Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

24th January, 1939.

Sri Aurobindo : turning to X :  "Any news?"

Usually the news of local politics and other subjects used to come through X,

Disciple : No news except that Mahatma Gandhi advises the Japanese visitor Kagawa to include Shanti Niketan and Pondicherry in his itinerary, without seeing which his visit to India would be incomplete.

Sri Aurobindo : O that! I have heard about it.

At this juncture the Mother came and a meditation followed, After the Mother's departure Sri Aurobindo

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resumed :  "I can give you some news today, The French Ministry seems to be going against the political party in power. It is a mystery how the ministry has suddenly taken this change of attitude.

Disciple : I understand that the leader from Pondicherry wrote to the Ministry against some official and the official must have found it out in France. And so, when he came back here he has taken up a definite attitude against the leader and the party.

Sri Aurobindo : There is a Greek saying that when one becomes too powerful he becomes insolent and commits excesses and then that strikes against the throne of God and then the retribution begins.

The leader of the former dominant party was not like that. He never lost sense of balance, and never pushed things too far. When his lieutenants asked him to arrest his political opponents he refused.

Disciple : Hitler also has a precipitous rise, he can't maintain the momentum. He can't last very long.

Sri Aurobindo : There is another famous Greek story about the tyrant of Syracuse. Do you know it?

Disciple : No.

Sri Aurobindo : This tyrant wanted to make friends with another tyrant of Sicily. Both belonged to Sicily. The latter replied :  You are too fortunate. You must sacrifice something or have some little misfortune to compensate for your fortune, otherwise, I can't ally myself with you. The tyrant of Syracuse – Polycrites – threw his most precious ring into the sea as a sacrifice to compensate for his fortune. The ring was swallowed by a fish and that fish caught by a fisherman who brought to him. He got back

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the ring. The other tyrant heard about it and said :  You are too lucky. I shall never ally myself with you. Polycrites was afterwards killed by his people in revolt. "The ring of Polycrites" is a proverbial expression in English.

The Roman poet says :  the Titans fall by their own mass. There is a similar idea in India when it is said :  the Asuras are too heavy for the earth to bear their weight. But some Asuras are clever enough to flourish in spite of proverbs.

Disciple : Can it be said that the Asuras by their action contradict the law of evolution or that they contradict something fundamental in human nature?

Sri Aurobindo  :  ( kept silent for some time and then said) There is no such general law. The thing is that the Asura can't keep balance. The law that demands balance then strikes.

(Then Sri Aurobindo became silent). After sometime looking at a disciple he said :  "Is your cosmic problem solved? (in reference to yesterday's topic.)

Disciple : Not until I get the experience. But I have some interesting news from Calcutta. Mrs. M. has been saying to her relations such a number of lies that they have found it out and say :   "There is truth on both sides."

Sri Aurobindo : But what does Mrs. M. say?

Disciple : She says that the Ashram tried to keep her child because of her property. We are short of money; police intervention has taken place before also.

Sri Aurobindo : But how can we get the money from the child? Everybody knows that the property belongs to her

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mother, and that she is not going to die within a few years. It is not the Ashram that wanted to keep her; she – the child – wanted to stay of her own accord. And where was the police intervention?  By saying that she deprives herself of the credit of having the first who brought in the police.

Disciple : She says all that to save her face.

Sri Aurobindo : It will take a lot of saving.

After this there was silence. After some time a Disciple began.

Disciple : A. B. is supposed to have said that Vivekananda by his idea of service to humanity, brought mixture and spoiled the spirituality that was intended to be cultivated by Ramakrishna.

Sri Aurobindo : In what way?

Disciple : I don't know. But was it Ramakrishna's idea that Vivekananda followed? Was it Ramakrishna who asked him to do service to humanity?

Disciple : So far as I remember he said :  "Lok hiter kaj karo." "Lok hit" "Good of the world"–is not the same thing as "service to humanity."

Disciple : So far as I remember Ramakrishna did not say anything like that. In fact, there was a great difference among Ramakrishna's disciples about what Vivekananda was bringing in. But some of them submitted saying :  "Vivekananda must know better." The phrase "Daridra Narayana" was Vivekanand's.

Disciple : But some disciples, even though they did not object, did not take any part in the work. Brahmananda was one such. He had a greater realization than Vivekananda.

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Sri Aurobindo : I think so; he was spiritually higher. I once met Brahmanand when I went to see Belur Math. He asked me about some letters received from "G". I don't remember what it was about. He asked me whether he should do anything or keep quiet. I asked him to keep silent and not give any reply.

Disciple : Ramakrishna Mission seems to be more occupied with social and humanitarian work; I don't know if there is much spirituality in it. My cousin Swami Adwaitananda went there and was quite dissatisfied and came back.

Sri Aurobindo : Plenty of people complain of that. But what work do they do?

Disciple : Medical relief, famine relief.

Sri Aurobindo : Famine relief is not all the year round. Medical relief is something.

Disciple : Education also. Now a days in many places of spiritual work they feed the poor–it is done as the Seva – Service to, Daridra Narayana – the poor as Narayana.

Sri Aurobindo : I see no idea in that. What is the use of feeding for one day, when they have to fast all the year round? You can satisfy your conscience that you have done something for the poor, I suppose. If you could find out the cause of poverty and try to remove that, that it would be some real work.

Disciple : But that is not easy. There are so many difficulties, political, economic etc.

Sri Aurobindo : I don't think it is so insoluble as all that. If you give the people education – by education I mean proper education – not the modern type – and the means, then the problem could be solved. People in England or

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France has not this kind of poverty as we have in India. That is because of their education – they are not so helpless.

Disciple : Some thousands were fed on the birthday of a holy man. There were so many people on this occasion that they were not allowed to touch him.

Sri Aurobindo : If they were allowed to touch him, he will feel like the President of America who had to shake hands with thousands of people and in the end got an aching of the hand.

Disciple : These are people who give lot of money for such purposes of temporary utility, but curiously enough, we don't get financial help. One man actually told me, we don't require money because we have buildings.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, that seems to be the impression. Many people think like the American lady visitor, that "the Ashram is a work of genius" and genius can do without money (laughter). Among the rich it is only the minority that pays; mostly it is the poor persons like Miss X who hardly earns enough to maintain her family yet whenever she finds an opportunity she sends us money. There is a false rumour that we have a lot of money.

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