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
DR. MANILAL: Have unicellular organisms like the amoeba no soul. Sir?
SRI AUROBINDO: No, they have a psychic spark, not a developed soul or a psychic being.
DR. MANILAL: According to Jainism there are different types or grades of lives with grades of development of senses. Thus some creatures have only one sense, such as touch; some have two, touch and smell, and so on, till we come to the human grade with five senses. Is that true. Sir?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is for the scientists to say.
DR. MANILAL: Perhaps it is the underlying principle of the evolution of life that they want to show. But is it by any sort of virtuous act that a lower form of life becomes a higher one?
SRI AUROBINDO: Virtuous act? No, it is a question of consciousness, a change from a lower to a higher consciousness.
DR. MANILAL(after a while): My shoulder is still resistant. Sir. The pain in the joint continues.
SRI AUROBINDO: Apply the Force.
DR. MANILAL: I have done so. Sir, but no result!
NIRODBARAN: Is the Force weak or the shoulder resistant?
DR. MANILAL: Both.
SRI AUROBINDO: I got rid of my shoulder trouble by a triple process: the Force, the doing of those movements that bring on pain, and perspiration!
DR. MANILAL: I have tried all that.
NIRODBARAN: You have added another—salicylates. (Laughter)
PURANI: He leaves nothing to chance—try everything so that one at least may hit.
DR. MANILAL: Yes. Fomentation, embrocation, massage, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: Perhaps you tried too many things, each reacting with the other and producing no result.
EVENING
DR. MANILAL: Mridu was weeping today, Sir, because she was late and you had finished your meal.
SRI AUROBINDO: She shouldn't have been told.
NIRODBARAN: It was I who unguardedly told her about it.
SRI AUROBINDO: Oosh, these things should not be told.
DR. MANILAL: But she has already recovered. I must say she has improved. Formerly I used to hear her threatening of suicide two or three times a week. This was the first time in one month. She says she won't eat.
CHAMPAKLAL: She will eat all right.
DR. MANILAL: She counts everything—how many luchis she had given, how many you have taken.
SRI AUROBINDO: She won't be able to know how many I have taken and how many others have taken. But there is no reason why she should cry. It is I who ought to cry as I didn't have the fritters. (Laughter)
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