Sri Aurobindo : conversations
THEME/S
5th January, 1939
Disciple : How long does human bone continue to grow?
Sri Aurobindo : Cranium fifty-five years, Madulanta fifty years.
Disciple : What was your age when you entered politics (openly)?
Sri Aurobindo : 33 years.
Disciple : When did you begin yoga?
Sri Aurobindo : Somewhere in 1905.
Disciple : How did you begin?
Sri Aurobindo : God knows how! It began very early perhaps. When I landed on the Indian soil a great calm and quiet descended on me. There were also other characteristic experiences – at Poona on the Parvati hills and then in Kashmir on the Shankeracharya hill, – a sense of a great infinite Reality was felt. It was very real.
Then at Baroda Deshpande tried to convert me to yoga; but I had the usual ideas about it–that one has to go to the forest and give up everything. I was interested in the freedom of the country. But I always thought that the great figures of the world could not have been after a chimera and if there was such a Power
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why not use it for the freedom of the country?
Barin used to do automatic writing at Baroda. Once the spirit of my father appeared on being called. He gave some remarkable prophecies. When asked to give proof about his identity he mentioned the fact of having given a golden watch to Barin – which none in the company knew. And then he spoke of a picture in Devdhar's house. They tried to check up and found no picture there. The spirit when told about it repeated it and asked us to look again. On consulting the old Mother of Devdhar she said there was an old picture which had been plastered over.
About Tilak, when questioned, the spirit said : "He will be the man who will remain with the head unbent when the work will be on trial and others will bow." Then we called Ramakrishna He did not say anything. Only at the end he said : "Mandir gado" – "build a temple", which we at that time interpreted as starting Mandirs – temples – for political Sanyasis, but which I later interpreted correctly as, "make a temple in yourself." I began Pranayama–breathing exercises – in about 1905. Engineer Devdhar was a disciple of Brahmananda. I took instructions from him on Pranayama and started on my own. I practiced Pranayama at Khasirao Jadhav's place in Baroda. The results were remarkable : I used to see many visions, sights and figures; (2) I felt a sort of electric power round my head. (3) My powers of writing were nearly dried up, after the practice of Pranayama, they revived with great vigour. I could write both prose and poetry with a flow. That flow never ceased since then. If I have not written afterwards it is because I had something else to do. But the moment I want to write, it is there. (4) My health
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improved, – I grew stout and strong and the skin became smooth and fair and there was a flow of sweetness in the saliva. I used to feel a certain aura round the head. There were plenty of mosquitoes there but they did not come to me.
I used to sit more and more in Pranayama but there were no more results. It was at this time that I gave up meat – diet and found a great feeling of lightness and purification in the system. Meat is a Rajasic food. Vivekananda recommends it to the Indians. It gives a certain force and energy in the physical. It was for that the Kshatriyas did not give up meat in India. From Tamas you pass to Rajas and Vivekananda was not quite wrong.
There came a Sanyasi who gave me a Stotra of Kali, – a very violent Stotra ending with "Jahi" "Jahi" – "kill", of securing Indian freedom. I used to repeat it but it did not give any results.
Once I visited Ganganath (Chandod) after Brahmananda's death when Keshwananda was there.
With my Europeanized mind I had no faith in image-worship and I hardly believed in the presence of God. I went to Kernali where there are several temples. There is one of Kali and when I looked at the image I saw the living presence there. For the first time, I believed in the presence of God.
At one time – in Sadhana – I used to try all sorts of experiments to see what happens and how far they are related to the truth. I took Bhang-Ganja-hemp-and other intoxicants as I wanted to know what happens
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and why Sanyasis and Sadhus take these things. It made me go into trance, and sometimes sent me to a superior plane of consciousness. (But reliance on these outer stimulants was found to be the greatest drawback of this method.)
I met Lele when I was searching for some guidance and practicing meditation under his guidance. I had the Nirvana experience in Sardar Majumdar's house in the room on the top-floor. After that I had to rely on inner guidance for my Sadhana. In Alipore the Sadhana was very fast – it was extravagant and exhilarating. On the vital plane it can be dangerous and disastrous. I took to fasting at Alipore for ten or eleven days and lost ten pounds in weight. At Pondicherry the loss of weight was not so much, thought the physical substance began to be reduced. It was in Shanker Chetty's house. I was walking eight hours a day during twenty-three day's fast. The miraculous or extraordinary powers acquired by Yogis on the vital plane are not all true in the physical. There are many pit-falls in the vital. These vital powers take up even a man like Hitler and make him do things by suggesting to him – "It shall happen". There are quite a number of cases of Sadhaks who have lost their Sadhana by listening to these voices from the vital-world. And the humour of it all is that they all say that they come either from the Mother or from me!
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