Life of Sri Aurobindo

Life of Sri Aurobindo

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1958)

"No one can write about my life because it has not been on the surface for man to see," wrote Sri Aurobindo. On another occasion, when requested to give his consent to a disciple for helping a writer of his biography, he wrote in his inimitable way, "I do not want to be murdered by my own disciples in cold print."

How could one probe into such an inner life — infinitely rich not only in its human content of intellectual, emotional and volitional movements, but filled with many varied spiritual experiences which transcend the human consciousness? The move ment of ascent of consciousness from Mind to Supermind, from the human to the Divine, is accompanied in his case by a descent with that Light and Power into the human instrumentation, — mind, life and body. A Yogi's real life is his inner life, — in fact, that is his only real life.

Even from the external point of view the writing of Sri Aurobindo's life presents a very great difficulty due to his versatility. He was a professor, a scholar, a poet, a political leader, a journalist, a philosopher, a dramatist, an indologist, a psychologist, a literary critic, a translator, and an original interpreter of the Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita.

But there was a pressing reason which urged me to take up this task. In spite of his aversion to the writing of his biography, people who knew very little about him began to publish unauthorised books on his life and work. Some of them contained altogether fanciful accounts even of the incidents in his life. Among them may be mentioned, Mr. Kulkarni's biography in Marathi, Yogi Aurobindo Ghose, Girija Shankar Roy Chowdhury's so called life of Sri Aurobindo which appeared serially in the Bengali monthly, Udbodhan, and Hemchandra Das's story of the revolutionary movement in Bengal.

I had occasion to refer to Sri Aurobindo all the doubtful points of these books for correction or corroboration. This gave me the correct ground for his biography. I had been collecting materials myself since 1923.

The Baroda State service records of Sri Aurobindo were secured

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by me in 1944 through Shri D.B. Shukla's help and submitted to Sri Aurobindo. He corrected these in his own handwriting.

Subsequently, my visit to England in 1955 enabled me to gather materials about his early life there which I have incorporated in this book. (A fuller account is published in the small book Sri Aurobindo in England.)

There is a lot of authentic biographical material in his own letters and other writings which I have tried to put in chrono logical order. Where his own writing was not available, I have depended on contemporary evidence — mostly of those who . were participants in the events or movements of his life.

Certain portions selected from Sri Aurobindo on Himself and arranged in Part Four will give the reader some idea, in Sri Aurobindo's own words, of the work which he did for others and for the world by using his spiritual power under divine guidance. In this age of the atom bomb, which seems to drive humanity to peace through fear, the possibility and assurance of a dynamic use of spiritual power can open out a new and a more lasting way to peace and harmony.

And even with all these materials one can only indicate the landmarks of his inner life:

1. His meeting with Vishnu Bhaskar Leie and the experience of the Silent Brahman Consciousness that never afterwards left him.

2. His vivid experience of the omnipresent Narayana during his confinement in a solitary cell in Alipore jail.

3. His seclusion at Pondicherry and the crucial and significant fact of his meeting with the Mother.

4. The descent of the Higher Power on 24 November 1926.

As to the outer aspect of his life, the output of his literary work alone is staggering in its volume, variety and originality. His contribution to the political freedom of India can be properly felt by those who have lived through the stormy days of the partition of Bengal when the national spirit burst out like a volcano in the placid, flat ground of Indian politics. The voice of awakened India was first heard week by week and day by day in the fiery columns of the Bande Mataram and the Karmayogin. These papers breathed the lofty air of freedom charged with an ideal ism that raised politics to the heights of religious fervour and

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spirituality. It converted hundreds to a life of dedication to the cause of freedom of Mother India.

But over and above his solid contribution to literature and the struggle for freedom, he has given a loftier vision to the modem world — the vision of man's destiny of divine life on earth. This vision, accompanied by an active effort in collaboration with the Mother, has created, out of almost nothing, two institutions of international importance — the Ashram and the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, where the pattern of the new life envisaged in his conception of man's destiny on earth is being worked out. These activities, undertaken during his apparent retirement, have awakened, fostered and helped the deepest spiritual aspiration of thousands of men and women of all races and creeds.

It is hoped that this book will inspire the reader to realise the great ideal in his own life.

The form of the book may seem to some rather matter of fact. I believe that the narrative of Sri Aurobindo's life in his own words will be found inspiring. The only claim that the book can make is that it is authentic as far as events, dates, views and opinions are concerned. There are some repetitions in the book, which have been intentionally retained.

The help rendered by my friends Shri Krishnalal Bhatt and Shri Vishnuprasad in preparing the manuscript is gratefully acknowledged.

A.B. Purani

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

This is a revised and enlarged version of the first edition bringing the available information up to date. One more block index and glossary also have been added.

I hope the book will serve the purpose for which it is written.

4 March 1960

The Author

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

There are many ways of presenting a biography. Due to many external and internal causes this form has been chosen. It is gratifying to note that many people have liked the form and the book has served as a sourcebook. In this edition necessary additions have been made.

7 May 1964

The Author

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION

This edition has been revised. Several factual corrections, some of them based upon material that has only recently come to light, have been introduced. The contents have been rearranged to follow stricter chronological lines. Because of these and other factors a certain amount of other alteration was necessary. References to the author's sources have been provided and a completely new section dealing with Sri Aurobindo's life from 1927 to 1950 has been added. Nevertheless, the book remains substantially what it was when last seen through the press by the author.

The editors would like to thank Smt. Anu Purani, without whose assistance this edition could not have been prepared.

9 March 1977

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No one can write about my life because it has not been on the surface for man to see.

Letter to a disciple

*

Once when a disciple asked Sri Aurobindo's permission to help a Marathi biographer in his task, Sri Aurobindo wrote:

"I do not want to be murdered by my own disciples in cold print."

*

The second fact is that I do not care a button about having my name in any blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the cur tain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known as a "leader".

October 1934

*

Q: What is the truth behind personality?

Sri Aurobindo: There are many personalities in man. But the true person is also there; it is the Eternal thrown out in time as the Cosmic and the individual for a particular purpose, use or work. This true person is all the time conscious of his identity with the Cosmic.

Evening Talks, 1 January 1939

*

First of all, what matters in a spiritual man's life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what historicity or biography comes to, does it not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the

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outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer 1872 or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. 1872

Letters on Yoga

*

God must be born on earth and be as man

That man being human may grow even as God,

Savitri, Book VII, Canto 6

If far he walks above mortality's head,

How shall the mortal reach that too high path?

Savitri, Book VII, Canto 6

In the unfolding process of the Self

Sometimes the inexpressible Mystery

Elects a human vessel of descent.

Savitri, Book I, Canto 4

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August 15 Birth in Calcutta.

At first in Rangpur, East Bengal; later sent to the Loreto Convent School, Darjeeling.

February 21 Birth of the Mother in Paris.

Taken to England.

In Manchester (84, Shakespeare Street) in the charge of the Drewett family. Tutored at home by the Drewetts.

September Admitted to St. Paul's School, London. Takes lodgings at 49, St. Stephen's Avenue, Shepherd's Bush, London.

August Vacation in Keswick.

August Vacation in Hastings.

After returning from Hastings takes lodgings at 128, Cromwell Road, London.

December Passes Matriculation from St. Paul's.

October 11 Admitted on a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge.

While at Cambridge, joins the Indian Majlis, a student group; makes speeches advocating Indian freedom.

August to April 1892 Works on "The Vigil of Thaliard", a long ballad left unfinished.

May Passes the first part of the Classical Tripos, in the First Class.

August Passes the Indian Civil Service final examination.

October Leaves Cambridge. Takes lodgings at 6, Burlington Road, London.

In London, takes part in the formation of a secret society called the "Lotus and Dagger".
Has first "pre-yogic" experience, the mental experience of the Atman.

November Disqualified for the Indian Civil Service due to his failure to take the riding examination.

December Obtains employment in the service of the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda.

A "vast calm" descends upon him as he sets foot on Indian soil and remains for months afterwards.

February 18 Officially joins the Baroda State Service; his pay is retroactive to February 8, probable date of his arrival in Baroda. His first work is in the Survey Settlement Department.

During the first year of his stay in Baroda, has a vision of the Godhead surging up from within ' him when in danger of a carriage accident.

March-April Works at translations from the Mahabharata.

Juue 26 Contributes an article, "India and the British Parliament", to the Induprakash, Bombay.
August 7 - March 5, 1894 Contributes a series of articles. New Lamps for Old, to the Induprakash.

July 16 - August 27 Contributes a series of articles on Bankim Chandra Chatterji to the Induprakash.

Publication of Songs to Myrtilla, a collection of poems.

Probable year of publication of Urvasie, a narrative poem.

Begins part-time work in the Baroda College as a lecturer in French.

Appointed acting Professor of English in the College.

Serves as acting Professor of English and lecturer in French.

June-July Writes Love and Death, a narrative poem.

July 22 Lecture at the Baroda College Social Gathering.

Acting Professor of English in the College.

First political move: sends Jatindranath Banerji to Bengal as his lieutenant for the work of revolutionary organisation and propaganda.

Chairman of the College debating society.

April 17 Transferred from the College to the Revenue Department, Baroda State.
April 30 Marriage to Mrinalini Bose, eldest daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, in Calcutta. Afterwards goes to Nainital with Mrinalini and his sister Sarojini.

Sri Aurobindo uses his leaves and vacations, especially from 1902 onwards, for the organisation of revolutionary action in Bengal.

December Meeting with Lokmanya Tilak at the Ahmedabad session of the Indian National Congress.

Contacts and joins a secret society in western India.

January Recommences teaching at the Baroda College.

February 22 On leave for one month.
May-August Accompanies the Gaekwar on his tour of Kashmir as his Private Secretary.

In Kashmir on Takht-e-Suleman has an experience of the vacant infinite.

Works as Huzur Kamdar, often doing secretarial work for the Gaekwar.

September 28 Directed to leave the Huzur Kamdar's office and join the College full time.
December At the Bombay session of the Indian National Congress.

Begins the practice of Yoga.

January Assumes the post of Vice-principal, Baroda College.

March 3 Becomes acting Principal of the College.

October 16 The Partition of Bengal becomes an "accomplished fact".

Sri Aurobindo writes the pamphlets "No Compromise" and "Bhawani Mandir" during the

agitation that precedes the Partition
December At the Benares session of the Indian National Congress.

February 19 Applies for privilege leave.
March 2 Goes to Bengal.

March 11 Present at the formation of the National Council of Education in Calcutta.
March 12 Declaration of the Yugantar, a Bengali weekly. Sri Aurobindo writes some articles in the early numbers of this revolutionary journal and always exercises general control over it.
April 14 At the Barisal Conference. Afterwards makes a political tour of East Bengal with Bepin Chandra Pal.

June Returns to Baroda.

June 19 Takes one year's leave without pay from Baroda College. Returns to Bengal.
August 6 Declaration of the Bande Mataram. Sri Aurobindo joins the Bande Mataram as an assistant editor.

August 14 Opening of the Bengal National College, Calcutta, with Sri Aurobindo as its principal.

October 13 The Bande Mataram becomes a joint stock company at Sri Aurobindo's suggestion.
October-December 111 in Calcutta.

Around this time Sri Aurobindo assumes control of the policy of the Bande Mataram as well as of the Nationalist Party in Bengal.

December 11-14 In Deoghar for recuperation.
December At the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress.

January-April In Deoghar.

January 28 - February 12 Works on Prince of Edur, a dramatic romance.

April 12-23 The Doctrine of Passive Resistance serialised in the Bande Mataram.

June 2 First issue of the weekly edition of the Bande Mataram.

June 8 A warning is issued to the editor of the

Bande Mataram by the British government.

June 14 Leaves Calcutta for Khulna to found a national school.

June 30 - October 13 Publication of Perseus the Deliverer, a drama, in the weekly Bande Mataram.

July 30 Search of the Bande Mataram office. Complaint lodged against Sri Aurobindo.

August 2 Resigns the principalship of the Bengal National College.

August 16 Arrested on the charge of sedition for writings which had appeared in the Bande Mataram; released on bail.

August 23 Speech to the students of the Bengal National College.

After his acquittal in September, he rejoins the College as a professor.

September 23 Acquitted.

After the Bande Mataram sedition case, Sri Aurobindo comes forward as the leader of the Nationalist Party in Bengal.

October Takes a house in Chukoo Khansama's Lane, Calcutta. October 24 Goes to Deoghar.
December 7-9 At the Bengal Provincial Conference at Midnapore as the leader of the Nationalists. December 8 Presides over a separate meeting of the Nationalists at Midnapore.
December 14 Meeting in College Square, Calcutta; delivers his first public speech.
December 15 Speech at a public meeting in Beadon Square, Calcutta. December 21 Leaves Calcutta for Surat, the venue of the 1907 session of the Indian National Congress.
December 22 Addresses a meeting at Nagpur.
December 24 - 25 At Surat, presides over the conferences of Nationalist delegates.
December 26 First day of the Congress session at Surat.
December 27 Second day of the session: Sri

Aurobindo gives the order that leads to the breaking of the Congress.

December 28 Presides over a meeting of the Nationalists.

December 31 Leaves Surat for Baroda.

Meets Vishnu Bhaskar Leie, a Maharashtrian yogi. Following Leie's instructions, establishes

complete silence of the mind attaining to the experience of the Silent Brahman.

Gives three public speeches.

January 12, 13 Speeches at Poona.

January 15 "National Education" speech at Girgaum, Bombay.

January 19 "The Present Situation" speech before the Bombay National Union.

January 24 Speech at Nasik.

January 26 Speech at Dhulia.

January 28, 29 Speeches at Amravati.

January 30, 31 Speeches at Nagpur.

February 1 Speech at Nagpur.

March 10 In Howrah at a public reception of Bepin Chandra Pal upon his release from jail.

April 8 Speaks at a meeting at Chetala.

April 10 "United Congress" Speech at Panti's ; Math, Calcutta. ;

April 12 Speech at Baruipur.

April 18 "Palli Samiti" speech at Kishoregunj.

April 28 Changes his Calcutta lodgings from 23, Scotts Lane to 48. Grey Street (Navashakti Office).

May 2 Arrested as implicated in the terrorist activities of a group led by his brother Barindra.Taken to the lock-up at Lal Bazar, Calcutta.

Proceedings are instituted by the British government to deport Sri Aurobindo, but are later abandoned.

May 5 Taken to Alipore Jail.

May 5, 1908 - May 6, 1909 Undertrial prisoner at Alipore. Spends his time reading the Gita and the Upanishads and in meditation and the practice

of Yoga. Has the realisation of the Cosmic Consciousness and of the Divine (Sri Krishna) as all beings and in all that is.

May 19 Preliminary hearing in the Magistrate's Court begins.

August 19 Committed to the Court of Sessions.
October 19 Trial in the Sessions Court begins.

1909

March 4 Evidence concluded.
April 13 Arguments concluded.
April 14 Opinion of the Assessors.
May 6 Acquitted and released.

After his release and until February 1910, Sri Aurobindo stays at 6, College Square, Calcutta.
May 14 Letter to the Bengalee, Calcutta.
May 30 Speech at Uttarpara.
June 13 Speech at Beadon Square, Calcutta.
June 19 First issue of the Karmayogin, a weekly review directed and mostly written by Sri Aurobindo.
June 19 Speech at Jhalakati, Barisal District.
June 23 Speech at Bakergunj, Barisal District.
June 26 Speech at Khulna.
June 27 "The Right of Association" speech at Howrah.

July 11 Speech at Kumartuli.
July 18 Speech at College Square, Calcutta.
July 31 "An Open Letter to My Countrymen" published by Sri Aurobindo in the Karmayogin following resumed efforts of the British government to have him deported.

August 23 First issue of the Dharma, a Bengali weekly directed and mostly written by Sri Aurobindo.

September Leader of the Nationalists at the Bengal Provincial Conference at Hooghly.
September Attends a political conference at Sylhet.
October 9 - November 13 The Brain of India in the Karmayogin.

October 10 Speech at College Square, Calcutta.
October 13 "Swadeshi in Calcutta" speech.
October 18 Durga Stotra published in the Dharma.

November 20 - December 25 The National Value of Art in the Karmayogin.
December 25 "To My Countrymen" in the Karmayogin.

1910

February Leaves Calcutta for Chandernagore in French India.
February 12 - April 2 A System of National Education in the Karmayogin.
February 19 - March 5 Baji Prabhu in the Karmayogin.
March 26 - April 2 "Chitrangada" in the Karmayogin.
March 31 Leaves Chandernagore for Calcutta.
April 1 Embarks for Pondicherry in French India by the S.S. Dupleix.

April 4 Arrival in Pondicherry; stays in the house of Shanker Chetty in Comty Chetty Street.

Although Sri Aurobindo changes his residence several times he never leaves Pondicherry.
April 4 A warrant issued charging Sri Aurobindo with sedition for the article "To My Countrymen" published in the Karmayogin on December 25, 1909.
October Moves to the house of Sunder Chetty on Rue de la Pavilion (Rue Suffren).

November 7 "To My Countrymen" found not seditious by the Calcutta High Court; warrant withdrawn.
November 7 Writes a letter to The Hindu, Madras (published in the November 13 issue), announcing his presence in Pondicherry and his retirement from active politics.

April New lodgings taken on Rue St. Louis ("Raghavan House").
July 20 A letter to The Hindu.

August 15 First celebration of Sri Aurobindo's birthday in Pondicherry.

Through his correspondence with Motilal and
others Sri Aurobindo keeps in contact with the

revolutionary movement in Bengal.

April Change of residence to Rue de Mission Etrangere (Mission Street).

October Change of residence to Rue Francois Martin (the "Guest House")

March 29 First meeting of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

June 1 Decision to publish the Arya.
August 15 First issue of the Arya. First instalments of The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga,
The Secret of the Veda, The Isha Upanishad.

Ahana and Other Poems published.

February 21 First celebration of the Mother's birthday at Pondicherry.

February 22 The Mother departs for France.

September 15 First instalment of The Ideal of Human Unity in the Arya.

October Vasavadutta, a dramatic romance, written.

The Mother leaves France for Japan.

August 15 First instalments of Essays on the Gita and The Psychology of Social Development (later called The Human Cycle) in the Arya.

December 15 First instalment of The Future Poetry in the Arya.

January 15 Works at translations from Kalidasa's Kumarasambhavam (The Birth of the War God).August 10 Letter on the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms published in the New India.
December First instalment of "Is India Civilised?" (first of the series of essays that make up The Foundations of Indian Culture) published in the Arya.

December 17 Death of Mrinalini Ghose in Calcutta.

January 20 Letter to Joseph Baptista.

April 7 Letter to Barindra Kumar Ghose.

April 24 The Mother returns to Pondicherry from Japan.

August 15 First issue of the Standard Bearer, a monthly published from Chandernagore under the

inspiration of Sri Aurobindo; his article "Ourselves" appears in this issue.
August 30 Letter to B.S. Munje declining the presidentship of the Nagpur Congress.
November 24 The Mother moves to the house on Rue Francois Martin where Sri Aurobindo is living.

Publication in book form of Isha Upanishad and Kalidasa's "Seasons".
January Love and Death published.
January 15 Last issue of the Arya.

January The Mother takes charge of the management of Sri Aurobindo's household.

Regular evening talks and group meditations held from this year.

September-October Sri Aurobindo and the Mother move to 9, Rue de la Marine (south-west section of the present Ashram block).

June 5 Meeting with C. R. Das.

January The Century of Life published.
Group meditation discontinued.

Meeting with Lala Lajpat Rai and Purushottam Das Tandon.

November 24 The Day of Siddhi (Victory Day):

the descent of Krishna, the Overmind Godhead, into the physical.

The evening talks and all other direct contacts ,with Sri Aurobindo are discontinued. He retires completely into concentrated sadhana, but gives "Darshan" three times a year.

February 8 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother move to the house on Rue Francois Martin (north-east section of the present Ashram block) where they remain for the rest of their lives.

Publication of The Mother.

February 16 Meeting with Rabindranath Tagore.

April Publication of Kalidasa.

The limited correspondence with disciples begun after Sri Aurobindo's retirement in 1926 assumes very large proportions during this period. Much

of it has been collected and published as Letters on Yoga, Letters on the Mother, Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art,etc.

Throughout these years Sri Aurobindo works on his poetry, especially the epic Savitri.

Publication of The Riddle of this World (extracts from letters).

Publication of Six Poems of Sri Aurobindo.

February Publication of Lights on Yoga (extracts from letters).

April Publication of Bases of Yoga (extracts from letters).

Regular correspondence with the sadhaks stopped. Personal contact with a few sadhaks, his attendants, begins.

April 24 Gives Darshan for the first time on this day; later it becomes a regular Darshan day.

Revision and publication in book form of The Life Divine. More writing of poetry.

September 19 Joint declaration by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in support of the Allies in World War II. From the time of the evacuation of Dunkirk Sri Aurobindo puts his spiritual force behind the Allied war effort.

Publication of Collected Poems and Plays.

March 31 Sri Aurobindo's support of the Proposals of Sir Stafford Cripps, emissary of the British government, which offered to India selfgovernment after the war and invited her assistance in the war effort.

December 2 The Ashram school started.

February 21 First issue of the Advent, "A Quarterly Dedicated to the Exposition of Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future".

Hymns to the Mystic Fire published;

August 15 Liberation of India on Sri Aurobindo's 75th birthday.

A message from Sri Aurobindo is broadcast by the All India Radio.

Publication of The Synthesis of Yoga, Part I.

The Human Cycle published.

February 21 First issue of the Bulletin of Physical Education (now called the Bulletin of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education) with Sri Aurobindo's "Message".

Seven more articles written by Sri Aurobindo appear in subsequent issues.
First issue of the cultural review Mother India.

Publication in book form of Part One of Savitri.
December 5 Mahasamadhi: Sri Aurobindo withdraws from his body.

December 9 Sri Aurobindo's body is placed in a vault in the courtyard of the Ashram.

PART ONE

CHAPTER  I

Family

Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose took his degree at the Medical College, Calcutta. His marriage took place in 1864, when he was nineteen years old, to Swarnalata, the eldest daughter of Sj. Rajnarayan Bose. Swarnalata's age was twelve. The marriage was performed according to the rites of Adi Brahmo Samaj, towards which Dr. Ghose had leanings. In 1869 Dr. Ghose went to Britain for further medical studies. He had then two sons, Benoybhushan and Manmohan, whom he left with Swarnalata and a nurse, Miss Paget. He returned in 1871 with a further degree and in all outward manner a completely Anglicised man and an atheist.

"Everyone makes the forefathers of a great man very religious-minded, pious, etc. It is not true in my case at any rate. My father was a tremendous atheist."^¹

There was a vein of lunacy in Rajnarayan's family; one of his sons was mad. Swarnalata and her sister, who was married to Krishna Kumar Mitra, both suffered from hysteria.

When Dr. Ghose returned from Britain he joined the civil medical service, beginning work as a Sub-Assistant Surgeon in Calcutta, but the greater period of his service was spent at Bhagalpur, ' Rangpur and Khulna. At Rangpur he managed to get a drainage work done, which was called "K. D. Canal" by the people. After 1884 he served at Khulna, remaining there till his death. Wherever he served he was very popular and highly respected by all. He used to take a very prominent part in civic life, and interested himself in schools, hospitals, municipalities and other public bodies. The people of Khulna afterwards started a school in his name and his photograph was placed in the town hall. It is said that he changed the whole face of the town of Khulna. He was always kind to the poor and extremely generous, so much so that he could never save anything from his pay. In the latter part of his life he took to heavy drinking to forget the bitterness and tragedy of his life.

^¹ Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1959), p. 131. The reports of talks used in this biography were revised ' by the author and so differ slightly from the reports as published in Evening Talks.

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K. D. Ghose and Swarnalata had six children, – five sons and a daughter : Benoybhushan, Manmohan, Aurobindo, a son who died in childhood, Sarojini and Barindra Kumar.

K. D. Ghose had a brother, Bama Charan Ghose, who served at Bhagalpur as a head clerk. The two brothers did not agree with each other.

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CHAPTER II

Childhood and Education

Sri Aurobindo was born around 5.00 a.m., that is about twenty-four minutes before sunrise, on 15 August 1872. His birth took place in the house of Barrister Monmohun Ghose, in Calcutta.! The name of Monmohun Ghose's wife was Swarnalata, just as it was the name of K.D. Ghose's wife. Dr. Ghose and Monmohun Ghose were very great friends and so were the Swarnalatas.

Between 1872 and 1877 Aurobindo apparently stayed at Rangpur, where his father was serving. Occasionally the family used to go to Deoghar to stay with Swarnalata's father, Rajnarayan Bose. Aurobindo did not know Bengali for these first five years. There were a butler and a nurse in the house, and he used to talk with them in broken English and similar Hindusthani. Sj. Rajnarayan Bose was a patriot and a great exponent of Indian culture, but his views had no effect upon his son-in-law, K. D. Ghose, who had decided to give all his children a thoroughly English education. He believed, like many Indians in those days, that the English character was ideal.

An incident in childhood: Jogendra, Sri Aurobindo's eldest maternal uncle, once held up a mirror to Aurobindo and said:

"See, there is a monkey." After some time Aurobindo, the child, took the mirror to Jogendra, held it up to him and said: "Great uncle, great monkey!"

In 1877 Dr. Ghose sent his three sons to Loreto Convent School at Darjeeling, a school intended mainly for children of European officials in India. Aurobindo's age then was five. Thus very early he became accustomed to being away from family and home life. The children used to visit their parents during vacations and also visited their grandfather at Deoghar. Very little information is available about the two years Aurobindo spent at Darjeeling. Years later he remembered the roads with golden ferns, and also one or two minor incidents. One was this. There was a long dormitory where the students used to sleep. Manmohan usually slept near the door. One night someone was late and knocked at the door, requesting him to open it.

¹. See Appendix IV, Data on Birthplace, page 319-20.

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Manmohan replied, "I can't, I am sleeping"! Another incident happened at Deoghar, where Aurobindo had gone during a vacation. One night all the children were walking with their grandfather, Rajnarayan Bose. After some time they found that he was not with them. They walked back and saw that he was sleeping in a standing position!

In a talk of 1939 Sri Aurobindo said: "Your question reminds me of a story of my grandmother. She said: 'God has made such a bad world! If I could meet Him I would tell Him what I think of Him.' My grandfather said: 'Yes, it is true; but God has so arranged that you can't get near Him so long as you have any such desire in you !'"^¹

Swarnalata's mental condition was not normal during these years. One day she was in a fit of anger and was screaming and beating Manmohan mercilessly. Aurobindo, who was present, became afraid and, making the excuse that he was thirsty, went out of the room.

Sri Aurobindo once described a dream at Darjeeling that he remembered: "I was lying down one day when I saw suddenly a great Tamas rushing into me and enveloping me and the whole ^universe. After that I had a great darkness always hanging on to me all through my stay in England. I believe that darkness had something to do with the Tamas that came upon me. It left me only when I was coming back to India."^²

In 1879 the family travelled to England: Dr. Ghose, who was then thirty-four, Swarnalata, who was twenty-seven, and the four children, Benoybhushan, Manmohan, Aurobindo and Sarojini.

In 1880 Dr. K.D. Ghose returned alone from England to rejoin his service. He left Swarnalata and the children in England.

On January 5, a son, Barindra Kumar, was born at Croydon, England. His name is listed in the birth register as "Emmanuel Ghose"! Swarnalata later returned to India with Barin and Sarojini. Dr. Ghose stayed alone at Khulna after his return and when Swarnalata came he arranged for her to stay at Rohini, a town two miles from Deoghar, with Barin and Sarojini.

¹. Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966), p. 166.

². Cf. A.B, Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1961), p. 140.

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He found it impossible to stay with her, as her mental condition had deteriorated and she was fast developing signs of insanity. Dr. Ghose sent regular remittances to his three sons during the first years, but afterwards they became more and more irregular; and when the three brothers went to stay in London they entirely; ceased.

Very little is known about the span of nearly fourteen years (1879-1892) of Aurobindo's early life in England, which seems to have been the most formative in his cultural make-up and intellectual equipment. What little is known has come mostly from him or from what I have been able to gather from talks with others. My visit to England was fruitful in obtaining some authentic information about his life. Yet we do not know, and, I am afraid, we shall never know much about even his outer life. It is practically impossible to know how he lived with the Drewetts in Manchester

All we have are some unimportant details in the life of a versatile student who became a great seer in his later life; but it is better to have something authentic rather than be left with vague conjecture.

Aurobindo's life in England falls into four distinct periods:

Manchester, from 1879 to September 1884.

London, from September 1884 to October 1890.

Cambridge, from October 1890 to October 1892.

London, from October 1892 to January 1893.

During vacations Aurobindo used to go outside London and Cambridge whenever economic conditions permitted.

Dr. K.D. Ghose was very friendly with Mr. Glazier, a magistrate at Rangpur, and when Dr. Ghose decided to send his three sons to England for studies, he arranged to leave them with Rev. William H. Drewett, a cousin of Mr. Glazier, who lived in Manchester. Mr. Drewett was congregational minister of the Stockport Road Church – now known as the Octagonal Church. He lived at 84, Shakespeare Street, near the church. Aurobindo's two elder brothers were of school-going age and joined the Manchester Grammar School, while Aurobindo, who was only seven, and probably considered too young to attend a school, was not sent to school, but was taught at home by the Drewetts. Mr. Drewett, an accomplished Latin scholar, grounded Aurobindo in that language very well, and also taught him English, history,

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etc. Mrs. Drewett taught him geography, arithmetic and French. As he was studying at home he had plenty of time to read books according to his own taste, including the Bible, Shakespeare, Shelley and Keats. He not only read poetry but wrote verses for Fox's Weekly, even at that early age. It 'seems he did not play any games, except cricket, which he tried once without much success.

During their stay in England the three brothers had practically no contact with other Indians, as Dr. Ghose had given strict instructions to Mr. Drewett not to allow his sons to mix with any Indians or to know anything about the Indian way of life. Among the people they knew at Manchester were the Bentleys; who occasionally used to visit the Drewetts from York, and a sister of Mr. Drewett who used to come to see him. These visits were returned.

Mr. Drewett's mother was a devout Christian and she wished to convert the Ghose children to Christianity, in order to save their souls. But Mr. Drewett never consented to her wish. Once, when he asked Dr. Ghose about the religious life of the children, his reply was to wait till the boys attained the age of discretion, when they could choose their own religion.

A rumour was once current that Aurobindo was converted to Christianity. This was probably due to his name being registered at St. Paul's and even at Cambridge, as "Aravinda Ackroyd Ghose". But the rumour is not true. Once, however, an amusing incident happened which Sri Aurobindo has himself described:

"There was once a meeting of nonconformist ministers at Cumberland when we were in England. The old lady in whose house we dwelt [Mrs. Drewett] took me there. After the prayers were over nearly all dispersed, but devout people remained a little longer and it was at that time that conversions were made. I was feeling completely bored. Then a minister approached me and asked me some questions. I did not give any reply. Then they all shouted, 'He is saved, he is saved', and began to pray for me and offer thanks to God. I did not know what it was all about. Then the minister came to me and asked me to pray. I was not in the habit of praying. But somehow I did it in the manner in which children recite their prayers before going to sleep in order to keep up an appearance. That was the only thing that happened. I did not

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attend the Church regularly. I was about ten at that time."^¹ He felt infinitely relieved when he got back to Manchester.

The Rev. W. H. Drewett was in pastoral charge in 1879² but in 1881 he resigned his living on account of differences with the deacons.^³ He is mentioned in the Church register in 1882 as staying in Manchester but "without pastoral charge". So he was in Manchester up to 1882, but later on, before 1884, he seems to have immigrated to Australia leaving the three Ghose brothers in the charge of his mother.

The question of why Sri Aurobindo was called Aravinda Ackroyd baffled me for some time, till an indication in M. Monod Herzen's book gave me the clue. It is now established that Miss Annette Akroyd arrived in Calcutta in December 1872, the year in which Aurobindo was born in Monmohun Ghose's house in Calcutta.⁴ Miss Akroyd was probably present at the ceremony of naming the child. Dr. Ghose, who was very fond of the English

1. Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 141.

2. Rev. William H. Drewett was trained at Didsbury College (for ministers). He passed in 1865 and in all probability was ordained as a minister at Manchester in 1871.

3. "The Rev. W. H. Drewett, after a ministry of nearly ten years, has resigned the pastorate of the Stockport Road Congregational Church, in this city. The cause of this step the Rev. gentleman explained, at the close of the service last evening, was his disagreement with a resolution of the Deacons' Court with regard to the erection of a new infant schoolroom and the beautifying of the present school church. The fulfilment of the original scheme, by which a church was to be built on land secured for the purpose, fronting Stockport Road, will be indefinitely postponed if the Deacons' resolution is carried out." The Manchester Guardian. Monday, March 21, 1881.

4. Letter from Indian Office Library, 24 October 1956:

"Henry Beveridge, Bengal Civil Service.

"'Arrived in India on 20 January 1858. On the 1st of December 1876 he was appointed Officiating District and Sessions Judge at Rangpur and remained there until he was appointed Officiating District and Sessions Judge at Patrea on 22 November 1879. He had previously served as Magistrate and Collector at Backer-gunge until 2nd October 1874 when he was appointed the District and Sessions Judge, Backergunge. He was granted furlough from 2 January 1875 to 28 October 1876.

"[Bengal History of Services, 1886]"

"The following information has been gathered from Lord Beveridge's book about his parents entitled India Called Them:

"Henry Beveridge married Miss Annette Susannah Akroyd on April 6th 1875. Miss Akroyd was a daughter of William Akroyd of Stourbridge, Worcestershire,

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way of life, must have wanted the child to be given an English name and so Miss Akroyd's family name was given to Aurobindo as his middle name.

Dr. Ghose used to send £360 per year for the maintenance of his three sons at Manchester. But even during the first six years of their stay in England, Dr. Ghose was unable to send regular remittances to Mr. Drewett, and so the latter, on his way to Australia, passed through Calcutta and collected his dues from Dr. Ghose. It is not known who took Aurobindo and Manmohan to St. Paul's School in London, but in the register Manmohan, who was admitted in the same month as Aurobindo, September 1884, is listed as a "Ward of W.H. Drewett". The address given is 49, St. Stephen's Avenue, Uxbridge Road, Shepherd's Bush. Sri Aurobindo later said that Mrs. Drewett, the mother of W.H. Drewett, had taken lodgings for them in London.

St. Paul's School, West Kensington, London. 1884 to December 1889.

Aurobindo was admitted to St. Paul's after being examined by Dr. Walker, the headmaster of the school. Dr. Walker was satisfied with Aurobindo's proficiency in Latin and other subjects, but he found him weak in Greek. He took a personal interest in Aurobindo and coached him in classes called "specials" where it was his practice to gather all young and promising students. Dr. Walker did not take any regular classes, but used to coach some students in the subject in which they were weak. He had an eye for a clever student and never lost sight of one once he found him.                                                        

Aurobindo's five years at St. Paul's were full of activity during which he mastered the classics and secured the Butterworth Second Prize in Literature and an Honourable Mention in the Bedford History Prize. He was pushed up rapidly to higher forms, for

where she was born On 13th December 1842. She arrived in Calcutta in December 1872 and was 'met by her Indian friends, Mr. and Mrs. Monmohun Ghose and Mr. Gupta, and went to live with the former.' (She had met them in England.)

"In 1873 Miss Akroyd formed a school for Indian ladies – the Hindu Mahila B'ldyalaya – on November 18th 1873 at 22 Baniapoorkur Lane, with some dozen pupils."

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the High Master wanted to put him in the form in which his powers might get full scope for development. This saved some years for Aurobindo. He used to take an active part in the Literary Society at St. Paul's. It is recorded that he spoke on the inconsistency of Swift's political opinions on 5 November 1889 and on Milton on 19 November of the same year.^¹

It appears quite certain that the three brothers were compelled to live in a very embarrassed financial position in London because remittances from their father at first became irregular and ultimately almost stopped. This is borne out by many references in Manmohan's contemporary letters to Laurence Binyon, and also by what Sri Aurobindo stated in his memorial to the Secretary of State for India (about being given another chance to appear in the riding test for the I.C.S.) in 1892. He wrote:

"I was sent over to England, when seven years of age, with my two elder brothers and for the last eight years we have been thrown on our own resources without any English friend to help or advise us. Our father, Dr. K.D. Ghose of Khulna, has been unable to provide the three of us with sufficient for the most necessary wants, and we have long been in an embarrassed position."^²

Manmohan's letters to Laurence Binyon support this statement with a wealth of detail. In a letter of July, 1887, from 49, St. Stephen's Avenue, Manmohan wrote:

"My position, by the way, is very hazy just now; I do not know whether after all I shall be able to retain my Scholarship, because my father is in some financial straits, and if he cannot help me, £80 will not be enough to keep me at Oxford. ... I am going to Oxford next week to find out if I cannot help myself in any way, or find help. ... I shall try and persuade my father to let me stay in England for good – I am sure with the tastes I have I shall be of no use in India."

A letter from Manmohan dated July 28 [probably 1887] from 49, St. Stephen's Avenue recounts a story of Dr. Ghose which is worth quoting. The reference is to a piece of news in the Daily "Yews of London. The letter is addressed to Laurence Binyon:

¹. 'The Literary Society", The Pauline, Vols. VII & VIII, No. 39 (December |1889),p 52.

².  Sri Aurobindo to the Earl of Kimberley, 21 November 1892, India Office Library, London.   

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"As for the piece in the Daily News about me, it was stuck in simply because it is a Radical paper. We have no family relation to Lalmohan Ghose whatever, but his brother who bears the same name as myself is a great friend of my father's. All the Ghoses came originally from the Punjaub on the Afghan border. The word means "fame", and they were a tribe of the proud warrior caste. But our family has sadly come down; the family house or palace, a very noble building, I believe, not far from Calcutta, is quite in ruins. My father, when a boy, was very poor, living almost entirely by the charity of friends; and it is only thro' his almost superhuman perseverance that we have to some degree retrieved ourselves. – You may be sure I shall try all I can to get to Oxford. But I am in a rather strange position. My father wants me to go out to India and slave as a barrister, and become a great man of the world like himself – a thing which is quite distasteful to my nature. He is just now in difficulties and if he finds he cannot help me at the University he may consent to my staying in England, and trying for some Civil Service appointment (like those in the British Museum), just to earn some money. . . . He is almost sure to want me to try the University."

The difficulty which Manmohan speaks of was common to the three brothers. There was only a slight modification in Aurobindo's case as he received a scholarship from King's College, Cambridge, and also had an allowance for the I. C. S. probationership. Even so, he was always hard up, particularly because he used to help his two brothers whenever he could.

A letter from Manmohan to Laurence Binyon, Hastings, Sussex, 1887:

"I have just had a letter from my father, and I wanted to tell you the joyful news that he has willingly consented to my staying in England, and working at literature since it is so in my line. He also says that he would like me to go to Oxford, but his means are not sufficient to keep me there long. But he may be able (he will write soon and tell me his decision) to keep me there a little while, in order (as he phrases it) 'to have still greater chances of acquiring literary tastes, make friends among those who are aspirants in the same field.' So he is going to try his best to give me a year or two at Oxford. As to the British Museum appointment, he would not mind my taking it at all, tho' he does think there are objections to it. ... 'However,' he says, I am ready that

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you should take your chance and depend on your own enterprise in the literary world. . . . But you must not give up the Scholarship in the prospect of getting an appointment. You have to pass in Sanskrit and you must learn that. So I will try my best to give you a year or two at the University where you can learn Sanskrit, and improve your classics, get facility in writing and speaking and make interests and form friendships. When you have done that it will be easier for you not only to get an appointment in the Museum but to ensure rapidity to your promotion to a high appointment. So you see I have no objection to this, provided you can be sure of getting speedy promotion. Perhaps if you can do that and have a home for your brother and sister in London they will have excellent facilities for education.' I have given this in my father's own words, as you will be able to understand the position better. Perhaps you did not know I have a little sister (she is about eleven years old now) and a brother eight years old in India at present. My father's character may well be called 'thorough'. He is determined to give them a good education, tho' he is toiling under difficulties. He must be a man of iron nerves. I could not tell you half the things he has suffered, but he is bent to go on. Indeed he says, 'my body is as stern as my mind to have survived all the trouble which I have endured.' I cannot but be proud with admiration at the sight of such dauntless self-sacrifice and heroic perseverance.

"Tell me what you think of these prospects with regard to the satisfaction of my literary tastes? You see my aim is also to gratify my father in one project – try my best to make a home for my sister and brother as he suggests (after I have been to Oxford) – for I know their education is closest to his heart, tho' he does not say much about it. At the same time I want to get myself off his hands, and lessen his burden."

This letter is important because it makes a useful addition to the very scanty material available about the relation between Dr. Ghose and his sons. Even in 1887 the financial condition was strained.

In another letter to Laurence Binyon, Manmohan, when he was pressed for payment by Zacharias & Co., refers to his father: "I am growing as stern as my father, who is so strangely unsentimental that I am assured he would vivisect me if he thought that my highest good."

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Apart from Manmohan's letters there is other evidence to throw light on the strained condition under which the three brothers had to carry on their studies in England. One is a letter written to James Cotton by G. W. Prothero, a tutor and senior Fellow of King's College, on hearing about Aurobindo's rejection from the I. C. S. on the ground of Aurobindo's non-appearance for the riding test. It is a letter worthy of a university man vindicating the values of culture and learning against the lifeless red tape of a government department. We give it in full in Appendix V (Document IX); here we may quote part of it. Prothero says:

"His pecuniary circumstances prevented him from resigning this [his scholarship], when he became a Selected Candidate. . Moreover the man has not only ability but character. He has had a very hard and anxious time of it for the last two years. Supplies from home have almost entirely failed, and he has had to keep his two brothers as well as himself, and yet his courage and perseverance have never failed. I have several times written to his father on his behalf, but for the most part unsuccessfully. It is only lately that I managed to extract from him enough to pay some tradesmen who would otherwise have put his son into the County Court. I am quite sure that these pecuniary difficulties were not due to any extravagance on Ghose's part: his whole way of life, which was simple and penurious in the extreme, is against this. ... I can fully believe that his inability to keep his appointment at Woolwich was due to the want of cash."^¹

In a letter to Sir Arthur Macpherson, James S. Cotton writes:

"It happens that I have known Mr A. A. Ghose and his two brothers for the past five years, and that I have been a witness of the pitiable straits to which they have all three been reduced through the failure of their father, a Civil Surgeon in Bengal and (I believe) a most respectable man, to supply them with adequate resources. In addition, they have lived an isolated life, without any Englishman to take care of them or advise them."^²

Though these letters were expressly written to influence the I. C. S. Commissioners, they yet throw sufficient light on the embarrassing

¹. Prothero to Cotton. 20 November 1892. India Office Library, London.

². Cotton to Macpherson. 19 November 1892. India Office Library, London.

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economic pressure under which the three brothers lived for almost eight years;

When Aurobindo, Manmohan and Benoybhushan came to stay in London, Mrs. Drewett took lodgings for them at 49, St. Stephen's Avenue, Shepherd's Bush, and stayed with them there. During his six years stay in London, Aurobindo lived at three or four different places. All the brothers stayed at 49, St. Stephen's Avenue from September 1884 to July 1887. Then, after a holiday at Hastings, Aurobindo and Benoybhushan moved, in August or September 1887, to rooms at the top of the building at 128, Cromwell Road where the office of the South Kensington Liberal Club was situated. They seem to have stayed there from September 1887 to April 1889. From there they moved to private lodgings at 28, Kempsford Gardens, Earl's Court. Aurobindo was at King's College, Cambridge from October 1890 to October 1892. After October 1892 he stayed at 6, Burlington Road, Bays-water, London. This place is now known as 68, St. Stephen's Gardens.¹ Aurobindo left for India in January 1893.

An incident reported by Sri Aurobindo gives us the reason for changing his residence from 49, St. Stephen's Avenue to 128, Cromwell Road. Mrs. Drewett was a pious Christian and every day there used to be family prayers. Passages from the Bible were read; the three brothers had to participate. Sometimes the eldest brother used to conduct the worship. One day at prayer time Manmohan was in an insolent mood and said that old Moses was well served when the people disobeyed him. This enraged the old lady beyond measure and she said she would not live under the same roof with heretics as the house might fall down, and she went to live somewhere else. Sri Aurobindo says: "We felt relieved and I felt infinitely grateful to Dada [Manmohan]. Her son never used to meddle in these affairs because he was a man of strong common sense. But he was away in Australia. I In those days I was not particular about telling the truth and I was a great coward. Nobody could have imagined that later on I could face the gallows or carry on a revolutionary movement. In my case I it was all human imperfection with which I had to start, feel all the difficulties before embodying the Divine Consciousness.”²

¹. See Appendix VI, Houses in England, pp. 348-49.

². Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, pp. 141-42.

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The period at 128, Cromwell Road was perhaps the most trying of Aurobindo's stay in England. They were all so hard pressed that Benoybhushan had to agree to be an assistant to James S. Cotton, who was Secretary of the Club, for five shillings a week. Cotton's help to the three brothers in their difficulty is an unforgettable obligation. During this period Aurobindo used to get a slice or two of bread and butter and a cup of tea in the morning and in the evening only a penny saveloy (a kind of sausage). For nearly two years he had to go practically without dinner at that young age. He had no overcoat to protect him from the rigours of the London winter and there was no heating arrangement in the office where he slept, nor had he a proper bedroom.

The description of 128, Cromwell Road from one of Manmohan's letters might be interesting: "I write to tell you my new address to which we have just moved from St. Stephen's Avenue. I will show it you some day: it is very different from the old place – but I dare say my brothers will get accustomed to it in time. Of course I (probably) will be going to Oxford in a month's time. There is a confounded railway behind – but as the trains go more gently than I have a right to expect, I can put up with that. There is here a reading-room, a library (in embryo), a smoking-room, a club-room where the members meet and lectures are held and I don't know what not. . . . This place, you must remember, is off the Gloucester Road which is of course opposite the Broad Walk in Kensington Gardens."

Sometime in 1889 (apparently) Aurobindo moved to private lodgings at 28, Kempsford Gardens, Earl's Court, South Kensington, and remained there till he went to Cambridge.

In a letter of 1890, Manmohan describes this house:

"Kempsford Gardens, I must tell you, looks out upon Brompton Cemetery and funerals pass down it every day."

This glimpse of Aurobindo's literary interest at about this time comes from something he said long afterwards:

"The Revolt of Islam was a great favourite with me even when I was quite young and I used to read it again and again, of course, without understanding everything. But evidently it appealed to some part of the being. There was no other effect of reading it

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except this, that I had a thought that I would dedicate my life to a similar world change and take part in it."^¹

Both at Manchester and at St. Paul's Aurobindo gave his attention to the study of classics, but even at St. Paul's in the last three years he simply went through his school course without labouring over it and spent most of his time in general reading, especially of English poetry, literature and fiction, French literature and the history of mediaeval and modem Europe. He also spent some time learning Italian, some German and a little Spanish. This he could do as he was at ease in his school studies. Though some of his teachers used to regret his preoccupation with general reading, he was nevertheless able to win many prizes. He had with him for many years an illustrated edition of the Arabian Nights which he had himself selected as a prize. He was also able to secure an open scholarship to King's College.

Aurobindo began writing poetry at a very early age. Even while he was at Manchester he wrote a poem for the Fox's Weekly, "an awful imitation" as he used to call it. At St. Paul's, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, he began to write more English poetry. This activity continued when he went to Cambridge, and indeed throughout his life. His brother Manmohan was a classmate of Laurence Binyon and a friend of Oscar Wilde. He was also very intimate with Stephen Phillips, and was himself a promising poet, having written verses which were published from Oxford in a collection entitled Primavera. It is likely that, apart from Aurobindo's own classical studies and poetical bent, Manmohan's influence stimulated him to write poetry. At the age of seventeen he translated from the Greek a passage entitled "Hecuba". Laurence Binyon, who happened to read it, asked Aurobindo why he was not writing more poetry. Occasionally Aurobindo used to write Greek and Latin verses.

During those days games did not form an important item of school life as they do today. Football and cricket were just being introduced. It was Shepard, one of the masters, who made the games popular at St. Paul's. Dr. Walker, the High Master, was rather indifferent to sports in the beginning.

As already stated, the three brothers used to go out of London during the vacations whenever they could afford it. In August

¹. Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 142.

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1886 they went to Keswick.

There are three letters of Manmohan describing their visit to Keswick, which must have lasted for at least three weeks. The first letter is dated 10 August and the last 23 August. In the last he writes about remaining one week more – which means till the end of August 1886.

c/o Miss Scott

Ambleside Rd.

Keswick.

Aug. 10th, Tuesday [1886]

. . . And Derbyshire, I can tell you from my own experience, is one of the loveliest counties in England if you only go to the right part. I stayed one whole summer at Matlock Bank, and from there had a splendid walking tour. My brother, I and another gentleman took the train to Monsel Dale and walked from there into Castleton Valley, slept at a very comfortable inn there, and next morning walked over Kinder Scout and into Hayfield and Chapel-on-the-Frith from where we took the train back. . . .

c/o Miss Scott

Ambleside Rd.

Keswick.

Friday Aug. 13th [1886]

. . .You see we have changed our address, but it is only a few doors off our old place in Eskin Str.: so you can send to whichever address you please. However we are only thinking of staying here till next Tuesday and then going off to the seaside to St. Bees, where we went last year; for we have had great trouble, in getting lodgings in Keswick. . . .

. . . We have been having very rainy and unsettled weather of late – that is the worst of the Lake District – when the weather once becomes unsettled, there's no telling when it will be fine again. I have seen Borrowdale, the Honister Pass, Buttermere, Newland's Vale, and a little while ago I and my younger brother went together to Thirlmere, with Helvellyn looming up on one side all the way, but we did not see the lake which is a very pretty one – for, being a bleak, misty day, it came on to rain when we were a mile from it and we had to turn back. ..

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Keswick.

Miss Scott's.

Ambleside Rd.

Mon. Aug. 23 [1886]

. . . All last week was so much taken up with walks, that I really had no time to sit down and write even a few lines to you. On Friday we went all three of us with a gentleman to Thirlmere – up to the middle of it along the western side which is wooded with firs. Thirlmere is a lovely lake, and wonderfully placid and calm, lying between Helvellyn on the east and a high range of fells on the west, and its banks all round the brink are beautifully wooded, the trees going some distance up the hillsides. Helvellyn that day was shrouded in a white mist and could not very well be seen. We crossed the lake in the middle by the Bridges, and came back by the beautiful Vale of St. John and a path round Naddle Fell, getting home at 6 p.m. and eating a tremendous tea (the four of us getting through two considerable loaves).

On Saturday we went to Watendlath which is certainly the loveliest place I have yet seen in the Lake District. It was a very fine day, and the whole party of us started at 9.40. We had two ladies, and of course not much walking could be done. They went with my eldest brother for an escort by coach through Borrowdale to Rosthwaite, and then walked over the fell towards Watendlath. My younger brother, myself, and the same gentleman walked along Lake Derwentwater and then up the Barrow woods, a steep hill-climb into Watendlath. The scenery in these woods is quite Alpine (with only the absence of snow) being a sheer rock at one place, densely wooded from top to bottom rising one thousand feet from the Borrowdale Valley. ... In a pool here I had a splendid dip, only the current was very strong, and the water in some parts quite deep enough to drown me. We all met at a hill above Watendlath, had tea at a farm-house, and returned very leisurely by the Barrow woods, reaching home at 10 p.m.

Today has turned out very fine and we intend to have a walk somewhere, though I don't know where as yet.

. . . We are not going to stay at Keswick much longer, most likely till the end of this week. We shall be all broken up. My eldest brother will to London to coach for an exam, and we two to some place on the coast – most likely not to St. Bees. ...

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In the letter of 10 August 1886 from Keswick, Manmohan writes of Derbyshire, which means he must have visited it before 1886, in all probability with his two brothers.

In the second letter (dated 13 August) he writes: "However we are only thinking of staying here till next Tuesday and then going off to the seaside to St. Bees, where we went last year." So, in 1885 the three brothers had gone to St. Bees. In the same letter he refers to Aurobindo: ". . . and a little while ago I and my younger brother went together to Thirlmere. ..."

The third letter (dated 23 August 1886) gives a vivid and detailed description of a two days' programme at Keswick.

He writes: "On Friday we went all three of us" to Thirlmere – evidently a second walk to it. He also hints that "we two", meaning himself and Aurobindo, would be going to some place on the coast.

In the two letters of Manmohan given below, he discusses the prospect of a visit outside London, in 1887.

49 St. Stephen's Avenue

Uxbridge Rd.

London.W.

July [1887]

... I believe my brother has already written; but we shall not be able to leave London till the end of the next week at the earliest. ...

49 St. Stephen's Avenue

Uxbridge Rd.

London.W.

July 28th [1887]

... I am sorry to say that the place you recommended at St. Leonard's was full; we have written to the one at Hastings but we have not yet received a reply. . . .

Almost immediately after this letter they must have received a reply from Hastings as the three brothers went there on 2 August 1887 and stayed for almost a month. There are four letters from Manmohan to Binyon from the new address.

Binyon evidently went to Keswick in July 1887. In Manmohan's letter dated 28 July there is a reference to it.

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"Your description of your Grisedale walk I appreciated very much. It is one of the places I did not go to: but my brothers went, and they at once remembered, when I told them, of the wrong way up which you describe, only they came down that way instead of going up."

2 Plynlimmon Terrace

Hastings.

Aug. 8th Monday [1887]

We came here last Tuesday, all right, only by a dreadfully slow train. I like Hastings very much – it is delightful on this cliff especially where we are staying. But I confess the sea is better than the land. . . I have seen Ecclesbourne and Fairlight which are pretty. . . .

2 Plynlimmon Terrace

Hastings.

Sussex. [1887]

... We are going to stay at Hastings a little more than a week from today. I should like to go home earlier, but money has to come from my father, before we can pay our rent here. So we stay a little longer. ...

It is in the last two letters that Manmohan writes about Dr. K. D. Ghose's inability to keep him long at Oxford. On their return from Hastings the three brothers changed their lodgings. A letter of Manmohan which has already been quoted from, mentions this fact:

South Kensington Liberal Club.

128 Cromwell Rd.

London. S. W.

Monday.

I write to tell you my new address to which we have just moved from St. Stephen's Avenue. I will show it you some day: it is wry different from the old place – but I dare say my brothers will get accustomed to it in time. Of course I (probably) will be going to Oxford in a month's time. . . ^¹

¹ They must have moved to this house in September 1887. Manmohan's letter from Oxford proves it:

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This place, you must remember, is off the Gloucester Road which is of course opposite the Broad Walk in Kensington Gardens.

It appears from a letter of Manmohan from Christ Church College, dated June 2 [1888], that Aurobindo may have gone to Galway for holidays, "my brother is probably going to Galway for his holidays on the invitation of a friend we have made in the Club."

During his last year of study at St. Paul's, Aurobindo was a member of the "I. C .S. Class". This was a group of senior boys who were working for the Indian Civil Service examination. He passed the I. C .S. test, obtaining eleventh place and securing very high marks in classics. It may be noted that Benoybhushan also took the test but did not pass.

Towards the end of his career at St. Paul's Aurobindo won an open scholarship for classics to King's College, Cambridge. This scholarship carried £80 a year, a sum which was not sufficient to cover the expenses at Cambridge, but which was a great help to Aurobindo. He also received an allowance as an I. C .S. probationer. Even so, he was always hard pressed because he used to help his brothers occasionally. It goes without saying that the double work of keeping up his studies in classics and the I. C .S. preparation must have been a great strain upon him. Mr. G. W. Prothero in a letter to James Cotton, (already quoted from in part and given in full on pages 327-28) writes about Aurobindo's studies:

"He performed his part of the bargain, as regards the College, most honourably, and took a high place in the 1st class of the Classical Tripos at the end of the second year of his residence. He also obtained certain college prizes, showing command of English and literary ability. That a man should have been able to do this (which alone is quite enough for most undergraduates), and at the same time to keep up his I. C .S. work, proves very unusual industry and capacity.

Ch. Ch. [Christ Church]

Oxford.

Sat. night. [Oct. 1887]

.. .We started from Paddington, my brother and myself, at – I think it was 10 a.m....

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CHAPTER III

Baroda

Sri Aurobindo returned to India in the beginning of 1893. He joined the Baroda service on 8 February. Unfortunately his father died before his return under tragic circumstances. It is clear from Dr. K. D. Ghose's letter of 2 December 1890 that he had high hopes for his three sons, especially Sri Aurobindo. He wanted him to take up judicial or administrative work in the Indian government, and had used his influence to get him a good appointment. But he was wrongly informed by his bankers, Messrs. Grindlay & Co. about Sri Aurobindo's departure from London. The steamer Roumania, by which Sri Aurobindo was supposed to have left, sank off the coast of Portugal near Lisbon, Dr. K-.D. Ghose learned about this accident and concluded that Sri Aurobindo had been drowned. The shock was so great that he had a heart attack and died repeating Sri Aurobindo's name.

An account of Dr. K .D. Ghose's death by Brajendranath De published in 1954 is reproduced here:

"Dr. Ghose believed up to the very end, that his son had been admitted into the Indian Civil Service, and was in fact coming out. He, in fact, took a month's leave to go and meet him in Bombay and bring him back in triumph, but he could not get any definite news as to when he was coming out and returned from Bombay in a very depressed frame of mind. At last one afternoon he got a wire from his agents in Bombay to the effect that his son's name did not appear in the list of the passengers by the steamer in which he had been expecting his son to come out to India.

"It so happened that, that very night he and the Superintendent of Police were coming to dine at my house. The dinner was ready, the Superintendent came, but there was no sign of the doctor, although his bungalow was quite close to my house. After waiting for some time I sent an orderly to remind him of the fact that he had agreed to dine at my house that night. The man came back and informed us that the doctor was very ill. I at once went round, heard of the telegram and found the doctor very ill and quite unconscious. The other medical men in the station were

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assiduous in their attentions. I did all I could. But it was all of no avail. The poor man lingered on for a day or two and then passed away. ... I had to take the body to the cremation grounds and to attend the cremation."^¹

As a matter of fact, Sri Aurobindo left England not by the Roumania but by the mail steamer Carthage and, though it encountered a violent storm in the Mediterranean, he reached India quite safely on 6 February 1893.

As soon as Sri Aurobindo put his foot on the soil of India, he experienced a tremendous peace. This is one of the experiences that came to him unasked.

Here is what he wrote to a disciple incidentally about this experience :

". . . Since I set foot on the Indian soil on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, I began to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced from this world but had an inner and infinite bearing on it, such as a feeling of the Infinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material objects and bodies. At the same time I found myself entering supraphysical worlds and planes with influences and an effect from them upon the material plane. . . . "^³

Baroda Service

Sri Aurobindo served in the Baroda state from 8 February 1893 to 18 June 1907. His age was twenty-one when he joined, thirty-five when he left. The period of his service was 13 years 5 months and 17 days.

He first served in the Survey Settlement Department at a pay of Rs.200 per month. He was asked to get acquainted with various departments. In some he had to learn the routine work and observe the procedure of the departmental work. From the Settlement Department he went over to the Revenue Department. He also worked for some in the Vahivatdar's office and in the Secretariat. Permanent work was finally given to him in the Baroda College.

¹ Brajendranath De, "Reminiscences of an Indian Member of the Indian Civil Service", The Calcutta Review, Vol. 132, No. 3 (September 1954), p. 181.

² Sri Aurobindo On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), P 98

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(1) "Aurobindo talked very little, perhaps because he believed it better to speak as little as possible about oneself." (2) "It was as if acquiring knowledge was his sole mission in life." (3) "Aurobindo is not a man of this earth, he is a god come down from heaven by some curse." These three quotations are from Aurobindo Prasanga by Dinendra Kumar Roy,¹ a Bengali writer who stayed with Sri Aurobindo during 1898-99 in order to familiarise him with the Bengali language. Life at Baroda was full, though the political career that followed was like a tornado. Sri Aurobindo's activity during this period can be divided into five parts: (1) service in various departments of the State; (2) literary activity, reading and study – this part was partly connected with college work; (3) political activity – articles in the Induprakash and beginnings of the revolutionary movement, visits to Bengal during vacations for this purpose; (4) spiritual life; (5) family life.

During this period Sri Aurobindo often stayed with Khaserao Jadhav in his house at Dandia Bazar. In his absence he stayed with Khaserao's brother Madhavrao Jadhav. Several other houses also were occupied at different times in Baroda.^²

In the beginning Sri Aurobindo's services were lent to the college from other departments for French lessons for certain periods in the week. So he began his work in the college as lecturer in French. Other work of the college was gradually added. At last the Principal requested the Maharaja to appoint him to the post of Professor of English and from there he rose to be the Vice-Principal of the college. Once he acted for the Principal in his absence.

But before he took up permanent work in the college he used to be called by the Maharaja from his home for his personal work, either for drafting some important letter, or making a digest of some correspondence or documents, or even to draft agreements. One important work which the Maharaja got Sri Aurobindo to do in 1895 was to prepare a precis of the long-drawn-out Bapat case. Sri Aurobindo was called to Ootacamund for this purpose. This was outside his official work. But in spite of this fact, it must be mentioned that Sri Aurobindo only once acted as personal

¹ Chandemagore: Prabartak Publishing House, Magb 1330, pp. 16, 23, 9.

²  See Appendix VII, Houses in Baroda, p. 350.

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secretary to the Maharaja. This happened in 1903, when the Maharaja took him as secretary on the Kashmir tour; but as the experience was not pleasant, it was not repeated.

The following extract from Sayaji Rao Gaekwar Yancha Sahavasat by Govind Sakharam Sardesai (the famous Marathi historian) referring to Sri Aurobindo, affords contemporary evidence about his Baroda state service and life:

"Sri Aurobindo and myself were together with Sayaji Rao very often. . . . Sometimes men like Sri Aurobindo would pen out lectures for him.

"Once the Maharaja had to address a social conference. Sri Aurobindo prepared the speech. We three [i.e., the Maharaja, G. S. Sardesai, and Sri Aurobindo] sat together and read it. The Maharaja after hearing it said: 'Can you not, Arabind Babu, tone it down? It is too fine to be mine.'

"Sri Aurobindo replied smiling: 'Why make a change for nothing? Do you think, Maharaja, that if it is toned down a little, people will believe it to be yours? Good or bad, whatever it be, people will always say that the Maharaja always gets his lectures written by others. The main thing is whether the thoughts are yours. That is your chief part.'"^¹

Sardesai also states that Sri Aurobindo carried on the major part of the correspondence that passed between the Indian government and the Baroda state about the insult which Curzon felt when the Maharaja, who was in Paris, was called by the Indian government (as Curzon was visiting Baroda in 1900), and the Maharaja did not come.^²

"I used to go out walking with Sri Aurobindo in those days. He usually was reserved and non-communicative. To a question he would reply 'yes' or 'no' and not go beyond. There was something of the mystic in him."^³

"I wrote many memoranda for the Maharaja", Sri Aurobindo once said. "Generally he used to indicate the lines and I used to follow them. But I myself was not much interested in administration. My interests lay outside in Sanskrit, literature, and

¹ Govind Sakharam Sardesai, Sayaji Rao Gaekwar Yancha Sahavasat (Poona:  S. Jagannath and Co., 1956), pp. 20-21.

² Ibid. p. 25. E

³ Ibid. p. 31.

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in the National movement. When I came to Baroda from England I found out what the Congress was at that time and formed contempt for it. Then I came in touch with Deshpande, Tilak, Madhavrao, and others. Deshpande requested me to write something, in the Induprakash. There I strongly criticised the Congress for its moderate policy. The articles were so slashing that M .G. Ranade, the great Maharashtra leader, asked the proprietor of the paper not to allow such seditious articles to appear in the paper otherwise he might be arrested and imprisoned. Deshpande approached me with the news and requested me to write something less violent. I then began to write about the philosophy of politics leaving aside the practical part. But soon I got disgusted with it."^¹

The series of political articles mentioned above, "New Lamps for Old", which severely criticised the policy of the Indian National Congress, was published in the Induprakash of Bombay from 7 August 1893 to 5 March 1894. Sri Aurobindo was pressed by K .G. Deshpande, his Cambridge friend, to write the series. K.G. Deshpande, after his return from England, settled in Bombay as a barrister and was also editor of the English section of the Induprakash. The paper had a Marathi section also. On Sri Aurobindo's joining the Baroda state, Deshpande requested him – knowing his strong nationalist views at Cambridge – to write articles about the Indian Congress. Deshpande joined the Baroda state service in 1898 – five years after Sri Aurobindo.

Deshpande introduced Sri Aurobindo's series with the following note:

"We promised our readers some time back a series of articles on our present political progress by an extremely able and keen observer of the present times. We are very much pleased to give our readers the first instalment of that series. The title under which these views appear is 'New Lamps for Old' which is very suggestive though a metaphorical one. The preface will take us over to the next issue. The views therein contained are not those that are commonly held by our politicians, and for this reason

¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series, pp. 36-37.

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they are very important. We have been long convinced that our efforts in Political Progress are not sustained, but are lacking in vigour. Hypocrisy has been the besetting sin of our political agitation. Oblique vision is the fashion. True, matter of fact, honest criticism is very badly needed. Our institutions have no strong foundation and are in hourly danger of falling down. Under these circumstances it was idle – nay, criminal, – to remain silent while our whole energy in Political Progress was spent in a wrong direction. The questions at issue are momentous. It is the making or unmaking of a nation. We have therefore secured a gentleman of great literary talents, of liberal culture and of considerable English experience, well-versed in the art of writing and willing, at great personal inconvenience and probable misrepresentation, to give out his views in no uncertain voice, and, we may be allowed to add, in a style and diction peculiarly his own. We bespeak our readers' most careful and constant perusal on his behalf and assure them that they will find in those articles matter that will set them thinking and steel their patriotic souls."^¹

The publication of the first two articles created a furor in political circles and Mahadev Govind Ranade, the famous Maratha leader, who was connected with the paper, sent a warning to the editor that he might be prosecuted for sedition. Deshpande was in a fix. He requested Sri Aurobindo to tone down his criticism a little. After that Sri Aurobindo lost all enthusiasm for writing the series and even though he somehow finished it he took a long time to do it. He never liked the mendicant policy of the Congress.

A few extracts from that historical series, "New Lamps for Old":

"I say, of the Congress, then, this,– that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; – in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed."^²

"For by reflection or instinct to get a clear insight into our

¹. Sri Aurobindo, New Lamps for Old (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1974). P. 6.

². Ibid. p. 19.

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position and by dexterity to make the most of it, that is the whole secret of politics, and that is just what we have failed to do."¹

"We lose in sincerity which is another name for strength." ²

"So long as this temper prevails, we shall never realise how utterly it is beyond the power of even an excellent machine to renovate an effete and impoverished national character and how palpably requisite to commence from within and not depend on any exterior agency."^³

"To put it in a concrete form, Paris may be said to revolve around the Theatre, the Municipal Council and the French Academy, London looks rather to the House of Commons and New York to the Stock Exchange."⁴

This series brought out many political questions and displayed the powers of Sri Aurobindo for the first time before the public – an all-encompassing grasp, a subtle power of thought, capacity for expression and a mastery over the language, rare courage, utter sincerity, burning patriotism and selfless character. All these can be seen in the Induprakash series even now after so many years.

Sri Aurobindo's circle of friends at Baroda included Madhavrao and Khaserao Jadhav, K.G. Deshpande, Fadke, Mangesh Kolasker, etc. Mr. Fadke took a photograph of Dinendra Kumar Roy and Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo once recounted an anecdote of those days:

"I remember that a young Sannyasi with long nails came to Baroda. He used to stay under trees. Deshpande and myself went to see him. Deshpande asked him what is the Dharma – the standard of action?

"He replied: 'There is no fixed standard. It is the Dharma of the thief to steal because that is his Dharma.' Deshpande was very angry to hear that. I said: 'It is only a point of view!'"⁵

¹. Ibid. p. 59

². Ibid.

³. Ibid., p. 41.

4^. Ibid., pp. 40-41.

5. Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series, p. 166.

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The work entrusted to Sri Aurobindo was sometimes very dull, requiring mechanical plodding through reports and the making of abstracts. Sri Aurobindo felt no enthusiasm for that land of work. At one time the work entrusted to him was consulting the time-tables of railways in Europe!

Sri Aurobindo seems to have visited Bengal for the first time after his return from England in 1894. He met all his relations – his mother Swarnalata, Sarojini, Barin, Jogendra, as well as his grandfather Rajnarayan. This is how Sarojini describes his appearance: "a very delicate face, long hair cut in English fashion, Sejda ["older brother", i.e. Sri Aurobindo] was a very shy person."

His mother did not recognise him – it was perhaps natural after so long an interval – when they met. She argued, "My Aurobindo was not so big, he was small." When it was explained to her that he had come back from England after finishing his studies she suddenly had a flash of memory and said, "My Aurobindo had a cut on his finger." In fact, he had the mark of a cut received from a broken glass bottle. The mark was shown to her and she recognised him.

The letters written by Sri Aurobindo to his family were few and are hard to find. The following letter to Sarojini shows him as an affectionate brother. It also shows that Benoybhushan did not return to India till 1894. One sees how scarce the correspondence between the brothers was.

Baroda Camp

25th August, 1894

My dear Saro,

I got your letter the day before yesterday. I have been trying hard to write to you for the last three weeks, but have hitherto failed. Today I am making a huge effort and hope to put the letter in the post before nightfall. As I am now invigorated by three days' leave, I almost think I shall succeed.

It will be, I fear, quite impossible to come to you again so early as the Puja, though if I only could, I should start tomorrow. Neither my affairs, nor my finances will admit of it. Indeed it was a great mistake for me to go at all; for it has made Baroda quite intolerable to me. There is an old story about Judas Iscariot, which suits me down to the ground. Judas, after betraying Christ, hanged himself and went to Hell where he was honoured with the

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hottest oven in the whole establishment. Here he must bum for ever and ever; but in his life he had done one kind act and for this they permitted him by special mercy of God to cool himself for an hour every Christmas on an iceberg in the North Pole. Now this has always seemed to me not mercy, but a peculiar refinement of cruelty. For how could Hell fail to be ten times more Hell to the poor wretch after the delicious coolness of his iceberg? I do not know for what enormous crime I have been condemned to Baroda, but my case is just parallel. Since my pleasant sojourn with you at Baidyanath, Baroda seems a hundred times more Baroda.

I dare say Beno may write to you three or four days before he leaves England. But you must think yourself lucky if he does as much as that. Most likely the first you hear of him will be a telegram from Calcutta. Certainly he has not written to me. I never expected and should be afraid to get a letter. It would be such a shocking surprise that I should certainly be able to do nothing but roll on the floor and gasp for breath for the next two or three hours. No, the favours of the Gods are too awful to be coveted. I dare say he will have energy enough to hand over your letter to Mano as they must be seeing each other almost daily. You must give Mano a little time before he answers you. He too is Beno's brother. Please let me have Beno's address as I don't know where to send a letter I have ready for him. Will you also let me have the name of Bari's English Composition Book and its compiler? I want such a book badly, as this will be useful for me not only in Bengalee but in Gujerati. There are no convenient books like that here.

You say in your letter "all here are quite well"; yet in the very next sentence I read "Bari has an attack of fever". Do you mean then that Bari is nobody? Poor Bari! That he should be excluded from the list of human beings is only right and proper, but it is a little hard that he should be denied existence altogether. I hope it is only a slight attack. I am quite well. I have brought a fund of health with me from Bengal, which, I hope it will take me some time to exhaust; but I have just passed my twenty-second milestone, August 15 last, since my birthday and am beginning to get dreadfully old.

I infer from your letter that you are making great progress in English. I hope you will learn very quickly; I can then write

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to you quite what I want to say and just in the way I want to say it. I feel some difficulty in doing that now and I don't know whether you will understand it.

With love,

Your affectionate brother,

Auro

P. S. If you want to understand the new orthography of my name, ask uncle.^¹

Sometime in 1894 Sri Aurobindo met M .G. Ranade at Bombay for half an hour. It was Ranade who, having read Sri Aurobindo's Induprakash series, had sent a warning to the editor. He was anxious to meet the intelligent and promising young man! At last when an interview was arranged he found an opportunity to try to persuade Sri Aurobindo not to waste his energies in violently attacking the Congress but turn them to some constructive work like jail reform! When Sri Aurobindo went to prison he remembered Ranade's advice and ironically wrote afterwards that he had begun the prison-reform by going to prison!

From 16 July to 27 August 1894 Sri Aurobindo contributed a series of articles to the Induprakash on Bankim Chandra Chatterji. The articles contained literary criticism and an estimate of Bankim's work. It is evident that Sri Aurobindo knew Bengali well and had familiarised himself with the works of Bankim and Madhusudan Dutt before he called Dinendra Kumar Roy to Baroda in 1898 to acquaint him with the colloquial terms and pronunciation of Bengali.

In the year 1895 the first collection of Sri Aurobindo's poems, Songs to Myrtilla, was published "for private circulation". Sri Aurobindo used to read Homer, Dante, the Mahabharata, Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti, during this period. He instructed the Bombay firms Messrs Radhabai Atmaram Sagun and Messrs Thacker Spink & Co. to send him catalogues of new publications from which he would select books and order them. The books used to come by railway parcels.

The routine of his daily life was as follows: After morning tea Sri Aurobindo used to write poetry. He would continue up

¹. Sri Aurobindo, Supplement (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), P. 420-21.

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to ten o'clock. Bath was between ten and eleven o'clock and lunch was at eleven o'clock – a cigar would be by his side even while he ate. Sri Aurobindo used to read journals while taking his meals. He took less of rice and more of bread. Once a day there was meat or fish.

There were intervals when Sri Aurobindo took to complete vegetarian diet. He was indifferent to taste. He found Marathi food too hot (with its chillies) and Gujarati food too rich in ghee. Later, he once had a dinner at B G. Tilak's, which consisted of rice, puri, legum (dal) and vegetables. He liked it for its "Spartan simplicity". Sri Aurobindo was in the habit of reading far into the night and retiring very late. He was a late riser.

During this period he used to send money regularly for the maintenance of his mother and for Sarojini's education at Banki-pore. The two elder brothers Benoybhushan and Manmohan who had returned from England were earning also but they rendered no help to the family. When asked about this Sri Aurobindo said, "Dada is in Coochbehar state service and so he has to maintain a certain high standard of living. Manmohan is married and marriage is an expensive luxury!"

In the autumn of 1898 Sri Aurobindo managed to get Sj. Dinendra Kumar Roy as his paid tutor in order to familiarise himself with spoken Bengali. Roy came to Baroda after the Puja holidays. As already stated, Sri Aurobindo had commenced learning Bengali while at Cambridge, and he read many authors during his stay at Baroda. He wanted to make himself familiar with the growth of Bengali literature, to understand the idiom of the spoken language and to learn to speak it. Dinendra Roy tried to learn French and German from Sri Aurobindo. The study that Sri Aurobindo did with Roy was not of the nature of regular lessons, but was more of an informal arrangement. It happened at times that he would read and converse for a day and then for days there would be no learning at all.

One day Dinendra Kumar asked Sri Aurobindo why he was not so well known, that is, why he did not come forward in the life of Baroda. Sri Aurobindo replied that there was no happiness or delight in it.

D. K. found books coming by railway parcels. He saw French, German, Latin, Greek, even Russian books on Sri Aurobindo's shelf. He saw all the poets from Chaucer to Swinburne in his library.

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But he was immensely surprised to find that in spite of his prolonged residence in England there was no trace of a deep European influence on him.

D. K. writes about the economic condition: 'He was alone, he did not know what it was to run after pleasures, he never spent even a paisa in the wrong way, and yet at the end of the month he did not have a paisa in his hand."^¹

Among the subjects on which Sri Aurobindo wrote poems, D .K. Roy mentions "Savitri" – this may be the first germ of the great poem which ultimately ended as the epic.²

A Bengali painter, Shashi Kumar Hesh, came to Baroda during this period. He did a portrait of Sri Aurobindo in oils.

Sri Aurobindo's cousin Basanti, the daughter of Krishna Kumar Mitra, was the first person to receive a letter written by Sri Aurobindo in Bengali. Basanti bitterly regrets the loss of this letter during the Hindu-Muslim riots in Bengal after Pakistan came into being. Afterwards Sri Aurobindo learnt enough Bengali to conduct the weekly Dharma in it. He even wrote some Bengali poetry. His mastery over the Bengali language was not equal to his mastery over the English.

When Professor Littledale went on leave in 1898 Sri Aurobindo was appointed professor of English. In 1899 he spoke on Oxford and Cambridge on the occasion of the Baroda College Social Gathering.³ In the year 1900 Principal Tait asked the Maharaja to appoint Sri Aurobindo as permanent professor of English in the Baroda College. In his proposal the principal spoke highly of his work and ability. The Maharaja granted the request. Sri Aurobindo's pay was raised to Rs.360. Unlike his brother Manmohan (also a professor in English) Sri Aurobindo never prepared himself for the class with elaborate notes.

About his career as a professor Sri Aurobindo said in the course of a talk: "I was not so conscientious a professor as Manmohan. I never used to look at the notes and sometimes my explanations did not agree with them at all. I was professor of English and sometimes of French. What was surprising to me was that students

¹.Dinendra Kumar Roy, Aurobindo Prasanga, p. 13. Cf. statement of R. N. Patkar, pp. 61-66.

².Ibid., p. 15.

³.See Appendix III, pp. 315-18, for the speech.

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used to take down everything verbatim and mug it up by heart. Such a thing would never have happened in England. There [at Baroda] the students besides taking my notes used to get notes of some professor from Bombay, especially if any of them was to be an examiner.

"Once I was giving a lecture on Southey's Life of Nelson. My lecture was not in agreement with the notes. So the students remarked that it was not at all like what was found in the notes. I replied: I have not read the notes – in any case they are all rubbish! I could never go to the minute details. I read and left my mind to do what it could. That is why I could never become a scholar. Up to the age of fifteen I was known as a very promising scholar in St. Paul's. After fifteen I lost that reputation. The teachers used to say that I had become lazy and was deteriorating – because I was reading novels and poetry only; at examination time I used to prepare a little. But now and then when I wrote Greek and Latin verse my teachers used to lament that I was not utilising my remarkable gifts because of my laziness.

"When I went up for Scholarship at the King's College, Cambridge, Oscar Browning remarked that he had not seen such remarkable papers before."^¹

During these years (the years of teaching at Baroda) Sri Aurobindo used to pass his vacations in Bengal, especially the second vacation which generally coincided with the Puja holidays. The two vacations were from 15 April to 9 June and from 30 September to 2 January. His cousin Basanti has given her reminiscences of his visits to Deoghar. She was then a girl learning at school and used to go to Deoghar to visit the family of her grandfather Rajnarayan Bose. There were hills around and everybody enjoyed a life free from the conventions of the city. All the children were fond of uncle Jogendra, Rajnarayan's eldest son, and would sit round him and listen to stories or else make fun. Sri Aurobindo liked Jogendra whom he used to call humorously "the prophet of Isabgul", because he used to prescribe "Isabgul" as a remedy for almost all the troubles of the stomach!

Sri Aurobindo used to join them all during the Puja holidays. He generally stayed at Deoghar but also passed a few days with

¹. Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1959), pp. 245-46.

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his aunt at Calcutta. Indeed, whenever Sri Aurobindo passed through Calcutta during this period (before 1906) he used to stay with her and Krishna Kumar Mitra at 6, College Square.

Basanti Devi writes: "Auro Dada used to arrive with two or three trunks. We always thought they would contain costly suits and other luxury items like scents, etc. When he opened them I used to look and wonder. What is this? A few ordinary clothes and all the rest books and nothing but books! Does Auro Dada like to read all these? We all want to chat and enjoy ourselves in vacations. Does he want to spend even this time in reading these books? But because he liked this reading did not mean that he did not join us in our talks and chats and our merrymaking. His talk used to be full of wit and humour."^¹

In September 1899 Rajnarayan Bose, Sri Aurobindo's grandfather, died. Sri Aurobindo wrote a sonnet on him after his death.

In 1899 or possibly 1898 Jatindranath Banerjee (afterwards Niralamb Swamy) came to Baroda for military training in the Baroda army in order to prepare himself for revolutionary work. Sri Aurobindo, with the help of Khaserao and Madhavrao Jadhav, got him admitted to the army for training. Jatin was declared as a U .P. man, not a Bengali. Sri Aurobindo persuaded him to join the revolutionary movement he intended to launch in Bengal. Jatin agreed.

He was sent to Calcutta to get men and materials for the revolutionary work in Bengal in 1900. He met P. Mitra and Bibhuti Bhushan Bhattacharya and introduced them to Sri Aurobindo.

Probably this same year Barin passed his Entrance Examination. He spent six months with Manmohan at Dacca and then tried to learn agriculture but received no monetary support. He tried to run a tea shop in Patna but there also he did not succeed and so he went to Baroda to stay with Sri Aurobindo.

One day even before he had got up from his bed, Sri Aurobindo found Barin with a dirty canvas bag and very dirty clothes. He exclaimed, "How is it that you are here in this state-?" He sent him straight to the bathroom! Even before this time, whenever

¹. Basanti Chakravarty, "Amader Aurodada", Galpa Bharati, Vol. VI, No 7 (Paush 1357), pp. 776-77.

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Sri Aurobindo used to go to Deoghar, he used to inculcate the revolutionary spirit in Barin. When Barin came to Baroda it was an opportunity to prepare him for the revolutionary work.

Sri Aurobindo continued to be a member of the College Union. After April 1901 he drew his salary from the Sar Subha's office.

In April 1901 Sri Aurobindo was married to Mrinalini Bose, daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose. Her age was fourteen years (birthday 6 March 1888). Sri Aurobindo had had many prospective offers from which he selected Mrinalini. Principal Girish Chandra Bose, a friend of Bhupal Chandra Bose, arranged the match. The marriage took place at Baithakkhana Road, Calcutta, in one of the houses belonging to the Hatkhola Dutt family. As Sri Aurobindo had gone to England the question of purificatory rites was raised. Sri Aurobindo flatly refused, even as his father Dr. K .D. Ghose had in his day. At last there was a proposal of shaving the head. When that was turned down "an obliging Brahmin priest satisfied all the requirements of the Shastra for a monetary consideration!"

Byomkesh Chakravarty, Lord Sinha and Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose and his wife attended the marriage. It was performed according to Hindu rites. The bride was given away by Girish Chandra Bose. Sri Aurobindo was twenty-nine.

Sri Aurobindo went to Deoghar after his marriage. From there Mrinalini, Sarojini and himself went to Naini Tal. While there Sri Aurobindo wrote a postcard to Bhuvan Chakravarty:

Dear Bhuvan Babu,

I have been here at Naini Tal with my wife and sister since the 29th of May. The place is a beautiful one, but not half so cold as I expected. In fact, in daytime it is only a shade less hot than Baroda except when it has been raining. The Maharaja will probably be leaving here on the 24th,– if there has been rain at Baroda, but as he will stop at Agra, Mathura and Mhow he will not reach Baroda before the beginning of July. I shall probably be going separately and may also reach on the 1st of July. If you like, you might go there a little before and put up with Deshpande. I have asked Madhavrao to get my new house furnished but I don't know what he is doing in that direction.

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Banerji is, I believe, in Calcutta. He came up to see me at Deoghar for a day.

Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose

It was most probably during the year 1901 that Mr. Mandavale, a Marathi gentleman, gave the oath of the revolutionary party to Sri Aurobindo. This ceremony was considered important at that time.

During his stay at Baroda, Barin read a book on spiritualism and began experimenting with the planchette and with table-tapping. Sri Aurobindo also used to join in the evenings. Two or three experiences are remarkable. Once Barin called his father Dr. K .D. Ghose. A reply came that his spirit was there. He was asked to give a sign or proof of his identity. He reminded Barin about a gold watch which he had presented to him. Barin had completely forgotten this fact but said it was true. Then he was asked to give another proof. He mentioned the existence of a certain picture on the wall in the house of Mr. Devdhar, who was an engineer. An enquiry was made but no such picture was found. The matter was reported to the spirit that claimed to be Dr. K .D. Ghose. In reply he said that they should enquire again. Then they made another and more detailed effort, and found that there was a picture which had been covered over by whitewash. At another séance Tilak was present. The spirit of Dr. K. D. Ghose was called and asked "What kind of man is this?" He answered: "When all your work is ruined and many men bow their heads down, this man will keep his head erect." This proved true.

Once Ramakrishna Paramahansa was called and was asked questions. But he kept silent for a long time. Then while going he said, "Make a temple, make a temple (Mandir karo)."

At that time the idea of independence for India was dominant and so all believed that Ramakrishna had given his consent to the "Bhawani Mandir" scheme. But the true significance of Ramakrishna's statement was interpreted by Sri Aurobindo years later as a command to make in ourselves a temple to the Mother, to effect such a transformation of ourselves that we become the temple of the Mother.

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These séances have not much value from the point of view of Yoga. But they show clearly the limitation of the view that the physical is the only reality. Their importance to Sri Aurobindo lies in the fact that they showed him the existence of supra-physical agencies and planes of consciousness, and the possibility of attaining them.

Sri Aurobindo kept a horse-carriage at Baroda. For a description of it see page 33 of D. K. Roy's book, Aurobindo Prasanga. An incident involving this carriage is important. Once Sri Aurobindo was going from the Camp Road towards the city. Just by the side of the public gardens an accident was narrowly averted. As he saw the possibility of the accident he found that, with the will to prevent it, there appeared a Being of Light in him who was as it were the master of the situation and was able to control the details. This experience, which came before the beginning of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana, may be the seed of the following poem:

THE GODHEAD

I sat behind the dance of Danger's hooves

In the shouting street that seemed a futurist's whim,

And suddenly felt, exceeding Nature's grooves,

In me, enveloping me the body of Him.

Above my head a mighty head was seen,

A face with the calm of immortality

And an omnipotent gaze that held the scene

In the vast circle of its sovereignty.

His hair was mingled with the sun and breeze;

The world was in His heart and He was I:

I housed in me the Everlasting's peace,

The strength of One whose substance cannot die.

The moment passed and all was as before;

Only that¹ deathless memory I bore.^²

In 1902 Sri Aurobindo was occupied in teaching French and English at the college. Southey's Life of Nelson and Burke's

¹ Alternate reading: its.

². Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), p. 138.

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reflections on the French Revolution were the text books in the first two classes. Sri Aurobindo presided over Sarat Chandra Mallick's lecture in the college.

This year Sri Aurobindo went to Midnapur for the first time during the vacation. There he met Hemchandra Das. There was Practice of rifle shooting on Das's lands. It was resolved to form six centres of revolutionary work in Bengal. Jatin Banerjee and Barin accompanied Sri Aurobindo to Midnapur. Jatin had already started an organisation of young men at Calcutta in the compound of P. Mitra. When Sri Aurobindo went to Calcutta, Jatin arranged an interview between the two. Sri Aurobindo gave the oath of the revolutionary party to P. Mitra.

Sri Aurobindo later went to Midnapur for a second time and gave the oath to Hemchandra Das who, during the ceremony, held a sword in one hand and the Gita in the other. The content of the oath was to secure the freedom of Mother India at any cost and to declare the secret of the society to no one.

The idea of forming secret revolutionary societies had been in the air in Bengal for a long time. Even Rajnarayan Bose, Sri Aurobindo's grandfather, had started a society which Tagore had joined when young! But these efforts did not result in any achievement. There was a secret society in Maharashtra presided over by Thakur Ramsingh, the Rajput prince. The Bombay branch was managed by a council of five. Sri Aurobindo was able to contact this body and joined it. This was after he had already started his activity in Bengal.

During this year (1902) a society was started at Deoghar under Satyen Bose. The revolutionary spirit was so rampant that even government servants were sympathetic to it and men like Jogendranath Mukherji, a magistrate, actively joined the movement.

From 28 April 1902 to 29 May 1902 Sri Aurobindo was on Privilege leave in Bengal. It was mainly for the revolutionary work that Sri Aurobindo visited Bengal during these years.

Sister Nivedita came to Baroda in October of this year. She had identified herself with the political ideology of Vivekananda. She had an ardent aspiration for India's freedom. She had ultimately to sever her connection with the Ramakrishna Mission on account of her political activity. The relation between Sister Nivedita and Sri Aurobindo is not well known and many conjectures and rumours have appeared

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in the Indian press. We give here in Sri Aurobindo's own words the truth of the matter.

"Then about my relations with Sister Nivedita – they were purely in the field of politics. Spirituality or spiritual matters did not enter into them and I do not remember anything passing between us on these subjects when I was with her. Once or twice she showed the spiritual side of her but she was then speaking to someone else who had come to see her while I was there. . .

I met Sister Nivedita first at Baroda when she came to give some lectures there. I went to receive her at the station and to take her to the house assigned to her; I also accompanied her to an interview she had sought with the Maharaja of Baroda. She had heard of me as one who 'believed in strength and was a worshipper of Kali' by which she meant that she had heard of me as a revolutionary. I knew of her already because I had read and admired her book Kali the Mother. It was in these days that we formed our friendship. After I had started my revolutionary work in Bengal through certain emissaries, I went there personally to see and arrange things myself. I found a number of small groups of revolutionaries that had recently sprung into existence but all scattered and acting without reference to each other. I tried to unite them under a single organisation with the barrister P. Mitra as the leader of the revolution in Bengal and a central council of five persons, one of them being Nivedita. ... I had no occasion to meet Nivedita after that until I settled in Bengal as Principal of the National College and the chief editorial writer of the Bande Mataram. By that time I had become one of the leaders of the public movement known first as extremism, then as nationalism, but this gave me no occasion to meet her except once or twice at the Congress, as my collaboration with her was solely in the secret revolutionary field. I was busy with my work and she with hers, and no occasion arose for consultations or decisions about the conduct of the revolutionary movement. Later on I began to make time to go and see her occasionally at Bagbazar.

"In one of these visits she informed me that the Government had decided to deport me and she wanted me to go into secrecy or to leave British India and act from outside so as to avoid interruption of my work. There was no question at that time of danger to her; in spite of her political views she had friendly relations with high Government officials and there was no question

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of her arrest. I told her that I did not think it necessary to accept her suggestion; I would write an open letter in the Karmayogin which, I thought, would prevent this action by the Government. This was done and on my next visit to her she told me that my move had been entirely successful and the idea of deportation had been dropped. The departure to Chandernagore happened later and there was no connection between the two incidents. . . ."^¹

In her interview Sister Nivedita pressed the Maharaja to join and help the revolutionary movement. The Maharaja did not commit himself. He said merely that he would send his reply through Sri Aurobindo. He gave this answer only to evade the question: he never sent any reply through Sri Aurobindo. He was surprised however to learn that Sri Aurobindo was taking such a keen interest in the movement.

Most probably it was during this year (1902) that Barin was sent to Calcutta to help Jatin Banerjee. Barin had been staying at Baroda since 1900 or 1901. The work at Calcutta was begun at 106, Upper Circular Road. Jatin, Barin and Abinash Bhattacharya were the workers. Jatin used to work among the educated classes – pleaders, doctors, etc. – and Barin and Abinash among college students. Wherever they found an open ground they tried to organise young men there, and to teach them lathi-play, fencing and even riding. Having worked together for six months the three separated. Barin and Abinash shifted to Madan Mitter Lane and Jatin moved to Sitaram Ghose Street.

Sri Aurobindo took one month's leave from 22 February 1903. The reason for the leave was to patch up the differences that had arisen between Jatin Banerjee and Barin at Calcutta. It appears that Jatin, after his military training at Baroda, had become a srrict disciplinarian and insisted on imposing discipline on the young men in the organisation. Barin was not capable of working under anyone except the topmost leaders. Jatin became unpopular because of his strictness. One may say that there was rivalry between him and Barin for leadership. When Sri Aurobindo went to Bengal he stayed with Jogendra Vidya Bhushan, who was a Government servant and a sympathiser of the revolutionary movement. Devavrata and Suresh Samajpati were on Barin's side. Even Hemchandra Das was for Barin. Hemchandra Das

¹. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 68-70.

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writes; He [Jatin] had an intense desire for doing work. He was, besides, a military man. For a Bengali this fact of becoming a military man is such an unimaginable thing that his temper became that of 'general'. Jatin used to exercise his generalship fully upon his young men."

Sri Aurobindo heard both the sides and gave his ruling that Jatin must continue to work. The final authority was not to be vested in either Jatin or Barin but in a committee of five members including P. Mitra and Sister Nivedita. It should be noted here that the differences were not really removed and occasional bickerings continued. Sri Aurobindo took no interest in the affair. He met the members only for work.

One of those he met was Abinash Bhattacharya, a young man who was among the first to join the nationalist movement in Bengal. Abinash got his chance to see Sri Aurobindo when one day Barin took him to Jatin's house, where Sri Aurobindo was talking with Jatin. Sri Aurobindo spoke with Abinash and welcomed him into the movement.^¹

Sri Aurobindo has written: "The work under P. Mitra spread enormously and finally contained tens of thousands of young men and the spirit of revolution spread by Barin's paper Yugantar became general in the young generation; but during my absence at Baroda the council ceased to exist as it was impossible to keep up agreement among the many groups."^²

After returning from leave in March Sri Aurobindo took his classes at his home in the afternoon. Later he went to Kashmir on the order of the Maharaja. On 26 March the Principal made a strong report against Sri Aurobindo's absence to the Dewan, who wrote that Sri Aurobindo should be made to provide an explanation. After two months a note dated 6 June was received, in which the following points were mentioned:

"1. From the 22nd February I was absent on leave for a month. I had written to the Principal reporting my departure, but it appears the letter was not received.

"2. Previous to that for two or three days I was called to the Palace on urgent work.

1. Abinash Bhattacharya, "Aurobindo", Galpa Bharati, Vol. VI, No. 7 (Paush 1357), pp. 832-33.

2. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 69.

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Sri Aurobindo in Baroda

Khaserao Jadhav's Bungalow, Baroda

"3. Subsequent to my return from leave I was taking the classes in the afternoon at my own house, as three-quarters in the morning were insufficient. I may mention that I was always in the habit of making my own arrangements with the studnts, which was the more necessary as I had several branches of work to attend to. .

"4. As I am now attached to the Swari in charge of the secretary's work during the Cashmere trip, I shall not be able to take the French classes this term."

When Sri Aurobindo was on tour in Kashmir he visited Takht-i-Suleman or "hill of Shankaracharya". Tkhere without any effort he experienced the vacant Infinite in a very tangible way. This experience left a deep impression upon his mind.

Poetry is not autobiography except in the sense of being an expression of the experience of the inner being. Sri aurobindo’s visit to Kashmir seems to have given him the inspiration for the poem which is reproduced here:

ADWAITA

I walked on the high-wayed Seat of Solomon ¹

Where Shankaracharya's tiny templ e stands

Facing Infinity from Time's edge, alone

On the bare ridge ending earth's vain romance.

Around me was a formless solitude:

All had become one strange Unnamable,

An unborn sole Reality world-nude,

Topless and fathomless, for ever still.

A Silence that was Being's only word,

The unknown beginning and the voiceless end

Abolishing all things moment-seen or heard,

On an incommunicable summit reigned,

A lonely Calm and void unchanging Peace

On the dumb crest of Nature's mysteries ²

During the year 1904 Sri Aurobindo began yoga somewhat seriously.

¹.Takht-i-Suleman.

² Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, p. 153.

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"No, I had no knowledge. I did not know what God was", said Sri Aurobindo later about the beginning of his sadhana. "Deshpande at that time was doing Hatha Yoga, Asanas and other such Kriyas and as he had a great proselytising tendency he wanted to convert me to his view. But I thought that a Yoga which required me to give up the world was not for me. I had to liberate my country. I took to it seriously when I learnt that the same Tapasya which one does to get away from the world can be turned to action. I learnt that Yoga gives power, and I thought why the devil should I not get the power and use it to liberate my country? ... It was the time of 'country first, humanity afterwards and the rest nowhere'. It was something from behind which got the idea accepted by the mind; mine was a side-door entry into the Spiritual Life."

Sri Aurobindo consulted engineer Devdhar, who was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda of Chandod, for details about Pranayama. There was an idea current that yoga could not be done without Pranayama. Sri Aurobindo describes the results of his practice as follows:

"My own experience is that the brain becomes Prakashmaya – full of light. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for five to six hours in the day, three hours in the morning and two in the evening. The mind worked with great illumination and power. At that time I used to write poetry. Usually I wrote five to eight or ten lines per day, about two hundred lines in a month. After the Pranayama I could write two hundred lines within half an hour. Formerly my memory was dull, but afterwards when the inspiration came, I could remember the lines in their order and write them down conveniently at any time. Along with this enhanced mental activity I could see an electric energy all around the brain."^²

On another occasion he spoke of Pranayama as follows: "The results were remarkable. Many visions of scenes and figures I used to see. I felt an electric power around my head. My powers of writing were nearly dried up; they revived with a great vigour. I could write prose and poetry with a flow. That flow has never

¹.Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talkś Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1961), p. 171.

². Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series, p. 204.

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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. Thirdly great health: I grew stout and strong, 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 but they did not come to me. . . .

"When I went to Bengal and took to political work [in 1906] Pranayama became irregular and I had a great illness which nearly carried me off."¹

And in a letter of May 1932 he referred to Pranayama in the following terms: "After four years of prānāyāma and other practices on my own, with no other result than an increased health and outflow of energy, some psycho-physical phenomena, a great outflow of poetic creation, a limited power of subtle sight (luminous patterns and figures, etc.) mostly with the waking eye, I had a complete arrest. ... "²

During this period of the beginning of sadhana Sri Aurobindo used to see things on the subtle planes, as mentioned in the letter above. He describes in the following letter how he began to see inwardly: "I remember when I first began to see inwardly (and outwardly also with the open eye), a scientific friend of mine began to talk of after-images – 'these are only after-images'! I asked him whether after-images remained before the eye for two minutes at a time – he said, 'no', to his knowledge only for a few seconds; I also asked him whether one could get after-images of things not around one or even not existing upon this earth, since they had other shapes, another character, other hues, countours and a very different dynamism, life-movements and values – he could not reply in the affirmative. That is how these so-called scientific explanations break down as soon as you pull them out of their cloudland of mental theory and face them with the actual phenomena they pretend to decipher."³

Barin went away into the Vindhya mountains to search for a "place far away from the atmosphere of cities, into solitude, to find a peaceful and ennobling atmosphere" to establish there a

1. Cf, A. B. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1966), pp. 95-96.

2. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 78-79.

3. Ibid - P- 90.

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temple of Mother India (Bhawani Mandir). He came back with very persistent mountain fever! He was being treated, but not being cured, when a Naga Sannyasi came, from whom Sri Aurobindo had a direct proof of the powers and utility of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo later said about this incident: "I first knew about Yogic cure from a Naga Sadhu or Sannyasi. Barin had mountain fever when he was wandering in the Amarkantak. The sadhu took a cupful of water and cut it crosswise with a knife while repeating a Mantra. He then asked Barin to drink it; saying he wouldn't have fever the next day, and the fever left him."¹ It was perhaps the same Sannyasi who gave Sri Aurobindo a Stotra of Kali. "It was a very violent Stotra with 'Jahi, Jahi' in it. I used to repeat it, it did not give any results. ... It was at this time that I gave up meat diet and found a great feeling of lightness and purification in the system."^²

Sometime during his stay at Baroda Sri Aurobindo had another personal experience of the power of occult knowledge when Narayana Jyotishi, without any reference to the horoscope, foretold his three politicial trials and also his release by saying that he would come to trouble while fighting against "white enemies". At that time Sri Aurobindo had not seriously thought of taking up open political activity.

On 28 September 1904 Sri Aurobindo was appointed Vice-Principal of the college; his pay was raised toRs.550 per month. He was very popular with the students and the principal also liked him very much. The Maharaja kept a provision for his personal work even while making this permanent appointment.

Previous to this time Sri Aurobindo had met Shri Charu Chandra Dutt, I. C .S., who was working at Thana. The Bhawani Mandir scheme was explained to Dutt and he joined the revolutionary party. In September 1904 Sri Aurobindo again passed through Thana, met Charu Chandra Dutt and discussed the Bhawani Mandir scheme with Haribhai Modak, editor of Rastramat, Kaka Saheb Patil, a pleader of Vasai, and one or two other men. Their viewpoint was that the spiritual element should be left out, the political side stressed and, on the material side, that bombs and pistols should be gathered.

1.Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series, pp. 132-33.

2 Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series, p. 96.

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During the years 1904 and 1905 Sri Aurobindo stayed in Grey Street when he went to Calcutta during vacations. Barin did the cooking and Devabrata, later Swami Prajnananda, used to come and go. All those who were to be recruited to the revolutionary organisation used to come to this Grey Street house and meet either Barin, Jatin or Devavrata. Sri Aurobindo used to meet only those who were of importance. They used to survey the day's work and exchange ideas at meal time. This recruiting work had begun from 1899-1900. Sri Aurobindo wanted to remain in the background and work. He had an aversion to coming out before the public.

Around this time revolutionary centres, not altogether well organised, were started at Khulna, Rangpur, Midnapur, Dacca etc. Years later, commenting on this work of revolutionary organisation, Sri Aurobindo said:

"Barin does not give the true state of things [in his book]. I was neither the founder nor the leader. It was P. Mitra and Miss Ghosal who started it at the inspiration of Baron Okakura. They had already started and when I visited Bengal I came to know about it. I simply kept myself informed of their work. My idea was an armed revolution in the whole of India. What they did at that time was very childish, killing a Magistrate and so on. Later it turned into terrorism and dacoities which were not at all my idea or intention. Bengal is too emotional, wants quick results and can't prepare through a long course of years. We wanted to give battle by creating a spirit in the race through guerilla warfare. But at the present stage of the science such things are impossible and bound to fail."¹.

Points from a statement of R.N. Patkar, advocate, Baroda, are reproduced here to give an idea of Sri Aurobindo's life at Baroda:

…. When I came to Baroda – I was a school-going lad hardly sixteen in age and as such I cannot be expected to give a detailed account of [Sri Aurobindo's] life during this short period. However

¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series, p. 35.

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I note down a few points that struck me and made a vivid impression on me. ...

He was remarkably simple in his mode of living. He was not at all fastidious in his tastes. He did not seem to care much either for his food or dress, because he never attached any importance to either. Any dish served to him at his meal time was welcome to him. Similarly about his dress – I never saw him visiting the cloth market for making selection of cloth for his dress as he had no choice to make. At home he was clad in plain white sadara and dhoti and outside invariably in white drill suits. He never slept on a soft cotton-bed, as most of us do, but on a bed made of coir (coconut fibres) on which was spread a Malbar grass-mat which served as a bed-sheet. Once I asked him why he used such a coarse hard bed and he said with his characteristic laugh, "My boy, don't you know that I am a Brahmachari? Our shastras enjoin that a Brahmachari should not use a soft bed, which may induce him to sleep." I was silenced but I thought to myself that he must be a great man. . . .

Another important thing I observed about him was his total absence of love for money, for which he never seemed to care. We all know that he was working as Professor of English Literature in the Baroda College. He was getting a decent salary of Rs.500 a month. It was his practise to receive his salary once in three months. In those days, payment was made in cash and not in currency notes as now. He used to get the lump sum for the three months in a bag which he emptied in a large tray lying on the table in his room. He never bothered to keep it in a safe box, under lock and key as most of us do, and it lay there open until it was consumed. He never cared to keep an account of what he spent. This struck me and one day I casually asked him why he kept his money like that. He simply laughed and I still remember – though after a lapse of over fifty years – the reply that was given by him. He said, "Well, it is a proof that we are living in the midst of honest and good people." I asked him again, "You never keep any account which may testify to the honesty of the people round about you?" Then with a serene face he said, "It is God who keeps an account for me. He gives me as much as I want and keeps the rest to Himself. At any rate He does not keep me in want; then why should I worry?". . .

His passion for reading was very great. He was a huge reader

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and his reading was not confined to any particular subject but it was diverse and extended to various compartments of human knowledge. He was not a mere reader as a majority of us are, but a great thinker and a writer too. After reading any book he used to brood over what he had read for a time and then commit his views to paper. I had seen volumes of such writings in his room in different languages such as Greek, Latin, French and English.

Being a man of retiring disposition I invariably used to find him confined to his room, fully absorbed in reading. His concentration was so great that he felt himself the least perturbed by any outside disturbance. Once I had to communicate a message to him when he was engrossed in a book. I had to wait for over fifteen minutes just in front of him before he diverted his attention to me. One evening his servant brought his meal dish consisting of rice and curry with some vegetables and addressed to him, "Sab, khana rakha hai." ["Sir, the meal is served."] Aravind Babu simply said "Accha" ["Very well"] without even moving his head. After about an hour or so, the servant came again to remove the dish, but to his surprise he found the dish untouched lying on the table as it was. He dared not disturb his master and he quietly came to me and told me about it. Then I had to go to his room to do the unpleasant task of reminding him of the waiting meal. He then gave a pleasant smile and hurriedly went to the table and within about ten minutes finished his job of feeding his belly and resumed his work. Such was his love for reading. When he was enjoying his intellectual feast, which was certainly more palatable to him than his everyday rice and curry, there was no wonder that he should care more for the former.

….. I had the good fortune to be his student when I was in the Inter Class. His method of teaching was a novel one. In the beginning he used to give a series of introductory lectures for initiating the student into the subject-matter of the text, which gave a fair idea about the author and his views on particular items bearing on the text. After preparing the student to understand the text in this manner, he used to start reading the text in the classroom, stopping wherever necessary to explain the meaning difficult and obscure sentences. Then after finishing the text, he used  to dictate general lectures bearing on the various aspects pertaining to the text. These lectures, which were given at the

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close of the term, were availed of by many students belonging to other colleges.

But more than his college lectures, it was a treat to hear him on the platform. He used to preside occasionally over the meetings of the College Debating Society. When he was to preside, the College Central Hall which is sufficiently large was almost packed to the full with the audience which not only consisted of the College students but many educated persons from the out side public especially when the subject selected for the debate was interesting. Mr. Ghose was never an orator but a speaker of a vary high order, and when he rose to speak, there was a pin-drop silence and the audience used to listen to him with rapt attention. Without any gestures or the movements of the limbs, he stood like a statue – motionless – and the language used to flow like a stream from his lips with a natural ease and melody that kept his audience almost spell-bound. Every sentence that he uttered was full of meaning and set the audience thinking for days together. He was at his best when the subject matter pertained to religion or philosophy. He rarely dabbled in politics but references were made now and then to the down-trodden conditions of India, and illiteracy and ignorance of the masses. Though it is more than five decades now since I heard him on the Baroda College platform, I still remember his figure with the metallic ring of his sweet melodious voice as if I heard him yesterday. . . .

On another occasion I casually said to Aravind Babu that Bengal was far in advance of other provinces in India in Education, that it had produced many great writers and poets. For example, Romeshchandra Dutt had composed Ramayan and Mahabharat in verse and that he was a great poet. Then he said, "Do you call Romesh a poet? No – you can call him a rhymist the most, but not a poet. Poets are born and not made. It is not that all those who write verses are poets – even a prose writer can be a poet if he has a poetic gift in him.". . .

One day ... in the beginning of 1905, Messrs Arvind Babu, Deshpande and Jadhav went to Chandod, a small town on the bank of the Narmada, and a place of pilgrimage. There they passed a day with a Yogi and then proceeded to Ganganath, a place a few miles distant from Chandod. There is a beautiful Ashram there where Swami Brahmanand spent his life. At that place they passed another day, discussed some spiritual problems

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with the disciple of Brahmanand Swami and then returned to Baroda. After this trip I saw a marked change both in Aravind Babu and Deshpande. Both of them changed their life altogether. They started worshipping the Goddess and taking only one meal – a pure vegetarian meal – a day; both started living a life of austerity. But between the two I saw a greater change in Aravind Babu. He was never as free with me as he used to be before. He looked serene and calm with the gravity of a man of ripe old age. I always found him alone in his own room in a contemplative mood or closeted with his friends Deshpande and Jadhav. One evening I saw Barindra going with the planchette into the room where all the three used to meet. Successively for three days they met in that very room, along with Barindra with the planchette. On the fourth day I met Barindra and asked him what all of them were doing. Without the least hesitation he told me that a message from the Goddess has been received with detailed directions, which after being put in a readable form will be printed and published in the form of a book. The book was out in a few days under the title of "Bhawani Mandir", or The Message of the Goddess. It was for private circulation only. . . .

The day of his departure came at last and it was extremely touching. ... In the evening, Aravind Babu, though he had a very busy time, called me in his room and I sat by his side. With a caressing touch of his hand on my shoulder he affectionately said to me, "Well, Rajaram, we part after all. We part in body but not in soul – which is omnipresent. I leave Baroda because Supreme Duty demands my presence elsewhere and I cannot shirk. ... You will come out successful and triumphant only if you remain honest and good and obey the dictates of your conscience. If you observe this dictum your path will be smooth and you will be happy." He finished these words and got up. He went straight to his book case, and knowing my love for Sanskrit picked up two books – Kalidas's Shakuntala and Vikramorvashi – and presented them to me as a token of his love for me. He also gave me a few verses composed by himself, one styled Songs to Myrtilla and Other Poems and the other Urvashi – a translation in verse of Poet Kalidas's drama.^¹ I quietly bowed, touched his feet and left the room with a heavy heart and wet eyes. Though

¹. This book must have been Urvasie, a poem based on the legend of Urvasie

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an old man now – with one foot in the grave, – I still remember the parting scene with a heaving heart.

From March 1905 to February 1906, Sri Aurobindo acted for the Principal, who was on leave; his pay was Rs.550 plus an acting allowance of Rs.160, or a total of Rs.710. He was liked very much by the students.

The government announced the partition of Bengal on 20 July 1905. This was the signal for tremendous agitation throughout India and particularly in Bengal. From Baroda Sri Aurobindo wrote to the revolutionary workers in Calcutta, "This is a fine opportunity. Carry on the anti-partition agitation powerfully. We will get many workers for the movement." Later Sri Aurobindo wrote and sent them a pamphlet entitled "No Compromise". No press in Calcutta was willing to print it. Finally Abinash and his friends got it composed at their house by Kulkarni, a Marathi revolutionary who was staying with them. At night they had a few thousand copies of the pamphlet printed and later distributed them freely.¹

It was around this same time that Sri Aurobindo wrote the famous revolutionary booklet Bhawani Mandir. We have already mentioned the Bhawani Mandir scheme. The idea for it was mostly Barin's. A temple of Mother India was to be built somewhere in the forest or on some mountain-top. Here workers, who would dedicate themselves, in the spirit of complete renunciation, to India's freedom, would be prepared. Others who could not rise to this pitch of renunciation of everything were to help these political Sannyasins in other ways. It is possible that the basic conception of this scheme was derived from Ananda Math of Bankim Chandra. The booklet, which is mentioned in the Rowlett Committee report (of 1917), is reproduced on the following pages.

__________________________

and Pururavus. Sri Aurobindo's translation of Kalidasa's drama was not published until 1911.

¹ Abinash Bhattacharya, "Aurobindo", pp. 832-33.

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CHAPTER IV

In Indian Politics

In August 1906 the National College, at Calcutta was established, Sri Aurobindo joined the institution as its Principal.

On 6 August the declaration of the Bande Mataram was filed. There are many conjectures about how the Bande Mataram was started, what Sri Aurobindo's connection with it was and how it ended. We give here Sri Aurobindo's own explanation, so as to set all doubts to rest.

"Bepin Pal started the Bande Mataram with Rs.500 in his pocket donated by Haridas Halder. He called in my help as assistant editor and I gave it. I called a private meeting of the young Nationalist leaders in Calcutta and they agreed to take up the Bande Mataram as their party paper with Subodh and Nirod Mullick as the principal financial supporters. A company was projected and formed, but the paper was financed and kept up meanwhile by Subodh. Bepin Pal who was strongly supported by C.R. Das and others remained as editor. Hemendra Prasad Ghose and Shyam Sunder joined the editorial staff but they could not get on with Bepin Babu and were supported by the Mullicks. Finally, Bepin Pal had to retire, I don't remember whether in November or December, probably the latter. I was myself very ill, almost to death, in my father-in-law's house in Serpentine Lane and I did not know what was going on. They put my name as editor on the paper without my consent, but I spoke to the secretary pretty harshly and had the insertion discontinued. I also wrote a strong letter on the subject to Subodh. From that time Bepin Pal had no connection with the Bande Mataram. Somebody said that he resumed his editorship after I was arrested in the Alipore Case. I never heard of that. I was told by Bejoy Chatterjee after I came out from jail that he, Shyam Sunder and Hemendra Prasad had carried on somehow with the paper, but the finances became impossible, so he deliberately wrote an article which made the Government come down on the paper and stop its publication, so that the Bande Mataram might end with some éclat and in all honour."^¹

¹. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), PP. 59-60.

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As to what place the Bande Mataram occupied in the country and in the estimation of Englishmen, a letter written by Mr. Ratcliffe, the then editor of the Statesman of Calcutta, to the Manchester Guardian will make it clear:

"We know Aurobindo Ghose only as a revolutionary nationalist and editor of a flaming newspaper which struck a ringing new note in Indian daily journalism.

"It was in 1906, shortly after Curzon's retirement, that Sri Aurobindo and his friends started Bande Mataram (Hail to the Mother). It had a full-size sheet, was clearly printed on green paper, and was full of leading and special articles written in English with brilliance and pungency not hitherto attained in the Indian press. It was the most effective voice of what we then called nationalist extremism."^¹

The basic policy of Bande Mataram was: (1) To support Violence against violence. It was shown that it was indispensable to do so. (2) If injustice was not opposed, the enthusiasm, perseverance and unity so necessary to win independence would weaken considerably. (3) To return blow for blow, to stand up against attack, and awaken manhood in the nation. This is very important for an oppressed nation. (4) Treachery and perfidy to the nation do not stop if they are not punished. (5) A nation that wants to be free must be ready to face tyranny and persecution. Oppression is God's method of preparing a nation. As Sri Aurobindo said at Jhalakati in 1909 "We are iron upon his anvil and the blows are showering upon us, not to destroy but to re-create. Without suffering there can be no growth."² The Bande Mataram put before the nation the programme of Boycott, Swadeshi, National Education, and Passive Resistance with the ideal of forming parallel government.

On 13 October the Bande Mataram became a joint stock company in accordance with Sri Aurobindo's suggestion. A board of directors was appointed. The real editor was Sri Aurobindo, but the responsibility belonged to the board. The Government could therefore not prosecute one single individual. Whenever something was found objectionable by the Government someone

¹. The Manchester Guardian, Weekly Edition, 26 December 1950.  

². Sri Aurobindo,  Karmayogin (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), p. 62.

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could come forward to accept the responsibility and go to jail if necessary. The brain of the movement could thus escape imprisonment and continue the work. The articles were so cleverly written that they violated the spirit of the law while remaining strictly within its limits.

Sri Aurobindo's practice of Pranayama became very irregular owing to the pressure of political work and at last came to a stop.

From October to December 1906 Sri Aurobindo had a serious illness. He stayed with Bhupal Chandra Bose, his father-in-law, at Serpentine Lane, Calcutta. On 4 November he had very high fever and could not write his editorial for the Bande Mataram. He recovered partially at the end of November, but had a relapse in December. On 11 December Sri Aurobindo went to Deoghar for a change. He returned to Calcutta by 26 December in order to attend the Congress session.

It was at this Congress held at Calcutta under the presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji that a resolution laying down independence as the goal of the Congress session was passed for the first time. Among the Nationalist leaders who attended were Tilak, Lajpatrai, Khaparde and Khare. It was mainly due to Sri Aurobindo's efforts in the reception committee and the working committee that the resolution was passed. The resolution, once accepted by the Reception Committee, had to get the support of the whole Congress. Private consultations, and meetings were held at the house of Subodh Mullick under Tilak's leadership where this support was secured. Sri Aurobindo's share in securing this support was not insignificant.

To the main resolution demanding Swaraj others were added: viz., Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education. Sir Phirozshah Mehta, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Surendranath Banerjee – the leaders of the Moderate school of politics – were opposed to the resolution. Dadabhai, the president, was undecided in the beginning. But when he found that there was a strong support to the resolution from Bengal and from other parts of India, he accepted it and got it accepted by all. The Congress would have been divided even at Calcutta but for the clever manoeuvring of the Nationalist party and Dadabhai's support. The breach came at Surat in 1907. It is difficult for the reader to imagine today what a great achievement it was to bring in the resolution Swaraj and get it accepted by the Congress. It is after this

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that independence became the accepted goal of the Congress.

Sri Aurobindo met Tagore once during this year (1906) at Tagore's Jorasanko Street residence, where he went in answer to the poet's invitation for dinner. A Japanese artist, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose and some other prominent people were present. Tagore visited the Sanjivani office now and then where he occasionally met Sri Aurobindo.

Manmohan began his service as Professor of English at Patna and then went over to Dacca where he remained during 1906. He used to come to Calcutta occasionally, and though he used to keep himself away from politics he was proud of Sri Aurobindo's political work. He used to say: "There are only two and a half men in India: one is Aurobindo and the other Barin, and the half is Tilak!"

From 27 January 1907 to early April 1907 Sri Aurobindo was at Deoghar. From 12 to 23 April he published a series of articles on passive resistance in the Bande Mataram. One can see in it clearly the distinction between non-violence and passive resistance.

On 24 July 1907 Bhupendranath Dutt, a brother of Vivekananda, was sentenced for seditious material that appeared in Yugantar. He wanted to offer defence, but Sri Aurobindo said that it was illogical for a revolutionary to recognise a foreign court and its jurisdiction.

On 30 July 1907 there was a search of the Bande Mataram office and on 16 August a prosecution was instigated. Sri Aurobindo was among the accused.

On 23 August 1907 in an address given to the students and teachers of the Bengal National College, Sri Aurobindo said:  "In the meeting you held yesterday I see that you expressed sympathy with me in what you call my present troubles. I don't know whether I should call them troubles at all, for the experience that I am going to undergo was long foreseen as inevitable in the discharge of the mission that I have taken up from my childhood, and I am approaching it without regret."^¹

¹.  Sri Aurobiado, Bande Mataram (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1972) p. 515.

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On 23 September 1907 Apurva Bose was sentenced to three months as the printer of the Bande Mataram. Sri Aurobindo was acquitted. Tagore (and also many other Nationalists) came to see Sri Aurobindo at No. 12 Wellington Street. Tagore had published his "Homage to Aurobindo" while the prosecution was going on, in anticipation of a sentence. But, as Sri Aurobindo was acquitted, when he came to congratulate him, he said ironically in Bengali as he embraced him: "What! You have deceived us!" (by not going to jail). Sri Aurobindo replied in English: "Not for long will you have to wait," implying that he would not be out of prison much longer.

Mrinalini Devi wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo on 3 December in which she said, "Abinash will not work for you when he gets married." Abinash was the revolutionary worker who looked after Sri Aurobindo's household.

On the sixth Sri Aurobindo replied to Mrinalini.

6th December 1907.

Dear Mrinalini,

I received your letter the day before yesterday. The shawl was sent the very same day. I do not understand why you did not get it. ...

Here [in Calcutta] I do not have a moment to spare. I am in charge of the writing; I am in charge of the Congress work; I have to settle the Bande Mataram affair. I am finding it difficult to cope with it all. Besides, I have my own work to do; that too cannot be neglected.

Will you listen to one request of mine? This is a time of great anxiety for me. There are pulls from every side that are enough to drive one mad. If at this time you also get restless, it can only increase my worry and anxiety. But if you could write encouraging and comforting letters, that would give me great strength. I should then be able to overcome all fears and dangers with a cheerful heart. I know it is hard for you to live alone at Deoghar. But if you keep your mind firm and have faith, your sorrows will not be able to overwhelm you to such an extent. As you have married me, this kind of sorrow is inevitable for you. Occasional separations cannot be avoided, for, unlike the ordinary Bengali, I cannot make the happiness of family and relatives my primary aim in life. Under these circumstances, there is no way

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out for you except to consider my ideal as your ideal and find your happiness in the success of my appointed work. One thing more. Many of those with whom you are living at present are our elders. Do not get angry with them even if they say harsh or unfair things. And do not believe everything they say is what they mean or is intended to hurt you. Words often come out in anger, without thought. It is no good holding on to them. If you find it absolutely impossible to stay on, I shall tell Girish Babu; your grandfather can come and stay with you while I am at the Congress.

I am going to Midnapur today. On my return I shall make the necessary arrangements here, and then proceed to Surat. That will probably be on the 15th or 16th. I shall be back on the 2nd of January.

Yours

Mrinalini Devi was staying at 29/3, Chhuku Khansama Lane, Calcutta. No definite arrangement was made for her expenses up to 20 December 1907.

On 6 December, twelve miles from Kharagpur, near Narayangarh, an attempt was made on the life of Sir Andrew Frazer, the Governor of Bengal. A bomb was thrown at the train in which he was travelling.

From 7 to 9 December there was a conference at Midnapore. Mr. K. B. Dutt, who was elected President by the Moderates, was not allowed to address the conference on the seventh. The Nationalists convened a separate meeting on the eighth – Sri Aurobindo was their leader. He successfully conducted the conference and arranged to pass resolutions supporting the Nationalist programme. They were forwarded to the ensuing Congress session at Surat. Sri Aurobindo won over many Moderate leaders to the Nationalist side. Sri Aurobindo met Satyendra Bose and Khudiram Bose.

On 15 December 1907 a public meeting was held in Beadon Square. Sri Aurobindo spoke. A resolution supporting the Nationalist programme was passed and was forwarded to the Surat Congress.

On 22 December Sri Aurobindo halted at Nagpur for two days on his way to the Surat Congress. Sir Moropant Joshi was present at the meeting addressed by Sri Aurobindo. He was

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one of those who had taken the oath of the revolutionary society "Lotus & Dagger" while in England. Joshi was now a leader of the Moderates in C. P.

"On my way to the Surat Congress we stopped at Nagpur," said Sri Aurobindo later. "My lecture was fixed in the theatre. On the front bench was sitting Moropant Joshi. Deshmukh was by his side. Joshi was all along gaping at me."¹

Surat Congress, December 1907

A week before the sessions both parties – the Moderates and the Nationalists – began their efforts to secure the majority for their side. The Moderates chose Surat as the venue as they thought it would be easy for them to secure a majority there. Tilak, Khaparde, Khare were already there from the Nationalist side. From among the leaders of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo was chosen to preside over the meetings on Balaji Tekra. In one of the speeches he began, "My pen is mightier than my tongue" – a great sutra that came true in his life! All the Nationalist leaders used to meet privately every day under the leadership of Tilak to decide controversial questions. There were peace-makers going from one camp to the other. The atmosphere was surcharged with great excitement. Members of the revolutionary party who had also come in large numbers were arranging their own rendezvous and discussing their plans. On 27 December Barin wrote a note to Sri Aurobindo asking to arrange for personal interviews with the leaders of the Nationalist Party. Tilak, Lajpatrai and others participated in these discussions either personally or through their representatives. They, like Sri Aurobindo, kept the secret movement separate from the public movement; yet they considered the one complementary to the other.

Before the open session of the Congress, Surendranath Banerji, the Moderate leader of Bengal, tried to convene a meeting of all the Bengal delegates to arrive at a unanimous decision. He prepared a draft on behalf of the Moderates of Bengal containing conditions for an agreement with the Nationalists. This was placed before the meeting. Satyen Bose tore up the paper and the meeting dispersed. Sir Phirozshah Mehta, Gokhale and other

¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1974), p. 287.

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Moderate leaders became doubtful about securing a majority for their resolution.  They depended thereafter on their majority in the Reception Committee. The dispute centred round the resolution passed at Calcutta by the Congress in 1906. The Nationalists wanted to take that as the basis and proceed further in that direction. The Moderates did not want to accept the resolution of 1906 as binding. The Nationalists, when not allowed to move their independence resolution through the Reception Committee, proposed to bring it before the open session. Both the parties decided to test their strength on the proposal for the Presidentship of the Congress. Surendranath proposed Dr. Rash Behari Ghose and Tilak stood up for Lajpatrai. There was an effort to prevent Tilak from addressing the house. It was a signal for pandemonium. Chairs were hurled all about and the police had to be called in to restore order.

It was not a time for political wisdom or calm calculation. The impulse for freedom had awakened in the nation like an irresistible flood. It was not until 1947 — forty years afterwards – that this impulse was at last satisfied in a very large measure.

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sadhana; but as to the positive way to get these things, I don't know if your mind is quite ready to proceed with it. There are in fact serveral ways. My own way was by rejection of thought 'Sit down,' I was told, 'look and you will see that your thoughts come into you from outside. Before they enter, fling them back.’ I sat down and looked and saw to my astonishment that it was so; I saw and felt concretely the thought approaching as if to enter through or above the head and was able to push it back concretely before it came inside.

"In three days – really in one – my mind became full of an eternal silence – it is still there. But that I don't know how many people can do. One (not a disciple – I had no disciples in those days) asked me how to do Yoga. I said: "Make your mind quiet first.' He did and his mind became quite silent and empty. Then he rushed to me saying: 'My brain is empty of thoughts, I cannot think. I am becoming an idiot.' He did not pause to look and see where these thoughts he uttered were coming from! Nor did he realise that one who is already an idiot cannot become one. Anyhow I was not patient in those days and I dropped him and let him lose his miraculously achieved silence.

"The usual way, the easiest if one can manage it at all, is to call down the silence from above you into the brain, mind and body."¹

"I think you have made too much play with my phrase 'an accident', ignoring the important qualification, 'it seemed to come by an accident'. After four years of prānāyama and other practices on my own, with no other result than an increased health and outflow of energy, some psycho-physical phenomena, a great outflow of poetic creation, a limited power of subtle sight (luminous patterns and figures, etc.) mostly with the waking eye, I had a complete arrest and was at a loss. At this juncture I was induced to meet a man without fame whom I did not know, a Bhakta with a limited mind but with some experience and evocative power. We sat together and I followed with an absolute fidelity what he instructed me to do, not myself in the least understanding where he was leading me or where I was myself going.

¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself  (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972). pp. 82-83.

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The first result was a series of tremendously powerful experiences and radical changes of consciousness which he had never intended – for they were Adwaitic and Vedantic and he was against Adwaita Vedanta – and which were quite contrary to my own ideas, for they made me see with a stupendous intensity the world as a cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal universality of the Absolute Brahman."¹

"As for calm and silence, there is no need of the supramental to get that. One can get it even on the level of Higher Mind which is the next above the human intelligence. I got these things in 1908, 27 years ago, and I can assure you they were solid enough and marvellous enough in all conscience without any need of supramentality to make it more so. Again, 'a calm that looks like action and motion' is a phenomenon of which I know nothing. A calm or silence that is what I have had – the proof is that out of an absolute silence of the mind I edited the Bande Mataram for 4 months and wrote 6 volumes of the Arya, not to speak of all the letters and messages etc. I have written since."²

"I myself had my experience of Nirvana and silence in the Brahman, etc. long before there was any knowledge of the overhead spiritual planes; it came first simply by an absolute stillness and blotting out as it were of all mental, emotional and other inner activities – the body continued indeed to see, walk, speak and do its other business, but as an empty automatic machine and nothing more. I did not become aware of any pure ‘I’ nor even of any self, impersonal or other, – there was only an awareness of That as the sole Reality, all else being quite unsubstantial, void, non-real. As to what realised that Reality, it was a nameless consciousness which was not other than That; one could perhaps say this, though hardly even so much as this, since there was no mental concept of it, but not more. Neither was I aware of any lower soul or outer self called by such and such a Personal name that was performing this feat of arriving at the consciousness of Nirvana. ...

Mark that I did not think these things, there were no thoughts

¹ ibid

². ibid

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or concepts nor did they present themselves like that to any Me; it simply just was so or was self-apparently so."¹

"It was my great debt to Lele that he showed me this.; ‘Sit in meditation,’ he said ‘but do not think, look only at your mind; you will see thoughts coming into it; before they can enter throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence.' I had never heard before of thoughts coming visibly into the mind from outside, but I did not think either of questioning the truth or the possibility, I simply sat down and did it. In a moment my mind became silent as a windless air on a high mountain summit and then I saw one thought and then another coming in a concrete way from outside; I flung them away before they could enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free. From that moment, in principle, the mental being in me became a free Intelligence, a universal Mind, not limited to the narrow circle of personal thought as a labourer in a thought factory, but a receiver of knowledge from all the hundred realms of being and free to choose what it willed in this vast sight-empire and thought-empire."²

During his stay at Baroda Sri Aurobindo met Chhotalal Purani in a private interview and explained to him a scheme for the revolutionary work by drawing a pencil sketch on a blank piece of paper. He then advised him to meet Barin who met C. B. Purani for three consecutive days, explaining to him the details of the revolutionary organisation. It was thus that the seeds were sown of that movement in Gqarat which became so well known afterwards. The inspiration for it came from Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo also net the Maharaja at the latter's request. When the Maharaja wanted to meet Sri Aurobindo a second time, Lele asked Sri Aurobindo not to meet him and so he did not.

Sri Aurobindo gave three lectures at Baroda on the political situation – two at Bankaner Theatre and one at Manik Rao's gymnasium. Sardar Mazumdar presented Sri Aurobindo with a Pashmina shawl as it was severe winter then and Sri Aurobindo was going about in a shirt with no covering over it. He kept no

¹ Ibid,, p. 116.

² Ibid., pp. 83-84.

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bedding. While travelling he slept on the Sitting board and used his hand for pillow.

In the second week of January Sri Aurobindo went to Poona from Baroda. Sri Aurobindo asked Lele to come with him and Lele agreed. Sri Aurobindo gave a lecture at the Gaekwad Wada, Poona, on the thirteenth. Then he went to Bombay. At Girgaum (Bombay) he delivered a lecture on the fifteenth.

In Bombay the spiritual experience that had begun at Baroda became more intense. The vacant condition of the mind turned into the experience of the silent Brahman Consciousness. The multifarious activities of the city of Bombay, the rows of tall houses, etc. – all became as if things moving on the surface, mere appearances, things unreal against the background of the silent Infinite which alone seemed real.

"When I was in Bombay, from the balcony of the friend's house I saw the whole busy movement of Bombay as a picture in a cinema show, all unreal and shadowy. Ever since I have maintained that poise of mind – never lost it even in the midst of difficulties."¹ This sonnet, written in the 1930's, is a poetic expression of the same experience:

NIRVANA

All is abolished but the mute Alone.

The mind from thought released, the heart from grief

Grow inexistent now beyond belief;

There is no I, no Nature, known-unknown.

The city, a shadow picture without tone,

Floats, quivers unreal; forms without relief

Flow, a cinema's vacant shapes; like a reef

Foundering in shoreless gulfs the world is done.

Only the illimitable Permanent is here.

A Peace stupendous, featureless, still,

Replaces all, – what once was I, in It

A Silent unnamed emptiness content

Either to fade in the Unknowable

Or thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite. ²

¹. Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1974), p. 62.

². Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971), P.161.

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When Sri Aurobindo got an invitation from the Bombay National Union to address a meeting at the Mahajan Wadi on the nineteenth, he was in a fix. His mind had become calm, blank – how was he to deliver a speech? He could not very well decline the invitation as he was an active political worker and a prominent all-India leader. He asked Lele, who said that it would be all right to accept and that all would be well. Here is a description of what happened in Sri Aurobindo's own words: "In that silent condition – without any thought in the mind – I went to Bombay. There I had to lecture at the National Union and so I asked Lele: 'What should I do?' He asked me to pray. But I was so absorbed in the silent Brahman Consciousness that I could not pray. So I said to him that I was not in a mood to pray. Then he replied that it did not matter. He and some others would pray and I had simply to go to the meeting and make Namaskar to the audience as Narayana and then some voice would speak. I did exactly as he told me. On my way to the meeting somebody gave me a paper to read. When I rose to speak the impression of the headline flashed across my mind and then all of a sudden something spoke out. That was my second experience from Lele. . ."¹

It was thus that Sri Aurobindo got the clue not only to the practicality of the yoga but to its dynamism. To the sadhana leading to passivity or inactivity was added the important element of divine dynamism. Not only did he understand it, but he put it to the test throughout his tour from Bombay to Calcutta. As already mentioned above, all activities initiated afterwards were taken up in the same way. The basis of his ideal of divine life as a result of complete transformation of human nature was derived from solid experience gained in the midst of a stormy political activity.

Thus, Sri Aurobindo's yoga does not rest upon the basis of a miracle, or a blind faith in something occult or some intellectual abstract principle of philosophy. It is based on concrete experience and tested in the struggle of life.

From Bombay Sri Aurobindo began his journey back to Calcutta. He gave speeches in several cities on the way: 24 January

¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 62.

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1908 at Nasik, 26 January at Dhulia, 28 and 29 January at Amravati, 30 and 31 January and 1 February at Nagpur (Shyam Sunder Chakravarty was present).

"All the speeches I delivered on my way to Calcutta were of the same nature – with some mixture of mental working m some parts.

"Before parting from Lele I asked for his instructions. He was giving me detailed instructions. In the meantime I told him of a Mantra that had arisen in my heart. Suddenly while giving instructions he stopped and asked me if I could rely absolutely on Him who gave me the Mantra. I replied that I could always do that. Then Lele said that there was no need of further instructions."¹

"The final upshot", as Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple many years later, "was that he was made by a Voice within him to hand me over to the Divine within me enjoining an absolute surrender to its will – a principle or rather a seed force to which I kept unswervingly and increasingly till it led me through all the mazes of an incalculable Yogic development bound by no single rule or style or dogma or Shastra to where and what I am now and towards what shall be hereafter,"²

In his further development in yoga, Sri Aurobindo saw that all the voices heard in sadhana are not from the Divine. Not only so, but there are voices coming from Ignorance and even Asuric voices, which the sadhak has to be on his guard against. In the light of his later development Sri Aurobindo declared that a direct Divine Guidance was possible after the attainment of the Divine and that then one could dispense with the need of the guidance (or working) of the voice.

In February 1908 Barin wrote a letter to Lele inviting him to Calcutta. It was considered necessary for revolutionary youths to have training in the spiritual life. It was when Lele visited Calcutta that he came to know about the secret political movement of Barin and others. He became very serious and drew their attention to the grave dangers, but nobody listened to his warning. All were full of enthusiasm and unmindful of consequences. Prafulla Chaki was then in Calcutta and Lele wanted

¹. Cf. ibid.

² Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 79.

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to take him to Bombay with him for sadhana. The proposal was referred to Sri Aurobindo who left it to Prafulla's own choice. Prafulla refused to be parted from Sri Aurobindo.

Lele also went to Deoghar, where he stayed at Seal's Lodge. He wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo on 10 February. When they met, Lele asked him not to follow the path he was pursuing. He warned him that the voice that was guiding him was Asuric. He also said he would not be responsible for the consequences if he continued the same practice. Sri Aurobindo freed him from the responsibility of his sadhana.

"When Lele came to Calcutta in February 1908 he asked me about my yoga. I had stopped the old kind of meditation as it was practically going on all the time. Then he said that the Devil had taken possession of me and wanted to give me instructions. I did not act upon his advice – but I did not want to insult him. I then received the command from within that a human Guru was no longer necessary for me now."¹

He thenceforward relied entirely on the inner guidance. Here in fact ended his relation with Lele as Guru. Sri Aurobindo ever afterwards felt greatly indebted to Lele and acknowledged his debt with deep gratitude. In March (most probably) Lele returned to Bombay.

After returning to Calcutta from western India, Sri Aurobindo took a room at 23, Scotts Lane. It was here that he met Amarendranath Chatterji, afterwards a well-known revolutionary leader. The interview for giving Amar the initiation was arranged by Upendranath Banerjee. Amar wrote in 1950 about this first meeting in the following terms: "I was not merely enchanted by my first meeting with him, – I became powerful. I was given personal proof that Diksha [initiation] can be given merely by Darshan [sight] and does not require either touch or Mantra."²

The two sat alone together. Sri Aurobindo began: "I suppose Upen has talked to you about the work that is to be done for the country. Have you heard everything?  I hope there is no doubt or vacillation or fear in your mind about it."

Amar: "Will you not say something yourself? Is what Upen has said the last word?

.¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, pp. 62-63.

.² Amarendranath Chatterji, "Sri Aurobinder Sange Sakshatkar", Galpa Bharati, Vol. VI, No. 7 (Paush 1357), p. 816.

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Smiling, Sri Aurobindo answered, "The last word is fearlessly taking the oath to serve the Motherland. If we want to free the country we have to conquer the fear of death."

Remembering the line where Bankimchandra says that as death is one day inevitable, it need not be feared, Amar continued, "My fear comes from another quarter. I feel at present that I am not worthy of such a great mission. Is there any means of attaining fitness?"

Sri Aurobindo: "Surrender yourself to God and in the name of the Mother go ahead with the service of India. That is my Diksha to you."¹

According to Amar, Sri Aurobindo's Diksha moulded his life. He was given the work of collecting money for the maintenance of the young men of the party.

On 17th February 1908 Sri Aurobindo wrote a letter to Mrinalini Devi.

23 Scott's Lane,

Calcutta.

17th Feb 1908 ²

Dear Mrinalini,

I have not written to you for a long time. This is my eternal failing; if you do not pardon me out of your own goodness, what shall I do? What is ingrained in one does not go out in a day. Perhaps it will take me the whole of this life to correct this fault. I was to have come on the 8th January, but I could not. This did not happen of my own accord. I had to go where God took me. This time I did not go for my own work; it was on His work that I went. The state of my mind has undergone a change. But of this I shall not speak in this letter. Come here, and I shall

.¹ Amarendranath Chatterji, "Sri Aurobindo Mahaprayane", Prabartak, Vol. XXXV, No. 9 (Paush 1357), p. 363. See also Amarendranath Chatterji, "Sri Aurobinder Sange Sakshatkar", pp. 818-19

². The manuscript of this letter bears the date 17 February 1907. This is evidently a slip. In February 1907 Sri Aurobindo was staying in Deoghar. The house in Scott's Lane does not seem to have been taken till after Sri Aurobindo's return from Surat in February 1908. In 1909 the judge in the Alipore bomb case, evaluating the letter as evidence, said of it, "dated 17th February 1907 – obviously a mistake for 1908". (Bijoy Krishna Bose, Ed. The Alipore Bomb Trial [Calcutta: Butter-worth & Co., 1922] p. 157)

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tell you what is to be told. But there is only one thing which must be said now, and that is that from now on I no longer am the master of my own will. Like a puppet I must go wherever God takes me; like a puppet I must do whatever He makes me do. It will be difficult for you to grasp the meaning of these words just now. But it is necessary to inform you, otherwise my movements may cause you regret and sorrow. You may think that in my work I am neglecting you, but do not do so. Already, I have done you many wrongs and it is but natural that this should have displeased you. But I am no longer free. From now on you will have to understand that all I do depends not on my will but is done at the command [ādesa] of God. When you come here, you will understand the meaning of my words. I hope that God will show you the Light he has shown me in his infinite Grace. But that depends upon His Will. If you wish to share my life and ideal you must strive to your utmost so that, on the strength of your ardent desire, He may in his Grace reveal the path to you also. Do not let anyone see this letter, for what I have said is extremely secret. I have not spoken about this to anyone but you; I am forbidden to do so. This much for today.

Your husband

P. S. I have written to Sarojini about household matters. When you see the letter you will understand that it is unnecessary to write to you separately about them.

A reminiscence of the Bande Mataram days: Sri Aurobindo is sitting in his house at Scott's Lane. Shyam Sundar Chakra-varty comes and asks for the editorial. Sri Aurobindo draws out a piece of old packing paper from the pile of papers on his table and begins writing on one end of it. He finishes the article in fifteen minutes – not a scratch, not a change, not a moment's pause! Next day that article fans the fire of patriotism in the hearts of Nationalists all over India.

On 4 April 1908 a meeting of the Nationalists in Chandernagore was banned by Tardevell, the mayor of this French colony. On 8 April a meeting at Chitala (near Chandernagore) was

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addressed by Sri Aurobindo. On 11 April a bomb which did not explode was thrown into Tardevell's house.

On Good Friday (17 April) Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta for Kishoregunj. He reached Kishoregunj on Saturday: there was a meeting and an address.

On 30 April a bomb intended for Mr. Kingsford, the District Magistrate of Muzaffarpur was thrown at Mrs. and Miss Kennedy by mistake. Both the ladies died. On 1 May many revolutionaries were arrested.

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CHAPTER - VI

In Alipore Jail and After

On 2 May 1908, Sri Aurobindo's residence, 48, Grey Street, Calcutta, was searched by the police. He himself was arrested.

It has been stated by some magazines that earth from Ramakrishna's hut which was brought by Sri Aurobindo, was with him when he was arrested. Here is what Sri Aurobindo says about it: "The earth was brought to me by a young man connected with the Ramakrishna Mission and I kept it; it was there in my room when the police came to arrest me."^¹

Many members of the secret society were simultaneously arrested: Barin, Ulaskar Dutt, Indra Bhushan, Upendra Nath Banerjee, were all arrested at Murari Pukur Bagan. This, the property of Sri Aurobindo and his brothers, was a plot of seven bighas [approximately one hectare] having in its centre a building of three rooms with an outside verandah. All around were coconut, mango and betelnut trees.

The same day Prafulla Chaki was arrested at Wanai. He committed suicide by shooting himself so that the secret of the party might not leak out through him. On 8 May the house of Subodh Mullick at Banaras was searched.

On 17 May the case was brought up before Mr. Birley and on 18 May the case was officially begun.

Sarojini issued an appeal for funds for the defence of Sri Aurobindo :

"My countrymen are aware that my brother Aravinda Ghose stands accused of a grave offence. But I believe, and I have reason to think that the vast majority of my countrymen believe, that he is quite innocent. I think if he is defended by an able counsel he is sure to be acquitted. But as he has taken a vow of poverty in the service of the Motherland, he has no means to engage the services of an eminent Barrister-at-law. I am, therefore, under the painful necessity of appealing to the public spirit and generosity of my countrymen on his behalf. I know all my countrymen do not hold the same political opinions as he. But I feel some

¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself'(Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), p. 59.

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delicacy in saying that probably there are few Indians who do not appreciate his great attainments, his self-sacrifice, his single-minded devotion to the country's cause and the high spirituality of his character. These embolden me, a woman, to stand before every son and daughter of India for help to defend a brother, – my brother and theirs too.

"Contributions should be sent either to me at 6, College Square, Calcutta or to my Solicitors Messrs. Mamal and Agarwala, No. 3, Hastings Street, Calcutta."

SAROJINI GHOSE

"Ferrar who had been my classmate could not come to see me in Court when the trial was going on and we were put in a cage lest we should jump out and murder the judge. He was a barrister practising at Sumatra or Singapore. He saw me in the cage and was much concerned and did not know how to get me out. It was he who had given me the clue to the hexameter in English. He read out a line from Homer which he thought was the best line and that gave me the swing of the metre."^¹

December1939

On 31 August 1908 Narendranath Gossain, who had turned approver, was assassinated in the hospital by Kanailal Dutt. After this incident the prisoners were separated, and on 14 September Kanailal Dutt was hanged in the jail.

On 19 October the Alipore case was committed to sessions. In the case there were two groups of accused: in one there were 33 and in the other 9. Exhibits produced were 4000, and other objects constituting the evidence, 300 to 400. Altogether 222 witnesses were examined; in the sessions court 208 witnesses were called. The case lasted up to 13 April 1909. The jury summed up its opinion on 13 and 14 April, and on 6 May 1909 judgment was delivered.

During the period of the trial Sri Aurobindo resigned his Principalship of the National College in order to save embarrassment to the Council and to enable them to run the institution. There were differences with the National College Committee. The Committee wanted to make the National College a place of learning; Sri Aurobindo wanted to make it a centre of life.

^¹.Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1959), p. 280.

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In Alipore Jail: 2 May 1908 to 5 May 1909.

During this period Sri Aurobindo was an undertrial prisoner. Before the assassination of Gossain all the undertrial accused were kept in one hall. Sri Aurobindo passed most of his time in meditation. When the accused were brought to the court for the hearing, he hardly attended to the evidence or the conduct of the case. C. R. Das was engaged to defend Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo was guided by an inner voice to leave the defence completely in Das's charge. His view of life was thus undergoing a radical change in jail. In the beginning of the sadhana the idea was to take the Divine's help in the mission that he had undertaken, but the nature of his experiences during the jail life completely changed his outlook. He decided to dedicate himself entirely to the spiritual life and his outer life thenceforward became a part of his sadhana and its result. The field of action was enlarged enormously afterwards, – from the service of the country and its freedom it became a world-wide work touching intimately the future of humanity.

There were very few among the accused whom Sri Aurobindo knew personally. All around him in the jail talking and singing were going on; in the midst of it Sri Aurobindo pursued his sadhana unconcerned. Among those around him some knew that Sri Aurobindo was doing yoga but they had no idea of the kind of sadhana. He speaks about this himself as follows:

"I spent the first part of my imprisonment in Alipore jail in a solitary cell and again after the assassination of Noren Gossain to the last days of the trial when all the Alipore case prisoners were similarly lodged each in his own cell. In between for a short period we were all put together. There is no truth behind the statement that while I was meditating they gathered around me, that I recited the Gita to them and they sang the verses, or that they put questions to me on spiritual matters and received instructions from me; the whole description is quite fanciful."¹

"While I was in solitary confinement in the jail, Dr. Daily and the Assistant Superintendent, who was also an Englishman, used to come to my cell practically every day for a little chat. I do not know why I was able to receive their special favour and

¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 67.

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sympathy from the beginning. I did not speak to them much – only gave answers to what they asked. I would either listen in silence to the topics they raised or stop after just a few words. Yet they would not give up coming to me. Dr. Daily said to me one day, 'I have spoken to the Assistant Superintendent and got the Chief to agree that you will be allowed to take a stroll in front of the "decree" [cell] every day, in the morning and in the afternoon. I do not want you to remain cooped up in a little cell the whole day. It is bad for both mind and body.' From that day onwards, I used to take a stroll every morning and afternoon in the open space in front of the 'decree'. In the afternoon it would be for ten, fifteen or twenty minutes; but in the morning I would stay out in the open for an hour, on some days up to two hours. There were no restrictions as to the time; I enjoyed it very much. On one side was the jail workshop, on the other the cowshed; these were the limits of my free domain. Moving to and fro between the workshop and the cowshed, I would either recite the profoundly evocative and eternally strength-giving words of the Upanishads, or, as I watched the movements and activities of the prisoners, I would try to realise the fundamental truth that the Lord dwells in all. Uttering silently in my mind the words, 'All this is verily the Eternal', sarvam khalu idam brahma, I would project that realisation on everything in existence, – trees and houses and walls, man, beast and bird, metals and clay. As I did this, I would get into a state in which the prison no longer appeared as a prison at all."¹

Sri Aurobindo spoke about this experience subsequently in his epoch-making Uttarpara speech.

Some other reminiscences of jail life are given here:

"This reminds me of a compliment given to my eyes by Sir Edward Baker, Governor of Bengal. He visited us in Alipore Jail and told Charu Chandra Dutt, 'Have you seen Aurobindo Ghose's eyes? He has the eyes of a mad man!' Charu Dutt took great pains to convince him that I was not at all mad but a Karma Yogi."²

¹ Sri Aurobindo, Bangia Rachana (Pondicheny: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), Pp. 280-81 (new translation).

² Talk of 3 January 1939, cf. Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo (Calcutta: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir, 1966), p. 147.

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"In my own case I once saw anger coming up and possessing me. I was very much surprised as to my own nature. Anger has always been foreign to me. At another time while I was an undertrial prisoner in Alipore, my anger would have led to a terrible catastrophe which luckily was averted. Prisoners there had to wait outside for some time before entering the cells. As we were doing so the Scotch warder came and gave me a push. The young men around me became very excited and I did nothing but gave him such a look that he immediately fled and called the jailor. It was a communicative anger and all the young men rallied round to attack him. When the jailor who was rather a religious man arrived, the warder said I had given him an 'insubordinate look'. The jailor asked me and I told him I had never been used to such treatment. The jailor pacified the whole group and said while going: 'We have each to bear our cross.' But by anger such as I had, I do not mean the Rudrabhava which I have experienced a few times."¹

"Now what you call pity is something quite different from compassion and both are different from Samata. Pity and human sentimentalism are a result of nervous repulsion – some movement in the vital being. I myself, when I was young, could not read of any act of cruelty without feeling that repulsion and a feeling of hatred for those who did it. I could not kill an insect, say a bug or a mosquito. This was not because I staunchly believed in Ahimsa, but because I had that pity and nervous repulsion. Later on, even when I had no mental objection, I could not harm anything because the body rejected the act. When I was in jail, I was mentally subjected to all sorts of torture for the first fifteen days. I had to look upon scenes of all sorts of suffering before me and then the thing passed away."²

Panchanan Tarkachudamani, a great Sanskrit scholar, was also in jail with some of his disciples. One day Abinash Bhattacharya

. ¹ Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966), pp. 121-22.

.² Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 53.

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requested Sri Aurobindo to explain certain passages from the Upanishad, which he did. Abinash recounted the explanation to Panchanan Babu. After hearing it Panchanan said: "Well, Abinash, I would not have been able to explain this portion as simply as Sri Aurobindo has done."

Hem Sen was a co-accused. He used to get biscuits and other eatables from outside. He kept these things under his pillow at night. There were thefts of them by the other accused. Those who were awake at the time of the theft would get a share! Hem Sen generally used to quarrel during the day about these little thefts at night. One day the theft was being committed and the thief saw that Sri Aurobindo was awake. Abinash took a few biscuits and put them in his hand. He smiled and began to eat them lying down.

Upen Banerjee was very much struck by the brilliance of Sri Aurobindo's hair and he thought that it was due to oil. On inquiry he found that there was no oil with Sri Aurobindo. So he asked Sri Aurobindo, who replied that it was due to sadhana.

There were experiences during this period in jail that may be called extraordinary and miraculous. About how the faculty to appreciate painting came to him Sri Aurobindo says: "I ... knew something about sculpture, but [was] 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, 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."¹

Another experience was that of levitation. (It is strange that all over India people used to believe that Sri Aurobindo usually remained above the ground!) When asked about this he said: "That was once in jail. I was then having a very intense Sadhana on the vital plane and I was concentrated. And I had a questioning mind: 'Are such siddhis as utthapana [levitation] possible?'  I then suddenly found myself raised up in such a way that I could not have done it myself with muscular exertion. Only one part

¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 226-27.

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of the body was slightly in contact with the ground and the rest was raised up against the wall. I could not have held my body like that normally even if I had wanted to and I found that the body remained suspended like that without any exertion on my part. That is the only thing that happened. In the jail there were many such extraordinary and, one may say, abnormal experiences. As I was doing Sadhana intensely on the vital plane I think these might have come from there. All these experiences passed away and did not repeat themselves."¹

It was during his jail life that Sri Aurobindo resorted to fasting to see how far spiritual results could be attained by it. In Alipore jail he fasted for eleven days. He lost ten pounds during that period, though he felt no worse for it.

He used to hear the voice of Vivekananda during meditation. Here is what he wrote about this later: "It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence, but this had nothing to do with the alleged circumstances narrated in the book, circumstances that never took place, nor had it anything to do with the Gita. The voice spoke only on a special and limited but very important field of spiritual experience and it ceased as soon as it had finished saying all that it had to say on that subject."²

Regarding this Alipore period he wrote: "I was carrying on my Yoga during these days, learning to do so in the midst of much noise and clamour but apart and in silence and without any participation of the others in it. My Yoga begun in 1904 had always been personal and apart; those around me knew I was a Sadhak but they knew little more as I kept all that went on in me to myself. It was only after my release that for the first time I spoke at Uttarpara publicly about my spiritual experiences."³

Some people have said that Sri Aurobindo received spiritual help from other persons and from religious books. This is not quite true, for as he says in a letter: "I began my Yoga in 1904 without a Guru; in 1908 I received important help from a

¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 140.

²Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 68.

³Ibid., pp. 67-68.

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Mahratta Yogi and discovered the foundations of my Sadhana; but from that time till the Mother came to India I received no spiritual help from any one else. My Sadhana before and afterwards was not founded upon books but upon personal experiences that crowded on me from within. But in the jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads; these were the only books from which I found guidance; the Veda which I first began to read long afterwards in Pondicherry rather confirmed what experiences I already had than was any guide to my Sadhana. I sometimes turned to the Gita for light when there was a question or a difficulty and usually received help or an answer from it. . . ."¹

On 6 May 1909 Mr. Beachcroft delivered his judgment. Sri Aurobindo and most of the others were acquitted. After they had been released, according to S. R. Das, cousin of C. R. Das, "Those who were acquitted came straight to my cousin's house .... Sri Aurobindo sat among them – the same wistful, distant look in his eyes – outwardly unconcerned and unperturbed. He had, as it were, drawn his mind into the depth of his being."²

On 14 May Sri Aurobindo issued the following letter to the Editor of the Bengalee:

Sir,

Will you kindly allow me to express through your columns my deep sense of gratitude to all who have helped me in my hour of trial? Of the innumerable friends known and unknown, who have contributed each his mite to swell my defence fund, it is impossible for me now even to learn the names, and I must ask them to accept this public expression of my feeling in place of private gratitude; since my acquittal many telegrams and letters have reached me and they are too numerous to reply to individually. The love which my countrymen have heaped upon me in return for the little I have been able to do for them, amply repays any apparent trouble or misfortune my public activity may have

¹ Ibid., p. 68.

² S.R. Das, "A Reminiscence of Sri Aurobindo', Mother India, Vol. X, NO. 11 (January 1959), p. 51.

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CHAPTER VII

Chandernagore

From May 1909 to February 1910 Sri Aurobindo stayed at the house of his uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra at 6, College Square, Calcutta. He used to go to the office of the Karmayogin and the Dharma at 4, Shyam Pukur Lane every day at four o'clock in the afternoon. It was winter and Sri Aurobindo came wrapped in his shawl. There was not much work to do in the office; often four or five people would sit together and try automatic writing. One has, in that experiment, to sit with a blank mind, pen in hand, and allow a free action to some force that may intend to write through one. When Sri Aurobindo went to Pondicherry he spent some time there as well experimenting with automatic writing. He discovered that what one receives in this way is not necessarily always correct; but that the experience is useful for a contact with occult levels and for a knowledge of the working of subtle forces. Sometimes Sri Aurobindo was so late at the automatic writing sittings in Calcutta that the trams stopped plying and a horse carriage had to be hired for him to take him to his uncle's house in College Square.

This is how he describes the circumstance of his going to Chandernagore: "I was in the Karmayogin office [trying some automatic writing] and we knew about the search that was going to be made with the object of arresting me. There were some people there [Ramchandra Mazumdar, Suresh Chakravarty (Moni), Biren Ghose, Bijoy Nag and Nolini Kanta Gupta]. Ramchandra was there preparing to give fight to the police and many other ideas were flying about when suddenly I heard a voice from above saying­ – No, go to Chanderangore.” ^¹

After hearing the voice, Sri Aurobindo decided to act immedi­ately. They started from the Karmayogin office at about 8 o'clock at night, Sri Aurobindo and Ramchandra Mazumdar leading. About fifty paces behind them was Biren, and about the same distance behind Biren, Suresh followed. They went zig-zag in order to evade the surveillance of the C .I.D. men who were posted

^¹. Cf. A. B. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo .Ashram, 1961), p. 142.

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at the Karmayogin office, and reached the Ganges in about ten minutes. That day the C. I .D. men seemed to have been conspicu­ous in their absence. A boat was called and engaged for Chandernagore. Sri Aurobindo boarded the boat with Biren and Suresh.

There are many stories current about Sri Aurobindo's departure for Chandernagore. Some have been published in magazines by persons who have written on wrong information or accepted rumour as fact and thereby created confusion. In order to set the question to rest once and for all we give here Sri Aurobindo's own description even at the risk of repetition:

"It was not Gonen Maharaj who informed me of the impending search and arrest, but a young man on the staff of the Karmayogin, Ramchandra Majumdar, whose father had been warned that in a day or two the Karmayogin Office would be searched and myself arrested. There have been many legends spread about on this matter and it was even said that I was to be prosecuted for participation in the murder in the High Court of Shamsul Alam, a prominent member of the C .I.D., and that Sister Nivedita sent for me and informed me and we discussed what was to be done and my disappearance was the result. I never heard of any such proposed prosecution and there was no discussion of the kind; the prosecution intended and afterwards started was for sedition only. Sister Nivedita knew nothing of these new happenings till after I reached Chandernagore. I did not go to her house or see her; it is wholly untrue that she and Gonen Maharaj came to see me off at the Ghat. There was no time to in­form her; for almost immediately I received a command from above to go to Chandernagore and within ten minutes I was at the Ghat; a boat was hailed and I was on my way with two young men to Chandernagore. It was a common Ganges boat rowed by two boatmen, and all the picturesque details about the French boat and the disappearing lights are pure romance."¹

There was no mishap on the way except that the boatmen had to drag the boat in shallow waters once or twice during the night.

The boat anchored at the Strand at Chandernagore. Suresh and Biren got out and informed Charu Chandra Roy of Sri Aurobindo's arrival and asked him if he could make arrangements

¹.Sri Aurobindo, On Himself(Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 70-71.

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for his stay. Charu Chandra was afraid and did not know what to do. In the meantime, while Biren and Suresh were thinking of going back to the boat with a disappointing reply, a certain Sishir Ghose took them to Motilal Roy. Motilal on coming to know about Sri Aurobindo's predicament readily agreed to accommodate him. Motilal went to the boat and brought it near the place where he stayed. Sri Aurobindo disembarked and was taken to the house. His request to Motilal to keep his arrival secret was complied with. Motilal made arrangements to keep him underground.

Suresh and Biren returned to Calcutta the next day in order not to arouse any suspicion. Thus nobody, not even his closest co-workers, knew where Sri Aurobindo had gone.

"I sent someone from the office to Nivedita to inform her and to ask her to take up editing of the Karmayogin in my absence. She consented and in fact from this time onward until the suspension of the paper she had the whole conduct of it; I was absorbed in my Sadhana and sent no contributions nor were there any articles over my signature. There was never my signature to any articles in the Karmayogin except twice only, the last being the occasion for the prosecution which failed. There was no arrangement for my staying in Chandernagore at a place selected by Nivedita. I went without previous notice to anybody and was received by Motilal Roy who made secret arrangements for my stay; nobody except himself and a few friends knew where I was."¹

On the first day Motilal Roy made an arrangement in his Baithakkhana (sitting room); from there he took Sri Aurobindo to a godown where he used to keep chairs (from his furniture workshop), which was on the first floor of the house. Motilal went to bring some tiffin for Sri Aurobindo to eat. When he came he saw that Sri Aurobindo was in meditation! He gave him the tiffin; Sri Aurobindo took it mechanically. In the afternoon Motilal took Sri Aurobindo to his parlour and gave him a bath. It was winter; the cold-water bath made Sri Aurobindo shiver. Motilal had to buy food from a shop to avoid suspicion. Sri Aurobindo spoke with Motilal, telling him to surrender everything to God.

That night, for the sake of safety, Sri Aurobindo was taken

¹ Ibid., p. 71.

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to a friend's house to sleep. The second day passed. In the even­ing, when Motilal met him, Sri Aurobindo asked him to make an arrangement somewhere else, so Motilal brought him back to his own house at night. Because Motilal's house still proved unsuitable, several other houses, including one in "Coolie-lines" in the northern part of Chandernagore (Gondalpara) were tried. Finally a house was rented near a Jagannath temple close to the Ganges.¹

Altogether Sri Aurobindo stayed in Chandernagore for a month and a half. Motilal saw Sri Aurobindo regularly and had many talks with him about yoga. Sri Aurobindo gave sadhana to Motilal. Thus were sown the seeds of what afterwards became the Prabartak Samgha. This group separated from Sri Aurobindo after August 1920.

Motilal describes the impression Sri Aurobindo made on him:

"a completely surrendered individual – one felt when he spoke as if somebody else was speaking through him. ... I placed the plate of food before him – he simply gazed at me and then ate a little – just mechanically!" Sri Aurobindo appeared to be absorbed even when he was eating. He used to meditate with open eyes, and see subtle forms and spiritual visions.²

Sri Aurobindo's sadhana at Chandernagore went on with intensity. He saw many visions on the subtle planes. He used to see figures of three Goddesses at the time of meditation. They were seen going away at the end. It was later when he went to Pondicherry that he knew them to have been Ila, Mahi (Bharati) and Saraswati, the Vedic goddesses. Sri Aurobindo did not meet anyone at Chandernagore except Motilal and one or two people who attended on him for his needs.

After his departure many anonymous letters were received at Sri Aurobindo's Calcutta address. In one of them he was asked to come out in public. In a challenging note he replied that he had not gone away out of fear and that there was no warrant against him. He said if there was one he would come out. It was then heard that the government had issued a warrant, which

¹ Motilal Roy, "Sri Aurobindo Prasanga", Prabartak, Vol. XXXV, No. 6

(Paushl357),p.375.

² Motilal Roy, "Sri Aurobindo Prasanga", Nirnay, Paush-Magh 1357,

pp. 31-34.

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only confirmed Sri Aurobindo's suspicion that the letter had been written by an agent of the government. In reality there was no ground for any warrant.

At the end of March (most probably the third week) Sri Auro­bindo received an inner indication to go to Pondicherry, which he later called in his letter to Baptista of 1920 "my place of retreat, my cave of tapasya, not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention."¹

About his deciding to go to Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo once said: "While the prosecution was pending I went away secretly to Chandernagore and there some friends were thinking of sending me to France. I was thinking what to do next. There I heard the Adesh [command] to go to Pondicherry."²

At the end of March Motilal Roy sent word to Sukumar Mitra at Calcutta about Sri Aurobindo's intended departure for Pondicherry. Towards the end of the same month Moni (Suresh Chakravarty) received a note from Chandernagore telling him to go to Pondicherry and arrange for a house. A Tamil weekly called India used to be published from Pondicherry by some Nationalists. One Srinivasachari, who was known to the revolutionary group, was connected with it. Subramania Bharati ³ was working with him and Krishnamachari was his partner. The paper supported the Nationalist and revolutionary outlook.

Moni started on the 28th. A letter of introduction addressed to Srinivasachari was given to him. He walked to the Howrah station and took his seat in the second class. He was dressed as an Anglo-Indian. Saurin Bose, Mrinalini Devi's cousin and Sukumar Mitra, Krishna Kumar's son, were on the platform to see him off. They gave him his second class ticket and Rs. 30 in cash. He reached Pondicherry on the 31st.

Some people thought then – and even now there may be some who might think – that Sri Aurobindo left politics because he felt that he could do nothing or that he was afraid. Here is his own explanation: "I may also say that I did not leave politics

.¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 430. See below pp. 167-70.

² Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966), p. 39.

.³ The noted Tamil poet and patriot.

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because I felt I could do nothing more there; such an idea was very far from me. I came away because I did not want anything to interfere with my yoga and because I got a very distinct ādesa in the matter. I have cut connection entirely with politics, but before I did so I knew from within that the work I had begun there was destined to be carried forward, on lines I had fore­seen, by others, and that the ultimate triumph of the movement I had initiated was sure without my personal action or presence. There was not the least motive of despair or sense of futility behind my withdrawal."¹

Some people believed that there was a ban imposed on Sri Aurobindo's entry into British India. That this is not correct is clear from his letter to Baptista of January 1920.² In an evening talk he said: "There never was any ban on my entering British India. On the contrary Lord Carmichael sent me an invitation to return to India and settle down at some place like Darjeeling and discuss philosophy with him. I rejected the offer."

¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 55.

² See pp. 167-70.

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PART TWO

CHAPTER IX

Pondicherry: 1910-1926

Moni, as we have said, arrived in Pondicherry on 31 March. He met Srinivasachari and informed him that Sri Aurobindo was expected to arrive on 4 April. But Srinivasachari and others did not trust him. They thought it most improbable that Sri Aurobindo, should select to come to a place as far south as Pondi­cherry, instead of to another place nearer to Bengal. Moni pressed upon them the need of a house, but they were not keen on it. At last, on the day of arrival, Moni asked them to arrange for a house in advance. They said they would manage to put Sri Aurobindo up – when he came. All along they suspected that Moni was a spy. But, in case Sri Aurobindo actually did come, they said they would give him a public reception. Moni argued with them and, in the end, prevailed upon them to drop such an idea as Sri Aurubindo was coining secretly and wanted to remain in seclusion. Moni, Srinivasachari and Bharati went to the port to receive Sri Aurobindo. The steamer arrived at Pondicherry at four o'clock on 4 April 1910. After tea Sri Aurobindo was taken to the house of Shanker Chelty in Comty Chetly Street. Sri Aurobindo remained there till October as the guest of Shanker Chetty.

Sri Aurobindo's aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Krishna Kumar Mitra, and also his grandmother, Mrs. Rajnaniyan Bose, were very anxious about him and wanted to have authentic news of his safe arrival at Pondichcrry. A week after Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta, a man came to see Krishna Kumar Mitra to inform him that Sir Charles Cleaveland, Director General of Criminal Investigation, who was slaying at the Great Eastern Hotel, had received the news in code that Sri Aurobindo was in Pondicherry. The gentleman had come to give this information assuming that Mitra must be very anxious about his safety. This shows how well the secret was kept: Sukumar Mitra, who had taken a leading part in arranging Sri Aurobindo's departure, had evidently not told his own father about it. In May 1910, Motilal Roy sent a man, Sudarshan, to inquire about Sri Aurobindo's safe arrival at Pondicherry.

Balai Devsharma has written: "After knowing that Sri Aurobindo

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Aurobindo had gone to Pondicherry, Mono Ranjan Guhathakurta and Shyam Sundar Chakravarty wrote a letter requesting him to guide them (and the party) in politics. The letter was answered: its purport was that Sri Krishna had taken the responsibility of freeing India. And so all of us must act from a firm status in yoga. This letter was read at the house of Shyam Sundar Babu, in Vidyasagar Street, Calcutta."

This year Paul Richard came to Pondicherry on behalf of M. Paul Bluyson for election to the French Chamber. Bluyson was elected. Richard came to know that Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry and was doing yoga. An interview was arranged, most probably by Zir Naidu, a friend of Richard's, between Sri Aurobindo and Richard. It was in Shanker Chetty's house that they met two days for two or three hours each day. Richard asked Sri Aurobindo many questions, one of which related to the symbolic character of the lotus. Sri Aurobindo explained that the lotus stands for the opening of the conscious­ness to the Divine. It can be seen on any of the subtle planes of consciousness. Some years later (probably 1918) Richard gave a speech, published in his book, The Dawn over Asia, in which he spoke of Sri Aurobindo as the future leader of Asia.

At Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo did not want to meet anyone without a special purpose. He gave instructions to Moni and Bijoy to discourage casual visitors. He was thus living in practical solitude though in the middle of the town. He stayed in a room on the top floor of Shanker Chetty's house, corning down­stairs only for his bath.

It was here that Sri Aurobindo fasted for twenty-three days. Moni and Bijoy were the only persons who knew about it. During the fast Sri Aurobindo did all his usual work regularly – i.e. walking, meditation, writing, etc. When he broke the fast he took the same quantity of food that he used to take before; he did not begin to take food gradually as people who fast generally do. He suffered no diminution of mental or vital energy, but found that a certain diminution of material substance was taking place. He concluded that physical life would be impossible without food.

Two talks of Sri Aurobindo on the subject of fasting are reproduced below:

Disciple: "Is it possible to do without food?"

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Sri Aurobindo: "Yes, it is. When I did my fast of about twenty-three days in Chetty's house, I very nearly solved the problem. I could walk eight hours a day as usual. I continued my mental work and Sadhana as usual and I found that I was not in the least weak at the end of the twenty-three days. But the flesh began to grow less and I did not find a clue to replacing the very matter reduced in the body. Also, when I broke the fast, I did not observe the rule of people who undergo long fasts – beginning with a little food and so on. I began with the same quantity as I used to take before. ... I tried fasting once in jail but that was for ten days when I used to sleep once in three nights. I lost ten pounds in weight but I felt stronger at the end of the ten days than I had been before I began the fast. I could lift up a weight after the fast, which I could not before."^¹

Sri Aurobindo: "I fasted twice: once in Alipore for ten days and another time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was full of Yogic activities, I was not taking my food and was throwing it away in the bucket. Of course, the Superintendent did not know of it; only two warders knew about it and they informed others saying: The gentleman must be ill; he will not live long!' Though my physical strength was diminishing I was able to raise a pail of water above my head which I could not do ordinarily.

"At Pondicherry while fasting I was in full mental and vital vigour. I was even walking eight hours a day and not feeling tired at all. And when I broke the fast I did not begin slowly but with the usual normal amount of food."

Disciple: "How is such fasting possible?"

Sri Aurobindo: "One draws the energy from the vital plane instead of depending upon physical substance. Once in Calcutta I lived for a long time on rice and banana. These make a very good food."^²

During the first three months of the stay at Pondicherry there

^¹ Cf. A. B. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1961), pp. 232-33.

^² Cf. A. B. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram,. 1966), pp. 88-89.

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used to be séances in the evening in which automatic writing was done. The book Yogic Sadhan was written in this way. At the rate of one chapter per day, the book was finished in a week or eight days. On the last day it seemed to Sri Aurobindo that a figure that looked like Rammohan Roy disappeared into the subtle world near the comer of the ceiling of the room. It was inferred that Rammohan Roy had dictated the book. The Editor's Epilogue added after the last chapter was written by Sri Aurobindo himself. The editor's name is given as "the Uttar Yogi".

K .V. Rangaswamy Iyengar, the zamindar of Kodailam met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in Shanker Chetty's house. Up to 1906 this man represented the landlords in the Legislative Assembly of Delhi. He had come looking for Sri Aurobindo for the following reason. He had known a Yogi named Nagai Japata, who had been the guru of his family. When the time of his death was near this Yogi called his devotees to him. K. V. R. Iyengar asked him about the spiritual guide he must take for his future progress. The Yogi remained quiet for a time and then said that a great Yogi would come from the North whose help he could take. Iyengar then asked him how he would recognise that particular great Yogi, as so many yogis came to the South from the North. Japata replied that the great Yogi would come seeking refuge in the South, and he would make a declaration of three things before his arrival.

When K. V. R. Iyengar came to know that Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry and retired from politics, he had one clue for identifying him as the "Yogi from the North" – Uttar Yogi – about whom Nagai Japata had spoken. Moreover, one of the letters of Sri Aurobindo to Mrinalini Devi that were produced in the Alipore court, contained a statement of "three madnesses" that were a part of Sri Aurobindo's personality. This was under­stood to be the declaration of the "three things" that had been predicted by the Yogi.

What transpired between the two at the interview is not known. It is known that K. V. R. Iyengar gave Sri Aurobindo a promise of economic help and besides this actually gave some money. Those were days of great danger to anyone who dared to render any kind of help to a revolutionary political leader. That is why nothing was spoken about the details of the interview or about the exact extent of the help rendered. K. V. R. Iyengar came

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twice again to Pondicherry to see Sri Aurobindo. It was he who had the small book Yogic Sadhan printed at the Vani Vilas Press for Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo once spoke of Iyengar in an evening talk: "There was a famous Yogi in the South who while dying said to his disciples that a Puma Yogi from the North would come down to the South and he would be known by three sayings. Those three sayings were the three things I wrote in a letter to my wife. The zamindar disciple of that Yogi found me out and bore the cost of the book Yogic Sadhan."^¹

V. Ramaswamy Iyengar, later known as "Va-Ra" in the Tamil literary world, had come to Pondicherry with K. V. R. Iyengar. He afterwards came and stayed with Sri Aurobindo for some time. A remarkable thing about this was that Sri Aurobindo had seen V. Ramaswamy in the subtle vision before he actually met him. He once mentioned this and another prophetic vision in a letter: "I myself have these visions, only I don't usually try to remember or verify them. But there were two curious instances which were among the first of this kind and which therefore I remember. Once I was trying to see a recently elected deputy here and saw someone quite different from him, someone who afterwards came here as Governor. I ought never to have met him in the ordinary course, but a curious mistake happened and as a result I went and saw him in his bureau and at once recognised him. The other was a certain V. Ramaswamy whom I had to meet, but I saw him not as he was when he actually came, but as he became after a year's residence in my house. He became the very image of that vision, a face close-cropped, rough, rude, energetic, the very opposite of the dreamy smooth-faced enthusiastic Vaishnava who came to me. So that was the vision of a man I had never seen, but as he was to be in the future – a prophetic vision"^²

Life at Pondicherry was hard while Sri Aurobindo and his young companions lived in Comty Chetty Street. Moni or Bijoy, or both, used to make tea for Sri Aurobindo in the morning. The food for the afternoon meal was cooked in the house: usually

^¹ Undated evening talk.

^² Sri Aurobindo On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), p.360.

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there was rice, vegetables, rasam and sambar. At night Sri Aurobindo took a cup of payas (sweet milk and rice). They all used to sleep on the ground. For Sri Aurobindo there was a thin mattress; Moni and Bijoy used to lie on straw mats. In the later days at Comty Chetty Street, Moni and Bijoy bought eggs and prepared them for Sri Aurobindo.

In October there was a change of lodgings from Shanker Chetty's house; Sri Aurobindo moved to a house on Rue Suffren, in the southern part of the town. This house belonged to one Sunder Chetty. He remained here until April 1911. In late September, just before the removal, Saurin Bose, a cousin of Mrinalini Devi, came to Pondicherry. In November Nolini Kanta Gupta came. There were now four young men in all: Moni, Bijoy, Saurin and Nolini.

On 7 November 1910 Sri Aurobindo wrote to The Hindu, a Madras paper, about his retirement from politics:

"I shall be obliged if you will allow me to inform every one interested in my whereabouts through your journal that I am and will remain in Pondicherry. I left British India over a month before proceedings were taken against me and, as I had purposely retired here in order to pursue my Yogic sadhana undisturbed by political action or pursuit and had already severed connection with my political work, I did not feel called upon to surrender on the warrant for sedition, as might have been incumbent on me if I had remained in the political field. I have since lived here as a religious recluse, visited only by a few friends, French and Indian, but my whereabouts have been an open secret, long known to the agents of the Government and widely rumoured in Madras as well as perfectly well-known to every one in Pondicherry. I find myself now compelled somewhat against my will, to give my presence here a wider publicity. It has suited certain people for an ulterior object to construct a theory that I am not in Pondicherry, but in British India, and I wish to state emphatically that I have not been in British India since March last and shall not set foot on British territory even for a single moment in the future until I can return publicly. Any statement by any person to the contrary made now or in the future, will be false. I wish, at the same time, to make it perfectly clear that I have retired for the time from political activity of any kind and that I will see and correspond with no one in connection with political

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subjects. I defer all explanation or justification of my action in leaving British India until the High Court in Calcutta shall have pronounced on the culpability or innocence of the writing in the Karmayogin on which I am indicted."^¹

On 7 November judgment was delivered at the Calcutta High Court on the Karmayogin and Manmohan Ghose, the printer of the journal, was acquitted. (He had been convicted by the Chief Presidency Magistrate.) The article in question, "To My Countrymen", was considered not seditious.

After the removal to the hired house in Rue Suffren, each of the four members of the household had to cook by turns. In the morning tea, milk, sugar and bread (loaf) were given to all. Lunch, consisting of three pounds of meat divided between the five persons, or else curry, along with some other food, was served between 11.30 and 12.30. Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, a cup of tea was given to Sri Aurobindo. At night, fish, rice and one vegetable or curry dish were prepared. The only furniture was a camp cot for Sri Aurobindo, one table and two chairs. There was no servant.

Sri Aurobindo remained in Sunder Chetty's rented house up to April 1911. From April 1911 to April 1913 he stayed in the house of Raghav Chetty in Rue St. Louis.

During the year 1911 Motilal Roy came to Pondicherry. He stayed for a month and a half. It was arranged that he should meet Sri Aurobindo twice a week. Sri Aurobindo asked Motilal about his sadhana. He had given Motilal a mantra which Motilal was repeating. Motilal asked Sri Aurobindo whether he should continue the Japa. Sri Aurobindo told him to stop it. In order to maintain secrecy Motilal used to come by the back door of the house.

Motilal has described his visit of 1911 in one of his books. The details given there are highly coloured by his imagination. One thing he speaks of is true: the great economic hardship during this period.

In this year (1911) cooking was done by turns. All other members of the household used to finish their baths and wait for lunch in the kitchen, which was also the dining room. Sri Aurobindo used to take his bath last and come directly to the dining room. There were only two lamps in the house – a candle lamp in Sri Aurobindo's

^¹ The Hindu, 13 November 1910.

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room and a small kerosene lamp in the kitchen. When dinner was ready at night the candle lamp was taken to the kitchen.

During the year Sri Aurobindo gave Latin, Greek and French lessons to Moni and Nolini. Books worth ten rupees were ordered every month. Sri Aurobindo went to Srinivasachari's house on the occasion of his daughter's marriage.

It was Sri Aurobindo's intention to return to the field of work after a certain poise of the sadhana was established. In an entry of a sadhak's diary dated 30 March 1924, it is noted: "When Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry the idea was that the sadhana might take about six months after which time all those who were here would go back and restart the work. Then one year passed and yet Sri Aurobindo did not go back. Then a period of four years was put down as the limit. In the meantime, the first world war intervened."

K. V. R. Iyengar met Sri Aurobindo in the Rue St. Louis house. He seems to have promised financial help but evidently it was irregular and inadequate. V. Ramaswamy (Va-Ra), who had come from Tanjore to stay with Sri Aurobindo, used to meet Sri Aurobindo daily in the evening. K. Amrita used to visit V. Ramaswamy.

An incident which threatened to happen but did not come about deserves to be mentioned in order to give an idea of the atmosphere and the difficulties of those days. There was one Nand Gopal Chetty whose family, which provided steve­dore service to steamers touching not only Pondicherry but also Madras, Nagapattam, etc., was rich and influential. Nand Gopal was taking a prominent part in the politics of French India. He seems to have agreed to participate in a plan of the British government agents to carry Sri Aurobindo out of the limits of French India with the help of goondas, so that Sri Aurobindo might be arrested by the British authorities and held up on some fabricated charge. The information of this intended plan reached Sri Aurobindo through Moni, Bijoy and others. To foil the plan the young men armed themselves with acid bottles to prevent any forcible entry into the house. Fortunately no one turned up. It was known afterwards that a warrant of arrest was issued against Nand Gopal on the same day as the projected abduction by the leaders of the opposite political party (in a matter connected

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with local elections) and he had to flee from Pondicherry to Madras to evade arrest. The plan thus completely miscarried.

When Sri Aurobindo was in the St. Louis house the French police came and searched it. The circumstances were as follows. Many political refugees and revolutionaries from British India had crossed over as refugees to Pondicherry because it was a French territory. Before the First World War, the French generally looked upon the English as rivals and they jealously asserted the right of giving asylum to political workers who were against the British rule in India. V. V. S. Aiyar, the revolutionary, Subramanya Bharati, the patriot-poet, and Srinivasachari were already there in 1910. Then Nagaswamy Aiyar came, and from Bengal Sri Aurobindo and four other persons. V. V. S. Aiyar being implicated in revolutionary activity came in the year 1912. The British government, in consequence, increased the number of its secret agents, C. I. D. men, in Pondicherry.

In July 1912 some secret service men threw a tin containing seditious literature into the well of V. V. S. Aiyar's house. As the British agents could not openly act in French territory, they employed Mayuresan, a French Indian, to complain against Bharati and other patriots, alleging that they were engaged in dangerous activities and that, if a search of their house was made, proof of the complaint would be found. He had not mentioned Sri Aurobindo by name but as Bharati, V. V. S. Aiyar and Srinivasachari were friends of Sri Aurobindo, the French govern­ment included his name on a list of those whose houses were to be searched.

But the scheme of the secret agents fell through, because the tin came up from the well when V. V. S. Aiyar's maid-servant drew water. Bharati went to Sri Aurobindo immediately and asked his advice. Sri Aurobindo told him to inform the French police and to ask them to come and see the tin to find what it contained. The French government took charge of the tin and found that it contained seditious pamphlets and journals. On some there was the image of Kali and some writing in Bengali. The suspicion was supposed to be created that all these refugees were carrying on correspondence with Shyamji Krishna Varma, Madame Cama and other leaders of the revolutionary movement in Europe and were trying to hatch an Indian conspiracy with their help.

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The investigating magistrate who came to search Sri Aurobindo's house was one M. Nandot, who arrived with the chief of police and the public prosecutor. He found practically no furniture in the house, only a few trunks, a table and a chair. On opening the drawers of the table he found only books and papers. On some of the papers Greek was written. He was very much surprised and asked if Sri Aurobindo knew Greek. When he came to know that he knew Latin, Greek and other European languages, his suspicion waned, yielding place to a great respect for Sri Aurobindo. He invited Sri Aurobindo to meet him in his chambers later and Sri Aurobindo complied with his request.

Mayuresan, threatened with a charge of making a false complaint, disappeared from Pondicherry and took refuge in British India.

The financial condition was very hard during this year – sometimes for three or four days in the week all the members of the household had to go without fish or meat. A letter written to Motilal Roy on 3 July 1912 gives an idea of the stringent econo­mic situation:

Dear M.

Your money (by letter and wire) and clothes reached safely. The French Post Office here has got into the habit (not yet ex­plained) of not delivering your letters till Friday; that was the reason why we wired to you thinking you had not sent the money that week. I do not know whether this means anything, – for­merly we used to get your letters on Tuesday, afterwards it came to Wednesday, then Thursday and finally Friday. It may be a natural evolution of French Republicanism. Or it may be. Some­thing else. I see no signs of the seals having been tampered with, but that is not an absolutely sure indication of security. The postman may be paid by the police. Personally, however, I am inclined to believe in the Republican administration theory, – the Republic always likes to have time on its hands. Still, if you like, you can send Important communications to any other address here you may know of, for the present (of course, by French post and a Madrasi address). All others should come by the old address, – you may be sure, I think, no letter will be actually intercepted, on this side. By the way, please let us know whether Mr. Banomali Pal received a letter by French post from Achari

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enclosing another to Parthasarathi.

I have not written all this time because I was not allowed to put pen to paper for some time, – that is all. I send enclosed a letter to our Marathi friend. If he can give you anything for me, please send it without the least delay. If not, I must ask you to procure for me by will-power or any other power in heaven or on earth Rs.50 at least as a loan. If you cannot get it elsewhere, why not apply to Barid Babu? Also, if Nagen is in Calcutta, ask him whether the Noakhali gentleman can let me have anything. I was told he had Rs.300 put aside for me if I wanted it; but I did not wish to apply to him except in case of necessity. The situation just now is that we have Rs. 1 ½ or so in hand. Srinivasa is also without money. As to Bharati living on nothing means an uncertain quantity. The only other man in Pondicherry whom I could at present ask for help is absent sine die and my messenger to the South not returned. The last time he came, he brought a promise of Rs.1000 in a month and some permanent provision afterwards, but the promise like certain predecessors has not yet been fulfilled and we sent him for cash. But though he should have been here three days ago, he has not returned, and even when he returns, I am not quite sure about the cash and still less sure about the sufficiency of the amount. No doubt, God will provide, but He has contracted a bad habit of waiting till the last moment. I only hope He does not wish us to learn how to live on a minus quantity like Bharati.

Other difficulties are disappearing. The case brought against the Swadeshis (no one in this household was included in it although we had a very charmingly polite visit from the Parquet and Juge d'Instruction) has collapsed into the nether regions and the complainant and his son have fled from Pondicherry and become, like ourselves "political refugees" in Cuddalore. I hear he has been sentenced by default to five years imprisonment on false accusation, but I don't know yet whether the report is true. The police were to have left at the end of Pondicherry^¹ but a young lunatic (one of Bharati's old disciples in patriotism and atheism) got involved in a sedition-search (for the Indian Sociologist of

^¹ The beginning of this sentence, reproduced here as it appears in Sri Aurobindo's manuscript, should probably read: "The police were to have left Pondi­cherry at the end of the month."

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all rubbish in the world!) and came running here in the nick of time for the police to claim another two months' holiday in Pondi-cherry. However, I think their fangs have been drawn. I may possibly send you the facts of the case for publication in the Nayak or any other paper, but I am not yet certain.

I shall write to you about Sadhana etc. another time.

Kali ¹

It can be seen from the above letter that there had been a search in the Rue St. Louis house. Sri Aurobindo also refers in it to the escape of Mayuresan to Cuddalore.

On 15 August Sri Aurobindo's birthday was celebrated. Some local people – Sada, Pitrus, David and four others – besides the members of the household, took part in the celebration. Sri Aurobindo sat in a chair in the outer verandah of the new house and all those who had come passed one by one in front of him. Some sweets were distributed.

Once it seemed likely that the French government might yield to the pressure of the British government in the matter of handing over the political refugees. This was a very crucial time for all of them. Subramanya Bharati got very excited and disturbed over the news as was usual with him. One day he came all excited and agitated and asked Sri Aurobindo what he proposed to do in case the French government would not shield them. Bharati asked, "Do you not prefer to go out of India in that case? What is your view?" Sri Aurobindo turned his back to him and sat quietly for a few minutes. He then turned to Bharati and said, "Mr. Bharati! I am not going to budge an inch from Pondicherry. I know nothing will happen to me. As for yourself you can do what you like." After that he sat silent in his chair. Bha­rati and others dropped the idea of going either to Djibuti, or Indochina or Tripoli, which was in their minds.

In April 1913 Sri Aurobindo changed his residence from St. Louis Street to Mission Street. The rent of the house was Rs.15 per month. The reason of the change was economic stress.

15 August was celebrated in the Mission Street house. Sri Aurobindo was not well on that day, he had fever. But he came

.¹ Sri Aurobindo, Supplement, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 426-27.

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out and sat in the verandah and all those who had come passed before him. Moni had composed a Bengali poem which he read. Sri Aurobindo liked it and gave him a garland.

During this year, apparently, Sri Aurobindo translated C. R. Das's Sagar Sangit into English verse. For this the latter sent Rs.1000. V. Ramaswamy (Va-Ra) went back to Tanjore during the year.

In October 1913 Sri Aurobindo moved to 41 (afterwards 10), Rue Francois Martin. This house was better lighted and venti­lated. Up till this point there had been no furniture worth the name: no bedding, only mats with pillows; only two chairs one of which Sri Aurobindo used while writing and another outside which he used while receiving someone or giving an interview. Only one writing table and one camp-cot were there. The canvas of the camp-cot had been torn on one side, so Sri Aurobindo used to lie down carefully on the untom side and sleep! In 1914 this house became the office of the Arya. Sri Aurobindo remained here up to 1922.

An incident which took place in the new house during November-December is worth noting. A cousin of Bijoy Kumar Nag named Nagen Nag, who was suffering from tuberculosis, came to Pondicherry sometime in the month of July. The doctors had advised him to try a change of climate at the seaside as a stay in the hills had done him no good. Bijoy persuaded him to come to Pondicherry so that he might be near the sea and also profit by Sri Aurobindo's spiritual help. Nagen's coming partly eased the economic strain: they left the old house and hired the one at 41, Rue Francois Martin.

With Nagen Nag had come a servant called Birendranath Roy, who was employed as Nagen's cook. After coming to Pondicherry, Biren became the general manager, cook etc., of Sri Aurobindo's house. Being a Bengali, he became, like the others, a member of the household. One day, after they had been living in 41, Rue Francois Martin for some time, Biren had his head shaved completely. Suresh Chakravarty – alias Moni – took a fancy to give himself a similar complete shave. Generally, Moni was known to be very keen on dressing well and keeping up a good apprearance. Biren tried to dissuade him from shaving himself, but Moni was insistent and carried out his resolve.

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This was, or looked, accidental. But its result was very strange. Biren was in fact a secret agent of the Bengal government. As he had joined Nagen Nag at Khulna there was no chance of any suspicion being aroused against him. Biren wanted to return to Bengal as he had passed six to eight months at Pondicherry. He asked the police department to send a substitute and the new man was expected shortly. The arrangement was that the new man should come to the Magry Hotel to meet Biren. As there were four or five Bengalis living with Sri Aurobindo, Biren had identified himself in a letter as the man with the shaven head. If the new man inquired about Biren, the fact of their being secret agents would perhaps become known!

When Moni got his head shaved, Biren felt sure that all the inmates staying with Sri Aurobindo knew him to be a secret agent, because otherwise Moni would not have shaved his head in spite of his attempt to dissuade him. From that day he became frightened and depressed. He sometimes went for a walk along the seaside with Moni and used to ask his advice as to what he should do, as he did not want to continue staying in Pondicherry. Moni used to tell him to return to Bengal and not be anxious about Nagen. Biren used to conclude from this that Moni was pulling his leg and pretending he did not know him to be a secret agent.

In these early years at Pondicherry there used to be wine-sittings when some friend was generous or when finances permitted. One night there was such a party. All were talking and enjoying themselves at about ten or eleven at night when Biren did something extraordinary. He declared that he wanted to say something quite startling to the company. The atmosphere was rather light. Everyone believed that it would be some joke, and asked him to come out with it. Biren said: I am a C. I .D. man"! No one believed him in the whole company; everyone began to laugh. Biren thought that as they knew the facts already they were only fooling him. So he said, "You do not seem to believe, but I am just going to bring the money I have received." He went down and brought Rs.50. He embraced every one who was present and at last sat down at the feet of Sri Aurobindo and offered him the money. He assured Sri Aurobindo that he had not sent any report against him or anyone else. He was much moved and began to weep. The whole atmosphere changed. Everyone became serious. Sri Aurobindo did not say anything.

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This shows how the atmosphere in those days was full of suspicion and also how great was the number of secret agents in Pondicherry. The way in which Biren's confession came out was a miracle. He remained for some time after this, but he was afraid and used to close the doors of his room while he slept. He went to Bengal after about a month. He went to Mesopotamia during the First World War so that the revolutionaries might not take their revenge on him! He finally left the police department in 1921 or 1922. From 1924 even the occasional taking of wine was given up.

Also in November or December Motilal Roy came to Pondicherry incognito. He remained a month and a half at 10, Rue Francois Martin. He went back by steamer as there was some apprehension that he might be arrested at Madras.

Motilal was sending money to Sri Aurobindo from Chandernagore. It was easy for him to do this from there since both Chandernagore and Pondicherry were French possessions. Durgadas Seth, a moneyed man of Chandernagore, is reported to have given large sums of money to Motilal Roy to send to Sri Aurobindo. Motilal was also publishing all Bengali as well as some English books of Sri Aurobindo.

K. Amrita used to stay in Pondicherry during his school vacations. At one point he got into economic difficulties and had to stop his studies. Sri Aurobindo, in spite of his own difficulties, helped him with money and also used his influence with some well-known people in Madras on Amrita's behalf. Amrita was able to take his matriculation. Sri Aurobindo sometimes used to read to him from Browning, Kalidasa, Shakespeare and the Mahabharata. At times he read his own poem Savitri and his drama Eric.

Moni, Nolini and Saurin went to Bengal in February 1914. They returned in September.

On 29 March 1914 at 3.30 p.m., the Mother met Sri Aurobindo at 10, Rue Francois Martin. Her age at that time was 37. She and Paul Richard, her husband, remained in Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo was persuaded to start a philosophical magazine in order to give to the world his grand synthesis of knowledge and yogic experience in terms of a rational exposition. It was decided to start the review, which was called the Arya, on the fifteenth of August, Sri Aurobindo's birthday.

In order to spread the idea in France, a French edition of Arya,

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subtitled Revue de la Grande Synthèse, was published simultane­ously. But the First World War intervened and after seven issues the French magazine was discontinued.

Once Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple about the Arya : "It will be the intellectual side of my work for the world.”^¹ In another letter to Dilip Kumar Roy he said : "And philosophy! Let me tell you in confidence that I never, never, never was a philosopher – although I have written philosophy which is another story altogether. I knew precious little about philosophy before I did the Yoga and came to Pondicherry – I was a poet and a politician, not a philosopher. How I managed to do it and why? First, because Richard proposed to me to co-operate in a philosophical review – and as my theory was that a Yogi ought to be able to turn his hand to anything, I could not very well refuse; and then he had to go to the war and left me in the lurch with sixty-four pages a month of philosophy all to write by my lonely self. Secondly, because I had only to write down in the terms of the intellect all that I had observed and come to know in practising Yoga daily and the philosophy was there automatically. But that is not being a philosopher!"^²

It is clear from his letter quoted above that the Arya was not written from the intellect though it was written for it. The aim of the Arya  as declared by Sri Aurobindo was: "... to feel out for the thought of the future, to help in shaping its foundations and to link it to the best and most vital thought of the past. . . .

"The earth is a world of Life and Matter, but man is not a vegetable nor an animal; he is a spiritual and a thinking being who is set here to shape and use the animal mould for higher purposes, by higher motives, with a more divine instrumentation. .

"The problem of thought therefore is to find out the right idea and the right way of harmony; to restate the ancient and eternal spiritual truth of the Self so that it shall reembrace, permeate and dominate the mental and physical life; to develop the most profound and vital methods of psychological self-discipline and self-development so that the mental and psychical life of man may express the spiritual life through the utmost possible expansion

^¹ Sri Aurobindo, Supplement, p. 456.

^² Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 374.

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of its own richness, power and complexity; and to seek for the means and motives by which his external life, his society and his institutions may remould themselves progressively in the truth of the spirit and develop towards the utmost possible harmony of individual freedom and social unity.

"This is our ideal and our search in the Arya . ...

"Philosophy is the intellectual search for the fundamental truth of things; religion is the attempt to make the truth dynamic in the soul of man. They are essential to each other. . . .

"Our first preoccupation in the Arya has therefore been with the deepest thought that we could command on the philosophical foundations of the problem; and we have been so profoundly convinced that without this basis nothing we could say would have any real, solid and permanent value that we have perhaps given too great a space to difficult and abstruse thought whether in the shaping of our own ideas or in the study and restatement of the ancient Eastern knowledge."^¹

Sri Aurobindo used to correct the proofs of the Arya and see that they were dispatched regularly on the fifteenth of every month. The review was printed at the Modem Press, Pondicherry. He used to write out the matter himself, at times composing it straight on the typewriter. Sometimes even at night he would go on typing the articles for the press.                                    '

After August Bijoy Nag started from Pondicherry for Calcutta. At Villupuram he was taken in custody under the Defence of India Act. He was taken to Calcutta and kept in "A" class confinement till the end of the war.

As mentioned previously Moni, Nolini, and Saurin returned in September from Bengal. Saurin was given charge of the Arya office; Moni was managing the house and the kitchen. The Arya office was in the house where the Mother was staying. In the beginning Arya had two hundred subscribers.

During this year the Mother used to come to Sri Aurobindo's house every day between 4 and 4.30 p.m. She brought sweets prepared from coconut. Moni and Nolini and others used to

^¹ Sri Aurobindo, "Our Ideal", Arya , Vol. II, No. 1 (15 August 19.1S), pp. 1-9. (Of the portions given here, all except the first and last are published, in a slightly revised form, in Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings [Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971], p. 308 and pp. 313-14.)

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go to play football at five o'clock. The Mother used to prepare cocoa for Sri Aurobindo. Paul Richard used to come up and join them.

Every Sunday there was a standing invitation to Sri Aurobindo and all the members of the house to have dinner at the Mother's house. Sri Aurobindo used to go to the Mother's house (which was very near) at about 4.30 in the afternoon. The other members of the household joined after coming from the football ground. The talk used to be prolonged up to nine or ten at night.

Money from the sale of Murari Pukur Bagan seems to have reached Sri Aurobindo during this year (1914). A letter was written to Motilal Roy asking him to stop all political activities.

Sri Aurobindo's daily routine during this year was: reading The Hindu at nine o'clock and meeting persons who may have come to see him. Meeting outsiders was the only change from the programme of previous years. Lunch was between 12 and 12.30. In the evening at four o'clock, Bharati came, and at five V. V. S. Aiyar and Srinivasachari came and remained till eight o'clock, by which time Nolini would return from the football ground. The evening meal was taken at nine.

Events from 1913 to 1920 are not available in a very connected form. Whatever has been found is presented here. After 1913, Sri Aurobindo very rarely went out to see people or attend functions. The occasions on which he went out between 1913 and 1920 are as follows: (1) to the house of Joseph David (afterwards Mayor of Pondicherry) on the occasion of his marriage (1914 ?); (2) to David's place on the occasion of his daughter's baptism; (3) on the occasion of the marriage of Sada Oudiyar, a Tamil Christian, who was a supervisor of the jail; (4) to meet one Mr. Shastri, a man of letters, two or three times; (5) to attend the opening ceremony of the "Aryan Stores", 1916; (6) to the house at 2, Line Beach, where Motilal Roy stayed (1920?). After 1920, Sri Aurobindo paid no visits to anyone. In fact, he went out of the house only when he changed his residence.

From 1913 to 1920, Sri Aurobindo was staying in 41, Rue Francois Martin, with four or five young men. In those days, there was no separate bathroom. There was one tap in the open courtyard. The inmates took their bath under the tap. Sri Auro­bindo used to take his bath last, a few minutes before lunch.

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The one towel used by the inmates of the house served him also!

During these years, it seems, Sri Aurobindo used to lead his daily life according to some ideal. He used to carry out the dominating ideal in every detail of his life. At one time it was freedom of the individual and democracy. At this time he considered everyone else his equal and acted accordingly. Once his foot touched Amrita's inadvertently. Sri Aurobindo sat up in the chair and said, "I beg your pardon."

Sometimes the proofs of the Arya were delayed because the compositor used to drink. When the proofs arrived late Amrita used to scold him for drinking. Once Sri Aurobindo came out of his room on hearing the talk and said: "You have no right to interfere in his personal life. It is meaningless to advise him. He has perfect freedom to drink. What you should tell him is to observe the terms of the contract and give the proofs regularly." At this time democracy was dominant in his mind. In 1915 the Arya was brought out regularly. On 21 February of this year, the Mother's birthday was celebrated for the first time in Pondicherry. On 22 February, the Mother had to go to France on account of the war.

On 1 September 1915, Prabartak began publication with a view to put Sri Aurobindo's ideals before Bengal. After 1920, when Motilal Roy separated from Sri Aurobindo, it became the mouthpiece of the Samgha at Chandernagore of which Motilal was the leader.

In September 1916 the "Aryan Stores" was opened on Rue Dupliex. The shop was in the Bazar. The capital for it was given by the Mother. Saurin Bose looked after the management. Haradhan Baxi of Chandernagore was now in Pondicherry undergoing military training to join the force in France in the First World War. He used to visit the house and meet Sri Aurobindo. Khaserao Jadhav came to Pondicherry and met Sri Aurobindo. He was put up at the Magry Hotel.

+ + +

The following seven letters written in 1915 and 1916 clearly express the mission that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had in common, the trials they had in their work for humanity, and their unshakeable faith in the ultimate victory.

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LETTERS OF SRI AUROBINDO TO THE MOTHER

All is always for the best, but it is sometimes from the external point of view an awkward best. ...

The whole earth is now under one law and answers to the same vibrations and I am sceptical of finding any place where the clash of the struggle will not pursue us. In any case, an effective retirement does not seem to be my destiny. I must remain in touch with the world until I have either mastered adverse circumstances or succumbed or carried on the struggle between the spiritual and physical so far as I am destined to carry it on. This is how I have always seen things and still see them. As for failure, difficulty and apparent impossibility I am too much habituated to them to be much impressed by their constant self-presentation except for passing moments. ...

One needs to have a calm heart, a settled will, entire self-abnegation and the eyes constantly fixed on the beyond to live undiscouraged in times like these which are truly a period of universal decomposition. For myself, I follow the Voice and look neither to right nor to left of me. The result is not mine and hardly at all now even the labour.^¹

6 May 1915

Heaven we have possessed, but not the earth; but the fullness of the Yoga is to make, in the formula of the Veda, "Heaven and Earth equal and one".^²

20 May 1915

Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spirit­ual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks. . . . And if there were not the strength and Ananda within, it would be harassing and disgusting work; but the eye of knowledge looks beyond and sees that it is only a protracted episode. ^³

28 July 1915

^¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself , p. 424.  

^² Ibid., pp. 424-25.  

^³ Ibid., p. 425.

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Nothing seems able to disturb the immobility of things and all that is active outside our own selves is a sort of welter of dark and sombre confusion from which nothing formed or luminous can emerge. It is a singular condition of the world, the very de­finition of chaos with the superficial form of the old world resting apparently intact on the surface. But a chaos of long disintegra­tion or of some early new birth? It is the thing that is being fought out from day to day, but as yet without any approach to a decision.^¹

16 September 1915

LETTER OF THE MOTHER TO SRI AUROBINDO

The entire consciousness immersed in divine contemplation, the whole being enjoyed a supreme and vast felicity.

Then was the physical body seized, first in its lower members and next the whole of it, by a sacred trembling which made all personal limits fall away little by little even in the most material sensation. The being grew in greatness progressively, methodically, breaking down every barrier, shattering every obstacle that, it might contain and manifest a force and a power which increased ceaselessly in immensity and intensity. It was as a progressive dilatation of the cells until there was a complete identification with the earth: the body of the awakened consciousness was the terrestrial globe moving harmoniously in etheral space. And the consciousness knew that its global body was thus moving in the arms of the universal Being, and it gave itself, it abandoned itself to It in an ecstasy of peaceful bliss. Then it felt that its body was absorbed in the body of the universe and one with it; the consciousness became the consciousness of the universe, immobile in its totality, moving infinitely in its internal complexity. The consciousness of the universe sprang towards the Divine in an ardent aspiration, a perfect surrender, and it saw in the splendour of the immaculate Light the radiant Being standing on a many-headed serpent whose body coiled infinitely around the universe. The Being in an eternal gesture of triumph mastered and created at one and the same time the serpent and the universe

^¹ Ibid. p. 425.

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that issued from him; erect on the serpent he dominated it with all his victorious might, and the same gesture that crushed the hydra enveloping the universe gave it eternal birth. Then the consciousness became this Being and perceived that its form was changing once more; it was absorbed into something which was no longer a form and yet contained all forms, something which, immutable, sees, – the Eye, the Witness. And what It sees, is. Then this last vestige of form disappeared and the con­sciousness itself was absorbed into the Unutterable, the Ineffable.

The return towards the consciousness of the individual body took place very slowly in a constant and invariable splendour of Light and Power and Felicity and Adoration, by successive gradations, but directly, without passing again through the univer­sal and terrestrial forms. And it was as if the modest corporeal form had become the direct and immediate vesture, without any intermediary, of the supreme and eternal Witness.^¹

26 November 1915

LETTER OF SRI AUROBINDO TO THE MOTHER

The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would easily be recognised by the modem systems of Yoga which call themselves Yogic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine.^²

31 December 1915

This letter of 1916 also demonstrates the invincible will which enabled Sri Aurobindo to pursue his yogic sadhana:

The difficulties you find in the spiritual progress are common to us all. In this Yoga the progress is always attended with these

^¹ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 471-72.

^² Ibid. p. 384.

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relapses into the ordinary mentality until the whole being is so remoulded that it can no longer be affected either by any down­ward tendency in our own nature or by the impressions from the discordant world outside or even by the mental state of those associated with us most closely in the Yoga. The ordinary Yoga is usually concentrated on a single aim and therefore less exposed to such recoils; ours is so complex and many-sided and embraces such large aims that we cannot expect any smooth progress until we near the completion of an effort, – especially as all the hostile forces in the spiritual world are in a constant state of opposition and beseige our gains; for the complete victory of a single one of us would mean a general downfall among them. In fact by our own unaided effort we could not hope to succeed. It is only in proportion as we come into a more and more universal communion with the Highest that we can hope to overcome with any finality. For myself I have had to come back so often from things that seemed to have been securely gained that it is only relatively that I can say of any part of my Yoga, "It is done." Still I have always found that when I recover from one of these recoils, it is always with a new spiritual gain which might have been neglected or missed if I had remained securely in my former state of partial satisfaction. Especially, as I have long had the map of my advance sketched out before me, I am able to measure my progress at each step and the particular losses are compensated for by the clear consciousness of the general advance that has been made. The final goal is far but the progress made in the face of so constant and massive an opposition is the guarantee of its being gained in the end. But the time is in other hands than ours. Therefore I have put impatience and dissatisfaction far away from me.

An absolute equality of the mind and heart and a clear purity and calm strength in all the members of the being have long been the primary condition on which the power working in me has insisted with an inexhaustible patience and an undeviating constancy of will which rejects all the efforts of other powers to hasten forward to the neglect of these first requisites. Wherever they are impaired it returns upon them and works over and again over the weak points like a workman patiently mending the defects of his work. These seem to me to be the foundation and

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condition of all the rest. As they become firmer and more com­plete the system is more able to hold consistently and vividly the settled perception of the One in all things and beings, in all qualities, forces, happenings, in all this world-consciousness and the play of its workings. That founds the Unity and upon it the deep satisfaction and growing rapture of the Unity. It is this to which our nature is most recalcitrant. It persists in the division, in the dualities, in the sorrow and unsatisfied passion and labour, it finds it difficult to accustom itself to the divine largeness, joy and equipoise – especially the vital and material parts of our nature; it is they that pull down the mind which has accepted and even when it has long lived in the joy and peace and oneness. That, I suppose, is why the religions and philosophies have had so strong a leaning to the condemnation of Life and Matter and aimed at an escape instead of a victory. But the victory has to be won; the rebellious elements have to be redeemed and trans­formed, not rejected or excised.

When the Unity has been well founded, the static half of our work is done but the active half remains. It is then that in the One we must see the Master and His Power, – Krishna and Kali as I name them using the terms of our Indian religions; the Power occupying the whole of myself and my nature which be­comes Kali and ceases to be anything else, the Master using, directing, enjoying the Power to his ends, not mine, with that which I call myself only as a centre of his universal existence and responding to its workings as a soul to the Soul, taking upon itself his image until there is nothing left but Krishna and Kali. This is the stage I have reached in spite of all set-backs and recoils, imperfectly indeed in the secureness and intensity of the state, but well enough in the general type. When that has been done, then we may hope to found securely the play in us of his divine Knowledge governing the action of his divine Power. The rest is the full opening up of the different planes of his world-play and the subjection of Matter and the body and the material world to the law of the higher heavens of the Truth. To these things towards which in my earlier ignorance I used to press forward impatiently before satisfying the first conditions – the effort, however, was necessary and made the necessary preparation of the material instruments – I can now only look forward as a subsequent eventuality in a yet distant vista of things.

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To possess securely the Light and the Force of the supramental being, this is the main object to which the power is now turning. But the remnant of the old habits of intellectual thought and mental will come so obstinate in their determination to re­main that the progress is hampered, uncertain and always falls back from the little achievement already effected. They are no longer within me, they are blind, stupid, mechanical, incorrigible even when they perceive their incompetence, but they crowd round the mind and pour in their suggestions whenever it tries to remain open only to the supramental Light and the higher Command, so that the Knowledge and the Will reach the mind in a confused, distorted and often misleading form. It is, how­ever, only a question of time: the siege will diminish in force and be finally dispelled.^¹

26 June 1916

+ + +

During 1917 the Arya continued its publication regularly. The only other information available regarding this year is this account of an interview with B. Shiva Rao:

"The Home-Rule movement was at that time quickly gathering support and vitality mainly as a result of the internments. Some of us who were on the staff of 'New-India' went out on trips to build up a campaign of organisation. One of these trips took me to Pondicherry where Sri Aurobindo had made his home after leaving Bengal in 1910. Even in those early days there was an atmosphere of great peace and serenity about him which left on me a deep, enduring impression. He spoke softly, almost in whispers. He thought Mrs. Besant was absolutely right in preach­ing home rule for India, as well as in her unqualified support of the Allies in the First World War against Germany. It was a brief meeting of some minutes' duration. I believe I saw him again some months later. For twenty-five years I had no sort of contact with him but he was gracious enough to remember me, during Sir Stafford Cripps, wartime mission to India in 1942. I was surprised one morning when the negotiations were threat­ening to reach a deadlock (on the transitional arrangements in

^¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 425-28.

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regard to defence) to receive a message from him for Gandhiji and Sri Nehru: the Cripps' offer, it was his deliberate view, should be accepted unconditionally by the Congress leaders. It is futile to speculate now what India's subsequent fate might have been, if the advice of the sage at Pondicherry had been accepted."^¹

The Arya was published regularly during the year 1918. Chandra Shekhar Ayya, an Andhra intellectual, was staying in Pondicherry and meeting the inmates of the house and Sri Aurobindo.

In 1918 the British government declared the Montague Chelmsford Reforms. Mrs. Besant wrote pressing letters to Sri Aurobindo to give out his opinion about the reforms. He sent an article, but as he had retired outwardly from political activity and did not want his name to be published, the article was signed: "An Indian Nationalist". In the article he described the reforms as "a Chinese puzzle" and "a bulky and imposing shadow".^²

On 17 December 1918 Mrinalini Devi died of influenza.

The author met Sri Aurobindo at the end of December. He had been corresponding with Sri Aurobindo since 1914. Amrita and Moni – Suresh Chakravatry – were in the house during the interview, which covered (1) need of monetary help; (2) the question of Indian independence and permission to start revolu­tionary action (for Sri Aurobindo's advice see Appendix I); (3) spiritual sadhana.

In 1919 Amrita came to Pondicherry to stay with Sri Aurobindo. When Amrita had come during his vacations from Madras, he and Bijoy Nag, who was staying with Sri Aurobindo, usually spent long hours talking to him. But this did not disturb Sri Aurobindo's sadhana. When he was asked about this he said that outer conditions had ceased to have any influence on his sadhana. His sadhana was not interrupted even when he was writing the Arya; in fact, the writing was a part of his yoga.

Saurin Bose who had gone to Bengal did not return – he as well as Nolini Kanta Gupta got married in 1919. The "Aryan Stores", of which Saurin had been in charge, was sold to Partha Sarathy Chetty. (He wound up the business in 1932.)

.  ^¹ B. Shiva Rao, "Early Days of Journalism", The Hindu, 10 May 1959.

.^² Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), P. 433.                           .

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Sometimes during 1919 and 1920 Sri Aurobindo used to get an irritation in the right eye, which became red. Those who stayed with him attributed this trouble to the cigars which he smoked in those days. One day at eight o'clock in the evening the eye was swollen. Sri Aurobindo told the inmates of the house that the swelling would go down after two hours. Then, as was usual with him, he began walking to and fro and meditating. After two hours the eye was normal. He always believed that the swell­ing had nothing to do with smoking – at least in his case.

Once, some years later, the person who was managing one of the two houses then occupied included cigars on the list of neces­sary articles. This was brought to Sri Aurobindo's notice. He said that oil, soap and similar articles (besides food) might be considered necessities, but that a cigar was not a necessity. Cigars were taken off the list. In 1926 Sri Aurobindo gave up at one effortless stroke his habit of smoking.

In 1919 Mukul Chandra De, who afterwards became Principal of the Calcutta School of Art, came to Pondicherry and met Sri Aurobindo. He took sittings for four days in order to draw a portrait. The result was not very successful.

On 5 January 1920 Sri Aurobindo replied to a letter of Joseph Baptista. Baptista was a well-known barrister of Bombay and one of the leaders of Tilak's nationalist party. After 1907 the nationalist party had been growing stronger every year and at the end of 1919 it was decided to bring out a paper from Bombay. Following Tilak's advice, the Socialist Democratic Party of Bombay invited Sri Aurobindo, through Baptista, to accept the editor­ship of the paper. The idea was that this position would afford Sri Aurobindo an opportunity to return to politics, and thus the nationalist party would get his valuable support. It was well known in nationalist circles that Tilak and Sri Aurobindo had the same political ideology so far as the question of Indian freedom was concerned. The reply of Sri Aurobindo is reproduced here in full.

Pondicherry: 1910-1926

Jan. 5, 1920

Dear Baptista,

Your offer is a tempting one, but I regret that I cannot an­swer it in the affirmative. It is due to you that I should state

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explicitly my reasons. In the first place I am not prepared at present to return to British India. This is quite apart from any political obstacle. I understand that up to last September the Government of Bengal (and probably the government of Madras also) were opposed to my return to British India and that practically this opposition meant that if I went back I should be interned or imprisoned under one or other of the beneficent Acts which are apparently still to subsist as helps in ushering in the new era of trust and cooperation. I do not suppose other Govern­ments would be any more delighted by my appearance in their respective provinces. Perhaps the King's Proclamation may make a difference but that is not certain since, as I read it, it does not mean an amnesty but an act of gracious concession and benevolence limited by the discretion of the Viceroy. Now I have too much work on my hands to waste my time in the leisured ease of an in; voluntary Government guest. But even if I were assured of an entirely free action and movement, I should yet not go just now. I came to Pondicherry in order to have freedom and tranquillity for a fixed object having nothing to do with present politics – in which I have taken no direct part since my coming here, though what I could do for the country in my own way I have constantly done, – and until it is accomplished, it is not possible for me to resume any kind of public activity. But if I were in British India, I should be obliged to plunge at once into action of different kinds. Pondicherry is my place of retreat, my cave of tapasya, not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention. I must finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped for my work before I leave it.  

Next in the matter of the work itself, I do not at all look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal or contempt or disgust of secular things. There is to me nothing secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life, and the importance of politics at the present time is very great. But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably from anything now current in the field. I entered into political action and continued it from 1903 to 1910 with one aim and one alone, to get into the mind of the people a settled will for free-

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Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry

The Mother

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

-dom and the necessity of a struggle to achieve it in place of the futile ambling Congress methods till then in vogue. That is now done and the Amritsar Congress is the seal upon it. The will is not as practical and compact nor by any means as organised and sustained in action as it should be, but there is the will and plenty of strong and able leaders to guide it. I consider that in spite of the inadequacy of the Reforms, the will to self-determination, if the country keeps its present temper, as I have no doubt it will, is bound to prevail before long. What preoccupies me now is the question what it is going to do with its self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to determine its future?

You may ask why not come out and help, myself, so far as I can, in giving a lead? But my mind has a habit of running inconveniently ahead of the times, – some might say, out of time altogether into the world of the ideal. Your party, you say, is going to be a social democratic party. Now I believe in something which might be called social democracy, but not in any of the forms now current, and I am not altogether in love with the European kind, however great an improvement it may be on the past. I hold that India having a spirit of her own and a governing temperament proper to her own civilisation, should in politics as in everything else strike out her own original path and not stumble in the wake of Europe. But this is precisely what she will be obliged to do, if she has to start on the road in her present chaotic and unprepared condition of mind. No doubt people talk of India developing on her own lines, but nobody seems to have very clear or sufficient ideas as to what those lines are to be. In this matter I have formed ideals and certain definite ideas of my own, in which at present very few are likely to follow me, – since they are governed by an uncompromising Spiritual idealism of an unconventional kind and would be unintelligible to many and an offence and stumbling-block to a great number. But I have not as yet any clear and full idea of the practical lines: I have no formed programme. In a word, I am feeling my way in my mind and am not ready for either propaganda or action. Even if I were, it would mean for some time ploughing my lonely furrow or at least freedom to take my own way. As the editor of your paper, I should be bound to voice the opinion of others and reserve my own, and while I have

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full sympathy with the general ideas of the advanced parties so far as concerns the action of the present moment and, if I were in the field, would do all I could to help them, I am almost in­capable by nature of limiting myself in that way, at least to the extent that would be requisite.

Excuse the length of this script. I thought it necessary to explain fully so as to avoid giving you the impression that I de­clined your request from any affectation or reality of spiritual aloofness or wish to shirk the call of the country or want of sympathy with the work you and others are so admirably doing. I repeat my regret that I am compelled to disappoint you.

 Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose¹

On 7 April Sri Aurobindo wrote, in Bengali, the letter known as Pondicherir Patra to his brother Barin. Barin had been released from the Andamans in 1919, after the armistice, and had written to Sri Aurobindo, asking several questions and stating some of his own views. The reply clarifies many points. Relevant passages from the letter are given in translation below.

April 7, 1920.

Dear Barin,

First, about your yoga. You wish to give me the charge of your yoga and I am willing to take it, but that means to give its charge to Him who is moving by His divine Shakti, whether secretly or openly, both you and me. But you must know that the necessary result of this will be that you will have to walk in the special way which He has given to me, the way which I call the path of the Integral Yoga. What I began with, what Lele gave me, was a seeking for the path, a circling in many directions, a touching, taking up, handling, scrutiny of this or that in all the old partial yogas. . . .

Afterwards, when I came to Pondicherry, this unsteady condition came to an end. The Guru of the world who is within us then gave me the complete directions of my path – its complete theory, the ten limbs of the body of this Yoga. These ten years He has been making me develop it in experience, and this is not yet finished. . . .

¹.  Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 429-31.

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The Brahman, the Self, God are always there. What God wants in man is to embody Himself here in the individual and in the community, to realise God in life. ...

If we cannot rise above, that is, to the supramental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world and the problem it raises remains unsolved. . . . The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and the Ananda – these are the spirit's five levels. The higher we rise on this ascent the nearer to man comes the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, its fundamental principle.

This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi is complete, then I am absolutely certain that God will through me give to others the Siddhi of the Super­mind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time. I have no impulse to make any un­balanced haste and rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but God's. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me, then I will move.

I know very well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not the real transformation. Still this too was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old yogas and exhausting their samskaras, extracting their essence and fertilising with it the soil. At first it was the turn of Vedanta – Adwaita, Sannyasa, Shankara's Maya and the rest. What is now in process is the turn of the Vaishnava Dharma – the Lila, love, the intoxication of emotional experience. All this is very old, unfitted for the new age and will not endure – for such excitement has no capacity to last. But the merit of the Vaishnava Bhava is that it keeps a connexion between God and the world and gives a meaning

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to life; but since it is a partial Bhava the whole connexion, the full meaning is not there. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. It is the nature of the mind to take the part and call it the whole and to exclude all the other parts. The Siddha who brings the Bhava, although he leans on its partial aspect, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral, even though he may not be able to give it form. But his disciples do not get that knowledge precisely because it is not in a form. They are tying their bundles; let them. The bundles will open of themselves when God manifests himself fully. These things are the signs of incompleteness and immaturity. I am not disturbed by them. Let the force of spirituality play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as there may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or the embryonic condition of the new age. It is a first hint, not even the beginning. . . .

What I am aiming at is not a society like the present rooted in division. What I have in view is a Sangha, founded in the spirit and an image of its oneness. . . .

You may say, what need is there of a sangha? Let me be free and live in every vessel; let all become one without form and let whatever must be take place in the midst of that vast formlessness. There is a truth here, but only one side of the truth. Our business is not with the formless Spirit only; we have to direct also the motion of life. And there can be no effective movement of life without form. It is the Formless that has taken form and that assumption of name and form is not a caprice of Maya. Form is there because it is indispensable. We do not want to rule out any activity of the world as beyond our province. Politics, industry, society, poetry, literature, art will all remain, but we must give them a new soul and a new form. . . .

People now talk of spiritualising politics. The result of this will be, if there be any permanent result, some kind of Indianised Bolshevism. Even to that kind of work I have no objection. Let each man do according to his inspiration. But that is not the real thing. If one pours the spiritual power into all these impure forms – the water of the causal ocean into raw vessels – either that raw thing will break and the water will be spilt and lost or the spiritual power will evaporate and only the impure form remain. In all fields it is the same. I can give the spiritual power but that power will be expended in making the image of an ape

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and setting it up in the temple of Shiva. If the ape is endowed with life and made powerful, he may play the part of the devotee Hanuman and do much work for Rama – so long as that life and that power remains. But what we want in the Temple of India is not Hanuman, but the god, the Avatar Rama himself.

We can mix with all, but in order to draw all into the true path, keeping intact the spirit and form of our ideal. If we do not do that we shall lose our direction and the real work will not be done. If we remain everywhere individually, something will be done indeed; but if we remain everywhere as parts of a Sangha, a hundred times more will be done. As yet that time has not come. If we try to give a form hastily, it may not be the exact thing we want. The Sangha will be at first in unconcentrated form. Those who have the ideal will be united but work in different places. Afterwards, they will form something like a spiritual commune and make a compact Sangha. They will then give all their work a shape according to the demand of the spirit and the need of the age – not a bound and rigid form, not an acalāvatana,^¹ but a free form which will spread out like the sea, mould itself into many waves and surround a thing here, overflood a thing there and finally take all into itself. As we go on doing this there will be established a spiritual community. This is my present idea. As yet it has not been fully developed. All is in God's hands; whatever He makes us do, that we shall do. . . .

You write about the Deva Sangha and say, "I am not a God, am only a piece of much hammered and tempered iron." . . . No one is a God but in each man there is a God and to make Him manifest is the aim of divine life. That we can all do. ...

I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God. ...

1 am not going back to Bengal now, not because Bengal is not ready, but because I am not ready. If the unripe goes amid the unripe what can he do? ^²

Your Sejdada ^³

.^¹ “The Fossilised House" or "The Home of Conservatism" - name of a play by Rabindranath Tagore.

^²  A Letter of Sri Aurobindo, Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Vol. XIV, No. 3 (August 1962), pp. ii-xxii (slightly edited).

^³  Elder brother

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These two letters written early in 1920 – one to Baptista and one to Barin – serve to clarify Sri Aurobindo's life-mission as it was then taking shape in his consciousness.

During the year 1920 it became customary for the inmates of the house and also a few outsiders to come and sit with Sri Aurobindo between 4.00 and 4.30 in the evening. He used to come out at his convenience. During the sitting general talk took place without any formality, on some public event, an article in the paper or a point concerning sadhana. At times humorous and light topics also came up. Some evenings were full of a natural silence verging on meditation.

On 24 April 1920 the Mother returned to Pondicherry. She stayed at first in the Magry Hotel, then moved to Subbu's hotel on Rue St. Louis near Rue St. Martin, and later to a house at 1, Rue St. Martin.

On 15 August the Standard Bearer, a weekly journal, was started by the Prabartak Samgha of Chandernagore. It was discontinued after a few years of somewhat irregular publication.

Sometime after September Nolini and Moni went to Bengal. Sri Aurobindo went to see them off at the station. There had been an inner upheaval in the house after the Mother's arrival.

On 24 November there was a great tempest with heavy rainfall. Water began to leak through the roof of the house on Rue St. Martin where the Mother was living. The rains did not abate. In the early part of the evening the roof of a godown on Rue d'Orleans collapsed due to heavy percolation of water into the roof. Sri Aurobindo, who had heard about the leakage at the Mother's house, said that she should remove to 41, Rue Francois Martin – the house where he was staying – as a precautionary measure. The removal began at eight in the evening and went on until midnight. A few articles which remained in the old house were taken the next morning. From that time the Mother always stayed in the same house as Sri Aurobindo. It was on the same day – 24 November – six years later that Sri Aurobindo attained siddhi in his sadhana. The day seems to be as significant as his own birthday, the fifteenth of August.

Towards the end of 1920, in response to the request of a Chandernagore journal, the Mother wrote these lines under the title "How I Became Conscious of My Mission":

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"When and how did I become conscious of a mission which I was to fulfil on earth? And when and how I met Sri Aurobindo?

"These two questions you have asked me and I promised a short reply.

"For the knowledge of the mission, it is difficult to say when it came to me. It is as though I were born with it, and following the growth of the mind and brain, the precision and completeness of this consciousness grew also.

"Between 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God but man's possibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon earth in a life divine. This, along with a practical discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my body's sleep by several teachers some of whom I met afterwards on the physical plane.

"Later on, as the interior and exterior development proceeded, the spiritual and psychic relation with one of these beings became more and more clear and frequent; and although I knew little of the Indian philosophies and religions at that time I was led to call him Krishna, and henceforth I was aware that it was with him (whom I knew I should meet on earth one day) that the divine work was to be done.

"In the year 1910 my husband came alone to Pondicherry where, under very interesting and peculiar circumstances he made the acquaintance of Sri Aurobindo. Since then we both strongly wished to return to India – the country which I had always cherished as my true mother-country. And in 1914 this joy was granted to us.

"As soon as 'I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna. . . . And this is enough to explain why I am fully convinced that my place and my work are near him, in India."^¹

There were a number of notable visitors during 1920 and thereabouts. S. Duraiswami lyer, J. Nambiar and Mrinalini Chattopadhyaya came in 1919 or 1920. Mrinalini introduced the Mother to the sari. From that time the Mother began to wear

^¹ The Mother, "How I Became Conscious of My Mission", Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre a/Education, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1 (February 1976), p. 14.

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it regularly. Towards the end of 1920 W. W. Pearson came from Shantiniketan and met the Mother; at about the same time James B. Cousins came and met the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. In 1920 Dr. Munje, the Congress leader, came to Pondicherry and stayed as Sri Aurobindo's guest. He had long talks with Sri Aurobindo on current Indian politics. Barin Ghose came in 1920 and Ullaskar Dutt, who had, like Barin, been sentenced to death by the sessions judge at Alipore, but later given life imprisonment and ultimately released, came in 1920 or 1921. Abinash Bhattacharya, Sri Aurobindo's co-worker during the Bande Mataram days, who also had been convicted at Alipore, came and stayed for a month or more. Finally, Amarendranath Chatterji of Uttarpara, who had been initiated into the revolutionary organ­isation by Sri Aurobindo, came in the summer of 1920 or 1921.

Amar was now a wanted man. For some time he had been travelling incognito all over India as the leader of a group of sannyasis. His assumed name was Swami Kevalananda. When he came to 41, Rue Francois Martin, Hrishikesh (later known as Vishuddhananda Giri), Motilal Roy, Rameshwar De, Natwardas, Amrita, Barin, Datta (Miss Hodgson) and the Mother, whom Amar did not meet, were staying in the house. Amar had long matted hair and carried iron tongs and a staff. He was unrecognisable. After some time he took Natwardas aside and revealed his identity to him in a low tone. When Motilal learned that it was Amar he rushed up to him, embraced him and took him upstairs where Sri Aurobindo was staying. Precautions had to be taken so that the other sadhus would not find out what was going on.

In the revolutionary days Sri Aurobindo had given Amar the name "Gabriel". Motilal told Sri Aurobindo that Gabriel had come. "Good Heavens!" was Sri Aurobindo's response. All of them sat down to talk. For some time Sri Aurobindo had been receiving reports from Tanjore, Tiruchirapalli and other places that some Panjabi sadhus had been preaching his ideas and philosophy. He had been at a loss to know who these Panjabi sadhus could be. Now the question was solved. The sadhus were put up in a Dharamsala and that night Amar dined in Sri Aurobindo's house. Sri Aurobindo told Amar not to resume his revolutionary activities. He and his companions departed the next morning.

In January 1921 the Arya ceased publication. Only five issues of the seventh volume (including one for both November and

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December 1920) came out.

During the winter of 1921 Vattel, a cook who had been dismissed from service in Sri Aurobindo's house, decided to make the place too hot for Sri Aurobindo to stay in. He enlisted the help of a Mahomedan fakir who, using some process of black magic, caused stones to fall inside the house. The incident is described by Sri Aurobindo himself:

"The stone-throwing began unobtrusively with a few stones thrown at the guest-house kitchen – apparently from the terrace opposite, but there was no one there. The phenomenon began at the fall of dusk and continued at first for half an hour, but daily it increased in frequency, violence and the size of the stones, and the duration of the attack increased also, sometimes lasting for several hours until, towards the end, in the hour or half hour before midnight, it became a regular bombardment; and now it was no longer at the kitchen only but thrown in other places as well: for example, the outer verandah. At first we took it for a human-made affair and sent for the police, but the investi­gation lasted only for a short time and when one of the constables in the verandah got a stone whizzing unaccountably between his two legs, the police abandoned the case in a panic. We made our own investigations, but the places whence the stones seemed to be or might be coming were void of human stone-throwers, Finally, as if to put us kindly out of doubt, the stones began falling inside closed rooms; one of these – it was a huge one and I saw it immediately after it fell – reposed flat and com­fortable on a cane table as if that was its proper resting place. And so it went on till the missiles became murderous. Hitherto the stones had been harmless except for a daily battering of Bijoy's door – during the last days – which I watched the night before the end. They appeared in mid-air, a few feet above the ground, not coming from a distance but suddenly manifesting and, from the direction from which they flew, should have been thrown close in from the compound of the guest-house or the verandah itself, but the whole place was in clear light and I saw that there was no human being there nor could have been. At last the semi-idiot boy servant who was the centre of the attack and was sheltered in Bijoy's room under his protection, began to be severely hit and was bleeding from a wound by stones materialising inside the closed room. I went in at Bijoy's call and saw the last

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stone fall on the boy: Bijoy and he were sitting side by side and the stone was thrown at them in front but there was no one visible to throw it – the two were alone in the room. So unless it was Well's Invisible Man !

"So far we had only been watching or scouting around, but this was a little too much, it was becoming dangerous and something had to be done about it. The Mother, from her knowledge of the process of these things, decided that the process here must depend on a nexus between the boy servant and the house, so if the nexus were broken and the servant separated from the house, the stone-throwing would cease. We sent him away to Hrishikesh's place and immediately the whole phenomenon ceased; not a single stone was thrown after that and peace reigned."^¹

The phenomenon was witnessed by Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Bijoy, Amrita, Satyen, Hrishikesh Kanjilal and Upendranath Bannerji. Upen, who did not believe in the existence of occult forces or in the possibility of materialisation, went out on the terrace with a lantern and a lathi looking for the persons responsible for the stone-throwing. He found no one and the stones went on falling without interruption.

In the year 1921 collective meditation was begun. At four in the evening the inmates of the house sat with Sri Aurobindo on the verandah of 41, Rue Francois Martin.

Motilal Roy came to Pondicherry in 1921. He had remained in Chandernagore after taking his spiritual initiation from Sri Aurobindo there in 1910. Between 1910 and 1916 he rendered financial assistance to Sri Aurobindo. People from Calcutta, Uttarpara, Falta and East Bengal who were sympathetic to revolutionary nationalism or who had a regard for Sri .Aurobindo found it easy to render economic help through Motilal. They contacted him and he remitted the sums to Sri Aurobindo. After 1914 a centre of collective life under the inspiration of Sri Aurobindo, called the Prabartak Samgha, had taken form around Motilal. All Bengali books and many English books connected with Sri Aurobindo as well as the two journals Prabartak and The Standard Bearer were being published by the Prabartak Samgha.

Motilal and others had been expecting that when Sri Aurobindo

^¹ Dilip Kumar Roy, Among the Great (Bombay: Jaico Publishing House, 1950), pp. 337-39: See Appendix II, pp. 306-08.

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returned to British India to start his work in the external field he would make Bengal his centre of operations. It seemed natural that he would begin his work from the centre at Chandernagore. Sri Aurobindo would be the knowledge-aspect and Motilal the practical or Karma-aspect.

Sri Aurobindo called Motilal to Pondicherry for intense spiritual sadhana in order to bring about the transformation of his nature. Motilal seems to have stayed at 2, Line Beach; Sri Aurobindo made one of his rare visits outside his house to visit Motilal at this place. During his stay in Pondicherry Motilal was apprehensive that the Samgha which he had started would not be able to carry on in his absence. Motilal, it may be said, had great attraction for and attachment to his work. While he was in Pondicherry he received letters from Chandernagore, especially from his disciple Arun Chandra Dutt, urging him to return. The question of whether he should return became acute as 15 August, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, approached. Where should he celebrate the fifteenth, in Pondicherry or in Chandernagore? Motilal asked Sri Aurobindo what he should do. Sri Aurobindo told him to look within himself and get the inner guidance. After a few days Motilal had an experience in which he saw a black form of himself attacking him. When he met Sri Aurobindo he asked him the significance of the experience. Sri Aurobindo told him that the significance was clear.

Motilal and his wife, who had come to Pondicherry with him, were in a fix. They could not decide whether they should go to Chandernagore or not. Then a telegram from Arun Chandra arrived: "Come immediately otherwise eternal separation." Motilal was very disturbed. It was the night of 10 August. There was no possibility of seeing Sri Aurobindo. Motilal wrote a letter to him and left by the night train to Chandernagore.

The author came to Pondicherry in March 1921. At that time he asked Sri Aurobindo about the outer form that his work would take. He told the author, "I have not yet arrived at the final aspect of the external work. But if you want to have some idea, you may see the work that is being done in Chandernagore by some people under my inspiration. I send my help to the leaders from here." Following Sri Aurobindo's suggestion the author visited Chandernagore on 15 August 1921 and met Moti Babu. Sri Aurobindo, in response to a request from Motilal, had sent

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his blessings in the form of a telegram: "Wishing you descent of Truth and Light." During his interview with Moti Babu the author mentioned that he had been asked by Sri Aurobindo to get an idea of the form of his work from the Samgha at Chandernagore. Motilal told the author, "Whenever I concentrate I see three lights like electric bulbs. I work with the help of the inspiration of this Light." He told him also that there had been a spiritual difference between himself and Sri Aurobindo.

Motilal's departure from Pondicherry was not the only cause of difficulties. He was one of those who did not like the change­over of the Mother, a foreigner, to the house at 41, Rue Francois Martin, although it may be that he was not conscious of his dislike at that time. Those were days of great spiritual upheavals.

The inner spiritual connection between the Chandernagore centre and Sri Aurobindo was gradually cut off. In later years Motilal tried three or four times to obtain an interview with him, but Sri Aurobindo, not seeing any real change in Motilal, never granted his request. "Commune, Culture and Commerce" became the motto of the Prabartak Samgha. Whatever spirituality there may be in the organisation owes its origin to Sri Aurobindo, but the present Prabartak Samgha is the creation of Motilal Roy and his associates. This explanation is considered necessary because the Prabartak Samgha is a well-known organisation in Bengal.

In 1926 a sadhak asked Sri Aurobindo apropos of the Sangha, "When you spoke of vital forces coming in the way of the Supramental work, I suppose you had in mind the work at Chandernagore?' Is that true?" Sri Aurobindo replied to him:

"At that time I had some construction in my mind. Of course there was something behind it which I knew to be true. Even then I was not sure that it would work out successfully. Anyway, I wanted to give it a trial and so I gave it to Motilal. He took up the idea and, as you know, he took it up with all his vital being and in an egoistic way and so the vital forces found their chance. They tried to take possession of the work. As I told you it is only after several such lessons that I had to give up the idea of rushing into work. This yoga is not a cut-out system. It is a growth by experience and one has to grow by experience."^¹

.^¹ Cf. A. B. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1959), p. 186.

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In 1921 Arun Chandra Dutt of Chandernagore came to Pondicherry. He stayed for some months at 41, Rue Francois Martin. Sri Aurobindo's sister Sarojini came with Sudhamayi Sen and Pratap Sen the same year. Sri Aurobindo went to the station to receive them. He gave Sarojini publication rights to his book War and Self-Determination in order to help her finan­cially. Another visitor this year was Kumud Bandhu Bagchi of Calcutta. He was a sadhak who later became an advocate. A photograph of Sri Aurobindo, Bagchi and Amrita was taken. Two other sadhaks, Kodanda Ram Aiyya from Andhra and Ramchandran, a Tamilian, came and stayed in Pondicherry at their own expense, keeping in touch with Sri Aurobindo. Other visitors were Mrinalini Chattopadhyaya, Kamala Devi Chatto-padhyaya and Rameshwar De. Sarala Devi Chowdhurani and Colonel Joshua Wedgewood, a member of Parliament, came to Pondicherry and met Sri Aurobindo sometime between 1921 and 1926.

There was once some complaint about the food – especially about its taste. When the matter was taken to Sri Aurobindo he said to the sadhak: "You should have no preference for food of a particular taste. There is no truth in such preferences and demands. You have a body, and you have to keep it in good condition. Lower quality or kind of food would be harmful to the health of the body, therefore you should take good food. But good food means food necessary for the body – not what the tongue likes." Sri Aurobindo himself took whatever food was given to him. He never said anything about its taste. The cooking, in those days, was done by Paria cooks and the food often used to taste terrible. Sometimes one of the inmates would remark after a meal, "Today there was no salt in the curry." Sri Aurobindo would answer, "Yes, today there was no salt." It is not that he was not aware of the taste, but that he had by sadhana cultivated perfect samata, equality, even in his sense ot taste. He used to say that it was possible, to experience equal delight – sama ananda – from all kinds of tastes.

During 1921 the daily routine was as follows: a breakfast of tea, three slices of toast and butter at 7.00; before 11.30 everyone to take his bath, Sri Aurobindo taking his after all the others; lunch between 11.30 and 12.30; afternoon tea, prepared by the inmates of the house in turn, at 3.30; dinner, generally consisting

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of fish curry, rice, curd and bread, at 9.30. On 1 January 1922 the Mother took entire charge of the management of Sri Aurobindo's house, including the kitchen. There was a complete change in the routine. Arrangements were made upstairs for Sri Aurobindo's bath.

During 1922 a visitor from Bhavnagar named Narandas Sangani came to Pondicherry and asked for an appointment to meet Sri Aurobindo. He had brought some fruits as an offering. Sri Aurobindo could not find time to see him. The visitor became very angry. He began mixing with the secret police agents and tried to spread false rumours about Sri Aurobindo and the inmates of the house. He even tried threats, but ultimately departed. He went to Raman Maharshi at Tiruvanamalai and asked him about meat-eating, with particular reference to Sri Aurobindo. The Maharshi rarely replied to questions put to him by casual visitors, but to Narandas he said, "It is only a question of habit and custom."

In July 1922, in a letter sent through Amrita, Sri Aurobindo stated that he would not remain in Pondicherry for more than two years. The idea that he would be going back to British India was still current in the house.

In September or October Sri Aurobindo changed his residence from 41, Rue Francois Martin to 9, Rue de la Marine. After this time 41, Rue Francois Martin was called the "Guest House" On 18 November a letter was written to C. R. Das.

During 1922 the fissure between the Prabartak Samgha and Sri Aurobindo had grown wider. In 1923 there were further differences over the question whether Supennind can be attained by following the movement of Nature. Motilal Roy sent a letter with Arun Chandra Dutt asking for an interview.' There was no tangible result of this.

Sri Aurobindo told the author in 1923: "I myself got the idea of the Supramental after ten years of sadhana. The Supramental does not come in the beginning but at the end of sadhana. It is a progressive Truth."

In April a letter was sent to Barin at the sadhana-centre which he had set up in Bhawanipore. The letter dealt with management of the centre and the sadhana of its members. There were some suggestions for collecting funds. The same month a letter was sent to Rajani Kanta Palit about the illness of his child Rothin and about Palit's own sadhana.

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The informal talks in the evening with Sri Aurobindo, which had begun in the house at 41, Rue Francois Martin, continued in the new house.

"When Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved to 9, Rue de la Marine in 1922 the same routine of informal evening sittings after meditation continued. The author came to Pondicherry for Sadhana in the beginning of 1923. He kept notes on the important talks he had with the four or five disciples who were already there. Besides, the author used to take detailed notes of the evening talks which we all had with the Master. They were not intended by him to be noted down. The author took them down because of the importance he felt about everything connected with him, no matter how insignificant to the outer view. The author also felt that everything he did would acquire for those who would come to know his mission a very great significance.

"As years passed the evening sittings went on changing their time and often those disciples who came from outside for a temporary stay for sadhana were allowed to join them. And, as the number of sadhaks practising the yoga increased, the evening sittings also became more full, the small verandah upstairs in the main building was found insufficient. Members of the house­hold would gather every day at the fixed time with some sense of expectancy and start chatting in low tones. Sri Aurobindo used to come last and it was after his coming that the session would really commence.

"He came dressed as usual in dhoti, part of which was used by him to cover the upper part of his body. Very rarely he came out with chaddar or shawl and then it was 'in deference to the climate', as he sometimes put it. At times for minutes he would be gazing at the sky from a small opening at the top of the grass-curtains that covered the verandah of the upstairs in 9, Rue de la Marine. How much these sittings were dependent on him may be gathered from the fact that there were days when more than three-fourths of the time passed in complete silence without any outer suggestion from him, or there was only an abrupt Yes or No to all attempts at drawing him out in conversation. And even when he participated in the talk one always felt that his voice was that of one who does not let his whole being flow into his words; there was a reserve and what was left unsaid was perhaps

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more than what was spoken.  What was spoken was what he felt necessary to speak:

"Very often some news-item in the daily newspaper, town gossip, or some interesting letter received either by him or by a disciple, or a question from one of the group, occasionally some remark or query from himself would set the ball rolling for the talk. The whole thing was so informal that one could never predict the turn the conversation would take. The whole house therefore was in a mood to enjoy the freshness and the delight of meeting the unexpected. There were peals of laughter and light talk, jokes and criticism which might be called personal – there was seriousness and earnestness in abundance.

"These sittings, in fact, furnished Sri Aurobindo with an occasion to admit and feel the outer atmosphere and that of the group living with him. It brought to him the much-needed direct contact of the mental and vital make-up of the disciples, enabling him to act on the atmosphere in general and on the individual in particular. He could thus help to remould their mental make­up by removing the limitations of their minds and opinions, and correct temperamental tendencies and formations. Thus, these sittings contributed at least partly to the creation of an atmosphere amenable to the working of the Higher Consciousness. Far more important than the actual talk and its content was the personal contact, the influence of the Master, and the divine atmosphere he emanated; for through his outer personality it was the Divine Consciousness that he allowed to act. All along behind the outer manifestation that appeared human, there was the influence and presence of the Divine."^¹

+

1923

9 April. Talk about the political situation and village reconstruction.

11 April. Talk with K. Rajangam about sadhana.

13 April. Talk about Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, about Lele's gurubhai

.^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, pp. 9-11. [Added to this edition of The Life of Sri Aurobindo by the editors]

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(co-disciple) Narayan Swami and about the Duttatraya Yoga. Sri Aurobindo described his own experience at Baroda with Lele.

14 April. Suggestions about sadhana; a letter from Natwarlal Bharatia of Surat; conversation about suggestion, intuition and inspiration: the difference of the three functions. A letter to Barin.

17 April. W. W. Pearson came from Shantiniketan. Talk about Shantiniketan.

19 April. Talk on non-violence and Hindu-Muslim unity.

20 April. Talk with the agents of the Prabartak Publishing House, Chandernagore, and the Arya  Publishing House, Calcutta. These two firms were handling the publication of Sri Aurobindo's books.

22 April. Suggestions about sadhana. Talk on the Prabartak Samgha and Motilal Roy.

26 April. A letter from Bepin Chandra Pal to Sri Aurobindo about poetry.

27 April. Remarks on a letter of Lele to Natwarlal Bharatia.

28 April. Talk about the Ramakrishna Mission in America and about spirituality and the external world; suggestions about sadhana.

30 April. A letter from the Arunchala Mission of Bengal.

2 May. Talk on the Prabartak Samgha.

8 May. Talk on the Bardoli programme.

13 May. A letter to Motilal Roy; talk on the letter; a letter from Barin; an article by Upen Bannerji in the Bijoli.

15 May. Talk on communism in Russia.

16 May. Talk about Nevinson's impression of Sri Aurobindo; letter from Robert Bridges to Sri Aurobindo, asking him to recommend the Reforms for acceptance. Talk on K. G. Deshpande's Sadhakashram at Andheri.

18 May. An article by G. V. Subha Rao in the Swaraj of Madras comparing Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo.

20 May. Talk on Theosophy; a letter from Barin: meeting of Barin and Motilal.

26 May. Suggestions about sadhana; reading of the photographs of prospective sadhaks; talk on the conditions for the descent of the supermind; samatā and hold on life; relation between guru and disciple; the grace of the guru:

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Question: "Is there anything like grace – what is called ahaitukī krpā? Can the personal side of the guru dispense Divine Grace?"

Sri Aurobindo: "It depends upon who is the guru. You don't mean to say that the personal side of the guru decides what is to be given to the disciple voluntarily and independently of the Divine? Even when it appears to take that form it is something else that decides the thing. . . . All your idea of patita-pāvana and adhama uddhāra means only this: however bad or seemingly wicked the external life may be, yet the man can be saved if he has something in him which can receive the Truth."^¹

30 May. A dream experience of Sri Aurobindo:

"Some dreams have got meaning down to their very details. . . . "There was a scientist and a magician and they both wanted to rescue a girl from alien enemies. The magician was the psychic and mental man who knows the truth but does not know the concretisation of the same. He has the grasp of the spirit but not the process and details.

"First the magician tried to save the girl. He failed. Then the scientist tried. He found himself baffled by the opponents as they (the Dasyus – powers of the vital plane) were not struck down by the blows of the sword or anything else. They were all going to some King's capital. Then they fled and the girl disappeared. The scientist was a geologist who had made the discovery that the strata of the earth must be measured from the top and not from the bottom.

"When the enemies fled they left their things behind and did not like to go to the capital wounded.

"The scientist then found, among things left, a big book on geology – half as big as the room! – and he found the girl just behind the cover and the pages!

"Thus the secret of earth, the physical nature, was symbolically given.”^²

1 June. Talk about being on the vital plane and about the visit of the Prince of Wales to India. Sri Aurobindo's remarks on Britain's offer to the Congress.

5 June. Visit of C. R. Das. Das had an interview with Sri Aurobindo at 3.30; the Prabartak Samgha, Motilal Roy, the

^¹ Cf. Ibid., pp. 94-96.

² Cf. Ibid., pp. 208-09.

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present political situation and Das's own spiritual life were the main topics of conversation. There was also some talk about the Swarajya Party: Sri Aurobindo gave his support to the for­mation of the party. Sri Aurobindo was ready to help Das in his spiritual life, if Das was willing to leave politics and devote himself exclusively to sadhana. As Das was not able to take up that course, Sri Aurobindo advised him to continue his polit­ical work and attend at the same time to his spiritual life as much as he could.

10 June. Translation of Vedic riks. In the evening talk on the Veda, Sri Aurobindo said: "I wrote The Secret of the Veda in a great hurry and it requires a revision. If I had not written it under the pressure of the Arya I would not have written it at all. I had to work much through my intuition and it was not easy to make it work."

12 June. Talk on the Maruts, the storm-gods of the Veda, and on Agni, the divine Flame. Sri Aurobindo read some riks.

13 June. Talk on the Duttatreya Yoga, a system current in Maharashtra, and on Mahatma Gandhi.

18 and 19 June. Talks on Jain philosophy and the physical sciences.

20 June. Sri Aurobindo spoke about some of his own spiritual experiences and about some of the Mother's experiences.

23 June. Talk on non-violence and on self-purification.

26 June. Talk on Hindu-Muslim unity; non-violence; vegetarian and meat diets.

1 August. Meeting with Arun Chandra Dutt.

2 August. A letter from Motilal Roy was read out. There was talk about it.

5 August. Talk on samatā.

6 August. When asked about celebrating the fifteenth August Sri Aurobindo said: "What is the significance of the fifteenth? I want to make it as ordinary as any other day. What has it to do with the stomach? It has an inner significance, and if there is a way of celebrating it in a fitting manner I have no objection. I do not want any sort of vital manifestation on that day, especially after I have taken a new turn in yoga."

7 August. Ramji Hansraj of Amreli came and met Sri Auro­bindo. Talk on true and false intuition.

8 August. Velji Thakersi Shah of Bidada, Cutch, met Sri

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Aurobindo. Talk on non-violence and Ireland.

9 August. Gokuldas of Cutch met Sri Aurobindo. Talk on personal aim in works and spiritual action; comment about celebrating the fifteenth August: "It is by living the Truth that we can celebrate it."

14 August. Motilal Mehta of Bombay met Sri Aurobindo.

15 August. Barada Charan, a yogi of Bengal, had an experience involving Sri Aurobindo. Talk about celebrating the fifteenth August. The food was as usual. Remarks on the difficulty of the supramental descent into the physical. Evening talk on the Supermind.

20 August. Barin arrived from Calcutta. Talk about the Bhawanipore centre, the Bijoli newspaper and collecting money.

12 September. Talk on Islamic culture.

25 September. A telegram from C. R. Das asking for a message for the Forward; a letter from Sri Aurobindo giving three reasons why he would not give the message: (1) he had to keep silent over public questions and did not want to make an exception as it would begin a new line, (2) other papers might make similar requests and (3) there would be a disturbance to the silent help he was giving to the Swarajya Party.

28 September. Talk on true attitude in sadhana.

October. An interview with G. V. Subbarao:

"It was in October, 1923, that I first saw Sri Aurobindo in his Ashram, at Pondicherry. He was seated on a small cushioned chair, in a rather narrow verandah on the first floor of his house in which he lived for over forty years. There were about a dozen chairs in the room and a small table in front, with papers, flowers and a few books on it. There was a small time-piece to indicate the progress of time, because everything here must be done according to precision and order. Sri Aurobindo was dazzling bright in colour – it was said that, in his earlier years, he was more dark than brown and had a long, rather thin beard which was well-dressed with streaks of white strewn here and there. The figure was slender and not much taller than Gandhiji's but a bit more fleshy. The eyes were big and elongated to a point and their looks were keen and piercing like shells. He was dressed in fine cotton – not khaddar evidently. He had only two clothes on, one a dhoti and the other an upper cloth worn in the traditional

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fashion'of an upaveetam, i.e., right arm and shoulder exposed. The lower part of the legs was slender, feminine and the feet were hidden in two small slippers.

"His voice low, but quite audible, quick and musical. He was fast in his flow of speech, clear like a crystal and analytical to a degree. In a fifteen-minute talk, he gave me his philosophy in a nutshell. He was simple and courteous, outspoken and free in his interrogations. It seemed as though he could know a man by a sweep of his eyes, and read men's minds from a survey of their photographs. He appeared as one highly cognizant of the value of time; and at the end of the appointed fifteen minutes, he stood up looking at the clock, as if intimating that I should retire. He was kind throughout, as to a child, but I could discern enough in his demeanour to conclude that he could be stem and imperious when required. To his disciples, he was loving like a Guru, but demanded absolute spiritual surrender before one can be admitted to his heart's domain.

"Sri Aurobindo had long been absorbed in a Sādhanā for Yoga Siddhi, which, he believed, was destined to form a new order of life in the world. He had always seen it, though less clearly and dynamically at first, that a higher spiritual power was neces­sary to solve the moral, material, social and even political problems of the world. Just as Gandhiji believed in an inner, moral power or soul-force as essential for the redemption of the world, similarly Sri Aurobindo believed that a higher spiritual power was abso­lutely necessary and must be brought down on earth to help the regeneration of this world.

"This position Sri Aurobindo realised as early as 1907-1908; but necessarily, his realisation was yet vague and incomplete; the nature, conditions and circumstances of that higher power had to be explored; and the basis, knowledge, and methods to bring it down on to this earth had to be determined. For this purpose, a complete withdrawal from all external activity was necessary, at least for a time.

"Sri Aurobindo's letters dealing with Yoga – especially his instructions to his disciples at this early period – reveal him as the master-doctor, diagnosing in an instant, the spiritual nature and conditions of the spiritual disease in men and things even through photographs. This man, he says of one, is a born Yogi. In another case, he says: This man possesses a too keen

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psychic sensitiveness; as such, he ought not to go on with psychic experiments at once. In a case of psychic disorder, he wrote to his brother, Barindra: 'You are inexperienced. You do not know how to deal with him. He needs an absolutely quiet and careful treatment. I am too far off here; but be writing to me often.' When once there was a delay in communication, he fell upon his brother like an avalanche and wrote: 'This sort of evading instructions won't do with me. In my supramental state, every­thing must be done in order and with precision.' The great care with which he was attending to the distant invalid was quite re­markable. On one occasion, he was recommending an ordinary medical treatment, on another a change of place or cessation of psychic exercises etc. Now he was writing letters, now sending telegrams, now angry with his brother, now suggesting a change of treatment – but ever anxious about the distant invalid, as if he were a very near relative. He sent a telegram to one place; but not being sure that it would reach the addressee properly, he was not satisfied till he sent another to a second address, to make sure of its reaching. Speaking about some visions, he says that these things are of common occurrence. 'Mira had them a hundred times.' This Mira seems to be an extraordinary lady; and even in 1923, she was said to be the best of his disciples and was consulted by Sri Aurobindo on many affairs, including Yoga. No wonder, therefore, that she has been for a long time the ac­knowledged Mother of the Ashram."^¹

19 October. Manilal, a young man from a place near Patna, came without permission; long talk about Sri Aurobindo's refusal to see him.

6 November. Letter to Ramlal Surati of Bombay.

8 November. Meditation stopped on account of an inflammation of the Mother's knee.

22 November. Jivanlal, an aluminium merchant, came to see Sri Aurobindo.

23 November. Hints about sadhana to a disciple. Talk about the mental, vital and physical consciousness.

20 December. Reply to a letter of Ketkar.

.^¹ G. V Subbarao, from a lecture delivered at the Eswara Library, Kakinada, and published in The Sunday Times (Madras), 6 May 1951.

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23 December. Interview with R. B. Athavale; suggestions about sadhana; remarks on humanity, Mayavada and the conditions for Sri Aurobindo's Yoga.

26 December. A letter from Natwarlal Bharatia about Lele, giving facts about an incident in Bombay.

27 December. Suggestions to Athavale about sadhana: how to take spiritual help.

The number of disciples this year varied between eleven and fifteen.

1924

1 January. Raghunath P. Thaker of Virpur near Rajkot saw Sri Aurobindo. He stayed for a few days.

3 January. Amritlal Seth, the editor of Saurashtra, met Sri Aurobindo. He asked Sri Aurobindo about his personal difficulties. The remedy suggested was mental self-control and the strengthening of the will-power.

5 January. Apropos of Raghunath Thaker's idea that siddhi can be attained by trātaka (gazing fixedly at a point without winking), Sri Aurobindo said, "It can give you clarity of vision and help you to open your consciousness to the sight of subtle levels of consciousness. I think there is no more utility to trātaka than that."

6 January. Some men who had attended the Kakinada session of the Congress came to Pondicherry. They had a row with the French police while registering their names. Some members of the group were known to inmates of Sri Aurobindo's house and there was a chance that Sri Aurobindo might become involved in the trouble. He said, "This is an effort of the outside forces to disturb the atmosphere which I have established here with great difficulty,"

22 January. The group meditation and evening sitting were discontinued. When asked about the group meditation, Sri Auro­bindo said, "It always requires an individual who can create the necessary spiritual atmosphere. That atmosphere is due to his presence; it cannot be created by effort." One of the reasons for stopping the collective meditation was that "it obliges Sri Aurobindo to descend lower in the consciousness." It was considered better that Sri Aurobindo be allowed to complete the perfection of his physical consciousness; from this all the sadhaks

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would stand to gain. Many sadhaks were disturbed because both the collective activities – the meditation and the evening talks – were discontinued. Tuesdays and Saturdays were set apart for some of them for help with meditation. Others were assigned mornings for personal interviews; either Thursdays and Saturdays or Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

24 January. Interview of Dilip Kumar Roy with Sri Aurobindo.

30 January. The evening sitting was resumed.

31 January. A letter from Kirparam of Agra: reference to the Radhaswami Sampradaya, description of his experiences, request for guidance. A letter to Veiji Thakersi Shah of Bidada, Cutch.

February (beginning). Surajmal Lallubhai Zaveri and Dhurandhar, a sadhaka from Bombay, met Sri Aurobindo and spoke about their spiritual efforts.

Mahatma Gandhi was released from jail. He made a public statement which Sri Aurobindo called "a historic statement".

8 February. A letter to Kesarlal Dixit granting permission to come.

9 February. Talk on non-violence.

15 February. Haribhai Zhaverbhai Amin of Broach came to Pondicherry. He met Sri Aurobindo on the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth. Evening talk on Jacob Boehme's Suprasensual Life.

22 February. Discussion about the reforms granted to India by the Ramsay Macdonald cabinet. 26 February. Talk about the supramental perfection. Hints to a sadhak about taste and about reading. Sri Aurobindo said that if he wanted to read a book he certainly could do so, but not because he could not control his mind. "That is real freedom in action. Yoga means mastery over the lower nature and establish­ing the action of the Higher Nature in its place. One has to offer his free self to the Divine; afterwards the Divine will chose the action in you."

7 March. Talk on Hindu-Muslim unity and Khilafat. Discussion about the poetry of Tagore and of Harin Chattopadhyaya and about a letter of Mahatma Gandhi to Mahomed Ali.

8 March. A letter from Kesarlal Dixit about coming to the Ashram; another from Rajani Kanta Palit about the illness of his wife.

9 March, Talk on Mahatma Gandhi's ideas on art.

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12 March. In the Delhi Assembly Sir Harisingh Gaur gave his vote against the Nationalist Party! In the evening talk Sri Aurobindo gave this reminiscence about Gaur: "He was one of the students with me in England. I heard him in the Indian Majlis and in the College Union. I wonder if he had anything serious in him? But he was clever and spoke well. Once during a speech he said, 'The Egyptians rose up like a man', refering to their national spirit. This was repeated two or three times, so someone from the audience asked, 'But how many times did they sit down? "

26 March. Talk on the aim and method of the supramental yoga and on the Avatar (incarnation). These talks throw light on the aim current and the state of sadhana of the Supramental Yoga. "This Yoga was not practised before", he said, "all the efforts were like preparatory movements. Besides, if someone ever attempted it, the continuity was not maintained. It has been lost in the lapse of Time."

Question: "Could it be that the Supermind descended in the past at some time and again retired to its own higher plane after­wards?"

Sri Aurobindo: "If an Avatar (incarnation) came, it was a promise. The Truth was not made a fact in Matter. I can say this that it may have been tried but it was never made a dynamic factor in the world. The difficulty in bringing down the Truth is not so much in the upper physical layers as in gross Matter – the most material plane. The Earth-law has to be changed and a new atmosphere has to be created. The question is not merely to have knowledge, power, etc. but to bring them down.

"People have very simple ideas about these things – but it is not so simple as it is thought. It is a very complex movement. There is the Truth above, when you go on increasing in know­ledge and power etc., you go on getting above, higher and higher but the thing does not come down at once. It comes down when the whole is ready. If once it could be made the law of the Earth-plane, then it would endure. It is difficult to make it flow down so long as there is a mixed movement."

Question: "Do you believe that this work will be done this time?"

Sri Aurobindo: "I know that it can be done; but I don't want to prophesy. I cannot say 'it will be done'. But I can say that

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something will be done this time. The doubt is there somewhere in the mental – some uncertainty. The whole thing is ready behind. If it were a certainty on the mental plane then the thing would have been achieved. When there is the certainty there is no room for struggle. Till now it was not done, probably because the hostile forces were very strong."^¹

4 April. Talk on the supramental yoga.

5 April. Talk on Bahaism; descent of the Supermind into the physical; powers of disembodied spirits.

9 April. Talk on Mahatma Gandhi and non-violence.

14 April. Haribhai Amin of Broach, accompanied by an English­man, Mr. Wainscott, came and met Sri Aurobindo.

20 April. Talk on the senses. A certain M. Valiant, an Indian French citizen working at Karikal, met Sri Aurobindo.

24 April. Talk on the book Eyeless Sight by Joules Remain.

8 May. Talk on Gandhism and on Deva and Asura.

20 May. M. Valiant met Sri Aurobindo and asked his guidance in connection with the French elections, which were approaching. Talk on non-violence and on "Sapta-chatushtaya".

7 June. Talk on the resolution of the Congress about compulsory spinning.

12 June. Talk about publishing The Future Poetry. Mr. Thakur Dutt, an Indian settled in America, sent Rs.1000 as a token of his regard. His wife Maud Sharma sent her poems for Sri Aurobindo to see. Talk on Harin Chattopadhyaya's poetry. A letter of G. V. Subbarao to Sri Aurobindo about the visit of Devdas-Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's son, to Pondicherry.

17 June. Talk on passive resistance. Letter from Suren, a sadhaka from Chittagong, asking permission to come to Pondi­cherry after selling all his lands.

19 June. Talk on the difference between Satyagraha and passive resistance.

22 June. Talk on the success of khadi and on art.

2 July. Talk on Daridra-Narayan and on charkha.

4 July. Talk on a public letter of Mahatma Gandhi, "Defeated and Humbled".

From 6 July the evening sittings began to get late.

.^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, pp. 126-28.

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8 July. Talk, on the question: Is poetry an ideal of Indian culture?

10 July. Discussion of some philosophical points. Talk on Nirvikalpa Samadhi. A letter from Tarak Nath Das; a reply sent explaining his experiences.

A reminiscence of Sri Aurobindo's jail life: "I wanted to get rid of cruelty, violence, etc. following the conventional method of Yoga. . . . For eight or ten days all kinds of cruel and violent things went on happening outside and rising from within. When the mind stopped reacting to them they all ceased."^¹

28 July. Kapali Shastri met Sri Aurobindo. Kapali noticed, as the author had previously, the remarkable change in the colour of Sri Aurobindo's skin. Talk about the transformation of Nature and the necessity of bringing down the divine consciousness into the physical. Sri Aurobindo said that only two powers can give the Supermind: Sri Aurobindo or the Higher Power herself.

2 August. A letter from Motilal Nehru asking Sri Aurobindo to contribute an article to his paper published from Allahabad.

3 August. A telegram from Natwarlal Bharatia of Surat. A letter sent in reply.

15 August.   Celebration of Sri Aurobindo's birthday. The verandah where he sat was decorated with jasmine garlands and with lotuses which had been brought from a long distance. He came out at 9.15 in the morning and again at four o'clock in the afternoon. In the afternoon he remained silent for ten or fifteen minutes and then spoke for thirty or thirtyfive minutes. At 6.30 the evening sitting was held as usual. Questions about his life-work were asked. The number of disciples present was between twenty and twenty-two.

The following impressions of the day are reproduced from the records of a disciple.

"Who can describe this day? Nothing can be added by the colours of imagination, poetic similes, and loaded epithets. It is enough to say ‘It was the 15th August.' No other day can come up to it in the depth and intensity of spiritual action, the ascending movement of the flood of emotions, and the way in which each individual here was bathing in the luminous atmosphere.

^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series, p. 148.

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"It is the supreme sign of the Master to assume all possible relations with his disciples, make them real and concrete. Each disciple knows him as his own, and each the Master accepts as his. Each believes the Master loves him most and it is true that he loves each the most. This feeling is not an illusion or delusive self-hypnotism, but quite real. The spontaneous dynamic law of the Supreme Truth which he embodies, is love – divine Love.

"In all the inmates, the delight of Surrender is overflowing – the bliss of surrender, its sparkle pervades all. All is given up, everything is surrendered. How free you feel! How light and unburdened you feel! There is someone to take up the whole of your burden – there is a power of Supreme Love. Him you can trust implicitly. You need only to give up your little self, the rest is his work, you have no worry, no anxiety! No effort – only, the way of loving surrender! How easy!

"Every face is beaming with the joy of surrender, everyone is happy and overflowing with joy. And yet there is no external reason, no outer materials for this intense joy. From where flows this unlimited Delight! They say the Master was not in such a happy mood these two or three years.

"From early morning the Ashram is humming with various activities: decorations, flowers, garlands, food, bath, etc. All are eager to go to the Master, for his Darshan. As the time passes there is a tide in the sea of rising emotion. It is 'Darshan' – we see him everyday, but to-day it is 'Darshan'! To-day each sees him individually, one after another. In the midst of these multiple activities the consciousness gets concentrated. To-day is 'Darshan' – not of a human being but of some Supreme Divinity. To-day is the rare chance of seeing the Divine.

"There he sits – in the royal chair in the verandah – royal and majestic. In the very posture there is divine self-confidence. In the heart of the Supreme Master, the great Yogin – a sea of emotion is heaving – is it a flood that mounts or a flood that is coming down on humanity? Those alone who have experienced it can know something of its divinity. Those who have bathed in it once can never come out of that ocean. He sits there – with pink and white lotus garlands. It is the small flower-token of the offering by the disciples. Hearts throb, prayers, requests, emotions pour forth – and a flood of blessings pours down carrying all of them away in their speed. Lack of faith, all doubts

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get assurance. All human needs the Divine fulfils and, after ful­filling, his grace overflows. Love and grace flow on undiminished. The look! enrapturing and captivating eyes! Who can ever forget Pouring love and grace and ineffable divinity? If the transcendent Divinity is not here, where else can it be?

"He is usually an embodiment of knowledge. But to-day he is different. He is all love. Here is the Great Poet and the Supreme Lover incarnate! It is inquiring, loving and blessing in a glance! Man does wonders with his eyes and looks, but to do so much, divinity is needed.

"The question is what to ask, love or blessings! Or should one pray for love and blessings both and in addition for the ac­ceptance of unworthy ones like us. Standing on the brink of Eternity the soul saw his dreamy and loving eyes, then was it captured for ever. The inexplicable mystery of divine love was here a tangible experience! Who can explain a fact? A fact is a fact and an experience an experience. There is no explanation possible.

"'What should I give him?' is the question of the mind. ‘What should I ask?' is the question of the heart. Both refuse to answer and both are unanswered. The mind feels the insignificance of its offering, and remains mute. The heart is ashamed of its beggar's attitude, or even feels its pride wounded. How to solve this pleasant embarrassment? The beggar heart carries the day. There is even a kind of curiosity to find out how one is accepted, what happens to oneself.

"But all this was before Darshan. As one actually stands in front all curiosity, all pride, all thoughts, all questions, all resolu­tions are swept away in some terrific divine Niagara. Thou embodiment of Love Supreme! What transparency! In the heart of the Supreme Master also an ocean of emotion is heaving. The heart melts and falls at his feet without knowing, it surrenders itself! Where is here a place for speech! There is only one speech – the language of the body and its flexion, that of the prostration of the body in the act of surrender, the throbbing of the heart and the flow of tears from the eyes! What a peace, pregnant with divinity! What beauty, this experience!

"Everyone is trying to maintain Samata – equality. Everyone is quiet and is trying hard to remain calm. But to-day all the barriers of humanity are swept away by the flood of Divine Love.

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The soul has its Samata – its equality – but the whole nature is in agitation as unknown waters have rushed into it. Knowledge is laid on the shelf – it is all a flood of love. To-day the soul has received the certitude of the Divine's victory as it had never done before.

"In the dining room all are gathered, bathing and bathed in delight. Everyone is happy – supremely happy – in perfect ecstasy. To-day there is an empire of Delight! 0 Artist! what a marvellous art! So much of delight – for everyone! – delight that fills each one and overflows.

"At 4 p.m. all gather at the usual place – the verandah. All sit there full of hope in silence; one or two whisper to each other. The mind of the company is silently repeating: 'When will he come? May he come.' It is 4.15; the old familiar and yet new 'tick' behind the door! Slowly the door opens: The Master steps out first, behind him the Mother in a white creamy sari with a broad red border. He sat in his usual wide Japanese chair. The Mother sat on the right side on a small stool. For a short time, about five minutes, there was complete silence!

"Then he glanced at each one separately. The minutes were melting into the silence. There is again a wave of emotion in all, all bathe again in an ocean of some divine emotion. How wonderful if the whole of Eternity would flow in this experience! Time, poor Time and its flow are blamed by men. But where is the fault in the flow of time? If so much Love and such Divine Delight can have its play, let poor Time flow and have its Eternity! And let the world become divine! Another powerful aspiration that came to the surface was:

'Expression is not needed – let the whole of eternity flow away in this silence!'

"When the Master came for the evening sitting emanating joy he asked with a smile, 'What do you want to-day? – Silence or speech?' As if he had come to confer whatever boon we asked. For a time it was silence that reigned. Then from that silence a flow appeared to start. The hearts of the disciples were tip-toe with expectation, for to-day they were hearing not human speech but words from -the Divine. To hear with human ears the Lord speak! What a fulfilment!"

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The substance of what Sri Aurobindo spoke on 15 August 1924:

"It has become customary to expect some speech from me on this day. I prefer to communicate through the silent consciousness, because speech addresses itself to the mind while through the silent consciousness one can reach something deeper. We are practising together a yoga which is quite different in certain essentials from other methods which go by the same name. According to the old method you have to select the intellect, the emotional being or the will as the starting point or to differentiate between Purusha and Prakriti, the conscious soul and nature. By that we arrive at an Infinite of knowledge, an all-loving and all-beautiful Supreme or an Infinite Impersonal Will, or the Silent Brahman beyond our mind – intellect, emotional being, or will or our individual Purusha.

"Our yoga does not aim at an Impersonal Infinite of Knowledge, Will or Ananda but at the realization of a Supreme Being, an Infinite Knowledge which is beyond the limited infinity of human knowledge, an Infinite Power which is the source of our personal will and an Ananda which cannot be seized by the surface move­ment of emotions.

"I have said that the Supreme Being that we want to realize is not an impersonal Infinite but a Divine Personality; and in order to realize Him we have to grow conscious of our own true personality. You must know your own inner being. This Per­sonality is not the inner mental, the inner vital and the inner physical being and its consciousness as is many times wrongly described, but it is your true Being which is in direct communi­cation with the Highest. Man grows by gradual growth in nature and each has to realize his own Divine Person which is in the Supermind. Each is one with the Divine in essence but in nature each is a partial manifestation of the Supreme Being.

"This being the aim of our yoga we want to return upon life and transform it. The old yogas failed to transform life because they did not go beyond mind. They used to catch at spiritual experiences with the mind but when they came to apply them to life they reduced them to a mental formula. For

example, the mental experience of the Infinite or the application of the principle of universal Love.

"We have, therefore, to grow conscious on all the planes of

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our being, and to bring down the higher light, power and ananda to govern even the most external details of life. We must detach ourselves and observe all that is going on in the nature; not even the smallest movement, the most external act must remain unnoticed. This process is comparatively easy in the mental and vital planes. But in the physico-vital and the physical the powers of ignorance hold their sway and reign in full force, persisting in what they believe to be eternal laws. They obstruct the passage of the higher light and hold up their flag. It is there that the powers of darkness again and again cover up the being and even when the physico-vital is opened the elements of ignorance come up from the lower levels of the physical being. This is a work of great patience. The physico-vital and the physical being do not accept the higher Law and persist. They justify their persistence and their play by intellectual and other justifications and thus try to deceive the sadhaka under various guises.

"Generally, the vital being is very impatient and wants to get things done quickly, on the physico-vital and physical planes. But this has very violent reactions and therefore the mental and the vital being, instead of seizing upon the higher light and power, should surrender themselves to the higher Power. We have not to rest satisfied with partial transformation. We have to bring down the higher Power to the physical plane and govern the most external details of life by it. This cannot be done by mental power. We have to call down the Higher Light, Power and Ananda to transform our present nature. This requires an essential utter sincerity in every part of the being, which wants only the Truth and nothing but the Truth and can see clearly all that is going on in the being.

"The second condition of the Light coming down and governing even the smallest detail of life is that one must grow conscious of his Divine Personality which is in the Supermind.

"There is sometimes a tendency in the sadhaks to be satisfied with experiences. One should not rest content with mere ex­periences.

"Another thing is that, here, as we are all of us given to the pursuit of the same truth the whole time we have arrived at some kind of solidarity so that we can mutually help or retard our progress.                            

"The conditions of transformation of the being are: opening

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ourselves to the higher Light, the absolute surrender. If there is the entire essential sincerity, opening to the Light and surrender and a gradual growth of consciousness on all the planes you can become an ideal sadhaka of this yoga."^¹

+ + +

On another occasion Sri Aurobindo referred to his sadhana as follows: "When I was doing sadhana on the mental plane things came so easily. It was child's play. With the vital being, though it was not easy, yet it was interesting. But this physical is absolutely hard. It has been left untried by the ancient Yogis, it has been neglected. Of course, it is not that no effort was made, – but the physical and the physico-vital were neglected. All the accumulated difficulty is lying there. Any attempt made to conquer them is full of drudgery and labour. It is like the trench-war and no truce. You must either fight and win or collapse."

Question: "But only the body would collapse?"

Sri Aurobindo: "In such a case as ours, if the body collapses, the whole thing collapses. You have to do the whole thing over again. If you have other kinds of collapses, for example, the vital or the mental collapse, it is not so dangerous. But the physi­cal collapse means complete collapse.

"If you don't care for the body then of course it is a different matter. To keep the inner poise in the midst of physical distur­bance is quite easy. It is nothing. I am not disturbed by disease or death. They are quite natural to man's present condition. But I care because their acceptance means defeat of the whole effort of Yoga. These lower forces used to thwart and have always been trying to thwart all efforts at spiritual transformation of the physical being."^²

He spoke again about the same problem in December 1938: "It is when the sadhana came down into the physical and the subconscient that things became very difficult. I myself had to struggle for two years, for the subconscient is absolutely inert, like stone. Though my mind was quite awake above, it could not exert any influence down below. It is a Herculean labour, for when one

.^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talk, First Series, pp. 260-62.

.^² Talk of June 1926.

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enters there, it is a sort of unexplored continent. Previous Yogis came down to the vital. If I had been made to see the difficulty before, probably, I would have been less enthusiastic about the work. There is the instance of blind faith and they were quite right in doing so, ¹ but if I left it at that, the real work would have remained undone. And once the physical is conquered, things become easy for people who come after me, which is what is meant by realisation of one in all."^²

October. Hirosawa, a Japanese gentleman known to the Mother, came to Pondicherry.

14 November. A letter from Dilip Kumar Roy to Moni enclosing a letter from Remain Rolland asking for the file of the French edition of the Arya. Dilip asked for advice about marriage.

1925

3 January. Punamchand Shah, a sadhak from Patan, developed nacrosis of a bone which he had injured when young. He had to go to Madras where he was operated on successfully by Dr. Rangachari. The cure took three months.

4 January. One of the Mother's knee joints become inflamed. There was pain. A telegram was sent to Dr. Kanuga at Ahmedabad.

5 January. Interview of Lala Lajpatrai with Sri Aurobindo. Afterwards Sri Aurobindo spoke also with Dr. Nihalchand, Krishnadas and Purushottamdas Tandon, who had accompanied Lajpatrai. There was a free exchange of ideas on current politics for forty-five minutes.

6 January. Sri Aurobindo did not come out for the evening sitting because of the Mother's indisposition. A reply came from Dr. Kanuga.

7 January. Improvement of the Mother's condition. Sri Aurobindo came out for a short time.

8 January. Continued gradual improvement of the Mother's condition.

16 January. Dr. Bannerjee arrived from Mirjapur. He saw the

.¹ This means that by blind faith difficulties of the physical have been removed; but what is needed is to make this a conscious conquest and transformation of the physical nature by the power of the Spirit.

.^² Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966), p. 4

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Mother for diagnosis. Sri Aurobindo was greatly relieved by his report. Improvement maintained.

17 January. Dr. Bannerjee saw the Mother again.

18 January. Talk with Ratikanta Nag about the Arya Publishing House, Calcutta, and about conditions for the printing of books.

21 January. A letter from Anilbaran Roy in jail.

26 January. Sri Aurobindo resumed the evening sittings.

28 January. Reply to Anilbaran Roy.

5 and 23 March. Letters from Anilbaran Roy.

9 May. A letter from Rajani Kanta Palit about the illness of his wife.

11 May. A letter from Moni Lahiri. Reference to Lele in the evening talk: "I got three things from Lele: the silent Brahman consciousness with its infinite wideness – an experience which was concrete; the power to speak and write without using the mind; and the habit of putting myself under the guidance of a Power higher than the mind."

13 May. A telegram from Motilal Roy asking for an interview.

Reply: "Time not propitious; interview not possible; why not write?" A telegram from Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury of Gauripur about the illness of his wife.

17 May. A letter from Anilbaran Roy.

20 May. A letter from Motilal Roy.

21 May. A letter from Birendra Kishore of Calcutta.

25 May. A reference in a letter to the atmosphere in Pondicherry:

"The condition here is not very good. I am at present fighting the difficulties on the physical plane," in other words, the forces of disease etc.

20 June. At the request of the Bombay Chronicle, Sri Aurobindo sent a message on the death of C. R. Das, which was published in their issue of 22 June: "Chittaranjan's death is a supreme loss. Consummately endowed with political intelligence, constructive imagination, magnetism, a driving force combining a strong will and an uncommon plasticity of mind for vision and tact of the hour, he was the one man after Tilak who could have led India to Swaraj."^¹

1 July. A letter from Swarnaprabha, a sadhika, about her sadhana. A letter to Barin advising him to close the Bhawanipore centre at Calcutta.

. ^¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 390.

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CHAPTER IX

Pondicherry: 1910-1926

11 July. Veiji Thakersi Shah came from Cutch.

12 July. Talk on Theon, who knew the Mother before she came to India. During the evening talk Sri Aurobindo said:

"What I find is that it is not necessary to have a full and rich development of the mental and vital being for the descent of the Supermind. It is enough if there is sufficient basis to start the higher working. If you have to wait for the full development of the mental and the vital being then it would require centuries. I do not think it necessary. Rather, too much development is an obstacle sometimes. I find that what the mind attains with great effort is easily attained in the supermind with simplicity and directness. Whatever is necessary is brought down with the Supermind in its descent because the Supermind carries with it its own fullness. In my own case, I found the mental effort a great obstacle. But I had to do it, in order to get the necessary knowledge. Mind is like an infinite snake coiling round and round."

15 August. Sri Aurobindo came out at ten o'clock. The verandah was decorated with jasmine flowers. Twenty-seven people were present including S. Duriaswami, Kapali Shastri, Kesarlal Dixit, Chandrasekar Aiya and Nagaratnam.

23 August. Talk on Shaw's Saint Joan.

31 August. A letter from P. M. Patel.

19 September. A letter from Dhiren. A reply dictated.

21 September. Narmada Shanker Bhatt of Lunawada met Sri Aurobindo; suggestion on the japa of gayatri. A letter from Rajani Kanta Palit.

24 September. A letter from Haradhan Baxi of Chandemagore. A reply dictated. The Bhawanipore centre was closed; Kumudbandhu Bagchi very much annoyed.

29 September. A letter from Bhupal Chandra Bose, Sri Aurobindo's father-in-law, about another son-in-law's illness. A letter from Swarnaprabha.

30 September. A letter from Nolineshwar Bhattacharya  of Calcutta.

3 October. Haradhan Baxi and Charurai Dev Sarkar came to Pondicherry bringing a letter from Motilal Roy and a donation of Rs.1000 from Durgadas Seth of Chandemagore.

4 October. A letter from Swarnaprabha's husband. A reply with remarks on the relation of husband and wife from the spiritual point of view.

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7 October. Letters from Nolineshwar and Mano Mohan Dhar, both of whom later joined the Ashram.

13 October. A letter from Rati Palit, brother of Rajani Palit.

14 October. Letter from Pandit Nirmalchand about the illness of Jagat Singh. Talk on Grace.

2 November. Talk on yoga and humanity.

11 November. Talk on the need of samata: equality and common sense in yogic sadhana. Sri Aurobindo said about himself: "A perfect yoga requires perfect balance; that was the thing that saved me – the perfect balance. First of all I believed that nothing was impossible and at the same time I could question everything. If I had believed in everything that came I would have been like Bijoy Goswami."^¹

19 November. Sri Aurobindo was asked to revise his speeches. His answer was: "No. I have nothing to do with the Speeches. They belong to the past democratic Aurobindo. They are only useful for Naren's sale." Then about his biography he said: "To write my biography is impossible. The idea is quite wrong. Who could write it? Not only in my case but in that of poets, philosophers and yogis it is no use attempting a biography, because they do not live in their external life. Their real life is inner and how can anyone else know that life? It is different with men of action like Napoleon or Julius Caesar, men who develop themselves through action, but even in their cases it would be best if they wrote their biographies themselves."

22 November. In the evening Sri Aurobindo said: "I would have to correct The Synthesis of Yoga. A magazine is not the proper form for such works. The yoga of knowledge is too long and needs to be shortened and the yoga of bhakti is too short and summary and needs to be added to." He said in a talk that the Synthesis might be published in the form of small booklets. A reply to a letter of Anilbaran Roy dictated.

26 November. A letter from Kanailal Hazara. A reply.

30 November.   A letter from Sri Aurobindo's sister-in-law (Mrinalini Devi's sister), written after her bereavement.

Krishnashashi, a sadhaka from Chittagong who had become unbalanced, suddenly made his appearance in Pondicherry. For three days he created a great disturbance. He tried to force his

.^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series, p. 198

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entry into the houses. At last it was arranged for him to be sent back.

1 December. Letters from Swamaprabha, her mother and Mohini.

4 December. Talk on Gandhism.

5 December. Talk on Vaishnavism.

9 December. Talk on the Samgha at Chandernagore.

14 December. Manindra Naik, a representative from Chandernagore in the Legislature in Pondicherry, met Sri Aurobindo.

26 December. Phillippe Barbier Saint-Hilaire (later known as Pavitra) arrived from Japan. A letter from Swamaprabha.

1926

1 and 25 January. Talks on Theosophy.

26 January. Talk on art and Vaishnavism.

28 January. Talk on art. Sri Aurobindo said: "Really speaking I got my true taste [for painting] in Alipore Jail. I used to meditate and I saw various pictures with colours and then I found that the critical faculty also arose in me. I did not know the thing intellectually, but I caught the real spirit. But my natural preference is for architecture and sculpture."^¹

29 January. Talk on yoga and morality.

30 January. During the talk in the evening Sri Aurobindo said:

"I used to get fever and sometimes something would come down and reject it successfully, while at other times I had to go on working at the thing again and again. I have seen that, at times, the strongest faith does not succeed. Again, you may have the strongest will and yet the thing does not get done. Not that faith is not necessary or the will not useful. But they both require something – a third element – which when it comes down brings success. Even if there is opposition yet the success comes."^²

4 February. Talk about quinine. Sri Aurobindo said: "The last time I took quinine was in Alipore Jail in 1909. It had no effect. The fever was very high and in that state I somehow staggered to the door of the cell and told the watchman to bring some water. He brought very cold – almost ice cold-water. I drank the whole quantity he had brought. Then feeling very weak I lay

.^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series, p. 261

.^² Cf. Ibid., p. 229

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down in bed. In ten minutes the fever left me. After that I did not get that kind of fever."

24 February. Tirupati, a sadhaka from Andhra, lost his mental balance and was sent to Vizianagaram. He came from there to Pondicherry without permission. He had been informed by wire not to come: "Inform Tirupati my anger. Prevent coming to Pondicherry. I refuse to receive him." We see here that Sri Aurobindo could become hard when necessary. But whether his "anger" was the ordinary emotion or a yogic reaction is another matter. Once speaking about anger Sri Aurobindo said: "In my case I once felt anger coming up and possessing me. It was absolutely uncontrollable when it came. I was very much surprised to see it in my nature. Anger has always been foreign to me. . . . But by anger I do not mean the Rudra Bhava which I have had a few times."^¹

When asked: "Is Rudra Bhava something like the story of the snake related by Ramakrishna where the snake was asked to raise its hood – an appearance of anger – to keep off harmful people?", Sri Aurobindo replied: "Not at all. It is something genuine – a violent severity against something very wrong, that is, the Rudra Bhava of Shiva. Anger one knows by its feelings and sensations; it rises from below. While Rudra Bhava – the divine manyu – rises from the heart. I will give an instance. Once X became very violent against the Mother and was shouting and showing his fists. As I heard the shouting, a violent severity came down that was absolutely uncontrollable. I went out and said: 'Who is shouting at the Mother? Who is shouting here?' The moment he heard it X became quiet."²

2 March. Talk on personal effort and the divine working.

6 March. Talk on the marriage of a sadhaka at Chandernagore.

12 March. Talk on the place of personal effort in sadhana. Speaking about subtle sight Sri Aurobindo said: "I was at Baroda . . . and my psychic sight was not yet developed. I was trying to develop it by dwelling upon the after-image and also by attending to it in the interval between wakefulness and sleep. Then I saw a circle of light and when I began prānāyāma it became very much more intensified."^³

^¹. Cf: Purani, Evening Talks, Third Series, p. 121 

.² Cf. ibid., p. 122

^³ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 217

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13 March. Talk on the psychic being.

31 March. Reminiscences of earlier life: "When I joined the Baroda state service as I was not accustomed to getting money I had the tendency of gathering and saving my money. I saved some and then suddenly spent away the whole sum at one time. .¹

"In 1909 I got a yogic fancy for taking only rice, ghee and plantains which I carried out though desire for meat was there in the vital being."

Talk about the paintings of Abanindranath and Rabindranath Tagore.

7 April. Talk on Indian political constitutions and institutions.

14 April. Sri Aurobindo spoke about one of his own experiences: "When I got first the Cosmic Consciousness – I call it the passive Brahman – I did not fall into unconsciousness; I was fully conscious on the physical plane. It also did not go away or last only for a few moments. ... It lasted for months. It came upon me as soon as I could quiet the mind completely. I saw it above the mind and it was that which was reflected in the mind."^²

6 May. Tirupati came again to Pondicherry. A stiff letter telling him to go back was sent by Sri Aurobindo.

12 May. Talk on Gustav Gillet's book Ectoplasme et Clairvoyance.

18 May. Talk on yoga and shakti.

20 May. Talk on Ouspensky and Dr. Bucke and their books.

1 June. Talk on the vital plane and the asuras.

10 June. Talk on the form of working of the Higher Power and on Sri Aurobindo's own sadhana. The talk turned to vegetarianism. Sri Aurobindo said: "I was once as violent a non-vegetarian as C is now a vegetarian. Then I found out 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. Then I discovered that what people call tasteless and bad food has got its own taste." During this period (1924-1926) Sri Aurobindo used to prepare cooked fish for the cats.

. ¹ Dinendra Kumar Roy speaks of this in his Aurobindo Prasanga; a similar attitude towards money can be seen in Mr. Patkar's statement (p. 62).

.^² Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, First Series, p. 81

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11 June. Talk on the different parts of the being and their relation to each other.

15 June. Talk on immortality and the victory of the Supermind on the physical plane.

18 June. Talk on astrology and prophecy.

25 June. Talk on suffering and spirituality.

26 June. Talk on the Gods.

29 June. Talk on the difference between European and Indian politics.

July (for a few days in the beginning of the month) Talks on Tirupati, the deranged sadhaka.

10 July. Remark in a talk: "Vivekananda came and gave me the knowledge of the intuitive mentality. I had not the least idea about it at that time. He too did not have it when he was in the body. He gave me detailed knowledge illustrating each point. The contact lasted about three weeks and then he withdrew."

11 July. Talk on Kaya Kalpa methods of rejuvenation current in India.

6 August. Talk on the relation between feelings and emotions.

13 August. Talk on psychology.

14 August. Talk on the aesthetic being and the psychic being and their relation.

16 August. There was a report of a memory of a past birth by someone in the Bareilly district; talk in the evening on the subject.

18 August. Explanation of "Opening" in yoga. Talk on the Arya.

22 August. Talk on the form of the Gods.

24 August. Talk on the plane of the Gods.

26 August. Talk on education.

27 August. Talk on art and beauty.

31 August. Talk on science and time and space.

2 September. Three or four sadhikas (lady disciples) began to go to the Mother for meditation. After a few days sadhaks as well were allowed to go to her for meditation.

3 September. Dolatram, a pleader from the Panjab, came for sadhana. He stayed for some time.

4 September. Sri Aurobindo said: "If I had stuck to my job I would have been a principal, perhaps, written some poetry and lived in comfort like a bourgeois. All the energy I have I owe

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to yoga. Even the energy I put forth in politics came from yoga."^¹

7 September. Talk on the characteristics of the different national mentalities.

19 September. A letter from Dhiren. A reply sent explaining dreams.

20 September. Talk on fitness for yoga.

25 September. An amusing reminiscence of Baroda life: "When Mr. Eliot, the Maharaja's tutor, came to Baroda from England, Mr. Parvi, a Parsi officer, could not understand anything he said because of the strangeness of his pronunciation, so Mr. Parvi went on saying Yes to everything. Then Mr. Eliot put him a question to which he should have said No but he said as usual Yes. Eliot got annoyed and said, 'Shall I take you for an ass?'  Parvi replied Yes."

12 October. Talk on poetry.

October (third week). Rajani Palit came. He obtained permission to meditate with the Mother.

5 November. Talk: the Gods and the Asuras; the Gods on the different planes and on the supramental plane. The talk had a bearing on the current state of sadhana.

24 November 1926 – the Day of Siddhi

In order to understand the importance of this day it is necessary to go back to Sri Aurobindo's experiences in jail in 1908-1909 and link them up with his experience of 24 November 1926. We must also take into consideration what Sri Aurobindo wrote about his own sadhana to Barin in 1920.

In the letter to Barin of April 1920 Sri Aurobindo described the stage of his yoga before he came to Pondicherry in 1910 as "preliminary or preparatory". That is to say it was a preliminary stage of the supramental yoga. "The Guru of the world who is within us then gave me the complete directions of my path – its complete theory, the ten limbs of the body of this Yoga. These ten years [1910-1920] He has been making me develop it in experience, and it is not yet finished. ...

"If we cannot rise above, that is, to the supramental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world and the

.^¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series, p. 98

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problem it raises remains unsolved.

"This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that God will through me give to others the Siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time. I have no impulse to make any unbalanced haste and rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but God's. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move.

"I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God.

"If the unripe goes amid the unripe what can he do?"

These quotations clearly demonstrate that when Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry he was not groping for his path; his path was clear before him. After 1910 the charge of his yoga was taken over by the Divine and the path was revealed to him in ten limbs of the sadhana. He was all along conscious of the existence of the Supramental plane above the mind, and by 1920 he had succeeded in ascending to the lowest stratum of that consciousness and also in drawing up all the movements of his nature into it.

He was, besides, not impatient for action. He did not want to act from ignorant human instruments but from a Higher Consciousness. He had the confidence that if the Supramental descent could be established in its perfection, then other people would be able to profit by it with much less effort.

It was when the Tapasya for the Siddhi of the Supramental was going on that, fortunately, as if by a Divine dispensation, the Mother joined Sri Aurobindo intimately in the great spiritual work. From the beginning of 1926 the work of guiding the disciples already began to move towards the Mother. There were women disciples – three or four in number – staying in the Ashram who used to go to the Mother for meditation. From August 1926 the number of disciples going to the Mother increased. It was as if Sri Aurobindo was slowly withdrawing himself and

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the Mother was spontaneously coming out and taking up the great work of direction of the sadhaks' inner sadhana and of the organisation of the outer life of the Ashram. The meditations became more and more concentrated and intense. Sri Aurobindo's coming out for the evening sitting began getting later and later. The wonder of it was that no one felt anything unnatural in all these changes. The part of the disciples in the tremendous task of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was insignificant, still they were the witnesses of the changes in the inner and outer atmosphere of the Ashram.

From the trend of the evening talks just before and after 15 August 1926 it was becoming clear that the importance of a link between the highest Supermind and mind was being emphasized. Sri Aurobindo called this link the Overmind. During the six years since the letter to Barin of 1920 it is evident that he had gone much further not only in the ascent towards and into the Higher Consciousness but also in bringing about its descent into Nature. Several times in the beginning of November 1926, the evening talks turned to the possibility of the descent of the Divine Consciousness and its process. From these evening conversations, therefore, the idea came to several disciples that such a descent might be near. There was the possibility of the descent of the Gods. In The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo has given a clear exposition of the overmind plane, overmind consciousness and overmind Gods. I give here some quotations from this chapter which might be of help in the understanding of the descent that took place on 24 November 1926.

"If we regard the Powers of the Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that the Overmind releases a million Godheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each world capable of relation, communication and interplay with the others. There are in the Veda different formulations of the nature of the Gods: it is said they are all one Existence to which the sages give different names; yet each God is worshipped as if he by himself is that Existence, one who is all the other Gods together or contains them in his being; and yet again each is a separate Deity acting sometimes in unison with companion deities, sometimes separately, sometimes even in apparent opposition to other Godheads of the same Existence. In the Supermind all this would be held together as a harmonised play of the one Existence; in

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the Overmind each of these three conditions could be a separate action or basis of action and have its own principle of development and consequences and yet each keep the power to combine with the others in a more composite harmony. As with the One Existence, so with its Consciousness and Force. The One Consciousness is separated into many independent forms of consciousness and knowledge; each follows out its own line of truth which it has to realise. The one total and many-sided Real-Idea is split up into its many sides; each becomes an independent Idea-Force with the power to realise itself. The one Consciousness-Force is liberated into its million forces, and each of these forces has the right to fulfil itself or to assume, if needed, a hegemony and take up for its own utility the other forces. So too the Delight of Existence is loosed out into all manner of delights and each can carry in itself its independent fullness or sovereign extreme. Overmind thus gives to the One Existence-Consciousness-Bliss the character of a teeming of infinite possibilities which can be developed into a multitude of worlds or thrown together into one world in which the endlessly variable outcome of their play is the determinant of the creation, of its process, its course and its consequence."^¹

"[In the Overmind] each God knows all the Gods and their place in existence; each Idea admits all other ideas and their right to be; each Force concedes a place to all other forces and their truth and consequences; no delight of separate fulfilled existence or separate experience denies or condemns the delight of other existence or other experience. The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms. . . ."^²

A feeling that the descent of the Higher Consciousness was about to take place grew in the minds of the many disciples either as a result of some indicative personal experience or owing to the general atmosphere. Many felt that great changes in the outer structure of the Ashram were about to occur. Instead of coming to the evening sitting at half-past four, the usual time,

^¹. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book One (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970), pp. 280-81

.^²  Ibid., p. 283

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Sri Aurobindo came at six or seven, or eight o'clock. One day the record was two o'clock in the morning! It was evident that all his great energies were entirely taken up by the mighty task of bringing about the descent of the Higher Consciousness and that he did not want to lose or divert even a second of his time to anything else. Even though the work of maintaining an outer contact with the disciples was found useful it was becoming more and more difficult in view of the growing demand upon his time for the inner work. Those who do not know anything about his great mission can hardly understand how concentrated and sincere was his application for attaining perfection in his Divine task. In fact, people outside had already begun to be sceptical about any "practical" result of his vast efforts. Even those who had built high hopes upon his spiritual effort and were his genuine admirers began to be disappointed. Some even cherished, in their ignorance, the foolish belief that Sri Aurobindo had lost his way in the barren regions of the Absolute, the Para Brahman, or that he was entangled somewhere in the inscrutable coils of the Infinite! They believed that Sri Aurobindo had lost his hold on the earth, and that he had become either indifferent or deaf to the pressing and burning problems of suffering humanity. If it was not so, why did he not rush to the help of humanity that was suffering so much with the saving balm of his Divine help? When was such Divine help more needed than now?

But, in spite of the apparent contradictions, those who were fortunate enough to live in his vicinity knew very well that the Higher Power that he was bringing down was not only capable of but was actually producing practical results. His contact and identification with the Higher Power were so complete that he was able to put other people, whether near to him or far, in contact with it. There were almost daily instances of people being cured of physical illness by his help. Far from losing his way in the Absolute he was seeing his way more and more clearly every day and was feeling more and more the inevitability of the descent as a natural crown of the movement of evolution on earth. His disciples knew that there was no one on earth who had a deeper sympathy and feeling for humanity than the Master. The silent and solid help that was going out from him to humanity was glimpsed by them at times. They felt later, reading the line he wrote in Savitri about Aswapathy, "His spirit's stillness helped

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the toiling world", that it was so true of his own life. What after all is that "practicality" of which people speak so much? Claiming to solve problems, does it not really leave them either unsolved or half-solved while giving to the doer a false sense of satisfaction and self-complacence? In fact, the Supreme Master had such a firm grip over the earth that such illusionary satisfaction could never deceive him. For him karmasu kausalam (skill in action) consisted in acting from a higher Truth-Consciousness. He did not want to begin outer action so long as the Higher Consciousness did not descend into the physical and even into the gross material consciousness. Only so could a new life, a life that manifests integrally the Divine, be embodied. In the fulfillment of the spiritual work that he had begun lies the ultimate solution of all human problems.

Days, months and years passed; but Sri Aurobindo did not seem at all in a hurry to begin his work. He was all along preparing the possibility of the descent of the Higher Power. The resistance of the powers of Ignorance against any such attempt is naturally immense. In one evening talk he said that he was engaged in the tremendous task of opening up the physical cells to the Divine Light and the resistance of the Inconscient was formidable. When one knows that all this Herculean labour was undertaken not for himself but for humanity, for making a new departure for man in the course of his evolution then one feels that the words he later used of Savitri, "The world unknowing, for the world she stood", are so very apposite in his own case. It was therefore natural that when, by the grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the disciples also felt the nearness of the descent, their hearts should be full of expectant and concentrated enthusiasm.

From the beginning of November 1926 the pressure of the Higher Power began to be unbearable. Then at last the great day, the day for which the Mother had been waiting for so many long years, arrived on 24 November. The sun had almost set, and everyone was occupied with his own activity – some had gone out to the seaside for a walk – when the Mother sent round word to all the disciples to assemble as soon as possible in the verandah where the usual meditation was held. It did not take long for the message to go round to all. By six o'clock most of the disciples had gathered. It was becoming dark. In the verandah

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on the wall near Sri Aurobindo's door, just behind his chair, a; black silk curtain with gold lace work representing three Chinese dragons was hung. The three dragons were so represented that the tail of one reached up to the mouth of the other and the three of them covered the curtain from end to end. We came to know afterwards that there is a prophecy in China that the Truth will manifest itself on earth when the three dragons (the dragons of the earth, of the mind region and of the sky) meet. Today on 24 November the Truth was descending and the hanging of the curtain was significant.

There was a deep silence in the atmosphere after the disciples had gathered there. Many saw an oceanic flood of Light rushing down from above. Everyone present felt a kind of pressure above his head. The whole atmosphere was surcharged with some electrical energy. In that silence, in that atmosphere full of concentrated expectation and aspiration, in the electrically charged atmosphere, the usual, yet on this day quite unusual, tick was heard behind the door of the entrance. Expectation rose in a flood. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother could be seen through the half-opened door. The Mother with a gesture of her eyes requested Sri Aurobindo to step out first. Sri Aurobindo with a similar gesture suggested to her to do the same. With a slow dignified step the Mother came out first, followed by Sri Aurobindo with his majestic gait. The small table that used to be in front of Sri Aurobindo's chair was removed this day. The Mother sat on a small stool to his right.

Silence absolute, living silence – not merely living but overflowing with divinity. The meditation lasted about forty-five minutes. After that one by one the disciples bowed to the Mother.

She and Sri Aurobindo gave blessings to them. Whenever a disciple bowed to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo's right hand came forward behind the Mother's as if blessing him through the Mother. After the blessings, in the same silence there was a short meditation.

In the interval of silent meditation and blessings many had distinct experiences. When all was over they felt as if they had awakened from a divine dream. Then they felt the grandeur, the poetry and the absolute beauty of the occasion. It was not as if a handful of disciples were receiving blessings from their Supreme Master and the Mother in one little comer of the earth; the significance of the occasion was far greater than that. It

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was certain that a Higher Consciousness had descended on earth. In that deep silence had burgeoned forth, like the sprout of a banyan tree, the beginning of a mighty spiritual work. This momentous occasion carried its significance to all in the divine dynamism of the silence, in its unearthly dignity and grandeur and in the utter beauty of its every little act. The deep impress of divinity which everyone got was for him a priceless treasure.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother went inside. Immediately Datta was inspired. In that silence she spoke: "The Lord has descended into the physical today."

That 24 November should be given an importance equal to that of the birthdays of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is quite proper because on that day the descent of the Higher Power symbolic of the victory of their mission took place. The Delight consciousness in the Overmind which Sri Krishna incarnated – as Avatar – descended on this day into the physical rendering possible the descent of the Supermind in Matter.

Of this descent Sri Aurobindo wrote on several occasions afterwards. In October 1935 he wrote as follows:

"It [the 24th November 1926] was the descent of Krishna into the physical.

"Krishna is not the supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually bringing, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards his Ananda. "^¹

The names of those disciples who were present on 24 November 1926:

(1) Bijoy Kumar Nag, (2) Nolini Kanta Gupta, (3) K. Amrita, (4) Moni (Suresh Chakravarty), (5) Pavitra (Phillippe Barbier Saint-Hilaire), (6) Barindra Kumar Ghose, (7) Datta (Miss Hodgson),  (8)  K. Rajangam,   (9)  Satyen,  (10)  Purani, (11) Lilavati (Purani's wife), (12) Punamchand, (13) Champa Ben (Punamchand's wife),  (14) Rajani Kanta Palit, (15) Dr. Upendra Nath Banerjee, (16) Champaklal, (17) Kanailal Gangulee, (18) Khitish Chandra Dutt, (19) V. Chandra Sekharam, (20) Pujalal, (21) Purushottam Patel, (22) Rati Palit, (23) Rambhai Patel, (24) Nani Bala.

^¹Cf. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 136.

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PART  FOUR

CHAPTER XI

Sri Aurobindo on Himself

This section contains portions selected from On Himself and other books of Sri Aurobindo. The political portion is reproduced in full in order to give the reader his ideal, purpose and method and also the appraisal of the work from his own point of view.

The other, non-political portions are, really speaking, more important because the reader will find the affirmation of his identity with Krishna, the reason why he carried on an enormous correspondence for nearly eight years with his disciples, how he helped them and how he acted on the world situation. There are some other important things the discriminating reader will find in this small but important section.

A General Note on Sri Aurobindo's Political Life

There were three sides to Sri Aurobindo's political ideas and activities. First, there was the action with which he started, a secret revolutionary propaganda and organization of which the central object was the preparation of an armed insurrection. Secondly, there was a public propaganda intended to convert the whole nation to the ideal of independence which was regarded, when he entered in to politics, by the vast majority of Indians as unpractical and impossible, an almost insane chimera. It was thought that British Empire was too powerful and India too weak, effectively disarmed and impotent even to dream of the success of such an endeavour. Thirdly, there was the organization of the people to carry on a public and united opposition and undermining of the foreign rule trough an increasing non-cooperation and passive resistance.

At that time the military organisation of the great empires and their means of military action were not so overwhelming and apparently irresistible as they now are: the rifle was still the decisive weapon, air power had not yet been developed and the force of artillery was not so devastating as it afterwards became. India was disarmed, but Sri Aurobindo thought that with proper organisation and help from outside this difficulty might be overcome and in so vast a country as India and with

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the smallness of the regular British armies, even a guerrilla war­fare accompanied by general resistance and revolt might be effective. There was also the possibility of a general revolt in the Indian army. At the same time he had studied the temperament and characteristics of the British people and the turn of their political instincts, and he believed that although they would resist any attempt at self-liberation by the Indian people and would at the most only concede very slowly such reforms as would not weaken their imperial control, still they were not of the kind which would be ruthlessly adamantine to the end : if they found resistance and revolt becoming general and persistent they would in the end try to arrive at an accommodation to save what they could of their empire or in an extremity prefer to grant independence rather than have it forcefully wrested from their hands.

In some quarters there is the idea that Sri Aurobindo’s political standpoint was entirely pacifist that he was opposed in principle and in practice to all violence and that he denounced terrorism, insurrection, etc., as entirely forbidden by the spirit and letter of the Hindu religion. It is even suggested that he was a forerunner of the gospel of Ahimsa. This is quite incorrect. Sri Aurobindo is neither an impotent moralist nor a weak pacifist.

The rule of confining political action to passive resistance was adopted as the best policy for the National Movement at that stage and not as a part of a gospel of Non-violence or pacific idealism. Peace is a part of the highest ideal, but it must be spirit­ual or at the very least psychological in its basis; without a change in human nature it cannot come with any finality. If it is attempted on any other basis (moral principle or gospel of Ahimsa or any other), it will fail and even may leave things worse than before. He is in favour of an attempt to put down war by international agreement and international force, what is now con­templated in the "New Order", if that proves possible, but that would not be Ahimsa, it would be a putting down of anarchic force by legal force and even then one cannot be sure that it would be permanent. Within nations this sort of peace has been se­cured, but it does not prevent occasional civil wars and revolu­tions and political outbreaks and repressions, sometimes of a sanguinary character. The same might happen to a similar world-peace. Sri Aurobindo has never concealed his opinion that

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a nation is entitled to attain its freedom by violence, if it can do so or if there is no other way; whether it should do so or not, depen

ds on what is the best policy, not on ethical considerations. Sri Aurobindo’s position and practice in this matter was the same as Tilak's and that of other Nationalist leaders who were by no means Pacifists or worshippers of Ahimsa.

For the first few years in India, Sri Aurobindo abstained from any political activity (except the writing of the articles in the Indu Prakash) and studied the conditions in the country so that he might be able to judge more maturely what could be done. Then he made his first move when he sent a young Bengali soldier of the Baroda army, Jatin Banerji, as his lieutenant to Bengal with a programme of preparation and action which he thought might occupy a period of 30 years before fruition could become possible. As a matter of fact it has taken 50 years for the movement of liberation to arrive at fruition and the beginning of complete success. The idea was to establish secretly or, as far as visible action could be taken, under various pretexts and covers, revolutionary propaganda and recruiting throughout Bengal. This was to be done among the youth of the country while sympathy and support and financial and other assistance were to be obtained from the older men who had advanced views or could be won over to them. Centres were to be established in every town and eventually in every village. Societies of young men were to be established with various ostensible objects, cultural, intellectual or moral and those already existing were to be won over for revolutionary use. Young men were to be trained in activities which might be helpful for ultimate military action, such as riding, physical training, athletics of various kinds, drill and organised movement. As soon as the idea was sown it attained a rapid prosperity; already existing small groups and associations of young men who had not yet the clear idea or any settled programme of revolution began to turn in this direction and a few who had already the revolutionary aim were contacted and soon developed activity on organised lines; the few rapidly became many. Meanwhile Sri Aurobindo had met a member of the Secret Society in Western India, and taken the oath of the Society and had been introduced to the Council in Bombay. His future action was not pursued under any directions by this Council, but he took up on his own responsibility the task of generalising

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support for its objects in Bengal where as yet it had no membership or following. He spoke of the Society and its aim to P. Mitter and other leading men of the revolutionary group in Bengal and they took the oath of the Society and agreed to carry out its objects on the lines suggested by Sri Aurobindo. The special cover used by Mitter's group was association for lathi play which had already been popularised to some extent by Sarala Ghosal in Bengal among the young men; but other groups used other ostensible covers. Sri Aurobindo’s attempt at a close organisation of the whole movement did not succeed, but the movement itself did not suffer by that, for the general idea was taken up and activity of many separate groups led to a greater and more widespread diffusion of the revolutionary drive and its action. Afterwards there came the partition of Bengal and a general outburst of revolt which favoured the rise of the extremist party and the great Nationalist movement. Sri Aurobindo’s activities were then turned more and more in this direction and the secret action became a secondary and subordinate element. He took advantage, however, of the Swadeshi movement to popularise the idea of violent revolt in the future. At Barin's suggestion he agreed to the starting of a paper, Yugantar, which was to preach open revolt and the absolute denial of the British rule and include such items as a series of articles containing instructions for guerrilla warfare. Sri Aurobindo himself wrote some of the opening articles in the early numbers and he always exercised a general control; when a member of the sub-editorial staff, Swami Vivekananda's brother, presented himself on his own motion to the police in a search as the editor of the paper and was prosecuted, the Yugantar under Sri Aurobindo’s orders adopted the policy of refusing to defend itself in a British Court on the ground that it did not recognise the foreign Government and this immensely increased the prestige and influence of the paper. It had as its chief writers and directors three of the ablest younger writers in Bengal, and it at once acquired an immense influence throughout Bengal. It may be noted that the Secret Society did not include terrorism in its programme, but this element grew up in Bengal as a result of the strong repression and the reaction to it in that Province.                          

The public activity of Sri Aurobindo began with the writing of the articles in the Indu Prakash. These nine articles written

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at the instance of K. G. Deshpande, editor of the paper and Sri Aurobindo’s Cambridge friend, under the caption "New Lamps for Old" vehemently denounced the then Congress policy of pray, petition and protest and called for a dynamic leadership based upon self-help and fearlessness. But this outspoken and irrefutable criticism was checked by the action of a Moderate leader who frightened the editor and thus prevented any full development of his ideas in the paper; he had to turn aside to generalities such as the necessity of extending the activities of the Congress beyond the circle of the bourgeois or middle class and calling into it the masses. Finally, Sri Aurobindo suspended all public activity of this kind and worked only in secret till 1905, but he contacted Tilak whom he regarded as the one possible leader for a revolutionary party and met him at the Ahmedabad Congress; there Tilak took him out of the pandal and talked to him for an hour in the grounds expressing his contempt for the Reformist movement and explaining his own line of action in Maharashtra.

Sri Aurobindo included in the scope of his revolutionary work one kind of activity which afterwards became an important item in the public programme of the Nationalist party. He encouraged the young men in the centres of work to propagate the Swadeshi idea which at that time was only in its infancy and hardly more than a fad of the few. One of the ablest men in these revolutionary groups was a Mahratta named Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar who was an able writer in Bengali (his family had been long domiciled in Bengal) and who had written a popular life of Shivaji in Bengali in which he first brought in the name of Swaraj, afterwards adopted by the Nationalists as their word for independence, – Swaraj became one item of the fourfold Nationalist programme. He published a book entitled Desher Katha describing in exhaustive detail the British commercial and industrial exploitation of India. This book had an immense repercussion in Bengal, captured the mind of young Bengal and assisted more than anything else in the preparation of the Swadeshi movement. Sri Aurobindo himself had always considered the shaking off of this economic yoke and the development of Indian trade and industry as a necessary concomitant of the revolutionary endeavour.   .

As long as he was in the Baroda Service, Sri Aurobindo could

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not take part publicly in politics. Apart from that, he preferred to remain and act and even to lead from behind the scenes with­out his name being known in public; it was the Government's action in prosecuting him as editor of the Bande Mataram that forced him into public view. And from that time forward he became openly, what he had been for sometime already, a pro­minent leader of the Nationalist party, its principal leader in action in Bengal and the organiser there of its policy and strategy. He had decided in his mind the lines on which he wanted the country's action to run: what he planned was very much the same as was developed afterwards in Ireland as the Sinn Fein movement; but Sri Aurobindo did not derive his ideas, as some have represented, from Ireland, for the Irish movement became prominent later and he knew nothing of it till after he had withdrawn to Pondicherry. There was, moreover, a capital difference between India and Ireland which made his work much more difficult; for all its past history had accustomed the Irish people to rebellion against British rule and this history might be even described as a constant struggle for independence intermittent in its action but permanently there in principle; there was nothing of this kind in India. Sri Aurobindo had to establish and gen­eralise the idea of independence in the mind of the Indian people and at the same time to push first a party and then the whole nation into an intense and organised political activity which would lead to the accomplishment of that ideal. His idea was to capture the Congress and to make it an instrument for revolutionary action instead of a centre of a timid constitutional agitation which would only talk and pass resolutions and recommendations to the foreign Government; if the .Congress could not be captured, then a central revolutionary body would have to be created which could do this work. It was to be a sort of State within the State giving its directions to the people and creating organised bodies and institutions which would be its means of action; there must be an increasing non-cooperation and passive resistance which would render the administration of the country by a foreign Government difficult or finally impossible, a universal unrest which would wear down repression and finally, if need be, an open revolt all over the country. This plan included a boycott of British trade, the substitution of national schools for the Government institutions, the creation of arbitration courts to

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which the people could resort instead of depending on the ordinary courts of law, the creation of volunteer forces which would be the nucleus of an army of open revolt, and all other action that could make the programme complete. The part Sri Aurobindo took publicly in Indian politics was of brief duration, for he turned aside from it in 1910 and withdrew to Pondicherry; much of his programme lapsed in his absence, but enough had been done to change the whole face of Indian politics and the whole spirit of the Indian people to make independence its aim and non-cooperation and resistance its method, and even an imperfect application of this policy heightening into sporadic periods of revolt has been sufficient to bring about the victory. The course of subsequent events followed largely the line of Sri Aurobindo’s idea. The Congress was finally captured by the Nationalist party, declared independence its aim, organised itself for action, took almost the whole nation minus a majority of the Mohammedans and a minority of the depressed classes into acceptance of its leadership and eventually formed the first national, though not as yet an independent, Government in India and secured from Britain acceptance of independence for India.

At first Sri Aurobindo took part in Congress politics only from behind the scenes, as he had not yet decided to leave the Baroda Service; but he took long leave without pay in which, besides carrying on personally the secret revolutionary work, he attended the Barisal Conference broken up by the police and toured East Bengal along with Bepin Pal and associated himself closely with the forward group in the Congress. It was during this period that he joined Bepin Pal in the editing of the Bande Mataram, founded the new political party in Bengal and attended the Congress session at Calcutta at which the Extremists, though still a minority, succeeded under the leadership of Tilak in imposing part of their political programme on the Congress. The founding of the Bengal National College gave him the opportunity he needed and enabled him to resign his position in the Baroda Service and join the College as its Principal. Subodh Mullick, one of Sri Aurobindo’s collaborators in his secret action and afterwards also in Congress politics, in whose house he usually lived when he was in Calcutta, had given a lakh of rupees for this foundation and had stipulated that Sri Aurobindo should be given a post of professor in the College with a salary of Rs. 150;

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so he was now free to give his whole time to the service of the country. Bepin Pal, who had been long expounding a policy of self-help and non-cooperation in his weekly journal, now started a daily with the name of Bande Mataram, but it was likely to be a brief adventure since he began with only Rs. 500 in his pocket and no firm assurance of financial assistance in the future. He asked Sri Aurobindo to join him in this venture to which a ready consent was given, for now Sri Aurobindo saw his opportunity for starting the public propaganda necessary for his revolutionary purpose. He called a meeting of the forward group of young men in the Congress and they decided then to organise themselves openly as a new political party joining hands with the corres­ponding group in Maharashtra under the proclaimed leadership of Tilak and to join battle with the Moderate party which was done at the Calcutta session. He also persuaded them to take up the Bande Mataram daily as their party organ and a Bande Mataram Company was started to finance the paper, whose direction Sri Aurobindo undertook during the absence of Bepin Pal who was sent on a tour in the districts to proclaim the purpose and programme of the new party. The new party was at once successful and the Bande Mataram paper began to circulate throughout India. On its staff were not only Bepin Pal and Sri Aurobindo but some other very able writers, Shyam Sundar Chakravarty, Hemendra Prasad Ghose and Bejoy Chatterjee. Shyam Sundar and Bejoy were masters of the English language, each with a style of his own; Shyam Sundar caught up something like Sri Aurobindo’s way of writing and later on many took his articles for Sri Aurobindo’s. But after a time dissensions arose between Bepin Pal on one side and the other contributors and the directors of the Company because of temperamental in­compatibility and differences of political views especially with regard to the secret revolutionary action with which others sympathised but to which Bepin Pal was opposed. This ended soon in Bepin Pal's separation from the journal. Sri Aurobindo would not have consented to this departure, for he regarded the qualities of Pal as a great asset to the Bande Mataram, since Pal, though not a man of action or capable of political leadership, was perhaps the best and most original political thinker in the country, an excellent writer and a magnificent orator: but the separation was effected behind Sri Aurobindo’s back when he was convalescing

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from a dangerous attack of fever. His name was even announced without his consent in the Bande Mataram as editor but for one day only, as he immediately put a stop to it since he was still formally in the Baroda Service and in no way eager to have his name brought forward in public. Henceforward, however, he controlled the policy of the Bande Mataram along with that of the party in Bengal. Bepin Pal had stated the aim of the new party as complete self-government free from British control; but this could have meant or at least included the Moderate aim of colonial self-government and Dadabhai Naoroji as President of the Calcutta session of the Congress had actually tried to cap­ture the name of Swaraj, the Extremists' term for independence, for this colonial self-government. Sri Aurobindo’s first pre­occupation was to declare openly for complete and absolute independence as the aim of political action in India and to insist on this persistently in the pages of the journal; he was the first politician in India who had the courage to do this in public and he was immediately successful. The party took up the word-Swaraj to express its own ideal of independence and it soon spread everywhere; but it was taken up as the ideal of the Congress much later on at the Karachi session of that body when it had been reconstituted and renovated under Nationalist leadership. The journal declared and developed a new political programme for the country as the programme of the Nationalist party, non-cooperation, passive resistance, Swadeshi, Boycott, national education, settlement of disputes in law by popular arbitration and other items of Sri Aurobindo’s plan. Sri Aurobindo published in the paper a series of articles on passive resistance, another developing a political philosophy of revolution and wrote many leaders aimed at destroying the shibboleths and superstitions of the Moderate party, such as the belief in British justice and benefits bestowed by foreign government in India, faith in British law courts and in the adequacy of the education given in schools and universities in India and stressed more strongly and persistently than had been done the emasculation, stagnation or slow pro­gress, poverty, economic dependence, absence of a rich industrial activity and all other evil results of a foreign government; he insisted especially that even if an alien rule were benevolent and beneficent, that could not be a substitute for a free and healthy national life. Assisted by this publicity the ideas of the

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Nationalists gained ground everywhere, especially in the Punjab which had before been predominantly Moderate. The Bande Mataram was almost unique in journalistic history in the influence it exercised in converting the mind of a people and preparing it for revolution. But its weakness was on the financial side; for the Extremists were still a poor man's party. So long as Sri Aurobindo was there in active control, he managed with great difficulty to secure sufficient public support for running the paper, but not for expanding it as he wanted, and when he was arrested and held in jail for a year, the economic situation of the Bande Mataram became desperate: finally, it was decided that the journal should die a glorious death rather than perish by starva­tion and Bejoy Chatterji was commissioned to write an article for which the Government would certainly stop the publication of the paper. Sri Aurobindo had always taken care to give no handle in the editorial articles of the Bande Mataram either for a prosecution for sedition or any other drastic action fatal to its existence; an editor of The Statesman complained that the paper reeked with sedition patently visible between every line, but it was so skilfully written that no legal action could be taken. The manoeuvre succeeded and the life of the Bande Mataram came to an end in Sri Aurobindo’s absence.

The Nationalist programme could only achieve a partial beginning before it was temporarily broken by severe government repression. Its most important practical item was Swadeshi plus Boycott; for Swadeshi much was done to make the idea general and a few beginnings were made, but the greater results showed themselves only afterwards in the course of time. Sri Aurobindo was anxious that this part of the movement should be not only propagated in idea but given a practical organisation and an effective force. He wrote from Baroda asking whether it would not be possible to bring in the industrialists and manu­facturers and gain the financial support of landed magnates and create an organisation in which men of industrial and commer­cial ability and experience and not politicians alone could direct operations and devise means of carrying out the policy; but he was told that it was impossible, the industrialists and the landed magnates were too timid to join in the movement, and the big commercial men were all interested in the import of British goods and therefore on the side of the status quo: so he had to abandon

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his idea of the organisation of Swadeshi and Boycott. Both Tilak and Sri Aurobindo were in favor of an effective boycott of British goods – but of British goods only; for there was little in the country to replace foreign articles : so they recommended the substitution for the British of foreign goods from Germany and Austria and America so that the fullest pressure might be brought upon England. They wanted the Boycott to be a political weapon and not merely an aid to Swadeshi; the total boycott of all foreign goods was an impracticable idea and the very limited application of it recommended in Congress resolutions was too small to be politically effective. They were for national self-sufficiency in key industries, the production of necessities and of all manufactures of which India had the natural means, but complete self-sufficiency or autarchy did not seem practicable or even desirable since a free India would need to export goods as well as supply them for internal consumption and for that she must import as well and maintain an international exchange. But the sudden enthusiasm for the boycott of all foreign goods was wide and sweeping and the leaders had to conform to this popular cry and be content with the impulse it gave to the Swadeshi idea. National education was another item to which Sri Aurobindo attached much importance. He had been disgusted with the education given by the British system in the schools and colleges and universities, a system of which as a professor in the Baroda College he had full experience. He felt that it tended to dull and impoverish and tie up the naturally quick and brilliant and supple Indian intelligence, to teach it bad intellectual habits and spoil by narrow information and mechanical instruction its originality and productivity. The movement began well and many national schools were established in Bengal and many able men became teachers, but still the development was insufficient and the economical position of the schools precarious. Sri Aurobindo had decided to take up the movement personally and see whether it could not be given a greater expansion and a stronger foundation, but his departure from Bengal cut short this plan. In the repression and the general depression caused by it, most of the schools failed to survive. The idea lived on and it may be hoped that it will one day find an adequate form and body. The idea of people's courts was taken up, and worked in some districts, not without success, but this too perished in the storm.

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The idea of volunteer groupings had a stronger vitality; it lived on, took shape, multiplied its formations and its workers were the spearhead of the movement of direct action which broke out from time to time in the struggle for freedom. The purely politi­cal elements of the Nationalist programme and activities were those which lasted and after each wave of repression and depression renewed the thread of the life of the movement for liberation and kept it recognisably one throughout nearly fifty years of its struggle. But the greatest thing done in those years was the creation of a new spirit in the country. In the enthusiasm that swept surging everywhere with the cry of Bande Mataram ringing on all sides men felt it glorious to be alive and dare and act together and hope; the old apathy and timidity was broken and a force created which nothing could destroy and which rose again and again in wave after wave till it carried India to the beginning of a complete victory.

After the Bande Mataram case, Sri Aurobindo became the recognised leader of Nationalism in Bengal. He led the party at the session of the Bengal Provincial Conference at Midnapore where there was a vehement clash between the two parties. He now for the first time became a speaker on the public platform, addressed large meetings at Surat and presided over the Nationalist conference there. He stopped at several places on his way back to Calcutta and was the speaker at large meetings called to hear him. He led the party again at the session of the Provincial Conference at Hooghly.^¹ There it became evident for the first time that Nationalism was gaining the ascendant, for it commanded a majority among the delegates and in the Subjects Committee Sri Aurobindo was able to defeat the Moderates’ resolution welcoming the Reforms and pass his own resolution stigmatising them as utterly inadequate and unreal and rejecting them. But the Moderate leaders threatened to secede if this was maintained and to avoid a scission he consented to allow the Moderate resolution to pass, but spoke at the public session explaining his decision and asking the Nationalists to acquiesce in it in spite of their victory so as to keep some unity in the

^¹ The Bengal Provincial Conference at Hooghly was held in September 1909, i.e. after Sri Aurobindo had been released from the Alipore Jail. (See p. 126 and also note p. 258.) [Ed.]

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political forces of Bengal. The Nationalist delegates, at first triumphant and clamorous, accepted the decision and left the hall quietly at Sri Aurobindo’s order so that they might not have to vote either for or against the Moderate resolution. This caused much amazement and discomfiture in the minds of the Moderate leaders who complained that the people had refused to listen to their old and tried leaders and clamoured against them, but at the bidding of a young man new to politics they had obeyed in disciplined silence as if a single body.

About this period Sri Aurobindo had decided to take up charge of a Bengali daily, Nava Shakti, and had moved from his rented house in Scotts Lane, where he had been living with his wife and sister, to rooms in the office of this newspaper, and there, before he could begin this new venture, early one morning while he was still sleeping, the police charged up the stairs, revolver in hand, and arrested him. He was taken to the police station and thence to Alipore Jail where he remained for a year during the magistrate's investigation and the trial in the Sessions Court at Alipore. At first he was lodged for some time in a solitary cell, but afterwards transferred to a large section of the jail where he lived in one huge room with the other prisoners in the case; subsequently, after the assassination of the approver in the jail, all the prisoners were confined in contiguous but separate cells and met only in the court or in the daily exercise where they could not speak to each other. It was in the second period that Sri Aurobindo made the acquaintance of most of his fellow accused. In the jail he spent almost all his time in reading the Gita and the Upanishads and in intensive meditation and the practice of Yoga. This he pursued even in the second interval when he had no opportunity of being alone and had to accustom himself to meditation amid general talk and laughter, the playing of games and much noise and disturbance; in the first and third periods he had full opportunity and used it to the full. In the Sessions Court the accused were confined in a large prisoner's cage and here during the whole day he remained absorbed in his meditation, attending little to the trial and hardly listening to the evidence. C. R. Das, one of his Nationalist collaborators and a famous lawyer, had put aside his large practice and devoted himself for months to the defence of Sri Aurobindo, who left the case entirely to him and troubled no more about it; for

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he had been assured from within and knew that he would be acquitted. During this period his view of life was radically changed; he had taken up Yoga with the original idea of acquiring spiritual force and energy and divine guidance for his work in life. But now the inner spiritual life and realisation which had continually been increasing in magnitude and universality and assuming a larger place took him up entirely and his work became a part and result of it and besides far exceeded the service and liberation of the country and fixed itself in an aim, pre­viously only glimpsed, which was world-wide in its bearing and concerned with the whole future of humanity.

When he came out from jail Sri Aurobindo found the whole political aspect of the country altered; most of the Nationalist leaders were in jail 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 determined to continue the struggle; he held weekly meetings in Calcutta, but the attendance which had numbered formerly thousands full of enthusiasm, was now only of hundreds and had no longer the same force and life. He also went to places in the districts to speak and at one of these delivered his speech at Uttarpara in which for the first time he spoke publicly of his Yoga and his spiritual experiences. He started also two weeklies, one in English and one in Bengali, the Karmayogin and Dharma which had a fairly large circulation and were, unlike the Bande Mataram, easily self-supporting. He attended and spoke at the Provincial Conference at Barisal in 1909^¹: for in Bengal owing to the compromise at Hooghly the two parties had not split altogether apart and both joined in the Conference though there could be no representative of the Nationalist Party at the meeting of the Central Moderate Body which had taken the place of the Congress. Surendra Nath Banerji had indeed called a private conference attended by Sri Aurobindo and one or two other leaders of the Nationalists to discuss a project of uniting the two parties at the session in Benares and giving a joint fight to the dominant right wing of the Moderates; for he had

¹ The Bakergang District Conference was held at Jhalkati (a town near Barisal) on 19 June 1909. Sri Aurobindo addressed this conference (see p. 124). For the Bengal Provincial Conference of 1909 see note p. 256. [Ed.]

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always dreamt of becoming again the leader of a united Bengal with the Extremist Party as his strong right arm : but that would have necessitated the Nationalists being appointed as delegates by the Bengal Moderates and accepting the constitution imposed at Surat. This Sri Aurobindo refused to do; he demanded a change in that constitution enabling newly formed associations to elect delegates so that the Nationalists might independently send their representatives to the All-India session and on this point the negotiations broke down. Sri Aurobindo began, however, to consider how to revive the national movement under the changed circumstances. He glanced at the possibility of falling back on a Home Rule movement which the Government could not repress, but this, which was actually realised by Mrs. Besant later on, would have meant a postponement and a falling back from the ideal of independence. He looked also at the pos­sibility of an intense and organised passive resistance movement in the manner afterwards adopted by Gandhi. He saw, however, that he himself could not be the leader of such a movement.

At no time did he consent to have anything to do with the sham Reforms which were all the Government at that period cared to offer. He held up always the slogan of ‘no compromise’ or, as he now put it in his Open Letter to his countrymen published in the Karmayogin, 'no co-operation without control'. It was only if real political, administrative and financial control were given to popular ministers in an elected Assembly that he would have anything to do with offers from the British Govern­ment. Of this he saw no sign until the proposal of the Montagu Reforms in which first something of the kind seemed to appear. He foresaw that the British Government would have to begin trying to meet the national aspiration half-way, but he would not anticipate that moment before it actually came. The Montagu Reforms came nine years after Sri Aurobindo had retired to Pondicherry and by that time he had abandoned all outward and public political activity in order to devote himself to his spiritual work, acting only by his spiritual force on the movement in India, until his prevision of real negotiations between the British Government and the Indian leaders was fulfilled by the Cripps' proposal and the events that came after.

Meanwhile the Government was determined to get rid of Sri Aurobindo as the only considerable obstacle left to the success

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of their repressive policy. As they could not send him to the Andamans they decided to deport him. This came to the know­ledge of Sister Nivedita and she informed Sri Aurobindo and asked him to leave British India and work from outside so that his work would not be stopped or totally interrupted. Sri Aurobindo contented himself with publishing in the Karmayogin a signed article in which he spoke of the project of deportation and left the country what he called his last will and testament; he felt sure that this would kill the idea of deportation and in fact it so turned out. Deportation left aside, the Government could only wait for some opportunity for prosecution for sedition and this chance came to them when Sri Aurobindo published in the same paper another signed article reviewing the political situation. The article was sufficiently moderate in its tone and later on the High Court refused to regard it as seditious and acquitted the printer. Sri Aurobindo one night at the Karmayogin office received information of the Government's intention to search the office and arrest him. While considering what should be his attitude, he received a sudden command from above to go to Chandemagore in French India. He obeyed the command at once, for it was now his rule to move only as he was moved by the divine guidance and never to resist and depart from it; he did not stay to consult with anyone, but in ten minutes was at the river ghat and in a boat plying on the Ganges; in a few hours he was at Chandernagore where he went into secret residence. He sent a message to Sister Nivedita asking her to take up the editing of the Karmayogin in his absence. This was the end of his active connection with his two journals. At Chandemagore he plunged entirely into solitary meditation and ceased all other activity. Then there came to him a call to proceed to Pondicherry. A boat manned by some young revolutionaries of Uttarpara took him to Calcutta; there he boarded the Dupleix and reached Pondicherry on April 4, 1910.

At Pondicherry, from this time onwards Sri Aurobindo’s practice of Yoga became more and more absorbing. He dropped all participation in any public political activity, refused more than one request to preside at sessions of the restored Indian National Congress and made a rule of abstention from any public utterance of any kind not connected with his spiritual activities or any contribution of writings or articles except what he wrote

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afterwards in the Arya. For some years he kept up some private communication with the revolutionary forces he had led, through one or two individuals, but this also he dropped after a time and his abstention from any kind of participation in poli­tics became complete. As his vision of the future grew clearer, he saw that the eventual independence of India was assured by the march of forces of which he became aware, that Britain would be compelled by the pressure of Indian resistance and by the pressure of international events to concede independence and that she was already moving towards that eventuality with whatever opposition and reluctance. He felt that there would be no need of armed insurrection and, that the secret preparation for it could be dropped without injury to the Nationalist cause, although the revolutionary spirit had to be maintained and would be maintained intact. His own personal intervention in politics would therefore be no longer indispensable. Apart from all this, the magnitude of the spiritual work set before him became more and more clear to him, and he saw that the concentration of all his energies on it was necessary. Accordingly, when the Ashram came into existence, he kept it free from all political connections or action; even when he intervened in politics twice afterwards on special occasions, this intervention was purely personal and the Ashram was not concerned in it. The British Government and numbers of people besides could not believe that Sri Aurobindo had ceased from all political action and it was supposed by them that he was secretly participating in revolutionary activities and even creating a secret organisation in the security of French India. But all this was pure imagination and rumour and there was nothing of the kind. His retirement from poli­tical activity was complete, just as was his personal retirement into solitude in 1910.

But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in the fate of India. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his Yoga was not only to realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the

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world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can act and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it, and this power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he had attained to it, he used, at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces. He had no reason to be dissatisfied with the results or to feel the necessity of any other kind of action. Twice, however, he found it advisable to take in addition other action of a public kind. The first was in relation to the Second World War. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene. He declared himself publicly on the side of the Allies, made some financial contributions in answer to the appeal for funds and encouraged those who sought his advice to enter the army or share in the war effort. Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when every­body was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German victory almost immediately arrested and the tide of war begin to turn in the opposite direction. This he did; because he saw that behind Hitler and Nazism were dark Asuric forces and that their success would mean the enslavement of mankind to the tyranny of evil, and a set-back to the course of evolution and especially to the spiritual evolution of mankind: it would lead also to the enslavement not only of Europe but of Asia, and in it of India, an enslavement far more terrible than any this country had ever endured, and the undoing of all the work that had been done for her liberation. It was this reason also that induced him to support publicly the Cripps' offer and to press the Congress leaders to accept it. He had not, for various reasons, intervened with his spiritual force against the Japanese aggression until it became evident that Japan intended to attack

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and even invade and conquer India. He allowed certain letters he had written in support of the war affirming his views of the Asuric nature and inevitable outcome of Hitlerism to become public. He supported the Cripps' offer because by its acceptance India and Britain could stand united against the Asuric forces and the solution of Cripps could be used as a step towards independence. When negotiations failed, Sri Aurobindo returned to his reliance on the use of spiritual force alone against the aggressor and had the satisfaction of seeing the tide of Japanese victory, which had till then swept everything before it, change immediately into a tide of rapid, crushing and finally immense and overwhelming defeat. He had also after a time the satis­faction of seeing his previsions about the future of India justify themselves so that she stands independent with whatever internal difficulties.^¹

I suppose I have had myself an even more completely European education than you, and I have had too my period of agnostic denial, but from the moment I looked at these things I could never take the attitude of doubt and disbelief which was for so long fashionable in Europe.^²

I myself have never been a sportsman or – apart from a spectator's interest in cricket in England or a non-player member of the Baroda cricket club – taken up any physical games or athletics except some exercises leamt from Madrasi wrestlers in Baroda such as dand and baithak, and those I took up only to put some strength and vigour into a frail and weak though not unhealthy body. .. .^³

I hope your dinner at Dewas did not turn out like my first taste of Mahratta cookery – when for some reason my dinner was non est and somebody went to my neighbour, a Mahratta

^¹ Sri Aurobindo,,On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 21-39.

^² Ibid., p. 90.

^³ Ibid., p. 506.

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Professor, for food. I took one mouthful and only one. 0 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!^¹

The poems come as a stream beginning at the first line and ending at the last – only some remain with one or two changes, others have to be recast if the first inspiration was an inferior one. Savitri is a work by itself unlike all the others. I made some eight or ten recasts of it originally under the old insufficient inspiration. Afterwards I am altogether rewriting it, concentrating on the first book and working on it over and over again with the hope that every line may be of a perfect perfection – but I have hardly any time now for such work.^²

This last line ["The high boughs prayed in a revealing sky." (Savitri I, Canto I)] is an expression of an experience which I often had whether in the mountains or on the plains of Gujarat or looking from my window in Pondicherry not only in the dawn but at other times... .^³

... I do not work at the poem once a week; I have other things to do. Once a month perhaps, I look at the new form of the first book and make such changes as inspiration points out to me. .. .⁴

I do not know what to say on the subject you propose to me – the superiority of music to poetry – for my appreciation of music is bodiless and inexpressible, while about poetry I can write at ease with an expert knowledge. But is it necessary to fix a scale of greatness between two fine arts when each has its own greatness and can touch in its own way the extremes of aesthetic Ananda? Music, no doubt, goes nearest to the infinite and to the essence of things because it relies wholly on the ethereal

^¹ Ibid., pp. 351-52.

^² Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Parts Two & Three (Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970), p. 728.

^³ Ibid., p, 790.

4 Ibid., p. 727.

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vehicle, śabda, (architecture by the by can do something of the same kind at the other extreme even in its imprisonment in mass); but painting and sculpture have their revenge by liberating visible form into ecstasy, while poetry though it cannot do with sound what music does, yet can make a many-stringed harmony, a sound revelation winging the creation by the word and setting afloat vivid suggestions of form and colour, – that gives it in a very subtle kind the power of all the arts. Who shall decide between such claims or be a judge between these godheads?^¹

To the mystic there is no such thing as an abstraction. Everything which to the intellectual mind is abstract has a concreteness, substantiality which is more real than the sensible form of an object or of a physical event. To me, for instance, consciousness is the very stuff of existence and I can feel it everywhere enveloping and penetrating the stone as much as man or the animal. A movement, a flow of consciousness is not to me an image but a fact. If I wrote "His anger climbed against me in a stream", it would be to the general reader a mere image, not something that was felt by me in a sensible experience; yet I would only be describing in exact terms what actually happened once, a stream of anger, a sensible and violent current of it rising up from downstairs and rushing upon me as I sat in the veranda of the Guest-House, the truth of it being confirmed afterwards by the confession of the person who had the movement. This is only one instance, but all that is spiritual or psychological in Savitri is of that character.^²

Materialism has now become a philosophical speculation just like any other theory; it cannot claim to found itself on a sort of infallible Biblical authority, based on the facts and conclusions of Science. This change can be felt by one like myself who grew up in the heyday of absolute rule of scientific materialism in the 19th century.^³

^¹ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry (Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971), p. 481.

² Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Parts Two & Three, p. 736.

^³ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Part One (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970), pp. 206-07.

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There are different statuses (avasthā) of the Divine Consciousness. There are also different statues of transformation. First is the psychic transformation, in which all is in contact with the Divine through the individual psychic consciousness. Next is the spiritual transformation in which all is merged in the Divine in the cosmic consciousness. Third is the supramental transformation in which all becomes supramentalised in the divine gnostic consciousness. It is only with the latter that there can begin the complete transformation of mind, life and body – in my sense of completeness.

You are mistaken in two respects. First, the endeavour towards this achievement is not new and some Yogis have achieved it, I believe – but not in the way I want it. They achieved it as a personal Siddhi maintained by Yoga-Siddhi – not a Dharma of the nature (physical transformation). Secondly, the supramental transformation is not the same as the spiritual-mental. It is a change of mind, life and body which the mental or over-mental-spiritual cannot achieve. All whom you mention were spirituals, but in different ways. Krishna's mind, for instance, was overmentalised, Ramakrishna's intuitive, Chaitanya's spiritual-psychic, Buddha's illumined higher mental. I don't know about Bijoy Goswami – he seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then about the vital of the Paramahansas. It is said that their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert (of. Jadabharata). Well, there is nothing supramental in all that.

One can be an instrument of the Divine in any of the trans­formations. The question is, an instrument for what? ¹

April 1935

Everything depends on the inner condition, and the outward action is only useful as a means and a help for expressing or confirming the inner condition and making it dynamic and effective. If you do or say a thing with the psychic uppermost or with the right inner touch, it will be effective; if you do or say the same thing out of the mind or the vital or with a wrong or mixed atmosphere, it may be quite ineffective. To do the

¹ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. US. Page – 266

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right thing in the right way in each case and at each moment one must be in the right consciousness – it can't be done by following a fixed mental rule which under some circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit in at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done or not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic, this can be increasingly done.

All depends therefore not on a mental rule to follow in practice, but in getting the psychic consciousness back and putting its light into this vital part and making that part turn wholly to the Mother, ¹

11-6-1932

It is only divine Love which can bear the burden I have to bear, that all have to bear who have sacrificed everything else to the one aim of uplifting earth out of its darkness towards the Divine.²

I have never disputed the truth of the old yogas – I have myself had the experience of Vaishnava Bhakti and of Nirvana in the Brahman; I recognise their truth in their own field and for their own purpose – the truth of their experience so far as it goes – though I am in no way bound to accept the truth of the mental philosophies founded on the experience. I similarly find that my yoga is true in its own field – a larger field, as I think – and for its own purpose. The purpose of the old is to get away from life to the Divine – so, obviously, let us drop Karma. The purpose of the new is to reach the Divine and bring the fullness of what is gained into life – for that, yoga by works is indispensable.³

Q: In what sense is the Mother everywhere? Does she know all happenings in the physical plane?

A: Including what Lloyd George had for breakfast today or

¹ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, With Letters on The Mother and Translations of Prayers and Meditations (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 272-73.

² Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 152.

³ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Parts Two and Three, p. 526.

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what Roosevelt said to his wife about the servants? Why should the Mother "know" in the human way all happenings in the physical plane? Her business in her embodiment is to know the workings of the universal forces and use them for her works; for the rest she knows what she needs to know, sometimes with her inner self, sometimes with her physical mind. All knowledge is available in her universal self, but she brings forward only what is needed to be brought forward so that the working is done.¹

13-8-1933

The Mother's consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play. Nothing can be done without her knowledge and force, without her consciousness – if anybody really feels her con­sciousness, he should know that I am there behind it and if he feels me it is the same with hers.²

13-11-1934

I cannot very well answer the strictures of Russell, for the conception of the Divine as an external omnipotent Power who has "created" the world and governs it like an absolute and arbitrary monarch – the Christian or Semitic conception – has never been mine; it contradicts too much my seeing and experience during thirty years of sadhana. ³

As for the question about the illness, perfection in the physical plane is indeed part of the ideal of the Yoga, but it is the last item and, so long as the fundamental change has not been made in the material consciousness to which the body belongs, one may have a certain perfection on other planes without having immunity in the body. We have not sought perfection for our own separate sake, but as part of a general change – creating a possibility of perfection for others. 4

August 1936

¹ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 106.

² Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 455

³ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Part One, p. 174.

4 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 476.

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It is not because I have myself trod the sunlit way or flinched from difficulty and suffering and danger. I have had my full
share of these things and the Mother has had ten times her full share. But that was because the finders of the Way had to face
(these things in order to conquer. No difficulty that can come on the Sadhak but has faced us on the path; against many we
have had to struggle hundreds of times. ... It is, in fact, to ensure an easier path to others hereafter that we have borne that bur-
den. ... The sunlit path is not altogether a fable.

APPENDIX I

That Pondicherry ─ Again!¹

I went out from Pondicherry in 1947 when India was on the eve of securing her partitioned freedom. On my return journey in the month of July 1947, I became conscious of the fact that it was my return to a place where I had passed nearly twenty-five years at a stretch. The memory of my first visit in 1918 awoke in me all the old impressions vividly. I saw then that even at that early period Sri Aurobindo was for me the embodiment of the Supreme Consciousness. I mentally began to search for the exact time-moment when I had come to know him. Travelling far into the past I found it was in 1914 when I read a notice in the Bombay Chronicle about the publication of a monthly magazine – the Arya – from Pondicherry by Sri Aurobindo. I hastened to register my name in advance. In those days of political storms, to avoid the suspicion of the college authorities and the police, I had ordered the magazine to be delivered to an address outside the college. Sri Aurobindo then appeared to me to be the personification of the ideal of the life divine which he so ably put before humanity in the Arya.

But the question “why did I order the Arya?” remained. On trying to find an answer I found that I had known him before the appearance of the Arya.

The Congress broke up at Surat in 1907. Sri Aurobindo had played a prominent part in that historical session. From Surat he came to Baroda, and at Vankaner Theatre and at Prof, Manik Rao's old gymnasium in Dandia Bazar he delivered several speeches which not only took the audience by storm but changed entirely the course of many lives. I also had heard him without understanding everything that was spoken. But ever since I had seen him I had the constant feeling that he was one known to me, and so my mind could not fix the exact moment of time when I knew him. It is certain that the connection seemed to begin with the great tidal wave of the national movement in the political life of India; but I think it was only the apparent beginning. The

¹By the author

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years between 1903 and 1910 were those of unprecedented awakening and revolution. The generations that followed also witnessed two or three powerful floods of the national movement. But the very first onrush of the newly awakened national consciousness of India was unique. That tidal wave in its initial onrush defined the goal of India's political ideal – anindependent republic. Alternating movement of ebb and flow in the national movement followed till in 1947 the goal was reached. The lives of leaders and workers, who rode, willingly and with delight on the dangerous crest of the tidal wave, underwent great transformations. Our small group in Gujarat got its goal fixed – the winning of undiluted freedom for India.

All the energies of the leaders were taken up by the freedom movement. Only a few among them attempted to see beyond the horizon of political freedom – some ideal of human perfection; for, after all, freedom is not the ultimate goal but a condition for the expression of the cultural Spirit of India. In Swami Shraddhananda, Pandit Madanmohan Malavia, Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi – to name some leaders – we see the double aspect of the inspiration. Among all the visions of perfection of the human Spirit on earth, I found the synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo the most rational and the most satisfying. It meets the need of the individual and collective life of man today. It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture. It is, as Dr. S. K. Maitra says, the message which holds out hope in a world of despair.

This aspect of Sri Aurobindo vision attracted me as much as the natural affinity which I had felt on seeing him. I found on making a serious study of the Arya that it led me to very rational conclusions with regard to the solutions of the deepest problems of life. I opened correspondence with him and in 1916, with his permission, began to translate the Arya into Gujarati.

But, though I had seen him from a distance and felt an unaccountable familiarity with him, still I had not yet met him personally. When the question arose of putting into execution the revolutionary plan, which Sri Aurobindo had given to my brother – C. B. Purani – at Baroda in 1907, I thought it better to obtain Sri Aurobindo's consent . Barin, his brother, had given the formula for preparing bombs to my brother, and I was also very impatient to begin the work. But still we thought it necessary to consult

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the great leader who had given us the inspiration, as the lives of many young men were involved in the plan.

I had an introduction to Sj. V. V. S. Aiyar who was then staying at Pondicherry. It was in December 1918 that I reached Pondicherry. I did not stay long with Mr. Aiyar. I took up my bundle of books – mainly the Arya – and went to No. 41 Rue Francois Martin, the Arya office, which was alsoSri Aurobindo residence. The house looked a little queer, – on the right side, as one entered, were a few plantain trees and by their side a heap of broken tiles. On the left, at the edge of the open courtyard, four doors giving entrance to four rooms were seen. The verandah outside was wide. It was about 8 in the morning. The time for meeting Sri Aurobindo was fixed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I waited all the time in the house, occasionally chatting with the two inmates who were there.

When I went up to meet him, Sri Aurobindo was sitting in a wooden chair behind a small table covered with an indigo-blue cloth in the verandah upstairs when I went up to meet him. I felt a spiritual light surrounding his face. His look was penetrating. He had known me by my correspondence. I reminded him about my brother having met him at Baroda; he had not forgotten him. Then I informed him that our group was now ready to start revolutionary activity. It had taken us about eleven years to get organised.

Sri Aurobindo remained silent for some time. Then he put me questions about my sadhana – spiritual practice. I described my efforts and added : "Sadhana is all right, but it is difficult to concentrate on it so long as India is not free."

"Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activity to free India," he said.

"But without that how is the British Government to go from India?" I asked him.

"That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, whyshould you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on yoga – the spiritual practice, he replied.

"But India is a land that has sadhana in its blood. When India is free, I believe, thousands will devote themselves to yoga. But in the world of today who will listen to the truth from, or spirituality of, slaves?" I asked him.

He replied : India has already decided to win freedom and

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so there will certainly be found leaders and men to work for that goal. But all are not called to yoga. So when you have the call, is it not better to concentrate upon it? If you want to carry out the revolutionary programme you are free to do it, but I cannot give my consent to it."

"But it was you who gave us the inspiration and the start for revolutionary activity. Why do you now refuse to give your consent to its execution?" I asked.

"Because I have done the work and I know its difficulties. Young men come forward to join the movement, driven by idealism and enthusiasm. But these elements do not last long. It becomes very difficult to observe and extract discipline. Small groups begin to form within the organisation,rivalriesgrowbetweengroups and even between individuals. There is competition for leadership. The agents of the Government generally manage to join these organisations from the very beginning. And so the organisations are unable to .act effectively. Sometimes they sink so low as to quarrel even for money," he said calmly.

But even supposing that I grant sadhana to be of greater importance, and even intellectually understand that I should concentrate upon it, – my difficulty is that I feel intensely that I must do something for the freedom of India. I have been unable to sleep soundly for the last two years and a half. I can remain quiet if I make a very strong effort. But the concentration of my whole being turns towards India's freedom. It is difficult for me to sleep till that is secured".

Sri Aurobindo remained silent for two or three minutes. It was a long pause. Then he said: "Suppose an assurance is given to you that India will be free?”

"Who can give such an assurance?" I could feel the echo of doubt and challenge in my own question.

Again he remained silent for three or four minutes then he looked at me and added "Suppose I give you the assurance?’

I paused for a moment, considered the question with myself and said: "If you give the assurance. I can accept it."

"Then I give you the assurance that India will be free, he said in a serious tone.

My work was over – the purpose of my visit to Pondicherry was served. My personal question and the problem of our group was solved! I then conveyed to him the message of Sj. K. G. Deshpande

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from Baroda. I told him that financial help could be arranged from Baroda, if necessary, to which he replied, "At present what is required comes from Bengal, especially from Chandernagore. Sothere is no need."

When the talk turned to Prof. D. L. Purohit of Baroda Sri Aurobindo recounted the incident of his visit to Pondicherry where he had come to inquire into the relation between the Church and the State. He had paid a courtesy call on Sri Aurobindo as he had known him at Baroda. This had resulted in his resignation from Baroda State service on account of the pressure of the British Residency. I conveyed to Sri Aurobindo the good news that after his resignation Mr. Purohit had started practice as a lawyer and had been quite successful, earning more than the pay he had been getting as a professor.It was time for me to leave. The question of Indian freedom again arose in my mind, and at the time of taking leave, after I had got up to depart, I could not repress the question – it was a question of very life for me : "Are you quite sure that India will be free?"

I did not, at that time, realise the full import of my query. I wanted a guarantee, and though the assurance had been given my doubts had not completely disappeared.

Sri Aurobindo became very serious. The yogi in him came forward; his gaze was fixed at the sky that could be seen beyond the window. Then he looked at me and putting his fist on the table he said :

"You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising of the sun tomorrow. The decree has already gone forth; it may not be long in coming.

I bowed down to him. That day I was able to sleep soundly in the train after more than two years. And in my mind was fixed for ever the picture of that scene : two of us standing near the small table, my earnest question, that upward gaze, and that quiet and firm voice with power in it to shake the world, that firm fist planted on the table, – the symbol of self-confidence of the divine Truth. There may be rank Kaliyuga, the Iron Age, in the whole world but it is the great good fortune of India that she has sons who know the Truth and have the unshakable faith in it, and can risk their lives for its sake. In this significant fact is contained the divine destiny of India and of the world.

After meeting Sri Aurobindo I was quite relieved of the great strain that was upon me. I felt that Indian freedom was a certainty, I could

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participate in public movements with equanimity and with a truer spiritual attitude. I got some experiences also which confirmed my faith in Sri Aurobindo's path. I got the confident faith in a divine Power that is beyond time and space and that can and does work in the world. I came to know that any man with a sincere aspiration for it can come in contact with that Power.

There were people who thought that Sri Aurobindo had retired from life, that he did not take any interest in the world and its affairs. These ideas never troubled me. On the contrary, I felt that his work was of tremendous significance for humanity and its future. In fact, the dynamic aspect of his spirituality, his insistence on life as a field for the manifestation of the Spirit, and his great synthesis added to the attraction I had already felt. To me he appeared as the spiritual Sun in modern times shedding his light on mankind from the height of his consciousness, and Pondicherry where he lived was a place of pilgrimage.

The second time I met Sri Aurobindo was in 1921, when there was a greater familiarity. Having, come for a short stay, I remained eleven days on Sri Aurobindo's asking me to prolong my stay. During my journey from Madras to Pondicherry I was enchanted by the natural scenery – the vast stretches of green paddy fields. But Pondicherry as a city was lethargic, with a colonial atmosphere – an exhibition of the worst elements of European and Indian culture. The market was dirty and stinking and the people had no idea of sanitation. The sea-beach was made filthy by them. Smuggling was the main business.

But the greatest surprise of my visit in 1921 was the "darshan" of Sri Aurobindo. During the interval of two years his body had undergone a transformation which could only be described as miraculous. In 1918 the colour of the body was like that of an ordinary Bengali – rather dark - though there was lustre on the face and the gaze was penetrating. On going upstairs to see him (in the same house) I found his cheeks wore an apple pink colour and the whole body glowed with a soft creamy white light. So great and unexpected was the change that I could not help exclaiming:

"What has happened to you?"

Instead of giving a direct reply he parried the question, as I had grown a beard: "And what has happened to you?”

But afterwards in the course of talk he explained to me that when the Higher Consciousness, descends from the

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mental level to the vital and even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. He asked me to join the meditation in the afternoon and also the evening sittings.

This time I saw the Mother for the first time. She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo was going upstairs after lunch. Such unearthly beauty I had never seen – she appeared to be about twenty years of age whereas she was more than forty.

I found the atmosphere of the Ashram tense. The Mother and Datta, ( Miss Hodgson), had come to stay in No. 40 Rue Francois Martin. The house had undergone a great change. There was a clean garden in the open courtyard; every room had simple and decent furniture, – a mat, a chair and a small table. There was an air of tidiness and order. This was, no doubt, the effect of Mother's presence. But yet the atmosphere was tense because Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were engaged in fighting with forces of the vital plane.

Only a few days before my arrival a dismissed cook had managed to get stones hurled into Sri Aurobindo’s house through the agency of a Mohammedan occultist. This was the topic of excited talk when I was at Pondicherry. Upendranath Banerjee, who hardly believed in the possibility of such occult phenomena, had gone to the terrace with a lantern and a lathi to find the culprit. I heard the whole story from Upen himself. The stone-falling ended when the Mother took the matter in hand and removed the servant-boy, who was the medium, to another house. (The account of this is given on pages 177-78 and in Appendix II)

The Prabartak Sangh was started at Chandernagore by Motilal Roy and others under the inspiration of Sri Aurobindo. In the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo life is accepted as the field for the manifestation of the Divine. Its main aim is not liberation merely but the manifestation of divine perfection. In his vision not only the individual but the collectivity also is a term of the Divine. Acceptance of life includes the collective life.

There is a deeper reason for accepting life. In his vision of the Reality Sri Aurobindo shows the rationality and the inevitability of an ascent by man to a higher con­sciousness than Mind. This ascent to the Higher Consciousness must lead to its descent in man. If the new element, the Supermind, is to become a permanent part of the earth-consciousness, then not only should

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it descend into the lowest plane of physical consciousness – the subconscient – but also must become a part of the collective consciousness on earth.

I asked him many questions about the organisation of a collective life based on spiritual aspiration.

On the last day of my stay of eleven days I met Sri Aurobindo between three and four in the afternoon. The main topic was sadhana.

When I got up to take leave of him I asked him:

"What are you waiting for?" I put the question be­cause it was clear to me that he had been constantly living in the Higher Consciousness. "It is true," he said, "that the Divine Consciousness has descended but it has not yet descended into the physical being. So long as that is not done the work cannot be said to be accomplished."

I bowed down to him. When I got up to look at his face, I found he had already gone to the entrance of his room and, through the one door, I saw him turning his face towards me with a smile. I felt a great elation when I boarded the train: for, here was a guide who had already attained the Divine Consciousness, was conscious about it and yet whose detachment and discrimination were so perfect, whose sincerity so profound, that he knew what had still to be attained and could go on unobtrusively doing his hard work for mankind. External forms had a secondary place in his scale of values. In an effort so great is embodied some divine inspiration; to be called to such an ideal was itself the greatest good fortune.

The freedom of India, about which he had assured me, came, and I was fortunate to live to see it arrive on his own auspicious birthday, the 15th of August 1947.

It was to this Pondicherry that I was returning. I have lived there for nearly a generation but had never felt the Pondicherry Ashram as something fixed and unchanging. I realised this most strongly on the day I was returning to it. Pondicherry has always been to me the symbol of a great experiment, of a divine ideal. It is mar­ching every hour towards the ultimate goal of man's up­ward ascent to the Divine. Not a city but a spiritual la­boratory, a collective being with a daily changing horizon yet pursuing a fixed distant objective, a place fixed to the outer view but constantly moving – Pondicherry to me is always like the Arab's tent.

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Bibliography

Most of Sri Aurobindo's writings first appeared in the periodicals listed in Part I. His writings later were brought out in the books described in Part II finally collected in thirty volumes of Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, the contents of which are given in Part III.

I

PERIODICALS WITH WHICH SRI AUROBINDO WAS ASSOCIATED

ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY

page - 373

Page 374

Page 375

Sri Aurobindo occasionally contributed essays, poems etc. to periodicals other than those listed above including The Modern Review (Calcutta), The Calcutta Review, The Vedic Magazine (Lahore), Shama'a (Madras) and the Bengali reviews Suprabhat  and Bharati.

The following is a list of journals published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram or groups connected with it in which many unpublished letters, articles, poems etc. of Sri Aurobindo first appeared.

Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, Calcutta since 1942

Bartika (Bengali) Quarterly, Calcutta, since 1942

The Advent Quarterly, Pondicherry (originally Madras), since 1944

      Sri Aurobindo Circle Annual, Pondicherry (originally Bombay), since 1945

Bulletin of Physical Education (presently the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education) Quarterly, Pondicherry, since 1949, English-French

The eight articles which make up The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth were written by Sri Aurobindo for the Bulletin and published in it between February 21, 1949 and November 24, 1950.

Mother India Monthly, Pondicherry (originally a Bombay fortnightly), since 1949 Srinvantu Quarterly, Calcutta, since 1956

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