Talks by Nirodbaran

24 September 1969

Well, friends, some good news! Today there's a marriage party to which I have been cordially invited from the side of the bride. So perhaps our party here might get cut short, I hope you won't mind. Once in a blue moon, such parties come to us. Don't grudge us our enjoyment at your expense!

I read out to you quite a long article by one of our gentlemen in the Ashram, Charu Dutt; and you've had some fresh glimpses into the life of our Master. You've also observed, I believe, how close a tie Charu Dutt had with Sri Aurobindo, not only in this life but in many past lives; and the tie was so close and intimate that he could not bear the separation for long. When Sri Aurobindo took His leave from us, Charu Dutt also passed away, after a year and a little more, all of a sudden. All these bear out the fact that there are ties which we carry on from birth to rebirth and perhaps into the distant future as well. Who knows what ties we all had, in the past!

Now I told you that... Ah! I see my old friend Arindam over there ... He is sitting in a very different mood. [Arindam-da responds: "I am very attentive, Sir."] Yes, I wish I hadn't seen you or observed you, rather. [Arindam-da promptly replies: "I have taken off my spectacles; I can't see you!"]

Now I shall read something about marriage - the correspondence I had with Sri Aurobindo on the subject, which appeared to me to be somewhat touching. With some trepidation, I broached the subject to Him. [Nirod-da puts on bis spectacles, with one glass broken. (Loud laughter)] You may have a good laugh at this, but I have tears in my eyes! When I was coming here, suddenly I saw that this fellow²³⁶ has failed me. Fine crucial²³⁷ lines blurring my vision! I am going to read out this correspondence which many of you may be familiar with, but the youngsters here may not know. As I said, I touched on the subject of marriage with a certain fear that I would get a stern rebuff, but I

236Nirod-da's jovial way of referring to his spectacles.

237In the original meaning of 'cross-shaped'.

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thought that, in order to be able to draw Him out, I must face the beating, so here it is. Somebody had written, in Bengali, an essay or an article on various spiritual gurus and about their marriage. I reported it to Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo's name was also mentioned there. So I thought here is an opportunity to draw Him out, because that subject of His marriage made us curious. So I wrote: [Reading from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (1995), 575-576]

[Nirod-da:] Somebody writing about the life of Confucius in Bengali says: "Why do the Dharmagurus marry, we can't understand. Buddha did and his wife's tale is heart-rending."

[Sri Aurobindo:] Why?

Mark the tone!

What is there heart-rending in it?

[N:] He goes on: "Sri Aurobindo, though not a Dharmaguru, has done it too, and can be called but dharma-mad ..." Well, Sir?

[S.A.:] Well, it is better to be dharma-mad than to be a sententious ass and pronounce on what one does not understand.

[N:] "We feel so sad about his wife, so too about the wife of Confucius."

[S.A.:] Poor sorrowful fellows!

[N:] "So we don't understand why they marry and why this change comes soon after marriage."

[S.A.:] Perfectly natural - they marry before the change - then the change comes and the marriage belongs to the past self, not to the new one.

[N:] "The wives of Buddha and Ramakrishna felt proud when they were deserted."

[S.A.:] Then what's the harm?

[N:] "If married life is an obstacle to spirituality, then they might as well not marry."

[S.A.:] No doubt - quite right, very logical. But then when they marry, there is not an omniscient ass like this biographer to tell them that they were going to be dharma-guru or dharma-mad or in any

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way concerned with any other dharma that the biographers know.

[N:] So, according to this biographer, all of you, except Christ, showed a lack of wisdom by marrying!

[S.A.:] Well, if the biographer of Confucius can be such an unmitigated ass, Confucius may be allowed to be unwise once or twice, I suppose.

[N:] I touch upon a delicate subject, but it is a puzzle.

[S. A.: ] Why delicate ? And why a puzzle ? Do you think that Buddha or Confucius or I myself were born with a pre-vision that they or I would take to the spiritual life? So long as one is in the ordinary consciousness, one lives the ordinary life - when the awakening and the new consciousness come, one leaves it - nothing puzzling in that."

So there you are. You have observed perhaps that the tone is a little sharp: abusing the writer and calling him "an unmitigated ass". Now I found in this book, rather accidentally, that this article of Charu Dutt is followed by an article by my noble self, writing about "Sri Aurobindo: Creator of Poets" in 1952. So if you are interested in poetry, I might read out how Sri Aurobindo was a creator of poets, by which I mean particularly of this noble self! Here, perhaps, in the first part, I will be repeating what I had said in class, the other day, about my first visit to the Ashram, but it is worth repeating because I had written it down, and there are some facts, perhaps, which I had not presented correctly in class. So there may be some repetition, but please don't mind. [Reading from "Sri Aurobindo: Creator of Poets", Sri Aurobindo Circle, 8: Nov. 1952]

It was in January 1930 that I paid my first passing visit to the Ashram. A close relative and intimate friend of mine was the direct inspirer of that visit. With very litde idea about Yoga and much less respect for it, I came and met Dilip Kumar Roy, whose acquaintance I had made earlier. He was very much surprised to see me and seemed almost to say, "You here?" But when the first shock was over, his generous heart responded to my unexpected, though perhaps not quite unwelcome, appearance in a European garb. He helped me to get an interview with the Mother. But before going to the interview, I felt like a man who has suddenly lost all control

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of his nerves: an unusual tremor ran through the system. "Unless these blessed nerves become quiet," I thought, "it is impossible to go to see the Mother." So I sat silently for a while. As soon as I had closed my eyes, a very strange, uncanny phenomenon took place, whose mystery even now disturbs me with delight. I felt like [I was] being suspended in air; the whole body from the neck downwards had disappeared, only the head remained hanging in space! It was deliciously frightful and unexpectedly overwhelming; but the fright got the better of the sweetness and I opened my eyes into the world of Matter. With this exhilarating surprise, I started for the interview with the Mother. How well I remember it! Not I alone, but all those who have had that rare privilege cannot, while looking back, but consider it a unique opportunity. With some, it was even a crucial turning point in their life, though [they] hardly so realised at that moment. As soon as I entered, the Mother greeted me with a broad smile and took all my nervousness away by her ineffable sweetness. I could never imagine that anything so supremely felicitous could exist on this dolorous earth of ours. With that blissful contact guarded in my memory, I came away and left Pondicherry that very night. But as I boarded the train, with my thoughts turned towards home, surprise of surprises! - the very sweet and living face of the Mother whom I had seen only once and for a few minutes, young with a superhuman beauty, smiling with a radiant expression of Divinity, began to float vividly before my eyes; whichever way I turned, whatever I did, it never left me for a moment, so much so that I was, at the end, almost oppressed by the sweetness and delight! Of such weak and unworthy elements are we poor mortals made. At last, when the train chugged out of the station and other memories and attractions came to occupy the heart, the marvellous vision faded away. These three astounding, unfamiliar experiences may have opened a hidden door within, but I never harboured the idea of doing Yoga: it was out of the question!

As the mind regained its old habitual equilibrium and the night bestowed its peace, I remembered that Dilip had given me a few typed sheets of Conversations with the Mother and that he had particularly drawn attention to the chapter "Art and Yoga". I began to read the book; something in that chapter held my interest; I learned for the first time that Yoga can make one a poet or an artist. "Well," I thought, "if such is the case, I might think of giving Yoga a chance in some remote future. Meanwhile, the life of bhoga ..."

So I plunged myself deeper and deeper into the worldly life;

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the heights that I had glimpsed and the ideals that I had cherished had withdrawn behind a veil. Suddenly, one day, arrived a printed copy of Conversations with the Mother with the Mother's blessings written on it. I was then in Burma [now renamed as Myanmar]. See how the "hound of heaven"²³⁸ pursues! I was exceedingly surprised. A revelation! "She remembers me!" was my delightful surprise. But nothing more; for, even then, I was a man of the world and no inner change had taken place to draw me away from it. At last, after three years of bitter, circuitous life, I again boarded the train for Pondicherry. This is how initiations take effect. This is how I came to Pondicherry. Now [I shall describe] my life in the Ashram.

The Ashram was at that time humming with the activities of poets and musicians; creative activity was in full swing with Dilip Kumar Roy as the nucleus. I caught the inspiration and began to cherish the ambition of budding into a poet. Dilip gave us some preliminary lessons in Bengali metre. One day, I composed a short poem which was, metrically, almost faultless. Dilip forwarded it to Sri Aurobindo with his comment and note of appreciation. That was my first, indirect contact with Sri Aurobindo. Henceforth, the impetus received from him began to push me towards further activity, but almost all of [my efforts] were mere versifications, devoid of any originality, Sri Aurobindo remarked to Dilip that I was too much under Tagore's influence, and I must get rid of it if I wanted to be a poet with a true, individual originality. But how was I to do that? After a patient and prolonged exercise, I succeeded, but failed to tap the deeper source of the Goddess. An undertone of dissatisfaction ran through all my creative endeavours. At such a psychological crisis, a presumptuous idea to compose in English dawned upon me. It was prompted by my failure in Bengali poetry. Thereby, I thought, I would get Sri Aurobindo's direct contact and guidance. This was the predominant factor that inspired me to take up the hazardous journey through the seas of English Poetry. I am today almost where I began, for I started very late; but the sudden brain-wave has been amply rewarded in more ways than one, and had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance of his accident in 1938, when all our poetic activities came to a halt - a fate from which very few of us have recovered -I would have perhaps touched some magic island. But as long as the voyage lasted, Sri Aurobindo never failed to guide our boat through all the poetic troubled waters and depressions of the spirit. That checkered history of which this

238 From the poem by Francis Thompson.

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article is meant to serve as an introduction, I wish to unfold later on, not for any personal glorification, if any were possible, but to reveal the genius of the Master, his indefatigable energy, his sparkling wit and his unique method in handling the instrument from the very beginning of its birth and trying to give it a distinctive mould. From that point of view, it will be highly interesting and instructive to the students and lovers of Poetry and that is my sole motive.

I don't know how many here are lovers of and students of poetry. There are a few samples of poems here, but I'm not very enthusiastic about reading them out to you. Now I shall speak a little bit about my previous, antecedent history of life: how I became a poet. I told you how I happened to come here. I hope you won't grudge my title to a poet. It is Sri Aurobindo who christened me as one, so I can have some legitimate, though somewhat egoistic pride. But really, as I said, my becoming a poet is a miracle. Just as my coming to yoga was another miracle. If people ask you to give them some examples of miracles in the Ashram, you can refer them to my case; here is one shining example. You know perhaps that I was a medical man. Medicine and poetry don't mix with each other. But I was a bit of a Bengali like my friend over there [indicating Arindam-da]. Bengalis are a little romantic and sentimental, as you know very well - moon-gazers or philosophers. Secondly, I hail from a place²³⁹ which can be legitimately and proudly called "The Kashmir of Bengal", by which I mean the natural beauty of the scenery there, though the natural beauty of the people is far less than that of the Kashmiris. (Laughter) So these are two factors, I suppose, which helped, by yogic force, to draw out the latent poet in me. I'll read out one or two previous, preliminary examples, if you don't mind. You may say that you could write better than this and certainly you would. But as I say, I was a novice; I knew nothing about poetry and I was taking a leap into the unknown of English poetry, like a daring explorer. Considering all this, it is not a bad example. Too romantic perhaps. Here it is:

Like a flame of flowers on yonder tree,

Like the rippling waves of the sea,

239 Chittagong, in present-day Bangladesh.

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Very fine rhymes! (Laughter)

Dance, dance, O my soul, thou playmate of Light,

Winging the sapphire height.

I'm sure any one of you can compose this kind of poetry, rhyming light with height, tree with sea. Priti would do it, I think. The second stanza:

Into the luminous calm of skies

Uplift my leaden eyes

And on a widening vision pour

The sun-wine of thy soar.

You see what magnificent two lines at the end! (Laughter) Then, in a footnote, I added:

A small poem, not exactly mine, because after three or four successive nights of tears and trials on many different subjects, the Muses rewarded me with the first stanza and then left me in the lurch.

Then, fortunately, in hopped Amal and helped me out by adding the second stanza, thus saving me from Arjava's wrath.

I don't know whetheryou've heard of Arjava - agreat poet, a Cambridge mathematician. There is another miracle for you, my friends. Another miracle! A Cambridge mathematician turned into a poet in the Ashram by Sri Aurobindo! His name was Arjava - you know, Arjava means 'straight' - and he was really tall like an Englishman, like young Norman, standing straight like a 'tal gachh'.²⁴⁰ He used to walk with a stick. And I had the bad inspiration to make him my teacher for teaching me a little metre. So the fellow - I'm sorry - took great pains to initiate me in the intricacies of English metre, inserting them into a medical head! But he demanded that I must write, must compose poems on each metre that I learned, otherwise he would fly into a wrath and his whole face would become red like a tomato. (Laughter) I didn't know what to do. He was a good metrist, but at the same time very exacting, very demanding. Can one manufacture poems to order? But I had to write, otherwise he would have nothing to do with me.

240 Palm tree, in Bengali.

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So I had to face Arjava's wrath, an Englishman's wrath, please remember! So I had to compose somehow. Here is the first result. I got stuck up, then Amal saved me by saying: "It is just a trickle; what to do?"

The Spirit did not blow; its cruel irony sends me into another rhyme:

Trickle, trickle, O mighty Force divine

Pour, pour thy white-moon dreams

Into my stomach, heart and intestine

In little silver streams.

Well, sir, what have you to say? Is the soul dancing too much?

(Laughter) Because, in the first one, I have "Dance, dance, O my soul

Sri Aurobindo wrote back:

I have no objection to the soul dancing, but to make it dance and wing a height at the same time is a little aerobatic. Also to pour wine (even of a soar, though what the wine of a soar may be, I don't know) on the eyes would hardly be beneficial to the vision - in most cases.

(Laughter)

I admit however that these are perhaps rather too prosaic and Johnsonian objections to the sun-wine of your or Amal's dancing soar. As for the second, two most damnable blunders, sir. 'Intestine' is stressed on the second syllable...

Now you have to know a bit of metre. I suppose you know that English words have a stress. You know that, don't you? It may be on the third syllable of a word, it may be on the fourth, for all I know, or it may not be at all - very whimsical, very capricious. So 'intestine', unfortunately, is stressed on the second. So he says: "Intestine is stressed on the second syllable and pronounced 'intestin', so how the blazes is it going to rhyme with 'divine'?"

You understand, 'divine' is stressed on the second syllable. In order to understand the joke properly, perhaps I'd better do a little 'acrobatics'. [Getting up from the chair, Nirod-da looks for the duster, but it is not there. ] I'll do what my Anatomy professor in college used

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to - [wiping the board with his hand, rubbing his hand on his hips, putting his hand in his mouth, and wiping the board again, this time with spit] - he used to do like this! (Laughter)

Our Indian teachers of the English language will, perhaps, give their students some idea of these correct stresses. So you see here - 'divine' [stressing the second syllable] as we say, not 'divine'. We're not particular about how we pronounce these, we Indians. So, in order for 'intestine' to rhyme with 'divine', the stress must fall on the third syllable, otherwise it can't rhyme. Just because the termination is the same, the two can't be said to rhyme. English teachers will be furious if we try to rhyme words in this way. Of course, nowadays, modern poetry allows any kind of liberty, but I'm talking of our time. So Sri Aurobindo says that I can't do such rhyming, it's illegitimate. Fortunately, in Bengali and Sanskrit, there are no such stresses or non-stresses. So to continue with what He says:

Intestine is stressed on the second syllable and pronounced 'intestin', so how the blazes is it going to rhyme with 'divine' ? A doctor mis-stressing 'intestine' - shame! How are you going to cure people if you put wrong stresses on their anatomical parts ?

Second blunder - Yogically, psycho-physically, etc., etc. stomach, heart and intestine lodge the vital movements, not the physical consciousness - it is there that anger, fear, love, hate and all the other psychological privileges of the animal tumble about and upset the physical and moral digestion. The Muladhara is the seat of the physical consciousness proper. So you have to amend the third line into 'Invade the mournful bottom of my spine' -

'Bottom' is not very cultured. (Laughter)

So you see, 'spine' and 'divine' rhyme excellently: 'Invade the mournful bottom of my spine.' That will make it poetically beautiful and psycho-physically correct."

My next exercise met with a better fate. Arjava also liked it and asked me to send it to Sri Aurobindo. So don't you dare think that I made only abysmal blunders; I also struck upon some happy notes now and then. But you have to pass through blunders first, my dear friends, either in poetry or in the prose of life. Don't you think so?

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Now I shall give you another example. Later on, I wrote a line like this, in one of my early poems - the first line went like this:

My clouded soul, do you know where you are ?

And I thought very highly of it. (Laughter) I asked Him if it sounded flat and He commented:

Flat ? By God, sir, abysmal! The soul can get as clouded as it likes, but do you know where you are ? In Pondicherry, sir, in Pondicherry.

(Laughter)

The most clouded soul can know that. You might just as well write: 'My friend, do you know that you are an ass ?'...

(Laughter)

...and call it metre and poetry.

So that's how we went on, friends. And lastly, I don't remember if I have read out this letter to you, but I think that in order to put a finishing touch to the subject of my poetry, in order not to leave you under the impression that I was as bad as all that, I shall read out another line in Bengali which I wrote when I was composing Bengali poems. I don't remember the exact lines but it went something like this:

Moner horini dekhia pagol hoi.²⁴¹

I thought it was a wonderful, symbolic line that I had written. Sri Aurobindo simply wrote in the margin: "Really?" (Laughter) So such jokes are permissible between the Guru and the 'shishya',²⁴² but it depends on what kind of 'shishya' you are!

Now here are one or two letters apropos. I came here in 1933, and I wrote to Him, in 1934, that I didn't know much of literature:

[Nirod-da:] I should like to be a literary man. Do you approve?

[Sri Aurobindo:] It depends on what kind of "literary man" you want to be, ordinary or yogic.

A literary man is one who loves literature and literary activity for its

241Seeing the deer in my imagination, I go mad.

242Guru: Teacher, preceptor. Shishya: student, adept - in Hindi.

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own sake. A yogic 'literary' man is not a literary man at all, but one who writes only what the inner will and Word wants to express. He is a channel and an instrument of something greater than his own literary personality.

A couple of years later, He wrote, "To be a literary man is not a spiritual aim; but to use literature as a means of spiritual expression is another matter. Even to make expression a vehicle of a superior power helps to open the consciousness." There lies the utility of dance or music or whatever art form you like. In 1933, He wrote, "There should be no 'desire' to be a 'great' writer. If there is a genuine inspiration or coming of power to write, then it can be done, but to use it as a means of service to the Divine is the proper spirit." [Reading from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (1955), 683]

[Nirod-da:] I have such a push to write poetry, stories, all kinds of things, in Bengali! I haven't got a clear vision of what to do, how to proceed, how to establish a harmony between the spiritual and the mundane.

[Sri Aurobindo:] Ambitions of that kind are too vague to succeed. You have to limit your fields and concentrate in order to succeed in them. I don't make any attempt to be a scientist or painter or general. I have certain things to do and have done them, so long as the Divine wanted; others have opened in me from above or within by yoga. I have done as much of them as the Divine wanted. You mentalise, mentalise, discuss, discuss, hesitate and hesitate.

[N.:] If by chance I could throw away all troubles about progress in Yoga and push on with literature, that would be some solution.

[S. A.:] There is no incompatibility between spirituality and creative activity - they can be united.

[N.:] At moments I have aspirations for being many-sided, then comes a voice -'Leave all those things, seek for something more precious, happy' - the eternal contradiction!

[S.A.:] Fluctuating of course comes in the way of action and therefore of success. One can do one or the other or one can do both, but not fluctuate eternally.

Since I am talking of poetry, here is some more correspondence with

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Him on the subject. [Reading again from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (1955), 48}

[Nirod-da:] Need one aspire even for writing poetry ?

[Sri Aurobindo:] Aspiration is an essential part of the sadhana.

[N.:] If one waits calmly, does not the Grace descend by itself without our asking ?

[S.A.:] Not unless one is in a state of Grace - in a psychic condition.

[N.:] If a person asks for something and doesn't get it, he is likely to get disappointed.

[S.A.:] If he asks with the vital, yes. Your mind is too active in these matters. Get your mind silent, learn to feel within, to aspire from within - then things will come more easily.

[N.:] Please give me one direct and decisive rule to follow.

[S.A.:] Aspire for the opening to the right place of inspiration ...

I think the bell has gone, so we have to go! There is another letter which I'd wanted to wind up with; perhaps we can do it later on. So that was the beginning of my poetic career.