Talks by Nirodbaran

3 September 1969

In our last talk, I referred to my initial adventure in the spiritual field. I told you how I walked into the lion's den with just a stick in my hand, somewhat perhaps in the manner of Mark Twain appearing in the court of the Emperor of China; and both of us had strange experiences as a result, at least some of which I have related to you. I believe that you had much food for amusement at my cost!

But what I've been musing upon since our last class was the destiny or adverse fate of those friends of mine who helped me in this path, and helped others too. You know very well what has happened to them, to one at least. While they have left the Ashram, I've stuck on or got stuck. They were far stronger persons than I was or I am, far greater capacities they had than I had; and they had, I believe, a call, an urge towards this life, while, as I have told you, I had none. I was

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an unwilling victim and the irony of fate is that, as I said just now, I got stuck; I stayed on in the Ashram for good. I got stuck over this mystery, but found an answer in Sri Aurobindo's writings. He wrote: "Strong people depend upon their strength, whereas weak people need support," so I suppose, in my weakness, I needed the support of the divine and was able to remain here in spite of my weakness.

I told Him once, in one of my difficult moments - I had quite a number of them - that I didn't know what had brought me here. I didn't know what yoga was, I didn't know that He was the Divine or an Avatar. "But this I know for certain that You have the power to keep me here; and there is no power on this earth which can take me away if You don't want it." I have quarrelled with Him a lot, as you know, wordy duels, rather windy. I even had the temerity to differ with Him and even to say that He was contradicting Himself. (Laughter) But in the end, whatever He said, I took it to be the final truth and I've tried to follow it. Perhaps therein lay my strength.

On another occasion, in another difficult moment, I wrote to Him, in half-fun and half-seriousness, "Please don't forsake me," and followed it with an anecdote which was current in our college days. Perhaps it will be interesting for you to hear because you love anecdotes. It was something like this: I was a student in intermediate arts and I had come as a fresher to the college. There was a librarian - not like our Medhananda,¹⁸¹ by any means - a short, stumpy fellow, with close-cropped hair, half grey, half black, half brown! His complexion - I shouldn't use the fine word 'complexion' - his colour was perhaps a patch darker than mine; and his trousers not much better than I had! He was a very irritable fellow, nobody liked him. He was the butt of all the students' ire. He was slavish to the stronger people and a tyrant to the weaker. That was his nature. So all the students, including myself, used to poke fun at him; sometimes he used to catch us, sometimes we escaped. But very often he used to complain about us to the Principal, who was an Englishman. His

181 A German citizen from Tahiti who was a member of the Ashram from the fifties. He was in charge of the Ashram Library since its inception.

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complaints were so heavy and numerous that the Principal took no notice of them (Laughter) and he knew him very well. One day, I also was caught in the trap - you will be surprised to hear that, perhaps -my name was sent up and the Principal called me. The librarian said, "You have been called." Well, with a trembling heart, I went before the Principal. He looked at me. First time that I came so near the Sahib! He asked me some questions and let me go. Then I went to the library and, from a distance, I showed my thumb!¹⁸² (Laughter) Well, so this gentleman, as luck would have it, was visited by the Principal at an odd hour, when he was smoking a cigarette, if you please. I don't know how far this story is true; it might very well have been concocted by the mischievous students. So when the Principal came, the poor fellow didn't know what to do with the cigarette, he was taken aback by the visit - nonplussed, and the whole burning cigarette he put into his pocket (Laughter) and, with folded hands, stood like this before the Principal. "Sir sir, sir sir, sir, sir," he started stammering, the Englishman wondering what's the matter with this fellow, why he couldn't utter a single word properly, while you understand what was happening in his pocket. (Laughter) It seems the cloth had caught fire and it was burning his skin too, but he couldn't do anything, he was standing on his right leg, next moment on his left leg, then somehow the interview was over. But just before that, at the last moment, he said, "Sir sir, sir sir, cut me or beat me, don't forsake me." 'Kato ar maro, as the saying goes in Bengali.

So I narrated the anecdote to Sri Aurobindo. "Cut me, Sir, or beat me, but don't forsake me." In the margin, when the book came back, I saw some words which I have never forgotten since then. In the margin, He had written, "Never! But beat a lot." That word "never", coming just like a breeze from heaven, has worked upon me like a mantra. I felt so relieved, as if I had no responsibility at all. At all times, during difficult moments and trials, I have that faith, that He will never forsake me. I have that firm assurance entrenched in my heart. But at that moment, I forgot, or I was not satisfied; so I

182 Gesture equivalent to "cocking a snook" at someone.

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wrote to Him again, because we know that the Divine plays with words. So I wrote to Him: "Of course, I was very happy to have some assurance from you that you will never forsake me, but am I quite clear in understanding your statement? Is everything above board [Nirod-da asks the class: I hope you understand the phrase?], or is there some snag?" He wrote back: "Everything is above board." So doubly assured, I felt very happy. You can understand when a word to that effect from Mother or Sri Aurobindo comes to you, what a great relief it is and that single word 'never' has stuck to me, as I said, like a mantra.

After His passing, there was some doubt in my mind: "Now that He has left his body, what about the assurance He gave me - 'never'?" But, by and by, gradually I felt and I saw concretely that the word 'never' has ever maintained its relevance and promise.

Once or twice, Mother told me on my birthday: "I see Sri Aurobindo always occupied with you." (Laughter) She told me the same thing more than once. I was certainly very gratified, felt fortified to hear that; but hearing is one thing, my friends, and having the concrete experience of it is another. And I have told you some of my experiences to prove that He has kept His promise and I believe He will continue to keep it.

I will read out a passage from the Essays on the Gita¹⁸³ bearing on this:

Love of the Highest and a total self-surrender are the straight and swift way to this divine oneness. The equal Divine Presence in all of us makes no other preliminary condition, if once this integral self-giving has been made in faith and in sincerity and with a fundamental completeness. All have access to this gate, all can enter into this temple: our mundane distinctions disappear in the mansion of the All-lover. There the virtuous man is not preferred, nor the sinner shut out from the Presence; together by this road the Brahmin pure of life and exact in observance of the law and the outcaste born from a womb of sin and sorrow and rejected of men can travel and find an equal and open access to the supreme liberation and the highest dwelling in the Eternal. Man and woman find their equal

183 (1966), 319-320.

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right before God; for the divine Spirit is no respecter of persons or of social distinctions and restrictions: all can go straight to him without intermediary or shackling condition. "If" says the divine Teacher, "even a man of very evil conduct turns to me with a sole and entire love, he must be regarded as a saint, for the settled will of endeavour in him is a right and complete will. Swiftly he becomes a soul of righteousness and obtains eternal peace."

This is the word of the Divine Teacher, Sri Krishna Himself. Now Sri Aurobindo interprets:

In other words a will of entire self-giving opens wide all the gates of the spirit and brings in response an entire descent and self-giving of the Godhead to the human being, and that at once reshapes and assimilates everything in us to the law of the divine existence by a rapid transformation of the lower into the spiritual nature. The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle. Those who aspire in their human strength by effort of knowledge and effort of virtue, or effort of laborious self-discipline, grow with much anxious difficulty towards the Eternal; but when the soul gives up its ego and its work to the Divine, God himself comes to us and takes up our burden. To the ignorant he brings the light of the divine knowledge, to the feeble the power of the divine will, and to the sinner the liberation of the divine purity, to the suffering the infinite spiritual joy and Ananda. Their weakness and the stumblings of their human strength make no difference. "This is my word of promise," cries the voice of the Godhead to Arjuna, "that he who loves me shall not perish." - Mark the words: "This is my word of promise ... not perish." Previous effort and preparation, the purity and holiness of the Brahmin, the enlightened strength of the King-sage great in works and knowledge have their value, because they make it easier for the imperfect human creature to arrive at this wide vision of self-surrender; but even without this preparation, all who take refuge in the divine Lover of man, the Vaishya once preoccupied with the narrowness of wealth-getting and the labour of production, the Shudra hampered by a thousand hard restrictions, woman shut in and stunted in her growth by the narrow circle society has thrown around her self-expansion, those too, papa-yonayah, on whom their past karma has imposed even the very worst of births, the outcaste, the Pariah, the Chandala, find at once the gates of God opening before them. In the spiritual life, all the external distinctions, of

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which men make so much because they appeal with an oppressive force to the outward mind, cease before the equality of the divine Light and the wide omnipotence of an impartial Power.

So let us remember: "This is my word of promise that he who loves me shall not perish." We don't need to be great scholars. He clearly says here that, even without the preparation, all who take refuge in the divine Lover will be saved. You know the famous story of Sri Chaitanya. Perhaps you have seen the film in the Playground. Those two scoundrels, Jogai and Madhai, in their intoxication, hurt Sri Chaitanya badly and he was bleeding from his forehead, and even then he said: "Merecho kolsbi kana. Ta boleki prem dobona?"(Because they have hurt me, shouldn't I love them?) This is the Divine Friend, Divine Love.

Then another anecdote comes to my mind, apropos of the relation between Sri Ramakrishna and his famous disciple with the independent spirit - Vivekananda, before he was converted. You know, I suppose, that Vivekananda was a fiery spirit and he would not accept all that his guru Sri Ramakrishna said, without testing it first. And Sri Ramakrishna encouraged him, "Yes, do test at every step. Don't accept anything without testing." There you are - so there are teachers and teachers. There are many examples of that sort, but those we shall take up another day.

So he would not accept whatever Sri Ramakrishna used to say to him. "I don't believe it" used to be Vivekananda's reaction. Sri Ramakrishna told him "You know, I see the Mother; I talk with Her, She feeds me." Vivekananda used to listen quietly to all that Ramakrishna used to say and he did not answer. On one occasion, he lost his temper: "I don't believe all that you say!" Then Sri Ramakrishna lost his temper: "Tobe re shala, ekhane ashish keno?" (If you don't believe what I say, why the hell did you come here, why the devil did you come ?) Here "shala" would mean that. Then Vivekananda gave an answer: "Ami ashi, apnake bhalo bashi bole" (Because I love you, I come), and Sri Ramakrishna simply embraced him and forgot everything. It doesn't matter whether you believe or don't believe, the fact that you love

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me is enough. This is what divine love is. A true love. If we can love the Divine in this way well, forgetting our ego, that itself is a big achievement. Mother also said in one context, "I show my Divine form only to those who love me" - Divine form, mind you.

Sri Krishna said to Arjuna after the world vision: "I've shown these forms to you, which I don't show even to the gods, this 'VishwaPurusha' vision because you love me, you are dear to me." So such is love, such is the power of love, but love pure, unstained, undemanding, self-giving. That is the key to heaven. All that does not mean, my friends, that because I have loved Him I say all this to you; it is nothing of the sort. I didn't love Him at first sight. (Laughter) I simply had some convictions; I don't know how it was. I had not read much at that time and I had not had much occasion to know Him well, and yet there was some conviction, minor perhaps, I don't know how. I had that conviction that He had the power to save me. So that conviction led me to say "You can save me." This book (Essays on the Gita), as I've said to you younger people, is a wonderful book. The more you read it, in spite of yourself, you will become better human beings and your nature will change.

After seeing the vision, Arjuna was flabbergasted, as you can well understand. He prays, after that world vision, for that Godhead's forgiveness for that casual carelessness and negligent ignorance with which he has treated Sri Krishna sometimes. [Reading from "The Vision of the World-Spirit", Essays on the Gita (1966), 375]:

For whatsoever I have spoken to thee in rash vehemence, thinking of thee only as my human friend and companion, 'O Krishna, O Yadava, O comrade,' not knowing this thy greatness, in negligent error or in love, and for whatsoever disrespect was shown by me to thee in jest, on the couch and the seat and in the banquet, alone or in thy presence, I pray forgiveness from thee the immeasurable. Thou art the father of all this world of the moving and unmoving; thou art one to be worshipped and the most solemn object of veneration. None is equal to thee, how then another greater in all the three worlds, O incomparable in might? Therefore I bow down before thee and prostrate my body and I demand grace of thee the adorable Lord. As a father to his son, as a friend to his friend and comrade, as

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one dear with him he loves, so shouldst thou, O Godhead, bear with me. I have seen what never was seen before and I rejoice, but my mind is troubled with fear. Î Godhead, show me that other form of thine. I would see thee even as before crowned and with thy mace and discus. Assume thy four-armed shape, Î thousand-armed, Î Form universal.

Anuria could not bear to see Sri Krishna's Vishwarupa.¹⁸⁴ [Continuing to read from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, 458 (19^th January 1936)]:

Sri Aurobindo: Do I understand rightly that your contention is this, "I can't believe in the Divine doing everything for me because it is by my own mighty and often fruitless efforts that I write or do not write poetry and have made myself into a poet"?

All that let us leave for another day. He wrote a long answer, then at the end, He said:

I am obliged to stop - if I go on, there will be no Pranam.

Mother used to give Pranam till twelve o'clock.

So send your Jeremiad back tonight and I will see what else to write.

He crushes me with His kindness!

Have written this in a headlong hurry.

So I sent it again and a longer answer came back. That again perhaps I'll read sometime afterwards. But here I shall read some pertinent portions. So He says:

... It does not matter if you have not a leechlike tenacity - leeches are not the only type of Yogins. If you can stick anyhow or get stuck, that is sufficient. The fact that you are not Sri Aurobindo (who said you were ?) is an inept irrelevance. One needs only to be oneself in a reasonable way and shake off the hump when it is there, or allow it to be shaken off without clinging to it with a 'leechlike tenacity' worthy of a better cause.

Then at the end, He said:

Whoever was fit - for that matter, fitness and unfitness are only a way of speaking; man is unfit and a misfit (so far as things spiritual

184 Cosmic form.

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are concerned) - in his outward nature. But, within, there is a soul, and above, there is Grace.

Mark you, "within, there is a soul, and above, there is Grace." And He continues:

"This is all you know or need to know"

This is a reference to Keats

... and, if you don't, well, even then you have at least somehow stumbled into the path and have got to remain there till you get hauled along it far enough to wake up to the knowledge. Amen.

There you are! I needed to stick on here, and even if I wanted, I couldn't leave. A similar message was sent through me, I remember, to my tottering and leaky boat, my friend Nishikanto - a message that said, "Ask him to stick on anyhow, anyhow; he needn't do anything, bother about yoga, etc.; ask him to stick on anyhow." Those of you who know him acknowledge him to be another sticky fellow with a stick in his hand. (Laughter) So poor fellow has stuck on anyhow and he hopes to stick on more! With stomach 'hole-y', with lungs unholy (Laughter), with a heart palpitating, and look how cheerful he still is! He doesn't care a bit, what a wonderful fellow! There is nothing in him that is safe and sound, all the organs are insured (Laughter), and yet how wonderful it is. All of you don't know what is happening inside him. The doctors have written him off (Laughter) - but there is a Supreme Doctor! How cheerful he is! He wants to die sometime soon and be born in the Green Group¹⁸⁵ ... but that message of Sri Aurobindo makes him hold on -"Ask him to stick on anyhow!"

But it is a way of saying, for is there any power in us by which we can stick on? Impossible! It is He who makes us stick and uses it for His stick (Laughter). It is He alone. So if you can have that reliance, my friends, all is safe. That 'nirbhaya',¹⁸⁶ as He says, is the keynote of sadhana. But don't know why I am telling you all this. Things have

185The Green Group is that of the youngest children in the Physical Education Department. It is often said of old sadhaks who die in the Ashram that they will be born again and enter the Green Group as children.

186Fearlessness.

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changed such a lot. My friends, you must remember that whether you have capacity or incapacity, it doesn't matter in the least; yoga or bhoga,¹⁸⁷ it doesn't matter. A girl told me, "I don't know yoga." You don't need to know it. You know Mother. Let Her take care of you. Don't bother about all that. Who knows yoga? Who knows if you have spiritual capacity or not ? To bother our heads about capacity will end us in ruin. Let us do our work and be cheerful with some sense of humour - that is very necessary, very necessary indeed. Otherwise we'll make asses of ourselves.

But yes, I was tellingyou, all this is a past story, ladies and gentlemen. You have no difficulties at all. You take life merrily! The Ashram has become like a sea today, hasn't it ? Open wide the gates - the steamers are coming, launches are coming, barges are coming and going freely. But at that time, narrow was the path, hard and razor-edged all the way. That's why we had so many trials and tribulations, which you don't face today because we have done tremendous sadhana for you! (Laughter)

Well now, how much time is left? Five minutes? So all this while, I have been beating my own drum. I want to now beat the drum for the Guru. I will read, since there are only five minutes left, a passage written about Sri Aurobindo - an appreciation, a picture, when He was in the political field in Calcutta. The title is "The Lotus of India's Manasarovar"¹⁸⁸ - I suppose you know it and who the Lotus is.

Have you ever seen the spotless all-white lotus? The hundred-petalled lotus in full bloom in India's Manasarovar! No lily or daffodil this, growing in odd and obscure corners of a European dwelling, scentless, mere play and display of colour! Of no use in worship of the gods, of no need in a sacrificial celebration. Sheer pomp and vanity in the western way. Our Aurobindo is a rare phenomenon in the world. In him resides the sattvic¹⁸⁹ divine beauty, snow-

187The path of enjoyment as opposed to Yoga, the path of discipline and askesis.

188A translation of the article written in Bengali by Upadhyay Brahmabandhav on the eve of the first appearance of the Bande Mataram newspaper in 1906.

189Pure. Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas are the three modes of Nature in the Samkhya philosophy. They correspond to the principle of intelligence, light, balance, harmony (Sattva); the principle of kinesis, energy, action (Rajas); and the principle of darkness, nescience, sloth, sleep, and ignorance (Tamas).

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white, resplendent. Great and vast - vast in the amplitude of his heart, great in the glory of his own self, his swadharma as a Hindu. So pure and complete a man - a fire-charged thunder, yet tender and delicate as the lotus-leaf. A man rich in knowledge, self-lost in meditation. You can nowhere find his like in all the three worlds. In order to free the land from her chains, Aurobindo has broken through the glamour of western civilisation, renounced all worldly comfort, and now as a son of the Mother, he has taken charge of the 'Bande Mataram'. He is the Bhavananda, Jivananda, Dhirananda of Rishi Bankim,¹⁹⁰ all in one.

You, fellow-countrymen, touch no more those bloated, whining, moderate papers servilely echoing their master's voice. This Aurobindo's word will flood our breasts with cascades of patriotism, provide the impetus to the country's service. The words of the 'Bande Mataram' will drive out your fear, steel your arms with the might of thunder; fire will course through your veins, death will put on a face of spring-time splendour. The mantric power of the 'Bande Mataram' will expel the venom of Anglomania; the infirmities sapping the national stamina will be things of the past. You will come to realise that those rifles and guns, jails and tribunals, governors and viceroys are so many empty-nothings. The feringhi's¹⁹¹ frown and threat, rage and roar will vanish like an evil dream.

True, he has had his education in England, but he has not succumbed to its bewitching spell. An efflorescence of the glory of his country's swadharma and culture, Aurobindo is now at the feet of the Motherland, as a fresh-bloomed lotus of autumn, aglow with the devotion of his self-offering. Oh, was there ever its like? Aurobindo is no fop sprung from the vulgarities of English life. That is why, a true son of the Mother, he has set up the Bhawani Temple.¹⁹² There, bow down to the Mother, with the mantra of 'Bande Mataram'. Swaraj is now no far-off event.