Sri Aurobindo for All Ages

IX: Pondicherry: Cave of Tapasya (1910-1914)

SURESH Chakravarty, Sri Aurobindo's youthful emissary, stepped down at the Pondicherry railway station early in the morning of March 31, 1910. The long journey had been uneventful but he had done well in avoiding trouble on the way and the important task before him now was to establish contact with a group of revolutionaries who were bringing out a nationalist newspaper, India, from Pondicherry. This paper was originally published from Madras but had to shift to Pondicherry when its editor was jailed for sedition. You will recall that in January 1910 Sri Aurobindo had given an interview at Calcutta to one of its representatives and a link had then been formed with this South Indian group. Suresh was carrying a letter of introduction from Sri Aurobindo to Srinivasachari, a Tamil firebrand, who was the manager of the paper at Pondicherry.

Suresh succeeded in locating the small press which printed India and from there he was directed to Srinivasachari's residence. The latter was surprised to hear that a national leader of Sri Aurobindo's eminence had decided to come to Pondicherry, politically so isolated from the rest of India, but promised all assistance. Suresh explained that Sri Aurobindo would be arriving by steamer on April 4 and the first need was to fix a house for his stay. Srinivasachari gave his assurance that this would be done. However, two days passed and he did not seem at all concerned. After much prodding Suresh was at last shown a miserable garret in a house at the end of a blind alley in a particularly dirty part of the town. A more unsuitable place could hardly be found, but Suresh failed to persuade Srinivasachari to arrange for something better. Then, to add to his dismay, Suresh learnt that Srinivasachari and some of his friends were planning to give a rousing reception to Sri Aurobindo on his arrival with garlanding, speeches, etc. all in the best tradition. Suresh, despite his youth and inexperience, now fought back gallantly. With all the force at his command he pointed out that Sri Aurobindo was travelling incognito with the purpose of escaping the attention of the police and to give him a public reception would be to defeat his very purpose. When the plan for the reception was dropped, not without reluctance, Suresh breathed a sigh of relief.

At last the fourth of April arrived and the Dupleix reached Pondicherry at four in the afternoon. Because of the shallow water of the port, the ship had to anchor offshore. Srinivasachari, accompanied by Suresh, hired a boat and set off for the ship. As the boat neared, Suresh could see two figures on the deck and recognised them as Sri Aurobindo and Bijoy. You can well imagine how happy and relieved he must have felt. Soon he and Srinivasachari joined Sri Aurobindo in his cabin and, after a cup of tea, the four of them left the ship to be rowed back to the pier. Srinivasachari had arranged for a horse-carriage and left with Sri Aurobindo. With a guide to help him, Suresh followed with the luggage. Let me now quote from his memoirs: 'The house I was taken to by my Tamil guide was not the garret on that filthy blind-alley I had been shown the previous day. This was quite a big and respectable place on another street. Escorted by my guide, I went up to the third floor of this house and found the place neat, clean and uninhabited — just what was required. On entering a small room I saw Sri Aurobindo sitting in an easy-chair whilst Srinivasachari along with four or five others stood deferentially in front of him. All my doubts about the intelligence and ability of these people to find a suitable place for Aurobindo disappeared.... I found out from one of them — I don't remember who — that they had indeed at my request fixed up a house for Aurobindo, but they had some doubts whether I was a police spy or truly a messenger sent by Aurobindo. And so they had naturally withheld the information about the actual house from a possible police spy. They had decided to wait for the Dupleix to arrive on April 4, and if Aurobindo did not come by that ship then it would have been confirmed that I was indeed a police spy. In that case I would have been taught a lesson or two and packed off!'

When Srinivasachari heard that Sri Aurobindo was coming to Pondicherry he was both astonished and incredulous. These reactions are not surprising because Pondicherry then could lay claim to few favourable features. This is how Suresh describes his first impressions: 'I had heard of the beauty-loving French people and their remarkable capital of Paris,' he writes in his memoirs, 'but Pondicherry was a most ordinary town with very ordinary houses.' In his reminiscences, Nolini Kanta used even stronger words: 'The place was so quiet that we can hardly imagine now what it was really like. It was not quiet, it was dead; they used to call it a dead city... no wonder it was said, "Sri Aurobindo has chosen a cemetery for his sadhana."' And this cemetery, Nolini Kanta adds, 'had its full complement of ghouls'. These were the bands of ruffians — known locally as tandes' in French — who were in the pay of corrupt politicians and officials and terrorised the population, particularly during campaigns for political elections etc.

It would seem from these accounts that Pondicherry was hardly a propitious place in which to settle but, of course, Sri Aurobindo's decision to go there was not made after considering its merits or demerits; he simply obeyed the adesh he received and did so without the slightest question. This was the imperative inner reason which led him to Pondicherry. At first he did not perhaps intend to make a prolonged stay but as he advanced in his Yoga, Pondicherry grew to become the seat of his sadhana, the unshakable base for his siddhi, and he remained there for forty uninterrupted years. Initially he meant to find a place of shelter where he could continue his sadhana without interference by the British authorities but eventually, as Nolini Kanta says, 'It was he who gave shelter to Pondicherry within his own consciousness.' Let us remember, also, that appearances can be deceptive and to appraise Pondicherry only by its facade or recent past could well be misleading. In fact research has established that the origins of the city go back to antiquity and that at one time it was known as Vedapuri, a great centre of Vedic studies. According to tradition, Rishi Agastya came to the South to spread the Vedic lore and teach the Aryan discipline, and it was at Pondicherry that he founded a famous seat of Vedic learning; the great sage was known as the guardian spirit of the city. The parallelism here is striking. Sri Aurobindo also came from the North to the South and it was from Pondicherry that he was to give to the world a new interpretation of the Vedas, revealing their secret and showing that they carried the seeds of the spirituality of the future. Is this merely a coincidence or does it not serve to indicate that there are deep and occult forces which, unknown to us, operate behind the scenes to influence outward events and decisions?

The house to which Sri Aurobindo was taken from the ship belonged to Calve Shankara Chettiar, a well-to-do and prominent citizen of Pondicherry, who had generously made it available for Sri Aurobindo's stay. Years earlier Swami Vivekananda had also stayed here in the course of his tour of the South. It suited Sri Aurobindo's requirements admirably. He had a room on the top floor built on the rear portion of the house so that it could not be seen from the main road and escaped the attention of prying eyes. From the outset, Sri Aurobindo insisted on strict vigilance. Bijoy and Suresh were instructed to keep guard over the entrance and no visitors were allowed in without careful scrutiny. Indeed the two followers were so conscientious in carrying out their duties that for the first three months of their stay neither set foot outside the house.

There were good reasons for taking these precautions. The British had been thwarted in their efforts to seize Sri Aurobindo, but no one supposed that they would accept the situation lying down. The fact was that from about the middle of February 1910 the Government had lost track of Sri Aurobindo. There was much speculation about his whereabouts and, to add to the confusion, Sri Aurobindo himself had sent a little note from his hide-out at Chandernagore. It was published in the Karmayogin on March 26, 1910, just a few days before he left for Pondicherry and it read: 'We are greatly astonished to learn from the local Press that Sj. Aurobindo Ghose has disappeared from Calcutta and is now interviewing the Mahatmas in Tibet. We are ourselves unaware of this mysterious disappearance. As a matter of fact Sj. Aurobindo is in our midst, and if he is doing any astral business with Kuthumi or any of the other great Rishis, the fact is unknown to his other Koshas. Only as he requires perfect solitude and freedom from disturbance for his Sadhana for sometime his address is being kept a strict secret.'

Needless to say the Government were not amused to read this. At last they decided on taking legal action in order to force Sri Aurobindo's hands. You will remember that in July and December 1909 Sri Aurobindo had written two 'Open Letters' in the Karmayogin. After taking legal opinion, the Government came to the conclusion that the second letter, 'To My Countrymen', was seditious. In 1907 the charge against Sri Aurobindo in the Bande Mataram case had failed mainly because of the prosecution's inability to prove that Sri Aurobindo was actually the author of the seditious articles. On the present occasion the authorship was not in question as the open letters had been signed by Sri Aurobindo. So, confident of success, the Government launched a prosecution and on April 4, 1910, warrants of arrest were issued against Sri Aurobindo, writer of 'To My Countrymen' and Manmohan Ghosh, publisher and printer of the Karmayogin. Once again, it is a remarkable coincidence that the warrant against Sri Aurobindo should be issued on the very day he landed safely in Pondicherry, out of the clutches of British authority.

Sri Aurobindo came to know of the warrant later but meanwhile he insisted on vigilance because he knew the Government's intentions only too well. It is true that the Government of India had no authority over Pondicherry and could not arrest Sri Aurobindo there without the specific consent of the French Government. This was unlikely to be given as the Pondicherry Government jealously guarded their own authority and it was a point of honour for them to give protection to political refugees. However, the British were then a formidable power and they had a treaty of alliance with the French. Besides, the India Government had permission from the French to have their own contingent of CID men at Pondicherry and they spent money liberally in recruiting local spies to obtain information on the activities of the political absconders. Indeed it did not take the India Government long to find out that Sri Aurobindo was in Pondicherry. On April 9, a police detective at Madras, acting on information received from Pondicherry, reported to his superiors that the man they wanted seemed to have taken shelter in Pondicherry, having arrived by S.S. Dupleix and been received by Srinivasachari. It took a few more days to establish the identification and thereafter Sri Aurobindo and his companions came under the constant surveillance of the CID who would not again allow the 'most dangerous man in India' to slip away. Indeed it now became their endeavour to harass him as much as possible and the fact that a warrant had been issued against him meant that Sri Aurobindo could be arrested the minute he set foot on British territory.

There was another good reason for Bijoy and Suresh taking every care to see that Sri Aurobindo's privacy was not disturbed. His sadhana had entered upon a most intensive phase and Sri Aurobindo seldom left his own room, preferring to avoid visitors unless there were special reasons for meeting them. Apart from his two companions, only two other persons had more or less easy access to him. They were Srinivasachari and his close friend Subramania Bharati. The latter was then a young man of 28, not yet the most famous Tamil poet of his time, but already well known for his lyrics, impassioned patriotic poems and fearless criticism of the Government. As a result of his provocative writings he was forced to leave Madras and take refuge in Pondicherry where he was helping Srinivasachari to bring out India. Bharati, like so many sensitive young men of his generation, had been deeply influenced by the writings in the Bande Mataram and naturally the opportunity of meeting Sri Aurobindo in person was greatly welcome to him. From the beginning he was a regular visitor, usually coming after seven in the evening with Srinivasachari. Sri Aurobindo would then relax in their company and all sorts of subjects would be discussed. Stories and humorous anecdotes would be exchanged and the atmosphere was by no means serious all the time. Bharati listened avidly to Sri Aurobindo's comments and it is a great pity that he did not keep notes of these talks or leave behind a pen-picture of Sri Aurobindo at the time. With his great literary gifts, Bharati could have made them into a wonderful record for posterity.

During the early part of Sri Aurobindo's stay at Shankara Chettiar's house M. Paul Richard, a distinguished French intellectual visited him. Richard had come to Pondicherry to help a friend in his political campaign. Through Zir Naidu, a leading citizen of Pondicherry, Richard met Sri Aurobindo and they had wide-ranging discussions on two occasions. These meetings had a profound impact on Richard. Some years later when he went to Japan, he declared before an audience: 'The hour is coming of great things, of great events, and also of great men, the divine men of Asia. All my life I had sought for them across the world, for all my life I had felt they must exist somewhere in the world, that this world would die if they did not live. For they are its light, its heat, its life. It is in Asia that I found the greatest among them — the leader, the hero of tomorrow. He is a Hindu. His name is Aurobindo Ghose.'

An even deeper significance lay behind Richard's visit for he became the connecting link between his wife Mirra and Sri Aurobindo, paving the way for the former's arrival at Pondicherry four years later. In later years Mirra, referring to Richard's visit, said: 'In the year 1910 my husband came alone to Pondicherry where, under very interesting and peculiar circumstances he made the acquaintance of Sri Aurobindo. Since then we both strongly, wished to return to India — the country which I had always cherished as my true mother-country. And in 1914 this joy was granted to us.

‘As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna.... And this is enough to explain why I am fully convinced that my place and my work are near him, in India.' Is it not marvellous that Mirra should have met Sri Aurobindo in the occult world long before she came to Pondicherry? Marvellous, yes, but not unbelievable, as I can give you another instance of how yogis who have access to the occult world can transcend space and time and foretell the future. The circumstances in this case were related by K.V. Rangaswamy Iyengar, a well-to-do zamindar who was a regular visitor at Shankara Chettiar's house and the facts were confirmed by Sri Aurobindo. Iyengar's family had been devoted to a famous South Indian Yogi, Nagai Japtha. At the time of his passing they were anxious to know whom they should follow in future for spiritual guidance. He had told them that a great Yogi would come to the South from the North and that Iyengar should seek his guidance. Asked how this Yogi could be recognised, the Guru had predicted that the Uttara Yogi would come to the South to seek protection so that he could continue practising his Yoga and that, secondly, he would be known by his 'three sayings.' Many years later, when Rangaswamy Iyengar met Sri Aurobindo at Shankara Chettiar's house he was amazed to recognise in him the Uttara Yogi mentioned by his Guru. About this Sri Aurobindo himself has written: 'The Yogi from the North (Uttara Yogi) was my own name given to me because of a prediction made long ago by a famous Tamil Yogi, that thirty years later (agreeing with my time of arrival) a Yogi from the North would come as a fugitive to the South and practise there an integral Yoga (Poorna Yoga), and this would be one sign of the approaching liberty of India. He gave three utterances as the mark by which this Yogi could be recognised and all these were found in the letters to my wife.'

At Shankara Chettiar's house Sri Aurobindo made some further experiments with automatic writing which he had tried out occasionally at Baroda and Calcutta. He did not use a planchette but generally just held a pen and, in his own words, 'a disembodied being wrote off what he wished, using my pen and hand.' In this fashion a whole book Yogic Sadhan, was written during evening seances at Chettiar's house. The book had nine chapters containing instructions and advice on yoga. Rangaswamy Iyengar was so impressed that he arranged for the publication of the book, bearing all the cost, and the name of the author was given as Uttara Yogi. However, Sri Aurobindo always said that he was not the author of Yogic Sadhan and disclaimed responsibility for its views. Although it ran into several editions Sri Aurobindo did not want it to remain in print and around 1927 it was withdrawn from circulation. Sri Aurobindo's final 'conclusion' about automatic writing was that 'though there are sometimes phenomena which point to the intervention of beings of another plane, not always or often of a high order, the mass of such writings comes from a dramatizing element in the subconscient mind; sometimes a brilliant vein in the subliminal is struck and then predictions of the future and statements of things known in the present and past come up, but otherwise these writings have not a great value.' Note the detachment and objectivity with which these conclusions have been stated, like a scientist summing up the results of his investigations in a laboratory.

Sri Aurobindo tried out another experiment during this period. In the Alipore Jail he had gone on fast for ten days; he now carried the experiment further by fasting for twenty-three days at a stretch. Sri Aurobindo referred to this fast some years later when a disciple asked him whether it was possible to do completely without food. He said, 'When I fasted for about twenty-three days in Chettiar's house, I very nearly solved the problem. I could walk eight hours a day as usual. I continued my mental work and sadhana as usual and found that I was not in the least weak at the end of twenty-three days. But the flesh began to grow less and I did not find the clue to replacing the matter reduced in the body. Also, when I broke the fast, I did not observe the rule of people who undergo long fasts — beginning with a little food and so on. I began with the same quantity as I used to take before.' On another occasion he explained that such fasting was possible 'because one draws the energy from the vital plane instead of depending on physical substance'. Perhaps you have noted that even during the fast Sri Aurobindo 'could walk eight hours a day'. Indeed this habit of walking, which started at Baroda, grew with him and became a part of his Yoga. He rarely went out for his walk; it was his practice to walk for hours together in the house so much so that in one of his residences his feet rubbed away a part of the floor's surface, making a perceptible path from one end to the other. It was, he said, during these walks that he could bring down the highest Force.

Sri Aurobindo was living at Shankara Chettiar's house as his guest and obviously the arrangement could not continue indefinitely. In October 1910, he moved to a rented house on rue Suffren in the southern part of the town. It was a smaller house and belonged to one Sunder Chetty. Just before he changed residence, late in September, Saurin Bose (Mrinalini's cousin) came over from Calcutta to join Sri Aurobindo and in November Nolini Kanta Gupta arrived. There were now four young men around Sri Aurobindo: Bijoy, Suresh, Saurin and Nolini. The accommodation was barely sufficient for the five persons and from now on commenced a period of considerable financial hardship which continued over the next few years, sometimes assuming a very acute form.

In the meantime the news from Calcutta was far from favourable. In June 1910, the Karrnayogin sedition case had come up for hearing before the Chief Presidency Magistrate. In the absence of Sri Aurobindo, the printer Manmohan Ghosh (no relation of Sri Aurobindo) was the main accused. The Magistrate found him guilty of the charge and sentenced him to six month's' imprisonment.

However, in November there was a dramatic reversal of fortunes. When Nolini came, he brought the news that the appeal against the order of the Chief Presidency Magistrate had been heard by the High Court and that on November 7 it had delivered a most favourable judgement, setting aside the conviction of Manmohan Ghosh and ordering his release. As a result, the warrant against Sri Aurobindo stood withdrawn and his assets could no longer be seized. This was the Government's third attempt to incarcerate Sri Aurobindo and it had again failed. The High Court judgement completely vindicated Sri Aurobindo and it became clear that the bureaucracy had blundered in bringing the case against him. Also, the issue had earlier come up for debate in the House of Commons and the Government were then subjected to severe criticism. If Sri Aurobindo wished, he could now return to British India, for legally he was free to do so but, in fact, he had already taken the decision to remain in Pondicherry. On November 7, the very day on which the High Court gave its ruling, Sri Aurobindo had written a letter to the editor of The Hindu, the daily newspaper from Madras. In it he had announced publicly that 'I am and will remain in Pondicherry'; he also made his position clear by stating that he had come to Pondicherry 'in order to pursue my Yogic sadhana undisturbed by political action' and that he had 'retired for the time from political activity of any kind'.

In April 1911, after a stay of six months, Sri Aurobindo moved from Sunder Chetty's house to another house, belonging to one Raghava Chetty, on rue St. Louis. He was to stay here for the next two years. The house was slightly larger but living conditions were just as difficult. There was hardly any furniture, just a camp cot for Sri Aurobindo, a table and two chairs. Later a few chairs for visitors etc. were acquired. The young men cooked by turns and the food was spartan. One bath towel had to serve everybody, including Sri Aurobindo, and there were only two lamps in the house — one in Sri Aurobindo's room and another in the kitchen.

Despite these hardships, however, the young men soon had the measure of their surroundings. When they first came, they had assumed false names (except Suresh who had no police record) and locally they came to be known by these names. Thus Nolini's name was Manindranath Roy or Monsieur Roy to his friends and Bijoy continued to be Bankim Bhowmik, the passenger who came by the Dupleix. But, whatever their names, the young men soon won the esteem of the local people and also became very popular because of their prowess as footballers. Nolini, Suresh and Bijoy were all expert players, Nolini being particularly brilliant. They became members of a local club, the Cercle Sportif of Pondicherry; they soon formed a fine team and the boys of this club were the enlightened, nationalist element in the local population.

In spite of Sri Aurobindo's statement in his letter to The Hindu that he had severed connections with politics, the Government of India had no intention of leaving him alone. They were obsessed with the idea that he was engaged in secret revolutionary action and no doubt they also smarted under the ignominy of successive 'defeats' Sri Aurobindo had inflicted on them. So the CID decided to strengthen their forces at Pondicherry and set up a permanent station there with a fairly large contingent of men to keep a watch over Sri Aurobindo and his companions as well as the other revolutionaries who had settled in Pondicherry. In his reminiscences Nolini Kanta gives an interesting account of their activities. He writes: 'They were of course plain-clothes men, for they had no right to wear uniform within French territory. They kept watch on our visitors and guests as well as ourselves. Soon they got into a habit of sitting on the pavement round the corner next to our house in groups of three or four. They chatted away the whole day and only now and again took down something in their notebooks. What kind of notes they took we found out later when, after India had become independent and the French had left, some of these notes could be secured from the police notes and confidential records. Strange records, these: the police reports were often based on pure fancy, and when they found it difficult to gather correct or precise information, they would just fabricate the news.'

However, the police and their nefarious agents did not stop at these mischievous, but relatively harmless fabrications. They thought of a far more sinister plan and entered into a conspiracy with a local politician, a rich businessman, a certain notorious character by the name of Nand Gopal Chetty, to kidnap Sri Aurobindo. The plan was to carry him out of the limits of French India and arrest him there on some trumped-up charge. Chetty had in his pay political goondas or 'bandes' to do such dirty work. News of the plan reached Sri Aurobindo through his young men who at once armed themselves with acid bottles etc. to 'welcome' the kidnappers. But none appeared on the scene. On the very day planned for the abduction, it was Nand Gopal Chetty himself who ran away from Pondicherry to Madras! He had come to know that a warrant of arrest had been issued against him by the Pondicherry Government and decided to beat an honourable retreat! The warrant was arranged by Chetty's political opponents — and a man like him had many enemies — who had been conspiring to get him arrested. So once again Providence intervened on behalf of Sri Aurobindo.

Some time after Sri Aurobindo moved into Raghava Chetty's house, Motilal Roy came over on a visit from Chandernagore but stayed in another house. He used to come and meet Sri Aurobindo regularly but, to avoid identification by the police, he never entered the house except by the back door and under cover of darkness. In his memoirs Roy has written about the acute financial difficulties which the household faced at the time and on his return to Chandernagore he arranged to send remittances from time to time. It was relatively safer to send money from Chandernagore. Remittances from British India were carefully noted by the CID and a sender could incur the wrath of the Government for aiding the revolutionaries.

Around July 1912 there was another conspiracy to implicate Sri Aurobindo in alleged revolutionary activities. The author of this plan was again another notorious character, a professional spy by the name of Mayuresan who worked hand in glove with the CID. By that time many Tamil revolutionaries had taken refuge in Pondicherry and a prominent figure among them was V.V.S. Aiyar who was close to Srinivasachari and also well known to Sri Aurobindo. Mayuresan got hold of some seditious pamphlets etc. and forged other documents such as letters and plans. He also produced some papers with the image of Kali and had some Bengali written on them to indicate that the swadeshi revolutionaries were involved with the Tamils in what appeared to be large-scale subversive activities. He then packed these in a tin which was dropped into the well at V.V.S. Aiyar's house. Having planted the 'evidence', Mayuresan now went to the French authorities and lodged an official complaint that the revolutionaries were engaged in carefully planned and extremely dangerous activities which would disturb peace and bring discredit to the French Government. He therefore asked that the houses of the revolutionaries be searched, particularly those of Aiyar and Sri Aurobindo. Unfortunately for Mayuresan, however, before the French police could take any action, the tin was discovered by Aiyar's maidservant — she had gone to the well to draw water and the tin had come up with the bucket! She ran to her master with the find and when Aiyar saw the contents he at once consulted Srinivasachari and Bharati. The three of them then went to Sri Aurobindo who advised them to place the 'evidence' before the French authorities and explain the circumstances to them. Since Mayuresan's complaint had already been lodged, it was not difficult for the authorities to see through his game. However, in view of the official complaint, the formality of searching the houses had to be completed. The investigating Magistrate, or Juge d'Instruction as he was called, himself came to Sri Aurobindo's residence. Of course nothing incriminating was found and all that the Magistrate could discover was that the house contained hardly anything except books. And when he saw that some of the books in Sri Aurobindo's room were in Greek and Latin, he was overwhelmed with admiration and kept exclaiming: 'II sait du latin, it sait du grec!' (He knows Latin, he knows Greek!) So the 'charmingly polite visit' came to a happy end. But the end for Mayuresan was not quite so happy. The revolutionaries filed a counter-complaint against him for perjury and for giving false information. As a result, a warrant of arrest was issued against him and, like Nand Gopal Chetty, he decided that it would be politic to run away from Pondicherry. He fled to the adjacent British town of Cuddalore and became, as Sri Aurobindo ironically said, a 'political refugee' !

A letter dated July 3, 1912 from Sri Aurobindo to Motilal Roy gives an indication of the financial position at the time. Sri Aurobindo wrote: '...I send enclosed a letter to our Marathi friend. If he can give you anything for me, please send it without the least delay. If not, I must ask you to procure for me by willpower or any other power in heaven or on earth Rs.50 at least as a loan.... The situation just now is that we have Rs.1.50 or so in hand. Srinivasa is also without money.... No doubt, God will provide, but He has contracted a bad habit of waiting till the last moment. I only hope He does not wish us to learn how to live on a minus quantity like Bharati.' The characteristic humour can hardly disguise the truly grim situation that prevailed.

It was probably during this period that the British put pressure on the French to deport the revolutionaries and the French seemed prepared to send them to Algeria or Indo-China, territories then under their control. Bharati and some other revolutionaries were excited at the prospect and came to Sri Aurobindo for his views. Bharati said that the French seemed unwilling to shield them any longer in India and asked whether it would not be preferable in the circumstances to go elsewhere. Sri Aurobindo sat quietly for a few minutes and then said, 'Mr. Bharati, I am not going to budge an inch from Pondicherry. I know nothing will happen to me. As for yourself, you can do what you like.' Eventually the proposal was not pursued by the French any further.

Because of continuing financial pressure, Sri Aurobindo changed his residence in April 1913 to a house on Mission Street. The rent here was only Rs.15 per month and the facilities were minimal. Sri Aurobindo lived in this house for six months, but soon after the monetary situation improved and in October the household shifted to 41, rue Francois Martin, a much larger, well-lighted and ventilated house where Sri Aurobindo stayed until 1922. This was later known as the Guest House. Although the accommodation was more spacious, their way of life did not change. The young men continued sleeping on mats, there were not even shelves for the books which lay stacked on the floor, and even the canvas of Sri Aurobindo's camp-cot was torn so that he used to lie down carefully on the untorn side and sleep. However, life on the whole became easier, for around this time C.R. Das sent Rs.1000 for Sri Aurobindo's translation into English verse of Das's Bengali poems, Sagar Sangeet.

Towards the end of the year 1913 an incident occurred which showed how implacable the British were in their determination to spy on Sri Aurobindo's activities. A cousin of Bijoy Nag, Nagen had fallen ill at Calcutta and, with Sri Aurobindo's approval, he came over to Pondicherry to recuperate. Nagen brought with him a servant, Biren Roy, who was really more of a companion and was also a very good cook. Actually, Nagen's coming had eased the financial position for he was a man of means and he readily helped in securing the house on rue Francois Martin. By the time the shift was made Biren had proved himself a very useful member of the household.

One day, after the change of residence, the inmates saw that Biren had his head completely shaved. Suresh, who was not without his youthful whims, immediately decided to follow suit. Biren tried to dissuade him but Suresh was insistent and he too had his head shaved.

A day or two later, the inmates had gathered round Sri Aurobindo in the evening when there was a dramatic scene. Biren suddenly stood up and declared in highly emotional tones that he wanted to make a confession. The atmosphere at the time was rather gay and at first no one took him seriously. But Biren started shouting that he was a spy in the pay of the CID, a secret he could no longer keep to himself. Even then the young men thought that this was some kind of a joke and they started laughing. This upset Biren all the more and rushing out of the room he came back with some currency notes — Rs.100 or so — in his hand. This was the money he had received from the CID, he cried out, a proof of his connections with them, for who else could give him so much money. Then, full of remorse, he fell at Sri Aurobindo's feet, begged for his forgiveness and offered the money to him.

Everyone had now fallen silent, stunned by the confession. Slowly the full story came out. Biren had indeed been recruited by the CID who had thus succeeded in planting a spy in Sri Aurobindo's own household. However, having come in contact with Sri Aurobindo and his companions, Biren realised his enormous mistake and he wanted to leave. But the CID insisted on replacing him by a substitute. Since there would be problems of identification, with so many persons staying in the house, Biren was asked to shave off the hair on his head so that the substitute could identify him easily. When Suresh decided to cut his hair also, Biren was extremely upset for he thought that the young men had seen through his game and that the day of reckoning had come. Consumed by fear and remorse, he decided to make the confession. Nagen, Bijoy and the others were of course furious with Biren but Sri Aurobindo said nothing. He even allowed the culprit to stay on but Biren felt most uncomfortable and left after a few days. So ended yet another conspiracy against Sri Aurobindo, a failure like the preceding ones. One is reminded of a Hindi couplet which, in translation, runs: 'Even if there are as many enemies as there are stars in the sky, if the Grace of God is on a man, not a hair of his head can be touched.'

Sri Aurobindo's one-pointed sadhana was in no way disturbed by the vicissitudes of his early years in Pondicherry. Ever since his arrival, he was wholly absorbed in his Yoga. He was not following any of the traditional lines but, obeying the dictates of his inner Guide, was opening out a new path and sailing the uncharted seas of the Spirit. A letter dated July 1911, written a little more than a year after his arrival gives an indication of this new path and the magnitude of his spiritual endeavour. He writes: '...I am developing the necessary powers for bringing down the spiritual on the material plane, and I am now able to put myself into men and change them, removing the darkness and bringing light, giving them a new heart and a new mind.... What I perceive most clearly is that the principal object of my Yoga is to remove absolutely and entirely every possible source of error and ineffectiveness, of error in order that the Truth I shall eventually show to men may be perfect, and of ineffectiveness in order that the work of changing the world, so far as I have to assist it, may be entirely victorious and irresistible. It is for this reason that I have been going through so long a discipline and that the more brilliant and mighty results of Yoga have been so long withheld. I have been kept busy laying down the foundation, a work severe and painful. It is only now that the edifice is beginning to rise upon the sure and perfect foundation that has been laid.' Mark that he is writing here of 'the work of changing the world', not of attaining personal salvation or of escaping into a Paradise removed from this unhappy world which, according to his critics, were the reasons for his retiring to Pondicherry. And listen to these magnificent lines he was to write later in Savitri:

Escape, however high, redeems not life,
Life that is left behind on a fallen earth.
Escape cannot uplift the abandoned race
Or bring to it victory and the reign of God.
A greater power must come, a larger light.

In another letter written in August 1912 to Motilal Roy, Sri Aurobindo was even more specific about his realisations and objectives. He wrote:

‘15th August is usually a turning point or a notable day for me personally either in Sadhana or life, — indirectly only for others. This time it has been very important for me. My subjective Sadhana may be said to have received its final seal and something like its consummation by a prolonged realisation and dwelling in Parabrahman for many hours. Since then, egoism is dead for all in me except the Annamaya Atma, — the physical self which awaits one farther realisation before it is entirely liberated from occasional visitings or external touches of the old separated existence.

‘My future Sadhana is for life, practical knowledge and Shakti, not the essential knowledge of Shakti in itself which I have got already, — but knowledge and Shakti established in the same physical self and directed to my work in life. I am now getting a clearer idea of that work and I may as well impart something of that idea to you; since you look to me as the centre, you should know what is likely to radiate out of that centre.

To re-explain the Sanatana Dharma to the human intellect in all its parts, from a new standpoint... Sri Krishna has shown me the true meaning of the Vedas.... He has also shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not understood either by Indians or Europeans. I have therefore to re-explain the whole Vedanta and Veda in such a way that it will be seen how all religion arises out of it and is one everywhere. In this way it will be proved that India is the centre of the religious life of the world and its destined saviour through the Sanatana Dharma.

On the basis of Vedic knowledge, to establish a Yogic Sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity and help in the restoration of the Satya Yuga. That work has to begin now but it will not be complete till the end of the Kali.

India being the centre, to work for her restoration to her proper place in the world; but this restoration must be effected as a part of the above work and by means of Yoga applied to human means and instruments, not otherwise.

A perfect humanity being intended, society will have to be remodelled so as to be fit to contain that perfection.'

So completely absorbing was Sri Aurobindo's sadhana that he rarely moved out of his residence. But this did not mean that he cut himself off from all contacts in Pondicherry. Indeed many notable persons in the town were very much aware of his presence and held him in high esteem. How deep and genuine was this regard could be seen from an incident which occurred when the British once again tried one of their tricks. There was a law in French India known as the Alien's Act which required that a foreigner who wished to stay for any length of time in Pondicherry had to produce a 'good conduct' certificate from a high Government official of the place from which he came. Or else, he had to produce a similar certificate signed by five men of standing in Pondicherry. In this context Nolini Kanta writes in his memoirs: 'I need hardly say that the first alternative was for us quite impossible and wholly out of the question. We chose the second line and the five noble men who affixed their signatures were these: (1) Rassendren, (2) De Zir Naidu, (3) Le Beau, (4) Shankar Chettiar (in whose house Sri Aurobindo had put up on arrival), and (5) Murugesh Chettiar. The names of these five should be engraved in letters of gold. They had shown on that occasion truly remarkable courage and magnanimity. It was on the strength of their signatures that we could continue to stay here without too much trouble.'

In the evenings Sri Aurobindo usually spent some time with a few close associates who called on him. Amongst them Subramania Bharati and Srinivasachari continued to be regular visitors. Sri Aurobindo's young companions would join these gatherings and sometimes a special subject would be discussed and studied over a series of meetings. Let me give you another fine description from the pen of Nolini Kanta: 'At one time, one of our main subjects of study was the Veda. This went on for several months, for about an hour every evening, at the Guest House. Sri Aurobindo came and took his seat at the table and we sat around. Subramania Bharati and myself were the two who showed the keenest interest. Sri Aurobindo would take up a hymn from the Rigveda, read it aloud once, explain the meaning of every line and phrase and finally give a MI translation. I used to take notes. There are many words in the Rigveda whose derivation is doubtful and open to differences of opinion. In such cases, Sri Aurobindo used to say that the particular meaning he gave was only provisional and that the matter could be finally decided only after considering it in all the contexts in which the word occurred. His own method of interpreting the Rigveda was this: on reading the text he found its true meaning by direct intuitive vision through an inner concentration in the first instance, and then he would give it an external verification in the light of reason, making the necessary changes accordingly.' During this period it was also Nolini's good fortune to learn Greek and Latin and some Italian from Sri Aurobindo. His method of teaching was unusual and Nolini writes: 'He never asked me to begin the study of a new language with primary readers or children's books. He started at once with one of the classics, that is, a standard work in the language. He used to say that the education of children must begin with books written for children, but for adults, for those, that is, who had already had some education the reading material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightaway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone.... I began my Latin with Virgil's Aeneid, and Italian with Dante.... I should tell you what one gains by this method, at least what has been my personal experience. One feels as if one took a plunge into the inmost core of the language, into that secret heart where it is vibrant with life, with the quintessence of beauty, the fulness of strength.'

By the end of the year 1913, arrangements were fairly well established in the new residence and in February 1914 Suresh, Saurin and Nolini left for Bengal on a visit, leaving Bijoy in charge of the household. However, by September they were back in Pondicherry. On August 4 war had broken out in Europe. In this grave situation the Government of India assumed special powers to deal with political dissidents and Nolini and Saurin were likely to be arrested if they stayed on in Bengal.

The fateful year 1914 was to see the beginning of immense and cataclysmic changes sweeping over the world. It was also to be a year of change for Sri Aurobindo. His period of 'silent Yoga' was coming to an end. On August 15, the new journal Arya commenced publication and through its pages Sri Aurobindo gave to the world a part of the Knowledge gained from his Yoga. There was another event of momentous significance: on March 29 Mirra Richard arrived in Pondicherry for the first time and met Sri Aurobindo. This was the beginning of a spiritual collaboration of utmost consequence.