Talks by Nirodbaran

21 May 1969

Today I will speak to you of the last sad incident¹⁴ - the passing away of our beloved Pavitra-da¹⁵, the passing away of a true and real yogi. It is said that there is a "... touch of tears in mortal things,"¹⁶ but this touch is also sweet at the same time. Within two months, we've seen the passing away of two great souls from our midsr.¹⁷ We shall never come to know their true greatness because they lived such simple and apparently common lives: they shared our lives, games, pursuits, as if they were one of us. So perhaps we missed their stature and greatness, which they wore so lightly and simply, or perhaps we forgot their greatness because they were so close to us, just as I forgot the Lord's greatness being so close to Him. Pavitra-da was entirely dedicated to the Divine. Mother said that, from the very beginning, he followed the path without the slightest vacillation, without turning either to the right or to the left; he followed the footsteps of the Master so closely and unwaveringly. This cannot be easily done or achieved, for most of us look to the right, to the left, behind, below,

14 Pavitra (Philippe Baibier Saint-Hilaire), a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, passed away on 16 May 1969. A Frenchman who joined the Ashram in the 1930s, after having been to Japan, China and Mongolia in search of spiritual guidance, he was a Polytechnician and became the Director of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. He was one of the spiritual stalwarts of the Ashram.

15The name suffix '-da' roughly translates to elder brother' and denotes affectionate respect.

16Sri Aurobindo, Savitri,

17The reference is to the passing away of Pavitra-^ and Amrita-da.

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and to the side, and we long for 'the fleshpots of Egypt'¹⁸ that have been left behind.

I will give you one instance that will show the calibre of his soul. After having finished his course in the Polytechnique (the technology school in France), which as you know is an extremely difficult course, he abandoned all the possibilities of a brilliant career and set himself on the path of self-discovery, wandering all the way to Japan and China and then to Mongolia. Finally he came to the Ashram and surrendered himself to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

The Mother was then not active in the Ashram matters, and Sri Aurobindo alone used to see visitors. When Pavitra-da

As for me, I did not have a very deep relationship with him. But I had many an occasion to watch him from a distance. I always felt, whenever I met him, that here was someone unique; and I came back with an impression of calm sweetness and radiant sympathy. Always he lived in a high plane of Light and seemed to be beckoning us from there.

His very name, 'Pavitra,' suited his nature so well. To quote our Master's words from Savitri, his nature "had not one turbid wave."¹⁹ Sweetness and light were the two dominant qualities - the psychic qualities, the qualities of the soul - that permeated his whole being. You must have felt the psychic warmth and the aura in his manner,

18Old Testament Bible, 16.3.

19Sri Aurobindo, "Passionate in flow, had not one turbid wave", Savitri, SABCL, 28: 15.

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his demeanour and his ways. He was born of French aristocracy and nobility, and developed those traits further by the practice of yoga.

He was a marvellous example of a yogi. So totally surrendered was he to the Mother that She could move in him as if in Her own house. No restraint, no hesitation in Her relations and approach to him. His room was called 'the second secretariat' and was joined by a corridor to Her room. Whenever She had need of him, She used to call "Pavitra, Pavitra!" and he used to come running: "Mère, Mère."²⁰ She dropped in whenever She liked, to give him some work, to tell him something, etc. When She went to the balcony for the morning Darsban, she had to pass through his room, and at times Pavitra-da would be sleeping. And She used to hold his hands and say, "Wake up, Pavitra." His service was an absolute necessity for her, and when She wanted to go out, She had to call him because he used to drive her car. He used to prepare sandwiches for the Mother and Sri Aurobindo; the burden of the European correspondence was on his shoulders; he looked for formulas to prepare our toothpaste, face powder, hair oil, eyewash, etc. He did everything meticulously, unflinchingly and scrupulously.

It seems - I don't know how far it's true - that he used to wash Churu-da's²¹ clothes, in the beginning. And Charu-da, thinking him to be an ordinary European, let him do it. Charu-da, on his next visit, saw that Pavitra-da had been promoted to a room upstairs in the Ashram, and he exclaimed, "Oh, What have I done!" thereby expressing his embarrassment at his blunder.

Pavitra-da had the true Christian spirit, a real humility. How is it possible to be thus without being, at the very roots, truly great and genuine? Still we did not realize all this greatness, because of his simple and humble ways. If he had put on the robe of a sannyasi,²² we

20French for 'Mother, Mother.'

21One of the early sadhaks from East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh). Charu Dutt was a judge or magistrate during the British rule and a freedom fighter who saw no contradiction between the two roles. A close friend of Sri Aurobindo, he came to the Ashram after retirement and lived there for the rest of his life. He used to distribute rice in the Dining Hall to the ashramites.

22A sannyasi is one who has renounced the world in favour of a mendicant's life, in order to realize God. The ochre robe that he puts on is the outward symbol of this renunciation.

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would have fallen prostrate at his feet. However great one may be, one moves about, in the outward life, like everybody else. This is the beauty and charm of our yoga.

Once I had to consult him for an article written by me in French. And, somewhat to my annoyance, he began going over all the commas and full stops; and if I had put three etceteras' somewhere, he said, "It's not done, two will do!" He was particular for perfection in detail - this is the aspect of Mahasaraswati.²³ He did everything as perfectly as possible, and that, my friends, is the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's way.

All this cannot but be the manifestation of the inner growth of the soul. Generally, it is the accursed outward nature of ours which refuses to be changed. It is like a dog's tail, very difficult to straighten. We don't even want it to change. I thought, "What difference does a little comma here and there make?"

If you're serving the Divine, there has to be perfection in every detail. His was a flawless service to the Divine Guru. He did his sadhana quietly and imperceptibly. Such was Pavitra-da's sense of perfection that he never did anything grudgingly, and always with a self-effacement, never pushing himself to the forefront in self-importance. He did everything silently, forgetting himself completely in Their service.

During World War II, Pavitra-da, being a French citizen, had to join the French Army. Every morning, he used to go to the military ground for military training. One day, the order came for him to go to the front. I believe that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo tried hard to get him exempted from it, with no result. Then the Mother told him to be prepared. He kept his uniform ready. The boat was to arrive at a certain date, but either by a miracle or by some fortuitous chance, the

23 When the Divine or the Supreme Reality manifests itself into the lower world of Ignorance, it reveals its four principal aspects: 1) Wisdom and Knowledge (Maheshwari), 2) Power, Force, Violence and Destruction (Mahakali), 3) Splendour, Opulence, and Beauty (Mahalakshmi), and 4) Service, skill in works (especially those involving intricacy and detail), and practical knowledge (Mahasaraswati).

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ship floundered, and a second ship never came!

Once I wrote asking about this incident and the Mother gave me a long explanation lasting half an hour in which she revealed all the details about the incident. And the fool that I was, I did not note it down! This event is a revealing example of how the Divine protects and saves us when we have surrendered completely. Pavitra-da wasn't in the least affected by these circumstances, was never disturbed. He took all this calmly, as a part of his sadhana. Again, this is the stamp of a great soul.

Some of our people used to talk very glibly about the quality of our sadkaks here. They said, "Show us one Vivekananda here, if you have any," and we said, "None! Why do you want a Vivekananda? There is only one Vivekananda as we have only one Pavitra-da, one Amritz-da, one Noimi-da."

I will now read out to you some of my correspondence with Sri Aurobindo:²⁴

[Nirod-da:] Guru, what the deuce is "Brahman consciousness"? The same as cosmic consciousness ? Does one come to it after the psychic and spiritual transformations?

Is it something like seeing Brahman in everybody and everywhere or what? It is not spiritual realisation, I suppose, I mean realisation of Self ? You see I am a nincompoop in this business. Please perorate a little.

[Sri Aurobindo:] Eternal Jehovah! You don't even know what Brahman is! You will next be asking me what Yoga is or what life is or what body is or what mind is or what sadhana is! No, sir, I am not proposing to teach an infant class the A.B.C. of the elementary conceptions which are the basis of Yoga. There is Amal who doesn't know what consciousness is, even!

Brahman, sir, is the name given by Indian philosophy since the beginning of time to the one Reality, eternal and infinite, which is the Self, the Divine, the All, the more than All, which would remain even if you and everybody and everything else in existence or imagining itself to be in existence vanished into blazes - even if this whole universe disappeared, Brahman would be safely there

24 Reading from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, 1987, 991-2 (letter dated 12.7.37).

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and nothing whatever lost. In fact, sir, you are Brahman and you are only pretending to be Nirod; when Nishikanta is translating Amal's poetry into Bengali, it is really Brahman translating Brahman's Brahman into Brahman. When Amal asks me what consciousness is, it is really Brahman asking Brahman what Brahman is! There, sir, I hope you are satisfied now.

To be less drastic and refrain from making your head reel till it goes off your shoulders, I may say that realisation of the Self is the beginning of Brahman realisation - the Brahman consciousness -the Self in all and all in the Self, etc. It is the basis of the spiritual realisation and therefore of the spiritual transformation; but one has to see it in all sorts of aspects and applications first and that I refuse to go into. If you want to know, you have to read the Arya.²⁵

While referringto greatness, Sri Aurobindo wrote to me: "I daresay that [my disciples are] in no way different from or inferior to Vivekananda or other adbaras.²⁶ When did Vivekananda become great ? After going to America and having lectured there. It's rather difficult to know who is really great, that is why people pass these facile remarks!"

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are not in the habit of saying: "Here are great people like Pavitra and Nolini and Amrita." These people live with us and we can exchange glances and word-lances with them! But let me not compare them with others, for as Sri Aurobindo says "comparison is odorous" - has a bad smell. But even then, this much I can say: that they're as great as anybody outside the Ashram.

The Mother had these instruments fashioned with Her own hands; they are, to quote Amrita-da, 'ripe fruits,' but unfortunately two of the ripe fruits have fallen. Many questions arise, many doubts, but they're otiose if we know the underlying truth. I do not say like Shakespeare that 'ripeness is all'. No, it is not all: it is only a beginning. From here starts a new race.

You may ask why then has this misfortune come? In a way,

25The monthly magazine of philosophy and yoga that Sri Aurobindo edited and published single-handedly in Pondicherry from 1914 to 1920. It published serially most of the major works of Sri Aurobindo, which were issued as complete books later.

26Adhara is the container, the physical vessel that holds the consciousness of each individual.

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it is a misfortune. All that preparation for getting ready for the transformation, was it all wasted ? These questions cannot be answered by me. But I can only say that just as the Lord gave up His body for a greater purpose, so too did His disciples.

We know how much Pavitra-da suffered and fought. Until the last moment, he did his work, and his suffering cannot be told in words. Every day, he used to go to the Mother, and although he took an hour to reach Her, he never failed. He couldn't even raise his legs and so went as slowly as an ant. An ant goes slowly without any trouble, but for him each step was painful.

Earlier, he used to do his exercises, and he kept them up as long as he was able to, and I used to see him running up and down the corridor, going down the steps. He never stopped working in spite of the pain. He knew very well what he was suffering from and all its consequences, but he was always cheerful. Is it humanly possible? Whether he was well or ill, nothing affected him, he was above circumstances. He reminds me of Sri Ramakrishna, who had cancer of the throat but still talked and worked.

His was the spirit that ruled over matter and mastered it. Like his Master, he fought for every inch of the ground. Though apparently he failed, he gained for us much ground. But these failures are never failures. Now, as you know, a mortal struggle is going on for immortality²⁷ and he fought till the last - that's our victory.

We shall remember him gratefully. May we profit by his bright example and may we be as true in our surrender to the Mother.