Krishnaprem : spiritual name of Ronald Nixon (c.1898-1965), an Irishman initiated into sanyāsa in 1928 by Yashodā Mai. He set up an Ashram named Uttara Brindāvan at Mirtola near Almora in the Himalayas. A brilliant student at Cambridge, he taught English literature at the universities of Lucknow & Benares. He wrote several books, the best known is a commentary on the Gita. After 1950 he gradually gave up the Vaishnava rituals & practised universal compassion.
... counter to his Guru's lead? Only one explanation occurs to me: that he had faith not only in the spiritual wisdom of Krishnaprem but also in the purity of his love for me. In other words, he knew that Krishnaprem would not misuse the influence he wielded over me precisely because Krishnaprem loved something in me which turned to him in simple trust to be led to the One to whom he himself had given his soul... APPENDIX II Sri Krishnaprem Vis-A-Vis Sri Aurobindo We often say, in common parlance, that so and so is (or was) a great man. It is not easy to define what we mean by this epithet. But the feeling — or shall I say, the conviction — is not misty any more than the impression of beauty is. Sri Krishnaprem is an instance in point. He impinged on the heart with... 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 ...
... flood of pseudos or mixtures comes in, one is led into the mazes of the intermediate zone or spins in the grooves of one's own formations. There is the truth of the whole matter. Then why does Krishnaprem say that one should not hunt after experiences, but only love and seek the Divine? It simply means that you have not to make experiences your main aim, but the Divine only your aim—and if you do... always the central aim in view. All helpful or supporting contacts in dream or vision, such as those you speak of, are to be welcomed and accepted. I had no intention of discouraging, nor do I think Krishnaprem had any idea of discouraging such things at all. Experiences of the right kind are a support and help towards the realisation; they are in every way acceptable. P.S. I fear this is as illegible... to get its own way and twisting about to justify its refusal to change. I leave Rama then and turn to Harmony and Bejoy Goswami? September 6, 1934 I agree with most of what Krishnaprem says, though one or two things I would put from a different angle. Your reasonings about faith and doubt have been of a rather extravagant kind because they come to this that one must either doubt ...
... ___ 1. Krishnaprem (Ronald Nixon) was professor at Lucknow University where Dilip met him in 1922. A few years later he gave up his lectureship for a post in Benares where he went with his Guru, Yashoda Ma. When the latter retired to a temple-retreat in Almora, he accompanied her and became a Sannyasin in the name of Krishna. Dilip had sent Sri Aurobindo a few letters from Krishnaprem. Page... have suggested some retouches in the two poems you sent me. It is a matter of details of language, but such details have their importance.... I have explained the reason for the other changes. "Krishnaprem" 1 has been snowed under for the last two days. I will see if I can extricate it. But at this rate your "Appendix" will become as long as Sheshn ā ga [the king of snakes]. February... in the language or in the expression of the thought which I have tried to correct or smooth over. I have not forgotten the "positive side"—but I have had no chance recently to do the needful. Krishnaprem has been Page 178 progressing slowly and by spasms, but is approaching completion—only it is at once too short and too long, too long for your purpose, too short for mine. It ought ...
... AUROBINDO (looking at Satyendra) : How do you feel about it? SATYENDRA: It may be true. Receptiveness, it seems, characterises the soul and that is a feminine quality. Krishnaprem says that Newman refers to the soul as a woman. Krishnaprem also speaks of the Vaishnavas trying to identify themselves with the Gopis in order to love Krishna. SRI AUROBINDO: The soul, he says, may be considered a marriage... by receptiveness. PURANI: What Krishnaprem means by receptiveness appears to be the same as Bhakti, devotion. SRI AUROBINDO: People who follow the path of love and Bhakti rely most on Grace. PURANI: We hear that Grace is always present. Whenever one opens to it, one gets the response. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, you have to open to it. NIRODBARAN: Krishnaprem makes a distinction between power... consequently due to Grace. SRI AUROBINDO: No, it is not the whole truth; it contains only an element. The truth is infinite, and Krishnaprem states one aspect of the infinite truth. Infinite factors enters into it and there are infinite ways of action. Krishnaprem has objected to the word Grace as taken and understood by the Christians. The Christians say that nothing can be done or achieved except ...
... about the proposal of [Harper]. I don’t think that anything final can be said yet; the Mother will see and decide at the proper time. Page 217 November 28, 1948 (About Krishnaprem) I don’t quite know what to write in the few lines you asked from me or how to write it. Perhaps I could only repeat from my side what he has himself said about establishing a contact... it, but 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. December 3, 1948 It seems to me that Krishnaprem has seen very clearly with his usual accuracy and his mind of sight, pasyanti buddhi, the truth about yourself and your sadhana. I think that you could not do better than accept his diagnosis... intellect’s thought and sight cannot escape from its own subjectivity and colouring personality. The deeper and more accurate view of things can be more easily attained by the mind of sight which Krishnaprem has so much developed, pasyanti buddhi. You may say that you have got only your intellect to help you with its judgments and opinions: but mental judgments and opinions, well, they are always ...
... 1940-contd Talks with Sri Aurobindo 3 AUGUST 1940 To a letter of Dilip's regarding the present world condition, Krishnaprem wrote a reply which was read by Sri Aurobindo. SATYENDRA: Krishnaprem quotes the Gita's, "By Me these have been slain" and says, "The war has already been fought and won," by which he means action in the subtle worlds. SRI AUROBINDO:... Order will come or it may not come at all or come only after Pralaya! Of course the issue has been decided by the Divine Vision and there can be no change in that. But nobody knows what it is. Krishnaprem puts it in a rather absolute way which I don't think is true. He doesn't give sufficient importance to the material world. If everything is fixed and whatever happens is, as he says, according to... the Mother's prayer this year? 5 NIRODBARAN: I have. SRI AUROBINDO: Those who received it in France are already realising what it means. EVENING NIRODBARAN: I couldn't quite follow Krishnaprem when he said that this war is not a real war. His words are: "It is the troubled wake of a ship that has passed, the trail of a snail, the dead ash of a forest fire," etc. SRI AUROBINDO: He means ...
... mind – on the contrary if there is danger, it might be in the opposite side. That is why Krishnaprem doesn’t condemn even the monster Hitler vehemently though he (for self preservation, I think) protests against Hitler’s campaign against all intellectuals whom H. regards as vermin. Krishnaprem is in a hopeless quandary now, I too noticed. So I thought that his guru was at least partly ... I trust you did not take my yesterday’s letter amiss since it was prompted out of sincere reverence for you and not questioning. What I meant was perhaps not clear. So I enclose a letter of Krishnaprem I received two or three days ago. Read at least the red-lined sentence. It is this sort of recent views of his about everything-external-a-projection-of-the-internal and all-men-striving-so-n... Ishwara. And of this sum of all-round wisdom of which only dim rays are received by minds like ours I have had a glimpse only through contact with you and your writings. Why is it Krishnaprem is not influenced by such writings? Because, I feel, his guru teaches him such platitudes of all men being innocent and divine and everybody should be [?]. Page 146 I suppose ...
... untrue.” * Page 66 April 26, 1943 I enclose a letter from Krishnaprem. About therapy, etc. I am not genuinely interested. But I confess I am rather intrigued about Surya Deva. Inever thought of worshipping him as a Deva. How about it? Does Krishnaprem mean that Surya is a conscient god? Yes, obviously. If it is meant god in the... Well, if not reverently at least amiably, as a nice and friendly being who removes the darkness. That is just what Krishnaprem is jocosely damning, your parlous state of ignorance about the occult world and what lies behind things here. If Krishnaprem were asking you to concentrate on Surya instead of Krishna, you could very obviously retort on him with the sloka from the Gita... exclude such specific personal manifestations as those vouchsafed to Krishnaprem and his guru. The more ways there are of the union, the better. P.S. Please forgive me if I ask you to explain what was the darshan of Krishnaprem’s guru when she saw Krishna with open eyes first in her room and then in the temple. Krishnaprem did not see Him but “I have felt Him,” he said with tears in his ...
... then, as Krishnaprem has told you and I also have insisted, is to stick it out. If once one can get and keep the resolution to refuse to accept the suggestions of these forces, however plausible they may seem, then either quickly or gradually this condition can diminish and will be over passed and cease. To give up Yoga is no solution; you could not successfully do it as both Krishnaprem and I have... to accept. I will try to have a shot at it, but it may take some days. Page 233 Meanwhile, as you have asked what is my advice, I send you this brief answer." This I sent to Krishnaprem who wrote to me: "I am so sorry that you are not well and still more so to see the nature of the troubles you refer to. Set your teeth and stick it out as best you can: the darkness will pass... deficiency in faith I should be almost inexhaustibly rich in vairagya ! But, alas, vairagya unlike the positive bhakti or knowledge, is essentially negative and faith I lack, although both you and Krishnaprem have driven me to the wall with unanswerable arguments in its favour. In my presentstate, however, I often catch myself thinking, ruefully, that the man of faith — like his polar opposite, the sceptic ...
... × She would initiate Ronald Nixon, professor of English at the same university, naming him Krishnaprem. We find many letters to and from this Krishnaprem in the correspondence of Dilip Kumar Roy, a friend of Krishnaprem and disciple of Sri Aurobindo, to whom D.K. Roy forwarded those letters. ... × Ibid. × See Dilip Kumar Roy, Yogi Krishnaprem , pp. 53 ff. × Peter Washington, Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon , p. 107. ...
... something manifested through them that was more than any outward event or any teaching. The verifiable historicity gives us very little of that, yet it is that only that matters. So it seems to me that Krishnaprem is fundamentally right in what he says of the symbols. To the physical mind only the words and facts and acts of a man matter; to the inner mind it is the spiritual happenings in him that matter... light. How many have done that here and lost the way through the pull of the magnified ego which is one of the great perils on the way! However that does not lessen the truth of the things said by Krishnaprem—only in looking at the many sides of Truth one must put each thing in its place in the harmony of the All which Page 480 is for us the expression of the Supreme. The answer to... touched the earth, made the complete manifestation possible, made it possible for the divine supernature to descend into this evolving but still very imperfect terrestrial nature. What he [ Krishnaprem ] says 3 —the central thing—is very correct as always, the position of all who have any notion of spirituality, though the religionists seem to find it difficult to get to it. But though Christ ...
... it doesn't go far enough. And Krishnaprem does not seem to have understood the Supermind. SRI AUROBINDO: No, that he hasn't. NIRODBARAN: When Dilip saw that Krishnaprem makes Nirvana and Samsara equal according to Buddha, he revolted. That was too much because Buddha has always been against Samsara. SRI AUROBINDO: Of course, Buddha never said that. Krishnaprem speaks according to the Mahayana... nothingness that is beyond all present construction, and that is the nothingness which contains everything. (Addressing Purani) Do you know anything about the Nous, the Divine Mind, of Plotinus? Krishnaprem appears to make the Supermind and the Nous the same. Nous seems to be Intelligence. PURANI: I do not know if Divine Mind would be the same as Supermind. SRI AUROBINDO: When they consider ...
... very much disheartened. No doubt you have been encouraging us—but Krishnaprem has at last blurted out the home truth. Look at me: I have been working hard enough in all conscience—but with no consciousness at all of the least sense of illumination within. What can such work do! But then again meditation is useless d'aprés Krishnaprem unless one were thoroughly purified and stationed in the perfect... all but useless to try to get out of the grip of this depressing fellow. My cold too has rein- forced it. However I won't complain. I have prayed a lot today—some comfort to dwell on that—though Krishnaprem advocates the Upanishadic attitude "Awake ! Arise" and not trust too much to Divine Grace. Raihana on the contrary believes in Grace. Hike to do that but find nothing which encourages me to such... with Mother thanks to this awful nuisance of cough—that is another irksome obstacle on top of my enough obstacles and to spare. Page 22 P.S. I sometimes marvel how this fellow Krishnaprem has got so much strength with an indifferent guru, while we have so little of it with a really wonderful guru! To envy whom ? A strong adept with an indifferent guru or a weak aspirant ...
... work re. proofs, etc. But what about Krishnaprem and that letter? To give you a fillip I send his two letters I spoke about. See if you can comment thereon along with the question. What the deuce he means by this Light of his? Knowledge ? Well will you give me some hints as to its concreteness? Light, good Lord! What is it? Will answer you about Krishnaprem tomorrow. God will- ing. Not much... has to manifest in conditions which are the most adverse , to that manifestation. It can be done, but you cannot expect to be easily done. February 1935? I did not at all mean that Krishnaprem himself was used by the hostile forces. These forces can use anything for their Purpose by combining it with others to make part of a total suggestion. They can use what is in itself quite harmless... sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that changes to a sheer " I seek you for you". It is that marvellous Page 276 and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna." The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater ...
... which seemed remarkable to me as he talked and passed verdicts readily enough. I remember once (years later, when he had matured further) how he debated with Krishnaprem in my living-room. How I envied his dialectical intelligence! And Krishnaprem not only admired his mental robustness in a frail physique but enjoyed to the full breaking a lance with him. But he had to go all out to hold his own against... When I look back in retrospect, I see that I have come to love the British primarily because of three men: Bertrand Russell, Krishnaprem (alias Ronald Nixon) and Chadwick. Of these Chadwick was distinctive in a peculiar way. For while Russell remained British and Krishnaprem became out and out a Hindu, Page 305 only Chadwick combined in him the rich, aristocratic refinement of the... Page 293 speak out my deep conviction: that not to know Sri Aurobindo as a poet will be, in the near future, to argue oneself unknown as a critic and lover of poetry. Fortunately Krishnaprem (formerly Ronald Nixon) has made some atonement at least for the silence of his compatriots, the English, by writing in his tribute to Savitri : "Such poetry can only be written either in the ...
... 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 the Indian tradition. Krishnaprem has that fidelity; he feels the spiritual tie holding him to his guru in life and after her departure, that is why he cannot think of going to someone else. “All are the same “ is a spiritual... 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... experience in the life of the human being; if it were not so, man would be the plaything of a changing mind or a sport of circumstance. I have, I think, more than once, written the same thing as Krishnaprem though in different language. If you understand this and keep it in mind, Krishnaprem’s experience and the image in which he saw it should be sufficiently clear. The needle is this power ...
... I had the privilege of several meetings with the Mother. Also, the book led me to enter into correspondence with Sri Krishnaprem, visit Mirtola and interact with one of the most remarkable persons that I have ever met. The correspondence between Sri Krishnaprem and Dilipda is most charming and fascinating and has been reproduced extensively in many of Dilipda’s books. I had occasion... association with Dilipda. It was through his book Among the Great that, in the early 50s, I first learnt of Sri Aurobindo and of Dilipda’s very close personal friend, an English swami Sri Krishnaprem who lived in an Ashram in Mirtola near Almora. In fact I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dilipda, because it was this book as well as a subsequent one that he sent me entitled Sri Aurobindo ...
... seemed remarkable to me as he talked and passed verdicts readily enough. I remember once (years later, when he had matured further) how he debated with Krishnaprem in myliving-room. How I envied his dialectical intelligence! And Krishnaprem not only admired his mental robustness in a frail physique but enjoyed to me full breaking a lance with him. But he had to go all out to hold his own against... owe it to truth to speak out my deep conviction: that not to know Sri Aurobindo as a poet will be, in the near future, to argue oneself unknown as a critic and lover of poetry. Fortunately Krishnaprem (formerly Ronald Nixon) has made some atonement at least for the silence of his compatriots, the English, by writing in his tribute to Savitri : "Such poetry can only be written ...
... received a long letter from Krishnaprem. He evidently wants to qualify his statement about violence. For myself I have no doubt as you who know have said so. Only one point gave rise to doubts in me, in regard to what Nolini wrote in his Page 212 masterly analysis of the values at stake, comparing this war to Kurukshetra. 3 This is exactly what troubles Krishnaprem. How can the Allied Powers... look at, I don't want to go blind among surface details. The future has first to be safeguarded; only then can present problems and contradictions have a chance to be solved and eliminated. Krishnaprem too has become doubtful about the Allies being compared to the Pandavas. Would you kindly throw some light on the question? For us the question put by you does not arise. The Mother made it plain ...
... for the future to decide—for at present it only keeps what it has got by a tension and violent control which is not over. The Valley of the False Glimmer One feels here [ in the letters of Krishnaprem ] a stream from the direct sources of Truth that one does not meet so often as one could desire. Here is a mind that can not only think but see—and not merely see the surfaces of things with which... that uses it; for there is only one thing essential, needful, indispensable, to grow conscious of the Divine Reality and live in it and live it always. Page 334 It seems to me that Krishnaprem has seen very clearly with his usual accuracy and his mind of sight, paśyantī buddhi , the truth about yourself and your sadhana. I think that you could not do better than accept his diagnosis and... intellect's thought and sight cannot escape from its own subjectivity and colouring personality. The deeper and more accurate view of things can be more easily attained by the mind of sight which Krishnaprem has so much developed, paśyantī buddhi . You may say that you have got only your intellect to help you with its judgments and opinions: but mental judgments and opinions—well, they are always personal ...
... no reason therefore to take as gospel truth these demands which may have been right for Krishnaprem on the way he has trod, but cannot be imposed on all. There is no ground for despondency on that ground—the law of the spirit is not so exacting and inexorable. Purification and Consecration What Krishnaprem writes (I have not read it yet) is perfectly true that purification of the heart is necessary... flood of pseudos or mixtures comes in, one is led into the mazes of the intermediate zone or spins in the grooves of one's own formations. There is the truth of the whole matter. Then why does Krishnaprem say that one should not hunt after experiences but only love and seek the Divine? It simply means that you have not to make experiences your main aim, but the Divine only your aim; and if you do... (purification and manifestation) go on progressing side by side and become more and more strong to play into each other's hands—that is the usual course of the sadhana. I do not know what Krishnaprem said or in which article, I do not have it with me. But if the statement is that nobody can have a successful meditation or realise anything till he is pure and perfect, I fail to follow it; it ...
... Aurobindo to Page 9 inform him that next day, Sri Krishnaprem will also be accompanying him for Sri Aurobindo's darshan and in the title of devotees assembled for the darshan, the man next to Dilip will be Sri Krishnaprem. "If possible, please give him a smile, when he approaches you, 0 Guru/7 "Just think," Sri Krishnaprem told me, "how he dares order or command the Guru to oblige him... hereafter. Before I conclude, I am tempted to recount the story which I had the privilege of hearing from a great mystic soul, Sri Krishnaprem, who had, according to Sri Aurobindo, a "seeing intellect" {paśyanti-buddhi). A bosom friend of Dilip Kumar's, this Sri Krishnaprem was invited by the former to visit Pondicherry to have a darshan of Sri Aurobindo, and so he went there just a day or two prior ...
... These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any divine... true thing to come. It is not by prāyopaveśana or anything of the kind that it must come, but by the increase of the pure and true bhakti. You have been constantly told so by us and lately be Krishnaprem and his guru; remember that she told you that the presence of Krishna during your singing was a sure sign that it would come,—not necessarily today or tomorrow or the day after, but that it would... ordinarily, this is enough and it prepares besides for something deeper. But to realise the identity is another matter, [ incomplete ] I do not know that I can answer your question about what Krishnaprem means by Krishna's light. It is certainly not what people ordinarily mean by knowledge. He may mean the light of the Divine Consciousness, or if you like, the light that is the Divine Consciousness ...
... thing then, as Krishnaprem has told you and I also have insisted, is to stick it out. If once one can get and keep the resolution to refuse to accept the suggestions of these forces, however plausible they may seem, then either quickly or gradually this condition can diminish and will be overpassed and cease. To give up Yoga is no solution; you could not successfully do it as both Krishnaprem and I have ...
... for us who seek the entire truth, have been short and easy, but still we might have been spared many wanderings and stand-stills and recoils and detours. All the more I admire the ease with which Krishnaprem seems to have surmounted this formidable obstacle. I do not know if his Guru falls far short in any respect, but with the attitude he has taken, her deficiencies, if any, do not matter. It is... others than the disciple an inferior spiritual source and the rest will grow up in the sadhak of itself by the Grace of the Divine, even if the human being in the Guru cannot give it. It is this that Krishnaprem appears to have done perhaps from the first; but in Page 201 most nowadays this attitude seems to come with difficulty after much hesitation and delay and trouble. In my own case I owe ...
... of enlightenment. PURANI: Yes, that is a famous quotation. But we thought that Buddhism doesn't recognise the Self. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, perhaps it means the phenomenal self. SATYENDRA: Krishnaprem gives a different interpretation to Buddhism. He says Nirvana is only a half-way house. SRI AUROBINDO: That agrees with my experience. SATYENDRA: In one of his letters I saw that he didn't... agree with you about some idea of Buddhism. I don't remember exactly what it was. SRI AUROBINDO: What I might have said or now say about Buddhism is based on the current idea about Buddhism. Krishnaprem puts his own interpretation. NIRODBARAN: He follows the Mahayana school. SRI AUROBINDO: Mahayana is nearer to the Advaita school. SATYENDRA: Even Mahayana teachings may be a modern inte ...
... this connection of what Dilip Kumar Roy once said abut this aspect of Sethna’s intelligence. Roy observed:. “I remember once how he [K.D.S.] debated with Krishnaprem in my living-room. I envied his dialectical intelligence! And Krishnaprem not only admitted his mental robustness…but enjoyed to the full by breaking a lance with him. But he had to go all out to hold his own against Sethna, which is ...
... pleasure! Krishnaprem, Moore and others have also had a contrary opinion to the adverse critics and these, both English and Indian, were men whose capacity for forming a true literary judgment is perhaps as good as any on the other side. Krishnaprem I mention, because his judgment forms a curious and violent contrast to Mendonҫa's: the latter finds no overtones¸ in my poetry while Krishnaprem who similarly ...
... in every tussle I had with my adverse critics. So I will end this chapter with a few extracts from his letters bearing on the imbroglio. For an imbroglio it was, so much so that my gloom impelled Krishnaprem — to whom I wrote about it — to laugh it away with the sunshine of his radiant laughter: "But what is this awful news about your giving up laughter? Give up anything else you like: arguing,... Supermind comes down; so why should Mother and I send you away on His account? It would be a most illogical procedure. So that is that." But as I dreaded nothing more than disloyalty, I asked Krishnaprem (to whom I was duly sending Gurudev's letters on Krishna) whether it would be disloyal or unwise on my part to want to realise Krishna through the Guru in the traditional Vaishnava way as that sadhana... 'But,' you may say, 'they are my gurubhais'. Let them be. Gurus teach different things to different disciples. Never mind what he may have taught others You do what he has taught you — Yours Krishnaprem." I have quoted his letters without remorse or fear of hell ( for betraying confidences) first because these, I felt, would help many a seeker to appreciate better the greatness of Gurudev, and seccondly ...
... praise was sufficiently "nectarous" for anybody to swallow with pleasure! Krishnaprem (Ronald Nixon), Moore and others have also had a contrary opinion to the adverse critics and these, both English and Indian, were men whose capacity for forming a true literary judgment is perhaps as good as any on the other side. Krishnaprem I mention, because his judgement forms a curious and violent contrast to... to Mendonca's: the latter finds no overtones in my poetry while Krishnaprem who similarly discourages Harin's [Harindranath Chattopadhyaya] poetry on the ground of a lack of overtones finds them abundant in mine. One begins to wonder what overtones really are, or are we to conclude that they have no objective existence but are only a term for some subjective personal reaction in the reader? I ...
... working or speaking one is still in sadhana. 10 June 1933 Meditation and Purification In an article Krishnaprem says that meditation can't be fruitful for those who have not achieved a high degree of inner development and purification. Page 229 I do not know what Krishnaprem said or in which article, I do not have it with me. But if the statement is that nobody can have a successful ...
... bhakti each in its place make up the foundations of the sadhana. But you are free to follow the way of meditation alone, as some others do, if you think that better. I agree with most of what Krishnaprem says, though one or two things I would put from a different angle. Your reasonings about faith and doubt have been of a rather extravagant kind because they came to this that one must either doubt... That, I have said, is a question not of faith but of mental belief—and faith is not mental belief in outward facts, but an intuition of Page 344 the inner being about spiritual things. Krishnaprem means the same thing when he says that faith is the light sent down by the higher to the lower personality. As for the epithet "blind" used by Ramakrishna, it means as I said, not ignorantly credulous ...
... then, as Krishnaprem has told you and I also have insisted, is to stick it out. If once one can get and keep the resolution to refuse to accept the suggestions of these forces, however plausible they may seem, then either quickly or gradually this condition can diminish and will be overpassed and cease. To give up Yoga is no solution; you could not successfully do it as both Krishnaprem and I have ...
... ventured further a field and began taking exception to this and that till I caught myself sometimes even criticising him in the end. This made many people aghast: e.g. my dear friend and mentor Sri Krishnaprem from Almora took me once to task for it. "You write that you have sometimes 'gone for Sri Aurobindo!' You must not. Of course he will not mind. He sees the jewel in the lotus and can smile at your... mine wrote to him once in a light vein: "But what disciples are we of what a Master!" he wrote in one of his beautiful moods. "I do wish you had chosen some with a better native stuff, like Krishnaprem, for instance!" His rejoinder was characteristic: "As to the disciples, I agree. But would the better stuff, supposing it to exist, be typical of humanity? To deal with a few exceptional ...
... about Janak: I expressed no disapproval of your letter to Janak; what I thought and said was that it might be better not to send the letter you have written, the one containing the reference to Krishnaprem, and I said that because I thought it would not have the desired effect and might, if she took it in the wrong way, have a result of some discouragement and painful perplexity upon her. Fortunately... cannot be helpful to anybody? Krishnamurti 45 was before he broke away on his own, certainly the disciple of two gurus, Leadbeater 46 and Annie Besant: 47 if he has denounced Mrs. Besant, Krishnaprem is quite entitled to denounce him as a gurudrohi [betrayer of guru]. * Page 248 December 11, 1949 Mother has been told of the opinion of Dr. Satyavrata 48 ...
... Cosmos—the wires, the machinery, the currents, the processes, the powers—and to use the "magic of the divine Logos" to describe what they had seen. Did Dante succeed? Did Milton succeed? To quote Sri Krishnaprem, Page 458 Perhaps the last great Western poet to have made any real attempt to grasp the inner unity was Dante, and even he made use of merely traditional myth—and... all this Savitri does convincingly project before us a human and a cosmic drama, and we are able to respond at once to this impact of poetry and this invasion of cosmic actuality. To quote Sri Krishnaprem again, Savitri... is neither subjective fantasy nor yet mere philosophical thought, but vision and revelation of the actual inner structure of the Cosmos and of the pilgrim of ...
... remarkable gift of rhythm, hasn't he? NIRODBARAN: Yes. I had again a talk with D about effort and told him about your emphasis on effort. He was very glad. He says Krishnaprem also lays stress on effort and that people, according to Krishnaprem, justify their supine laziness by saying they rely only on the Grace. "What is this idea," D says, "that Mother and Sri Aurobindo will do everything for us and ...
... accident, or as though a spring had been released - into a poet of distinction and originality. The collected volume of his Poems includes over 3000 pieces written during 1931-8. Not only what Krishnaprem has called "the delicate dream-like beauty of these poems", but even more their panoramic interior landscape of the Spirit must set this body of poetry apart, a singular example of what Yoga could... volumes like Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, the collection of letters entitled Life Literature - Yoga, and Dilip's Among the Great, Sri Aurobindo came to Me and Yogi Sri Krishnaprem - all of which include several of Sri Aurobindo's letters - it is easier to appreciate the personal touch with its humour and humanity as well as the universal application; the letters then become ...
... Kimberley, Lord, 37 Kingsford, D. H., 246, 305,307, 313 Kingsley, Charles, 128 Kipling, Rudyard, 12, 241 Kitchener, Lord, 205 Krebs, K. A., 572 Krishnaprem, Yogi (Ronald Nixon), 468 Langley, G. H., 752 Lawrence, D. H., 215,615 Lele, Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar, 274fr, 279-80, 289, 291, 318, 387, 389 Levi, Sylvain, 550 ... 653ff; Vyasa's Savitri, 653, 661-62; earlier versions, 653; "anew adventure", 654; "Kalidasian movement", 654; "Work in progress", 655-56; piecemeal publication, 656ff; Advent on, 656, 657; Krishnaprem on, 657; Compared with Faust, 658; R. F. Piper on, 658; levels of meaning in, 65960, 690; the Mother on, 660,662,685ff, 688ff; sadhana and recordation, 660; length and structure, 662, ...
... arguments I found myself unable, in practice, to accept, once for all, that Russell had better be discredited as a guide to wisdom in general. This vacillation in its turn, was sharply criticised by Krishnaprem to whom, alas, I turned, foolishly, for sympathy. For on this issue he evinced a heart of adamant and stormed at me from distant Almora: "Why do you keep harping on Russell? I quite agree he ...
... dour he explains his method: "It was often like this that it happened: sometimes a brother- disciple would write something to me where-upon Sri Aurobindo would comment. I would then convey to Krishnaprem how things stood, and then he, as often as not, would come forward with his reactions to the message of Gurudev, upon which Gurudev would have something more to say by way of clarification, al- most ...
... such a masterly exegesis of the Bhagavad Gita. Nixon was an ardent devotee of Shri Krishna, so much so that shortly afterwards he gave up his career as a professor and withdrew, under the name Krishnaprem, to Almora, accepting as his guru Yashodama, a very cultivated woman who was the wife of the vice-chancellor of the University of Lucknow. 94 His appreciation of the Essays on the Gita led ...
... This Indian was Jnanendra Nath Chakravarti, later vice-chancellor of Lucknow University and husband of Monika Devi, who under the name Yashodama would become the guru of the English yogi Krishnaprem. Krishaprem, through his encounters and correspondence with Dilip Kumar Roy, one of Sri Aurobindo’s disciples, developed a personal contact with Sri Aurobindo himself. A circle was closed. ...
... precious. It is Harindranath Chattopadhyaya's not possessing this art in the large majority of his work that drew from Krishna-prem [Ronald Nixon] an unfavourable comparison of him with Yeats. Krishnaprem, like Arjava [J.A. Chadwick] and unlike you, is intoxicated with Yeats - and rightly so. Yet to make Yeats the touchstone of poetry is misguiding; for the Page 11 spell-binding art ...
... cause is crowned with success—otherwise they would not have been able to struggle persistently towards their end in spite of defeat, Page 94 failure and deadly peril. I don't know what Krishnaprem means by true faith. For me faith is not intellectual belief but a function of the soul; when my belief has faltered, failed, gone out the soul has remained steadfast, obstinately insisting, "This ...
... in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone—and this does not exclude such specific personal manifestations as those vouchsafed to Krishnaprem Page 363 and his guru. The more ways there are of the union, the better. Adesh and darshan are elements of a stage of sadhana in which there is still much distance from the closer ...
... These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any Divine ...
... without being upset or depressed; the change is the more easily done. Let us not exaggerate anything. It is not so much getting rid of mental activity as converting it into the right thing. Krishnaprem has mental activity, but it is a mind that has gone inside and sees things from there, an intuitive mind; I have mental activity (in the midst of silence) whenever necessary, but it is a mind that ...
... dance pose playing the flute ] can be taken as true since it has been seen by many and always in the same relation and still more because it has been confirmed by what was seen by Yashodabai and Krishnaprem. It means obviously that your singing by the power of the bhakti it expresses can and does bring the presence of Krishna there. It is not that Krishna "shows himself", but simply that he is there ...
... the spiritual journey entails a change of landscape as one climbs higher, he is not ashamed to admit his change due to the light of knowledge and experience. SRI AUROBINDO: That is also what Krishnaprem says. As one advances in consciousness from one stage to another, one has to change his former views in the light of his present knowledge. NIRODBARAN: X is just like Y. He also says one thing ...
... holds this view of the acceptance of life. The Hinayana school does not. SATYENDRA: Everybody finds things in The Life Divine according to their own predilection. Somebody found Tantra and Krishnaprem finds Buddhism. SRI AUROBINDO: Especially as he is in a Buddhistic phase now. NIRODBARAN: Sisir says that the reviewers should give quotations from the writers. That is the modern trend now ...
... intellectual Page 201 philosophy became a poet of the first order and, with the aid of poetry, entered the mysteries of the inner worlds. Let us listen to what Roland Nixon alias Krishnaprem has to say on the phenomenon that was Arjava, ne John Chadwick: "Traditionalists and those who take a narrow view of sadhana will perhaps wonder what poetry has to do with yoga. The truth ...
... Karmayogin 11-12 Kazantzakis, Nikos 330,377,398-408,436, 441,460,461 Keats, John 174,313,315,365 Kenner, Hugh 391-393 Knight, G. Wilson 33,410,458 Krishnaprem, Sri (Ronald Nixon) 339,461, 463 Kurtz, Benjamin 306 Lal,P.357 Last Poems 41,458 Lawrence, D.H. 388 Leeuw.J.J.Van Der 334 Lele ...
... ,p.276. 187. July-September, 1954 188. God, p. 203. 189. The Crown of Life, p. 225. 190. Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual. No. 7, p. 191. Sri Krishnaprem is the Hindu name assumed by Ronald Nixon, an Englishman and a former Professor of English in an Indian University. 191. ibid .,p.l90fn. 192. ibid., pp. 191-2. ...
... adores with words of awe and with clasped hands the tremendous vision. 55 It would be an understatement to say that Arjuna is overwhelmed; what happens to him is something more elemental. As Krishnaprem puts it in a letter to Govinda Gopal: Why did it terrify Arjuna? Because the visvarupa is death to the ego and all fear of death. The ego is false and all that is false must die in ...
... " Of Sri Aurobindo's treatise. The Life Divine, Sir Francis Younghusband said that it was "the greatest book which has been produced" in our time; and of Sri Aurobindo's epic, Savitri, Sri Krishnaprem said that it is "neither subjective fancy nor yet philosophical thought, but vision and revelation of the actual inner structure of the Cosmos and of the pilgrim of life within its sphere" . 36 ...
... and in less than ten years he composed - for as he lisped in numbers, they came as if effortlessly and unceasingly - a mass of lyric verse to make up a volume of nearly 400 pages. While Sri Krishnaprem found in the lyrics a "delicate dream-like beauty", what is equally to the point is their capacity to act 'open sesame' to the symbol-worlds of the Spirit. Poetry such as Arjava's is a demonstration ...
... 624, 676, 691 Kishor Gandhi 676, 691, 716, 727, 739 Kobayashi, Dr and Mme 175ff, 183, 193-4, 221, 302, 838 Kodandarama Rao 212 Kothari, D.S. 715, 731 Krishnalal Bhatt 617 Krishnaprem, Sri (Ronald Nixon) 15fn, 259 Kumud Patel 817, 820 Lacombe, Olivier 810 Lajpat Rai 226 Lalita (Daulat Pandey) 328-9, 690 Laljibhai Hindocha 684 Page 902 Lenin, Vladimir ...
... Remarks on Himself as a Writer and on His Writings Letters on Himself and the Ashram The Terminology of His Writings Spiritual and Supramental Krishnaprem has always complained (and quite naturally) that it was difficult to get the right meaning of the "technical terms" used by you.... Of course a full expounding of the difference between Spiritualisation ...
... That is what he should be. 21 April 1934 What disciples we are of what a Master! As to the disciples, I agree! I wish you had chosen or called some better stuff—perhaps somebody like Krishnaprem. Yes, but would the better stuff, supposing it to exist, be typical of humanity? To deal with a few exceptional types would hardly Page 599 solve the problem. And would they consent ...
... others than the disciple an inferior spiritual source and the rest will grow up in the sadhak of itself by the grace of the Divine, even if the human being in the Guru cannot give it. It is this that Krishnaprem appears to have done perhaps from the first; but in most nowadays this attitude seems to come with difficulty, after much hesitation and delay and trouble. In my own case I owe the first decisive ...
... statement that cannot be helpful to anybody? Krishnamurti was, before he broke away on his own, certainly the disciple of two Gurus, Leadbeater and Annie Besant: if he has denounced Mrs. Besant, Krishnaprem is quite entitled to denounce him as a gurudrohī . 9 December 1949 Page 182 × "And in a recent unique ...
... What exactly is this descent? It is a thing which is new and has to be worked out by this Yoga. 12 June 1936 The Supramental Yoga and Humanity I can say little about the method he [ Krishnaprem ] speaks of for getting rid of dead concepts. Each mind has its own way of moving. My own has been a sort of readjustment or rectification of positions and I should rather call it discrimination ...
... mind and once there has been an upset of this kind the wisest course is discontinuance. 21 April 1937 A Reluctant Guru I have prayed a lot today. Some comfort to dwell on that, though Krishnaprem advocates the Upanishadic attitude—"Awake! Arise!"—and not to trust too much to Divine Grace. Krishnaprem's objection to Grace would be valid if the religionists mattered, but in spiritual things ...
... in scope for me to lay before others. That is why I said I was not writing it to circulate. I have written all this to explain to you that you have not pained or hurt or displeased me, nor has Krishnaprem either. It would be childish to be displeased with someone because his opinions on literature or a particular piece of literature are not identical with my own at every point. I may also say that ...
... comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is that marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna." The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater ...
... themselves; there are also those who are the opposite. As for the enormous development of egoism, that can come whatever one follows. I have seen it blossom in the dhyānī as well as in the worker; Krishnaprem says it does so in the bhakta. So it is evident that all soils are favourable to this Narcissus flower. As for "no need of sadhana", obviously one who does not do any sadhana cannot change or progress ...
... the universe but approached by putting it forward as a doctrine. 1 February 1935 Look at Harin's poetry. We're so ecstatic over it here, but outside he hardly gets a good audience; not even Krishnaprem seems to like his poetry. I don't think I can put as much value on Krishnaprem's literary judgments as on his comments on Yoga etc. Some of his criticisms astonished me. For instance he found ...
... in the Page 435 usual saving formula, "There is much to be said on both sides." Your view is no doubt correct from the common-sense or what might be called the "human" point of view. Krishnaprem takes the standpoint that we must not only consider the temporary good to humanity, but certain inner laws. He thinks the harm, violence or cruelty to other beings is not compensated and can not ...
... a definite stage in the movement towards transformation. Page 411 × In a letter to the correspondent, Krishnaprem said that there are two stages of bhakti. In the first stage of rapturous adoration, the light and bliss of Krishna rush down into the bhakta just as water rushes over Niagara Falls. In the second ...
... Mahabharat and Ramayan. But as I propose to write a book on the Vision of Savitri, I have confined myself to telling more about his greatness than I could twelve years ago. 1.3.63 D.K.R. Krishnaprem wrote to me about Savitri: "Such poetry can only be written either in the early days before the rise to power of self-conscious mind or, when that particular cycle has run its course and life ...
... Tamil daily. He left the Ashram in 1950 to return later. 27 . J.N. Chakravarti, a well-known Theosophist, vice-chancellor of Lucknow University and husband of Yashoda Ma, the Guru of Krishnaprem. 28 . Indu Roy, manager of the Hindustan Co-operative Insurance Company at Madras. He started “Advent “, a guarterly dedicated to Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga and his writings. He later continued ...
... reader will find a few repetitions of Sri Aurobindo's letters as well as the subject matter. This is particularly evident in the chapters 'Seer Poet', 'The Messenger of the Incommunicable' and 'Sri Krishnaprem vis-a- vis Sri Aurobindo'. The two spiritual giants expressed the same Page XII truth in their own terminology. So, we have desisted from any editing on our part - the chapters ...
... opening and, so heard his call. But I have done it — a dramatic indiscretion — even though I can truthfully claim that I have not been guilty of any overstatement. My watchful and reticent friend Krishnaprem _________________ *Something for something. Page 21 will, doubtless, take me to task again. But since I have let the dramatist in me have a field day, I shall be indulgent ...
... are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any divine ...
... at Calcutta with the knowledge of our force Page 278 behind you and make it an entire success, refresh your mind and nerves with the peace of the Himalayas and the company of Krishnaprem which cannot but be stimulating and put away from you all mental and nervous tension. It may be that as the Mother suggested, the obstruction will break down there and in any case the change should ...
... Arjava. He was a philosopher of mathematics from Cambridge University, where he had been ‘a distinguished Don as well as a Fellow of Trinity College.’ He had discovered Rosicrucianism and, through Krishnaprem, also Sri Aurobindo, in whom he had found his guru and ‘to whom he clung one-pointedly till his death.’ (Dilip K. Roy) Arjava suffered from a complex of illnesses which were mysterious in origin ...
... encyclopaedia of symbols is best understood in terms of the "infinite Identity, the multiple Unity" of the Self. If this is unacceptable the reader had better leave the poem aside. As Krishnaprem put it so well: " Savitri is neither fantasy nor yet mere philosophical thought, but vision and revelation of the actual structure of the inner Cosmos and of the pilgrim of life within its ...
... these realisations come to us as thought-forms in which the poet sees what he conveys to his listeners, transcendental pictures form themselves in our mind, till an overhead world in formed; Sri Krishnaprem remarks: "The stairway of the worlds reveals itself to our gaze—the worlds of light above, the worlds of darkness beneath—and we see also ever circling life ('kindled in measure and quenched in measure') ...
... 1922 Met Ronald Nixon, a professor at Lucknow University, who introduced Dilip to Sri Aurobindo, asking him to read Essays on the Gita; he later came to be known as Yogi Sri Krishnaprem, whose Guru was Yashoda Maa (wife of the then vice-chancellor of Lucknow University). A lifelong friendship ensued, and their correspondence continued till Krishnaprem's passing away in 1965. ...
... supreme grace is that of seeing or being the cause of another heart awaking to the Divine's touch. But perhaps it is not necessary to stress it here as it is brought out in the second stanza. Krishnaprem has been crowded out (and still is) by so many other things! It is not forgetfulness, but absorption and burial under Kanchenjungas that has prevented me from writing him up as yet. January ...
... whole universe of Page 335 knowledge and experience—physical and spiritual—presented in the dramatic form of a journey and a battle and a victory. It is, in the words of Krishnaprem (Ronald Nixon), "neither subjective fancy nor yet mere philosophical thought, but vision and revelation of the actual inner structure of the Cosmos and of the pilgrim of life within its sphere ...
... Hitler ought to know that Hitler will agree to anything that suits him at the moment and afterwards swallow everything. PURANI (handing Sri Aurobindo Dean Inge's book on Plotinus): It seems Krishnaprem has said that Plotinus's Nous is the same as Supermind. Somebody from outside has asked if that is true. SRI AUROBINDO (after looking at a few pages): Inge takes Nous as Spirit. As far as I can ...
... We were wondering how he came to do so—whether The Aryan Path had asked him to review it or he himself had sent it to the journal. SRI AUROBINDO: Usually The Aryan Path sends my books to Krishnaprem for review. NIRODBARAN: As the article has appeared in the review columns the journal must have sent the book to Nagaraj. We know what kind of thing to expect because his ideas are well known ...
... from where it issues Darkness. And the embodied Descent means the cancellation of the reign of Ignorance. When the long Book II ('The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds') appeared, Sri Krishnaprem (Ronald Nixon) wrote in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual ( l948 ): Sri Aurobindo has closed a gulf that has yawned in the human psyche for many many centuries. In the ancient world, poetry.. ...
... , p. 117 51. Ibid., p. 155 52. Ibid., p. 140 53. Ibid., p. 129 54. Ibid., pp. 292, 293 55. Ibid., p. 365 56. Quoted in Yogi Sri Krishnaprem by D. K. Roy (1968) 57. Sri Aurobindo, vol. 13, pp. 574, 575 Chapter 20: Man and Collective Man 1. The Mother, Vol. 2, p. 47 2. Ibid. 3. Sri Aurobindo ...
... Mother's Light (1967) Page 824 Ronaldshay, The Earl of. The Heart of Aryavarta (1925) Roy, Dilip Kumar. Among the Great (1946); Sri Aurobindo Came to Me (1964); Yogi Sri Krishnaprem (1968) Saint-Hillaire, P. B. The Message of Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram (1947); Education and the Mm of Human Life (1962); Sri Aurobindo: The Future Evolution of Man (1963) Sharma ...
... Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University. His wife Monika Devi took up sannyasa, adopting the name Yashoda Ma, and founded an Ashram near A1mora. She was to initiate Ronald Nixon, naming. him Sri Krishnaprem. Page 15 this Nature, I am the Purusha. Ah! let her go her own way; after all, I can't change her." This is extremely convenient. And that is why people adopt it; for they imagine ...
... Mother: Some Events in Her Life The Mother with Letters on the Mother Meeting Jnan Chakrabarti I never met Chakrabarti personally and know nothing about Krishnaprem's Guru. Chakrabarti's father came here to see me, but even that I had forgotten till the Mother reminded me of it. I know Chakrabarti only through the Mother, but that is better than any personal... like your friend in Geneva. Your account of him interested myself and the Mother greatly; it was so evidently the same man, even if the external facts were not there to identify the husband of Krishnaprem's Guru with the spiritual-worldly Chakrabarti of Paris. Not a complete spiritual hero, no doubt, but a remarkable sadhak all the same. 1 April 1932 ...
... Earth. Got tired of the same wife and husband. Page 314 Divorce suit in the other world. The husbands might ask if the wives are Satis! Letter from Dilip – with Krishnaprem's. Whether every time a Sadhaka makes personal effort can it be said that it is to satisfy the Ego. Sri Aurobindo : No, it can be to subordinate the Ego to the Divine. If it is to seek power ...
... I mean is that the Mother also stressed the need of divine manifestation, of not considering the world as Maya. Did she have any teacher? SRI AUROBINDO: No, Jnan Chakravarty, the husband of Krishnaprem's Guru, gave her the Gita's Yoga in Paris. And she used to come in contact with Abdul Baha in Paris. As a matter of fact, it was she who was leading and organising the Bahai group in Europe. In one ...
... action in complete accord with an awareness which perceives all the forces acting in and on and around him and is able, instead of undergoing, to use them and even to determine. After reading Krishnaprem's exposition [ on free will and determinism ], I saw what might be said from the intellectual point of view on this question so as to link the reality of the supreme Freedom with the phenomenon of ...
... out, laid down, perfectly mapped, macadamised, made secure and public. Our Yoga is not a retreading of old walks, but a spiritual adventure. Towards a Transformation of Earth Life I believe Krishnaprem's comment was on a passage in which I wrote that this Yoga was not like the old ones in that it aimed not at an ascent or passing beyond life but at a descent of the divine consciousness into life ...
... that for which the Yogin strives. In the strife he may have to pass through doubt, not by his own choice or will, but because there is still imperfection in his knowledge. If you accept Krishnaprem's insistence that this and no other must be your path, it is this that you have to attain and realise; any exclusive other-worldliness cannot be your way. I believe that you are quite capable of attaining ...
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