Sri Aurobindo : conversations
Talks with Sri Aurobindo is a thousand-page record of Sri Aurobindo's conversations with the disciples who attended to him during the last twelve years of his life. The talks are informal and open-ended, for the attendants were free to ask whatever questions came to mind. Sri Aurobindo speaks of his own life and work, of the Mother and the Ashram, of his path of Yoga and other paths, of India's social, cultural and spiritual life, of the country's struggle for political independence, of Hitler and the Second World War, of modern science, art and poetry, and of many other things that arose in the course of conversation. Serious discussion is balanced with light-hearted banter and humour. By recording these human touches, Nirodbaran has brought out the warm and intimate atmosphere of the talks.
THEME/S
SRI AUROBINDO(apropos of an article by a devotee named Buddhadev): I have never heard that Shakespeare was popular among the peasants. His popularity was due to his power of speech. Everything he said was said with force and energy and that appealed to the people. But he is not so successful in his sonnets. His dramas alone have that quality. Shelley has that gift only in rare places. Wordsworth also, and those are the things that become popular but not with the peasants. Shakespeare easy? And he was enjoyed by all? That is news.
It is true that dhvani (rhythmic suggestion) is an important element of poetry but it is not everything. There must be something that appeals to the mind, man being mental.
Poetry to be popular must be good poetry.
2 "Video meliora probocque, deteriora sequor."
3 "...the outer nature may become the field of an apparent incoherence although all within is luminous with the Self. Thus we become outwardly inert and inactive, moved by circumstance or forces but not self-mobile (jadavat), even though the consciousness is enlightened within, or as a child (balavat) though within is a plenary self-knowledge, or as one inconsequent in thought and impulse (unmattavat) though within is an utter calm and serenity, or as the wild and disordered soul (pishachavat) though inwardly there is the purity and poise of the Spirit." - Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine.
4 This Brahmananda should be distinguished from Brahmananda of Chandod,
5 ''I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha."
6 "Old man, old woman, the two together."
7 The following comments on Lajpat Rai are based on A. B. Purani's record of this talk.
8 World-repulsion arising from the Guna (quality) of Tamas (ignorance and inertia) in one's nature: the two other Gunas are Rajas (dynamism) and Sattwa (refinement and poise).
9 Sri Aurobindo's reference is to the sentence in Canto III of Inferno, occurring among the words seen by Dante written on the gate of hell. Dorothy Sayers renders the sentence:
Justice moved my Great Maker; God Eternal Wrought me: the Power, and the unsearchably High Wisdom, and the Primal Love Supernal.
The attributes of the Trinity are mentioned here. Charles Williams in the Figure of Beatrice, comments thus: "If there is God, if there is free-will, then man is able to choose the opposite of God. Power, Wisdom, Love, gave man free-will: therefore Power, Wisdom, Love, created the gate of hell and the possibility of hell." But Sri Aurobindo's point about the eternity of hell is not answered. That in the divine dispensation hell should be possible or actual is one thing: but it is quite another that the hell-gate in Dante should read:
Through me the road to everlasting woe, and Abandon hope, all ye that enter here.
How can the Supreme Power, Wisdom and Love condemn a soul to ever lasting woe and an utter abandonment of hope to get out of hell?
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