Talks with Sri Aurobindo

17 APRIL 1940

PURANI: The French army seems to have landed in Norway.

SRI AUROBINDO: The French army also?

PURANI: Yes. Narvik is said to be in Allied hands.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nobody knows what is happening there. Have the officials said that?

PURANI: No, not the officials. They say that the situation is quite clear now.

SRI AUROBINDO(shaking his head and smiling): It is not at all clear. It may be clear to Chamberlain but not to us.

SATYENDRA: Chamberlain is doubly convinced that the Allies are going to win.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, now he finds that right is on their side. He had suspected perhaps that God was not on his side. (Laughter)

PURANI: The Allies have laid extensive mine-fields. Hitler has not much chance of success in Norway.

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know what made him take this step.

PURANI: His inner voice, perhaps.

SRI AUROBINDO: His inner voice must have been wild then.

NIRODBARAN: Is there any chance of his attacking the Balkans?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, when he gets wild he can do anything.

NIRODBARAN: But that would be very hazardous. He would have to lose his head to do that.

SRI AUROBINDO: He has already lost it. The Allies are waiting for him to fall into that trap. They want nothing better.

PURANI: Italy seems to be intending to take sides.

SRI AUROBINDO: With whom? She says she won't allow her-self to be found like Norway.

PURANI: She may join the Germans.

SRI AUROBINDO: She can do anything. Today she will declare you her friend and tomorrow join your enemy. But if she intends to join Hitler, she should have done that at the beginning when the Allies were unprepared. Now if she joins she will have to keep her control of the Mediterranean or she will be put into a worse position than Germany. And in the navy the English and French will be stronger than Mussolini. Moreover the Italians are not good fighters; they will open themselves to attack by land. In Abyssinia they did not achieve any great success. Only after using mustard gas could they get victory. On the other hand, if they joined the Allies, they could confirm their position, though Mussolini would have to give up his idea of a Roman empire.

PURANI: Here is a letter from Sundaram on his meeting with H, who tried to explain why he went away from here. He could not understand why the Mother granted an interview to the mill owner Hukumchand who had had a monkey-gland operation, while she refused to see several poor people. The Mother replied that he should not think by the mind and judge her motives like that. On another occasion there was some dispute about a servant. That time, he said, you replied that according to French law a master has rights over a servant.

SRI AUROBINDO: I never said that and it is not true. In French law the servant has as many rights as his master.

PURANI: Then H spoke of consciousness in the heart and the force, the tranquillity, he gained here.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why does he object to the monkey-gland operation?

PURANI: He objects to the Mother seeing rich men and refusing poor men.

SRI AUROBINDO: But the Mother has refused to see rich men also. That is why she asked him not to think or reason by the mind.

PURANI: Why doesn't he say plainly that he left the Ashram because he found the path difficult, instead of trying to justify himself? He also says that you made so many interpretations of his poems that a book could be made out of them.

SRI AUROBINDO: Interpretations? I simply Said "Very beautiful" and so on.