Talks by Nirodbaran

30 July 1969

Well, I don't know why, but I enter this room every time with a certain kind of nervousness, in spite of all that Mother says about being calm. I've not been able to analyse the reason for my nervousness, though - I am sufficiently old in experience as well as in age. Perhaps I expect or I fear some newcomers. I try to release my tension by laughing away my nervousness; that is one of the reasons why I have tried to be cheerful at your cost.

Anyhow, today I've taken a very pious resolution to become more serious; but as you know, all these pious resolutions (as your experience may have told you) often end in brilliant failure! And it is particularly difficult for me to be serious because, whatever my external appearance might be, my true nature is anything but serious, and like all of you, I'm young at heart. I remember, when I was as young as all of you are, my friends used to envy me my mirth and jollity. It was, as it were, my whole psychic being - but if you object to the term 'psychic being' here, I can say my 'psycho-vital' was very much in front. But when I came to the Ashram to do yoga, all my jollity and mirth vanished after some time. I couldn't understand why, so I wrote to Sri Aurobindo about it, complaining. I shall read out the letter to you. Perhaps some of you already know about it. When my friends from the past heard that I'd left them and come over to Pondicherry to do yoga, they fell down in shock. They thought that perhaps it was more possible to go to the moon than for Nirod to go to do yoga! (Laughter) I came in 1933; one year's bliss and happiness I enjoyed. Then I wrote to Him in 1935 [Reading from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (1955), 263-4]:

You have often spoken of the Man of Sorrows^l09, in connection with me. But I was a cheerful fellow at school and college. So I am afraid he is a contribution, partly at least, of your Yoga.

109 Since Nirod-da was always complaining that he was not getting any results for his sadhana and lamenting about his incapacities and shortcomings in yoga, Sri Aurobindo used to call him the 'Man of Sorrows' semi-humorously.

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Sri Aurobindo wrote back:

Not of my Yoga, but of the blasted atmosphere that has been created here by the theory that revolt, doubt and resultant sorrow and struggle and all that rot are the best way to progress.

Of course, all these things - doubt, revolt, hunger strike, etc. - all these things may be new for you, but they were very frequent in those days, very frequent indeed. So how much you have progressed these days you can see. And He says:

The Ashram has never been able to get out of it, but only some people have escaped. The others have opened themselves to the confounded Man of Sorrows and got the natural consequence. But why the devil did you do it ? The Man of Sorrows is a fellow who is always making a row in himself and covering himself with sevenfold overcoats of tragedy and gloom and he wouldn't feel his existence justified if he couldn't be colossally miserable - when he gets on people's backs he puts the same thing on them. Yoga on the other hand tells you, even if you have all sorts of unpleasantnesses, to live in the inner sunlight, your own or God's. At least most Yogas do, except the Vaishnava - but the Yoga here is not a Vaishnava Yoga.

So there you are. By the way, here we find Sri Aurobindo using very liberally, at least in my case and in one or two other cases, some very familiar slang terms in English: 'blasted', 'confounded', 'devil', etc.

Well, whatever might have been the reason then for my state, I'm happy to declare to you now, friends, that I have kicked off the old Man of Sorrows. You can see that for yourselves. And how could I be otherwise when I am in your youthful, daffodil company? (Laughter) I am very happy. But somehow, some people in the Ashram still have a lingering notion that I am a man who doesn't smile. (Laughter) A very grave, very solemn, very austere yogi or sadhak. So when some visitor comes and expresses his wish to see me, they discourage him by telling him, "He does not see anyone." (Laughter) In spite of that, some visitors gatecrash into my room and they are surprised to find that I am not a philosopher like Kireet or a psychologist like Kishore Gandhi or a historian like Sisir,¹¹⁰ but a poet. "Well," they say. "Why,"

110 Kireet Joshi was an IAS officer who resigned his post and joined the Ashram. He

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they remark, "you are like a pomegranate. A hard, harsh exterior, but inside, red seeds, sweet grains; why did they give us this impression, we don't know." You may not agree with all that, but at least agree with this much that I may not be a pomegranate, not a 'pomme'¹¹¹ either, but a coconut! (Laughter)

Just when I was on the point of coming to class today, a visitor crashed into my room - two people, as a matter of fact: one was a visitor, and the other an old gentleman of the Ashram. And unfortunately, I was just taking tea! (Laughter) Tea time is a very private, sweet time, when I don't like anybody interrupting me - I don't mean you people -you will increase the flavour of the tea by your presence. (Laughter) So I was on the point of frowning at them, but somehow, by the exercise of self-control, I managed not to. "I have come to have your 'darshan'" one of them said. Anyhow, I made him sit, made him smile, and he went away very much pleased, saying, "Please, please remember me, bless me." I said, "The Samadhi is there to bless you."

So there you are, for what I say about my nature is true and what other people say is not true. So it is as I said: yes, it is partly due to poetry and partly or mainly due to the letters of Sri Aurobindo that I was able to find a little bit of life, a little bit of joy in yoga, and I was on the way to rediscovering my psychic being, which had withdrawn far, far behind. And you know perhaps, that I am a bit of a poet, not much, though poetry now has become less popular, all the world over and in the Ashram too! Our current expression about the present Ashram conditions is that the Ashram is passing through Vaishya Yoga - Vaishya, you know, means commercial and scientific. Science has destroyed the beauty of the moon. My friend Nishikanto was lamenting the other day, "See what these people have done -" (Laughter) "now we cannot write any poetry about the moon. We

later became the Registrar of the SAICE. Kishore Gandhi was an ancient sadhak of the Ashram. He was a professor of sociology and he was the editor of all the three volumes of Letters. Sisir Kumar Mitra was a professor of Bengali from Shantiniketan, who had left and joined the Ashram. He was a history professor by training and wrote several books. He was the headmaster of the Ashram School. 111 Apple, in French.

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cannot compare any beautiful face with the beauty of the moon." We cannot say like Yeats, "The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun."¹¹² Neither can we say what Sri Aurobindo wrote to me in a line of verse: "a wave of joy on heaven's moon-stoned floor". You know what "the moon-stoned floor" would really be like - powder! (Laughter) We can't use these expressions any more. The astronauts have murdered the moon for poetry. I have composed two lines of verse about this:

The astronauts have so defaced the moon

The poets have dropped into inter-lunar swoon.

(Laughter) Now about the great business of Auroville, again a verse of mine:

Auroville is the great talk in every mouth

Though it's still a good ten miles' walk to the south.

I don't know whether it is in the direction of south or north! But the moon has come so near that we can go there in an omnibus. (Laughter) So this is poetry. You see, I'm in a poetic mood. Poets love beauty and delight. Wherever there is no delight, no beauty, poets cannot be there, according to Nirod. I suppose you know that. I think it was the great poet Hafiz - ever heard his name ? He was a Sufi poet, Persian poet -who said that for the sake of the mole on the cheek of his beloved, he could fling away Samarkand and Bokhara - he was such a spendthrift, he would give away Samarkand and Bokhara for the sake of the mole on his beloveds cheek! It is easy to say, for Samarkand and Bokhara did not belong to him! (Laughter) But Timurlane heard of it; he was the Baadshah¹¹³ then. He got wild, so it is said. He called for the poet and demanded, "How dare you give away my kingdom?" The poet said with a smile, "Shahanshah,Jahanpana,¹⁴⁴ what can I do? My love has made me such a spendthrift." Timur was very much pleased with the answer, and instead of punishing him, gave him lots of priceless

112From "The Song of Wandering Aengus" (1899).

113Emperor, in Urdu.

114King of Kings, Protector of the World, in Urdu.

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gifts. So this is the story as recorded, and the commentator adds that it is love alone that makes you a king or a queen, even though you may have been a pauper. Well, I can't say anything about it, you people may know better. But whether true or not, from some of us it is demanded that all human love be redirected to the Divine - from some of us at least it is demanded. No human love, either for the mole or for the soul - all your love must be offered at the feet of the Divine. I quoted to you earlier the famous verse by Thompson: "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."¹¹⁵

The other day, you remember, I told you how Sri Aurobindo gave up at one stroke His age-long habits. Now following the chronology, we come to 1920 - January. Before that, there is another record that we can look into. Mukul Chandra Dey, an artist who afterwards became the Principal of the Calcutta School of Art, came to Pondicherry and met Sri Aurobindo.¹¹⁶ He took sittings for four days in order to draw a portrait of Sri Aurobindo.

Now, in 1920, Sri Aurobindo received a letter from Bombay from a well-known barrister, one of the leaders of the Nationalist Party of Tilak. His name was Joseph Baptista, a Christian. In that letter, on Tilak's advice, the party invited Sri Aurobindo, through Baptista, to accept the editorship of their paper. The idea was that this would afford to Sri Aurobindo an opportunity to return to politics, and the party would also get His valuable support. We know that Tilak and Sri Aurobindo had the same political ideology as far as the question of Indian freedom was concerned. Now here is the long reply from Sri Aurobindo in 1920. I don't know, as it is all about politics, how many of you will be able to understand the letter, but some will. So I'll read it. [Reading from Life of Sri Aurobindo by A. B. Purani (1960), 194-196]:

Dear Baptista,

Your offer is a tempting one, but I regret that I cannot answer it in the affirmative. It is due to you, that I should state explicitly my reasons.

115Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven", Poems (1909).

116When Sri Aurobindo used to live in the Guest House.

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In the first place I am not prepared at present to return to British India. This is quite apart from any political obstacle. I understand that up to last September the Government of Bengal (and probably the Government of Madras also) were opposed to my return to British India and that practically this opposition meant that if I went back, I should be interned or imprisoned under one or other of the beneficent Acts which are apparently still to subsist as helps in ushering in the new era of trust and cooperation. I do not suppose other Governmenrs would be any more delighted by my appearance in their respective provinces. Perhaps the Kings Proclamation¹¹⁷ may make a difference, but that is not certain since, as I read it, it does not mean an amnesty, but an act of gracious concession and benevolence limited by the discretion of the Viceroy. Now I have too much work on my hands to waste my time in the leisured ease of an involuntary Government guest. But even if I were assured of an entirely free action and movement, I should yet not go just now. I came to Pondicherry in order to have freedom and tranquillity for a fixed object having nothing to do with present politics - in which I have taken no direct part since my coming here, though what I could do for the country in my own way I have constantly done - and until it is accomplished, it is not possible for me to resume any kind of public activity. But if I were in British India, I should be obliged to plunge at once into action of different kinds. Pondicherry is my place of retreat, my cave of tapasya - not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention. I must finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped for my work before I leave it.

Next in the matter of the work itself, I do not at all look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal or contempt or disgust of secular things. There is to me nothing secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life, and the importance of politics at the present time is very great. But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably from anything now current in the field. I entered into political action and continued it from 1903 to 1910 with one aim and one alone, to get into the mind of the people a settled will for freedom and the necessity of a struggle to achieve it, in place of the futile, ambling Congress methods till then in vogue. _That is now done and the Amritsar Congress is the seal upon it. The

117 This was the King's Proclamation of pardon granted to all political prisoners just before the visit of the British King to India in the thirties.

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will is not as practical and compact, nor by any means as organised and sustained in action as it should be, but there is the will, and plenty of strong and able leaders co guide it. I consider that in spite of the inadequacy of the Reforms, the will to self-determination, if the country keeps its present temper, as I have no doubt it will, is bound to prevail before long. What preoccupies me now is the question of what it is going to do with its self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to determine its future ?

You may ask why not come out and help, myself, so far as I can, in giving a lead ? But my mind has a habit of running inconveniently ahead of the times - some might say, out of time altogether into the world of the ideal. Your party, you say, is going to be a social democratic party. Now I believe in something which might be called social democracy, but not in any of the forms now current, and I am not altogether in love with the European kind, however great an improvement it may be on the past. I hold that India, having a spirit of her own and a governing temperament proper to her own civilisation, should in politics as in everything else strike out her own original path and not stumble in the wake of Europe. But this is precisely what she will be obliged to do, if she has to start on the road in her present chaotic and unprepared condition of mind. No doubt people talk of India developing on her own lines, but nobody seems to have very clear or sufficient ideas as to what those lines are to be. In this matter, I have formed ideals and certain definite ideas of my own, in which at present very few are likely to follow me, since they [that is, the ideals and ideas] are governed by an uncompromising spiritual idealism of an unconventional kind and would be unintelligible to many and an offence and stumbling block to a great number. But I have not as yet any clear and full idea of the practical lines; I have no formed programme. In a word, I am feeling my way in my mind and am not ready for either propaganda or action. Even if I were, it would mean for some time ploughing my lonely furrow or at least freedom to take my own way. As the editor of your paper, I should be bound to voice the opinion of others and reserve my own, and while I have full sympathy with the general ideas of the advanced parties so far as concerns the action of the present moment and, if I were in the field, would do all I could to help them, I am almost incapable by nature of limiting myself in that way, at least to the extent that would be requisite.

Excuse the length of this screed. I thought it necessary to explain fully so as to avoid giving you the impression that I declined

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your request from any affectation or reality of spiritual aloofness or wish to shirk the call of the country or want of sympathy with the work you and others are so admirably doing. I repeat my regret that I am compelled to disappoint you.

Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose

You see the firmness, the clear perception and conception of what He wants to do, what is in His mind. And He is not going to budge before He has got that. [Reading some lines from the letter again]:

Next in the matter of the work itself, I do not at all look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal or contempt or disgust of secular things. There is to me nothing secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life.

That is why He says all life is yoga: all human activity is included in a complete spiritual life.

What preoccupies me now is the question of what it [the country] is going to do with its self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to determine its future ?

That was the question which preoccupied Him in 1920. He knew that India would be free; perhaps you have heard Mother's prophecy, Mother's vision. She saw India as free and it took about thirty-two years to be materialized on the physical plane. So in 1920, He knew that India would be free, but what would she do with that freedom? What India is doing now with her freedom, all of us know. So you see, even at that time, He was thinking along this line; it was not that He was thinking only of the Supermind. He said He was helping India in His own way.

Let me see now... I remember, here it is. I wrote to Him in 1935:

It is rather depressing to hear about the atrocities committed by some Mohammedans on Hindu families in Bengal...

That was in 1935. All these Hindu-Muslim riots were going on at

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that time. So we were rather depressed, though we had very little to do with Bengal or Gujarat or anything else. But we couldn't help being a little provincial, even at that time. So I said it. [Reading from Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo (1955), 323-325]:

With the corning of Independence, I hope, such things will stop. Now I would like to ask you something. In your scheme of things, do you definitely see a free India ? You have stated that, for the spreading of spirituality in the world, India must be free. I suppose you must be working for it! You are the only one who can do something really effective by the use of your spiritual Force.

Then Sri Aurobindo wrote back:

That is all settled. It is a question of working out only. The question is what is India going to do with her independence ? The above kind of affair? Bolshevism? Goonda-raj?¹¹⁸ Things look ominous.

So even at that time, He had this fear. Well, that was on September 16, 1935. Receiving the reply, I wrote back after two days, on September 18,1935. After writing a number of illogical things, I wrote:

Please don't think of what India is going to do with her independence. Give her that first, and then let her decide her fate for herself. Independence anyhow - your Supermind will do the rest.

Now He flew into a temper (Laughter) and wrote:

You are a most irrational creature. I have been trying to logicise and intellectualise you, but it seems in vain.

I don't know how it is in vain. He had only written three or four letters to me until then, and He gives up hope! Sri Aurobindo continued:

Have I not told you that the independence is all arranged for and will evolve itself all right ? Then what's the use of my bothering about that any longer? It's what she will do with her independence that is not arranged for - and so it is that about which I have to bother. To drag in the Supermind by the tail here is perfectly irrelevant. We have been talking all the time on an altogether infra-supramental basis - down down low in the intellect with an occasional illumined intuitive or overmental flash here and there.¹¹⁹ Be faithful to the medium, if

118Literally, the rule of thugs, in Hindi.

119These are the spiritual planes above the level of mind or pure reason. They are arranged

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you please. If you do not become perfectly and luminously logical and rational, how can you hope to become a candidate for the next higher stage even? Be a little practical and sensible.

So there you are. How much He was working on it, you see, and what a strong dose I got. (Laughter)

We are still not out of the woods, as we say in English. On the home front, India is passing through, as I told you the other day, very interesting developments which are taking place with our Indira Gandhi at the helm of affairs. If I start talking politics, we shall be going off at a tangent! So I continue now with the letter to Baptista:

You may ask why not come out and help ...

A very logical question!

_ myself, so far as I can in giving a lead? But my mind has a habit of running inconveniently ahead of the times, some might say, out of time altogether into the world of the ideal... and I am not altogether in love with the European kind, however great an improvement it may be on the past. I hold that India having a spirit of her own and a governing temperament proper to her own civilization, should in politics as in everything else strike out her own original path and not stumble in the wake of Europe.

I suppose you know very well how we have been copying the European model of democracy. We have a parliament which we call the Lok Sabha. We give the name Lok Sabha, but who are these 'Lok' or people?

Even if I were, it would mean for some time ploughing my lonely furrow or at least freedom to take my own way.

During our time with Sri Aurobindo, we asked Him many questions.

in an ascending order: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, Overmind, and the Supermind. Briefly, the Higher Mind is the plane where the mind has fallen silent or thoughts are seen to be occurring on the surface. In the Illumined Mind, thought is replaced by sight and light. In the Intuitive Mind, knowledge is no longer by thought or sight, but by complere identity with the object of knowledge. The Overmind is the plane just below the Supermind, which is the first plane where the One starts to become the many, where one sees the unity of all things but also the divergence of all possibilities. The Supermind is the plane of Gnosis where there is no ignorance - there is only the immutable Oneness of all creation.

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You know very well, perhaps, that He had been invited more than once to take over the Presidency of the Congress. This was even during Mahatma Gandhi's time. His reply was a 'No'. We told him, "If you go there, people will follow you, take your lead." Then He said, "I am not so sure that they will follow me, you people will follow me because I am your Guru, but who there will accept me as their Guru?" Here ends His letter to Baptista:

As the editor of your paper, I shall be bound to voice the opinion of others and reserve my own... I repeat my regret that I am compelled to disappoint you.

Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose

Yes, that reminds me of something else. There was a proposal that the government should be administered by a collective body of rishis. Sri Aurobindo remarked, "Yes, the rishis are all right, but as soon as they start governing the country, they will start quarrelling like Kilkenny cats!"

Now I will end this session with another of His letters, rather a long one. This is written to Barin. You know Barin was His younger brother, and he was sent to the Andamans for life imprisonment, but due to the King's Armistice,¹²⁰ he was released in 1920. He wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo replied in Bengali. The letter is known as 'Pondicherrir Paira'.¹²¹ Barin asked Him several questions, stating some of his views. Here is Sri Aurobindo's reply [Reading from Life of Sri Aurobindo by A. B. Purani (1960), 198]:

... After these fifteen years, I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that God will through me give Siddhi of the Supermind to others with less difficulty.

Absolutely correct. That is why all the time we used to pester Him: when will your Supermind come down? When will your Supermind

120Refer footnote number 23 above.

121Lerter of Pondicherry, in Bengali.

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come down? Not that we wanted to be Supramentalised all at once. And He prophesied that for those who would come afterwards also, that is, all of you, things will be much easier and you can see that. We have undergone many ordeals and trials and experiences for your sake, ladies and gentlemen; on our backs we have taken many whippings so that you may be happy, you may enjoy the fruit. Anyhow, that is a message of great hope; whether you reach the Supermind or not doesn't matter, but some spiritual result you are sure to get.

Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time. I am not disposed to run wildly and leap into the field of work in the strength of my little ego. If even I did not get success in my work, I would not be shaken. This work is not mine, but God's. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me, then I will move.

He wrote to Dilip in another letter:

Even if I know that I will fail, I'll not stop doing my work till the last breath - but I won't fail.

(Laughter)

So, I don't work for success. It's God's will that I am doing.

Well, it is a long letter, ladies and gentlemen - shall we take it up another day? What do you say?