Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

27th December, 1938

Sri Aurobindo himself opened the talk to-day by addressing X and said "I hear D. going about in his car with a guard by his side, two cyclist policemen in front and back." Then the talk continued regarding Pondicherry politics, most of the talk being by us. Then Sri Aurobindo remarked. "When I see Pondicherry and Calcutta Corporation I begin to wonder why I was so eager for democracy. Pondicherry and Calcutta Corporation are the two object lessons which can take away all enthusiasm for self-government."

Disciple : Was the Calcutta Corporation so bad before the Congress came there?

Sri Aurobindo : No. There was not so much scope for it, – at least we did not know of such scandals. It is the same thing with other municipal Governments. In New York and Chicago the whole machinery is corrupt. Sometimes the head of the institution is like that. Sometimes a Mayor comes up with the intention of cleaning out the whole, but one does not know after cleaning which one was better. The Mayor of Chicago was a great criminal but all judges and police-officers were under his pay. In France also it is about the same thing.

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It is not surprising that people got disgusted with Democracy

England is comparatively less corrupt. The English are the only people who know how to work the Parliamentary system. Parliamentary Government is in their blood.

Disciple : It seems that our old Indian system was the best for us. How could it succeed so well?

Sri Aurobindo : The old Indian system grew out of life, it had room for everything and every interest. There were monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. Every interest was represented in the Government. While in Europe the Western System grew out of the mind. They are led by reason and want to make everything cut and dried without any chance of freedom or variation. If it is democracy, then democracy only. No room for anything else. They cannot be plastic.

India is now trying to imitate the West. Parliamentary Government is not suited to India. But we always take up what the west has thrown off. Sir Akabar wanted to try a new sort of Government with an impartial authority at the head. There, in Hyderabad, the Hindu majority complains that though Mohammedens are in minority they occupy most of the offices in the state. By Sir Akabar's method almost every interest would have been represented in the Government and automatically the Hindus would have come in, but because of their cry of responsible Government the scheme failed. They have a fixed idea in the mind and want to fit everything to it. They can't think for themselves and so take up what the others are throwing off.

Disciple : What is your idea of an ideal Government for India? It is possible in Hyderabad which has a Nizam.

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But how to do the same in an Indian Constitution?

 Sri Aurobindo : Sir Akabar's is as good as any. My idea is like what Tagore once wrote. There may be one Rashtrapati at the top with considerable powers so as to secure a continuity of policy and an Assembly representative of the nation. The provinces will contribute to a Federation, united at the top, leaving ample scope to local bodies to make laws according to their local problems. Mussolini started with a fundamental of the Indian System but afterwards began bullying and bluffing other nations for the sake of imperialism. If he had persisted in his original idea, he would have been a great creator.

Disciple : Dr. Bhagwandas suggested that there should be legislators above the age of 40, completely disinterested like the Rishis.

Sri Aurobindo : A chamber of Rishis! That would not be very promising. They will at once begin to quarrel. As they say; Rishis in ancient times could guide kings because they were distributed over various places.

Disciple : His idea is of gathering all great men together.

Sri Aurobindo : And let them quarrel like Kilkeni cats. I suppose. (Said laughing.)

The Congress at the present stage–what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I won't say like Hitler. What Gandhi says they accept and even Working Committee follows him. Then it goes to A. I. C. C. which adopts it and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion except for Socialists who are allowed to differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the provinces

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whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Every thing is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it like Stalin's Parliament. When we started the movement we began with the idea of throwing out the Congress oligarchy and open the whole organization to the general mass.

Disciple : Srinivas Ayyanger retired from Congress because of his difference with Gandhi. He objected to Gandhi's giving the movement a religious turn and bringing in religion in Politics.

Sri Aurobindo : He made Charka a religious article of faith and  excluded all people from Congress Membership who could not spin. How many believe in his gospel of Charka? Such a tremendous waste of energy, just for the sake of a few annas is most unreasonable.

Disciple : He made that rule perhaps to enforce discipline?

Sri Aurobindo : Discipline is all right but once you centralize you go on centralizing.

Disciple : It failed in agricultural provinces and seems to have succeeded in other places especially where people had no occupation.

Disciple : In Bengal it did not succeed.

Sri Aurobindo : In Bengal it did not. It may be all right as a famine-relief measure. But when it takes the form of an All-India programme it looks absurd. If you form a programme that is suited to the condition of the agricultural people it sounds something reasonable. Give them education, technical training and give them (Fundamentals or Principles of) organization not on political but on business lines. But Gandhi does not want any

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such industrial organization and so comes in with his magical formula "spin, spin, spin." C. R. Das and others could act as a balance against him. It is all a fetish.

Denmark and Ireland organized in the same way. Only now they are going to suffer because other nations are trying to be self-sufficient. I don't believe in that sort of self-sufficiency.      For that is against the principles of life. It is not possible for nations to be self-sufficient like that.

Disciple : What do you think of Hindi being the common language? It seems to me English has occupied so much place that it will be unwise and difficult to replace it.

Sri Aurobindo : English will be all right and even necessary if India is to be on an international state. In that case English has to be the medium of expression, especially as English is now replacing French as a world-language. But the national spirit won't allow it and also it s a foreign language. At the same time Hindi can't replace English in the universities nor the provincial languages. The national spirit grows it is difficult to say what will happen. In Ireland before the revolution they wanted to abolish English and adopt Gaelic but as time went on and things settled themselves their enthusiasm waned and English came back.

Disciple : I do not understand why the Jews are being so much persecuted by Hitler.

Disciple : I understand that the Jews betrayed Germany during the war.

Sri Aurobindo : Nonsense, on the other hand they helped Germany a great deal. It is because they are a clever

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race that others are jealous of them, for anything that is wrong you point to the Jews! It is so much more easy than finding the real cause, or because people want something to strike and so the popular cry, "The Jews the Jews". You remember I told you about the prophecy regarding the Jews that when they will be persecuted and driven to Jerusalem that the Golden age shall come?

It is the Jews that have built Germany's Commercial fleet and her navy. The contribution of Jews towards the world's progress in every branch is remarkable.

But this sort of dislike exists among other nations also e.g. the English do not like the Scots, because the Scottish have beaten the English in commercial affairs. There was a famous story in the Punch : two people asking themselves. "Bill, who is that man?", and Bill answered, "Let us strike at him, he is a stranger."

And then in Bengal the West Bengal people used to call East Bengal people "Bangale" and composed a satire "Bangale Manush nohe oe ekta jantu" At one time I used to wear socks at all times of the year. West Bengalis used to sneer at that saying, "I am a Bangale"; they thought that they were the most civilized people on earth. It is a legacy from the animal world. Just as dogs of one street do not like dogs of another.

Disciple : But things will improve, I hope?

Sri Aurobindo : If this goes, you may be sure that the Golden Age is coming! All my opinions are of course on the basis of the present conditions. But the things would be quite different if the Supermind came down.

Disciple : You are tempting us too much with your Supermind. But will it really benefit the whole of mankind?

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Sri Aurobindo : It will exert a certain upward pull but in order that it may bring about a considerable change, that it may be efficient, hundred Sadhaks of the Ashram can't be enough. It must be thousands whose influence can spread all over the world, who by actual test can prove that it is something superior to the means hitherto employed.

Disciple : Will it have a power (corresponding to the Universal Consciousness) over humanity?

Sri Aurobindo : We shall leave it to the Supermind to answer that question when it comes.

Disciple : The materialist and scientist say that Yogis have done nothing for human happiness. Buddhas and Avatars have come and gone but the sufferings of humanity are just the same.

Sri Aurobindo : Did Avatar come to relieve the sufferings of humanity? It was only Buddha who showed the way of release from suffering. But his path was to get away from the world and enter into Nirvana. Does mankind follow him? And if they do not and cannot get rid of their suffering, it is not Buddha's fault!!

Disciple : They say that by scientific inventions and medical discoveries they have been able to improve the condition of the world. e.g. by cholera injections, smallpox vaccinations the death rate is reduced

Sri Aurobindo : And are they happy? Vaccination! Intellectual people say that vaccinations have done more harm than good.

Disciple : But that is the opinion of intellectuals and not of doctors

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Sri Aurobindo : Why? The intellectuals have studied the subject before they gave their opinion. They may have reduced Cholera etc., what about other things that they have brought in? About suffering! Suffering cannot go as long as ignorance remains. Even after the Supermind descends the suffering will remain. If you choose to remain in suffering how can it go?

Disciple : They say that they can compel people to take injections even against their will, can spiritual force do that? The Yogis have been busy with their own salvation while the world has remained just the same.

Sri Aurobindo : Evolution has proceeded from matter through animal to physical man, vital man, mental man and spiritual man. When mental man or spiritual man appears the others do not disappear. So, the tiger and serpent do not become man. In this upward growth of the human consciousness you cannot say that Buddha, Christ etc. have played no part.

I consider the Supramental the culmination of the Spiritual man. When the Supramental becomes established I expect that one will not be required to flee from life. It is something dynamic that changes life and nature. It will open the vital, mental even the physical to the intuitive and overmental planes.

You want comfort and happiness; in that case, Truth and Knowledge are of no value.

The discoveries of modern science have outrun their own usefulness, the human capacity to use them. And the scientists don't know what to do with these discoveries. They have been used for the purposes of destruction. Now they are trying to kill men by throwing germs of small-pox from aeroplanes; they at least end the suffering by death but by bombing you mutilate for

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life. Politics, science, even socialism have not succeeded in finding a way out of suffering. They have killed people; they kill each other and involve the state into a peril unless you say that murders and massacres are necessary. From this state of chaos and suffering there have been ways of escape and people have been shown the way out. You say they are not useful.

No, no, all that is a superficial view of things. One has to consider the whole civilization before one can pass opinion.

It is because Western Civilization is failing that people like A. Huxley are drawn to Yoga.

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