Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

May, 1940

20th May, 1940

Disciple : Why Hitler says that he wants to finish this campaign before August 15th*?

Sri Aurobindo : That's a clear indication, if an indication was necessary, that he is the enemy of our work.

Disciple : Is it that he fears that descent might take place on August 15th which might make his work more difficult?

Sri Aurobindo : This force does not believe in Divine descent, but it is a sort of challenge that, "I will finish my first decisive victory before August 15th". That shows the nature of the conflict.

Disciple : It does not seem to be only one being. It seems to be a camp.

Sri Aurobindo : yes. But this is the leading (spirit). That

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* August 15th happens to be the birthday of Sri Aurobindo.

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being has often come here to see what was being done. Did you read Richard's book "The Lord of the Nations"?

Disciple : No. I read only "To the nation".

Sri Aurobindo : The book was never published, but he wrote it at a time when he was in communication with that being.

Disciple : Most of these people do not believe in any religion. They want to give up and suppress Christianity.

Sri Aurobindo : That is what I meant when I said these people have guarded the Barbarian in them. What they have got is scientific knowledge, mechanical skill, but other cultural activities that used to be there, are all suppressed, and Hitler suppresses them where ever he goes. He has suppressed them in Poland, in Czechoslovakia.

Disciple : Man is only used by these people as a part of machinery and organization.

Sri Aurobindo : Exactly so.

Disciple : And he is talking of reviving worship of the old Norse Gods.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, they are crude conceptions of the primitive instinct of mankind. Even though Odin is considered a God of knowledge it is more or less primary instincts that are symbolized.

Disciple : Do these beings know the existence of the Divine and deny it? or are they ignorant about it?

Sri Aurobindo : It depends on the nature of the being. They know the existence of Gods for instance, but they do not consider them higher than themselves.

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Disciple : Yes, and they do not merely ignore the Gods but claim to evolve a world-order of their own.

Sri Aurobindo : When these beings act by themselves no human power can stand against them. It is alright so long as there is a question of influencing men, that is to say the Divine influence as well as Asuric working. But, when it is a question of incarnation, as in the case of Hitler, then it is a different matter.

Disciple : That makes the conflict between the Gods and the Asuras represented in the Puranas very realistic even for our times, because, generally the Gods used to get beaten by Asuras and run for protection either to Mahakali or to Rudra or to Vishnu.

Sri Aurobindo : It is the intervention of the Divine that can become effective, and in this German and Stalin affair it is the question of the descent of the whole vital world on this earth. That is what has puzzled most people, specially those intellectual people who were thinking in terms of idealism. They never expected such a thing and now when it has come they don't understand how it has come and what is to be done; they are all puzzled.

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