Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

28th January, 1939

The Mother left for the general meditation and the disciples were ready to begin some topic, but Sri Aurobindo seemed mentally occupied with something. He was rather thoughtful and in a mood of silence. So none ventured to begin.  After a few minutes Sri Aurobindo looked at the company present and there was spontaneous smile on every face.

Disciple : X seems to have some news.

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Sri Aurobindo : Then why does he not spurt out with it?     

Disciple : There is nothing particular to-day.

Sri Aurobindo : There is a cure for your cold in the "Sunday times" :   you have to get into an aeroplane, take some rounds, get down and you are cured.

Disciple : Permanently?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, if the plane comes down with a crash, the cure would be permanent. (Laughter)

Disciple : One friend V used to put a cotton string into his nose for his cold.

Disciple : That is a Hatha yogic process.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes. They also insert a long piece of cloth into their intestines and bring it out through the anus in order to clean the track.

 There also have been authentic cases of taking poisons like the nitric acid, Hydro cyanic acid etc., without any evil effect. There are cases of swallowing nails, glass etc.

Disciple : Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo : There is no question of it being possible, it is actually done.

Disciple : I wonder how the scientists would explain these phenomena. Somewhere they were invited to a demonstration but they refused to attend.

Disciple : They can't, for fear of their convictions being shaken.

Disciple : These Hatha yogis who demonstrate these phenomena,

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must know some process of preventing absorption of these things in  the stomach.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, they must have the power to stop the action of the poisons and then eliminate it. They throw it out – by vomiting the substance immediately after the demonstration.

Disciple : Perhaps, you know that the Royal Society of Science refused permission to Sir William Crooks who wanted to demonstrate the reality of mediumistic phenomena.

Sri Aurobindo : The same thing happened in Germany. In the village Alberfeltz there was a man who used to train horses to do mathematical sums – (of course, they were simple operations). He invited the scientists; they refused to believe in it. Not only they refused but they complained to the Government that it should be stopped, because the trainer was following unorthodox method of investigation!

Disciple : Maurice Materlinck himself went to see it and said, after seeing it, that he himself did not believe in it before he saw it. He examined the animals by giving his own figures and the answers given by the horses were correct. (Ref. to his book – "L' hote inconna"

Sri Aurobindo : They say that animals can't think or reason. It is not altogether true. They have an intelligence which acts within narrow limits of the needs of their life. These faculties are latent in the animals and have not been developed, that's all.

The cats have a language of their own; they utter different kinds of mews for different purposes. For instance, when the Mother leaves her kittens behind a box, mewing a particular rhythm, then the kittens understand that they are not to move from that place till she comes back and repeats the mew. It is through rhythm that they express     

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themselves and they understand human language if it is every time in a particular rhythm.

Even the donkey who is supposed to be very stupid is unusually clever. Horses and donkeys were confined together within an enclosure and the gate was closed to find out if they could get out.  It was found that while horses were helpless, it was the donkeys that by turning the latch opened the gate.

Why go further, even in our Ashram the Mother's cat Chikou was unusually clever. One day she was confined in a room and it was discovered that she was trying to open the window in exactly the same way as the Mother used to do. Evidently she had watched the Mother doing it before going to the window and taking up the string.

We had, when we were staying in Rue suffrin, a bitch left by someone in the house had a room upstairs with glass window and a bath-room at one extremity. One day this bitch found herself locked out. She tried all sorts of devices to enter the room but could not as the main door and the windows were all closed. As all attempts failed, she sat down in front of the window and began to think; how to get in? The way she sat and the attitude of her sitting showed clearly that she was thinking. Then suddenly she got up as if saying :  Ah, there is the bath-room door! Let me try it. She went in that direction. The door there was open and she got in.

It is the Europeans who make a big difference between man and animals. The only difference is the animals can't form a concept, can't read or write or philosophize (laughter).

Disciple : But they also can't do yoga.

Sri Aurobindo : I don't know that. While Mother and

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myself were meditating a cat used to be present. We found that she was getting queer and was getting into trance and was almost on the point of death, but recovered. Evidently, she was trying to receive something.

Disciple : Maharshi's cow, Laxmi, is said to bow down to him. She is even supposed to have been some old disciple of his in her previous life and was attached to Maharshi.

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