descends or Ananda invades, one can distinctly feel it as coming from above. But what about the Force?

One can feel it in the same way if it descends into the body. But sometimes it simply works from above or behind or within and in that case one may be conscious of the result, the energy given without feeling the Force itself.

Why is it so rarely felt? Is it more difficult to bring it down?

No. It depends on the person. Many people feel the Force more easily than the Peace or the Ananda.

Today an almirah was completed after 38 days, costing Rs. 98. To me it seems too much. But I don't know how the labour could have been reduced.

That needs a knowledge and keen observation, I suppose—to see whether the fruit of the work is as good as the show. But you are there for supervision mainly, not for expert knowledge.

I can never imagine that some day I shall have an expert knowledge of carpentry to supervise and regulate the work.

Well, get Energy from above (the Force) and put it forcefully on the carpenters—If one day you can do that, you will amply justify your timber throne.

In Yoga everything seems to be opposite. My Rs. 20,000/- over medical education are in vain! I don't know what purpose will be served by making me a carpenter of the Divine. If, on the contrary, I could be the Son of a carpenter that would be something!

I was under the impression that you were not enthusiastic over medicine or at least over the practice of it. If we had known that you were anxious to justify the 20,000, we could have utilised you in that direction. Are you serious about it?

If, as you say to D, remembering the Divine and giving thanks at the end ought to be enough, that is very simple and easy.

One must also aspire for the Force and for the consciousness of the Force.

January 10, 1935

It comes as a great surprise to hear that you consider enthusiasm so important for want of which you didn't utilise my medical knowledge!

I meant that as you had no enthusiasm for drugs, you might just as well be busy with timber.

I am really puzzled by your question; the more so because you have said that I am progressing more than I would have done if I were a literary or a medical gent.

Well, Mother had thought of you when we wanted somebody to fill up the hole left by the erratic D.S. and we also don't know what we shall do when B goes for his periodic inspection of his affairs in Gujerat. We had rejected the idea because we thought you might not only be not enthusiastic but the reverse of enthusiastic about again becoming a medical gent. When however you spoke lovingly and hungeringly about the Rs. 20,000, I rubbed my eyes and thought "Well, well! here's a chance!" That's all.

If you seriously think that I may add my little strength to help the Divine and call me to do it I am thrice seriously your man.

We will think of it in case of need.

You speak as if the Energy or Force is just above the head, and one has only to snatch it down.

There is a lid in between. Remove that and the Force will come tumbling down into you.

And even if it were, how can I put the Force on the carpenters? Does it not also depend on the receptivity of the individuals?

Much more easy if you have the force to make a carpenter carpent properly than to propel a sadhak in the way he should go. Receptivity is all-important for the sadhana—it counts but not so much in getting an ordinary thing done by an ordinary man.

January 12, 1935

Khirod says he wrote to you about my proposal of shouldering the entire responsibility of the timber godown. Somehow I felt pity for him—an overburdened, harmless gentleman.

Harmless only? He is one of the ablest and most quietly successful "men of work" I have come across.

Supposing I get the Force from above, how to apply it on the carpenters?

Direct it upon them in a steady stream. If Force can come into you, why can't it go out from you too?

You laughed away my medical statement about ladies. Is it not true that women are more receptive and psychic than men? All outward signs would direct that way, at any rate.

Rubbish! Neither more receptive nor even more hysteric. Men, I find, can equal them even at that. It is true they declare hunger-strikes more easily, if you think with Gandhi that that is a sign of psychicness (soul force). But after all Non-cooperation has taken away even that inferiority from men.

You wrote [on the 5th] that you had lived dangerously. All that we know is that you did not have enough money in England,—also in Pondicherry in the beginning. In Baroda you had a handsome pay, and in Calcutta you were quite well off.

[Above "quite" Sri Aurobindo put!!!!].

I was so astonished by this succinct, complete and impeccably ac-, curate biography of myself that I let myself go in answer! But I afterwards thought that it was no use living more dangerously than am obliged to, so I rubbed all out. My only answer now is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thank you for the safe, rich, comfortable and unadventurous career you have given me. I note also that the only danger man can run in this world is that of the lack of money. Karl Marx himself could not have made a more economic world of it! But I wonder whether that was what Nietzsche meant by living dangerously?

January 15, 1935

I am rather grieved to know that you rubbed off what you wrote, and that my attempts to draw you out have failed very narrowly! But what are we to do? Everybody's opinion is that nothing can be got out of you unless you are "pricked" (not my term) and we want to know so much of your life of which we know so little!

Why the devil should you know anything about it?

So I dared to make this hazardous statement. Often we have to write strongly about what we feel and think and so many ways and means we have to devise just for a few more strokes than you almost grudgingly allow. You will admit that I almost succeeded in my diplomacy (forgive me).

Of course, I don't mean that lack of money is the only danger one can be in. Nevertheless, is it not true that poverty is one of the greatest dangers as well as incentives? The lives of many great men illustrate this. Therefore living poorly seems to me to be akin to living dangerously. I know that my contention has obvious fallacies in it, but isn't this mostly true?

Not in the least. You are writing like Samuel Smiles.²⁸ Poverty has never had any terrors for me nor is it an incentive. You seem to forget that I left my very safe and "handsome" Baroda position without any need to it and that I gave up also the Rs. 150 of the National College Principalship, leaving myself with nothing to live on. I could not have done that, if money had been an incentive.

But what is the use of telling me what Nietzsche meant by it? How am I to know that you mean the same as he?

Certainly not the commercial test.

I was quoting Nietzsche—so the mention of him is perfectly apposite.

Kindly let us know by your examples, what you mean by living dangerously that we poor people may gather some courage and knowledge...

I won't. It is altogether unnecessary besides. If you don't realise that starting and carrying on for ten years and more a revolutionary movement for independence without means and in a country wholly unprepared for it meant living dangerously, no amount of puncturing of your skull with words will give you that simple perception. And as to the Yoga, you yourself were perorating at the top of your voice about its awful, horrible, pathetic and tragic dangers. So—

January 16, 1935

I beg to submit my apologies. I committed this folly because of ignorance of facts. Believe me, I did not know that you were the brain behind the revolutionary movement and its real leader till I read the other day what Barinbabu has written about you (that does not minimise my guilt, I know). But even then I couldn't persuade myself to believe it, though I was very glad to hear it. I only knew that you were an extremist Congress leader for which the Govt. was shadowing and suspecting you. Now that it is confirmed by you. I know (not by experience) what is meant by the phrase "living dangerously". Of course I was not referring to anything about Yoga or the inner life. But why put me to shame by dragging my poor self into it? My dangers don't prove anything, do they?

Wait a sec. I have admitted nothing about "Barinbabu"—only to laving inspired and started and maintained while I was in the field a movement for independence. That used at least to be a matter of public knowledge. I do not commit myself to more than that. My fear dear fellow, I was acquitted of sedition twice and of conspiracy to wage war against the British Raj once and each time by an impeccably British magistrate, judges or judge. Does not that prove conclusively my entire harmlessness and that I was a true Ahimsuk?

I read your poem on "Tautology"²⁹ written to Dilipda, and I felt rather bad for you. So if you like I can write only three days a week.

The poem was not aimed at you—you need have no qualms of conscience.

If you mind the way I have written the last few letters, I mean the humorous vein in them—I shall stop it and keep to the point. But let me say that it was by some gracious movement of yours that I dared to do this, and I have really wondered how I dare! I have told you already how I enjoy and feel happy by your kindly jokes and humour...

Not necessary to stop. Unless you are afraid of word-punctures in the skull. My indignations and objurgations are jocular and not meant to burn or bite.

To come to serious matters. What would you say if the Mother actually proposed to you to exchange the timber-trade for medicine? E.g. (1) to transfer your worldly and unworldly goods and your learned and noble person to the Dispensary and take physical charge of keeping it in order. (2) to help Becharlal in ministering to the physical ills of the sadhaks—with the provision that you may have hereafter to take the main charge, if he takes a trip to Gujerat.

The Mother is rather anxious that you should take up this work; she had the idea, as I told you, when D.S. broke down (which was a pity because he was in many respects the ideal man for the charge), but she did not propose it because she was not sure you would like it. As yet the suggestion is confidential, for pending your answer, we have said nothing to Becharlal.

January 17, 1935

Today during meditation, again there was the sense of much pressure on the head, as if I would fall down. I was quite unconscious for some seconds and felt also very light, as if there was no body. Is it the same experience as the previous one? Why is the Force felt only on the head, and why opening of the eyes relieves the intensity?

Yes, it was the same experience. You went inside under the pressure of the Force—which is often though not always the first result—went into a few seconds' samadhi, according to the ordinary language. The Force when it descends tries to open the body and pass through the centres. It has to come in (ordinarily) through the crown of the head (Brahmarandhra) and pass through the inner mind centre which is in the middle of the forehead between the eyebrows. That is why it presses first on the head. The opening of the eyes brings one back to the ordinary consciousness of the outer world, that is why the intensity is relieved by opening the eyes.

January 18, 1935

My last questions on women were a prelude to a bigger question on them in general...

I will quote the view of a medical man of experience who seems to represent the popular opinion "Women are, as a rule, more intelligent than men, but their intelligence is of a different order. Man's brain is superior to woman's in size and weight... We are told that it can be explained by our keeping all culture as a sex-monopoly to ourselves, that they have been in constant subjection, that they have never had a fair chance." Then he adds that in Greece and Rome during the Middle Ages women had great freedom and a superior form of instruction, yet they did nothing outstanding. In his own profession, though there have been women professors since the 17th century in famous Italian Universities—in Bologna, Naples, etc.—they have done nothing to advance their special science.

In Greece woman was a domestic slave—except the Hetairae and they were educated only to please. In Rome She remained at home and spun wool" was the highest eulogy for woman. It was only for a brief period of the Empire that woman began to be more free, but she was never put on an equality with man. Your medical man was either an ignoramus or talking through his hat at you.

Then again, there have been no women of first rank in painting, music, literature, etc., except Rosa Bonheur, who however had to shave her chin and dress as a man.

What an argument! from exceptional conditions as against the habits of millenniums! What about administration, rule, business, in which women have shown themselves as capable and more consistently capable than men? These things need no brains? Any imbecile can do them?

You will then agree that that is the consensus of opinion.

The consensus of masculine opinion,—perhaps.

Of course no one can dispute that in another sphere they are angels: by the side of death and disease, sorrow and suffering...

It means that is what men have mainly demanded of them—to be heir servants, nurses, cooks, children-bearers and rearers, ministers of their sex-desires etc. That has been their occupation, their aim in life and their natures have got adapted to their work. All that they have achieved else than that is by the way—in spite of the yoke said on them. And then man smiles a superior smile and says it was all due to woman's inferior nature, not to the burden laid on her.

Whatever may be the reason of the difference between a man and a woman, it can't be gainsaid that women can efface themselves more completely or more easily for the sake of love. Is it because their heart is full and strong that their head is weak (if true)?

They have been trained to it through the ages—that is why. Subjection, self-effacement, to be at the mercy of man has been their lot—it has given them that training. But it has left them also another kind of ego which is their spiritual obstacle—the ego which is behind the abhiman and the hunger-strikes.

Can it be said that because they live more in their heart than in their head, their path is easier?

All these clear-cut assertions are mental statements—and mental statements are too clear-cut to be true, as philosophy and science have now begun to discover. Life and being are too complex for that.

So doubt having gone and faith coming in, their love raises them towards the Divine as thermometre by heat! Or Love transferred from the human to the Divine closes the cycle by taking them to the All-love.

There you go from mental statements to poetry and image—not more reliable.

Here I have noticed that out of sheer love some women have followed their husbands into the travails of the Unknown, but when the husbands have been assailed with doubts and depression, they have been sitting happily and confidently in the lap of the Divine.

Great Scott l what a happy dream

It seems that in Yoga women have one advantage, the sex instinct in them is not as strong as in men.

There is no universal rule. Women can be as sexual as men or more. But there are numbers of women who dislike sex and there are very few men. One Sukhdev³⁰ in a million, but many Dianas and Pallas Athenes. The virgin is really a feminine conception; men are repelled by the idea of eternal virginity. Many women would remain without any wakening of the sexual instinct if men did not thrust it on them and that cannot be said of many, perhaps of any man. But there is another side to the picture. Women are perhaps less physically sexual than men on the whole,—but what about vital sexuality? the instinct of possessing and being possessed etc., etc.?

How is it that Ramakrishna always used to ask his disciples to avoid kāmini-kānchan?³¹ Buddha was no less strict.

That is the old monastic idea. It arises from the extreme sexuality of men. They see in women the नरकस्य द्वारं³² because that door is so wide open in themselves. But they prefer to throw the blame on women.

Was not man's Jail from heaven due to woman?

That was not due to sex, but to woman's desire for new experience and knowledge.

This letter of mine is pretty long. I am waiting to have from you.a royal verdict covering and satisfying all the points.

I can't cover and satisfy all points—it would need a volume.

I had kept your book in order to write something less flippant and insufficient than the marginal notes about this grave matter. But I have had enough work today for any two Sundays, so I had to leave aside all that was not urgent. The inferiority and superiority of women is not a subject that cannot wait, so—it waits.

January 19, 1935

Dr. B asked me to shift over to the Dispensary today itself, but I refused, waiting for your full instructions about the furniture, table lamp, management work, etc.

I think there is everything needed over there, table Lamp and all. You had better go and see. If so, you will need to take only your personal things. One thing the Mother wants to say—she asks you to keep the Dispensary meticulously clean as D.S. did ; there is a special servant attached to the Dispensary for that. As a "foreign degree doctor" you will understand the necessity. You can move in whenever you like, handing over your wooden responsibilities to Dikshit.

Now that I shall be in charge of the Dispensary I feel afraid about my prestige. People expect great things from an England-returned doctor (who I may confide in you, hasn't had enough time for experience). If you can't save my prestige, save at least my face.

People are exceedingly silly—but I suppose they can't help themselves. The more I observe humanity, the more that forces itself upon me—the abysses of silliness of which its mind is capable.

The prestige I can't guarantee, but hope to save something of the face.

Above all, you are putting me in front of my very weakness—to be conquered, perhaps.

It had to be faced someday.

I have no desire to eat though I am hungry. I can't even sleep at night. Can it be due to the hypersecretion of the endocrines from yogic pressure?

Confound your endocrines! You have got to eat. Yoga can't be done on a hungry stomach. Sleep also is indispensable.

January 21, 1935

Everybody seems to be happy to find me shifted from the "timber throne" to the Dispensary, and says, "Now is the right man in the right place"!

Men are rational idiots. The timber-godown made you make a great progress and you made the timber-godown make a great progress. I only hope it will be maintained by your successor.

But I don't know how long the right man will be right for them. They want me to entertain them with "pāyas"³³ to celebrate the occasion.

No man ever is the right one for them—for a long time, but just the time of digesting the payas.

I feel a little "māyā"³⁴ for that room where I stayed, with plenty of air and light.

That was the reason for our hesitation to change you. But there is no go. The man in the right place must be in the place.

I thought, however I am the neighbour of the Divine, under his breath,³⁵ almost. So I am at least free from any number of hostile forces.

Provided you allow the breath to come into you and don't blow it away.

Is it necessary to keep the Dispensary open for longer hours than at present?

There are two different things—(1) sadhaks who can be confined to limited hours and (2) workmen and servants who cannot, for the workmen may have accidents and that must be seen to immediately. So you must be available, especially at the times when the work closes. No. (2) is the main thing, for it throws a considerable responsibility upon us.

The Dispensary table is covered with paper and looks rather untidy. An oilcloth would be better.

Mother had given a fine coloured hospital cloth, very big,(the size of the table) and much better than any oilcloth. Ask what has become of it.

There is no table for my personal use, and for your big photo what would you suggest, a small cane table or nails on the wall?

No nails on the wall—absolutely forbidden. Ask for a small table from Amrita.

By the way, I find that I am extremely hilarious and happy, though I am doing very little sadhana. One cause, I find, is the daily contact with you. But is hilarity permissible in the court of the Divine and can it go hand in hand with progress?

Cheerfulness is the salt of sadhana.

It is a thousand times better than gloominess.

January 22, 1935

The cloth you sent is too good for the dispensing table and will be spoilt. So it is being used for the writing table. Will oilcloth be available?

Yes, you have to ask the B.S.³⁶

The main room is now broomed twice and mopped once.

That is all right.

How shall we clean the glazed tiles? They are now simply dusted. I am thinking of thoroughly watering the floor once a week.

Glazed tiles can be wiped with wet cloth. But watering can't be done because it spoils the walls.

Shall we use floor polish, if available?

Polish can be given, but then you can't use water any more. Of course polish is nice looking and hygienic, but it will be rather a labour to keep it up, passing a special cloth every day. If the servant has time, it can be done.

The walls can be rubbed with wet cloth once a week.

That is good; the wall-tiles can be rubbed with wet cloth.

Shall I put a notice: "No shoes, please"?

Yes, you can put a notice. Of course, if there is polish, shoes are impossible.

Another thing, but I feel hesitant to write about it. I have a great fancy for a secretariat table like the one being prepared under my supervision for Cocotier...

It can be done—you can ask Chandulal for it.

Your resident physician or surgeon is not satisfied with being that alone, he is anxious to serve another Deity who is still behind. So he needs a bigger table which will be convenient and necessary, apart from the prestige.

The bigger table is necessary for the prestige of the Deity and for the convenience (and necessity) of the physician-priest?

January 23, 1935

N said that he took some methylated spirit knowing it fully well and obeying a suggestion that if he took it, all his complaints would disappear. Is it really the hostile force that prompted him?

Is he speaking the truth? B writes that he did it immediately after B left him and then bawled from the terrace to B to come and help. If he did do it with such an idea, it is evidently a suggestion of the hostile force or, if you like to put it more psychologically, he was possessed by a mental formation of an irrational undetermined character. It is of the same class as the ideas which get hold of people's minds and become "fixed ideas", only these are momentary. But even if he did it by mistake, it was a suggestion from a source that wanted to do him injury—and took advantage of a momentary absence of mind.

January 24, 1935

Apropos our discussion on women, let me put before you Mother's opinion on the matter. She says that women are not more bound to the vital and material consciousness than men. On the contrary, as they do not have the arrogant mental pretensions of men, it is easier for them to discover their psychic being and be guided by it.

No doubt, they can discover their psychic being more easily,—but that is not enough. It is the first step. The next is to live in the psychic. The third is to make the psychic the ruler of the being. The fourth is to rise beyond the mind. The fifth is to bring what is beyond mind into the lower nature. I don't say it is always done in that order. But all that has to be done.

Then why do you say that these are my clear-cut mental assertions? [19.1.35]

Perhaps if you give full weight to my marginal answers, you will realise why. The truth is too complex for such assertions to be re liable.

Mother also says that women are conscious in their sentiments, and that the best of them are conscious in their acts. If that is so, there is no more question about it, I think.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined the words "no more question"]: That is too much to say. There may not be so much mental questioning but there may be a lot of vital questioning and resistance.

You will agree then that women are more intuitive than men?

Yes, that of course—but it is the spontaneous intuition of the heart or of the vital mind, not the Intuition with a capital I.

As they live in the vital, their difficulties in the sadhana will be less, I suppose.

Not at all. How can living in the vital make things easier? The vital is the main source of difficulties in the Yoga. The difficulty with men is not purely mental. There too it is vital—only men call in their intellect to defend their vital against the coming or the touch or the pressure of the Divine. Women call in their vital mind to do the same thing.

Nolini writes in his book, "Woman's whole being is concentrated on the thing she clings to, but man's vision is not so exclusive. "Nishtha"³⁷ is the very nature and ideal of woman."

It depends on the spirit in which she is concentrated. There is the psychicised spiritual and there is the unregenerate vital. The tin, regenerate vital way creates enormous difficulties, and its desire to possess means a vehement vital egoism. How can a vehement egoism be helpful for the spiritual life?

If this nishtha can be transformed into higher and diviner Concentration of will in dedication things then her path becomes easier, I suppose.

What is this nishtha? If the woman recoils from the vital to the spiritual and psychic (the vital converting itself into an instrument of realisation), then what you say may be true. But there lies the whole question.

Since ancient times women have been trained to accept a position of subjection by Manu and others. Is it because men are more sexual? It would be rather hard on us to be accused of this!

It is because of man's desire to be the master and keep her in subjection,—the Hitler and Mussolini attitude. The sex is an additional stimulus. Not more hard than you deserve.

Then again, it is said that woman's centre of life and consciousness is in the vital, whose nature is to pull the jiva down to earth.

Woman's living in material and vital is not the cause—it is man's living in the vital and material that is the cause of his finding her an obstacle. She also finds him an obstacle and could say of him that he is নরকস্য দ্বারং³⁸. The assumption that man lives less in the vital and material than woman is not true. He makes more use of his intellect for vital and material purposes—that is all.

Is it not because of this fundamental trait in her being that she has been so sacrificed and tied to man, and also incapacitated from any spiritual endeavour N conjunction with man?

Man has taken advantage of it to keep them under his heel.

Can we not then justify Buddha, Ramakrishna and others who advocated isolation from women? After all, is it not essentially the same principle here, because if vital relations are debarred, nothing remains except a simple exchange of words?

What about the true (not the pretended) psychic and spiritual—forgetting sex? The relation has to be limited as it is because sex immediately trots into the front. You are invited to live above the vital and deeper than the vital—then only you can use the vital aright. Buddha was for Nirvana, and what is the use of having relations with anybody if you are bound for Nirvana? Ramakrishna insisted on isolation during the period when a man is spiritually raw—he did not object to meeting when he became ripe and no longer a slave of sex.

Now, I have learnt a lot on the subject, but it has not been wholly satisfying, since the answers are in the nature of marginal comments. I would like to have a coherent, harmonious whole. My notebook can wait on your table till Monday.

Sorry, but you can't get today either the volume or the harmonious whole. Woman will have to wait as she has done through the centuries and may have to do again if Hitler and Mussolini have their way. The men have crowded her out. Next time better not discuss her yourself—that will save me from the temptation of marginals. As for Monday—no, sir!it is almost as impracticable as the Saturdays.

January 26, 1935

N feels feverish. He says that it has been going on for some weeks. It may be an early sign of TB., or a mild kidney infection. He had kidney trouble in the past.

It was Mother's impression also. The old Doctor said the same thing, that that was the weakness in his body.

I blurted out in a confident bravado that he will be all right in two days. I pray that my bravado may work out successfully. If S could come to help him it would be good.

Let it be so. After 2 days he ought not to be any more lying in bed, it is not safe at his age.

Very well. Mother is telling Dyuman

January 28, 1935

Why do I feel so sleepy in spite of having enough sleep? Is it tamas? I hardly seem to be doing any sadhana; no prayer, no meditation—nevertheless quite well!

If you feel quite well, it is all right. Perhaps you are "assimilating"!

My bravado has not worked. N's temperature is still running.

Is it absolutely necessary to keep him in bed? To remain quiet out of bed in light and air might be better.

There are some people who keep fever if they are lying down all the time and it is not considered good after a certain age. This is only for your consideration.

January 29, 1935

In your proposed (or promised?) volume on the subject of woman [in the letter of the 19th instant], I would like to have answers to these points.

There will be no volume

1) You say that man has kept woman under his heels from time immemorial. But how has that been possible? Was there no tacit consent from the inferior and weak power to the superior intelligence and strength of man?

They used their superior strength and cunning and took advantage of the psychic trend in woman, that's all. If you think that is a justification!

2) Are women created only for the preservation of the species and the race?

Much as doctors are? Only of course the doctor does not produce the species out of himself.

3) It is said that woman is man's guru and shakti³⁹ Sounds queer, doesn't it?

No more queer than the husband being a god (husband-god, patidevata). The husband is supposed to be the wife's proper and only guru, so why should not the wife return that compliment and be the man's guru? Tit for tat.

4) Is this shakti needed to make a man complete and whole?

Is man needed to make a woman complete and whole?

How are we different from Buddha who, you say, was bound for Nirvana, so far as our relation with woman is concerned?

Don't understand. We are not going for Nirvana—at least I am not.

As for shakti, we can get any amount of it from above, can't we?

It doesn't look like it—most of the shakti is either not received or spilled. It does not follow that you should all go hunting for shaktis to complete you.

5) In the law of rebirth, is it true that once a man always a man and once a woman, always a woman?

No fixed rule, at least not invariable but a general line or tendency

I haven't left any marginal space in my writing, because I want an exhaustive answer. The book can wait till Sunday.

As you put no margin, I have put interstitials instead of marginals.

Hitler and Mussolini are much better than Manu and Chanakya⁴⁰, I should say, for they haven't excluded women.

They want women to be subject to men and confined to the domestic drudgery and child-bearing—which is the same position as Manu and as all the old masculines had towards women.

The Divine Grace has done something. I acted up to your advice and N felt better the whole day, as he wasn't in bed.

It was not the Divine Grace but the Divine Force. If it had been the Grace, it would simply have said तथास्तु⁴¹ and the thing would be done. As it is, last night I had to work a damned lot for this result—I only hope it will last and complete itself.

M has ringworm. It's a nasty business and very likely to spread. He has to go on persistently and patiently applying medicine and waiting till one day he is cured—as for the Divine Grace, I am afraid!

Tell him all that and give him the treatment. He is as sceptical about medical Force as others are of the Divine species.

I am thinking of giving him Benzoic and Salicylic ointment May I ask if you know anything better?

No, we don't. Benzoic and the other fellow can be tried.

January 30, 1935

Today I examined patient N; there is a definite lesion in the left lung. It may be either pleurisy with effusion or T.B. T.B. cannot be excluded altogether considering his advanced age, long-lasting oral sepsis and susceptibility to cold.

I don't know whether there is T.B.—but the mental formation of T.B. on N was formed long ago and when you have a mental formation like that, then physical results may come at any opportunity,—pleurisy, a strong chill even etc. Because of this mental formation, the Mother cannot see definitely.

The doubt can only be cleared by a blood exam and conclusively by exploration...

But is pleurisy undiscoverable except by exploration? Blood exam is so often doubtful.

...I feel a great responsibility. It is bad luck for me to have to tackle such a difficult case... My prestige is also involved.

It is a test case, I suppose. But why so strong on prestige? I should have thought everybody knows that doctors have to be guessing all the time and that cure is a matter of hit or miss. If you hit often, you are a clever doctor—or if you kill people brilliantly, then also. It reduces itself to that.

But may I ask you why you are wasting such a lot of Force when a word could do the job? Why not cut short our labour and the patients' discomfort by saying tathāstu? Is it as easily done as it is said? If working "a damned lot" reduces the temperature only by one degree and that too for 12 hours or less, what am I to think? I would surely like to see Thy Grace operate on this poor man—certainly this is a case for the descent of Grace!

I did not expect you to take my तथास्तु with such grim seriousness. Speaking semi-seriously, I am not here to do miracles to order, but to try to get in a new consciousness somewhere in the world—which is itself however to attempt a miracle. If physical miracles happen to tumble in in the process, well and good, but you can't present your medical pistol in my face and call on me to stand and deliver.

As for the Force, application of my force, short of the supramental, means always a struggle of forces and the success depends on (1) the strength and persistency of the force put out, (2) the receptivity of the subject, (3) the sanction of the Unmentionable—I beg your pardon, I meant the Unnameable, Ineffable and Unknowable. N's physical consciousness is rather obstinate, as you have noticed, and therefore not too receptive. It may feel the Mother inside it, but to obey her will or force is less habitual for it.

N's departure to see his mother, my attachment for my mother, G's activities in Gujerat and B's departure in spite of his profound bhakti, set my brain whirling.

Why on earth should such natural and inevitable things make your brain whirl?

Mother, R says that you visit the Dispensary on the first of every month. Are you then coming tomorrow?

R is romancing or perhaps he is dreaming dreams in preparation of the millennium.

By the way, one point. You seem to want the fever down, R wrote that the fever must be there (but not rise too high) because it is a necessary reaction of the body against the poison. Now, look here! which doctor am I to follow?

January 31, 1935