Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

22nd  January, 1939

Sri Aurobindo opened the topic by asking : –"What about D's fast?"

He was told yesterday that D was going to fast on his birth-day i.e. to-day. But he had forgotten all about it.

Disciple : I hear he has taken bread and butter in the morning and at mid-day a light meal.

Sri Aurobindo : Fasting with bread and milk!

Disciple : There are people who believe that bread and milk can be taken while fasting. (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo : That is also the custom in Bengal, I believe. That reminds me of a story. Nevinson went to see Tilak and met him in Dhoti. While describing the meeting he said :  Mr. Tilak received me naked in his cloth. (Laughter)

By this time another disciple came and seemed to be bubbling with news.                                                                

Sri Aurobindo : What is the news? Radio  :  help. a louse in Stalin's head! Socialize it, then the rest will follow.

Disciple recounted two fine jokes about Russia from 'Inside Europe.' Then he said :  – I looked up the book; Lindbergh says that soviet air-fleet is not as powerful as it is thought.

Sri Aurobindo : In what way?

Disciple : I don't know.

Sri Aurobindo : That is very vague. Does he mean that the aeroplanes are not of sound material, or that the pilots

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are not well-trained? If he says only that much, that does not give any knowledge. In the fight between Russia and Japan in the frontier, the Japanese admitted that the Russian artillery was remarkable, it does not miss the mark but the infantry is not good; for when they got very good opportunity they did not take advantage of it. While the Japanese army is, perhaps, the best in the world. In spite of overwhelming numbers against them in China, they have been able to conquer Chang kai-shek trumpet, that he would defeat the Japanese in a very short time. They did not reply but at the end of each defeat the Japanese are further than before.

Disciple : They say that the Japanese are not good in the air. They miss their aim many times.

Sri Aurobindo : I do not know about that. A pilot requires at a time concentration on many points. The Japanese are good at concentrating on one thing at a time.

Disciple : Mussolini is asking all Italian firms to close down at Jibuoti, and thus create dissatisfaction. He is trying to cut off the railway connecting Jibouti and Abbyssinia and make another line through Eritria to Asmara.

Sri Aurobindo : That would not make France give up Jibouti because it is an important seal-link between France and her eastern colonies. Even if Flandin and the Premier wanted to give it up the French people won't.

Disciple : Yesterday we had talk about hearing the voice :  is there any standard by which one can judge whether it is a true voice?

Sri Aurobindo : What standard? There is no such standard. How can you judge where it is right or wrong?

Disciple : Then is Hitler who says, "I heard a voice and I follow it", right?

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Sri Aurobindo : Right in what sense?  Morally?

Disciple : He means spiritually, perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo : How can you say his voice is not true? He has seen that by following it he has been able to get Austria, Czechoslovakia and he has been successful in many other things. Then how can you say it is not a true voice? As I said, the Cosmic Spirit may want him to go that way. Even morally, you can't say that he is immoral. He is very restricted as regards food and is supposed to have no wife or mistress and leads a controlled life in all other respects. Robespierre was also a moral man and yet he killed many people.

Disciple : But then, what is meant by the true voice'?

Sri Aurobindo : That is the psychic voice. But the spiritual point of view is quite different. There is no question of right or wrong in it. One goes above all those standards and looks from that plane. But for that it is essential to have the perception – say feeling of the Divine in all. Then one can see Divine in all, veiled behind the Gunas. From that plane one finds that Gita is right in what it says about the Gunas :  that man is made to act by the action of the Gunas. There was an angry Sannyasi who came to the Kali Temple at Calcutta. Ramkrishna said about him :  "he “s a Tamsik Narayanan." Bu” he could not keep that standard when another vedantin came there and had a concubine with him. He asked the vedantin :  why do you keep the concubine? The Vedantin replied :  every thing is Maya, so what does it matter what you do, or not do? Ramkrishna said :  "I spit on your Vedanta."

But logically, the Vedantin was right. So long as you believe everything to be Maya you can do as you like. But how will you say which is right? For instance, what will you say about Curzon's action?

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Disciple : About Bengal partition?

Sri Aurobindo  :  Yes, was he right? He thought he was quite right in what he was doing, while others thought he was wrong. And yet, but for his action India would not have been half as free as she is to-day. So, the Cosmic Spirit may have, after all, led him to do it to bring this result. There is a Cabalist prophesy  :  the golden age will come when the Jews will be driven off and persecuted every where. So, Hitler may be bringing that about. There are so many ways of looking at a thing. For instance, this American lady thinks, perhaps, that she is paying us a big sum, but we call it a joke.

Disciple : Then, can one say that one has no responsibility. One can do as one likes –, in that case one becomes a fatalist.

Sri Aurobindo : No, one can't d’ what one likes. Every one is not Hitler and can't d’ what Hitler does, because it is one's n’ture that makes one do things. Your question reminds me of the story of my grand-mother.

She said :  “God has made such a bad world. If I could meet Him I would tell what I think of Him.” My grand-father said :  'Yes it is true. But God has so arranged that you can't get near Him so long as you have any such desire in you' (laughter).

When we say :  Hitler is possessed by a vital force it is a statement of fact, not a moral judgment. It is clear from what he does and the way he does it.

I remember a young Sanyasi with long nails came to Baroda. He used to stay under trees. Deshpande and myself went to see him. Deshpande asked him :  what is the Dharma, the standard of action? He replied, "There is no such standard. It is the Dharma of the thief to steal because that is his nature. Deshpande was very angry when he heard that; I said it is only a point of view.

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But all that does not mean that there is no consequence for one's action. As Christ said, offence come but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh. There is a law of being which throws upon you the murder, persecution etc., when you inflict suffering on others out of self-will the suffering will come back to you, that is the law of Karma.

Disciple : S used to quote to me the famous verse of Duryodhana. "Janami, Dharmam nacha me pravrittih" I know what is the Dharma but I can't gather force to do what I should do.

Sri Aurobindo : "You have the other verse. “seated in my heart as Thou directest, I act".*

The question comes up seriously when you want to change yourself or change others. Then you say "this should not be" and "that should go" – etc., you introduce a rule of the mind in the vital, but when you go above the mind you come in contact with your Spirit and the nature of that spirit is Light, Truth, Purity. When you observe discipline it is for the spirit, not for the sake of the mental rule. If you want to attain the standard of purity you have to reject what comes in the way. So also about lying. You have to stop lying if you want the Truth, not because of the mental principle of right and wrong, but for the sake of the spirit. There are many parts in Nature :  One part may try to reject things that are contrary to the change and contradictory to each other, but another part prevents it. As the Roman poet said :  I see the better things but I follow the worse.

Disciple : Vendanta for sometime was the by word for hypocrisy. People used to speak of them as "Bedantins" – meaning two sets of teeth, – one for showing and another for chewing            

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like the elephant. What is the truth of Vama-marga?

Sri Aurobindo : I don't know. It must have been with the idea of taking up forces and pull them high up. Even the sexual act has to be done from a high consciousness. Upanishad also says it is possible.

But to go back to the original point about the law of Nature. We have to understand that all this does not mean that there is no moral standard. Humanity requires a certain standard it helps profess. It is obvious from what Hitler is doing that he is not serving the forces of Light. He is serving what the Jews would call "the forces of unrighteousness". But from the spiritual point of view, that may also be necessary. As they say "it takes all sorts to make the world."

But again that does not mean that one should not recognize other planes. For instance, there is the vital plane whose law is force and success. If you have the force you win. If you have speed you outrun others. The law of the mind comes in to act as a balance together to make a mental-vital standard. If you go above then you come to a point where Gita's "Sarva Dharman parityajya" becomes the principle. Sharanam Vraja becomes the principle. But there if you leave the last portion, "mamekam Saranam Vraja" "take refuge in Me alone" – then you follow your ego and you fall and became either an Asura, or a lunatic or an animal. But even the animals have a sense of right and wrong. It is very well shown in Kipling's Jungle Book.  Have you read it?

Disciple : No.

Sri Aurobindo : There he shows how the pack falls on the one that fails to keep the standard. By human contact the animals develop that sense even more.

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Mother came and then after some time departed.

Disciple : Is it true that Supramental Being is Bhagawan?

Sri Aurobindo : All are Bhagwan, all are Divine.

Disciple : That is potential or say, veiled Bhagawan; otherwise we have to accept that world is perfect even as it is.

Sri Aurobindo : It is perfect as it could be perfect at present.

Disciple : That is to say a more perfect perfection has to be attained yet.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it has to be.

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