Talks with Sri Aurobindo

17 JANUARY 1939

Satyendra showed Sri Aurobindo some photographs of Pagal Haranath, the Bengali saint, and his wife. Below one of the photos of his wife was written that she was the Supreme Power and he was one of her forces.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is the Tantric doctrine.

SATYENDRA: He was a Vaishnava.

SRI AUROBINDO: Maybe, but the doctrine is not a Vaishnava one. It is Tantric.

In principle the doctrine is true, for the Supreme Shakti is the Divine Consciousness and all the Gods come from her. It is said that even Shiva cannot act unless She gives him the power.

SATYENDRA: Haranath had an interesting life. He underwent complete change of colour at Kashmir. It is said that Gauranga came to him in a vision and gave him his mission. But his later disciples consider him equal to Gauranga.

SRI AUROBINDO: Where is the contradiction? If the conciousness is ultimately and essentially divine, why should not both be one in consciousness?

SATYENDRA: They want to prove him an Avatar as great as Gauranga.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, competition for Avatarhood? But did he proclaim himself an Avatar?

SATYENDRA: No, Sir; but he behaved like one.

SRI AUROBINDO: Gauranga is regarded as an Avatar of Krishna, and if Haranath is an Avatar of Gauranga, naturally both are Avatars of Krishna, Then why quarrel?

SATYENDRA: There are cases of very rapid progress among people who have met Haranath.

SRI AUROBINDO: I have found that Vaishnava Bhakti leads to very intense and rapid progress.

SATYENDRA: There is a line of Sadhus in Gujarat who have Bhakti for the impersonal God.

SRI AUROBINDO: Bhakti for the impersonal God?

SATYENDRA: They don't have devotion for any personal God but for the One who is everywhere and beyond all personalities. Kabir and some other saints believe like that. Even when they take a particular name, they mean by it something more than the name. They will say "Rama" but believe in various aspects of Rama: for example, one Rama in Dasaratha's house, one in each heart, one pervading all and another beyond all.

PURANI: That is one who is the Transcendent.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the Supreme Absolute. That is the same thing as the Gita's idea of Vasudeva who is in all and Vasudeva who is the Supreme Absolute. Both are the same.

Bhakti for the impersonal Divine may not be so powerful for the change of nature; it tends to be more etherealised. Nor does it seem to be very powerful as regards Knowledge. Here Bhakti predominates over Knowledge.

SATYENDRA: I have seen many instances of Bhakti and Knowledge combined.

SRI AUROBINDO: I am not speaking of exceptions.

SATYENDRA: We have heard that you had guidance from Sri Krishna. Was it the Brindavan Krishna or the Kurukshetra Krishna?

SRI AUROBINDO: I should think it was the Kurkshetra Krishna. I had an experience of Krishna-Kali in Alipore Jail. It was a very powerful vision.

PURANI: These distinctions between the personalities of Krishna seem to be of later growth: I mean, later Vaishnavism.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they regard Balagopal as the delight-aspect or delight-consciousness, but there were other older schools, who regarded Krishna as an Avatar of Vishnu, and they were also Vaishnavas.

SATYENDRA: It is the Kurukshetra Krishna who spoke the Gita.

SRI AUROBINDO: The one who spoke the Gita is the Vishnu aspect. In the Vishnu Purana all these aspects are very finely described. The Vishnu Purana is the only Purana I have carefully read through. I wonder how it has escaped general notice that it is also magnificent poetry.

There are also some very humorous passages. In one a disciple asks his Guru whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant on the king.

PURANI: The king must be a Ramamurti if the elephant were to be on him.

SRI AUROBINDO: The Guru jumps upon the shoulders of the disciple and asks, Am I on you or you on me? (Laughter)

SATYENDRA: The description of Jadabharata is also fine. Was there such a person, as Jadabharata?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. But he sounds very real in the Purana. This Purana is most anti-Buddhist.

SATYENDRA: Then it must have been very late.

PURANI: Buddha was born 550 B.C.

SRI AUROBINDO: This Purana is not so early as that. All the Puranas in fact are posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Bramanical revival which came in the Gupta period as a reaction to Buddhism.

PURANI: They are supposed to have been written about the third or fourth century A. D.

SRI AUROBINDO: Probably. In the Vishnu Purana Buddha is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by his own name but called Mayamoha. The Purana says, "Buddhasya, Buddhasya", which evidently refers to Buddha.

The principle of Tantra may be as old as the Vedas, but the known Tantras are a later development.

PURANI: The Vedas are regarded as the highest authority in India. So everything wants to peg itself on to the Vedas

SRI AUROBINDO: Why is there this passion for antiquity? Truth is Truth whenever it may be found.

SATYENDRA: The Vedas are considered eternal

SRI AUROBINDO: Because the source of their inspiration is eternal.

SATYENDRA: Somebody has said that the eternal Veda is in everybody's heart.

PURANI: You are quoting Sri Aurobindo to himself. (Laughter)

SRI AUROBINDO: The Upanishads came after the Vedas and they put in more plain language the same truth that was in the Veda. In the Veda it is in symbolic language. But the Upanishads, of course, are equally great. Even in the Veda there are passages which clearly show that the Vedantic or Upanishadic truth was contained in it. It is surprising that scholars miss the meaning. For instance, the Veda says, "Hidden by your truth is the Truth that is constant for ever where they unyoke the horses of the Sun. There the ten thousands stand together. That is the One: I have seen the Supreme Godhead of the embodied gods." It is clear that this refers to the Vedantic truth. Similarly the Upanishads speak of the Sun, Surya, and Fire, Agni, which are Vedic symbols, and the significance of these expressions in the Upanishads is the same as in the Veda.1

SATYENDRA: The Europeans can't imagine that the Vedic Rishis were so advanced in those primitive times.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, they are so satisfied when they find a historical interpretation that they ignore many obvious indications of the true meaning. In dealing with these deeper things they make an awful muddle. But some of our Indians are not far behind. You must admire one Indian writer's interpretation of the Gods as Gases—magnificently ingenious!

PURANI: Many Riks of Dirghatamas are untranslated even today by European commentators.

SRI AUROBINDO: You can't understand or translate them unless you have the key to their symbolism.

PURANI: In several Riks he speaks of the largest or highest step of the cow.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is certainly symbolic. Everyone knows that the cow is a symbol of divine light and consciousness, and its highest step is their highest level.

PURANI: Dirghatamas is to me a great stumbling-block on the whole, though some of his Riks are clear in their symbolism.

SRI AUROBINDO: He has justified his name which means "Long in the darkness".

PURANI: There was an article about Saraswati in a magazine, saying that it was a river that flowed both into the Bay of Bengal and the Bay of Cambay.

SRI AUROBINDO: What? Saraswati going through both Bengal and Cambay? That would be possible only if the inspiration ran riot.

PURANI: I have tried to show that Saraswati of the Veda may after all be the flood of inspiration. Dirghatamas requests the rivers to become shallow and they comply with his request.

SRI AUROBINDO: They would be funny rivers if they were material ones. And remember what they carried in them—all sorts of things, the rays, the sun, the Soma-wine, wisdom, wealth.

PURANI: Do you remember a Madrasi departmental commissioner of police trying to prove that Christ was a Tamilian?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and also that the Tamilians were Jews! Do you know that now the Germans claim Christ as a German?

PURANI: But I thought Hitler and Ludendorf were trying to give up Christianity and go back to the old Norse religion.

SRI AUROBINDO: That's because they found Christ inconvenient in many ways. The Turks also tried, when they became free, to go back to everything of old Turkey. It was Mustapha Kemal who modernised Mohammedanism.

NIRODBARAN: Poor Amanullah of Afghanistan attempted to follow him and got kicked out.

SRI AUROBINDO: It is the case of a weak man imitating a strong one. Kemal was a liberator of Turkey with an army to back him up.

PURANI: Indian Muslims praise Kemal but don't learn anything from his life and the reforms be introduced.

SRI AUROBINDO: In Turkey now they enter the mosques with shoes on and the Muezzin has been abolished.

PURANI: Coming to Europe, I want to ask you if it can be said that there was an inrush of forces from the subtle worlds at the time of the French Revolution and in Napoleon's time, changing the course of History.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, There was. It changed the course of European history and gave the world new political and social ideas.

NIRODBARAN: Aldous Huxley says Napoleon and Caesar were bandits.

SRI AUROBINDO: Nonsense.

NIRODBARAN: He also says all evil, economic and otherwise, of the modern age are due to Napoleon..

PURANI: That is going too far.

SRI AUROBINDO: If he does say so, it shows a mind that is pedantic and without plasticity.

PURANI: Anatole France, though not an imperialist, says Napoleon gave glory to France.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not only glory. He gave peace and order, stable government and security to France. He was not only one of the conquerors but also one of the greatest administrators and organisers the world has seen. If it had not been for him, the whole idea of French Revolution would have been crushed by the European Powers. It was he who stabilised the ideas of the Revolution.

The only trouble was that he was not bold enough. If he had pushed on with the idea of unification of all Europe, which he had at the back of his mind, then the present Spanish struggle would not have been necessary. Italy would have been united much earlier and Germany would have been more civilised. If instead of proclaiming himself Emperor he had remained the First Consul, he would have met with better success. But, he was not like Hitler, he could not carry out things in a ruthless fashion. Even after his overthrow, the Germans on the Rhine were unwilling to give up the Code Napoleon and the institutions he had brought into existence.

SATYENDRA: They say his Russian Campaign was a proof that he was not a military genius. It is Tolstoy who belittles him in his War and Peace.

SRI AUROBINDO: War and Peace is a novel after all.

SATYENDRA: There Tolstoi says that Napoleon blundered by burning Moscow.

SRI AUROBINDO: But, history says that the Russians themselves burnt Moscow to deprive Napoleon of the gains of his victory. He conquered Moscow though he couldn't conquer Russia. Even his retreat at Leipzig is regarded as a feat of military genius. But, there is now a tendency to belittle even his military genius. They say it was his generals who were the military genius of his campaigns and not he. In the same way they belittle Genghis Khan and call him a cut-throat.

He organised the whole of Asia and part of Europe and made commerce safe. He was successful because he was supported by all the trading agencies who badly wanted safe commercial highways along the banks of rivers.

It is true about Napoleon that his physical capacity failed towards the end owing to his disease.

NIRODBARAN: Napoleon had a pituitary tumour, as a result of which his mental powers declined.

SRI AUROBINDO: History says it was cancer of the stomach. But who says he lost his mental powers? It is an historical fact that his mind remained clear and powerful up to the last. All talk of his mental decline is nonsense.

NIRODBARAN: Yesterday we spoke about materialisation. But is it possible to materialise even ten years after death?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if the spirit has not gone far away from the earth. Generally up to three years it remains near the earth, they say. The Guru's power can materialise the subtle body more easily. Sometimes another force can take up a vital form.

1 Sri Aurobindo has often emphasised the Isha Upanishad's parallel passage: The face of the truth is covered with the brlliant golden lid: O fostering Sun, that uncover for the law of the truth, for sight. O Fosterer, O Sole Rishi, O Controlling Yama, O Surya, O Son of the Father of creatures, marshal and mass the rays: the Lustre that is the most blessed form of all, that I see, He who is this, this Purusha, He am I."