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(hearing laughter): What is the matter?
NIRODBARAN: Purani and Champaklal are laughing together.
SRI AUROBINDO:: That is their usual business.
CHAMPAKLAL: Purani has hurt his big toe again.
PURANI: A plank fell on it.
SRI AUROBINDO: You are always knocking or pushing it over. (Laughter)
At this moment, Nirodbaran, by inattention,, happened to spill some water from a bowl.
SRI AUROBINDO(laughing): What's the matter now? You are doing the same thing as Purani along your line.
NIRODBARAN(as Sri Aurobindo started reclining): In the New Statesman a reviewer quotes a line of Turner's poetry as an example of "careless and lazy inversion". The line is:
When the last tune is played and void the hall.
SRI AUROBINDO: The inversion is rather deliberate. It's there for the sake of emphasis.
NIRODBARAN: I don't understand why the reviewer calls it "careless".
SRI AUROBINDO: It's certainly not careless. If he doesn't like it, he can say so, but he can't attribute it to carelessness. Who is the reviewer?
NIRODBARAN: He is another poet, Richard Church.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, these are all fads of different poets!
NIRODBARAN: In the review Church says that Yeats was very enthusiastic over Turner's poetry. In his adventure through modern poetry he has made a discovery, Yeats says.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, in rhymed verse Turner writes very well at times. But his prose-poetry comes to nothing.
NIRODBARAN: Turner seems to be a worshipper of "silence".
SRI AUROBINDO: Not quite, because he is a music critic!
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