Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

May 1936

I thought as much, Sir, that you would quote your own instance as regards the weight. Exercise, swimming in the sea to no avail!

Good Lord, man! I always thought exercise decreased the fat and gave strength and muscle. And you want to increase your fat by exercise?

I have no peace now, the whole day passes in lamentation. No use dilating on it, as it has been before and will be after.

We weep before and after.

Our sweetest hours are those we fill with saddest thought.

I thought a little good time had come a few days back, but that little streak, if it was not my imagination, has been swallowed up by dark and unending trails of clouds from which I see no escape...

All right, sir. If you feel ready for force, I will send you. As for the results, well, let us see.

An absolute blank, a perpetual vegetative unrest—a Nirvana!

Gracious heavens! you have reached Nirvana so easily! But how can unrest be Nirvana? Some misconception. Perhaps it is Prakritilaya²⁰⁶ you are aiming at! Perhaps you are moving towards a repetition of Jada Bharat²⁰⁷ and when you are sufficiently jada and able to enjoy it, then Nirvana and all the Knowledge will come to you.

Examined Mulshankar. Most of the trouble is in the abduction of the hip joint...

Abduction of a joint, sir? What's this flagrant immorality? What happens to the joint when it is abducted?

Soon he will be able to do the normal movements. There is benumbing of his feet as well as a tingling sensation.

And what about the two colliding bones? Part of the abduction?

However I will take him soon to Philaire.

Right. Abduct him to Philaire.

May 1, 1936

If I feel ready for the force? It is not a question of feeling now, but of forcing the Force. That apart as you said, "If you wait for things to happen, there is no reason why they should happen at all", has shattered all my imagination, illusion, fancy, speculation about the Force and the Grace.

You deal too much in paradoxes and contradictory statements, for my little brain to understand. You say, "within there is a soul and above there is Grace." Is it not contrary to the foregoing one?

I don't see how it is contrary. Naturally the soul and the Grace are the two ends, but that does not mean that there is to be nothing between. You seem to have interpreted the sentence "There is a dawdling soul within and a sleeping Grace above. When the Grace awakes, the soul will no more dawdle, because it will be abducted." Of course, it can happen like that, but, as I put it, there is no reason why it should. Generally-the soul wakes up, rubs its eyes and says "Hallo, where's that Grace?" and begins fumbling around for it and pulling at things in the hope that Grace is at the other end of the said things. Finally it pulls at something by accident and the Grace comes toppling down full tilt from God knows where. That's the usual style—but there are others.

However, I will try something tonight and listen with rapt attention to the silent steps of your Force coming, but we find you have put "all Force available at Dilipda's disposal"!

Perhaps I meant all force available for Dilip!

I know exercise reduces the fat, but combined with butter and cream, it increases, I think. And that is what I am doing now, at Dilipda's. Any objection to gratis supply of butter and cream?

I suppose not, so long as you do not constitute a Municipal Corporation.

Complaint against the Asram doctor from the D.R. servers. "Often after we have served his dish, he would send a note saying 'My meals, please!' or a verbal message through any sadhak he might come across...²⁰⁸ Carrier bearers²⁰⁹ have to inform Dayabhai that the tiffin-box in question has to be brought back" etc., etc.

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

Doctor! doctor!

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

May 2, 1936

I admit that their complaint is partly true! I explained the situation to Jiban this morning. So if you have no objection I can have the meals sent home. Or if you want, I shall.have all the meals strictly in D.R.

It is not possible for them to send in the cart, because there is no room there. You will either have to send the servant or adopt the coming to the D.R.

Very strange, Sir, to connect this affair with my luck in hospital! I don't see the logic at all, unless you are trying to harass me as advocates do in courts!

It is a matter of the forces of Karma. If you are loose and irregular, then things and patients will be the same with you. Don't you know that all "bad luck", as you call it, is due to Karma?

Last night I tried to compose a poem. It was a failure, I fell asleep over its first two lines!

You call it a failure—when you have discovered a new soporific.

Couldn't touch K without making her burst into tears. These ladies think what heartless brutes, animals, these doctors are!

Much safer than if they think "What dears these doctors are, darlings, angels!"

May 3, 1936

Today D and I had a discussion on women. D said that by nature Indian women are very attached and devoted.

By habit and education, not by nature, except with a minority.

Whereas men, by nature, are quite the opposite.

What rash generalisations!

Look at K. How much the poor lady suffers for her attachment to her husband. But no way out.

For her sex-hysteria, sir! Note that when she is not suffering, as you say, she is offered the chance to go with him and she shouts quite as much as under the doctor's touch "I don't want! What do you mean? I never asked to go."

Why is there this difference between man and woman? Why is man made more polygamous? why do his attachment, love, desire, fleet from one object to another, whereas woman's nature is more one-pointed, devoted to one?

To one at a time perhaps, at least with the majority. There are plenty who are polyandrous by nature.

Why are we made up of so many contradictory elements: one aspect has aspiration towards Him, religion, morality, aesthetic qualities; the other, a tremendous pull towards baser elements, especially sex?

It takes many ingredients to make a nice pudding.

Is it that the path to the Divine can't be made easy on account of the danger of a democratic aspiration which will thunder at God in his own citadel?

Perhaps it is to prevent the world from coming to a sudden end by a universal rush into beatitude.

Or is it for the preservation of the species?

The sex started as a preservation of species. Man has made a hotch potch of what was in its origin simple in motive

May 4, 1936

The surgeon Philaire advises sea-bath for Mulshankar but no swimming. All violent stretching must be avoided.

He can have sea-bath provided (1) he does not go alone, (2) does not swim, (3) does not go out far.

May 5, 1936

As for Mulshankar's sea-bath, the first condition is difficult to satisfy.

Dasaratha offers to accompany him. Impress upon D that he must not let M swim or go out too far.

Yesterday you said that Sarala agreed to go to the Hospital, but she resented it very much and wrote to the Mother about it. You had better take her to the Ost. (house).

May 6, 1936

B.P.'s right eye seems to be on the way to keratitis. I understand that his well water is very dirty. It is not good for his eyes...

[No reply.]

May 8, 1936

By the way, about his well, Mother had given the order to clean it some weeks ago. Has it not been done?

The condition of his left eye is not worse.

If your oculist could master the left eye, why on earth is he helpless with the right one? Keratitis + conjunctivitis not curable?

May 9, 1936

I asked Amrita about the well and Chandulal was also present. They say it has not been done as far as they know.

And it was Amrita who was told to do it! Anyhow it has to be done.

In B.P.'s case, keratitis and conjunctivitis are curable, though not all cases of keratitis.

I am thinking of handing the gentleman over to R. I did not want to do it while R was busy with several incurable cases (one including a doomed T.B., another equally hopeless of something else; both declared incurable by doctors of Europe and India after an expenditure of 30,000 Rs). But after a fierce struggle, there has been a sweeping triumph in all cases, the "hat-trick" as R terms it, care being only needed to keep the conquest. So that objection no longer exists. What do you say?

May 10, 1936

An excellent opportunity seems to have come for an amicable settlement with D over J's novel-tangle. Shall we take advantage of it? But we are dealing with gunpowder, so it is better to consult you.

Well, Abyssinia is blown up. So why not an Asram?

What about Nishikanta's vision-poem? Lost in the subconscient? and his book of poems?

To be fished out.

I think we can sue you in the Supramental Court of Justice for this flagrant neglect!

No jurisdiction.

When will you send the poem with the explanation of the vision?

Shall send back the poem. Vision doubtful (I mean the explanation of it accompanying the poem).

Fact is, I am trying to get some damned thing done—have a chance of success if I keep at it—so can't afford to turn aside to anything else. Just check off in a hurry the daily things, but as for arrears!

What do I say about B.P.? What else can I say but thoroughly agree with you, second you and third you?

Very good. Send him to R. I should like you also to give the history of the case to R. I think B.P. will be more easily interrogated if that is done.

But will he take the whole responsibility or divide it?

No division possible with R. His treatment is an indivisible Brahman, however many the aspects. In his latest cases there was a mass of simultaneous illnesses in each body, but he took them all in his sweep.

May 11, 1936

R.B.'s pain in the abdomen is less. I hear her eyes are "watering"! Advised to join work instead of lying in bed.

Good. The woman is extremely lazy, and physical immobility will not improve her health.

Another song-poem by J. This again, D finds good, but he says it lacks "distinctiveness". I can't really understand what he means by it. Do you? If you do, will you explain?

Don't know quite. I believe I wrote to him on J's last poem that some of the lines seemed less distinctive than others which seemed to me to be very good. I meant they were ordinary lines without character which anybody could write. Perhaps he means that. In this poem, it seems to me the first stanza is very good, the second is—well "less distinctive". I suppose D's point is that J's expression of her poetic ideas is still somewhat derivative, there is not that personal stamp which goes with a matured and deVeloped poetic individuality or one that is, even if immature, yet itself from the first. But this is for your information, need not discourage J by communicating it.

May 12, 1936

By the way, what are R's stakes regarding B.P.? I knew he must have gone at us, allopaths. But how does he view it?

His views are rather ominous and menacing.

He has grumbled about the mercury (and bismuth?) and says he has to antidote the former. He wants to diagnose everything as the result of hereditary results of gonorrhea (his pet disease,) not syphilis contracted personally, alleging all sorts of reasons such as B.P.'s confirmed aneurism etc. However it is the cure that is important, not the diagnosis. He is not positive about success as he was in all his other (outside) cases; wants to have B.P. in the next room to him under night and day observation etc.—thinks that if certain things happen he may pop off at any moment, so wants to be prepared for all emergencies.

May 13, 1936

J has written a poem in laghu guru²¹⁰ about whose rhythm there is some doubt. I place before you the scansion as I understand it, for your opinion. The words and substance seem very beautiful; if the rhythm were so, it would make a lovely and "distinctive poem", I think. So?

I am unable to pronounce on such a matter—I do not really know what is or is not permissible in Bengali laghu guru. To an uninstructed mind your observations seem to be just.

So R throws overboard all medical science by refusing to recognise the validity of blood-tests in syphilis etc.?

He claims to have a homeopathic science of his own!

Heredity main factor? and the history of a contraction, chancre, + + blood reaction, all to waste-paper basket? And yet if he cures him, I am to believe in the paramount efficacy of his homeopathic medicines?

Not asked to believe. Provided they are effective, and in all these other bad cases they have been, it is all right. R affirmed gonorrhoeic origin there also, but he cured the cases all right, which shows that either his diagnoses were right or, in spite of wrong diagnoses, he can cure incurable cases. I don't see how logically one can escape from this horned dilemma! Anyhow his medicines do have a powerful and very often immediate effect, that I have seen hundreds of times. Scientifically they ought not to, but they have. Curiously enough, in Europe, for certain diseases now even many of the allopaths are beginning to prefer homeopathic method and medicine.

However, I won't quarrel. But how do you segregate the fellow in that house? not necessary, it not being syphilis?

I don't know. Mother is not in favour of it, but R insists that his day and night under observation is necessary! However, we shall probably refuse the continuation.

May 14, 1936

By the way, the dilemma you speak of can be solved in one way: his diagnosis is not always infallible, but he cures cases and his medicines are effective because homeopaths go more by symptoms, diagnosis occupying a minor place.

That only amounts to one horn of the dilemma—viz. that he can cure "incurable" cases even on a wrong diagnosis. We get no farther.

That's why I rely too little on his diagnosis. But as you say, his medicines are very effective. I am watching with great interest and a little anxiety too, how successful he will prove himself in these special cases.

We don't feel that B.P.'s eye disease has nothing or little to do with his syphilis, we think it is a direct result of it and what is behind is much more serious than what appears on the surface. Mother found no improvement by the oculist's treatment. On the contrary she was telling me recently almost every second day that B.P. seemed to be in a horrible condition and getting worse and for some time she had an impression of approaching danger. It was why I handed over the case to R—with some reluctance—although I had promised him a rest after his big cases were over. We said nothing to R except that it was a syphilis case and he could get all the facts from you. But his immediate conclusion was the same, that it was a more horrible condition and was becoming dangerous. He is especially afraid of the danger of inflammation going up into the brain—he said it was travelling in that direction—and in that case he said the man may go off in 5 minutes. I knew that syphilis cases often end suddenly in that way, but did not think it could happen with gonorrhea—as he says he thinks it is in origin gonorrhoeic. He says it doesn't usually, but under certain circumstances it may develop consequences that lead to that. He refused to promise a cure as he did at once in the tuberculosis and other cases even when they were at their worst. Today he has ordered B.P. to bed, made a temporary installation for himself there and wants to fight the case with what he calls vital medicines. I have seen that these sometimes sweep the body free of virulent disease in 24 hours or perhaps 3 days in a breath-taking manner. But here he was not at all sure of the result—there has been an amelioration decided but not decisive. We have to wait.

All this quite confidential. As for eye medicines he has them; his other cases had some of them eye affections as a result of the general illness, but he used, I think, only mild medicines there as they were quite effective.

May 15, 1936

It seemed to me at Pranam that Mother doesn't like me poking my nose into B.P.'s affair after the case has been handed over to R. If so, after these points you have raised, I will stop.

I did not mention what you wrote on this point to the Mother as there was no time in the morning—everything being in a hurry—so your "seemed to me" was an error. I was only putting R's point of view and stating the Mother's impression about B.P.'s condition—Naturally so long as R is in charge, he must be left to his own methods.

... The day I sent him of to R, he was better, he said—the right eye decidedly so. His condition was bad enough, but I didn't take it as worse than N.P.'s iritis.

To me he was lamenting to the contrary. But it is not on that that Mother based her observation. His letters are in Hindi and I do not translate them to her.

As it was, I didn't really look at it as a "horrible condition and getting worse", because it was keratitis.

It seemed so to the Mother, not eyes only but his whole disintegrated condition.

I don't agree with R that B.P.'s eye-condition was going up to the brain—no such case has been heard of where the condition has travelled from the eye to the brain.

He was not speaking of the eyes' condition going up to the 'brain, but of the inflammation which he said was moving upward.

What can at worst happen is iritis or iridocyclitis, resulting in blindness of one or both the eyes. But I don't know that it results in brain complications and death in 5 minutes! I guess from the nature of the severe pain in the head and over the eyes, that iritis, iridocyclitis or even glaucoma may have set in and R is taking this for the beginning of brain complication. Syphilitic cases do end suddenly, but that is due to systemic involvement, not as a result of eye complication. Gonorrhoea almost never.

R says that they are cases of hereditary gonorrhoeic complaints not manifesting in the ordinary way which can develop under certain conditions of which he spoke as complications leading to death in this way and he says there have been many cases. Gonorrhoea by itself is obnoxious but not dangerous. That is his theory which he asserts to be founded on his experience.

I can send you the whole book on eye diseases. You will nowhere find a single instance where brain complication has set in due to eye trouble. I am absolutely positive about his not dying.

The difference lies in this that R did not take it as a case of ordinary eye trouble, but believed there was an infection of the system which could manifest at different points.

But loss of sight will be a consequence, if he doesn't improve.

There R agrees.

I hear there is slight improvement. So far so good.

All that however is by the way—not much use, either, I suppose.

By the way, when Mother made all these observations about B.P., why didn't you tell us, so that we could be more careful?

When Mother has handed over the case to a doctor (not of the Asram), she never interferes, so long as it is in his charge. It would be ridiculous to do so. She can have no control or influence or weight with him. He is bound by his science and his ideas of treatment, and could not possibly understand much less appreciate her point of view.

May 16, 1936

I send you a letter of our dear Chand. If you are still interested in the chap, you can take the trouble to decipher it.

I have had several letters from him.

He wants to know many things:

1) Descent of the Supra. M. Tail—on the slightest news of which he will give a gorilla jump to Pondy to set his nerves right! Is the Tail in view?

Of course. Coming down as fast as you fellows will allow.

2) He wants your remarks on him which will prove "precious"!

Tell him I have grown chary of remarks. remarks frighten the Sm. T.

Can any letters and poems be sent, though I know he will hardly read them?

What letters? The poems are your own and co's, so you are the best judge of that.

Lastly, will Mother give him a flower tomorrow, through Nolini?

You can make a petition to Nolini to get the flower.

The fellow is still dreaming of the Sup.M. Tail! He doesn't realise yet that many of us will see it after our souls have departed into the subtle planes and will have taken birth again in proper circumstances and conditions—and now one after another, so many are dropping, dropping after so many years of stay—viz. M-lal! Next X-lal, Y-lal, then Nirodlal!

Excuse me. M-lal and Company are not running away from the Sm. Tail—they are only running after the paternal tail—as soon as they have stroked it sufficiently, they will return. All the Lals have gone like Japhet in search of their fathers and will return in June, except M who comes back, I believe, after 15 days. Two others asked for filial leave—one is perhaps still thinking of running after P.T. But we are beginning to kick. One "leave" has been refused!

R.B. is still constipated. Had a whole ounce of castor-oil, with no result... Too much medication? No help, as she is crying and cursing me!

Rather a lot—esp. if purgatives are ineffective. But—

Mahendranath telegraphed about his mother—appendix affected fall—couldn't understand, asked for exact nature of illness, got this telegram in reply. Kindly perorate.

May 17, 1936

I don't really understand these paternal and filial loves. M-lal—a fellow who has been here for 7 or 8 years and doing Yoga, runs after such a thing as a paternal tail!

He says he has been attached to the paternal tail ever since he came here and he felt quite outraged when Mother hinted rather sharply that it was absurd to run after it.

K-lal, after 3 years stay, goes out for the marriage of a niece. Ridiculous! Absolutely unthinkable! Who are these paters and maters and what's their place in your Yoga of surrender?

Quite agree with you. Hear! hear!

I think we have to look for the seat of the trouble somewhere else. Either your Yoga is extremely difficult or a sort of resistance manifests itself in this ridiculous way. A pressure which they are unable to bear compels them to escape it by running away to stroke somebody's tail. Isn't that so?

If it is so, why should they want to come back to the pressure? They are very careful about that. "Must have an assurance that all my work will be given back to me when I return."— (M-Ial). "Want support while I am here. Will be back in June. (i.e. don't let any idea get into you that you have seen the last of me)." K—So on and so on.

In my idea it is simply the subconscient and sheepishness. Sheep always do what one sheep has started. K-lal started father business (it was not merely marriage) immediately 5 others sent in filial applications one after another. Subconscient in the sense that primal instincts and irrational difficulties or habitual ones are surging up, surging up, surging up.

Since you have to deal with general nature in this collective Yoga, one's difficulty is thrown on the other—one is dragged behind by another.

To some extent, it may be so—but the root difficulty is not there.

I can call these departures failures and nothing else.

Can't pronounce. Failure is only when they go off for good

It is, as I say, an escape from the atmosphere of pressure! Are you beginning to kick? But how long will you go on doing so, Sir?

No need to go on—The sheep movement is stopped so far as fathers are concerned. Two half-kicks and one whole one were sufficient.

I sometimes wonder if anyone here is attaining anything at all ; has anybody realised the Divine? Please don't ask me what I mean by the Divine. It is difficult to explain these things.

Why shouldn't I ask? If you mean the Vedantic realisation, several have had it. Bhakti realisation also. If I were to publish the letters on sadhana experiences that have come to me, people would marvel and think that the Asram was packed full of great Yogis! Those who know something about Yoga would not mind about the dark periods, eclipses, hostile attacks, despairings, falls, for they know that these things happen to Yogis. Even the failures would have become Gurus, if I had allowed it, with circles of Shishyas! B did become one. Z of course. But all that does not count here, because what is a full realisation outside, is here only a faint beginning of siddhi. Here the test is transformation of the nature, psychic, spiritual, finally supramental. That and nothing else is what makes it so difficult.

X was lamenting that he has been 8 years here, yet no peace, at times only joy and that also joy of literary creation. These are his words: "But I haven't come here for that—it was available to me outside, plenty of it. If I complain, Sri Aurobindo says, 'Write, write, write'. But, merciful heavens! What do I profit by writing? Through music, I feel a sense of offering and can think of it as work done as an offering to the Divine."

8 years? Amateur Yogis! Those who know something about Yoga would count 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years as nothing for the preliminary work of preparation and self-purification. That was X's bane—He expected to conquer Heaven in a gallop, but there was only one way of doing it, complete abdication of self, and that he refused and probably could not do. Then when the gallop could not succeed, he has been wrestling and groaning ever since—meditation, jap, prayer with only one idea "When is it coming? when is it coming? Why is it not coming? why is it not coming? Of course, it won't come. It will never come, never, never." And of course it doesn't—that is not the way.

Yet he had promised me he would drop all that and go on quietly getting rid of ego etc. till he was fit. The subconscient has been too strong with its unvarying orbits of repetition of the same obstinately irrational movement.

But poetry, he says, is অযুক্ত কর্ম্ম.²¹¹ If that could give the Divine realisation, any number of literary people would have it. So what's the use of that? "No experience, no realisation, can't even meditate. How can I surrender when I am so much absorbed in writing?..."

That is like him and most of the sadhaks. All hold grimly to their own ideas—follow their own conceptions about Yoga. Reasonings! logic! As for the ways pointed out by the Guru, all supramental nonsense. The surprising thing is that anyone succeeds here.

You seem to have again changed your front. Once you wrote that the Supramental descent may not depend on the condition of the sadhaks, and now you speak of the Supramental coming as fast as we will allow.

You have mistaken the sense altogether. It simply means if with the bother of your revolts, depressions, illnesses, shouts, quarrels and all the rest of it, I can get time to go on rapidly. Nothing more, sir.

If we fellows have to allow, you had better close down the shop and enjoy your impersonal supramental beatitude!

I am quite ready. I propose that you call a meeting and put it to the vote. "That hereby we resolve to release Sri Aurobindo into beatitude and all go off quietly to Abyssinia."

May 19, 1936

K has been having pain in the abdomen since she came here. It starts after an hour of sleep. She thinks it has something to do with her non-use of mattress.

Why doesn't she ask for a mattress from Amrita?

But she is very constipated. Bowels moved after 2 or 3 days.

Evidently the constipation must be responsible—if it is habitual.

May 20, 1936

I tried hard to write a poem. but failed in spite of prayer and call. Then I had to appeal to your Force; lo, the poem was recast and recreated, beginning at 9.45 p.m. and ending at 1 a.m. Now the big question is—why couldn't I do it before? By the appeal and your Force, undoubtedly, which you sent. But it was almost finished before you had time to read my letter and send the Force.

I usually read your soul-stirring communications (medical or other) at 7.30 or 8 or thereabouts. This one I must have got only after 10 p.m. But that makes no difference. The call for the Force is very often sufficient; not absolutely necessary that it should reach my physical mind first. Many get as soon as they write—or (if they are outside), when the letter reaches the atmosphere.

Simply the writing has helped to establish the contact with the Force, whereas my constant concentration, prayer and appeal failed?

Yes, it is the success in establishing the contact that is important. It is a sort of hitching on or getting hold of the invisible button or whatever you like to call it.

Sometimes the Force "that is always operating" is not enough for me. You have to leave all relaxed repose and sit up and regain curvilinear proportions and send a dose! This is what must have happened today.

It is enough if you hitch on to the operating Force which is always rotating or hanging about over your head or over my head or over the general head of the Asram or the (terrestrial) universe. It does not much matter where you hitch on, so long as you somehow do it. But in this case there may have been some connection with my curvilinear recovery which took place somewhere about 9.30. But if so, it can only have been because the Force rotated more forcibly by the impulsion of my recovery, for the conscious sending of Force to you took place only when I was reading the letter.

When you send the Force, is there a time limit for its functioning or does it work itself out in the long run or get washed of after a while, finding the adhar unreceptive?

There is no time limit. I have known cases in which I put a Force for getting a thing done and it seemed to fail damnably at the moment; but after two years everything carried itself out in exact detail and order just as I had arranged it, although I was thinking no more at all of the matter. You ought to know but I suppose you don't that "Psychic" Research in Europe has proved that all so-called "psychic" communications can sink into the consciousness without being noticed and turn up long afterwards. It is like that with the communication of Force also.

I would like to know the Force's general operation in illnesses, yogic purposes, etc., ... It is really very interesting, and nothing written anywhere on it. Can you illumine? No hurry, but if you write "one day", I know that phrase very well.

I have made as usual a few scattered observations—but of course they don't go very far or shed much light. "One day" perhaps I shall write volumes on the matter which I suppose you won't read.

I was almost on the point of losing faith in Yogic Force and asked myself: if I had as earnestly applied myself to poetry, outside, wouldn't I have succeeded?

You would have become a talented literary young man and a good verse-maker.

Lastly, don't fall flat again, Sir. So much depends on your curvilinear position, especially when you are bringing down the Supramental Tail!

Now look here, do you think I fell flat on purpose? No, sir. Sudden rush of correspondence, interruption of campaign—consequent breakdown of road to Addis Ababa; retreat necessary, consolidation of back positions, road-repair—flat, but I suppose necessary.

I thought R.B. was cured, for she hasn't come back for her leg treatment. Shall I call her back and treat her?

Don't know. She says you have tried your level best and failed. Perhaps if her leg hurts enough, she will come back or if she complains too much I shall suggest her the way back.

Your book crowded out by a long night's correspondence. Send again tonight. Also am unable to return to Dilip Nishikanta's long poem for the same reason.

May 21, 1936

K had pain at noon, then again in the morning—but nothing at night.

Then it is not the absence of a mattress

May 22, 1936

Getting depressed, discouraged—thinking of giving up the blessed business of writing poetry! Binapani²¹² has no compassion towards me.

Nonsense! She has plenty—at times.

Will try again, if no result, will absolutely fall flat. Can't blame me, I think you have no time to send any Force!

Had no force to send—at least none that I considered worth sending. Fell flat myself for the last two or three days—as flat as I could manage to at this stage. Am recovering curvilinear proportions and shall try to send something along.

No medical cases today.

Hello! Golden Age come or what? No—for R.B.'s pain is kicking cheerfully again. It is telling her, "Your Nirod's potions and things indeed! I just went because I took the fancy. I go when I like, I come when I like. Doctors—pooh!"

May 23, 1936

I find it rather hard to be a medium between X and J. For instance X wants to use যামিনী²¹³ or anything in place of ঊষশী²¹⁴ but J wants to keep it.

How can "anything" be used in a poem? A slight change makes all the difference between something forceful and a mere literary expression that misses its mark.

I feel this difference hurts X, however much he may try to be calm, and I have to convey these differences.

But why must everyone accept X's suggestions or their preference for their own ideas irritate him?

I would be happy if they could do these things direct between themselves.

Doing direct means a flare up and quarrel. You are suffering for the good of the community.

J has written in a poem

ছন্দি অযুত তারা
ঝালি হীরক ঢালে
নত আপন হারা²¹⁵

X says: "How can stars be bent?" So he changed it to ধ্রুব দীপন ধারা²¹⁶ it whereas J declared that she wrote it because she experienced one night as if the stars were really bending down. I also found the expression very fine.

ধ্রুব দীপন ধারা is no doubt good poetry and very good poetry but it is a purely external image and gives no subjective vibration, while J's line does. The objection that stars do not get নত²¹⁷ stands only if the poem describes objective phenomena or aims at using purely objective images. But if the vision behind the poem is subjective, the objection holds no longer. The mystic subjective vision admits a consciousness in physical things and gives them a subtle physical life which is not that of the material existence. If a consciousness is felt in the stars and if that consciousness expresses itself in subtle physical images to the vision of the poet, there can be no impossibility of a star being নত আপন হারা²¹⁸—such expressions attribute a mystical life to the stars and can appropriately express this in mystic images. I agree with you about the fineness of the line.

X says: "This may not be an experience at all, and who knows if it is not an imagination, and how are we to say which is which?"

But is it necessary to say which is which? It is not possible to deny that it was an experience, even if one cannot affirm it—not being in the consciousness of the writer. But even if it is an imagination, it is a powerful poetic imagination which expresses what would be the exact feeling in the real experience. It seems to me that that is quite enough. There are so many things in Wordsworth and Shelley which people say were only mental feelings and imaginations and yet they express the deeper seeings or feelings of the seer. For poetry it seems to me the point is irrelevant.

X argues, "E said many things that she used to imagine. She herself considered them experiences."

How do you know that E's sayings are only imaginations? If so, they are very remarkable imaginations for a child of that age. They might be the communications of her inner being to her mind which she was to express in. A few children have that in a degree; in some it takes the form of imagination—E had it in a very unusual degree. I hope the elders will not knock this rare gift out of her by their misunderstanding and want of sympathy.

All this highly confidential if you please. I don't want to rub X the wrong way just now as his nerves are in a rather raw state and if he gets upset it means a lot of unnecessary work for me.

I think that anyone who has had some insight into these occult worlds, can no longer stand on absolute rationalism... Qu'en dites-vous? Stars can be humble?

I have answered that.

I hear Mother has vetoed J's poem being dedicated to her. X says it has already been done. "Is Mother's name to be taken out?" he asks.

It was more an objection than a veto—and not to. the dedication but to the emphasising of it by the poems. X says he has given the order to print and it is not worth while upsetting that now. Let it stand.

I am merely repeating the words "impurity, desire, despair", in my poetry.

Well, everybody repeats himself. A time will come when this trinity will disappear, let us hope.

Did you seriously write that I would have been " a talented young man" [21.5.36]? I find no talent anywhere.

Well, you thought outside you would have made the same progress. I simply expressed my doubts whether your utmost efforts would have carried you beyond literary talent.

You have so abruptly stopped writing about the Yogic Force.

I didn't stop because I didn't begin. I wrote some scattered answers only and intimated to you that volumes might come out in future (not in these notes) which you would probably not read.

K doesn't come any more. Is she another kicker like R.B.?

Am without news of her.

May 27, 1936

It seems the "unnecessary work" has become necessary now—I mean X has given again an ultimatum of a short trip.

It is the second time in a few days.

Just because Dhurjati has highly praised somebody's trash poetry, X got upset, and said—"Oh, I am very hurt, very hurt."

Everything now makes him very hurt. If he goes on like that he will soon be an incarnation of the Man of Sorrows.

I don't understand when he says that he hasn't felt any peace in seven years. "All I had is 24 hours of intense Ananda—no other experience..." he says.

You needn't take X's rhetorical statements "at the foot of the letter", as the French say. He did get peace often, but he said it was nothing concrete or spiritual, only ordinary peace. Also he did not want peace but bhakti. He got some experiences, even sometimes a descent as the result of which his inner being showed itself and wept profusely. But he did not think much of his experiences—not what he wanted. He got bhakti sometimes—but afterwards said he had no bhakti. So on with all the rest. Naturally under such conditions there could be no permanent opening and no steady progress.

But is it really impossible for you to give him some experience of peace, silence or meditation? Then the Divine is not at all omnipotent...

My dear sir, what has the omnipotence of the Divine to do with it? In this world there are conditions for everything—if a man refuses to fulfil the conditions for Yoga, what is the use of appealing to the Divine's omnipotence? He does not believe that the Divine is here. He regards us as Gurus. Yes, but he begins by disputing all my way of Yoga. He does not understand and does not care to understand my processes. He has ideas of his own, does not want peace or equality or surrender or anything else, wants only Krishna and bhakti. He has read things in Ramakrishna and elsewhere as to how to do it, insists on following that. Rejects all suggestions I can make as unpracticable. Erects a sadhana of violent meditation, japa, prayer—for these are the traditional things, has no idea that there are conditions without which they cannot be effective. Meditates, japs, prays himself into fits²¹⁹ of dullness and disappears.²²⁰ Also tries in spite of my objections a wrestling tapasya which puts his vital into revolt. Then by a stroke of good luck I succeed unexpectedly in making a sort of psychic opening. Decides to try surrender, purification of the heart, rejection of ego, true humility etc.—tries a little of it and is really progressing. After two months finds that Krishna is not appearing—gets disgusted and drops the beastly thing. And after all that he is always telling me "What an impotent Guru you are! You are evidently able to do nothing for me." Evidently! That's X.

Please give some Force for a "laghu guru" poem, if possible.

Will try—atmosphere not favourable with all the rows that are going on.

May 28, 1936

Happily the storm is over—and X says he won't go. But do you think we made matters worse by arguing with him?

He seems to have appreciated your and Saurin's kindness,—so that is all right.

May 29, 1936