By the Grace of Sri Aurobindo I had my first Darshan of him in 1920 when I was a college student. I heard that he was a great patriot, quite out of the ordinary, one who renounced his all for our country, who saw our country actually as Bharat Mata, a Goddess, and who elevated patriotism to the height of Religion and Spirituality, and kindled the fire of spirit in the nation by his courage, and by his eloquent speeches and writings. I heard also that he was a poet, a scholar and a Maha Yogi. I was very eager to have Darshan of the great personality, and so I went to Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo kindly granted me an interview.
Before seeing me he stood for a few minutes facing the sea and gazing into the beyond. He stood erect, motionless like a statue. Then he came near and sat in a chair. I made my pranam and sat opposite to him.
My first impression of Sri Aurobindo was that he was a true Rishi. His God-like face radiated profound peace, and serenity. His intent and faraway look indicated to me that he was not of the earth. He was lean, but he was a picture of health and immense, dynamic calm strength. His complexion was dark, but his personality was radiant.
Sri Aurobindo made kind inquiries regarding my studies and interests. Politics inevitably came up for discussion. It was a very informal talk, but extremely stimulating and useful to me.
I had Darshan of Sri Aurobindo every evening for a week afterwards. We used to talk mainly about literature, fine arts, philosophy and politics. In English literature he advised me to begin with Thackeray's Pendennis and other novels. He remarked: "Thackeray is more subtle and psychological than any novelist of his time or before him." Other authors recommended by him were George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte Sisters, Stevenson…. Among poets he asked me to start with Tennyson, Matthew Arnold (especially his essay on translating Homer), Wordsworth, Shelly, Keats, and then take up the earlier poets.
Those meetings and many others afterwards were etched in my memory. While taking leave of him I requested his permission to come to see him again, and he kindly granted my request. After leaving Pondicherry I began to read the works of Sri Aurobindo with avidity. In them I found solutions of important problems concerning the nature of man, of the world and of God. The mental pleasure and spiritual satisfaction that I got from reading his works, I had never got from any other thinker or writer. It was not only admiration for the constant incandescence of his intellect; his philosophy of life and living appealed to something deeper, some inmost chord in my being, and moved me to my depths.
So in the beginning of 1926 I decided, "Sri Aurobindo is my Guru". But I asked myself, "Will he accept me as his disciple?" With trepidation I proceeded to Pondicherry and sought an interview with the Master, which he readily granted. I wondered at the great change in his physical appearance since I had seen him last. His complexion was fair, and his body had filled out. Spiritual fire shone through his eyes. I remembered the epithet in the Mahabharata describing the eyes of the Tapaswins as 'durniriksya', unseeable. (Later I saw it was not always so. Usually it was a soft and gentle light like the stars.) I told him the purpose of my visit. When he consented to accept me as his disciple, I felt myself blessed.
My brother V. Chandrasekharam and I lived in the house next door to 9 Rue de la Marine, the Master's residence. There were about a dozen disciples then living in a few houses close by. It was like Gurukul. There used to be informal sittings in the evenings when we used to talk on all kinds of subjects. It was often like table-talk. Sometimes serious subjects also were discussed. At other times the talk was in a lighter vein on men and matters, on politics at home and abroad, etc., but it was all off the cuff.
Sri Aurobindo's voice was soft and gentle, almost feminine. His words flowed like the cool waters of a perennial spring. Thoughts came to him incessantly. It appeared as if he was in communication with higher levels of inspiration and direct knowledge. His experience in the sphere of Sadhana as well as in other spheres was vast and profound. But he made us feel quite at ease in his august presence. I never saw him solemn or serious. The Master would talk in a relaxed and jovial mood. He had a fine and subtle sense of humour. Even light-hearted jokes and jests used to be there in plenty. His repartee was good humoured and enjoyable. On occasions he would chuckle happily.
We therefore looked forward to the evening sittings with great pleasure. As days passed, it appeared to us, towards November 1926 that Sri Aurobindo was getting more and more indrawn. Evidently he had reached a crucial stage in his Sadhana and was on the verge of achieving a great objective. Finally towards the last week of November the evening sittings came to an end. The evening talks were an intellectual feast. I found them as scintillating and stimulating, as illuminating and edifying as the talks of Socrates and Plato, and in modern times of Goethe and Whitehead. All his original thoughts were precious to me and I used to record most of them faithfully the next day. On many days I could reproduce more than a hundred lines. This I believed then, and looking back now I believe still more, that it was all due to the Grace of Sri Aurobindo. My notes of these talks are currently being published in Mother India. There is no continuity in the notes, for the talks were on all kinds of subjects, and they cover different periods of time, but looming above it all in the background is Sri Aurobindo's personality and the pervading presence of his unique vision.
In the mornings at about 9 a.m. we could see the Master individually whenever we wished to have his guidance. He used to help us very patiently with his advice and answer our questions.
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In one of my interviews with the Master after I had been accepted, he remarked: "At present you are actively moving in the mind…. Are your nerves solid?"
ANSWER: My nerves are sensitive. Kindly tell me how to strengthen them, and also how to quieten my mind.
SRI AUROBINDO: Solid nerves means patience, vigilance, endurance, capacity to break stones…. You must make your nerves strong by cultivating these qualities, and by bringing down quiet and peace. To get the stillness and peace you must first have silent aspiration in all the being for peace, then separate yourself from your mind, draw back and look at it from above. Actively watch the mind as it runs along. Don't give sanction to the thoughts; if they are persistent reject them centrally, calmly, steadily, without struggle or effort or strain. Don't involve yourself in the act of rejecting the thoughts. A vigilant will is essential lest you lose hold of self. You must be able to inwardly seize the mind and hold it… this is also necessary for active concentrated thinking. Both movements are mutually helpful…. With practice the mind comes under control, there will be quiet and stillness. After stillness is established, concentrate silently, consciously on the peace.
SRI AUROBINDO: Emptiness of mind is something deeper than the normal void of the inert, tamasic mind, it is a preparation for a higher movement in consciousness. One must be vigilant and drive away all weakness and impurity, lest in this emptiness the force that is in the atmosphere may take advantage of the weak spot and overturn him. I have reached a stage where there is something in the atmosphere around me, and the Sadhaks may feel the effects of its pressure on all the levels of being…. Unless one has a strong hold on the self there is every danger.
SRI AUROBINDO: The external things do not much matter, it is the restlessness and the inertia of mind that are the real obstacles. The body is not so much of an obstacle as the mind with its activity and its desire for results. Don't engage yourself in a duel with the mind. Don't fight with the thoughts. You must stand back from the mind and like a spectator watch its activity. Even in the act of watching the mind as it runs, you are passively rejecting the thoughts…. Unless you do this, you will not get the peace and the force. Even in my own case mind was the obstacle in the path of my progress to Vijnana…. Silently command the mind to be still. There must be an inner central concentration.
SRI AUROBINDO: The stillness is of the mind…. The melancholy may be due to the sentimental part of the mind. The mind raises up the melancholy to enjoy it. It is the melancholy of the poets, Tagore, for example, or it may be due, as you say, to imagination. You have to still the sentimental mind, the sensational mind by calling down the peace. When the peace descends, you feel it within you in the body descending from centre to centre, and around you. The peace is the foundation and the beginning of Yoga. Later come Ananda, vastness of Brahman, Purusha consciousness, etc. You have to look at the thoughts, cast out the false, receive the true…. The will should be silent intuitive will, a force that is not mental…. If the melancholy is corrosive, it must be rejected…. If it is soothing, as for e.g., such as is induced by certain melodies, it is psychic sadness, and this can be utilised in the Sadhana….
SRI AUROBINDO: There is no harm in summarily rejecting the thoughts, only you should not involve yourself in the act of rejecting them…. In the act of watching your mind, you are passively rejecting the thoughts, but you are not involving yourself…. Though the quiet is not disturbed by the thoughts, you must not allow them to rise often lest it become a habit. Try to silence them as completely as possible. Otherwise they may be coming up like this (with a gesture of the hand)…. The quiet must not depend on any external causes e.g., music…. You must lay down the mind as freely as you do a tool.
SRI AUROBINDO: You must have equality under all circumstances. If your mind gets out of control even for a moment and gets disturbed or troubled, then all troubles follow, mental unrest, suggestions, etc. Be vigilant always, more vigilant in other hours than during meditation…. You must see the One Infinite everywhere. Always you must try to see everything as the manifestation of God. Aspiration in the heart, (i.e. the psychic mind,) and will in the higher mind – prayer is only the making precise of the aspiration –, will bring down the peace. The peace you will feel as a Presence about you, within you…. Silence is a very powerful weapon and comes only after long Sadhana to those whose mental development does not become an obstacle to the silence, generally it does…. It depends on one's Samskara, temperament. Thought is a form of consciousness. And in the near future since there would be no silence, thoughts would arise and make their impression on the consciousness before they are dismissed…. Separate yourself from mind, and quiet the mind. Be one with the Witness. Separate yourself from Prana later…. You don't find the obstacles in your path now. As the peace and force descend, they reveal the obstacles, and they also show you how to get over them. The will in the Higher Mind you cannot reach so soon. Till it is awakened, resort to aspiration purified and strengthened more and more.
SRI AUROBINDO: The concentration of the physical mind on the Higher Power (Mother), will not do. What is required is an inner concentration and inner peace. A certain stillness there may be, due to absorption in an idea, but inner concentration alone can give you the inner stillness. Absorption in one idea without full self-control, wakefulness and power of detachment behind is dangerous. The concentration must be conscious. When there is no vigilance and detachment you unconsciously identify yourself with the mind, even in prayer…. Absorption in one movement may be helpful sometimes….
SRI AUROBINDO: It is because you are thinking much about peace you are not getting it…. There should be no difference between the hours of meditation and other hours. Only during meditation time you get the peace which you must have during the whole day. Never for once throw yourself into the play.
You have to get back the largeness, the largeness which holds the peace. You have to change the stuff of your mind, it must be flexible and plastic. It is not enough if you have the stillness within, it must be around you… if you cannot get the peace concentrate on the force. The two mean the same thing in the end. The peace brings the force with it, and the force, when it comes, removes the obstacles and establishes peace.
Q: Are there obstacles of the subconscious?
A: There are any number of obstacles in the subconscious. They don't matter now. Only aspire for peace. Let the thoughts only play on the surface. Look at the thoughts as you look at things outside yourself, e.g. tables, books, etc.
SRI AUROBINDO: To still the mind is not to abolish mental activity altogether. You don't throw away the habit of mental activity from your nature…. The coming down of the higher things depends on the purity and preparation of the lower nature; the purity of the lower depends on the descent of the higher. The descent of the calm and the purity of the lower nature are interdependent….
SRI AUROBINDO: To try to quiet the mind by prayer is not the right thing, for it is only a precarious calm that you get and soon the mind is up again….
Never allow the mind to tyrannise over you. You must forever stop its mechanical habits and learn to use it like a tool. Even in severe thinking you must be calm, and stand back and coolly think. Don't be restless. Don't desire to possess knowledge…. Make the questioning mind quiet. Don't lose hold of your mind. Let it obey your command every moment. If once you lose control, you will allow the subconscious habit of mechanical restless thinking to rise and continue for days.
SRI AUROBINDO: Prayer merely mental or vital, and desire to know truth in the mental form will not take you inside, on the other hand they will take you more outside your centre.
SRI AUROBINDO: You felt, or you saw that the mental aspiration and the vital aspiration (the demand for knowledge in the forms of mind and the demand for peace) are something foreign to you?
I felt, and then I saw.
SRI AUROBINDO: Then it is the psychic being that felt it and discrimination that saw it. Psychic aspiration first expresses itself through the mental and vital being. The aspiration of the vital being must be there, not the aspiration of the surface vital being which is overpassed soon.
Q: To what part of the being in us does Nature appeal?
SRI AUROBINDO: It appeals to the mind and vital being generally. The aesthetic being is partly mental and partly vital…. Nature appeals in some to all parts of the being. What you say is the appeal to the psychic being. To the psychic being Nature reveals the Infinite; it feels Bhakti, it enters Universal Beauty through Nature.
Q: How far does it help the Sadhaka?
SRI AUROBINDO: It first refines the vital being, frees it from desire and egoism, – not directly. It creates a certain psychic sensibility, a door through which the Sadhaka can enter the Infinite.
Q: Music?
SRI AUROBINDO: Music also appeals to the psychic being.
Q: Likewise Poetry and Art?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but with some people music appeals to the mind only. These mental movements may help to prepare the being; the soul may be touched through the aesthetic being, but they also obstruct. It is all sentiment.
Q: Their attraction is too great. Is it an obstacle?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is only something within which is struggling to express itself. The Yogin has to exceed all these things. That does not mean that he must suppress them. He must over-pass them and transform them.
SRI AUROBINDO: Thoughts come from outside and take form in the mind. You have to watch them as they come and reject them passively, throw them out. Holding to the calm and watching the thoughts, i.e., separation from mind and rejection of the thoughts, must be one movement till they are silenced. Then you may turn inside and ignore the thoughts…. If you change the mechanical habit of mind and insist on its passivity every moment, the mind will yield. You must make it habitually passive and full of the peace within.
SRI AUROBINDO: Complete control of the mind and using it like a tool comes later. You have to look at thoughts, see where they come from, and if they are any worth, take them up. You have to know the mental nature. What if thoughts come? only they must not disturb the inner calm. Don't listen to the thoughts…. You must reject them in the sense that you must make them more and more external to yourself; don't attend to them, don't dwell upon them. When there is quiet, you can take them up. Calm is not of the mind, it descends from above…. Control of the subconscious nature, e.g. of the mechanical action of the mind in sleep or wakefulness, comes later. Give up the fighting attitude. Meditation must be restful. Externalise the thoughts more and more. Ignore all mental consideration. The essential thing is an easy, effortless and natural opening to the Divine. A certain concentration is necessary to reject the thoughts but it must be silent concentration, it must not cause strain…. When the mind gets calm, you can also have activity. On the basis of calmness you have to build the active thought. First there will be scattered thought, but afterwards there will be very clear, connected thought. When you attain perfect calm, you can look for the Universal consciousness, Vijnana and so forth. The first step however is the feeling of the Universal Prana, then the Universal consciousness and so on….
SRI AUROBINDO: It does not matter if your calm is disturbed, only see that it remains in the background at least. Try to get the force. Fix these two, calm and force, and if you get other experiences so much the better.
Q: Is the force vital force or nervous energy?
SRI AUROBINDO: When you silence the mind you get to pure mind. Then you get Pranic Energy, not nervous energy. First Shakti comes as Pranic Energy. Later only come the higher forms of Energy. You must receive, hold and stabilise this Pranic Energy. Then the vital being feels refreshed…. The light seen when the mind is pure is the light of Chidakasha, not of the outside atmosphere…. The delight, even if it is independent of cause, is mental, not prolonged. But it is helpful in the way of seeing the One and Infinite everywhere.
SRI AUROBINDO: There are two movements in this Yoga:
(i) The mind's stillness – thoughts do not come from the brain or physical mind, but come like that (with a gesture), and (ii) aspiration or will turned up, not a will that pulls down. Don't feel yourself in the brain, but in the heart…. There should not be any strain on the brain …
Q: Can we manage without the use of the brain in reading and writing?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Not that the brain does not function, but you will rise above it, rise above the physical mind and watch from there.
Q: Can we station ourselves always there?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes…. Will does not exhaust. It is the resistance of the mind that exhausts. I think there is no serious obstacle in your vital being or physical being. The only obstacle now is your mental activity, eagerness. Eagerness there may be, but it must be that of the heart, intense. The mind must not mix up with it….
SRI AUROBINDO: Concentrate not only in the mind but in the heart. Don't expect anything, but remain quiet. There must not be any mental insistence on the next step or any vital demand. Put some confidence into it if you can…. You see the peace, vastness above you now. You simply keep yourself open…. You quieted the thinking mind, you separated yourself from the mechanical part of the mind, – formerly you were involved in it, so you did not notice it, – now it has risen up. The dynamic mind is thrown into the mechanical mind and it goes on repeating 'I shall do this, I shall do that'. But it will soon get tired. When the Higher will or light becomes manifest it does everything.
SRI AUROBINDO: Connect the centre of the mind with the centre of the heart. The heart is at present man's centre, the soul centre. If you concentrate in the mind, the mind begins to meditate. But meditation in the heart easily takes you to the reality.
SRI AUROBINDO: The aspiration must be spontaneous, there must be vigilant will and detachment. Some energy is required to sustain the consciousness within and to keep it from going outward. Concentration or aspiration helps to open, but for that you must detach yourself completely from thoughts. When you get that detachment you feel it even physically, you feel as if you are mixed in etheric space, and so light…. You must feel the detachment, detachment from the mind and from the body….
SRI AUROBINDO: Your natural movement seems to be through the heart and that part of the vital being which comes into contact with beauty…. You must get the positive quiet of opening to the Universal, not the negative silence of shutting yourself up in concentrated absorption…. The movement through the mind gives knowledge, wide consciousness…, through the heart, feeling of delight, power…. Concentrate in the heart, identify yourself with the quiet feeling of aspiration, spread out the feeling, and let the whole being become the quiet feeling….
SRI AUROBINDO: Your only obstacle is the mental activity. When you try to withdraw into yourself, you take your mind also there. That must not be. There must be real detachment and aspiration for something from above, wideness etc., not mere control of mind…. You have a lot of force in you, only you allow it to be dormant.
Owing to some circumstances I had to leave Pondicherry and go home. I therefore requested the Master's permission to leave. He was so warm and kind and loving and gracious that he said to me "Why do you want to go? Why don't you continue to stay here?" I was overwhelmed. I felt his Grace enveloping me and I was deeply touched. When I explained my situation to him he was all sympathy and compassion and gave me his Blessings.
In those days the Mother kept herself in the background, – physically. When first I saw her, I was struck by her frail but super-earthly and radiant form, and her eyes that seemed to be like endless Ocean expanses, fathomless. I stood before her transfixed, and gazed and gazed far and long into those expanses, those captivating eyes, those marvellous eyes of the Infinite. I was literally lost in those eyes. Was this form of Mystery and Angel from afar an immortal spirit or a Vision? I felt I was surrounded by her Love and Grace. Then collecting myself I prayed for her Blessings. She looked into my eyes and smiled and blessed me. What an enchanting smile it was! I have not seen such eyes and such a smile in any other person so far. That vision has remained engraved in my mind all these years. I saw her again a number of times. I marvelled many a time at the changing face of the Mother, now the very form of Grace, now a form of brilliant, flowing, living gold, always clothed in Grandeur, Majesty, and Divine Dignity, and radiating waves of light, of love and of bliss.
I went to the Mother to seek her guidance and to take leave of her….
THE MOTHER: Concentrate in the heart. Aspire for force and peace in the heart, open yourself to us here…. There is no obstacle. Don't be anxious. Go ahead. Everything will be all right.
Thus reluctantly, I took leave of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who were so full of the nectar of Divine Love. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are inseparably associated in my mind with the Divine Gourisankar of the Himalayas high above the earth, calm and tranquil and serene and bathed in Light, and radiating Peace and Grace, and Love for all. They have been my beacon lights on my life's journey, and I pray and trust that they may continue to extend their Grace to me through all eternity.
Source: Breath of Grace
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