Talks with Sri Aurobindo

22 OCTOBER 1940

SATYENDRA: In reply to the judge as to whether he had anything to say, Vinoba is supposed to have said that they had made a disgraceful translation.

SRI AUROBINDO: Translation?

SATYENDRA: Yes, Sir. He made speeches in Marathi and they were translated into English.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why disgraceful? Means inaccuracy in language or incorrectness in content?

SATYENDRA: Don't know.

PURANI: Though he is a scholar in Sanskrit, he has not read Shakuntala and considers this a great virtue! He has learned Sanskrit in order to read the Gita and the Upanishads.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not Shakuntala because it is erotic?

PURANI: Probably. Mahadev Desai has put forth Vinoba's philosophy in the Hindu today. Vinoba says: We live because we can't die. We eat and walk, etc., because we are compelled to. We sleep because sleep overcomes us.

SRI AUROBINDO: I thought it was other way round. We die because we can't live.

PURANI: That was what I thought too.

SATYENDRA: He must have said in relation to something. Perhaps a friend of mine holds the same view.

SRI AUROBINDO: How is that?

SATYENDRA:I spoke about it once before: he wanted to commit suicide, took a lethal dose of opium but it didn't kill him. Another friend had many accidents but death escaped him.

PURANI: He could have taken potassium cyanide!

Desai continues to say that Vinoba had differences with Ramdas. Ramdas says the doer is free while Vinoba says he is not. As I said before, according to him we sleep because we are compelled to. In everything we do there is a compulsion.

SRI AUROBINDO: One can say one is compelled to be born, at least in appearance. But does Ramdas say one is free?

PURANI: He says partially free—in the process of becoming free.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is a different matter.

PURANI: Sardesai makes out in the course of a talk that Shivaji had no political guidance from Ramdas: Ramdas refused to give any when Shivaji approached him. This is something new.

SRI AUROBINDO: What about the ochre-coloured flag? A legend?

PURANI: He says that Ramdas gave him advice about the succession to the throne when Shivaji wanted his second son to come to the throne instead of Shambhuji. Ramdas advised him to make his eldest son the rightful heir and to follow the usual royal custom.

SRI AUROBINDO: He did guide him then?

PURANI: It is only part of a talk Sardesai gave, in which he says that he will put forward only two or three points for the present. Shambhuji, he says, was not as bad as is made out.

SRI AUROBINDO: White-washing?

PURANI: Yes, and if it was eating and drinking, that was a common fault. Everybody used to do it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Queer defence! If he wants to be original he must say something unexpected.

SATYENDRA: Lothian is mentioned as a possible Viceroy of India.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh! In that case they will have to change Amery too. But Lothian is doing much useful work in America. Can he be spared?

PURANI: Lord Lloyd is also suggested by the diehards!

SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! They may as well send the devil himself or Sir John Anderson. It will be disastrous! But the Labour Party may not consent. When is the present Viceroy to go?

PURANI: After six months.

SRI AUROBINDO: That's a long time!

EVENING

Amando Menezes has written another book of poems and has sent a copy to Sri Aurobindo. Purani asked if he had read it.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, some of the poems. There is a remarkable change. There is one written on 21st February. He has still to progress till every word becomes inevitable. His long poems are not so successful.

PURANI: Yes. He says that he is afraid to read The Life Divine lest he should have to make a choice between the worldly life and the spiritual. He got something at the Darshan.

SRI AUROBINDO: There are two or three poems in connection with that mood.

I have read Desai's account of Vinoba. He has combined Buddha and Plato in him. He could have added Diogenes too. It seems Vinoba doesn't like literature. Only history and philosophy interest him.

PURANI: Yes, I told you he is proud of not having read Shakuntala.

SRI AUROBINDO: Not only Shakuntala, but literature in general doesn't interest him.

PURANI: Yet he is said to be a great lover of art. Somebody told him that he is an ascetic and doesn't appreciate beauty. He replied that he loves beauty; he loves flowers and the starlit sky. He would rather tear off his skin than pluck a flower.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is the popular notion of art and artist. If you love flowers and admire the sky you are considered an artist. I saw in Prabuddha Bharata that Vivekananda was called a great master of art because he loved music.

SATYENDRA: Perhaps one can be an artist by appreciating art?

SRI AUROBINDO: In that case many people are artists.

NIRODBARAN: If one can sing well?

SRI AUROBINDO: Singing well doesn't make one an artist—that is my point. An artist must either create something or have an aesthetic understanding of art. Anybody can look at the moon or the sky and get an emotion.

PURANI: Now they give a new definition to art. They say art must be able to transmit emotion. Otherwise it is not art or it is art that has no value.

SRI AUROBINDO: What emotion?

PURANI: Feeling, I suppose.

SRI AUROBINDO: Feeling? What feeling?

PURANI: Such as an agriculturist or farmer can understand. That is their conception and in that they are followers of Tolstoy. You know Gandhi is greatly influenced by Tolstoy and follows his view of art, the puritanic and popular view.

SRI AUROBINDO: That puritanic element exists in many places. Even Ruskin who was considered an authority on the aesthetic element in art had puritanism in his blood. Puritanism has been brought from Europe to India. In India even ascetics were not puritans.

PURANI: Musriwalla is trying to introduce some ideas of spirituality. He has written three or four books on the lives of Buddha and others. He says that experiences are not reliable because they take place in Nature.

SRI AUROBINDO: In that case you can't realise God because the experiences will be in Nature. The only thing to do is to commit suicide to get out of Nature.

PURANI: Or sit quiet.

SRI AUROBINDO: That will be in Nature!

PURANI: Musriwalla has no idea of these things, not even elementary principles of Sankhya. He doesn't realise that in Nature one can have the contact of something of Supernature. He has no imagination, either. He says Valmiki has depicted Ayodhya as a rich, luxurious city.

SRI AUROBINDO: Should it have been described as a poor village? Then if he read Kalidasa he would squirm with agony.

PURANI: For such people everything should be simple, bare, austere and poor. I don't understand why poverty should be made to appear so great.

SRI AUROBINDO: Because Tolstoy said it and Gandhi said it after him!

PURANI: He is also against temples. There is no necessity of temples according to him. As somebody said, churches are not necessary, for the Bible can be read in the fields.

SRI AUROBINDO: Why houses then? Everybody can live in the fields like the birds and animals; it will be quite natural.

SATYENDRA: Rumania seems to be in luck. It has got not only the Germans but an earthquake too.

PURANI: Yes, like Turkey.

SRI AUROBINDO: But Turkey has no Germans!

PURANI: The Germans are trying to penetrate into Bulgaria also in the guise of tourists.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Hitler didn't find Boris very—

PURANI: Pliable? No.