Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

19

A Conscientious Scientist

"I hope," wrote Sri Aurobindo to Dilip when the latter was invited to dinner by the Maharaja of Dewas (in Madhya Pradesh) who was a refugee in Pondicherry in the early forties, "I hope your dinner at Dewas did not turn out like my first taste of Maharatta cookery —when for some reason my dinner was non est and somebody went to my neighbour, a Maharatta Professor, for food. I took one mouthful and only one. O God! Sudden fire in the mouth could not have been more surprising. Enough to bring down the whole of London in one wild agonising swoop of flame!"

Sri Aurobindo was 'a conscientious scientific person,' as he himself put it. When I began looking closely at all the things he experimented with, it took my breath away. Moreover, he always first experimented on himself before he would tell others: This too can be done.

"Food," said Sri Aurobindo, "is rather a question of hygiene, and many of the sanctions and prohibitions laid down in ancient religions had more a hygienic than a spiritual motive.... Spiritually, I should say that the effect of food

Page 184

depends more on the occult atmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself."

Sri Aurobindo was frugal in his eating. Dinendra Kumar Roy described in his book the food they were served, and noted in passing that Sri Aurobindo took more of bread and less of rice; but the less said about the food served the better! Sri Aurobindo's was ever the Yogic attitude; he was never harassed by the importunity of the palate. Nor was he, let me add at once, unaware if something was pleasant to the palate or not. He could judge to a nicety the cookery. A true gastronome, what! For it was no part of his yoga "to suppress taste, rasa, altogether." He took all kinds of food with equal rasa. "Taste," he wrote to a Sadhak, "is no more a guilty thing than sight or hearing. It is the desire that it awakens that has to be thrown away."

He was for 'balance.' Balance in everything. "That was the thing that saved me all through," he said, "I mean the perfect balance." Nothing lopsided would do for him. Overeating or fasting were to be equally avoided. Sri Aurobindo had to write again and again to many of his disciples that food should be eaten for the maintenance of the body and not out of any greed. He would not allow the sadhaks to neglect their bodies. "It is a mistake to neglect the body," he wrote severally to sadhaks, "and let it waste away; the body is the means of sadhana and should be maintained in good order." Imagine my delight when I came across that! For, in my childish way, when I was getting into my teens, I had told myself, "Look, you have to live with your body for years and years, so why

Page 185

not be comfortable and keep it in good shape?"

Sri Aurobindo insisted that sleep was as necessary for the body as food. "If you do not sleep enough the body and the nervous envelope will be weakened and the body and the nervous envelope are the basis of the sadhana." He took great pains to explain to the sadhaks of his yoga that this was not a yoga in which physical austerities had to be done for their own sake. "The first thing I tell people," he wrote in black and white, "when they want not to eat or sleep is that no yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep. Fasting or sleeplessness make the nerves morbid and excited and weaken the brain and lead to delusions and fantasies.... It is the same with everything else. How often have I said that excessive retirement was suspect to me and that to do nothing but meditate was a lop-sided and therefore unsound sadhana?... As to seclusion, I have written my distrust of retirement several times: it is only a few people who can do it and profit, but they are not a rule for others.... If I am living in my room it is not out of a passion for solitude."

Once in 1935 when Dilip wrote proposing to start periodic fasts and to 'bid adieu to tasty dishes,' and generally practise asceticism, Sri Aurobindo wrote back precipitately. "I stand aghast as I stare at the detailed proposals made by you! Fastings ? I don't believe in them, though I have done them myself. You would really eat like an ogre afterwards." And one day Sri Aurobindo reminded him of Sri Krishna's advice. "The Gita says yoga is not for one who eats too much or sleeps too much, neither is it for one who does not eat or does not sleep, but if

Page 186

one eats and sleeps suitably, then one can do it best."

Sri Aurobindo counselled moderation. But he himself had practised extremism. "Well, one can give good advice even when one does not follow it oneself," as he told a disciple of his! He had experimented with all sorts of things "to see what happens and how far they are related to truth." When he tested ideas he found that most of them, which a man takes on trust, had very little foundation upon truth.

Take an ordinary thing like drinking whisky. "I tried also to see if the experience of drinking wine could give any experience. Once I took a heavy dose of whisky. The thing rushed to my head and I lost consciousness. In that deep trance for about half an hour I felt as if I had gone into a superior plane, wide and vast."

He told of the tests he had made with other intoxicants. "I took Bhang¹ twice: once at Baroda; it had no effect. When we asked the servant who had prepared it why it failed, he said he had purposely made it weak, for if we had lost our senses due to a strong dose, he feared we would have beaten him." Everybody laughed. "Second time," said Sri Aurobindo, "I took it here at Barin's persuasion. It was a strong dose, but had no effect." Amrita confirmed that Sri Aurobindo indeed took a very heavy dose, sufficient to kill an elephant, but it had no effect on him.

1. Bhang, an Indian hemp, is used as narcotic and intoxicant; it is taken in various ways: smoked, chewed, eaten and drunk. Traditionally people get high on it once a year.

Page 187

It was therefore with quiet competence that Sri Aurobindo could tell the sadhaks what results might be expected from the use of such stimulants. "These intoxicants put one in relation with a vital world in which such things (music, song, etc.) exist." A pleasurable world ... while it lasts. But there is the other side of the coin, as he was quick to point out. "It is the habit in the subconscious material," he wrote cautioning a disciple, "that feels an artificial need created by the past and does not care whether it is harmful or disturbing to the nerves or not. That is the nature of all intoxicants (wine, tobacco, cocaine etc.), people go on even after the deleterious effects have shown themselves and even after all real pleasure in it has ceased because of this artificial need — it is not real."

Sadhus and sannyasins who live up in the mountains usually take recourse to bhang, siddhi, or other intoxicants, to keep themselves warm. Others might resort to them to get away from the physical consciousness so as to get into an inward-drawn condition. "My own experience in the matter," Sri Aurobindo declared, "is that wine and narcotics generally inhibit the action of the most Tamasic centers in the physical brain, and the other centres in the brain get stimulated. This helps one to escape from the limitations of the physical consciousness and one may get into other planes of consciousness." He narrated an incident. "One day," said Sri Aurobindo, "Mother asked a workman why he was drinking. He said that after drinking he got thoughts which he could never get when he was sober."

However, ninety per cent of those who take external

Page 188

stimulants never go beyond the vital plane. Because "once you get into the vital plane you find it extremely difficult to get to the Truth." What happens is that "experiences on the vital plane are most exalting and exhilarating at the same time that they are most dangerous and terrible. There are many pitfalls and no reality." And to get to the Truth one has to be very open and ready to change all one's ideas, be they personal, social or national. "Take taste and food," Sri Aurobindo said. "I was once a violent non-vegetarian. Then I found that it was my own vital being that was demanding meat. Well, I gave it up and for years together I went on taking whatever came my way. Then I found even what people call 'tasteless' and 'bad' food has got a taste in it." Isn't that something! Yet from his infancy he was accustomed to non-vegetarian diet. Sri Aurobindo's views were always wide and spiritual, never narrow and moral. In the mid-1920s he told a disciple, "I have no objection to taking fish; you can even take wine if it suits you." Yet. "As a matter of fact," he clarified, "I cannot take fish nowadays, but that means nothing. I give it to the cats all right."

It was when he was practising pranayama that he "adopted a vegetarian diet. That gave lightness and some purification." He laughed. "Once [in 1909] in Calcutta I lived for a long time on rice and bananas only. It was a very good food." Sri Aurobindo's eyes twinkled. "Now let me tell you about the invitation to dinner by Romesh Chandra Dutt. He was surprised that I was taking only vegetable food, whereas he could not live without meat. With vegetable food I was feeling light and pure. It is just a belief that one can't live without

Page 189

meat, and that creates a habit." The body has no desires, it has needs. If left free it will tell you what it needs.

Fastings also were not outside the purview of his tests, and prolonged Fastings at that. "I fasted twice, said Sri Aurobindo, "once in Alipore Jail for ten days and the other time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was in full Yogic activity. I was not taking any food. I was throwing away all of it into the bucket. Of course, the Superintendent didn't know. Only the Warder knew about it, and he said to the others, 'The gentleman must be ill. He won't live long.' Although I lost weight considerably, I could lift a pail of water above my head, which I couldn't do ordinarily."

The second fast took place at Shankar Chetty's house, where Sri Aurobindo lived from April to October 1910. "Then at Pondicherry," he went on, "while I was fasting, I kept up full mental and vital and Yogic activity. I was walking eight hours a day and yet not feeling tired in the least. When I broke my fast I did not begin slowly but with the usual normal food." And there he nearly got the clue to living without food. "When I did my fast of about twenty-three days while living in Chet-tiar's house," revealed Sri Aurobindo, "I very nearly solved the problem. I could walk eight hours a day as usual. I continued my mental work and Sadhana also as usual and I found that I was not in the least weak at the end of twenty-three days. But the flesh began to grow less and I did not find a clue to replacing the very material part that was reduced in the body." After a moment's pause he said, "There must be some clue and I had solved the problem almost nine-tenths." A smile twitched his

Page 190

lips. "But because I did not succeed there is no reason why somebody else should not succeed."

Comparing the two fasts, he said, "The Alipore fasting gave more results than the second one. Though the fast lasted only ten days I lost ten pounds, whereas here the fast lasted twenty-three days but the loss of weight was less. At Alipore I was having tremendous visions which were all experiences on the vital plane. But as a part of my mind was critical I took them all with reservations."

In 1926 while conversing with his disciples Sri Aurobindo said that he had not tried to do without sleep. "Once I tried for two days with the result that on the third day I slept for nine hours." But when questioned he admitted that his sleep "is not all like ordinary sleep —though it is that for the most part. The only time that I very nearly conquered sleep was in jail. I used to keep awake for two days and sleep on the third. I did it for ten days." Later he clarified. "It was not for conquering sleep that I began the waking experiment, but because there was a pressure of Sadhana and I liked to do Sadhana rather than sleep."

Experiments with intoxicants, food, sleep ... Sri Aurobindo was after the perfection of the physical instrument. As he wrote to Anandrao in the first years of his stay at Pondicherry: "The physical [siddhi or perfection] is backward and nearing completion only in the immunity from disease, — which I am now attempting successfully to perfect and test by exposure to abnormal conditions."

It was also at Alipore jail that Sri Aurobindo obtained,

Page 191

in a moment or two, the power to appreciate painting. A line from Manmohan's letter dated 4 April 1889, seems to indicate that his brother, while still in England, was already familiar with sculpture. "Could you tell me," Mano asked Laurence, "on what days Burn Jones' studio is open? A friend of mine and my brother would like to see it." In India, Sri Aurobindo had deepened his familiarity with sculpture and architecture, but was less familiar with the world of painting. Once, consoling Dilip, he cited his own experiences in those domains. "Don't be desperate about your incapacity as a connoisseur of painting. I was far worse in this respect: knew something about sculpture, but blind to painting. Suddenly, one day in the Alipore jail while meditating I saw some pictures on the walls of the cell and lo and behold! the artistic eye in me opened and I knew all about painting except of course the more material side of the technique. I don't always know how to express, though," he said with characteristic cond our, "because I lack the knowledge of the proper expressions, but that does not stand in the way of a keen and understanding appreciation. So, there you are: all things are possible in Yoga." To Nirod, who disputed the power of the Yoga-force, Sri Aurobindo retorted, "Why was it that I who never understood or cared for painting, suddenly in a single hour by an opening of vision got the eye to see and the mind of understanding about colour, line and design? How was it that I who was unable to understand and follow a metaphysical argument and whom a page of Kant or Hegel or Hume or even Berkeley left either dazed and uncomprehending and fatigued or totally uninterested because I could not

Page 192

fathom or follow, suddenly began writing pages of the stuff as soon as I started the Arya and am now reputed to be a great philosopher?" And drowning Nirod with a torrent of similar experiences Sri Aurobindo told him, "Kindly reflect a little and don't talk facile nonsense."

Sri Aurobindo was rather disdainful of intellectuals. With reason of course. "These intellectuals, when they talk of something beyond their scope, make fools of themselves," he observed. When his disciples had inner experiences, Sri Aurobindo told them not to bother about the objections of physical science —which, anyway, is incompetent to sit in judgment on matters that overpass it. "Your bells etc.," he wrote to one of them in 1931, "mentioned by you as recent experiences were already enumerated as long ago as the time of the Upanishads as signs accompanying the opening to the larger consciousness. If I remember right your sparks come in the same list. The fact has been recorded again and again in Yogic literature. I had the same experience hundreds of times in the earlier part of my Sadhana. So you see you are in very honourable company in this matter and need not trouble yourself about the objections of physical science."

These are but a few experiments made by Sri Aurobindo. He developed many things by yoga. He made test after test and accumulated experience upon experience. He frankly told his intellectual disciples that testing Yogic experiences by the ordinary reason won't do. "For I am unable to see by what valid tests you propose to make the ordinary reason the judge of what is beyond it." Because, he explained in his precise way, "the experiences of Yoga belong to an inner domain and go according to a

Page 193

law of their own, have their own method of perception, criteria and all the rest of it which are neither those of the domain of the physical senses nor of the domain of rational or scientific enquiry. Just as scientific enquiry passes beyond that of the physical senses and enters the domain of the infinite and infinitesimal about which the senses can say nothing and test nothing —for one cannot see and touch an electron or know by the evidence of the sense-mind whether it exists or not or decide by that evidence whether the earth really turns round the sun and not rather the sun round the earth as our senses and all our physical experience daily tell us —so the spiritual search passes beyond the domain of scientific or rational enquiry and it is impossible by the aid of the ordinary positive reason to test the data of spiritual experience and decide whether those things exist or not or what is their law and nature. As in Science, so here you have to accumulate experience on experience, following faithfully the methods laid down by the Guru or by the systems of the past, you have to develop an intuitive discrimination which compares the experiences, see what they mean, how far and in what field each is valid, what is the place of each in the whole, how it can be reconciled or related with others that at first might seem to contradict it, etc., etc., until you can move with a secure knowledge in the vast field of spiritual phenomena. That," he stated, "is the only way to test spiritual experiences, I have myself tried the other method and I have found it absolutely incapable and inapplicable."

The conscientious Scientist concluded with a counter question. "Finally, how without inner knowledge or experience can you or anyone else test the inner knowledge and experience of others?"

Page 194