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
We found nothing to talk about. So Purani suddenly tried to set the ball rolling by remarking, "Nirodbaran says his mind is getting dull and stupid." Nirodbaran hissed and tried to stop him.
PURANI : He is threatening me. (Sri Aurobindo began to laugh.)
SRI AUROBINDO: It is perhaps a Jadabhava1.
NIRODBARAN: He has been putting all sorts of things into my mouth.
PURANI: Why? You didn't say that?
NIRODBARAN: Yes, I did, but I didn't say the other thing the other day. What I mean is that I seem to be going down to another level of stupidity. It is not Jadabhava, because here only the mind is Jada and the rest is very active.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then perhaps it is due to the effort of reading Kant and trying to understand him. (Laughter)
NIRODBARAN(after some time): What does Blake mean by self annihilation?
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know, perhaps annihilation of the ego.
NIRODBARAN: And by "identity" does he mean perception of the One in all?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but that identity seems to include in it all things, as held at the end of the Chhandogya Upanishad.
NIRODBARAN: Yes, Blake says that even physical love is quite justified if there is love and if one perceives identity in the other. He perceived identity in his wife but his wife didn't perceive this identity. In that case what is the solution? Their life seems to have been a tragedy because Blake loved someone else.
PURANI: I thought that they were a very happy pair.
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know why Middleton Murry says that. His wife was an ordinary Christian and it took her a long time to come to his standpoint. It was because she could not chime in with him that there was the tragedy. All the Christian mystic poets from Donne onward regard sex as permissible in the man-and-woman relation.
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