Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

23rd December, 1938

We have assembled as usual, and are eager to resume the talk. But nobody could begin without some hint or gesture from Sri Aurobindo. He was lying calmly in his bed.

A disciple made an approach to Sri Aurobindo half-hesitatingly. This made another disciple roar with laughter.  (Sri Aurobindo heard the laughter)

Disciple : X. is roaring with laughter.

Sri Aurobindo : Descent of Ananda?

This primary breaking of the ice made the atmosphere a little encouraging So, X catching the chance shot the following question with a beaming face :

Disciple : Because the hostile forces offer resistance to the Divine manifestation in the world and some of them become sometimes victorious (at least for the time being) can one logically say that the Divine lacks Omnipotence? It is not my question but somebody else's.

Sri Aurobindo : (Turning his head to him.) It depends on what you mean by Omnipotence. If the idea is that God must always succeed then we must conclude that he is not Omnipotent. Do you mean to say that he must always succeed against the resistance and then only he may be called Omnipotent? People have very queer ideas of Omnipotence. Resistance is the law of evolution. Resistance comes from ignorance and ignorance is a part of inconscience : the whole thing starts from

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ignorance that is inconscience. At the very beginning when the opposition between ignorance and knowledge was created, there was the very denial of the Divine. It is his Lila that the manifestation shall proceed through resistance and struggle : what kind of Lila, or play, it is in which side goes on winning? Divine Omnipotence generally works through the universal law. There are forces of Light and forces of Darkness. To say that the forces of Light shall always succeed is the same as saying that truth and good shall always succeed, though there is no such thing as unmixed truth and unmixed good. Divine Omnipotence intervenes only at critical or decisive moments.

Every time the Light has tried to descend it has met with resistance and opposition. Christ was crucified. You may say, "Why should it be like that when he was innocent?" and yet that was the Divine dispensation. Buddha was denied; sons of Light come, the earth denies them, rejects them in substance. Only a small minority grows towards a spiritual birth. It is through them the Divine manifestation takes place. What remains of Buddhism today except a few decrees of Asoka and a few hundred thousand Buddhists?

Disciple : Asoka helped in propagating Buddhism.

Sri Aurobindo : Anybody could have done that.

Disciple : But it is through his aid that it became all-powerful.

Sri Aurobindo : If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual it would have been much better for real Buddhism. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline. The king of Norway, on whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all people who were not Christians

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and thus succeeded in establishing Christianity! The same happened to Mohammedanism. When it succeeded, the followers of the Prophet became Khalifas, then the religion declined. It is not kings and emperors that keep alive spirituality but people who are really spiritual that do so.

Disciple : Asoka sacrificed everything for Buddhism.

Sri Aurobindo : But he remained emperor till the end. When kings and emperors try to spread religion they become like Asoka i.e. make the whole thing mechanical and the inner truth is lost.

Disciple : Raman Maharshi was known to no one. It was Brunton who made him widely known.

Sri Aurobindo : It is a strange measure of success, people adopt in judging people by the number of disciples. Who was great–Raman Maharshi who did his Sadhana in seclusion for years or Raman Maharshi surrounded by all sorts of disciples? Success to be real must be spiritual. At times, when some spiritual movement begins to succeed then the real thing begins to be lost.

The talk turned to Ramanashram.

Sri Aurobindo : (related a story here) Mrs. K. went to see Maharshi and was seen driving mosquitoes at the time of meditation. She complained to him about mosquito bites. The Maharshi told her that if she couldn't bear mosquito bites she couldn't do yoga. Mrs. K. could not understand the significance of the statement. She wanted spirituality without mosquitoes!

There are reports that those who stay there permanently are not all in agreement with each other.      

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Do you know that famous story about Maharshi "when being disgusted with the Ashram and the disciples," he was going away into the mountain. He was passing through a narrow path flanked by the hills. He came upon an old woman sitting with her legs across the path. Maharshi begged her to draw her legs but she would not. Then Maharshi in anger passed across her. She then became very angry and said "Why are you so restless? Why can't you sit in one place at Arunachala instead of moving about, go back to your place and worship Shiva there?" Her remarks struck him and he retraced his steps. After going some distance he looked back and found that there was nobody. Suddenly it struck him that it was the Divine Mother herself who wanted him to remain at Arunachala.       

Of course it was the Divine Mother who asked him to go back. Maharshi was intended to lead this sort of life. He has nothing to do with what happens around him. He remains calm and detached. The man is what he was. By the way, I am glad to hear Maharshi shouting with the Indian Christian (we all laughed with him); it means he also can become dynamic. The only Ashram in which there was great unity, I heard, was Thakur Dayanand's. There was a strong sense of unity among them. I wrote an article on the "Avatar" in Karmayogin. Mahendra Dey, Dayanand's disciple, seeing the article wrote to me "he is the Avatar". He was very enthusiastic about it. And when there was police firing and arrests, Mahendra Dey after his imprisonment became changed and said that he was hypnotized by Dayananda.

Disciple : Why are the Gurus obliged to work with imperfect and defective people like us? Here the difficulty seems to be more keen.

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Sri Aurobindo : That has been a puzzle to me also. But it is so. Our case is a little different. Our aim is to change the world, not universally, of course. Hence every one here represents human nature with all its difficulties and capacities. That's how your difficulties are explained, (He said looking at X).

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