Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

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The Laboratory of the Soul

When he came out from jail Sri Aurobindo found the whole political aspect of the country altered. Most of the Nationalist leaders were in prison or in self-imposed exile "and there was a general discouragement and depression, though the feeling in the country had not ceased but was only suppressed and was growing by its suppression," he wrote. Suppression. Repression. The colonial government had let loose severe repression over the whole country. A steamroller of repression. And passed a profusion of strangling laws. Bengal bore the brunt of its wrath. Under an arbitrary 'law' of deportation the police had suddenly hurried away from their homes, or from the streets, nine of the most active and devoted workers for the country and exiled them without trial, as the Bureaucracy was unable to formulate a single definite charge against them. The particular law under which the nine were exiled had already been impugned in British Parliament as an antiquated and anomalous regulation. When its use by the Government of India was challenged, Lord Morley, the then Viceroy, answered, "The law is as good a law as any of the Statute Book." Common

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sense would have called it a travesty of law and justice. Sri Aurobindo was incisive. "We say it is a lawless law, — a dishonest law, — a law that is, in any real sense of the word, no law at all." In a speech at Jhalakati he took a swing at that specious 'law.' "For what is its substance and purpose? It provides that when you cannot bring any charge against a man which can be supported by proofs — and when you have no evidence which would stand for a moment before a court of justice, in any legal tribunal—when you have nothing against him except that his existence is inconvenient to you, then you need not advance any charge, you need not bring any evidence, you are at liberty to remove him from his home, from his friends, from his legitimate activities and intern him for the rest of his life in a jail. This is the law which is as good a law as any on the Statute Book!" I must say that Indian legislators have beaten the British at that game I

At any rate, with its repressive measures the Government had succeeded in bringing about an outward quietness, pushing underground a simmering discontent. The Daily Hitavadi m its article of 8 May 1909, 'After all this time,' had prefaced its welcome to Sri Aurobindo by alluding to the prevailing situation. "The educated community of Bengal is at the present moment silent in fear, amazement and confusion, the cry of Bande Mataram which used to pierce the heavens is hushed, all the energy, exultation and demonstration which used to be

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displayed in the accomplishment of the Swadeshi vow have died away, the sounds of song which used to fill the four quarters of the heavens are absent and the burning words of the orator are no longer heard. Everything is quiet, everything is subdued, everything seems to be under the spell of a great confusion. The incessant pouring of hot oil in the shape of official wrath seems to have stilled the powerful waves of feeling, which at one time, surging through the Bengali community, purified and purged it."

Sri Aurobindo told his audience at Uttarpara more or less the same thing. "When I went to jail," he said, "the whole country was alive with the cry of Bande Mataram, alive with the hope of a nation, the hope of millions of men who had newly risen out of degradation. When I came out of jail I listened for that cry, but there was instead a silence. A hush had fallen on the country and men seemed bewildered; for instead of God's bright heaven full of the vision of the future that had been before us, there seemed to be overhead a leaden sky from which human thunders and lightnings rained. No man seemed to know which way to move...."

It was Amarendranath Chatterji who had gone to Calcutta from Uttarpara to fetch Sri Aurobindo, on behalf of the organizers¹ of the 'Society for the Protection of Religion.' "I went to the Sanjibani office to fetch Sri Aurobindo," writes Amar. "I saw him there absolutely quiet, as if he were in

1. Piyarimohan Mukherji, the zamindar of Uttarpara and his eldest son, Rajendranath, generally called Michhari Babu. Michhari Babu was a generous donor to the cause of the revolutionaries.

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meditation." So Amar too did not talk long with him. They went by train to Uttarpara. Many of the audience took the same train. The time for the meeting was fixed for 5: 30 P. M. and Sri Aurobindo was the only speaker. "The meeting was fixed at the open courtyard of the Library on the eastern side, on the west coast of the Ganges .... There were about ten thousand men in the audience . His voice was not voluminous and so the audience established pin-drop silence in order to be able to hear him .... The reception he got here was extraordinary."

So was the speech. This was probably his very first speech after coming out of prison on 8 May. It was here at Uttarpara, on 30 May 1909, that Sri Aurobindo for the first time spoke publicly of his Yoga and his spiritual experiences. The audience was stunned. Their beloved leader did not utter any trenchant or weighty political views as they had expected I The press of people listened to his usual calm, clear and measured accents. When he raised his right arm to stress a point, they saw a flapping sleeve with a missing button. But as they listened a new atmosphere stole over them. Their souls stirred strangely: like the breath of the Eternal and the Infinite blowing through the conch-shell of Time.

Sri Aurobindo revealed here the change of tack. He used to say before that "Nationalism is a religion, a creed, a faith." Now he said, "It is the Sanatan Dharma which for us is Nationalism...." Fourteen months earlier he had written: "God has set apart India as the eternal fountainhead of holy spirituality." He said now, "This is the Dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the seclusion of this

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peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great."

India had to be great ... for the sake of the world. This became his recurring theme-song. In his speeches, in his writings, he spoke over and over again of the need for India's freedom which was the first condition for India to recover her spiritual freedom. For, on the spiritual life of India depended the world's destiny. "So with India rests the future of the world." No other nation but India had what it takes for the spiritualization of the human race. "India," he said, "is the guru of the nations, the physician of the human soul in its profounder maladies; she is destined once more to new-mould the life of the world and restore the peace of the human spirit. But Swaraj is the necessary condition of her work and before she can do the work, she must fulfil the condition."

Mother put it simply. "O India, Land of Light and spiritual knowledge, wake up to your true mission in the world. Show the way to harmony and unity."

And Sri Aurobindo. "The world waits for the rising of India to receive the divine flood in its fullness."

The Reader has certainly understood the reason for this insistence on India. "The grand workshop of spiritual experiment, the laboratory of the soul has been India."

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