Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

March 1935

I am thinking of doing some studies in English language, not for any creative purpose, but for recreation.

All right.

With this aim in view, I want to take up your immortal philosophy—though my walnut of a brain can't do much with it—and if you will allow, have some discussions with you, at intervals.

Provided the discussions can be put in a "walnut" shell!

I hear you are having a tough fight with the forces?

Very beastly—these forces. One can't advance a single step without their throwing their shells and stink-bombs. However like General Joffre, I advance. "Nous progress:Imes."⁶⁶

If we busy ourselves with something like the study of the English language, as I have stated, it may indirectly help to keep the devil of

Let us hope so. There is much need of keeping him off and if the English language can do it, glory be to the English language!

March 1, 1935

You thrashed me for calling you grave and austere at the Darshan time [23.2.35]. But see, when we go to the Mother, how seraphically she smiles, while your Self being near, appears still far away at some Olympian height. It is difficult to discern the gravity or the jollity of a face at such a height. But I suppose, our conception of the gods was formed from the vision of such a figure.

Neither gravity nor jollity, but a large, easy, quiet, amiable condition. The gods can't be amiable?

The very fact that there remains no question about the Mother's feeling and attitude, shows that we are not probably all wrong and devoid of sense.

Look here, what are you saying? The Mother's feeling and attitude are being constantly questioned by the sadhaks, "You didn't smile! You were severe! You are displeased with me! You don't love me! What wrong have I done?" etc., etc. much to the Mother's astonishment, as she had no consciousness of such things in her!

A smile may be nothing to some, but if you look at it a little sympathetically and humanly, you will give it its proper importance. Considering the fact that one has left behind all joys and pleasures of life and come to a desert—at least at the primary stage—you can't ask us to be above all expectations of touches of soft breezes, can you?

The poet says or ought to have said, "It is the mind that makes its hell or heaven." The proof is that some people find it for a long time not a desert, but as they call it, a Paradise. Of course it is neither,—it is what one makes of it.

I am thinking of taking some milk-tea and butter in the morning! Will it be a move to the left? If so, I give it up at once.

Butter in milk-tea? Never heard of such a meal before! Is it symbolic of the supramental?

March 2, 1935

Last night I had a peculiar dream. I saw Mother in a half-reclining position, writing something playfully on my forehead with her finger and you entreated her smilingly to write more. Now, what is this? Result of my groaning complaint? Effectuation in dreamland what couldn't be in the world of fact and reality?

The place where you were is as much a world of fact and reality as is the material world and its happenings have sometimes a great effect on this world. What an ignorant lot of disciples you all are! Too much modernisation and Europeanisation by half!

These things are meetings in the vital plane, but very often in the transcription of what happened some details get in that are contributed by the subconscient mind ... The writing on the forehead means of course something that is fixed in you in the vital plane and has to come out hereafter in the physical consciousness.

By milk-tea and butter I meant a greater quantity of milk with a little tea, bread and butter. Well, the idea is to fill up the clavicular and other hollows in the body. Laughing alone can't make one fat! And without a little fat, it is said one hardly looks like a doctor!

Fat = medical knowledge? or a doctor thinks with his fat and not with his brain?

But the self-buttering is your affair—I have no idea one way or the other in the matter.

March 4, 1935

You discover it too late, Sir! No escape now but to drag us, the ignorant fools, and it is for this very reason I was protesting that fools can't do what Avatars can. However!!

Well, they can, if they stop being fools. However!!!

Can you enlighten me how "... its happenings have sometimes a great effect on this world"? I have a personal interest too.

The physical world is only a last field in which not only the physical forces but those of other worlds also throw themselves for realisation. Whatever happens here has already been prepared or foreshadowed in the vital; it does not happen exactly as represented in the vital, but with a change suitable for the material world. But this is a big subject—can't be dealt with tonight.

And can't you be a little more explicit and precise about that writing on the forehead? Something impure that has to come up? We usually associate the vital with impurity.

Why the Apollyon⁶⁷ do you suppose that all vital things are impure? The vital has strength, ardour, enthusiasm, self-confidence, generosity, the victor spirit—a host of other very necessary things. The only difficulty is that they get mixed up with others that are impure. All the same they are there and much needed.

What is this "something fixed in the vital"? If anything impure is to happen, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Besides, I am not afraid of anything since that memorable "never" of yours.

Great Muggins, man! What a mess you have made of my explanation! I meant that by writing on your forehead the Mother had fixed something in you on the vital plane. That something, which she has fixed, will in time come out, manifest, be produced, born, fulfilled in this (slightly obtuse) physical consciousness of yours on this material plane. Produce itself out of latency like the sainthood in Muthu—see? Why on earth should the Mother write something impure on your forehead? Something good of course—something meaning to be there something of your spiritual future, realisation kind of affair—what? If you echo me and ask "What? what?" I can't tell you—No data in the dream and as a conscientious scientific person I refuse to interpret without data.

Here is another dream: we were all sitting in the Pranam Hall, in the morning, when the Mother came down smiling and began to look around. There seemed to be many invisible presences—I felt Christ was there too. Then she sat down and a blazing ray of blue light was focussed on her from somewhere. Her appearance became marvellous. This gave me immense joy.

Well, you are beginning to have very good dream-experiences on the vital plane—very beautiful and true. That is something. But I wonder what Christ was doing there? Perhaps he came to be converted from his "gospel of sorrow"—but that would be the Christian Christ, not the real one.

March 5, 1935

Enclosed is a long, perhaps too long controversy⁶⁸. But the subject demands it. You may read it at one, two or three stretches. Please write an exhaustive reply, but in ink.

Nirod. [Underlined.]

On the back the rational and logical result of your arguments. I shall write certain irrational answers on your MS.—in ink.

You have won all along the line. Who could resist such a lava-torrent of logic? slightly mixed but still! You have convinced me (1st) that there never was nor could be an Avatar, (2) that all the so-called Avatars were chimerical fools and failures, (3) that there is no Divinity or divine element in man, (4) that I have never had any true difficulties or struggles, and that if I had any, it was all my fun (as K.S. said of my new metres that they were only Mr. Ghose's fun); (5) that if ever there was or will be a real Avatar, I am not he—but that I knew before, (6) that all I have done or the Mother has done is a mere sham—sufferings, struggles, conquests, defeats, the Way found, the Way followed, the call to others to follow, every, thing—it was all make-believe since I was the Divine and nothing: could touch me and none follow me. That is truly a discovery, a downright knock-out which leaves me convinced, convicted, amazed, gasping. I won't go on, there is no space; but there are a, score of other luminous convictions that your logic has forced on me. But what to do next? You have put me in a terrible fix and I see no way out of it. For if the Way, the Yoga is merely sham, fun and chimera—then?

[Here begins my typed letter. Sri Aurobindo's answer, written in hand on the same sheets, was never sent. I first read it after it was discovered among some old papers of Sri Aurobindo in 1981.]

I have read your "Essays on the Gita", "Synthesis of Yoga", letter on Rama and, though I am wiser, my original and fundamental difficulty remains as unsolved as ever. What is so simple to you, as everything is, appears mighty complex and abstruse to my dense intellect. So no alternative but to submit to a fresh beating.

What your view comes to, put in a syllogism, is this: Since I have done it and I am an Avatar, every other blessed creature can do it.

This is idiotic. I have said "Follow my path, the way I have discovered for you through my own efforts and example. Transform your nature from the animal to the spiritual, grow into a higher divine consciousness. All this you can do by your own aspiration aided by the force of the Divine Shakti." That, if you please, is not the utterance of a madman or an imbecile. I have said, "I have opened the Way ; now you with the Divine help can follow it." I have not said "Find the way for yourself as I did."

In the "Essays on the Gita" you say, man "is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the seal of ... Nature, Prakriti, Maya ... she has minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine substance, but overlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal humanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there, it is at first indistinguishable."⁶⁹

Does it follow that the coating cannot be dissolved nor the mark effaced? Then stamp the stamp of the chimera on all efforts at spirituality and catalogue as asses and fools all who have attempted to rise beyond the human animal—all who have tried to follow the path of the Christ, the Buddha; stigmatise as folly Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, the way of the Jinas, Christ himself and Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, and any other pathfinder and seeker.

On the other hand you write that in the Avatar, "the divinely-born Man, the real substance shines through the coating; the mark of the seal is there only for form, the vision is that of the secret Godhead, the power of the life is that of the secret Godhead, and it breaks through the seals of the assumed human nature "⁷⁰

Does it follow that the breaking through had not to be done, or was a mere trifling impediment? The power of the form can be exceedingly great as every thinker and observer of life can tell you.

After this you say that the Avatar's descent is "precisely to show that the human birth with all its limitations can be made such a means and instrument of the divine birth and divine works... Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show... how that suffering may be a means of redemption."⁷¹ Well, Sir, it will have no go with me, my heart won't leap up at such a divine possibility, such a dream of Paradise!

Your heart not leaping up does not make my statement a falsehood, a non-sequitur or a chimera.

My fellow-brothers may venture to reach there through such a thin hanging bridge, but if they do, I am afraid it will be into a fool's Paradise.

The fool being myself, eh? For it is my Paradise and it is I who call them to it.

The difficulties you face, the dangers you overcome, the struggles you embrace would seem to be mere shams.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "mere shams".]

Truly then what a humbug and charlatan I have been, making much of sham struggles and dangers—or, in the alternative, since I took them for realities, what a self-blinded imbecile!

Mother knew she was an Avatar at a very early age.

At what age? But I shall say nothing about the Mother—I cannot bring her into such arguments, only myself.

She was thus able to follow the path of travails through volcanoes and earthquakes. But if she says to me, "You can also do it," I will cry out, "Forbear, Mother, forbear."

Nobody asks you to go through volcanoes and earthquakes or to proceed unhelped. You are simply asked to follow the Leader and Guide with the Divine help and with courage, in the face of whatever difficulties come.

If I knew I was an Avatar (pardon my bold hypothesis) do you think I would cry or wail for fear of any amount of crashes and collisions or would it matter if I began with a nature with not a grain of spirituality in me? I would jump from peak to peak in somersaults, go down the abysses, rise up the steeps without fear of mortal consequences since I would know that I was the Divine.

Would you? I wish you had been in my place then! You would have been a hundred times more fit than myself, if you could really have done that. And how easily things would have been done! while I did them and am still doing them with enormous difficulty because lead and have to make the path so that others may follow with less difficulty.

There could be no death or failure for me.

The Divine in the body is not subject to death or failure? yet all those claimed to be Avatars have died—some by violence, some by cancer, some of indigestion etc., etc. You yourself say that they were all failures. How do you reconcile these self-contradictory arguments?

You say, "A physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the descending Godhead takes possession of it."⁷²

Like my heredity? It was "pure"? But of course I am not a divine incarnation. Only why put all that upon me whom it does not fit?

To his beloved children created in his own image the Divine says with gusto, "I send you through this hell of a cycle of rebirths. Don't lose heart, poor boys, if you groan under the weight of your sins and those of your ancestors to boot. I will come down and take hold of a pure heredity with no coating around me and say unto you—come and follow my example."

Who gave this message? It is your own invention. The Divine does not come down in that way. It is a silly imagination of yours that you are trying to foist on the truth of things. The Divine also comes down into the cycle of rebirths, makes the great holocaust, endures shame and obloquy, torture and crucifixion, the burden of human nature, sex and passion and sorrow and suffering, manifests many births before he reveals the Avatar. And when he does reveal it? Well, read the lives of the Avatars and try to understand and see.

Nobody ever said there was no coating—that is your invention.

Not a very inspiring message, Sir!

No, of course not—but it is yours, not any Avatar's.

Jatakas tell us that in every life small or great. Buddha's frontal consciousness was always above the level of others.

Jatakas are legends.

Ramakrishna and Chaitanya began yoga in their cradle, it seems.

Did they? I know nothing about it; but if they told you that! Any how one died by drowning and the other of a cancer.

I don't know if Avatars ever play the part of the rogue or the eternal sinner.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "rogue or the eternal sinner".]

Krishna was a rogue and a sinner even in his Avatar life, if tales are true! Don't you think so?

Now about your absence of urge towards spirituality. Even though that sounds like a story, pray tell us how you could free your mind from all thoughts in 7 days or be established in Brahmic consciousness in a few days.

3 if you please. You are terribly inaccurate in your statements. It was simply through the Divine Grace, because it had been done by thousands before me throughout the centuries and millenniums, and the Divine did not want me to waste time over that other things in the Yoga were not so damned easy!

And even apart from spirituality, what of your waiting for the gallows for your country's sake, with perfect equanimity?

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "perfect equanimity".]

Who told you that? I was perfectly sure of release. But even so plenty of ordinary men did it before me.

What of your profoundly bold assertion that you would free the country by a Force which was under your feet?

Never said that, surely. Under my feet?

What of your brilliant career?

My career was much less brilliant than many others'. They ought to have progressed then farther in Yoga than myself, e.g. Mussolini, Lenin, Tilak, Brajendranath Seal, the admirable Crichton, Gandhi, Tagore, Roosevelt, Lloyd George etc., etc. All Avatars or all full of the essential principle.

If one has the essential principle, what does it matter if one has no urge towards spirituality? The inner consciousness is there.

All that does not apply to me alone. There are hundreds of others. The inner consciousness is not so rare a phenomenon as all that.

There are some people, I hear, who are to all external appearance debauchees or moral insolvents but whose psychic is much developed or "can be touched".

That gives away the whole case. For mark that I have never asked the whole human race to follow me to the supramental—that is your invention, not mine.

Still you go on saying that what you have done is possible for me and not for Arjunas only to whom alone Krishna seems to have addressed the Gila.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "Arjunas only".]

What a waste of words and energy! Yet Krishna said "even Chandalas can follow my way."

I prophesy that your message will reverberate in the rarefied atmosphere evoking a loud rebellious echo from human hearts.

I admit that you have successfully proved that I am an imbecile.

But if you say, "I come to raise you bodily by my divine omnipotence, not by my example," I am all for it. If you insist that I follow your example, it would be as well to insist on my leaving you bag and baggage at once.

All this is a purely personal argument concerning yourself. Up to now you were making general assertions—so was I. I was concerned with the possibility of people following the Path I had opened, as Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Chaitanya, etc. opened theirs. You were declaring that no human being could follow and that my life was perfectly useless as an example—like the lives of the Avatars. Path, life, example all useless—even Power useless because all have been failures. These are general questions. Whether X or Y is able or willing to follow the path or depends on divine Omnipotence only is a personal question. Even if X or Y does so, he has no right to pass a general decree of impossibility against others.⁷³

There are some who claim that they are here and remain here by their soul's call. But I am not one of those fortunate ones. Where they hear the soul's call, I hear the calls of a thousand devils and if it were not for your love—well, no,—for your Power (which I firmly believe in), I would end up myself by being one of those devils. I hope you will believe that this is not a conceited statement.

It is very conceited. To be a devil needs a considerable personal capacity or else a great openness to the Beyond. If you had said, I can only be an ordinary human being, that might be modest.

We don't mean to give you a compliment when we say these things.

Of course not. It is the reverse of complimentary, since you prove me to be an ignorant and mistaken fellow of an Avatar, who merrily wastes his time doing things which are of no earthly use to any human being—except perhaps Arjuna who is not here.

We say that the Sun is a thing apart, not to be measured by any human standards.

The Sun's rays are of use to somebody—you say all my acts and life and laborious opening of the way I thought I had made for spiritual realisation, are of no use to anybody—since nobody is strong enough to follow the path, only the Avatar can do it. Poor lonely ineffective fellow of an Avatar!

We respect him, adore him, lay ourselves bare to his light, but we do not follow him.

Who is this we? Editorial "we"?

Let me point out one or two facts in a perfectly serious spirit.

(1) It has always been supposed by spiritual people that divine perfection, similitude to the Divine, sadrishya, sadharmya is part of the Mukti. Christ said "Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect"—the very Divine himself, mind you, not a mere Avatar or luminous projection from him. His followers strive to be Christ-like. Thomas a Kempis, meditating and striving, wrote a book on the Imitation of Christ. Francis of Assisi and many others arrived at Christlikeness. [Krishna in] the Gita insists on sadharmya, gives himself as an example, and tells Arjuna that many before him from ancient times reached to it. Buddha in teaching karuna, the eightfold path, the rejection of sanskaras, gave it as an ideal to all true followers of his path, thus placing before them not only his own path but his own example. All this is trash and humbug? Christ and Buddha were fools? Myself even a bigger fool? It is not a question of greatness—it is a question of acquiring a certain consciousness to which the way is laid open. It is not a question of acquiring cosmic omniscience and omnipotence, but of reaching the essential divine consciousness with all its spiritual consequences, peace, light, equality, strength, Ananda etc., etc. If you say that that cannot be done, you deny all possibility of spiritual perfection, transformation or any true Yoga. All that anyone can do is to lie helpless and wait for the divine Omnipotence to do something or other. The whole spiritual past of man becomes a fantastic insanity, with the Avatars as the chief lunatics. That is the materialist point of view; but I am unable to envisage it as a basis for sadhana. That example is not all, is true; I have not said it is; there is Influence, there is spiritual help—but the truth of the Way and the Example cannot be belittled in this scornful fashion.

(2) You make nothing of the Divine in man. If there is no divinity in man, then there is no possibility of Avatarhood; also spirituality. can just as well pass away into silence—it has no foundation here. If the divinity is there in man, it can break through its coatings. You admit that it can do it in debauchees and moral insolvents—that it can manifest in ignorant and uncultured men and women is a proved fact; the Gita itself declares that all kinds of men and women can follow its path. Whether X or Y⁷⁴ does or does not [do] so does not depend then on these things and it is no use trying to bar the path to people because of either their ignorance or their immorality. To do so is to betray a bottomless ignorance of spiritual things. As to the possibility of awakening the psychic being, on what intellectual grounds or by what fixed ethical or rational rules are you going to fix that and declare "No entry here for you"? You cannot generalise in the way you try to do by an intellectual reasoning. The mystery of the Spirit is too great for such a puny endeavour.

March 6, 1935

[Whatever correspondence on Avatarhood follows now, refers only to Sri Aurobindo's short reply of March 6, 1935 (see above, pp. 165-6) written on the chit: "Nirod... chimera—then?" or before.]

You seem to attribute to me things which I never said, or is it my clumsy way of putting things? Probably that. But even then, you have put into my mouth exactly the opposite of what I have been trying to say. For instance—when did I say that you are not an Avatar? On the contrary I wrote to you that you are an Avatar.

You don't say, but if your theory or description of an Avatar is right, I am not one. I am proceeding on the necessary consequences of your logic.

When did I say that you or Mother had no difficulties or struggles? Did I not write that the Avatar accepts all terrestrial conditions, etc.? However, I did say that the difficulties and struggles are all shams, that is, not as real as our difficulties.

If they are shams, they have no value for others or for any true effect. If they have no value for others or for any true effect, they are perfectly irrational and unreal and meaningless. The Divine does not need to suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it is in order to bear the world-burden and help the world and men; and if the sufferings and struggles are to be of any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot help. They must be as real as the struggles and sufferings of men themselves—the Divine bears them and at the same time shows the way out of them. Otherwise his assumption of human nature has no meaning and no utility and no value. It is strange that you cannot understand or refuse to admit so simple and crucial a point. What is the use of admitting Avatarhood if you take all the meaning out of it?

I never said that there could be no Avatars nor that they are failures.

Good Lord! You said most emphatically that they were all failures and that is why the Divine had to come back again and again—to "atone for his failures".

If your argument is that the life, actions, struggles of the Avatar (e.g. Rama's, Krishna's) are unreal because the Divine is there and knows it is all a Maya, in man also there is a self, a spirit that is immortal, untouched, divine; you can say that man's sufferings and ignorance are only put on, shams, unreal. But if man feels them as real and if the Avatar feels his work and difficulties to be serious and real?

I don't think I said that there is no divinity in man. In the quotation I gave from the Gita it is said that man is made out of the divine substance but has a thick coating on him.

If the existence of the Divinity is of no practical effect, what is the use of a theoretical admission? The manifestation of the Divinity in the Avatar is of help to man because it helps him to discover his own divinity, find the way to realise it. If the difference is so great that the humanity by its very nature prevents all possibility of following the way opened by the Avatar, it merely means that there is no divinity in man that can respond to the divinity in the Avatar.

You make a flourish of reasonings and do not see the consequence of your reasonings. It is no use saying "I believe this or that" and then reasoning in a way which leads logically to the very negation of what you believe.

Also, I find that some important points on which my whole case stands and without which my "fury" has no meaning, have been left out by you. I admitted that Avatars have many difficulties, but because they know, as Mother did, that they are Avatars, because the "real substance" shines through the alloy in all that they do, they have a fixed faith and conviction that they will never fail. Now take the case of man; he has usually no such conviction because of the blessed "coating". So he groans and writhes in agony, doubt and despair. How many times in the midst of struggles have I not said to myself that Yoga is beyond my capacities! Now, if I knew for certain that I was an extraordinary being, say an Avatar, I would not despair. This is why I said that the difficulties of Avatars are not real, but shams—not that they have no sting in them, but that the luminous consciousness bears them easily and goes on in spite of them.

You think then that in me (I do not bring in the Mother), there was never any doubt or despair, no attacks of that kind. I have borne every attack which human beings have borne, otherwise I would be unable to assure anybody "This too can be conquered". At least I would have no right to say so. Your psychology is terribly rigid. I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is the same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that there is behind others and it is to awaken that that he is there.

The psychic being does the same for all who are intended for the spiritual way,—men need not be extraordinary beings to follow Yoga. That is the mistake you are making, to harp on greatness as if only the great can be spiritual.

Regarding the divinity in man—what is the use of this divinity if it is coated layer after layer with Maya? How many can really become conscious of it?

Exactly! Why admit any divinity then at all, if humanity is an insuperable bar to any following in the Way pointed out by the Avatar? That was your contention that humanity and divinity are unbridgeably opposite things, that it is no use the Avatar asking others (except Arjuna) to follow in his Path—they, being human, cannot do it.

You had defeats, struggles, but had at the same time the spirit of absolute surrender, faith which we find shining through Mother's prayers as well. Did you not leave your great work for the country at one word of Krishna?

Lots of people leave things at the word of a human being like Gandhi, they do not need the word of Krishna.

Does the average man have this faith etc.? If he has not, but has instead struggles, sufferings etc., picture what his condition would be!

If absolute surrender, faith etc. from the beginning were essential for Yoga, then nobody could do it. I myself could not have done it, if such a condition had been demanded of me.

Let me make it clear that in all I wrote I was not writing to prove that I am an Avatar! You are busy in your reasonings with the personal.question, I am busy in mine with the general one. I am seeking to manifest something of the Divine that I am conscious of and feel—I care a damn whether that constitutes me an Avatar or something else. That is not a question which concerns me. By manifestation, of course, I mean the bringing out and spreading of that Consciousness so that others also may feel and enter into it and live in it.

March 7, 1935

I await your "irrational" remarks on my type-script.⁷⁵ I hope you haven't thrown it into the waste paper basket.

I had written a good deal the same day as I got your type-script—but I have a sanguinary eye, so I have to wait a day or two before pursuing my irrationalities.

March 8, 1935

I am surprised and sad to hear that you can still be affected by these physical ailments!

What I am surprised at is that I have any eye left at all after the last two or three years of half-day and all night work. The difficulty for resting is that the sadhaks have begun pouring paper again without waiting for the withdrawal of the notice—not all of course, but many. And there is a stack of outside correspondence still unanswered! I am persuading my eye, but it is still red and sulky and reproachful. Revolted, what? Thinks too much is imposed on it and no attention paid to its needs, desires, preferences etc. Will have to reason with it for a day or two longer.

How I wish, as a medical man, I mean, I could enforce absolute rest to the eyes and issue a bulletin.

[Underlining "absolute rest"]: It does not exist in this world—not even in the Himalayas—except of course for the inner being which can always be in absolute rest.

March 9, 1935

I am pursuing a policy of non-interference with others' patients according to medical etiquette. For instance D.R.R. called in Dr. R from the very start, so I didn't butt in.

Of course you can't interfere—but you may assist. R however does not seem to be fond of his acquisition—he was proposing to shove him into the hospital again! I think after B goes you must not hesitate to take things in your hands firmly.

Don't hesitate to lead R gently in the way he should go. If he does anything foolish, interfere vigorously—I have told R at his own suggestion to call you and see what D.R. has, if it is typhoid he must go to the hospital—we can't deal with that here.

March 14, 1935

Dr. B is going tonight and the whole responsibility of the dispensary sits on my shoulders. Well, all faults and failings have to be borne alone. You may say the Divine is there behind. Yes, but that "behind" makes all the difference! One doesn't know whether He is there! And I don't know why He proposes to work in me from behind or within!

Don't know, "God moves in a mysterious way"—that is the sum of human wisdom in the matter, but it doesn't carry you very far.

We gave N.P. some bromide for sleep.

Bromide should be avoided—it does not give good sleep of a helpful kind.

We have prescribed mercury ointment also.

For many mercury ointment increases pain and swelling of eyes.

S seems to be all right. We can let him walk about a little. P asked me if his giddiness was due to congestion or some other cause. Considering his age, state of pulse and symptoms, I would think it's congestion.

I think he might walk about a little. Giddiness can come from many causes. I used to walk about for hours with my head going round or going up in a most exhilarating way. It gave me a perverse Ananda but did not inconvenience me otherwise. But S's case is not quite clear.

And why so many illnesses all on a sudden? Is the Supramental then too near?

No, it is the material which has become too uppish.

People are saying that it has come down into the physical, evidenced by great peace and calm. Is this then that calm and peace or the deluge before the new creation?

Into whose physical? I shall be very glad to know—for I myself have not got so far, otherwise I would not have a queasy eye. But if you know anybody who has got it (the Supramental in the physical, not the eye) tell me like a shot. I will acclaim him "Grand First Supramental" at once.

And so many eye-cases too! Is the infection spreading from the Master to the disciples?

There were plenty of eye-cases before. Your idea of their sudden multitude is an optical illusion!

Please see that my type-script [on Avatarhood] with your remarks, is not misplaced. I am almost dreading it. If once it goes into the heap, it is gone for ever!

It is safe. I have a stylish 17th century (or something like that) portfolio for these three precious (?) documents now.

March 17, 1935

N.P. has pain in the eye which he says is of a throbbing character as if somebody were "pricking" from within the centre of the eye.

"Throbbing" and "Pricking" are two quite different things. Pricking pains are quite normal in ordinary eye-illness. N is not a good "pain-bearer" and those who are like that, always get pain worse and find it more difficult to get rid of it.

R came to see him at my request and advised him to do palming.

We must first know what the damned thing is. If it is glaucoma, then sunlight treatment is the only chance of cure. Let us hope it is not.

My impression is that R is more concerned with treatment than diagnosis; then the treatment is bound to be symptomatic.

I don't think R is any good at diagnosis. The old Doctor was the man for that. I would define R's method as "book work + imaginative experimentation". (It is a confidential estimate).

But I really wonder why the Divine can't do something! You said people were saved from death by prayer, and here the Divine himself can't save this fellow from pain and suffering!

Such questions are all "my eye".

N got remarkable response from the Divine, then why not N.P.?

Every man does not get response, and every man does not give response.

K has a thick crop of eruptions on the face, and temperature. I was thinking it may be measles. You seem to think it may be due to dengue. But rashes are not so numerous in dengue.

Don't know. Mother was thinking of X's case more than K's. These do not seem to be the characteristic signs that are precursors of measles. Anyhow we shall have to see and if it's anything, must be careful it doesn't spread. Especially one must be careful to keep to the rule—"Don't give purgatives in high fever unless you are sure of the nature of the fever".

S's case is really puzzling. It does not seem to be apoplexy since there is no paralysis nor is the pressure high.

It seems to me a congestion such as comes at his age to people who Live well (S is a good eater). Perhaps it might have been worse if he had not bled.

Anyway there doesn't seem to be any immediate danger, is there?

Probably not—people carry on for many years like that—I mean with that tendency. Provided it does not turn to real apoplexy.

N.P. has got a complicated eye trouble. It looks like iritis.

I think you had better ask N if he is willing to show his eyes to R's ophthalmologist—for diagnosis only. It is evidently difficult to act without knowing definitely what the matter is—without any doubt.

March 18, 1935

K's case seems more like dengue than measles, for all symptoms are against measles.

It can't be measles in that case.

S's case could be a mild apoplexy from old age due to arterial degeneration, though no definite physical signs are evident.

Certainly there was no arterial haemorrhage. S denies any congestion of brain—he says there was no giddiness, but describes a vital attack and a fall due to a physical movement of his own to avoid it—his head falling on something projecting caused the bleeding. He says the congestion is a legend.

K sent me a scavenger with a big swelling above the left clavicle. We suspect some growth, cancer or glandular swelling. He won't go to the hospital. K thinks we are not responsible in any way, but I thought I would let you know.

We are responsible only for accidents during work. If a fellow gets a glandular or other swelling or a cancer, we have nothing to do with it. No treatment must be given—if he asks, show him the road to the hospital.

M's is not a pimple. It looks like a Myobeian [meibomian] cyst.

What the hell is that? I don't know bad Greek.

March 19, 1935

We were surprised not to receive any answer from you to R's letter. He says he was late.

He is always. He sent me two letters (which I read together) repeating the same things with different amplification.

N. P. was feeling better at 5 p.m. He felt as if you were working within his eye and inferred that perhaps you were reading his letter at that moment. It was after all, an illusion.

Only a wrong inference.

What is really this impression? Is there no truth in it?

There was truth in his feeling of the Force working—but his inference was an inference and not an experience. There is no infallibility in experiences.

Everyone thinks that as soon as you read our letters we get the necessary help and not before that. In my own case I got relief only after Mother's touch at Pranam or after I had written my whole trouble. Prayers are not heard, then?

It depends on how far the inner being is awake—otherwise one needs a physical avalambana.⁷⁶ There are some people who get the relief only after we read a letter, others get it immediately they write or before it has reached us or after it has reached but before we have read. Others get it simply by referring the whole matter to us mentally. Idiosyncrasies!

I send you a diagram of M's condition, drawn by Nishikanta. I hope the "hell" is clear now! Meibomian cyst is an enlargement of one of the glands in the inner coat of the eye-lid.

This is more intelligible. You haven't explained your bad Greek, through—myoboemiant⁷⁷ which seems to have something to do with a mystically silent shout.

I find many things which are recommended or given for diseases, are not much favoured by the Divine. So I think it's better to ask your opinion before any drug is given.

There are some remedies which cure the disease temporarily but are bad for the system like quinine—others which suit some people but harm others, others which have a good effect one way, but a bad one in another way. That is why Mother does not like them to be used indiscriminately. Some she disapproves of altogether, e.g. quinine. She also disapproves of the excessive use of purgatives.

My system has been rather supersaturated with medicine and reports. If you could release that type-script document without any inconvenience to your eye, I can recharge the battery.

Release? I am seeking for mukti⁷⁸ myself.

N.P is much better as regards pain. But I wonder why atropine increased the pain as it is the drug indicated for iritis. And why did you ask it to be stopped?

Mother felt that the medicines were causing trouble—you yourself saw that atropine increased the pain.

How did you find S at Pranam?

He was all right except for a little weakness.

M showed me his eye with a pea-sized swelling inside—yellowish.

It is a swelling, not a pimple? Try hot boric solution wash for the present.

March 20, 1935

The Ost [ophthalmologist] said that M's condition has improved. He has advised to give salicylates for past rheumatism.

All right—salicylate him as much as the Ost likes.

Queer! one has to be dosed not only for present and future but past ailments. Medicine like the Brahman transcends Time.

An inner unquiet is running for some days. It seems as if I would mightily like to have something, but don't get it,—as if it is around me, but I don't have it! Mother's writing on the forehead [5.3.35] doesn't manifest! And what about the universal? No sign of its opening its door to this poor fellow! Meditation, concentration, aspiration—everything is gasping! Let me have some stimulant drops, please.

Stop gasping and "smile a little".

Well, if it is around you, it is bound to manifest—you have only to keep quiet and open yourself pleasantly.

You are seeking for mukti!! I thought you never caredfor it.

That mukti I got ages ago without my wanting it.

B's upper eye-lid is congested. Eye drops?

If he wants drops, drop—but nothing startling or violent, please. Mother suggests camphor lotion, but she does not know the proportion and it must be light. I suppose you have no "codex"—book of ordinances?

21.3.35

Nirod

You will have to go and see S—he is not quite well and also here is some difficulty about the hair over the place of the wound. Do what is necessary—but, by the way, don't auscult; it made them nervous last time.

SRI AUROBINDO

P.S. Also take care not to look anxious; it upsets them still more!!

March 21, 1935

S is showing signs of cerebral irritation. It is strange that I did not think of the head injury, neither did you draw my attention to it.

The Mother got the suggestion several times, but she did not feel entitled to interfere as she is "not a doctor" and the suggestion was not scientific or rational, but only an "unbased" intuition. The rights of reason and science, you know, are not to be trifled with! Hail, Reason, holy Light! etc. But it is a great pity she did not act on her intuition; she asked whether it was not necessary to open the wound and see, but Pavitra told her Andre had not found it necessary as there was no pain. But evidently something went seriously wrong.

Mother, thinking of this case and one or two others, I feel ashamed of my poor knowledge and experience. I was wondering how I would show my face to you at Pranam.

Cheer up. And as Danton said "De l'audace et toujours de l'audace".⁷⁹ (What is lacking in you is the doctor's confidence in guessing at a disease and throwing a medicine at it in the hope that it will stick and cure. But that is not what I mean by the quotation.)

I dreamt that you had come to me for eye treatment, though there was no facial similarity.

If there was no facial similarity, how do you know it was I!

Does it mean that you are still unwell? M says you walk about with a bandage on.

The eyes are still unready for overstrain, that is all. I suppose they have erected an automatic self-defence against the Call of correspondence.

If you believe all that M's highly wrought poetic imagination conceives!!

D and H are losing their nails perhaps due to their washing work with soda. I have asked them to wash their nails with lemon-water after the work to neutralise the corrosive action.

That ought to stop it. Do they not rinse properly after work? They should do so and rub each finger with the lemon-water.

March 23, 1935

As regards S's case, could it have been due to syphilitic gumma in the brain, the symptoms of which were brought out by the exciting cause?

The Surgeon told Pavitra, I think, that even hereditary syphilitic tendency could expose one to the results and 90% (in Europe perhaps—India may not yet have caught up in the race) were open to it! Some exaggeration perhaps?

By the way I forgot to mention about your "unbiased in tuition" in favour of the fracture of the skull.

I had written not "unbiased" but "unbased" = without any definite ground in apparent facts.

Throughout the day his condition was almost the same, only from 5—6.30 p.m. he was free from any "crise" which, I believe, was due to your Force. If not, we can attribute it to the mercury injection.

Let us hope the credit is due to the treatment, although they say it produces its effects only after a longer time—but I have seen that the Force can bring about a quicker action if the remedies are the right ones.

But what do you make of the original fall? It struck me at once at the time that it was epileptic, but as nothing seemed to come to support the idea, I dropped it. But when S said there was no giddiness and described the strangling attack on the throat and the movements he made, the epilepsy interpretation came back to me with great force (of course I know nothing about the illness scientifically). Do you consider the fall as an accident? If it was epileptic, the fall with the injury bringing about only the rapid development of the illness and this violent crisis, then what was the cause of the epilepsy? Epilepsy is from the occult point of view a characteristic form of vital inroad, but to take so physical a form a vital inroad must have or create some physical cause as its means or support for its manifestation. If syphilis of brain, tumour, haemorrhage are ruled out by absence of hypertension, what then was the cause, since the fracture or traumatism was not there at the time of the fall? Constitutional disease? What disease would produce the epilepsy? S's movements were often abnormally vehement, a great restlessness was there often and there was the trembling of the limbs. But what disease—if constitutional disease there was?

SRI AUROBINDO
March 24, 1935

Now that the whole show is over with the death of S, I don't know if any purpose will he served in discussing the matter further. Still I cannot but ask some questions. The haemorrhage caused by the fall must have been on the surface...

How is that? One of the tests indicated that the injury was deep down, we were told.

I am upset but perhaps you are slightly upset too and it would be unwise to upset you further by my questions.

No, I am not in the least "upset". I did not expect S to be immortal nor did he expect it himself. In fact the Mother expected him to die before this and it was only his return to the Asram that gave him enough vitality to last longer.

I firmly believed that death was impossible here. Since it has been possible, it means that hostile forces have become victorious.

There have been three deaths since the Asram began—one, of a child in a house that was not then part of the Asram and the other of a visitor. This is the first death of an Asramite in the Asram itself.

You said, I hear, that you have conquered Death, not only personally, but for others as well.

I am unaware of having made any such statement. To whom did I make it? I have not said even that personally I have conquered it. All these are the usual Asram legends.

The conquest of Death would mean the conquest of illness and of the psychological and functional necessity of death of the body—that is one of the ideals of the Yoga, but it can be accomplished only if and when the supramental has driven its roots into Matter. All that has been acting here up to now is an Overmind force which is getting gradually supramentalised in parts—the utmost that it can do in this respect is to keep death at a distance and that is what has been done. The absence of death in the Asram for so many years has been due to that. But it is not impossible—especially when death is accepted. In S's case there was a 5 percent chance of his survival on certain conditions, but he himself knew the difficulty in his case and had prepared himself for his departure from the body.

March 25, 1935

It was Y who said to K the other day that Mother told them in an interview that you and Mother have conquered Death, that S needn't die and that even if such a possibility came, if they called you fervently Death would recede.

What the Mother said was that there was no necessity that S should die—of the possibility both S and Y knew—and if death came, yet if they could call in the force it would have to recede. This was a statement of the principle and it is a thing that has happened to many. It was not an affirmation that S would certainly live. The sadhaks have a habit of turning spiritual truths into crude downright statements of a miraculous kind which lead to many misunderstandings.

About yourself there is already a strong conviction "based on fact" that you have made yourself immortal.

On what fact?

In one of your talks in the early days you seem to have acclaimed yourself as immortal except under 3 conditions—accident, poison and Ichchha Mrityu.⁸⁰

It must have been a joke taken as a self-acclamation. Or perhaps what I said was that I have the power to overcome illness, but accident and poison and the I.M. still remain as possible means of death. Of course, the Mother and myself have hundreds of times thrown back the forces of illness and death by a slight concentration of force or even a use of will merely.

And just lately I came to know that the first two also have been conquered and the last, Ichchha Mrityu, depends on your Ichchha.

Great heavens, when?

Another conviction which all of us shared is that you could never have any illness; but your "eye", due to whatever cause, has shattered it.

It is long since I have had anything but slight fragments of illness—(e.g. sneezes, occasional twitches of rheumatism or neuralgia: but the last is mostly now outside the body and does not penetrate)—with the exception of the eye and the throat (only one kind of cough though, the others can't come) which are still vulnerable points. Ah yes, there is also prickly-heat; but that has diminished to almost nothing these last years. There is sometimes an attempt at headache, but it remains above the head, tries to get in and then recedes. Giddiness also the same. I don't just now remember anything else. These are the facts about "having no illness". As for the conclusion, well, you can make a medical one or a Yogic one according to your state of knowledge.

You have written that with the growth of the inward consciousness, one can feel the forces of illness coming and if one knows how to stop them one can do so. Then surely you can see what is coming, why don't you prevent it? How does this theory coincide with what you have written namely that illness can be conquered only by the Supramental rooting itself firmly?

Always the same rigid mind that turns everything into a statement of miraculous absoluteness! It is my experience and.the Mother's that all illnesses pass through the subtle consciousness and subtle body before they enter the physical. If one is conscious, one can stop it entering the physical, one can develop the power to do so. We have done that millions of times. But that does not mean that every time we will do so. It may come without one's noticing or when one is asleep or through the subconscient or in a sudden rush when one is off one's guard etc., etc. Let us suppose however that I am always on guard, always conscious, even in sleep—that does not mean that I am immunised in my very nature from all illness. It only means a power of self-defence against it when it tries to come. Self-defence may become so strong that the body becomes practically immune as many Yogis are. Still the "practically" does not mean "absolutely" for all time. The absoluteness can only come with the supramental change. For below the supramental it is an action of a Force among many forces—in the supramental it becomes a law of the nature.

Can the supramental really make immortal a tottering old man, with all his anatomy and physiology pathological?

Well, don't you know that old men sometimes get a new or third set of teeth in their old age? And if monkey glands can renew functionings and forces and even make hair grow on a bald head, as Voronoff has proved by living examples,—well? And mark that Science is only at the beginning of these experiments. If these possibilities are opening before Science, why should one declare their absolute impossibility by other means?

In "Yogic Sadhan"⁸¹ I find that by Yoga every cell in the body can be changed in structure and function; but to expect that in a grand old man—well, isn't it too much even for the Yogic Force?

Now that the omnipotence of this Force is being questioned, will you kindly write that promised letter "by means of examples" on what Yogic Force can do?

There is a difference between Yogic Force on the mental and inferior planes and the Supramental Nature. What is acquired and held by the Yoga-Force in the mind-and-body consciousness is in the supramental inherent and exists not by achievement but by nature—it is self-existent and absolute.⁸²

Not now. I am too busy trying to get things done to spend time in getting them written.

Last night I was taking a walk in the yard when I began to feel that it was not I who was doing the walking, but some form which I did not know at all. It seemed to be devoid of much vitality or consciousness. As I came into the area where it was a little darker, the things that were lying about looked peculiar as if they existed in dreamland,—and in the midst of them was this form walking about like one in sleep. Is it all imagination?

It is a very usual experience. It means that for a moment you were no longer in your body, but somehow either above or outside the body consciousness. This sometimes happens by the vital being rising up above the head or, more rarely, by its projecting itself into its own sheath (part of the subtle body) out of the physical attachment. But it also comes by a sudden even if momentary liberation from the identification with the body consciousness, and this liberation may become frequent and prolonged or permanent. The body is felt as something separate or some small circumstance in the consciousness or as something one carries about with one etc., etc., the exact experience varies. Many sadhaks here have had it. When one is accustomed, the strangeness of it (dreamland etc.) disappears.

I propose to go to the hospital 3 or 4 days in a week, because I think it will help my work. But please don't say later on that I was following closely my predecessor Esculape, in trying to be a big doctor.

Mother fully approves your attending—she considers it helpful in many ways. So have no scruples Esculapian or otherwise.

May I use a cycle to go to the hospital?

Where will you keep the cycle there? If there is a safe place, you can have the cycle.

March 26, 1935

Excuse my returning to the question of S's death. I would infer from your letter that sufficient force was not called in, so he died.

How could he himself call in or receive and assimilate the force in his body when that body was in fits or unconscious?

From whatever you have said in joke or in earnest, it logically follows that you are immortal. Because if you say that Supramental can alone conquer death, one who has become that is evidently and consequently immortal. So if one is immortal or has conquered death, no poison or accident can affect him.

Your syllogism is:

"One who became supramental, can conquer death.
Sri Aurobindo has become supramental
Sri Aurobindo has conquered death."

1st premiss right; second premiss premature; conclusion at least premature and in any case excessive, for "can conquer" is turned into "has conquered" = is immortal. It is not easy, my dear doctor, to be a logician ; the human reasoning animal is always making slight inaccuracies like that in his syllogisms which vitiate the whole reasoning. This might be correct:

"One who becomes wholly supramental conquers death
Sri Aurobindo is becoming supramental
Sri Aurobindo is conquering death."

But between "is conquering" and "has conquered" is a big difference. It is all the difference between present and future, logical possibility and logical certitude.

I hope I haven't made a rigid mental conclusion.

The premiss is false. I have never said that I am supramental—I have always said that I have achieved the overmind and am bringing down the supramental. That is a process and until the process is complete it cannot be said that "I am supramental". Of course when I say "I"—I mean the instrument—not the Consciousness above or the Person behind which contain all things in them.

Because you are still subject to eye and throat trouble. would it mean that you haven't yourself conquered death? If that be so am I to accept that the Supramental hasn't driven its roots into you?

See above for the answer.

Besides, I said "has driven its roots into Matter". Am I "Matter"

Though you say that Death is possible because illness hasn't been conquered, I take it as a principle. Amal and myself firmly believe that those whom you have accepted, are absolutely immune to death.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined twice "accepted".] Too comfortable a doctrine. It brings in a very tamasic syllogism. "I am accepted by Sri Aurobindo. I am sure of supramentality and immune from death. Therefore I need not do a damned thing. Supramentality will of itself grow in me and I am already immortal, so I have all time and eternity before me for it to happen—of itself". Like that, does it sound true?

I was myself going to write to you about Voronoff and rejuvenation. Have you any idea why the monkey-gland is used? I wonder how far the rejuvenating operation is successful.

It is successful partially and for a period—one cannot say more than that. But even that—rejuvenation for a period—is a tremendous progress and how can one say where it will end? As for the monkey, it is because it is nearest to man and at the same time an extremely vital creature, I mean full of vital force. As for the gland, it is because the seat of the physical energy is there which supports and reinforces all the rest. Voronoff's selection is perfectly logical and intuitive at the same time.

What does supramentalisation mean exactly? We know by your own statement that you have achieved that. Is it then supramentalisation in parts? You want transformation of everything—mental to physical?

Achieved what? What statement? What are these wild assertions? I spoke of an overmind Force which is getting supramentalised in parts.

Does it mean that some parts of your being are supra-mental and this physical is not yet supramentalised?

Overwind in process of supramentalisation—not supramental.

How can it be possible—realisation in parts, in your case?

Why not? Always the idea that there must be an instantaneous absolute miracle or else nothing! What about process in things? You are ignorant of all that is between supreme Spirit and matter, it seems. You know nothing of the occult processes of mind, life and all the rest—so you can think only of miraculous divinity or else law of matter as known to Science. But for supramental Spirit to work itself out in matter it must go through a process of transforming the immediate mental, vital and other connections, must it not—so why should not the process be in parts? Immortality also can come by parts. First the mental being becomes immortal (not shed and dissolved after death), then the vital, while the physical comes only last. That is a possible evolution, recognised by occult science.

March 27, 1935

T's hysteria has put my logic into hysteric fits... She had never had any fits before. It seems she was late for her work, by a few minutes and A gave her a severe rebuke before the other workers. Maybe this is the cause?

She had these fits, but milder, in Gujerat before she came here. Here they did not occur—this is the first time and a bad fit at that. She has had very often "fears" and other moods and imaginations which might be of a hysterical character,—it is difficult to say.

You will excuse my fear, I hope. But surely if one can be the cause of such a trouble and upset somebody—and a lady at that, and in the Asram, in addition to the fact that one has plenty of these to bear in oneself, I don't know really what could be done. You know, so I leave it to you.

Fear of what?

[Underlining "one".] Who is the one? in either case—A, you or X in general or in particular?

This is very mysterious language—can't you be more explicit?

March 29, 1935

My logic again, Sir: Sri Aurobindo is bound to become wholly supramental and is being supramentalised in parts. If that is true—and it is—well, he can't die till he is supramental—and once he is so, he is immortal.

It looks very much like a non-sequitur. The first part and the last are all right—but the link is fragile. How do you know I won't take a fancy to die in between as a joke?

Now, if that is accepted, then those whom you know for certain as would-be supramentals and have been accepted as such, are immortal—follows as a corollary.

Again the fallacy comes in in the "would-be". A "supramental may be immortal, but why should a W.S.⁸³ be immortal?

It may be a "comfortable doctrine" but that's my philosophy of sadhana. What is the good of the Avatar if we do everything by ourselves? We have come to you and taken shelter at your feet so that you may, as the Gita says, deliver us from all sins...

But what if the Avatar gets frightened at the prospect of all this hard labour and rushes back scared behind the veil?

After all what's the use of so much austere sadhana? The supramental is bound to come down and we shall lie flat at the gate and he can't pass us by.

[Underlining "he can't pass us by".] Why not? Why can't he float easily over you and leave you lying down or send for the supra-mental police to chivy you out and make you pass through a hard examination in an Epicurean austerity before you are allowed inside?

This is not really a joke. You may beat me for my semi-Epicurean attitude, but I do believe that those who can stick to the last from Anilbaran to N, will have the supramentalisation.

N also!!! Great illogical heavens! Obviously if N becomes a supramental, everybody can! No doubt about that logic.

You may say that it will be delayed in its descent by our passivistic attitude, as some people say that yourself and the Mother would'have been supramentalised long ago if only we had not kept you down. Is it really true?

I can't say there is no truth in it, but it is not the passivistic attitude that stood in the way. However, "ifs" come to nothing so far as the past is concerned, since the past having been had to be—"Ifs" are only of value for the future.

Manubhai (in the smithy) has conjunctivitis.

Manibhai is the Smithy Superintendent—Manubhai is the Lord High Gardener. Don't mix men and vowels supramentally like that.

March 30, 1935

To my query T said that the trouble is now pain in the lower abdomen. When that pain increases, she goes unconscious.

Isn't that mere hysteric auto-suggestion? She used to have these pains before and did not "go unconscious". Or is it brain congestion due to stoppage of the menses?

I gather that she is having periods for the last three days and usually she suffers from pain. For the last three months she had no periods at all.

Many of the women here have very fanciful periods—but I suppose that is fairly common everywhere. Pavitra has a medicine for blood circulation and regularity of menses. You might ask Pavitra about it. These medicines (he has more than one) are the latest discoveries in Europe of which samples have been sent here.

D is all right. But can you tell me why so many cases have flared up along with my advent? Are the hostile forces trying to test the capacity of a raw doctor?

I have noticed that—but am not yet quite clear as to the cause—whether it is a special favour to you or merely a coincidence—i.e. you just balled in when these things were due

I am doctoring on others, but there is nobody to doctor on me. When I send my case to the Supreme Doctor, he smiles or keeps silent, or watches and observes, Oh, it is the same complaint. The Force does not "tumble in"; one part wants to be in a flood of energy and work and work, another part inert, obstructive and lethargic... Can you diagnose and treat it effectively and in the shortest time? From your answers, I gather that there is no hurry—all eternity is before me!

Two different personalities standing in the way of each other. No remedy except "harmonisation" and that is usually done by the working of a higher Force which compels the two beggars not to interfere with each other. The business of the patient is to take plenty of doses of the Force. The usual formula (prescription, whatever you like to call it) is "Proceed with as much zeal as if all had to be done in a short fraction of a lifetime and as much patience as if you had all eternity before you." Your two parts ought to arrange that between them—one seems to plump for the first course, the other for the all-eternity. A splendid chance for harmonisation.

About learning French, wouldn't it be better to drop A's and C's classes and ask K to teach me alone for a rapid progress and a better pronunciation because it seems K's pronunciation is better.

Not better than C's, but good. But the class is not sufficient for going quick. You can ask K.

I asked J to tell me something on occult science, learning that you spoke highly about him. He seems to have some knowledge. He says my mind is not clear but it has strength and my emotional being very good!! All this true? If he knows all this he is wonderful for his age.

I should say on the contrary that your mind is very clear (in spite of bad logic); it has strength but a slow deliberate strength. The third statement is correct.

He has been learning and experimenting, but is often very hasty in his conclusions.

By the way, name of those perverse "fancies" please [vide 30.3.35]. If at all you think of going, let us know beforehand. so that we may disappear before you!

Where would be the fun if I told you beforehand? However, I have no bad intentions for the moment.

March 31, 1935