Talks by Nirodbaran

9 July 1969

Well, I hope you young people have got over the shock that I gave you the other day,⁷⁵ but it seems to me that you have enjoyed the shock. I take it that you are not so much shocked over the expression as by my utterance of it. You didn't expect it perhaps from my mouth, thinking me to be a 'goody-goody' fellow. Perhaps you

74Grandmother.

75He is referring to his usage of the word 'sala, which is a rude word in Hindi.

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did not expect me to use such unparliamentary language. Anyhow, shocks, they say, don't shock any more - we get them so often these days. Besides, Mother and Sri Aurobindo have said, sometimes knocks and shocks are good for the soul, aren't they? I think you have plenty of occasions to get some shocks here, so let us be ready to receive them and to give them back.

Now remember, we read that poem on Sri Krishna. To one particular line, I drew your attention: "And by their silence men adore the lovely silence where He dwells." I hope some of you at least remember this magnificent line, and 1 would suggest to you that you repeat, in your leisure time, some such lines from Sri Aurobindo and the other great poets, as an incantation, a chanting. Poetry, according to many people including Sri Aurobindo, has a very high place in our life. First of all, it gives us delight; secondly, it brings beauty into our life. Well, you can say, so does music, so does painting. I dare say they do; so does dancing. But you can't dance in the streets, neither can you sing; if you did recite poetry though, it would be all right. And certainly when you are alone, you can recite: you can chant these magnificent, beautiful lines as you go along. For instance, this line, and some lines of Sri Aurobindo, which have a great mantric power; they will help you a lot. From time to time if we find some space here, we shall give you some lines. I would suggest that some of you bring, from anywhere in the vast field of poetry, some similar specimens of poetry in English or French or even German. Now you have all become linguists. I'm sure the best lines of all English and international poetry should be on your lips. You'll see, some of you at least, how inspiring these lines are, how they pour into us, into our consciousness, some ennobling beauty, by a simple incantation, by a recitation of these mantric lines. I do recite them now and then, and I find that they do have great power.

Now, I wanted to say something or read out to you something about prayer. You remember the magnificent prayer of Lady Gracy. Here is one prayer some of our students may know; as a matter of fact, I borrowed it from them. I'm going to share it with you. It is a prayer

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by Charles Lamb. I don't know if you young people have heard of Charles Lamb. He is supposed to be one of the best English essayists, a prince of essayists, both for his style and personality. Well, in French they say: "Le style c'est I'homme même"⁷⁶ - Lamb was a wonderful man who consecrated or sacrificed all his life for the sake of his sister who was on the verge of insanity. Some of you must have heard about Charles Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare. As a matter of fact, it was both the brother and the sister who had edited it. Here is the prayer: it is not exactly a prayer, he's writing to a friend of his in this vein. This friend had complained about some of his troubles and this is Lamb's answer:⁷⁷

Robert, friends fall off, friends mistake us, they change, they grow unlike us, they go away, they die; but God is everlasting and incapable of change, and to Him we may look with cheerful, unpresumpruous hope, while we discharge the duties of life in situations more untowardly than yours. You complain of the impossibility of improving yourself, but be assured that opportunity of improvement lies more in the mind than the situation. Humble yourself before God, cast out the selfish principle, wait, in patience, do good in every way you can to all sorts of people, never be easy to neglect a duty tho' a small one. Praise God for all, and see His hand in all things, and He will in time raise you up many friends or be Himself instead an unchanging friend. God bless you.

The thing has come, as all of you can easily see, from the very core of his heart, and prayer does come from the heart. Isn't it in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" that Samuel Taylor Coleridge says:⁷⁸

Farewell, farewell! But this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well, Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small;

76"The style is the man himself?' from Discour sur le style (Discourse on Style) by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, spoken before the French Academy on 25 August 1753.

77Letter to Robert Lloyd (October 1798), The Poetry and Prose of Coleridge, Lamb and Leigh Hunt (The Christ's Hospital Anthology, 1920), 150.

78Lyrical Ballads (1798).

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For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

I'm sure all of you young children do pray, and all your prayers do certainly spring from your heart. I remember such a prayer from the sweet lips of a child somewhere in one of Galsworthy's novels. I read it long, long ago. A very small scene, but it is very strange how some things stick in your mind and many others you forget. The scene was like this: there was a child about four or five years old, and his mother was teaching a prayer to the child; the child was kneeling down and the mother standing by the side of the child, making him repeat the prayer. At one stage, the child fell into a half-sleep, and then in that half-sleep he was muttering the prayer. The prayer was something like this - at first, he started with the Lord, then in his half-sleep, he muttered, "Mummy, give us our daily bread." So God became Mummy! How sweet, I was so touched by it.

Well, that again brings back my own memory of when I was a child of that age. I hope you won't mind, ladies and gentlemen, a little autobiographical touch - I had started with the idea of telling the Guru's life, but the disciple comes into the story very often (Laughter) and drives Him out. If you're interested, yes ? Well, I was about eight or nine. My mother used to take me and my younger sister to the temple in the evening. My mother suddenly took a religious turn because she had lost her second son; I was the eldest. She was very fond of that son, not so fond of me. My father, on the other hand, was fond of me. So parents divide their affections, you know. My brother was very handsome, very spirited, very frank and straightforward, and very affectionate; he would make friends with everybody, young folks and old. So such a soul, as everybody thought and feared, could not live long, and he did pass away when he was six or seven years old. That's a sad story; well, as I said before, there is "a touch of tears in mortal things."

Anyhow, so all her fondness and love and affection fell upon me, as she feared that I also could be lost. She thought of perhaps insuring my life with the Divine, and began to take us to the temple in the evening.

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This temple, I still remember, and I don't think I'll ever forget it, was on the top of a hillock, in the village. From the top of the hillock you could see a vast view, a panorama of a landscape as far as the eyes could see. On the horizon were the eastern hills that form the eastern border of India, and on both sides of the temple were two ashwatha⁷⁹ trees, stalwart, tall, as if they were the guardian angels of the temple, murmuring all the time, especially in the afternoon, when the wind-gods passed by. (I hope I'm not boring you with my descriptions?)

In the temple itself, there was a huge statue. The temple was not made of cement but of clay; there was a huge statue of the Buddha, in a sitting postuve, padmasana, his hand outstretched, giving protection and blessings - that is the conventional pose, as you know - and his robe falling in folds. The hand was tinged with a lotus-red colour. The face had a beautiful, 'beatific' smile of calmness, as Sri Aurobindo says, and the bliss of Nirvana. Something of that sort I used to feel; now I don't know what I'll feel like if I see that statue. On both sides of the Buddha, there were other gods and goddesses in prayer and supplication. Indra, Sati, Parvati - all these gods. Before him, on a sort of a wooden bench, candles were kept burning every day, particularly on festival days. On each amavasya and purnima,⁸⁰ hundreds of candles would burn there, flickering, dancing, and illuminating the face of Buddha, and Buddha's face reflecting back and illuminating the whole hall, something like the philosophy of Samkhya Purusha and Koti Prakriti.⁸¹ Well, in the evenings then, my mother used to take us to the temple; we used to kneel down and she would recite many mantras she had committed to memory, and, parrot-like, we would repeat them. Then, at the end of the prayer, she would make us recite, along with her:

O Lord Buddha, whatever 'punya karma I've done, good deeds

79An Indian tree, very large and wide-spreading.

80Amavasya means new moon and purnima means full moon.

81The two ultimate principles of existence are Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha is Soul or pure Consciousness, silent, immobile, witness, and inactive. Ptakriti is Nature, of body, life, and mind. It is mechanical, unconscious energy and power. Purusha does not act, but reflects the movements of Prakriti.

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I've done, I distribute those good deeds, those results to everybody. Let all beings be happy, let all the gods partake of my good deeds and in return bless me.

This was the kind of prayer that she used to say and we also used to utter, very often. Now when I look back and think over it, I feel somewhat amused. At the age of eight or nine, what good deeds had I done ? Where is the fruit of those good deeds, the punya phal of giving to other people ? But that doesn't matter, a prayer is a prayer. I don't know what good deeds I've done, and whether as a result of good deeds, I have come over here. But my mother didn't know what seeds she was sowing. Either as a result of this religious tendency or for whatever reason, God alone knows, she was not prepared for my leaving her. If she had known that my coming to the Ashram would be the result of her devotion in my early childhood, I don't think she would have taken that turn at all. Now, when I grew up, my mother became worldly, and then I too became a materialist. All sense of prayer had gone, and when I became a doctor, prayer would not come to me at all.

A few years ago, one day, the Mother accosted me here. (There are some flowers, you know, which She has named 'Prayer'.) So there were some 'Prayer' flowers with Her. We used to go to the Mother for pranam and She used to give us flowers; she always had a few flowers in Her hands. She said that day, "You don't pray, I suppose." Then I said, "Mother, very rarely. Very rarely, I pray, Mother." Then she took a few flowers, four or six, I think, and she said, "Here are some flowers. Pray for whatever you want and you will have it." I prayed; I am waiting! (Laughter) I am still waiting! These boons, these oracles, you know, they don't consider this mortal lifespan of ours as the most important, and realization can spill over to future lives. Prayer can be fulfilled in the eternity of Time. But I am here on earth, an earthly fellow; I would like to have it in this very life. Well, let's see. At another time, She said, "Don't ask me for material things, ask me only for spiritual things." I laughed, and thought to myself, "Mother, have I left all material things behind in order to ask them again from you?"

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But that is Her way.

Sri Aurobindo said everyone will arrive at the Divine. Amal Kiran once asked the Mother if he would realise God in this life. The Mother replied that he would, unless he did something idiotic and cut short his life. It was very prophetic. For that is just what he almost did, you see, and I'm going to tell you how. Some of you, perhaps, know the story. I think it is no secret or, at least, it's an open secret. Amal is supposed to be our ... what shall I say ... our poet, our archaeologist, our scientist, and he had many other feathers in his cap, like being the editor of Mother India.⁸² I shall tell you what he did to almost cut short his life. He had gone over to Bombay from here, for a short while. He wrote to Sri Aurobindo in 1938, towards the end of July⁸³:

I am all agog...

Agog' is a very colloquial expression, some of you may be conversant with it.

... to know whether I should pack up for Pondicherry.

He was thinking of coming back.

Should I come away with my heart still below normal by medical standards ?

He had not completely recovered; his heart was still below normal.

I surely can't expect it to catch up with normalcy so soon after that mistake of mine with the tonic stimulant powder given me by a friend.

He had been ill, so his doctor-friend had given him some stimulant-powder, because his heart was weak. As a matter of fact, if I remember right, he had gone to see a boxing match, where he became very excited and his heart irregular. Perhaps that is the reason, I don't know of any other reason. So he found his doctor-friend who gave him some stimulant.

You know that owing to an error in [following] instructions, instead

82A monthly magazine about Indian culture, based on Sri Aurobindo's teachings, which has been in existence for more than sixty years. Its founder-editor is Amal Kiran.

83Amal Kiran, Life-Literature-Yoga, 41-42.

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of taking the normal dose (1 /12 of a grain), ...

I don't know whether you have an idea of what a grain is; nowadays one talks in terms of milligrams, is it not? So that was the dose.

... I swallowed more than 4 grains, which means about 50 times the normal dose, over 4 times the dose a horse might be given and neatly 25 times the dose at which the drug begins to be sheer poison for human beings. Unfortunately I gathered these figures after the event. I also remained without medical aid for 45 minutes!

How did he survive, God knows! Twenty-five times stronger than the poisonous dose!

And it is a very strong dose. In my awful condition, I only kept calling to the Mother and you. Of course I am again up and doing, and can't take this setback very seriously, though I have a semi-collapse now and then, and the medicos say I need regular attention and should not exert myself. The Mother and you get me out of all scrapes.

I suppose you know that. That is what they are for: to get us into scrapes and to rescue us.

The sweet grace of you both has been unfailing. And I don't think I am much frightened by theoretical possibilities of death. Will my undertaking to come away do me any harm? This is a year in which, I believe, the truth-consciousness may make up its mind, or rather its Supermind, to descend.

In 1938, there was talk about it, so we thought that now, now that it will descend, we must be in the Ashram. By the way, that reminds me, there was talk during Sri Aurobindo's time, a rumour that the Supermind will be descending here - in the playground (Laughter), so we reported it to Sri Aurobindo, "There is a strong rumour that the Supermind will descend in the playground." Sri Aurobindo, as was His habit, said with a smile that was almost a non-smile, "I shall miss it!" (Laughter)

I was expecting a wire from the Mother in May;

Mother had told Amal before he went to Bombay that She would let him know about the descent of the Supermind! He had extracted a

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promise from the Mother - he knows how to do all that.

It's almost the end of July now - but the year is not yet out, and August 15⁸⁴ is pretty close. Won't I be losing something great if I don't throw all caution to the winds ?

Sri Aurobindo replied (I hope you'll understand His humour. One thing I find, I appreciate one thing in you all - that you've grown into a sense of humour. Thanks to us!):

You must on no account return here before your heart has recovered. No doubt, death must not be feared, but neither should death or permanent ill-health be invited. Here, especially now when all the competent doctors have gone away or been sent to a distance from Pondicherry, there would be no proper facilities for the treatment you still need, while you have them all there. You should remember the Mother's warning to you when she said that you would have the realisation in this life provided you did not do something silly so as to shorten your life. That 'something silly' you tried your best to do...

(Laughter)

... when you swallowed with a cheerful liberality a poison-medicine without taking the least care to ascertain what was the maximum dose. You have escaped by a sort of miracle, but with a shaken heart. To risk making that shaky condition of the heart a permanent disability of the body, rendering it incapable of resisting any severe physical attack or shock in the future, would be another 'something silly' of the same quality. So it's on no account to be done.

You need not be afraid of losing anything great by postponing your teturn to Pondicherry. A general descent of the kind you speak of is not in view at the moment and, even if it comes, it can very easily catch you up into itself whenever you come, if you are in the right openness; (other [than] a dog or a cat, all can) and if you are not, then even its descending would not be of so urgent an importance, since it would take you some time to become aware of it or receive it. So there is no reason why you should not in this matter cleave to common sense and the sage advice of the doctors.

There is no irony there! So this is apropos of his miraculous escape after swallowing twenty-five times the recommended dose - a miracle

84 Sri Aurobindo's birthday.

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of some sort, you can see, and the wonderful part of it is that, during that time of his ill-health, Amal used to go into a sort of a trance, and in that trance, he used to compose poems: poem after poem, poem after poem, that have come out in the name of The Adventure of the Apocalypse - a wonderful collection of poems which he could not have written in his waking consciousness. Some of these poems I think I'll read out to you later.

So there, ladies and gentlemen, there again, a phenomenon: in trance, in samadhi, you can say things, you can write things which in your normal state of consciousness you can never do. The phenomenon or the way on which this is based is obvious - because our normal waking consciousness goes to sleep and makes it easy for the higher consciousness to act in us, to pour things into us, and we become nothing but passive instruments for the downpour from the superior consciousness. That is one of the ways in which we get it. The other way: when we are conscious, it is only by virtue of the silence of the mind that things come. That is why so much insistence is laid on the silencing of the mind. Then, as it happened in Sri Aurobindo's case, things came down from above. Sri Aurobindo, as I have told you again and again, with respect to Arya⁸⁵ and other things, wrote from complete silence of the mind, and as He said, not only through silence of the mind. The words came to His fingertips as He was typing, straight down, not even through the mind. So such things are possible.

Now to go back to something here (Srinvantu dated 24 April 1969) -I don't know, I think I have read most of the things written by Mother here. "From Japan" -I found it very beautiful indeed, so if you allow me, I would like to read the last article by the Mother on Japan. Many of you know about it, have seen in your films, have heard the talk from the Mother, about how She spent quite a number of years there and became very fond of the country. I don't know whether She will be so fond of it today, because Japan has undergone much change.

85 A monthly journal of philosophy and spirituality, edited single-handedly by Sri Aurobindo from 1914 to 1920, in which all his major works were published serially.

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[Reading from Srinvantu, 64-66⁸⁶]:

The art of Japan is a kind of directly mental expression in physical life. The Japanese use the vital world very little. Their art is extremely mentalised; their life is extremely mentalised. It expresses in detail quite precise mental formations. Only in the physical, they have spontaneously the sense of beauty. For example, a thing one sees very rarely in Europe but constantly, daily in Japan: very simple people, men of the working-class or even peasants go for rest or enjoyment to a place where they can see a beautiful landscape. This gives them a much greater joy than going to play cards or indulging in all sorts of distractions as they do in the countries of Europe. They are seen in groups at times, going on the roads or sometimes taking a train or a tram up to a certain point, then walking to a place from where one gets a beautiful view. Then, at this place, there is a small house which fits very well into the landscape, there is a kind of small platform on which one can sit; one takes a cup of tea and at the same time sees the landscape. For them, this is the supreme enjoyment; they know nothing more pleasant. One can understand this among artists, educated people, quite learned people, but I am speaking of people of the most ordinary class, poor people who like this better than resting or relaxing at home. This is for them the greatest joy.

And in that country, for each season there are known sites. For instance, in autumn leaves become red; they have large numbers of maple-trees (the leaves of the maple turn into all the shades of the most vivid red, in autumn, it is absolutely marvellous), so they arrange a place near a temple, for instance, on the top of a hill, and the entire hill is covered with maples. There is a stair-way which climbs straight up, almost like a ladder, from the base to the top, and it is so steep that one cannot see what is at the top, one gets the feeling of a ladder rising to the skies—a stone stairway, very well made, rising steeply and seeming to lose itself in the sky—clouds pass, and both the sides of the hill are covered with maples, and these maples have the most magnificent colours you could ever imagine. Well, an artist who goes there will experience an emotion of absolutely exceptional, marvelous beauty. But one sees very small children, families even, with a baby on the shoulder, going there in groups. In autumn they go there. In springtime they go elsewhere.

There is a garden quite close to Tokyo where irises are grown. A garden with very tiny rivulets, and along the rivulets, irises—irises

86 Reprinted later in Collected Works of the Mother [CWM], 1984, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, 4:306.

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of all possible colours—and it is arranged according to colour, organized in such a way that on entering one is dazzled, there is a blaze of colour from all these flowers standing upright; and there are heaps and heaps of them, as far as the eye can reach. At another time, just at the beginning of spring (it is slightly early spring there), there are the first cherry-trees. These cherry-trees never give fruit, they are grown only for the flowers. They range from white to pink, to a rathet vivid pink. There are long avenues all bordered with cherry-trees, all pink; they are huge trees which have turned all pink. There are entire mountains covered with these cherry-trees, and on the little rivulets bridges have been built which too are all red: you sense these bridges of red lacquer among all these pink flowers and, below, a great river flowing and a mountain which seems to scale the sky, and they go to this place in springtime ... For each season there are flowers and for each flower there are gardens.

And people travel by train as easily as one goes from house to house; they have a small packet like this which they carry; in it they have clothes to change, that's quite enough for them; they wear on the feet rope or fibre sandals; when they get worn out they throw them away and take others, for it costs nothing at all. All their life is like that. They have paper handkerchiefs, when they have used them they get rid of them, and so on—they don't burden themselves with anything. When they go by train, at the stations small meals are sold in boxes (it is quite clean, quite neat), small meals in boxes of white wood with little chop-sticks for eating; then, as all this has no value, when one is finished, one puts them aside, doesn't bother about them or encumber oneself. They live like that. When they have a garden or a park, they plant trees, and they plant them just at the place where, when the tree has grown, it will create a landscape, will fit into a landscape. And as they want the tree to have a particular shape, they trim it, cut it, they manage to give it all the shapes they want. You have trees with fantastic forms; they have cut off the unnecessary branches, fostered others, contrived things as they liked. Then you come to a place and you see a house which seems to be altogether a part of landscape; it has exactly the right colour, it is made of the right materials; it is not like a blow in your face, as are all those European buildings which spoil the whole landscape.

It is just there where it should be hidden under the trees; then you see a creeper and suddenly a wonderful tree: it is there at the right place, it has the right form. I had everything to learn in Japan. For four years, from an artistic point of view, I lived from wonder

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to wonder.

And in the cities, a city like Tokyo, for example, which is the biggest city in the world, bigger than London, and which extends far, far (now the houses are modernized, the whole centre of the city is very unpleasant, but when I was there, it was still good). In the outlying parts of the city, those which are not business quarcers, every house has at the most two stories and a garden; there is always a garden, there are always one or two trees which are quite lovely. And then, if you go for a walk, it is very difficult to find your way in Tokyo; there are no straight streets with houses on either side according to the number, and you lose your way easily. Then you go wandering around - always one wanders at random in that country - you go wandering and, all of a sudden, you turn the corner of a street and come to a kind of paradise: there are magnificent trees, a temple as beautiful as everything else, you see nothing of the city any longer, no more traffic, no tramways; a corner, a corner of trees with magnificent colours, and it is beautiful, beautiful like everything else. You do not know how you have reached there, you seem to have come by luck. And then you turn, you seek your way, you wander off again and go elsewhere. And some days later, you want to come back to this very place, but it is impossible, it is as though it had disappeared. And this is so frequent, this is so true that such stories are often told in Japan. Their literature is full of fairylore. They tell you a story in which the hero comes suddenly to an enchanted place: he sees fairies, he sees marvelous beings, he spends exquisite hours among flowers, music; all is splendid. The next day he is obliged to leave, it is the law of the place, he goes away. He tries to come back, but never does. He can no longer find the place: it was there, it has disappeared. And everything in this city, in this country, from beginning to end, gives you the impression of impermanence, of the unexpected, the exceptional. You always come to things you did not expect; you want to find them again and they are lost. They have made something else which is equally charming. From the artistic point of view, the point of view of beauty, I don't think there is a country as beautiful as that.

There you are. All this is authentically true. This is the Japanese life on one side, now compare it with ours.

***

Spiritual experience develops one's subtle sights and sounds. One

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sees visions and hears voices that may seem authentic, but they may often be quite false and misleading. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo wrote letters to the sadhaks at the Ashram, saying, "Don't listen to the voices, listen to what we write to you." But still, the sadhaks cling to the voices. They're so possessed by the voice they hear, they stick to it and take it as the truth. If you have pride, vanity, desire, you are done for. If you don't have them, it's all right, but if you keep them, other forces come.

The Guru writes to a sadhak, "Don't listen to these voices." Still he doesn't believe the Guru, he believes them. Hitler had no Guru to tell him not to listen to those voices. Those who are sincere can discriminate between the true and the false; otherwise, the glamour, the maya⁸⁷ can delude them. All these are often the results of some insincerity in the being.