Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

18th December, 1938 (4-30 P. M.)

Disciple  :  It is surprising that Swami Nikhilananda should write about you. (There was an article in the Hindu by Swami Nikhilananda)

Sri Aurobindo  :  It is Nistha (Miss Wilson) who arranged for its publication through him, her friend, before she came here. (After some silence) It is peculiar how they give an American turn to everything (Ref. to the article)

Disciple : How is it that the Americans seem to be more open?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, because they are a new nation and have no past tradition to bind them. France and Czechoslovakia

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also are open. Many are writing from there to do yoga.

Disciple : Nistha was in communication with you for some time?

Sri Aurobindo : Oh yes, for three or four years she has been in touch with us. She has very clear ideas about Yoga and is practicing it there. (At this point X. arrived and remarked that she must be very disappointed because there was no Darshan this time.)

Aurobindo : No. She has taken it in the right yogic attitude, unlike others.

Then X. went on asking how is it that there are no Maharashtrian Sadhaks here in spite of Sri Aurobindo's being in contact with Tilak and remaining a long time in Baroda.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes; it is strange. They are more vital in their nature. The Bengali, Gujarati and Tamil people are more in numbers. It is now spreading in other parts C. P. Punjab, Behar.

(The talk then passed on to Supermind)

Disciple : I hope we shall live to see the glorious day of the Supermind. When will it descend, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo : (remained silent to this question and said) How can it descend? The nearer it comes the greater becomes the resistance to it!

Disciple : On the contrary the law of gravitation should pull it down.

Sri Aurobindo : That theory does not apply to it for it has levitation tendency and if it comes down in spite of that it does so against tremendous resistance.

Disciple : Have you realized Supermind?

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Sri Aurobindo : You know I was talking about the tail of the Supermind to Y. I know what it is, I had flashes and glimpses of it. I have been trying to Supramentalize the Overmind. Not that the Supermind is not acting. It is doing so through Overmind and Intuition and the intermediate powers have come down. Supermind is above the Overmind (He showed it by placing one palm above the other) so that one may mistake one for the other. I remember the day when people here claimed to have got it. I myself had made mistakes about it in the beginning, and I did not know about the many planes. It was Vivekananda who used to come to me in Alipore Jail and showed to me Intuitive plane and for about two to three weeks or so gave me training as regards Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see still higher planes. I am not satisfied with only a part, or a flash of Supermind but I want to bring down the whole mass of the Supermind pure, and that is an extremely difficult business.

Disciple : We hear that there will be a selected number of people who will first receive the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo : (made a peculiar expression with his eyes and asked) Selected by whom?

Disciple : By the Supermind, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo (Laughingly) : Oh, that is for the Supermind to decide. Whatever is the Truth will be done by it, for Supermind is Truth-Consciousness and things are established in the course by it so that your complaint about the disappearance of calm etc. will disappear, for they will be established by the Supermind.

Disciple : Will the descent of Supermind make things easier for us?

Sri Aurobindo : It will do so to those who receive the Supermind, who are open to it; for example, if there       

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are thirty or forty people ready it could descend.                           

Disciple : You said that in 1934 Supermind was ready to descend but not a single Sadhak was found prepared. So it withdrew. But you told me once that the descent of Supermind does not depend on readiness of Sadhaks.

Sri Aurobindo : If none is ready to receive how will the Supermind manifest itself? But instead of thinking of Supermind one has first to open oneself to Intuition.

(At this time Mother came and asked what we were talking.)

Sri Aurobindo : About intuition etc. (Then as Mother lapsed into meditation we all joined. Mother departed for meditation at about 7 P. M.)

Sri Aurobindo : "Does any one know about S.? I am curious to know how his blood came out drop by drop from the body. He seems to have Elizabethan turn of expression".

Then the topic turned to the question of fear of death with S. and N's example. How they cover their body for fear of catching cold etc.

Sri Aurobindo told a story that at Cambridge they were discussing about physical development. Then one fellow in order to show his own courage began taking out his genji one after another and they found that there were about 10 or 12 on his body!!

Disciple : There are people who think that as soon as they have entered the Ashram they have become immortal! We must develop our consciousness in order to conquer death, is it not?

Sri Aurobindo : People think so, because for a long time no death took place in the Ashram. Those who died were either visitors or who had gone back from here. In the beginning people had strong faith but as the number increased, the faith began to diminish. But why one should fear death?

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Besides fear has no place in yoga. The soul is immortal and the body passes. The soul goes from one life to another.

Disciple : We fear because of our attachments.

Sri Aurobindo : One must have no attachments in yoga.

Disciple : How to conquer fear?

Sri Aurobindo : By mental strength, will and spiritual power. In my own case, whenever there was any fear I used to do the very things that I was afraid of even if it entailed a violent death. Barin also had much fear while he was in the terrorist activity. But he would compel himself to do those things. When death sentence was passed on him he took it very cheerfully. Henry IV, King of France, had a great physical fear but by his mental will he would compel himself to rush into the thick of the battle and was known as a great warrior. Napoleon and Caesar had no fear. Once when Caesar was fighting the forces of Pompeii in Albania, Caesar's army was faring badly. Caesar was at that time in Italy. He jumped into the sea, took a fisherman's boat and asked him to carry him there. On the way a storm rose and the fisherman was mortally afraid. The Caesar said "Why do you fear? You are carrying the fortunes of Caesar."

I remember one Sadhaka under an attack of hiccup saying "If it goes on I will die." I told him "What does it matter if you die?" and the hiccup stopped! Very often, these fears and suggestions bring in the adverse forces which then catch hold of the subject. By my blunt statement the Sadhaka realized his folly and did not, perhaps, allow any more suggestions.

Disciple : Is Barin still doing yoga?

Sri Aurobindo : I don't know, he used to do some sort of yoga even before I began. My yoga he took up only after coming to Pondicherry. In the Andamans also he

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was practicing it. You know he was Lele's disciple. Once he took Lele to Calcutta among the young people of the secret society. Lele did not know that they were revolutionaries. One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practicing shooting. As soon as Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. If Barin did not listen to him, Lele said, he would fall into a ditch and he did fall.

Disciple : Barin, I heard, had a lot of experiences.

Sri Aurobindo : They were mere mental and he gathered some knowledge, much information or understanding out of them. I heard that when he had begun yoga he had an experience of Kamananda. Lele was surprised to hear about it. For he said that experience comes usually at the end. It is a descent like any other experience but unless one's sex centre is sufficiently controlled it may produce bad results etc. emission and other disturbances.

Disciple : Yes. He had brilliance.                                                        

Sri Aurobindo : But he was always narrow and limited. He would not widen himself, (Sri Aurobindo showed it by the movement of hands above the head) that is why his things won't last. e.g. he was brilliant writer and he also wrote devotional poetry. But nothing that will last because of this limitation. He was an amazing amateur in many things e.g. music, revolutionary activity. He was also a painter, though it did not come to much in spite of his exhibitions. He did well in all these but nothing more.

Disciple : Barin in his paper "Dawn" began to write your biography.

Sri Aurobindo : I don't know that. Did he publish a paper?

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I would have been interested to see what he writes about me.

Disciple : It ceased after a short time.

Disciple : You wrote back exclaiming great surprise that what everyone knows I do not know.

Sri Aurobindo : In fact it is not true. That is, what it is. Barin does not give the true state of things. I was neither the founder nor the leader. It was P. Mittra and Miss Ghosal that started it at the inspiration of Baron Okakura. They had already started and when I visited Bengal I cam to know about it. I simply kept myself informed of their work. My idea was an open armed revolution in the whole of India. What they did at that time was very childish. e.g. beating magistrates and so on. Later it turned into terrorism and dacoities etc. which were not at all my idea or intention. Bengal is too emotional, wants quick results, can't prepare through a long course of years. We wanted to give battle through creating a spirit in the race through guerrilla warfare. But at the present stage of warfare such things are impossible and bound to fail.

Disciple : Then why did you not check it?

Sri Aurobindo : It is not good to check such things that press for strong expression, when they have taken a strong step, for, something good may come out of it.

Disciple : You did not appear in the riding test in your I. C. S.?

Sri Aurobindo : No, they gave me another chance. But again I did not appear and finally they rejected me

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Disciple : But why then did you appear in the I.C.S.? Was it by some intuition that you did not come for the riding test?

Sri Aurobindo : Not at all. I knew nothing of yoga at that time. I appeared for I.C.S. because my father wanted it and I was too young to understand. Later I found out what sort of work it is and I had disgust for administrative life and I had no interest in administrative work. My interest was in poetry and literature and study of languages and patriotic action.

Disciple : We heard that you and C.R. Das used to make plans of revolution in India while in England.

Sri Aurobindo : Not only C.R. Das but many others. Deshpande was one.

Disciple : You used to write very strong memoranda for the Gaikewad; you once asked him to go and give it to the Resident personally.

Sri Aurobindo : That is legend. I could not have said so. Of course, I wrote many memoranda for the Maharajah. Generally he used to indicate the lines and I used to follow them. But I myself was not much interested in administration. My interest lay outside in Sanskrit, literature, in the national movement. When I came to Baroda from England I found out what the Congress was at that time and formed a contempt for it. Then I came in touch with Deshpande, Tilak, Madhav Rao etc. There I strongly criticized the Congress for its moderate policy. The articles were so furious that M.G. Ranade, the great Maharashtra leader, asked the proprietor of the paper (through Deshpande) not to allow such seditious things to appear in the paper, otherwise he might be arrested and imprisoned. Deshpande approached me with

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the news and requested me to write something less violent. I then began to write about philosophy of politics, leaving aside the practical part of politics. But I soon got disgusted with it.

Along with Tilak, Madhav Rao, Deshmukh and Joshi who became a moderate later, we were planning to work on more extreme lines than the Congress. We brought Jatin Banerji from Bengal and put him in the Baroda army. Our idea was to drive moderates from the Congress and capture it.

As soon as I heard that National College had been started in Bengal, I found my opportunity, threw off the Baroda job and went to Calcutta as the Principal. There I came in contact with B. Pal who was editing the "Bande mataram." But its financial condition was precarious and when B. Pal was going on a tour he asked me to take up the paper. I asked Subodh Mullick and others to finance the paper and went on editing it.

Then some people wanted to oust Bipin Chandra Pal from the Bande Matram and they connected my name also with it. I called the sub-editor and gave him a severe thrashing, of course metaphorically. But the mischief was done. Bipin Pal was a great orator, and at that time his speeches were highly inspired, a sort of a descent. Later on his power of oration also got diminished. I remember he never used the word independence but always said "Autonomy without British control." Later on when after Barisal Conference we brought in the peasants in the movement, forty to fifty thousand of them used to gather to hear Pal; Suren Banerjee can not stand comparison with Pal. He has never done anything like it. But he also lost his power later on. He was more an orator. He had not the qualities of a leader. Then Shyamsundar and some other people

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came in. It soon drew the attention of large number of people and became an All-India paper. One day I called the Bengal leaders and said, "It is no use simply going on like this. We must capture the Congress and throw out these moderate leaders from it." Then we decided to follow Tilak as the All-India leader.

They at once jumped at the idea. Tilak who was not well known in the Northern parts was chosen for leadership. He was a real great man who was disinterested and a rare great man.

Disciple : What do you think of his Gita? Was it inspired?

Sri Aurobindo : I must say I have not read it. Disciple : You have reviewed it.

Sri Aurobindo : Then I have reviewed it without having read it (loud laughter). Of course I might have glanced through it and I don't think it is inspired. It is more a mental interpretation and he had a brilliant mind.

Disciple : When some one asked Tilak what he would do when India got Swaraj, he said he would again become a professor of Mathematics.

Disciple : What about A. B. Patrika? It was also an extremist paper.

Sri Aurobindo : Never, it was impossible for A. B. Patrika to write openly like the "Bande Mataram" and Jugantar about independence, guerrilla warfare, day after day in a paper. It wanted safety first. At that time three papers were running in Bengal 1. "Jugantar" 2. Bande Mataram 3. And Sandhya. Brahma Bandhava. Upadhyaya editor of Sandhya was another great man. He used to write so cleverly the Government could not charge him; and our financial condition was so bad and yet we carried on for five to six years.

Disciple : But did the Government not try to arrest you?

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Sri Aurobindo : It could not. There was no such law and the press had more liberty. Besides there was nothing in the papers that could be directly charged against–so cleverly were they written. "Statesman" used to complain that the paper Bande Mataram was full of seditious matter from end to end. But yet so cleverly was it written that one could not arrest the editor. Moreover the name of editor was never published. So they could arrest only the printer. But when one was arrested another came to take his place. Later on Upen Banerjee, Sub-editor, published some correspondence for which I was arrested on sedition charge, but as nothing could be proved I was acquitted. But in my absence as they were disastrously up against finance they wrote something very strong and the paper was suppressed. After another arrest I published the "Karmayogin". There I wrote an article "Open letter to my countrymen." for which the Government wanted to prosecute me. While the prosecution was pending I went secretly to Chandranagore and there some friends were thinking of sending me to France. I was thinking what to do next. There I heard the Adesh to go to Pondicherry.

Disciple : Why to Pondicherry?

Sri Aurobindo : I could not question. It was Sri Krishna's Adesh. I had to obey. Later on I found it was for the Ashram and for the Work.

I had to apply for a pass-port under a false name. The Ship Company required Medical Certificate by an English Doctor. After a great deal of trouble I found out one and went to his house. He told me that I could speak English remarkably well. I replied that I had been to England.

Disciple :  You took the certificate under a false name. (I was a little surprised to hear he had disguised under a false name, so the question.)

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Sri Aurobindo : Of course. If I had given my name, I would have been at once arrested. With due respect to Gandhi's truth I could not be exactly precise about my name, otherwise you can't be a revolutionary.

Accompanied by Bijoy and preceded by Moni and followed by my brother-in-law I arrived in Pondicherry but had to assume false names for some time.

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