Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

23rd January, 1939.

Disciple : My friend X is hesitating to put you a question; but he is puzzled by what he thinks as the contradiction in what you said yesterday about Gunas.

Disciple : You said that a man like Hitler does what he does because of the action of the Gunas, the modes of nature. In other-words he does what the Cosmic Spirit makes him do and yet he is individually responsible for his actions. It seems contradictory.

Sri Aurobindo : That is generally the case when you state some Truth you have to express it in contradictory terms (laughter). Truth is not always consistent, but the contradiction you notice does not mean that there is no responsibility, or no morality, no right, no wrong. The individual is responsible, for, he accepts the action of the Gunas of nature.

Page 169

Disciple : But it is the Cosmic Spirit that makes him accept it, is it not?

Sri Aurobindo : No. The Cosmic Spirit does not act directly. It acts through the Nature. The Cosmic Spirit acts not through the true individuality but through the individual in Nature. It acts through personality and personality is not the person. Personality is something formed of the mental vital and physical nature. This personality is responsible because it accepts the Gunas–the modes through ego and Nature. As I said, the Cosmic Spirit works through Nature and not direct.

Disciple : But the Cosmic Spirit works its purpose through the individual, by making him carry out its intention.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, but that does not mean that the individual is not responsible. The Cosmic is and contains both good and evil.

Disciple : Then it is the Cosmic Spirit that is responsible for the evil.

Sri Aurobindo  :  Yes, the Cosmic Spirit that is responsible for both – good and evil, you can't say it is responsible for one and not the other. Through both – good and evil – and their struggle between Light and Darkness, the Cosmic Spirit works out its purpose in evolution.

Disciple : For example, Duryodhana thought, in the Kuruksetra battle, that he was in the right. He did not know that he was leading to the destruction of his own family.

Sri Aurobindo : But the Cosmic Spirit is not in evolution, while the individual is in evolution. The individual progresses in his evolution by his nature, – he evolves through his nature.

Disciple : Can the individual refuse or reject the Gunas?

Page 170

Sri Aurobindo : Certainly. The individual can refuse to submit to nature. For example, Arjuna refused to act accordingly to his nature and eighteen chapters of the Gita had to be told to him to make him fight.

Disciple : Even though the Cosmic Spirit had already slain the warriors, yet Arjuna was asked to be the instrument.

Sri Aurobindo : Real liberation comes when the Purusha awakes and feels himself separate from nature, not bound by it but free and lord.

Disciple : But generally the Purusha is bound.

Sri Aurobindo : Of course, normally the Purusha consents to the action of Prakriti but he can withdraw his consent and stand apart. He can be free by getting out of evolution i.e. by being free from the working of ego and nature-personalities.

Disciple : When the freedom of the Purusha is won then it becomes possible for the individual to look beyond the Cosmic Spirit to the Transcendent, and act in the Cosmos according to the will of the Transcendent – is it so?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, that is to say, instead of being an instrument of ignorant nature you become the instrument of the Divine.

Disciple : Do you mean by the Cosmic Spirit the Impersonal Consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo : No, The Cosmic Spirit is a Personality – not in the narrow sense of personality; it is both static and dynamic.

Saguna and nirguna, – the Nirguna supporting the Sagun.

Disciple : You said that the psychic being also is a personality.

Page 171

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, the psychic being also is a Psychic Purusha.

Disciple : Does the psychic being develop from birth to birth?

Sri Aurobindo : It is not the psychic being itself that develops, but it guides the evolution of the individual being by increasing the psychic element in the nature of the individual. It is these personalities in nature that are bound.

Disciple : It is said that psychic being is a spark of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes.

Disciple : Then it seems that the function of the psychic being is the same as that of Vedic Agni who is the God of Fire, who is the leader of the journey.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes. Agni is the God of the psychic and, among other things that it does, it also leads the upward journey.

Disciple : How does the psychic carry the personalities formed in this life into another life?

Sri Aurobindo : After death, it gathers its elements and carries them onward to another birth. But it is not the same personality that is born. People easily misunderstand these things, specially when they are put in terms of the mind. The past personality is taken only as the basis but a new personality is put forward. If it was the same personality, then it would act exactly in the same manners and there would be no meaning in that.

Disciple : Does the experience of the Cosmic Spirit correspond to what you have termed the "Overmind"?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, but you can have the experience of the Cosmic Consciousness on any other level of consciousness

Page 172

also. Generally, you have it on the level of the Higher Mind where you feel the two aspects static and dynamic as separate. But as you go above, you find the Overmind overreaches all the other levels and there the two aspects are gathered together and combined in the same consciousness (turning to X) So you see, Hitler is responsible so long as he does not feel that he is not Hitler.

Disciple : But does he feel that he is responsible?

Sri Aurobindo : He feels that he is responsible not only for himself but for the whole of Germany.

When Hitler began he was not like that. He was considered an amusing crank and nobody took any notice of him. But his latest photograph shows him like a criminal, he seems to be going down the darkness very fast. It is the vital possession that gives him his size and greatness. Without this possession he would be a crudely amiable person with some mental hobbies and eccentricities. This possession becomes possible because the psychic being in him is undeveloped. There is nothing in his being that can resist the vital force.

Mussolini has, comparatively, a developed psychic being and a very strong vital being, But in his last photograph he seems to have weakened. Either he is physically unwell or is aging or perhaps he has misused his powers.

Disciple : Hitler feels responsible for all the Aryans, what ever that may mean.

Sri Aurobindo : Of course, the only Aryans are the Germans. It is they who feel the responsibility and bear the consequences.

Disciple : Can one be free if one acts without feeling responsibility?

Page 173

Sri Aurobindo : You can't get rid of responsibility like that, even though you may say, you are not responsible.

You must become free if you want to be free from responsibility. There are three ways, or rather several ways, of attaining that freedom. One is by the separation of the Purusha from Prakriti and realizing it as free from it; another is by realizing the Self, The Atman or the Spirit, from the Cosmic movement. Thirdly by the identification with the Transcendent Above, i.e. by realizing the Parmatma. You can also have this freedom by merging into the Shunyam through Buddhistic discipline.

Disciple : In the experience through the first and second method does the Purusha remain the "witness?"

Sri Aurobindo : Not necessarily. It may be witness in the first method because the Purusha separates himself from Prakriti and is then the witness not taking part in action.

But in the second kind of realization the Purusha need not be the witness of the universe, or the universal movement. The Self may remain ingathered without witnessing anything. There are many conditions into which the spirit can pass.

A certain kind of Nirvana is necessary even for our Yoga. That is to say, the world must become, in a way, nothing to you because as it is constituted it is the work of Ignorance. When you realize something of that then only can you enter into and bring into existence the true creation, the world of Truth or Light here.

Disciple : When the Gita says :  "You will find the self in all and all in the self and then in Me" – what Self does it speak of?

Page 174

Sri Aurobindo : It is the Brahmic Consciousness. That is to say, you see one Consciousness in all and all contained in the One Self and then you rise above to the realization of One that is both personal and impersonal and is above both.

Disciple : Is it true that men with spiritual bent are born with "Adhikara – qualification – for it?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes.

Disciple : Can one acquire Adhikara – such qualification, i.e. if one has not the Adhikara at first can one get it by some means?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, A man can acquire Adhikara. That is what we mean when we say "he is not ready" and when we say "he can prepare himself" it means he can get the Adhikara.

Disciple : Such a man can also acquire Adhikara by the company of Saints.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, of course.

Disciple : One gets tired of this problem of manifestation. That is to say, it is a very complicated and long process to manifest the Divine in oneself and in one's life.

Sri Aurobindo : Being tired is not enough. One must have the power to be free, either by moving out of evolution, that is to say, one must get the power to act from beyond the evolution.

Many yogis when they go beyond into the Spirit or the Cosmic consciousness, allow Cosmic nature to act through them without any sense of individual responsibility. They remain concentrated in, or identified with the

Page 175

Higher Consciousness uncontrolled And you find as X found that the spiritual man uses foul language :  of course, the yogi or the spirit in him is not bound by the rules of decency. That is why such yogis act like Jada, Pishacha or Bala – allowing nature to play freely in them.

When one has attained the higher consciousness then, as the Upanishad says, one does not regret :  I did not do that which was good, or I did this which is evil. It is not that all yogis act that way. But some of them know the reason, or the necessity – why they act in a particular way, at a particular time. Only, he is not bound by his action.

Another difficulty arises because most of the yogis are very bad philosophers. And so they cannot put their experiences in mental terms. But that does not mean that they have no real spiritual experience. They do not want to acquire intellectual development; for, they wanted only to reach a Higher consciousness and they are satisfied with that. When you look for things the yogi has never tried to have then you get disappointed like the American lady who objected to Raman Maharshi's spitting and biting his nails. That has nothing to do with his spirituality.

Disciple : Can one say that the aspect of Sat – Pure Being – Consciousness – Chit – is absent?

Sri Aurobindo : No, even in what you call Being Consciousness is there; only, it is held back, or is inactive so to say, while in Chit that aspect is in front. In these matters using mental terms always creats confusion because I have so often said that Sat, Chit Ananda is the prime Reality and no part of it can be thought of as separate.

Disciple : The difficulty arises when one sees many experience of different system of Sadhana then one finds great difficulty of choosing between them.

Page 176

Disciple : But does one choose these things with the mind?

Disciple : There is no other go. Can not the story of different systems lead one to knowledge?

Sri Aurobindo : It can help in making an approach to the path of knowledge. Philosophy is an attempt to explain to the human mind what is really behind it. But to the western mind thought is the highest thing. If you can think out an explanation of the universe you have reached the goal of mental activity. They use the mind for the sake of using it – that leads nowhere. (Turning to X) So, you see, the universe is not a question of logic but of consciousness.

Disciple : But is the story of philosophy indispensable?

Sri Aurobindo : Not at all.

Disciple : I would like to know everything by experience.

Sri Aurobindo : You can know what philosophy preaches, or has to say, by direct experience and something more which philosophy cannot give.

Disciple : The Sankhya division between Purusha and Prakriti in one sense, is very sharp and so it helps one to get away from the bondage of Prakriti.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is categorical. They believe in the two, Purusha and Prakriti, as the final elements. Sankhya and Buddhism were both first understood and appreciated by Europe, – Sankhya because of its sharp distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, which they believe to be jada – inconscient. Prakriti, in Sankhya, is jada and it is the light of the consciousness of Purusha that makes Prakriti appear conscious. They believe that even Buddhi – the Intelligence – is also jada – inconscient.

Page 177

We in our yoga need not accept it. While the Europeans liked Buddhism for its strong rationalism. Its logic led it up to Shunya – the state of non-being, which is its aim to reach. There is also a strong note of Agnosticism in it which appeals to the Europeans. It is something that hangs in the air; for the base is Shunya – non-being. You don't know on what basis the whole thing stands.

There is a certain similarity between Science and Sankhya; for in science they believe that evolution begins with the jada, the inconscient and goes up the scale of consciousness.

Disciple : We have so much darkness in us that we can't empty it by our own efforts. At times, it seems that even a little light will do.

Sri Aurobindo : No, a little light, a mere candle-like mental illumination, will not do. There must be full sun-light. And that is very difficult to attain and bring down. It is a slow process, but that is what we mean when we say :  "You must have an opening." If you have an opening, gradually, more and more light can come.

Disciple : How can we accept the light without knowing it?

Sri Aurobindo : That is to say, something in you does not want it, otherwise there is hardly any difficulty. Of course, so far as the world is concerned it has always refused to accept the Light when it came.

It is a test to know whether the world is ready or not. For example, when Christ was sentenced Pilate had a right to pardon one of the four condemned, and he pardoned Barbaras. Nowadays, they say that Barbaras was not a robber, but was a national hero, and he was a sort of Robinhood. But whatever that may be, it is a fact that the romantic robber was preferred to the Son of God; or the political opponent to the preacher of the Truth.

Page 178

Disciple : You say about experience, but I have no experience. All I feel is pressure at the time of meditation.

Sri Aurobindo : You at least feel the pressure.

Disciple : But how to know that it is due to the working of the Higher Power?

Sri Aurobindo : If you can wait you will know yourself, or you have to accept it from the Guru who has gone through the experience – that is to say, you have to accept it by Sravana, hearing, and        Manana – meditating upon it.

Disciple : It is said that ascent and descent take place; how to know it?

Sri Aurobindo : You will yourself know it when it takes place; you can't miss it.

Disciple : I hear that the American lady B remained in Ramanashram about a week, in spite of all unclean surroundings. She spent about a hundred rupees a day on her food. Mona says that her husband's name does not indicate that he belongs to an old aristocratic family. He is a rubber magnate, he is a Lord, and is manufacturing rubber tyres.

Sri Aurobindo : I don't understand why a rubber manufacturer should be a Catholic.

Disciple : Heirloom, perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo : Which? the tyre or the Catholicism?

Disciple : What was the lady's impression about our Ashram?

Sri Aurobindo : She was much impressed and was full of praise for the Mother, and she thought it must be a work of genius. She thinks that genius can work without finances!

Page 179

Disciple : She seems to have contributed something.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, 5 £. Till now the Americans that have come here are either poor, or rich ones who don't pay.

Disciple : She seems to have done better than Sir H. who not only did not pay anything but took a loaf of bread with him! (laughter).

At this point the Mother came.

Sri Aurobindo : (to the Mother) N wants to know lady B's impression.

Mother : She was full of compliments. She was much impressed with the tidiness, cleanliness., and the beauty in the Ashram. (Then addressing Sri Aurobindo she said) She is not much more than a tourist. She is going to Japan to study with Suzuki. She has much admiration for genius, probably because genius does not require finance.

Here the topic changed :  

Page 180