Talks with Sri Aurobindo

17 DECEMBER 1939

Satyendra drew Nirodbaran 's attention to a single thin thread hung by a spider from the ceiling. Nirodbaran was reminded of a story in the New Statesman and Nation of a spider listening to Paderewsky's music. Sri Aurobindo was asked whether he had read it.

SRI AUROBINDO: No, what is it?

NIRODBARAN: Paderewsky says that while he was playing a particular tune a spider came down from the ceiling and sat on the piano-board. But when he began playing another tune the spider at once went up to the ceiling. This struck him as rather curious and to see if the spider was really appreciating a particular tune he played again the previous one. To his surprise, down came the spider and it listened right to the end.

SRI AUROBINDO: Did Paderewsky play the other tune again or anything else to see whether the spider climbed back up once more?

NIRODBARAN: No.

SRI AUROBINDO: Then Paderewsky is not a scientist.

SATYENDRA: In India they say snakes are attracted by the flute. But scientists say snakes have no ears.

SRI AUROBINDO: Scientists say all sorts of things.

NIRODBARAN: The Greeks also used to say that animals are attracted by music.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is a universal belief.

SATYENDRA: Snake-charmers in India have a particular kind of instrument common among them and it produces a uniform tune which seems to appeal to snakes. They catch the snakes by playing that tune.

SRI AUROBINDO: If that story of the spider is true, it means that different animals are sensitive to different kinds of music. To snakes, perhaps Beethoven's sonatas would have no appeal, while this music of the snake-charmers appeals to them, perhaps because of its being current in Nagaloka!

There was a reference to the naval battle between the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee and some British cruisers. Reinforcements to both sides had been reported.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, now the British Ark Royal, which has been sunk several times by the Germans according to their own reports, is going there from Cape Town. This fight shows that at sea the English are superior to the Germans. They fought with six-inch guns against the Germans' eleven-inch guns. The Germans ought to have sunk at least two cruisers.

PURANI: Especially when they say these pocket-battleships are very light, more powerful and technically perfect.

SRI AUROBINDO: It means then that the training is deficient and that the fighters couldn't make use of the superior power of their ship. The Germans were outmanoeuvred.

SATYENDRA: The English are in their element at sea.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is in their blood. That means that, besides training, there is something in heredity which one can't acquire by training.

NIRODBARAN: Naval warfare is very thrilling.

SATYENDRA: Yes, from a distance.

SRI AUROBINDO: Much more thrilling when one reads of it in newspapers!

Purani was busy helping Sri Aurobindo with quotations from the Veda, etc. for The Life Divine chapter-epigraphs. He came with big volumes of Sayana and others.

SRI AUROBINDO: Sayana, in spite of his many mistakes, is very useful-though it is like going to ignorance for knowledge.

NIRODBARAN: Purani, with his glasses hanging on the tip of his nose and fat volumes under his arm, looks like Sayana, doesn't he?

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, Sayana come back to undo his misdeeds? (Laughter )