Talks by Nirodbaran

2 July 1969

Well, I confessed to you the other day my weakness for green vegetables; by putting such lovely flowers on the table, you'll help me to outgrow this weakness and uphold my nature. Only I can't say like Wordsworth (I might misquote, that's my habit!):

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.⁵¹

In my previous talk, you remember, I told you about one or two of my experiences in dream and in sleep. I will tell you today about another incident, a very minor one, to show you how the guidance comes sometimes in a very amusing manner. It happened after our talk here. Perhaps He wanted to give me more material to talk about. I was a bit worried over a trifling something - I need not tell you about it. Then I saw something in my dream and you will be surprised to hear it. I was playing football and I kicked with my left foot. From the left-wing position to the right-wing position, the ball went over the head of all the people like a parabola and it simply fell at the feet of my intended partner! Mark you, it was done with my left foot. I was so happy. Football fans are here. If you had seen my kick, you would have surely taken me on your shoulders: "Haan baba,⁵² Nirod-da!" you would have said. But I think ladies don't like football very much.

50Nirod-da is referring to Sri Aurobindo rhetorically.

51"Ode: Intimations of Immortality" from Recollections of Early Childhood (1803).

52Hindi for "Yes, sir", implying "He is the one!"

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Mother described it as a barbarous game - She may not have meant it seriously! She passed a similar remark about badminton. She said, "What's this game? It's as though you've caught a bird and are hitting it from here to there!" Mind you, She took a fancy to it, a passion for it, and She used to play it. So if She were still as young as you, She would have taken up football too!

I was football-crazy in my young days, but my left foot always betrayed me. I couldn't manage it. But here in my dream, a miracle had happened; such miracles do happen. They're very common in dreams, very common indeed. The meaning of the dream was: play football with your trouble and kick it with your left foot. This is the significance that flashed at once. So you see how they come. You see how guidance sometimes comes to you in an amusing manner. I'm sure all of you will have such dreams or hints when you have some trouble or illness. I don't say you'll have football dreams - no. Your dreams will be according to your nature; each will have his or her respective dreams. For instance, Kokila - I hope you don't mind my giving your personal example. She was, last night, very much worried about the Divine will; some time ago, she was worried about another question: whether surrender comes first or love comes first. That is, does the seed grow out of the tree or vice versa? Mark the nature of her perplexity. If she would have a dream, I imagine that in it she would have been singing and soaring like a lark or like a cuckoo.⁵³

I will tell you about another instance that is very simple. It happened long, long ago. A friend of mine came to me asking for my help in the illness he was suffering from. I said, "I am not a doctor now, how can I help you? Go to some other doctor, I have forgotten all my medical knowledge, I have no medicines, etc. etc." "No, no," he insisted; some people are very insistent, they stick on very badly. "Very well then," I said and took up the case. I saw that his case wasn't very serious. The fever was only 99 degrees Fahrenheit, and the cause seemed something minor. The patient began to improve, but

53 Nirod-da is playing on the meaning of the student's name in the vernacular: 'Kokila means cuckoo.

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the fever persisted - not a high fever at all, just 99 degrees. But it continued for days, which worried me. Why should it persist when all the other improvements have taken place, this also should have gone away. Then, in this mood of worry, I went to do pranam⁵⁴ at the Samadbi. Of course, not only when worried, but also in moods of light I go to the Samadbi. Then it was there that I heard something. I heard distinctly the Voice so familiar to me saying, "What are you so worried about? The temperature is just 99 degrees!" I was stunned ... I had never pronounced "99 degrees" to Him and I don't know that anybody else had mentioned it. Then how could He know ? Yet the Voice says, "The temperature is just 99 degrees." How could it be?

So you see my friends, the Force is very active indeed. It is omniscient and it does its work very secretly, very smoothly, and, if you allow it, very effectively. I hear that many of our children do have visions, hear voices of gods, at the Samadbi. Nothing surprising about it because children, as you know, are the first to go to heaven, we shall be the last, and all of you in the middle. So you see if we could be as simple as children, I am sure all of us could go together.

So these were some of the facts, indisputable because they are proved by experience, which are telling me all the while, dinning into my ears - deaf ears, "Have faith, Nirod, have faith, a little more faith." The help is nevertheless there, only we don't notice it.

Then I come to the poem which I promised to read to you, on Sri Krishna. Sri Aurobindo said it was a lovely poem, a magnificent poem. I don't know if all of you can understand it, but I don't see why you shouldn't because you know Sri Krishna's life. The poem is composed of a series of pictures from Sri Krishna's life - life not as you understand it normally, but somewhat esoterically, philosophically; because the opening scene is taken from, borrowed from, as he says, one of the Vaishnava scriptures.

You know something about Sri Krishna's early life - you have seen the pictures of his youth, his adulthood too. I shall now read out to

54 Pranam is the act of bowing down in humility and praying in a spirit of surrender and supplication.

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you this poem by George William Russell (or A.E.), called "Krishna". In the poem, you will find a series of scenes ranging from his childhood to his supreme divinity:

I paused beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play,

Mark the very start, "saw the King of Kings at Play."

Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway.

He is the heavenly runaway who has come down here and he has tumbled upon the grass... you have seen pictures of Sri Krishna doing that, haven't you? Walking on all fours?

The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn,

And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn.

The 'It' the sages spoke of is the child. Then the period of his youth:

I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade,

Honeysuckle is a European flower. All those who are reading English poetry will know about it. Honeysuckle - the name suggests 'honey' and 'suckle'.

And saw the King pass lightly from the beauty that he had betrayed.

I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed His claim

To be the purest of the pure, thrice holy, stainless, without blame.

I hope you understand, he is passing lightly from love to love and yet the saints say he is the purest of the pure!

I saw the open tavern door flash on the dusk a ruddy glare,

And saw the King of Kings outcast reel brawling through the starlit air.

Tavern door opens ... a flash of light comes upon the streets and reflects a rugged face. Drunken, that's why he staggers, remember.

And yet He is the Prince of Peace of whom the ancient wisdom tells,

And by their silence men adore the lovely silence where He dwells.

Wonderful! [He reads out the last line again. ]

I saw the King of Kings again, a thing to shudder at and fear,

A form so darkened and so marred that childhood fled if it drew near.

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I suppose this is Visbwaroopa.⁵⁵

And yet He is the Light of Lights whose blossoming is Paradise,

That Beauty of the King which dawns upon the seets' enraptured eyes.

"enraptured eyes" ... Sri Krishna is the Lord of Beauty, I suppose you know.

I saw the King of Kings again, a miser with a heart grown cold,

And yet He is the Prodigal, the Spendthrift of the Heavenly Gold,

When he showers upon you gold after gold, a downpour, a cascade.

The largesse of whose glory crowns the blazing brows of cherubim,

And sun and moon and stars and flowers are jewels scattered forth by Him.

I saw the King of Kings descend the narrow doorway to the dust

With all his fires of morning still, the beauty, bravery, and lust.

He has summarized now: beauty, bravery and lust... Mark the end of the line. [He reads out the last two lines again. ]

And yet He is the life within the Evet-living Living Ones,

The ancient with eternal youth, the cradle of the infant suns,

The fiery fountain of the stars, and He the golden urn where all

The glittering spray of planets in their myriad beauty fall.

There you are! I don't feel like giving my talk now, it is 11:10 a.m. Very well, I shall do one thing: 1 will try and finish my talk with this poem, so that you may recapture the fine inspiration. You see the idea is not difficult. The Vaishnavas⁵⁶ had this conception out of bhakti?⁵⁷ out of devotion for the Lord. Sri Krishna playing the flute, playing with the Gopis, the cowgirls of Brindavan... all out of utter devotion. [Reading out the whole poem again:]

I paused beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play,

Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway.

55The universal, cosmic aspect of the Divine. The Divine has three aspects - the transcendental, the universal or the cosmic, and the individual. Vishwaroopa or the cosmic aspect of the Lord is the vision that Sri Krishna bestowed on Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

56The members of the religious movement or group in Hinduism that worships Sri Krishna as an avatar of Vishnu. It is a devotional path.

57Devotion or bhakti is the adoration of the heart for the Lord - in this case, for Sri Krishna.

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The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn,

And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn.

I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade,

And saw the King pass lightly from the beauty that he had betrayed.

I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed His claim

To be the purest of the pure, thrice holy, stainless, without blame.

I saw the open tavern door flash on the dusk a ruddy glare,

And saw the King of Kings outcast reel brawling through the starlit air.

And yet He is the Prince of Peace of whom the ancient wisdom tells,

And by their silence men adore the lovely silence where He dwells.

I saw the King of Kings again, a thing to shudder at and fear,

A form so darkened and so marred that childhood fled if it drew near.

And yet He is the Light of Lights whose blossoming is Paradise,

That Beauty of the King which dawns upon the seers' enraptured eves.

I saw the King of Kings again, a miser with a heart grown cold,

And yet He is the Prodigal, the Spendthrift of the Heavenly Gold,

The largesse of whose glory crowns the blazing brows of cherubim,

And sun and moon and stars and flowers are jewels scattered forth by Him.

I saw the King of Kings descend the narrow doorway to the dust

With all his fires of morning still, the beauty, bravery, and lust.

And yet He is the life within the Ever-living Living Ones,

The ancient with eternal youth, the cradle of the infant suns,

The fiery fountain of the stars, and He the golden urn where all

The glittering spray of planets in their myriad beauty fall.

Well, what can I say? To be able to write one such poem in one's whole lifetime is achievement enough! As a poet, I do not like anything better than that one single poem. It would have made me immortal if I had written it! One single poem, Sri Aurobindo said, one single speech, is enough to make one immortal. But to write one poem of this sort, one has to write many poems of other sorts first; a great deal of tapasya is necessary to write one perfect something, either the perfection of a curl⁵⁸ or the perfection of an eyebrow. There you are. But there is tapasya and tapasya! Sri Aurobindo has told us that He had thrown away many hundreds of poems into the capacious arms of the wastepaper basket before He flourished into a poet. We others

58 "The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven, Spent all its cunning to fashion a curl" - from the poem "Who" by Sri Aurobindo.

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have no patience. We have no utsaha.⁵⁹ We want to be something overnight. But I hope ... I have not lost hope, the Lord has given me something, and with the Lord on my back, if I can carry Him, perhaps the poem will scale the Gingy Hills.⁶⁰

Yes, talking of Gingy Hills reminds me of a story - if you are in that mood. Are you? ... Yes? This happened long, long ago, in my callow days. An excursion was proposed to the Gingy Hills, and my "botanician"⁶¹, mathematician and musician friend, Sunil, put my name on the list without telling me. The list went to the Mother. She pored over the list and stopped at my name, and She said (I didn't know it then, I was told later): "Can he climb the hills?" Then Mother said, "Let Prabhakar carry him on his back." When I heard about it, I said, "Mother doesn't know me."

Anyhow, we started; as we approached, the sight of the hills began to breathe Divine force into my rickety constitution, into my lungs, into my heart, into my liver, into my spleen, into my stomach, so much that I felt I could carry on my bony back ten titanic Battis!⁶² We reached Gingy, we got down from the car and I was surprised to find in our company a pretty maiden! She had come in another car. I was practising yoga and self-control, and now, I wondered: what is this? I didn't know anything about it. That reminds me again of a young sadhak who asked Sri Aurobindo (the thing has been published, so it is not private), "Is there any harm in looking at girls?" Sri Aurobindo said, in His usual manner, "No, no harm; only when one looks at a girl and one feels like swallowing her like a fruit!" Of course, I had no such temptation; it was only an academic issue at that time. Anyhow, I asked Sunil, "What is this, Sunil - what have you done ?" He stared, he didn't understand. "Sunil, you haven't obeyed the shastra vachan,⁶³ what is this ? Pothe nari biborjita.⁶⁴ You have brought in a pretty lady

59Enthusiasm, personal effort.

60A place near Pondicherry.

61Nirod-da is trying to rhyme 'botanist' with 'mathematician'. That is his style.

62Prabhakar's nickname.

63The word of the Scriptures.

64"You must abandon ladies on the way."

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here, good Lord, what have you done?!" He laughed, "Hee ... hee!" You know his smile, very innocent, very disarming; he disarmed all my alarm with his simple, innocent smile.

Well, well, let us see the consequences - and there were consequences. Pretty ladies, be careful! When we began to go up, when we began to mount the hill, some poor-looking butterflies and dark, black bees began to hum, began to buzz, began to flutter around the pretty flower. I thought, what should be done ? I said, "See Sunil, what will you do now?" Then at last we made a plot - secretly. We put the pretty maiden under the charge of Batti. You see, I am not exaggerating: there was a lot of trouble, there indeed was a lot of trouble. From that time on, I have learnt from experience and realised the truth of the gospel "Pothe nari biborjita" And I modified the verse of Keats⁶⁵: "A woman of beauty is a trouble for ever."

Then now, after all these introductory preliminaries, I hope you don't mind, after all these prefaces which were somewhat long, a la Bernard Shaw, I start my story. You have given me a free hand, so if you don't like the hand or the face, you may leave. So we take up the thread now. I want to tell you something about Mrs. Gracy - her experience, you remember, that wonderful experience of hers, how she felt, thousands of miles away, that her own husband had been shipwrecked, at that very moment.

Now perhaps some of you might want to know how it happened; the explanation is simple, though it is difficult to practise it. But, for us, it shouldn't be difficult. It happened because when she felt the experience, there were not two persons, there was one: what we call identity of consciousness, two in one. She became completely identified with her husband, though thousands of miles away; that distance does not matter for consciousness for it can travel any distance. The Mother can feel one with somebody at the Pole. And she is feeling, all the time, one with us. Isn't that wonderful?

Here, in this case, identity of consciousness happened through love.

65 Referring to "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" from "Endymion" (1818) by John Keats.

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Love brought about that identity, and love is a great, powerful means of bringing it about. But mind you, my friends, it is a special, rare kind of love that you see here; it is not at all what goes normally by the name of love, which is a fleur du mal.⁶⁶ So we shall be very much mistaken if we did the experiment of getting identity first through love; if the order is reversed, there will be a terrible chaos. What we have to get, at first, is the identity of consciousness. Getting the same way of looking at things, and doing it, particularly having the same goal and practising it sincerely - that brings about this identity. For instance, in our path, Sri Aurobindo has said that identity of consciousness is the root; love is the flower and not the other way round. Love is the flower; identity of consciousness is the root, right ? As in the case of Mother and Sri Aurobindo - complete identification, and the heavenly flower as one. So here is Mrs. Gracy's case. There was no identity of consciousness through yogic effort, but there was a rare instance of psychic love, which brought about this identity. There are similar stories of love between two souls in our ancient tradition: between Savitri and Satyavan, between Ram and Sita; this was the identity-experience all these fine, great, ideal women had in our stories. So this is what, I believe, happened in this way.

I should not talk about love very much, because the word, you know, is too often profaned for me to profane it further! Now that leads me to another story. Its a personal story but not of love, please! Don't trick your ears that you're going to hear a love story. No, this story took place when I was seventeen or eighteen, so love was out of the question. At that time, men and women, boys and girls had no chance of being together as you do, so where was the question of love? Love had to be born in marriage or out of marriage; outside marriage was impossible, so it was always in marriage. So it is not a love story at all, it is something else.

It is like this: it happened on the eve of my departure to a foreign country, and I was about eighteen, I think. I went to Rangoon with my

66 Les Fleurs du mal (often translated as The Flowers of Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire, first published in 1857.

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mother. I had some relatives, my guardians there; of course, you see, there was a talk of marriage. Before I went to England, my guardians said, I must be tied down. But luckily for the girl or luckily for me, the marriage fell through. So there was no chance of lovemaking or love-breaking; no chance of coming together as, fortunately or unfortunately, you do. To make the story short, the marriage plan was being made, the expenses and other paraphernalia, everything had been settled, the date had been fixed. My poor mother had already been feeling - you know ... because I was the only child - "shobedhon kalo megh".⁶⁷ But in the end, I was adamant about going to England. I was very happy thinking about it that day, on my way back from the town to the suburb where we were staying. Instead of going along the public road, I took a side lane. Rangoon then was a place full of bandits, full of cut-throats, full of rogues, they could cut your throat for one pie,⁶⁸ mostly with a drawn knife.

So I was coming from my cousin's place in the town to my own place, my guardian's place. Avoiding the public road, I was taking a short cut along the railway lines; it was pitch dark, eight o'clock, dim lights were burning along the railway lines, and the station was not far off. I could see the lights of the station. I was going on, absorbed, happy over my ... what shall I say ... prospective voyage to England. By the way, I must say in parenthesis: people don't believe that I have been to England. I don't know why. The other day, Pranab⁶⁹ said in the gymnasium, "Who will believe that Nirod-da had gone to England ?" I thought, What is the special stamp on an England-returned man? Is it because of my native Bengali clothes that they do not believe ? Pradyot is an England-returned man and they would at once admit that he was indeed England-returned. Why? Because he puts on trousers, or because he talks in a European manner? They will accept Arindam

67The only jewel which is a dark cloud. It's a variation of the original: the only jewel which is a blue gem, because "Nirodbaran" means a dark cloud.

68A currency coin of very small value.

69Pranab Kumar Bhattacharyan was the director of the Physical Education department of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education and a very close attendant of the Mother. He came to the Ashram in the mid-forties from Behrampore in West Bengal, along with his mother, father and six brothers.

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also as an England-returned professor, but they will not be convinced about me. Now don't laugh! I would like to know from you ladies and gentlemen what you think about it. So this is in parentheses!

What was I saying? How I was returning along the railway lines; mark you, it was pitch dark, not a single soul anywhere. And I was absorbed. Suddenly, I felt something, some premonition of something. I looked around and saw, at a distance, two or three silhouettes coming towards me. Before I had time to step outside the railway track, one of them had come quite near and thrust out his hand to catch my throat. Somehow I was simply out of his reach. I gave a jerk like this and stepped aside and shouted, "Mother, Mother." On the other side of the road beside the railway track, an invisible voice shouted in Hindi, "Kya hai, Kya hai?"⁷⁰ I thank Hindi because it saved my life. And I would like it to be the national language, for this reason! (Laughter) As soon as the unseen voice shouted these words, two or three other figures bawled out, in Hindi, "Chup reh, sala!"⁷¹ (Laughter) I am sorry to use unparliamentary language in front of the ladies. But has it not been sanctified by no lesser a person than Sri Ramakrishna?⁷² So I have that authority, please remember that. Then the other fellows understood what these murderers, these rogues were about to do, and one of them said, "Chale jao, jaldi!"⁷³ I simply ran for my life. I reached the station, panting hard. I was young; if I were as old as I am today ... you know, what the rogues failed to do, nature would have done - through a heart failure (Laughter). If you give me five minutes' time, I'll finish this part of the story - I find that you are enjoying it at my cost!

Anyhow, I reached home, with my knees still shaking in nervous fear and shock (there were no glucose injections to be taken then). When I reached home, I sensed a sort of subdued commotion. What's the matter? I wondered. What has happened? Had the news reached

70"What is it? What is it?" in Hindi.

71"Shut up, you rascal!" 'Said means rascal and can also mean brother-in-law.

72Sri Ramakrishna's language was rustic, never sophisticated and polite, though of course it has no bearing on his profound spiritual development.

73"Run away, quick!"

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home before me? Because, you know, news travels fast sometimes. But, I thought, it is impossible. Then one of my young nephews saw me, came running to me and gave me the news; "Do you know what has happened to Didima?"⁷⁴ "No! What's the matter?" Then in his dramatic manner, bubbling, babbling, he said, "A big vessel has fallen from high up, on her forehead. There is a big wound and a flow of blood, all red." When I went to see, I saw her bandage, all red, covering her face ... she'd fallen down, lying in blood. Then I enquired when it happened. The time given to me, according to my calculation, should be near about, if not exactly, the time of my incident near the railway lines. So, I thought, that is how a mother saves her children at her own cost. If this accident had not happened to her, perhaps Nirod-da wouldn't be here. An identity of consciousness you know very well. The mother's consciousness is so much tied up with the children, perhaps because she brings out the children from her own body, so she feels it even when the child cries out far, far away.

I'll give you another instance. Vijay Kumar Goswami was a great yogi. When he was a child, he went with some others for a pilgrimage somewhere in Orissa, or some other place, and his mother was in Bengal; he was a young boy of about ten. He hurt himself as he was walking, as some children do, against a stone - he kicked a stone with force, fell down and cried out, "Ma! Ma! Ma!" When he returned home from the trip, his mother asked, "Did you cry out 'Ma, Ma, Ma' at any time?" Well... so you see ... there you are ...