A selection from Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo with 'humour' as its theme.
Nirodbaran's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began in February 1933 and continued till November 1938, when Sri Aurobindo injured his leg and Nirod became one of his attendants. The entire correspondence, which was carried on in three separate notebooks according to topics - private, medical, and literary - is presented in chronological order, revealing the unique relationship Nirod enjoyed with his guru, replete with free and frank exchanges and liberal doses of humour. Covering a wide range of topics, both serious and light-hearted, these letters reveal the infinite care Sri Aurobindo devoted to the spiritual development of his disciple.
A selection from Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo. It represents a new and, to the general public, quite an unfamiliar aspect of Sri Aurobindo-his humour.
1935
MYSELF: My cold has given me the quick realisation that everything in this world—including the Divine, is Maya. What Shankara and Buddha realised by sadhana, I realise by a simple cold!
SRI AUROBINDO: No need of sadhana for that—anybody with a fit of the blues can manage that. It is to get out of the Maya that sadhana is needed.
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1936
MYSELF: My brain is now less hampered by the body's indisposition.
My boil has burst and as you see From the depression I am free. Thanks Guru, thanks to thee!
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, I got irritated last night by your persistent boiling and put a gigantic Force which, I am glad to see, burst the little boil.
Thank God for that! Free from boil, At poems toil Laugh and grow fat.
MYSELF: You actually propose "Laugh and grow fat" though laughing never makes fat!
SRI AUROBINDO: You oppose one of the most ancient traditions of humanity by this severe statement. But your statement is mistaken even according to Science. We are now told that it is the activity of certain glands that makes you thin or fat. If glands, then why not gladness?
MYSELF: Really I am now wondering at my own revelry and hilarity. No particular concern about yoga, yet I am happy. What kind of psychic attitude is this?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is not a psychic attitude, but is better than depression.
MYSELF: Again a blessed boil inside the left nostril—
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painful, feverish. A dose of Force please!
SRI AUROBINDO: As the modernist poet says—
O blessed blessed boil within the nostril, How with pure pleasure dost thou make thy boss thrill! He sings of thee with sobbing trill and cross trill, O blessed boil within the nostril.
I hope this stotra will propitiate the boil and make it disappear, satisfied.
MYSELF: I couldn't make out one word. Is it bows thrill ?
SRI AUROBINDO: I thought you'd boggle over it. "Boss", man, "boss"=yourself as owner, proprietor, patron, capitalist of the boil.
MYSELF: One more blessed boil! Dr. B says it is a good sign, for it means purification!!
SRI AUROBINDO: All that's a discovery. The boil is then truly a blessed one!
MYSELF: Boil burst!!
SRI AUROBINDO: Hurrah!
MYSELF: Bad frontal headache, feverish, hope no complication of left frontal sinus suppuration!
SRI AUROBINDO: What's all this? Is this time to start suppurating sinuses? Drop it, please.
MYSELF: Guru,
My head, my head And the damned fever— I am half dead!
SRI AUROBINDO: Cheer up! Things might have been so much worse.
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Just think if you had been a Spaniard in Madrid or a German Communist in a concentration camp! Imagine that and then you will be quite cheerful with only a cold and headache. So
Throw off the cold, Damn the fever, Be sprightly and bold And live for ever.
MYSELF: I am better today. But what about the lack of interest in everything? Imagination of Madrid or concentration camp will have a reverse effect.
SRI AUROBINDO: Don't understand. You want to get rid of the interest in everything or to get rid of the lack of interest? What reverse effect? Increase of cold and headache?
MYSELF: By the Guru! Please don't forget to give a supramental kick to my main impediments at Darshan; only no after-effect please, what?
SRI AUROBINDO: "By the Guru"! What kind of oath is this? But the object of the imagination was not to liberate your nose or forehead but to liberate your soul. Kicking is easy. As to the effects or after-effects, that has to be seen.
MYSELF: Boil again inside the right nostril! But perhaps you will ask me to imagine being a Spaniard, German, Jew, Japanese—German pact, Russian inflammation at it etc., etc. All right, Sir, I will imagine all these if you will imagine giving me a dose of Force, what?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is for you to do that. I can only send Force.
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MYSELF: Boil paining, what to do? Suffer with a smile?
SRI AUROBINDO: Smile a while.
MYSELF: Again a boil on the left cheek. Good Heavens! No improvement.
SRI AUROBINDO: As René's doctor says, "Tut tut tut tut tut tut!"
MYSELF: Punishment for too much talking or eating or subconscious welling out?
SRI AUROBINDO: Probably.
MYSELF:
Boil a little ripe, but still— Hard and big as hazel-nut, In spite of your tut, tut, tut! Give one more dose at the least Or I howl on like a beast!
SRI AUROBINDO: Tut nut tut, not nut tut tut! Hope this will have the effect of a Tantric mantra which it resembles. So if you like Om ling bling bring kring! Just try repeating either of these 15,000 times concentrating on your boil (bling) at the time.
MYSELF: Did you really want me to chant that mantra? I took it as a big piece of joke.
SRI AUROBINDO: You couldn't realise that Tut Tut Tut was a serious mantra with immense possibilities? Why, it is the modern form of and everybody knows that is a mantra of great power. Only you should as a penance for not having accepted at once, do it not 15,000 but 150,000 times a day—at a gallop, e.g. Om Tut or Tut Tut a Tut, Tut a Tut and so on at an increasing pace and pitch till
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you reach either Berhampur1 or Nirvana.
MYSELF: I am not only ignorant about all things spiritual, Atma, Yog-biyog etc., they are as nauseating to me as quinine which I had to gulp. And see the trick of Fate, it is such things now that I am called upon to do.
SRI AUROBINDO: You are justly punished—but what is Yog-biyog? I thought that had to do with mathematics, not spiritual philosophy.
MYSELF: Is it for nothing that I see the Red Light as the outcome of my misadventure?
SRI AUROBINDO: Take courage. Say Tut tut tut to the misadventure and go ahead.
MYSELF: By the way I am trying your mantra though by fits and starts.
SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! What mantra? Om Tut a tut tuwhit tuwhoo? Man! But it is to be recited only when you are taking tea in the company of four Brahmins pure of all sex ideas and 5 ft. 7 inches tall with a stomach in proportion. Otherwise it can't be effective.
MYSELF: Hard, throbbing, painful boil. Slight fever, headache in the morning. Hot fomentation etc. Went to the miracle doctor, 4 powders! added to these the Force! Does it budge? The game must be over tomorrow, Sir. Otherwise I have to lie flat!
SRI AUROBINDO: All this for a poor little boil? What would it be if you were put to roast?
MYSELF: Boil has burst today! Swelling less, pain none but still it is oozing and oozing. By tomorrow it will be over, I hope.
SRI AUROBINDO: R has written to me insisting that you
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should continue the treatment for a fortnight even after the oozing is past history so as to erect a barrier against further boilings.
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1937
MYSELF: I am feeling feverish, cold in the head, bad headache. Due to sea-bath and diving? What a pity!
SRI AUROBINDO: Pains of pleasure, I suppose.
MYSELF: I am having blessed fever-like business since morning, aching all over, a damn business it is, Sir! Could not do any work at all. Read a detective story as treatment. Taking one Pulv. Glyc. Co.
SRI AUROBINDO: Detective story as treatment and Pulv. Glyc. and company as amusement? Right!
MYSELF: My boil seems to have subsided but the blessed legs, especially left one aching terribly—can't walk due to my athletic enthusiasm at this age, Sir. System won't bear it, seems. Give some embrocation, please.
SRI AUROBINDO: You have been doing Olympic sports? What an idea!
MYSELF: This boil paining all the time. Please do something, otherwise I can't do anything.
SRI AUROBINDO: Why so boiled by a boil?
MYSELF: I am simply fomenting it 3 or 4 times a day. Anything else?
SRI AUROBINDO: I; suppose there is nothing else to do.
MYSELF: A swelling—size of a cherry has appeared inside the nose. The tip is damn painful. Knifing is not advisable. I hope it won't leave me with a nose like that of Cyrano de—quoi?
SRI AUROBINDO: Let us hope not. That kind of nose wouldn't suit either your face or your poetry.
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MYSELF: Nose boil boiling down; terrible headache, fever too. Feeling fed up, Sir!
SRI AUROBINDO: Cellular bolshevism probably.
MYSELF: What's cellular bolshevism?
SRI AUROBINDO: Bolshevism of the cells surging up against the Tsar (yourself). Also the Bolsheviks carry on their propaganda by creating Communistic "cells" everywhere, in the army, industries etc. You don't seem to be very up in contemporary history.
MYSELF: Pus still coming out. Nose also angry!
SRI AUROBINDO: What a bad-tempered "pussy" cat of a nose!
MYSELF: A new trouble! Taint of acidity, burning in throat. The Force is experimenting on me my patients' maladies to take them more seriously?
SRI AUROBINDO: Who knows?
MYSELF: Pus is not getting less, better inject gomenol and then vaccine, if not cured. So?
SRI AUROBINDO: You know best—or at least can try.
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