Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

17th and 18^th June, 1940.

It was asked if Sri Aurobindo knows all the possibilities connected with the war.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, they are known as possibilities. We do not accept anything as absolutely certain.

On the 17th (curiously enough Richard Paul’s birth day) Petain proposed an armistice and all thought that France was lost.

Sri Aurobindo : All these heroes of the last war – how could they propose a truce? How can they expect anything honourable from Hitler? It would be an end of France. They have become decadent.

Disciple gave the instance of the Munich crisis.

Sri Aurobindo : France was condemned then, when she did not stand by her treaty.

Disciple gave the instance of French coins and Mother said : what coins are these? They are the coins of a ruined country.

Disciple : I quite understand how it must be impossible for France to continue the war. They began without enthusiasm for the war, but even afterwards Government servants

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are seen actually wishing for such a peace! There is a soldier in the hospital who even says "what is the use of fighting?  For whom? ”

Sri Aurobindo : That is the decadent mind, when men think more of their safety and comfortable living and want to live in peace at any price.

Disciple : Is it not the action of the law of Karma that is upon these nations?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is their Karma. But if they can go through the suffering and pay the price they can wipe off their Karma.

 (Sri Aurobindo was even for the defense of Paris. He did not like that it should have been undefended. When a culture is going down, let it go down a little heroically.)

But if they give up the struggle it means they are gone.

Disciple : Will the English continue after the French have given up?

Sri Aurobindo : I think they will. At least they are not known to give up so easily in the past, unless they have changed considerably (as the French).

In the light of this, one admires the resistance of Poland and Finland. In spite of very bad leadership and ill-equipment they fought bravely to the end and did not ask for terms.

I don't think that they are lost. On the 18th morning Churchill's proposal was out for an "Anglo-French Union."

There was panic last evening – Everybody thought France had given up. In fact due to a variety of causes the

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French soldiers are not fighting. They think in terms of communism and capitalism etc.

Sri Aurobindo : They will have chance for nothing under Hitler.

There are only two chances : either if Hitler dies soon, then the work may be undone or if the people last out.

Sri Aurobindo liked Churchill's proposal and said : English people do not like an idea for the sake of the idea. But they have a feeling for what is possible, what is necessary. They have a great flexibility in politics and they have shown it by declaring in England State-socialism (He said, in between, once that the British Labour Party had secured rights for the workers, but has not been strong in pressing the claim of India upon the present cabinet) and this Anglo-French Union is another move.

Disciple : The prospect of a joint English and French Parliament is very humourous.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, the French members will be fighting among themselves and the English will be shaking their heads and saying "most unparliamentary".

Disciple : Can the French yet resist? And if the French give up can the English resist?

Sri Aurobindo : Why not? That is why we Indians cannot win. Once we are defeated, we always think that if you are defeated you have to give up. It is not like that. The greatness lies in not giving up the struggle and refusing to accept the defeat as final. You can defeat me any number of times but I am not going to give up. The British have stood out alone against victorious powers in the past.

If the French decided to resist, they have the Navy

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and Air-force intact and their colonial army and colonies. From there they can resist till they win.

The Belgian and Holland Governments have not given up, why should the French? And even if the Anglo-French Union does not become permanent they can have a very powerful federation with Holland, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia and they can request India to join it voluntarily as an equal partner. That would obviate the conservative fear about making a sweeping change in India. They have always a fear that it is against tradition, too much out of her way.

No nation can be great on the principle of maintaining their existence, unless it stands for some great cause or idealism or something great. (In this case, it is the imponderable that is more important than the ponderable).

16th June, 1940

When P referred to Churchill's speech yesterday explaining that the French really lost the battle in Flanders, where they lost 25 divisions and said that it comes to about at the most 3 lakhs, Sri Aurobindo said that French divisions are smaller of about 15 or 18 thousands each. So P wondered what happened to other 17 lakhs.

Sri Aurobindo : That is what I don't understand how they complain of want of men. Chamberlain and Daladiar both seem to be the same. I do not know whether it is stupidity or treachery.

Somebody raised a question of complaint that the British were not sending sufficient men.

Sri Aurobindo : You must remember that Britain is not a country with conscription. They have not got a big      

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standing army. It takes time to prepare and equip men, and yet they sent 4 lakhs with the best equipment they could have which was not small force for England, and they were obliged to retreat and take back 3 ½ lakhs.

Disciple : It seemed that after the fall of Paris Britishers have sent 4 lakhs of men.

Sri Aurobindo : No, there seems to be some confusion. They could not have sent so many because before the Renau cabinet resigned Churchill said that he had sent 3 divisions already and would be sending in all one lakh by the end of June. But as usual these over sensitive French military men in their over-suspiciousness did not believe in Churchill's words.

P referred to composition of the new cabinet as out and out rightists cabinet.

Sri Aurobindo : It does not even represent the whole of France.

Disciple : The retreat has become a rout.

Sri Aurobindo : Because the army has no organization left and because the morale was broken first by the fall of Paris and secondly by the peace talks. Everybody thinks, "What is the use of dying to-day if to-morrow they are going to conclude peace." There is no heart in the fighting.

Disciple : At that rate they will find after some time, they can't oppose Hitler.

Sri Aurobindo : It is as Mother says that Hitler does not want to give his terms before he destroys the French army. It seems the same condition that was in time of Napoleon III when France lost the war. It is due to party quarrels and jealousies. Politicians trying to meddle in the

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government instead of doing their own work. Their dissatisfaction with England is quite meaningless because Churchill clearly said that it would take some months to make the loss of materials in the Flanders. It is no use putting an ill-equipped army against Germans.

Gamalin was a fraud and Weigand has not proved exceptional. If some military genius had arisen he could have saved the situation. It seems that Hitler is going to ask for those colonies from France that are near British possession. In that case he may ask for Pondicherry.

Disciple : Does he know anything about Pondicherry?

Sri Aurobindo : O yes, they know everything. Children are taught most wonderful details about the cities and even villages in England and France. They have got a school where they train future Governors of England. So far as organization is concerned there are only two people who cannot be surpassed : The Germans and the Japanese. In the last war they found maps in Germany of English villages in which the position of trees and houses were also indicated.

There was a reference to Hiranya-garbha which I took to him. He had explained two days back that "Hiranya-garbha has nothing to do with Supermind", besides "Hiranya-garbha is a being while Supermind is not a being."

Disciple : It is a plane of being or a plane of consciousness. A world of its own.

Sri Aurobindo : Exactly so. Hiranya-garbha refers to the universal subjective, while the "Virat" is universal objective. In the Rigveda there is only one reference to "Hiranya-garbha" (10 Mandal 121 when I read the hymn to him.)

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Sri Aurobindo : Here Hiranya-garbha is a God. It is as the creator.

I said there is a Hymn in R. V. II. 12, which is also familiar in wording and conception, but which refers to Indra.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, there are several hymns in which the various Gods like Agni, Indra, etc. are spoken of as creators. But it is not the same thing as what I call the "Supermind as a creator". The word in the old philosophy which can convey the idea of the Supermind as a creator is "Prajna" – the Knower. He creates for himself, but Prajna is spoken of as superconscient because it is above the ordinary mental consciousness and ordinarily one enters it in Samadhi, unless one does like us to bring it down into the ordinary consciousness. Supermind also is superconscient but that is because it has not yet been attained. I remember in jail, Hiranya-garbha being equivalent to Taijas, while Prajna is prior to that; we used to call one fellow who had a strong imagination, "Hiranya-garbha," that is to say, the man of strong dream.

Then I showed him the two references S. V. III. 2, in which Hiranya-garbha is derived from Rudra; and S. V. II. 4, in which "Kopila" is said to be Hiranya-garbha – both of these Sri Aurobindo said were not clear in their meaning of Hiranya-garbha and they were quite different in their sense from Rigveda.

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