Talks with Sri Aurobindo

20 JULY 1940

PURANI: Hitler has simply poured abuse on England in his speech and said the usual things. If England doesn't accept peace, she will be destroyed.

SRI AUROBINDO: How? He talks only of air attack. With aeroplanes he can, destroy a good deal no doubt, but the same can be done to Germany.

SATYENDRA: He didn't want to attack the British Empire, but now he will if the British don't accept peace. He is a man who wants to live in peace and has no territorial ambition!

SRI AUROBINDO: No, he didn't want anything outside Germany. Now there is no democracy left in Europe except in Yugoslavia. Only in Asia does democracy remain, Persia being the true democracy.

SATYENDRA: Turkey?

SRI AUROBINDO: Turkey doesn't claim to be democratic. If England didn't stand in the way Hitler would settle first with Russia, then proceed to Asia and then to India.

SATYENDRA: Russia may not like Japan's collaboration with the Axis.

SRI AUROBINDO: Privately she won't. Japan wants to make a non-aggression pact with Russia as Germany did. But she has nothing to offer Russia while Germany gave Russia a free hand in the Baltic and half of Poland.

EVENING

SRI AUROBINDO: I have read Hitler's speech. In many respects this man is a mountebank and yet he has become so successful. Of course, it is not his success, but that of the force behind him.

NIRODBARAN: Some people in the Ashram find his speech full of reason, and according to them everything he has said is true.

SRI AUROBINDO: Everything true? Don't they read the papers? Don't they see his speech is full of misstatements and misrepresentations?

NIRODBARAN: It is true in the sense that whatever he has prophesied he has carried out. Look at Poland and Norway. And since he has succeeded everywhere else, he will succeed also against England. England will make peace.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is another matter. What about his lies about the British Expeditionary Force, which he claims he has destroyed?

NIRODBARAN: These people seem to believe Hitler more than others.

SRI AUROBINDO: And these people pretend to do Yoga? The French themselves have said that the B.E.F. was rescued—the majority of it—and people who have returned from Flanders have written to us about the evacuation. If this Asuric influence acting through Hitler is being cast on the Ashram too, it is dangerous.

PURANI: What about his seeking friendship with Britain or his love of peace? Are they all true? And because he has succeeded so far, will he succeed always? Is he omnipotent? Greater than the Divine?

SRI AUROBINDO: Omnipotent and omniveridical? Then, as he says himself, has Providence guided him and given him sucess? I have not seen any other person who has followed the Asura with such extraordinary fidelity. Three things of the Asura he adopts strictly: first, if you go on telling lies long enough with assurance, people will believe you; second, you must adopt treachery and appeal to the basest passions of the people; third, care only for success without regard for truth. There have been men who have done that with some pretence of truth. But Hitler speaks openly of his method of falsehood and yet people believe him.

NIRODBARAN: Except for the air attack, what else can Hitler do against England and how far will the air attack be successful?

SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. Aeroplanes can be tremendously destructive and if the industrial areas are destroyed, it will be a great blow.