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
NIRODBARAN: A letter from Charu Ghose. Do you remember he wrote asking your blessings and you inquired, " Who is he?"
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, who is he?
NIRODBARAN: He replied, "I am an ordinary man, a clerk, aged fifty-one. I have no other relation except my wife. I could get no learning."
SRI AUROBINDO: Ideal condition for Yoga. He is extraordinary in having no learning but ordinary in having no children.
NIRODBARAN: Then a question comes, "Is there anything more than what I have understood after reading Sri Aurobindo's books? I want to practise the Yoga of surrender by the help of his force and knowledge." So what's the answer?
SRI AUROBINDO: Has he done any Yoga? He speaks of surrender. So he may know something. He can be asked what he has understood of my works.
NIRODBARAN: That is a question difficult to answer.
SRI AUROBINDO: I mean what he has understood practically and not philosophically of the Yoga of self-surrender.
NIRODBARAN: While in England I read your book The Yoga and Its Objects. I thought, "Why, it is very easy." (Laughter)
SATYENDRA: That book is merely a general statement about Yoga. It was only afterwards, when the Supermind came in that everything was made difficult. In this Yoga there is a perpetual progression, no fixed goal or end.
SRI AUROBINDO: There is an end at present.
NIRODBARAN: What?
SRI AUROBINDO: Supermind.
SATYENDRA (to Nirodbaran): How do you find it now?
NIRODBARAN: Well, I am paying for that facile thought about Yoga being easy.
SATYENDRA: For me it is still more difficult because I have been accustomed to look at the world as unreal and at Brahman as real. Now I have to accept the world, which the mind refuses to do, having been trained for such a long time in the other principle.
SRI AUROBINDO: For that reason I had to write three volumes of The Life Divine. Otherwise, as Nirod says, Yoga would be easy.
NIRODBARAN (to Satyendra): It is no less difficult for us. To you Brahman is real, the world is unreal and for us it is the other way round. (Laughter) So the difficulty is the same.
SATYENDRA: No, Sri Aurobindo has said that the denial of the materialist is not so hard to overcome as the refusal of the ascetic.
Since your talk on X in connection with politics, Dr. Becharlal has given up reading newspapers. He reads only the headlines.
CHAMPAKLAL: Is that why Satyendra is always putting papers by his side?
SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): I didn't mean it for him, I myself read newspapers and enjoy whatever is interesting. For instance, Abdulla Haroon says that each minority is an independent nation. Of course Muslims first-but Harijans are also a natio. (Laughter)
SATYENDRA: Dr. Alam also seems to be going over to the League. He says now it is a question of distribution.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he says the fight is now not against the Government but between Hindus and Muslims. The cake is already there; the question is how to distribute it.
SATYENDRA: He says that all Muslims should join the League to combat the Congress objection that the League is not the only Muslim organisation.
SRI AUROBINDO: It is like the fox which had lost its tail asking others to do the same.
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