Nagin Bhai Tells Me

Two Recollections

Kailash-bhai Tells Me

Nagin never spoke to me about his experiences. We were quite close to each other and would speak about every kind of thing. But he never mentioned to me anything about his inner life. Just one or two small incidents I know, as narrated to me by him. But these are of a general nature.

It was a Christmas day. In those early days, it used to be celebrated in the Playground. The Mother used to come there. Nagin was young. The problem of sex was still troubling him. There was a lot of correspondence with Sri Aurobindo regarding this. But he had not yet overcome it. In the Playground he was constantly looking at one girl. The Mother noticed it and did something. Since then Nagin had no sex-difficulty in his life and sadhana. He would talk and mix with everybody but this had totally disappeared. It didn't happen in the case of many others although they were also very close to the Mother.

At Balcony Darshan, one day there was a very thick atmosphere. It was a long Darshan, almost for half an hour. It seems the Mother had gone inside and again came out; at least that is what people standing closer to the Balcony felt. Later, she asked D. whether he was present. When he said 'No', she told him that Sri Aurobindo's presence was so powerful that it looked like a thick atmosphere. Nagin told me this later.

I came to know through somebody that Nagin was a Yogi in his past birth. It is also reported that he will need one more birth to complete his Yoga. Perhaps this was mentioned by Sri Aurobindo in some context. We don't know how far it is authentic. Nagin never spoke of it to me. That was his nature. But I don't know whether he was aware of it. Perhaps, yes.

Nagin almost knew that he was going away. He wanted to see Dr. Datta, but the doctor was not there. When someone attending on him wanted to know if he could help him, he politely repeated that he wanted to see the doctor himself. He wanted to make some offering to the Dispensary.

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He had a young maid-servant who looked after him with great care. He gave her some money, about ten-thousand rupees, for her marriage. He had given good presents like that to his earlier servants also. He used to go to the marriage ceremony and give presents.

One young Tamil person came in close contact with him. He was a sincere seeker, devoting himself always to sadhana. He made one request to Nagin, for something that he had received from the Mother or from Sri Aurobindo. He told him that he had only two photos of theirs with him and Kailash would have these after his passing away. It would be for him to decide about them afterwards. But the young man somehow came to know about Nagin's passing away and arrived here from Chennai in time; he had his last darshan. Kailash told about the photos to Nagin's sister who gladly agreed to give one of them to the young aspirant.

A year or so after his arrival, Nagin wrote to Sri Aurobindo: "I see Madanlal's soul to be very bright." Sri Aurobindo wrote back: "His soul was bright, but it became brighter after his coming here."

Amal Kiran Writes*

At 7.20 p.m. on 9 May 1997 one of the old guard of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga breathed his last. But when I looked intently at his face as he lay in his room for a last look of farewell by his friends, I did not see the proverbial peace as if all work had come to an end. In its place an indrawn aloofness was most evident to me. Nagin seemed still intent on his sadhana and by giving up his body he appeared merely to concentrate on another way of meeting the Divine and transmitting the Great Presence.

I knew Nagin very intimately and was often in his room collecting and copying Sri Aurobindo's answers to his questions in the notebooks he used to send to his Guru every night. And my

* _{Mother India, July 1997}.

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constant impression of him was of a spontaneous persistence in the act of both standing back and remembering to offer all one's being to the secret Supreme.

It is also worth observing that while there is in the Ashram no prohibition of sadhaks and sadhikas meeting each other, I have not seen Nagin having any relations, however superficial, with a sadhika. When he met a sadhika he was never constrained in his dealings, he was quite at ease, but he had no urge to cultivate any friendship with the feminine element in the Ashram. I believe he followed very faithfully the advice Sri Aurobindo had given him when he had asked the Mother what should his attitude be to the other sex. Sri Aurobindo wrote just two simple yet highly significant words: "Distant indifference."

Nagin's correspondence has been published, and is of great importance; for certain aspects of the Integral Yoga are brought forward there more strikingly than anywhere else. Looking at Nagin's unassuming appearance, his face always faintly smiling as if to himself and his highly shuffling gait, one would hardly think that here was an example of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga fully practised with nothing at all of self-importance. He had also a good sense of humour—an indispensable trait for anybody who wished to hobnob with Amal Kiran. And I was happy and proud to find that he had great trust in my judgment.

People have noted that when he was at the Samadhi his body assumed postures of which he was quite unaware. One knew at once that there was no deliberate drama here—but rather one got a glimpse, unintended by the giver—of someone who could swiftly get lost in a dimension superior to our common consciousness. It is not certain how much of this dimension he could bring into contact with the daily course of his life, for his normal life was very simple and unimpressive. Perhaps one is not quite sure that his inner opening to the Mother was as great as it was to his Master, but the latter relationship was quite evident in its absoluteness.

A certain feature of his yogic life in the Ashram is worth noting. Sri. Aurobindo has written about himself that sometimes his active sadhana used to come to a dead-stop—even for several

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months. In this period one has to remain calm and mentally turned to the Divine. Nagin has divulged that he had six long years of sadhana-stoppage. During this period he had started a systematic reading of great literary works. For example, he went through all the plays of Bernard Shaw. One day, when he was standing at the Samadhi, suddenly the sadhana started on its own. Evidently the stoppage was a period of inner assimilation brought about by the Guru.

A notable experience which his correspondence with Sri Aurobindo reveals is of the Brahmic or Universal Consciousness. No doubt, a very important state realised for a shorter or longer period, but one that has been undergone by a number of sadhaks. We find it indicated, for instance, in Sahana-devi's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo—but as far as I remember, never so explicitly featured, as in Nagin's exchange of letters.

To go through the whole bulk of this exchange is to acquire a special insight into Sri Aurobindo's luminous pushing of his disciples onward and upward. Holding in mind its splendid revelations side by side with the memory of its recipient's sweet modesty and all-time geniality we shall be able to do some justice to the nature of our loss when Nagin parted from us.

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