Krishnaprem (Ronald Nixon)

Krishnaprem (10 May 1898 – 14 November 1965), born Ronald Henry Nixon, was a British spiritual aspirant who went to India in the early 20th century. Together with his spiritual teacher Sri Yashoda Mai (1882 – 1944), he founded an ashram at Mirtola, near Almora, India.

Dilip Kumar Roy, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo was in close contact with Krishnaprem. He writes in his memoirs:

.... I was instrumental in bringing them into direct contact again and again through the letters they went on writing to me which, by and large, served as the bridge between them ever since I had built it accidentally to draw them closer to each other, even though there could be no question of Krishnaprem's accepting Sri Aurobindo as his Guru. In fact, once, from Almora, he wrote to me, years ago, in reply to my invitation, that although he had the deepest reverence for Sri Aurobindo, he did not feel like coming to Pondicherry since he could get all the inspiration he needed from his own Guru. A little hurt by this, I went to the Mother with his letter. To my surprise, she not only supported him but actually praised him to the skies and told me: "That is the ideal attitude for any aspirant who has already accepted a Guru: to wit, to stick to him, refusing to turn to any other Master for Guidance." Sri Aurobindo also wrote to me when Krishnaprem contended that all true Gurus were the same.

"All true Gurus are the same, the one Guru, all are the one Divine. That is a fundamental and universal Truth which justifies Krishnaprem's statement. But there is also a truth of difference; the Divine dwells in different personalities with different minds, teachings and influences so that He may lead different disciples with their special need, character and destiny by different ways to the realisation: that justifies Krishnaprem's own action. Because all Gurus are the same Divine, it does not follow that the disciple does well if he leaves the one meant for him to follow another. Fidelity to the Guru is demanded of every disciple, according to Indian tradition. Krishnaprem has that fidelity; he feels the spiritual tie holding him to his Guru in life and even after her departure; that is why he cannot think of going to someone else. 'All are the same' is a spiritual truth, but you cannot convert it indiscriminately into action; you cannot deal with all persons in the same way because they are the one Brahman: if one did, the result, pragmatically, would be an awful mess. You yourself have always in your heart laid stress on the principle of fidelity; Krishnaprem does the same so you ought to find it easy to understand his standpoint. It is a rigid mental logic that makes the difficulty, but in spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition, faith and a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides."

A few years later Krishnaprem visited our Ashram at Pondicherry and he responded warmly to Sri Aurobindo's spiritual touch and blessings. And he made a very characteristic gesture which I shall never forget, a gesture of simple sincerity with a charm all his own. It was in November, 1948.1 took him up to the Mother and introduced him to her. He said that he had come for her blessings that he might give himself without re serve to his Guru and Krishna. Mother held his eyes for nearly a minute, then said:

"But you have given yourself."

"Not enough," he answered.

Mother told us subsequently that his words had made a deep impression on her; and yet he had spoken but a few words!

He then went to tour South India and visited the famous temple of Srirangam where he had a marvellous experience amounting to a revelation. Meanwhile I appealed to Gurudev to write to me in a few lines his impression of Krishnaprem when he had come to pay his respects to him at darshan. He wrote back.

"I do not quite know what to write in the few lines you asked from me nor how to write it. Perhaps I could only repeat from my side what he himself said about 'establishing a contact'. But a spiritual contact cannot be easily defined in mental terms, they are usually insufficient to express it. If it is some impressions about himself or his spiritual person or his more outward personality that you are thinking of, there too I find it difficult to put it into language; these things in a moment like that are felt rather than thought out and it may not be easy to throw them into mental terms at once. Perhaps the only thing I could say is that they have confirmed and deepened and made more living the impressions I had already formed about him from his letters to you and what came through them and from such psychical contact as I had already made from a distance, for the contact itself is not distant. You know very well the value I have always put upon his insight into spiritual things, the brilliance and accuracy of his thought and vision and expression of them (I think I described it once as pashyanti vak) and on as much as I knew of his spiritual experience and constant acquisition and forward movement and many-sided largeness. A closer perception of the spiritual person behind that is something more than a mental impression. I think this is all I can write at present and I hope it will be enough for you."

Krishnaprem wrote to Dilip Kumar Roy in 1948 : “As for my stay with you all at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, I do not feel I can write without being inadequate. Where the heart is too full of joy, words do not readily come-at least to me, and I do not intend to try.”

He also stated : “You know what my feelings are with respect to your Gurudev and so, I am quite sure, does he himself. Without doubt he also knows how far the particular path I try to tread is a parallel one to his own. Knowing that, he has gone out of his way to be kind and gracious to me, an outsider (perhaps that is what some people can't tolerate) and I have far too much respect for him and far too keen an appreciation of his kindness to wish to be guilty of the impertinence of writing chits about my agreement or disagreement with him. Besides, it isn't a question of 'agreement' at all. Truth is something to be seen, not something to 'agree with'—you can leave all that to the world of politics or economic theories or even philosophic theories for that matter.”

Source:
  Sri Aurobindo came to Me