Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

21st January, 1939

Dr. R's v’sit today

Dr. R :  Do you feel the pain (in the knee-joint) still?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes.

Dr. R :  That is because you are moving the leg after a long time; it will disappear when you are accustomed to it.

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Sri Aurobindo : Accustomed to the pain! (Laughter)

Talk then turned to the world-war and the Congress. Pattabhi was elected President. Patel wanted to settle at Rajkot or go to East Africa.

Disciple : I am afraid if Patel goes to East or South Africa the Indians there would be shot.

Sri Aurobindo : Instead of Patel going there to Africa it is better that Gandhi should go to Hitler. Hitler will say to Mahatma :  You follow your inner voice Mr. Gandhi, I my own. There is no reason to say that he would be wrong, for my inner voice may be good and necessary for me, while it may not be so for another man. The very opposite may be good and necessary for another man. The Cosmic Spirit has one thing for Hitler and may lead him in the way he is going, while it may decide differently in another case.

Disciple : That may lead to a clash between the two and the breaking of the instruments.

Disciple : What of that? Something good may come out of it.

Disciple : That might lead to fatalism, belief in destiny.

Sri Aurobindo : It may. There have been people who have believe in fate or destiny or whatever you may call it. Napoleon III used to say :  "So “ong as something is necessary to be done by me it will be in any case; when that necessity will cease, I shall be thrown on the wayside like an outworn vessel." An” that is what exactly happened to him.

Napoleon I also believed in fate.

Disciple : When somebody asked Napoleon I, why did he plan if he believed in fate, he said :  "It is also fated that I should plan."

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Sri Aurobindo : Yes. All men who have been great and strong believe in some higher Force, greater than themselves, moving them. Socrates used to call this Daemon – man's divine being. It is curious how sometimes even in small things one depends on this voice. Once Socrates was walking with a disciple. When they came to a place where they had to take a turn, the disciple said, “let us take this route.” Socrates said :  "my deamon asks me to take the other.” The disciple did not agree and followed his own route. After he had gone a certain distance he was attacked by some pigs and thrown down by them.

There are some who do not follow the inner voice but an inner light. The Quakers believed in that.

Disciple : Do they see the Light?

Sri Aurobindo : I don't know; but some one has said :  “see that your light is not darkness.” The strange thing is that this inner voice does not give any reason; it only says :  "do this; if you do not do that, bad results will follow.” Sometimes, strangely enough bad results do follow if you don't listen to it. Lele used to say that whenever he did not follow the inner voice he had pain and suffering.

Disciple : But many kinds of voices are there according to the forces on different planes. I believe it is extremely difficult to distinguish between the right or the true inner voice and false one.  There may be voices either from the mental or the subtle physical planes.

Moreover, in the same person the voices may differ.

Sri Aurobindo : Quite true. Hitler's f’iend said about him that what Hitler said today he contradicted tomorrow. I also heard a voice which asked me to come to Pondicherry; of course, it was the inner voice.

Disciple : Can not one be mistaken?

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Sri Aurobindo : It was impossible to make a mistake about or disobey that voice. There are some voices about which there can be no possibility of any doubt or mistake. Charu Chandra Roy wanted me to go to France – so that we may have no further trouble. When I arrived at Chandranagar he refused to receive me and shoved on to Moti Roy.

Disciple : But why should he receive you?

Sri Aurobindo : Because as a revolutionary he was obliged to do so.

Disciple : Was he a revolutionary?

Sri Aurobindo : Good Lord, we were together in jail and perhaps his jail experience frightened him. At the beginning he was a very ardent revolutionary.

Disciple : Nolini says he was weeping again in the jail. The jail authorities thought that he could not be a revolutionary (laughter) and so let him off.

Sri Aurobindo : No, that was not the reason. It was by the intervention of the French Government, I think, that he got his release. Barin one day walked into his house, gave him a long lecture on revolution and converted him in one day.

Disciple : I heard that Nivedita also was a revolutionary, is it true?

Sri Aurobindo : What do you mean? She was one of the revolutionary leaders. She went about visiting places in India to come in contact with the people. She was open and frank and talked about her revolutionary plan to everybody. When she used to speak on revolution it was her very soul that spoke, her true personality used to come

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out. Yoga was yoga of course, but it was as if that sort of work was intended for her :  that was fire if you like. Her book "Kal“–the Mother" is”very inspiring, but it is revolutionary and not non-violent. She went about among the Thakurs of Rajputana trying to preach them revolution. At that time everybody wanted some sort of revolution. I met several Rajput Thakurs who had revolutionary ideas, unsuspected by the Government. One Thakur Ramsingh was afterwards caught in our movement and put to jail. He suddenly died out of fright. But he was not a man to be frightened. They may have poisoned him. You know Moropant afterwards turned moderate. More than one Indian army were ready to help us. I knew a Panjabi Sentinel at Alipore who spoke to me about the revolution.

Once Nivedita came to Baroda to see the Gaekwad and told him that his duty was to join the revolution and she said to him :  if you have anything to ask you can ask Mr. Ghose. But the Gaekwad never talked politics with me afterwards. But the thing I could not understand about Nivedita was her admiration for Gokhle. I wondered how a revolutionary could have any admiration for him. Once she was so much exercised when his life was threatened. She came to me and said :  Mr. Ghose, it is not one of your men that is doing this. I said :  No. She was much relieved and said :  then it must be a free lancer.

The first time she came to see me she said, "I hear Mr. Ghose, you are a worshipper of Shakti?" Th”re was no non-violence about her. She had an artistic side too. Khaserao Jadhav and myself went to receive her at station at Baroda. She saw the Dharamshala on the station and exclaimed :  "how“beautiful!" Lo”king at the new College buildings she uttered :  “how ugly!” Khaserao said  :  She must be a little mad!

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Disciple : The college building is supposed to be an imitation of Eton.

Sri Aurobindo : But Eton has no Dome.

Disciple : It is a combination of modern and ancient architecture.

Sri Aurobindo : At any rate it is an ugly dome. The Ramkrishna Mission was afraid of her political activities and asked her to keep her activities separate from the mission.

Disciple : What about her Yogic Sadhana?

Sri Aurobindo : I don't know; whenever we met together we spoke about politics and revolution. But her eyes showed power of concentration and a capacity for going into trance. She had got something in her spiritual life.

Disciple : She came to India with the idea of doing Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes. But she took up politics as part of Vivekananda's work. Her book is one of the best on Vivekananda. Vivekananda himself had ideas about political work and fits of revolution. Once he had a vision which corresponded to something like Maniktola Garden. It is curious that many Sannyasins at that time had thought of India's f’eedom. Maharshi’s young disciples were revolutionaries. Yoganands' Guru had also such ideas. Thakur Dayananda was also one such. (Turning to a disciple)

Do you know one Mr. Mandal?

Disciple : The one with spectacles.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is he who introduced me through someone else to the Secret Society, where I came in contact with Tilak and others.

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