Lele : (1) Vishnu Bhāskara Lele (1876-1938) a Mahārāshtrian yogi under whose guidance Sri Aurobindo achieved complete silence of the mind & immobility of the whole consciousness in three days’ time, probably during the first week of January 1908. Barindra Kumar, Sri Aurobindo’s younger brother, called Lele to Baroda for this purpose. Lele was by profession a clerk. He had practised a certain form of Bhakti-yoga, & had achieved some realisation. [See SABCL 24: 1258; 26:83-84] In February 1908 Lele came to Calcutta, where he again met Sri Aurobindo. Abinash Bhattacharya: “Vishnu Bhāskara Lele came to our house with one of his disciples. The practice of yoga increased noticeably after his coming. Aurobindo-babu normally ate rice & dal with us, but after Lele’s arrival he just took a boiled potato or a boiled plantain with a small portion of rice. I conferred with Baudi (Mrinālini Devi) & arranged to have some ghee put in his rice.” [“Sri Aurobindo” in Mother India, July 2012, pp.528-39] At this time the guru-disciple relationship – if it may be so called – between Sri Aurobindo & Lele came to an end. Afterwards Lele went to Deoghar to give initiation & yogic training to Barin’s associates in revolutionary work. When he came to know that they had accepted the cult of the bomb, he declined to initiate them saying that yoga & terrorism could not go together. He warned them of the dangers of the method, & foretold that India would attain freedom without bloodshed. (2) A Mahārāshtrian who translated Mahābhārata or part of it. (3) Balkrishna Lele invented by Madras Times in an issue of 1911 as agent of Mr Tilak sent to Pondicherry to spread anarchy. The Hindu published Sri Aurobindo’s refutation of this fabrication.
... Vishnu Bhaskar Lele by name, and had been impressed by him. It had been a brief meeting but Barin remembered the occasion and now, with Sri Aurobindo's consent, he sent a telegram to Lele at Gwalior to come to Baroda. It is said that when Lele received the telegram he felt that a great soul needed his help in yoga and so he left at once for Baroda. It was at Khaserao Jadhav's house that Lele came and... Aurobindo. Lele was ready to help but asked that he should suspend all political activities, at least for a few days, and devote himself completely to yoga. So Sri Aurobindo left Khaserao's house and, keeping only his close associates informed of his whereabouts, went with Lele to the house of another old friend, Sardar Mazumdar. Here in a small room on the top floor he was closeted with Lele and what... situation which had arisen. So from Baroda Sri Aurobindo went to Poona. At his request, Lele accompanied him. Sri Aurobindo's mind had become calm, silent, devoid of all thoughts and as he was not sure how he could give a speech or address meetings in that condition, he asked Lele what he should do. Lele told him 'to make namaskar to the audience and wait and speech would come to him from some ...
... God's work.” — Sri Aurobindo's speech in Bombay From Baroda Sri Aurobindo went to Poona. 125 Lele accompanied him at his request. When invited to deliver a speech, he asked Lele what he should do, since he was 'in that silent condition - without any thought in the mind'. "Lele told him to make Namaskar 126 to the audience and wait and speech would come to him from some other source... gilt had gone off the ginger-bread of British justice. After Sri Aurobindo's return to Bengal, Barin wrote to Lele, inviting him to come to Calcutta. Lele came, probably in the first week of February, and was put up for some time at Seal's Lodge. 143 Barin's idea in inviting Lele was that he might prove the right person to give some spiritual instructions and spiritual force to the youth of... travelling by train, he slept on the bare, wooden bunk of a third class compartment and used his arm for a pillow. 114 Sri Aurobindo met Lele on one of the closing days of December, 1907115 at the residence of Khasirao Jadav, where he and Barin were put up. Lele advised him to give up politics, but as it was not possible, he asked him to suspend it for a few days and stay with him. Accordingly, they ...
... As leaving completely all political activity was not possible for Sri Aurobindo, Lele asked him to suspend it at least for several days. Sri Aurobindo consented. When Lele left after half an hour, Barin asked his brother how he had found him as a Yogi. Sri Aurobindo replied briefly, "Lele is a wonderful Yogi." Lele was a follower of Dattareya Yoga, a traditional method of yoga in Maharashtra. He... 1 "Lele was surprised to hear about it," said Sri Aurobindo, "for he said that this experience comes usually at the end." Upon his return to Calcutta, Barin spoke to Sejda about this extraordinary man. Sejda expressed a wish to meet this yogi. Soon the opportunity came. Right after the Surat Congress was over Barin sent a wire to Lele. It was in answer to that wire from Barin that Lele had come... Aurobindo had met Lele. It was only after this that Sri Aurobindo had gone to meet the Maharaja and addressed the two meetings. Then ... vanished into thin air! Where was Aurobindo Babu? People searched for him. They searched high and low. They searched like mad. They searched in vain. Sri Aurobindo remained untraceable for about a week —at least for over three days. Now, who was Lele? And why did ...
... elsewhere. I counted. Nationalism recurs ... twenty-two times in the speech! That was "my second experience from Lele. It also shows that he had the power to give yogic experience to others." Then when he was parting from Lele he asked him what he should do. "Before parting I told Lele: 'Now that we shall not be together I should like you to give me instructions about Sadhana.' In the meantime I told... ee condition, we went to Bombay. There I had to give a lecture at Page 444 the National Union. So, I asked him [Lele] what I should do. He asked me to pray. But I was absorbed in the silent Brahman and so I told him I was not in a mood to pray." So Lele held a day of prayer with other disciples "for me and at the end he said: 'Make a pranam to Narayana in the audience before you start... sat down to write." Page 447 In a letter to Dilip, written in May 1932, Sri Aurobindo summed it all up, and went beyond. When he had sat with Lele at Sardar Majumdar's house, he had not had the least understanding where Lele was leading him or where he himself was going. "The first result was a series of tremendously powerful experiences and radical changes of consciousness which he ...
... Barin reports that he called Lele to Calcutta for his own sadhana, as well as for training and giving initiation to his boys. Lele came in February 1908 and put up at Sejda's Scott's Lane house. He even went one day to Belur Math and sat in meditation with Swami Brahmananda. He also met Baba Bharati. But it seems that Lele "knew the man by the dress" only ! Lele also used to think that the appearance... respecter of sham. Before leaving Calcutta in mid-March, Lele had met young people of the Secret Society. Barin had not told him that they were revolutionaries. Nor did he tell Lele what they were doing in the Maniktola Garden. Lele on his several visits met Upen, Prafulla Chaki, and other young men and boys. He understood. Upen says that Lele tried to wean them from their revolutionary activities.... !A fairy tale, thought the sceptic boys. Recounts Sri Aurobindo, '' One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practising shooting. As soon as Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. Lele said that if Barin did not listen to him Barin would fall into a ditch -s-and he did fall.'' Barin, let us admit it, had never acquired the good habit ...
... would help him in his sadhana. One of the disciples of Vishnu Bhaskar Lele was at Baroda. Barin had come to know about him and learnt that Lele was at that time in Gwalior. A wire was sent to Lele asking him to come to Baroda. So, when Sri Aurobindo went to Baroda after the breakup of the Congress, Lele had already arrived there. Lele told the author in 1916 that when he received the telegram telling... to fulfil the conditions. Lele wanted him to separate himself from others and stay with him. Sri Aurobindo agreed. He suddenly disappeared from the tumultuous political scene of which he was an important centre. Friends knew where he was but no one disturbed him. He remained with Lele for three days in the small room on the top floor of Sardar Majumdar's wada in Baroda. Lele asked him to make his mind... 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 ...
... 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] Page 184 (co-disciple) Narayan Swami and about the Duttatraya Yoga. Sri Aurobindo described his own experience at Baroda with Lele. 14 April. Suggestions about sadhana;... 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... 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 ...
... by Fate, and at the same time realised that the prophecy of Lele had come true." "What is that?" asked Sampada. "You have heard about Lele, haven't you? Barin knew him. He had invited Lele to meet the young revolutionaries and, if he agreed, to teach them Yoga so that they might be trained to become great and fearless like Shivaji. Lele knew nothing of Barin's secret activities, but the moment... bloodshed was necessary for India to win her independence, that she would become free by an act of Divine Grace. This was way back in 1907 or 1908. It wasn't Lele alone who said this, many other Yogis too foretold the same thing. But Barin did not believe Lele, for he found it completely incredible that the British should give us our freedom without being forced to do so through a violent, bloody revolution... me find one. It was the time when we were preparing for the Surat Congress, getting ready for a decisive battle with the Moderates. Barin had by then heard of Lele and sent him a telegram requesting him to come to Baroda. It seems that Lele, on receiving the telegram, felt that he was being asked to give initiation to a very special person. He agreed to help me on condition that I give up politics ...
... He had deep respect and affection for Dikshitbhai and helped us as much as he could. Once Lele visited our place and that of one of his devotees and accepted to dine at both the places. One morning, Fulchandbhai came with the students of his hostel to see Lele and requested him to speak to them. Lele said,”Lakshmi, Champaklal's sister's child, will say something.” Immediately, Lakshmi gave a short... in tears pleading loudly, “Give me the complete darshan! Show me the face! show me the face!” Lele commanded, “Take her outside.” One of us took her out but she would not keep quiet. Then Lele asked us to divert her attention to something else. She was taken to a garden where she finally calmed down. Lele said, “She had a vision of Sri Krishna's face, but not of the upper half; that is why she was... Lakshmi began to have many visions and she and Lele grew deeply attached to each other. Lele used to chew pan 7 and place his half-chewed pan in Lakshmi's mouth. Though she had never before accepted food tasted by anyone else, such being the sanskara of our Brahmin family, yet she happily accepted that pan. I was amazed at this but did not feel Lele had done something unacceptable—he had merely ...
... met anyone before who could surrender himself so absolutely and without reserve or question to the guidance of the helper [i.e., Lele].’ 20 This reminds one, of course, of Sri Aurobindo’s own pronouncement about the surrender of the Mother. ‘Before parting I told Lele: “Now that we shall not be together I should like you to give me instructions about the sadhana [his spiritual discipline].” In... upon the Revue cosmique which put her into contact with Théon’s teachings and the Divine within. After a period of spiritual stagnation and ‘inner dryness’, Aurobindo met with the yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at the end of 1907; Mirra’s yoga, properly speaking, began immediately afterwards (‘I began my true yoga in 1908’). The Bhagavad Gita played an important role in the initial development of both. Both... last word also is surrender,’ 19 wrote Sri Aurobindo in a recently discovered note of his. Surrender had been the beginning and the foundation of his own journey of discovery. About his meeting with Lele, he narrates: ‘In my own case I owe the first decisive turn of my inner life to one who was infinitely inferior to me in intellect, education and capacity and by no means spiritually perfect or supreme; ...
... Meeting with Vishnu Bhaskar Lele ... Lele also advised Sri Aurobindo, in the final resort, to trust only to his own inner spiritual inclinations. [ Last phrase altered to: ] to trust only to the guidance of the Divine within him if once he could become aware of that guidance. What Lele asked him was whether he could surrender himself entirely to... to the Inner Guide within him and move as it moved him; Page 109 if so he needed no instructions from Lele or anybody else. This Sri Aurobindo accepted and made that his rule of sadhana and of life. Before he met Lele, Sri Aurobindo had some spiritual experiences, but that [was] before he knew anything about Yoga or even what Yoga was,—e.g. a vast calm which descended upon him at the moment... water cross-wise with a knife while he repeated a silent mantra. Barin drank and was cured. He also met Brahmananda and was greatly impressed by him; but he had no helper or Guru in Yoga till he met Lele and that was only for a short time. × MS Sulemani ...
... found in Yogi Lele a real helper in his sadhana, but this too was only for a short time. We have already explained in an earlier chapter (XI.v) the nature of the advice tendered by Lele and the first astonishing results of Sri Aurobindo's putting it into practice. When Sri Aurobindo was leaving Bombay for Calcutta, he asked Lele how he was to get further instructions for his sadhana. Lele after a little... little thought asked Sri Aurobindo whether he could surrender himself entirely to the Guide within him, and move as it moved him; if so, Sri Aurobindo needed no more instructions from Lele or indeed from anybody else. This Sri Aurobindo accepted, and made that thenceforth his rule of sadhana and of life. And yet the whirl of politics and the ceaseless excitement of political journalism, in... of inner striving to find a real Way, even though the divine help was with me all the time, and even then, it seemed to come by an accident...." 21 In those three days when he shut himself up with Lele in a room in Mazumdar's house at Baroda, Sri Aurobindo was a hijacked traveller in the worlds of vacant forms and a diver at last into the sea of Nirvanic immobility. That first realisation could have ...
... training. SRI AUROBINDO: It was Lele who gave them the initiation into Yoga. Barin called down Lele from Bombay for that purpose. NIRODBARAN: Lele, it appears, after seeing Chaki was very much impressed and picked him out from the group. He wanted to take Chaki with him to make him a fine Yogi and consulted you and you replied that he should ask Dutt. Lele remarked that such fine boys were being... floor. SRI AUROBINDO: When was it? If it was my house it must have been after the Surat Congress when Lele came to Calcutta. NIRODBARAN: May be. Dutt entered the house, found you and Lele sitting while Chaki was loitering outside. SRI AUROBINDO: Chaki was there? NIRODBARAN: Yes. Lele asked Dutt about Chaki. Dutt simply refused and referred him to you. You said, "I have nothing to say in... asked? But does he mean to say that Lele knew about the movement? He knew nothing at all except at the end when he said to Barin, "You have all along deceived me. I thought you wanted to practise Yoga and for that reason you called me. Now give it up, give it up, otherwise you will fall into a ditch." NIRODBARAN: Dutt said, "These boys are being wasted," so Lele knew perhaps. SRI AUROBINDO: If ...
... know he was Lele's disciple. Once he took Lele to Calcutta among the young people of the secret society. Lele did not know that they were revolutionaries. One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practising shooting. As soon a Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. If Barin did not listen to him, Lele said, he would fall into a ditch and he did... . Sri Aurobindo: They were merely mental and he gathered some knowledge, much information or understanding out of them. I heard that when he had begun yoga he had an experience of Kamananda. Lele was surprised to hear about it. For he said that experience comes usually at the end. It is a descent like any other experience but unless one's sex centre is sufficiently controlled it may produce ...
... know he was Lele's disciple. Once he took Lele to Calcutta among the young people of the secret society. Lele did not know that they were revolutionaries. One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practicing shooting. As soon as Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. If Barin did not listen to him, Lele said, he would fall into a ditch and he did... Sri Aurobindo : They were mere mental and he gathered some knowledge, much information or understanding out of them. I heard that when he had begun yoga he had an experience of Kamananda . Lele was surprised to hear about it. For he said that experience comes usually at the end. It is a descent like any other experience but unless one's sex centre is sufficiently controlled it may produce ...
... Flow, a cinema's vacant shapes... 61 While parting from Lele at Bombay, Sri Aurobindo asked for further guidance in the Yoga. But a mantra had suddenly risen in his heart, and he was able to assure Lele that it was genuine; Sri Aurobindo could rely on Him from whom the mantra Page 279 had come. Lele then told Sri Aurobindo that there was no further need for instructions;... Sakhare Baba, and this confirmed him in his desire to pursue Yoga more systematically than he had hitherto done. It was suggested that Vishnu Bhasker Lele, another Maharashtrian Yogi, might be able to help Sri Aurobindo, and so Barindra wired to Lele to come from Gwalior (where he was staying at the time) to Baroda. Sri Aurobindo's own return after the lapse of a year and a half created a great sensation... he had to use the Pashmina shawl that Sardar Mazumdar gave him. It was at Khasirao Jadhav's house, where Sri Aurobindo was staying with Barin, that the first interview with Lele took place. As regards Yoga, Lele told Sri Aurobindo that he should completely suspend all political activity, at least for a few days. Then the two closeted themselves in a small room in the top floor of Sardar ...
... effective and so he is waiting for it. Lele also used to act through the vital. Once I remember somebody wanted to weep and he thought that if he couldn't weep, he would not get any realisation. So Lele said, "Pretend to weep." The man pretended and then the emotion became real and he began to weep uncontrollably. It is a kind of auto-suggestion. CHAMPAKLAL: Yes, Lele also made my niece weep like that... thinks that if, say, four times out of ten he has been successful the rest of his predictions will also come true. He must have forgotten his failures. He doesn't seem to have a critical mind. PURANI: Lele also used to prophesy, committing God in advance. Whenever he failed to cure an illness, he said it was God's defeat! SRI AUROBINDO: But philosophically, it would mean perhaps that the higher co ...
... practising it. You know he was Lele's disciple. Once he took Lele to Calcutta to be among the young people of the Secret Society. I didn't know that they were revolutionaries. One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practising shooting. As soon as Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. Lele said that if Barin did not listen to him. Barin would fall... experiences. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but mostly they were rather mental experiences. He gathered a lot of information from them. I heard that when he had begun Yoga he had an experience of Kamananda. Lele was surprised to hear about it, for he said that this experience comes usually at the end. It is a descent, like any other experience, but unless one's sex centre is sufficiently controlled it may have ...
... asramam idam. And it was precisely because of this that Barin got Lele Maharaj down here for our initiation and training in sadhana, the discipline of yoga, the same Lele who had been of particular help to Sri Aurobindo at a certain stage of his own sadhana. But it was our bad luck that the whole thing misfired. When Lele Maharaj came to know that we had accepted the cult of the bomb, he raised... sword thy cult, For the olden days are no more. India will not be saved, it cannot, Through the worship of the gods. Unsheath now the sword, For these demons are not as of yore, Lele Maharaj threatened us with another warning, "If you do not give up this, you wilt hot only not succeed but are bound to meet with danger, if not catastrophe." How true his prophecy was we all know from ...
... from above." Before parting from Lele at Nagpur, he told him of "a mantra that had arisen in my heart." Lele had begun to give instructions but suddenly stopped and "asked me if I could rely absolutely on Him who had given me the Mantra." Sri Aurobindo said he could. So Lele handed him over "to the Divine within me...." He returned to Calcutta. A month or two later Lele came there. But in the meantime ...
... of his whole family all at once and that his disconnecting with Lele I don't call peaceful. Ask for particular reasons he has written in his letter and also about how Lele has taken this matter. For I told you about the Dattatraya Yoga. If that was the case, these Yogis don't care for Divine or Asuric or Rakshasic forces and when Lele saw the woman that force took possession of her, because she seems... and that of Lele. I am inclined to think that it is due to both. If Lele gets angry or chooses to react you must know that after all he is a Yogi and he can harm the boy. Now if his influence is working and I mix in this matter then our forces would clash which I don't like because it would not be good for the boy himself. About Yoga he must thus be free from any influence from Lele, and even then... But you must know the necessary result will be that you will have to follow that special way which He has given to me and which I call the integral Yoga. What I began with, what was given to me by Lele, that was a seeking for the path, a wandering around in this and that direction touching this or that in all the old partial Yogas; lifting it up, taking it in the hands and scrutinising it and, having ...
... that in any way; it happened." 12 While Lele was in Calcutta, he met Sri Aurobindo in mid-February 1908. Lele was of the opinion that there was some danger in Sri Aurobindo following mechanically his "inner voice", for this might after all be from an Asuric force! After his encounter with Barin's Manicktolla group of reckless young men, Lele probably connected their activities remotely with... tree showed abundant signs of having been used as a target. After the Surat Congress and Sri Aurobindo's experience of Nirvana under Yogi Lele's guidance, it came as a brain-wave to Barin that Lele might be useful at the Manicktolla Gardens also and he might be able to put some new Yogic strength into the members of the revolutionary group. But when Lee came to Calcutta and found out that... had accepted the cult of the bomb and were engaged in terrorist activities, he tried to persuade them that such violently rajasic action had no part in spiritual life. Nor was it necessary, said Lele, to resort to violence and bloodshed, for freedom would come even through peaceful means. But the young men were in no mood to lend ear to such words. Even Lele's blunt warning that the path they ...
... lay of the land. There he met, through Barin, the tantric yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, and they withdrew to the attic of the house where Aurobindo was staying. There Lele was astounded to see that Aurobindo obtained in three days one of the mightiest realizations yoga can give, the realization of the passive Brahman. ‘[Lele] said: “Sit still and try to make your mind quiet and empty of thoughts. You will... been guiding him on his way? ‘Sri Aurobindo never took any formal initiation from anyone; he started his sadhana on his own account by the practice of pranayama and never asked for help except from Lele,’ 6 he wrote of himself. This does not mean that he did not receive help from other, most often non-material sources. One of these, as mentioned in Sri Aurobindo’s personal notes, was Ramakrishna... died in 1902, six years earlier. However, Aurobindo’s highest mentors, his true and abiding instructors, were Sri Krishna and, ultimately, the Great Mother. Once put upon the path with the help of Lele, his intense and unusually fast development led him from one surprising discovery to the other, and he soon realized that, after his unconditional surrender at the beginning, as a human being he hardly ...
... to invite the yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, whom Barin had met in September and who was then in Gwalior, to come and meet him in Baroda. Barin sent Lele a telegram and he readily complied. Suddenly Aurobindo disappeared for ten days from the hustle and din, social and political, that surrounded him; nobody knew where he was or what had become of him. In fact, Lele and Aurobindo had withdrawn to 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 [Lele was a Bhakta] – 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... a command from above, in a Voice well known to me, in three words: “Go to Chandernagore.” In ten minutes or so I was in the boat to Chandernagore … I may add in explanation that from the time I left Lele at Bombay after the Surat Sessions and my stay with him in Baroda, I had accepted the rule of following the inner guidance implicitly and moving only as I was moved by the Divine. The spiritual development ...
... people who claim to have met Dattatraya. Sri Aurobindo : Lele also told me that he saw Dattatraya at Page 71 Girnar and talked to him in the form of a boy for one hour. Disciple : Lele gave you the yoga – then did he not give the Dattatraya yoga ? Sri Aurobindo : I did not begin with Lele. I first began on my own with prānāyma , drawing the breath into... they cannot operate in this manifestation except through the Supermind. Therefore it must be made a permanent part of humanity. 13-4-1923 Disciple : Yesterday we had a talk about Sj. Lele and his Gurubhai – co- Disciple – Narayan Swami, and I told you that I came to know that they follow – I do not know how far it is true, though – the Dattatraya yoga. I wonder what that yoga... Mantra that had arisen in my heart. He was giving me instructions when he suddenly stopped and asked me if I could rely absolutely on Him who had given me the Mantra. I said I could always do it. Then Lele said there was no need of instructions. We had then no talk till we reached our destination. Some months later, he came to Calcutta. He asked me if I meditated in the morning and in the evening. I said ...
... Barin if he knew anyone who could help me in Yoga. This was in Surat where I had attended the Surat Congress. Barin knew of Lele who was in Gwalior. He wired to him and asked him to meet us at Baroda. Pranayama had given me good health, a lot of poetry and various experiences. Now Lele took me to a quiet room upstairs in Khaserao Jadhav's house. I told him that I wanted Yoga to help me in my political work... condition of silence. While I was parting from Lele I asked him what I should do, how I should be guided. He said, "Surrender yourself to the Divine and be guided by Him. If you can do that, you needn't do anything else." I replied, "I can easily do that." And when I did that, everything came from above and I was guided by that. After some time when Lele came to Calcutta, he asked me how I was getting... all, and it was in that condition of Nirvanic silence that I went first to Poona and then to Bombay. Everything seemed to me unreal; I was absorbed in the One Reality. In that state of mind I told Lele, "I have been asked to deliver a lecture. How am I going to speak? Not a single thought is coming to me. I cannot make a speech." He held a day of prayer with other disciples for me and at the end he ...
... 30, 1907, Sri Aurobindo met a yogi by the name of Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, who was to bring a paradoxical experience into his already paradoxical life. It was the first time, after thirteen years in India, that Sri Aurobindo voluntarily met a yogi! It shows how much he distrusted asceticism and spiritualists. His first question to Lele was typical: I want to do Yoga but for work, for action, not for... we can run through the whole range of wavelengths and choose or reject as we please. But let us listen to Sri Aurobindo himself describe the experience as he first had it with another yogi, Bhaskar Lele, who spent three days with him: All developed mental men, those who get beyond the average, have in one way or other, or at least at certain times and for certain purposes to separate the two parts... thought waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing Nature-Force. 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 ...
... owner. — Barindra K. Ghosh 1908 – Deoghar, Bihar With Vishnu Bhaskar Lele I received a letter from Sri Aurobindo saying that Vishnu Bhaskar Lele would be arriving and we were to take good care of him. We felt that a Sadhu had no part in our scheme of things and so we looked on him with distrust. In addition, Lele-ji demanded of me that I massage him with white clay and bathe him, the water... of which proper service to the Guru was an indispensable part. Although I did not like him, because of Sri Aurobindo’s instructions I adjusted myself to Lele-ji’s demands. Sri Aurobindo in Surat Congress One night during dinner, Lele-ji said to Barin, Ullas and others, “If you continue with your bombs and pistols before realising the Mother Bhavani, you will hasten your own downfall” ...
... already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his yoga and his spiritual philosophy are founded. The first he had gained while meditating with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent spaceless and timeless Brahman gained after a complete and abiding stillness of the whole consciousness and attended at first by an ... dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind, he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore jail. Moreover, he had accepted from Lele as the principle of his sadhana to rely wholly on the Divine and his guidance Page 94 alone both for his sadhana and for his outward actions. After that it was impossible for him to put... seek help from anyone. In fact Sri Aurobindo never took any formal initiation from anyone; he started his Sadhana on his own account by the practice of pranayama and never asked for help except from Lele. One or two less important points have to be mentioned to show how little reliance can be placed on the details of Ramchandra's narrative. His statement about the automatic writing is only an imaginative ...
... help he received was from the Maharashtrian Yogi, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, who instructed him how to reach complete silence of the mind and immobility of the whole consciousness. This Sri Aurobindo was able to achieve in three days with the result of lasting and massive spiritual realisations opening to him the larger ways of Yoga. Lele finally told him to put himself entirely into the hands of the Divine... Divine within and move only as he was moved and then he would need no instructions either from Lele himself or anyone else. This henceforward became the whole foundation and principle of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana. From that time onward (the beginning of 1909) and through many years of intensive experience at Pondicherry he underwent no spiritual influence from outside. published 24 June 1945 Page ...
... for Calcutta I asked Lele what I should do regarding my Sadhana. He kept silent for some time [probably waiting to hear a voice from the heart] and replied, "Meditate at a fixed time and hear the voice in the heart." I did not hear the voice from the heart, but a different voice and I dropped meditation at a fixed time because meditation was going on all the time. When Lele came to Calcutta and... there was anyone in Brahmo Samaj with spiritual realization. Dwijendra Nath had something in him and Shiva Nath Shastri too and perhaps Keshab Sen. Bejoy Goswami ceased to be a Brahmo. Disciple : Lele had realization? Sri Aurobindo : Of course, he had some, but as I said he had ambition and ego. Disciple : It is said that Christ used to heal simply by a touch. Is it possible? Sri ...
... amam-idam. And it was precisely because of this that Barin got Lele Maharaj down here for our initiation and training in sadhana, the discipline of yoga, the same Lele who had been of particular help to Sri Aurobindo at a certain stage of his own sadhana. But it was our bad luck that the whole thing misfired. When Lele Maharaj came to know that we had accepted the cult of the bomb, he ... thy cult, For the olden days are no more. India will not be saved, it cannot, Through the worship of the gods. Unsheath now the sword, For these demons are not as of yore. Lele Maharaj threatened us with another warning, "If you do not give up this, you will not only not succeed but are bound to meet with danger, if not catastrophe." How true his prophecy was we all know ...
... in Mr Drewett's garden at Manchester and not at all well. It was at Sardar Majumdar's place that he first met Yogi Lele and got some help from him in spiritual Sadhana. No. Lele came from Gwalior in answer to a wire from Barin and met Sri Aurobindo at the Jadhavs' house; Lele took him to Majumdar's house for meditation on the top floor. Shri Arvind Ghosh ... joined Baroda State Service ...
... path to the grey one. My faith again perhaps? But, sunny path or grey one, the one thing wanted is that you should push through and arrive. June 1934 Page 241 Meeting with Vishnu Bhaskar Lele It is not the human defects of the Guru that can stand in the way when there is the psychic opening, confidence and surrender. The Guru is the channel or the representative or the manifestation of... vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to Page 243 thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing Nature-Force. 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 them away from you till your mind... spiritual effort I had failed to find the way and it was for that I had asked to meet him. His first answer was, "It should be easy for you as you are a poet." 18 November 1936 I don't understand why Lele told you that because you are a poet, sadhana will be easy for you through poetry, or why you quote it either. Poetry is itself such a hard job and sadhana through poetry—well, the less said the better ...
... useless in the world and in the sphere of spirituality." Even in discussing Sri Aurobindo vis-a-vis Lele, the Maharashtrian Yogi whom he had consulted in the early part of his spiritual search, Rajneesh is utterly at sea. He has read nothing of Sri Aurobindo's notes on his relationship with Lele and on what he experienced as a consequence of Lele's instruction. Sri Aurobindo has repeatedly and in... declaration that the Integral Yoga begins where the other Yogas end? And has he not gauged the immensity of what happened when Sri Aurobindo implicitly followed Lele's advice but realised something which Lele had never anticipated: the infinite, eternal, featureless, world-transcendent, silent Brahman who is the grand terminus of traditional Vedanta and, in a negative version, the culmination of the Buddhist ...
... blank. Then I gave thanks to the Lord, and thanked Sri Aurobindo in my heart.’ 4 Aurobindo had imparted his ‘nirvanic’ silence to her, his first great realization obtained when sitting with V.B. Lele in Baroda and which had never left him since. Just before sitting down on the floor, Mirra had confided to him that, try as she may to establish that silence in the mind, she was unable to do it. Aurobindo... accident to his leg many years later, he said to some disciples in his room: ‘If you mean thinking, I never do that. Thinking ceased a long time ago – it has stopped ever since that experience of mine with Lele, the Silence and Nirvana at Baroda. Thoughts, as I said, come to me from all sides and from above, and the transmitting mind remains quiet or it enlarges to receive them. True thoughts always come in... Integral Yoga is what Sri Aurobindo called ‘surrender’ to the Divine. (We have seen that he himself practised this surrender from the moment he engaged on the path of his spiritual discovery with V.B. Lele in Baroda, and whoever reads the Mother’s Prayers and Meditations will find it on practically every page.) A total surrender by a spiritual aspirant is not without danger, for he will, because of ...
... there are also elements he did not want to speak of to me. (X told me that now he feels capable of speaking in English with you.) Another thing: we happened to talk of Sri Aurobindo and Lele. 1 Concerning Lele, X told me, 'He was a devotee of the Bhaskaraya School; this is why there is close connection ...' I do not know if this is so, but X seemed to know. For me, the inner things seem to... from experience that all this is as unstable as dynamite. Your child, Signed : Satprem Page 319 × Lele : the tantric guru whom Sri Aurobindo met in 1908 and who gave him mental silence and Nirvana. ...
... about the extraneous source of our thoughts when he followed the instructions given to him by Page 140 Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele for silencing the mind. Describing his experience, Sri Aurobindo writes: 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... It is interesting that Nisargadatta's definition of meditation, which Eckhart alludes to more than once, seems to imply the same method of rejection of thoughts taught to Sri Aurobindo by Lele. Mediation, says Nisargadatta's, as Eckhart quotes him, is "a radical refusal to harbor thoughts." Eckhart remarks that Presence has to arise strongly if one is to be able to do this. To return ...
... will absorb the outer one. Or what cannot be absorbed will be rejected. There is no doubt that the change will occur. You spoke of your experience with Lele.* At that time did this mechanical working stop? *Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a "temporary guru" whom Sri Aurobindo met in December 1907 and with whom he spent three days in meditation. At the end of the third day Sri Aurobindo had the... Indeed everything will seem to you as though outside you. That's my experience. When I began yoga, I came to an impasse, unable to go any further. My brother then directed me to a yogi( Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, whom Sri Aurobindo met towards the end of 1907.) who had certain powers. I remained with him ten days. He told me to sit beside him and to drive away with deliberation any thought which would appear ...
... Calcutta, I asked Lele what I should do about my sadhana. He kept silent for a while, probably waiting to hear a voice from within, and then replied, "Meditate at a fixed time and hear the voice in the heart." I didn't hear any voice from the heart but a quite different one from above, and dropped meditation at a fixed hour because meditation was going on all the time. When Lele came to Calcutta and... published in Mrinalinir Patra. A Zamindar disciple of that Yogi found me out, took the book Yogic Sadhan, gave the author's name as Uttara Yogi and bore the cost of publication. DR. MANILAL: Did Lele have any realisation? SRI AUROBINDO: Of course he had. DR. MANILAL: It is said that Christ used to heal simply by a touch. Is such healing possible? SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? There are many instances ...
... on Tilak, 263,267-8; on Gujarat and Gujaratis, 264; at Midnapore Conference, 265, 270; Nevinson on, 269; at Surat Congress, 269ff; order to break the Congress, 271; on "Death or Life", 272; with Yogi Lele at Baroda, 274ff; Nirvanic experience, 275,322,362, 371,388-9, 572; at Poona, 276; on Ramamurti's feats, 276, 300-01; speech at National Union, 277ff; Nationalism a Religion, 277; on Revolutions, 279... Amraoti, Nagpur, 280; on ahimsa, 283ff, 533; two-pronged plan of campaign, 284; recruiting revolutionaries, 285; disapproval of mere terrorism, 287-8, 298fn; burden of multiple responsibility, 290; with Lele again, 291; appearance in 1907-8, 291; move for a United Congress, 292; on village samitis, 292; on 'Back to the Land', 292; on India under foreigner's māyā, 294; on true unity, 294; on Moderates'... 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 Life Divine, The, 17, 20, 22, 122, 404ff; a declaration for the future, 419; greatly planned, 419; key ...
... great respect for their Bikshus. Disciple : Yes. Respect to dress and not to the reality. Sri Aurobindo : Lele used to have the same idea. Once I met a Sanyasi with him. Lele asked me : "You don't bow down to him?" I replied : "I don't believe in the man". Lele said : "But you must respect the yellow robe". The Sanyasi was one of the three people whom Vivekananda drove out of his ...
... part of a sadhana." The first great experience that was part of a sadhana was the one of Nirvana I have already spoken of. About this the booklet says: "Meditating only for three days with Lele, he {Sri Aurobindo) followed his instructions for silencing the mind and freeing it from the constant pressure of thought; he entered into an absolute and complete silence of the mind and indeed of... particularly in 1907 at the time of the Surat Congress; I was never in his circle. I drew the inspiration from Bande Mataram and from one or two friends who were in close contact with him. I knew Lele, and Pandya who was in close touch with him. We heard about Sri Aurobindo's yogic developments only from 1904 onwards. But in his outer aspects, it would not be right to say that he had developed that ...
... Baroda, some years before he met Lele. We do not quite know what exactly happened to Sri Aurobindo during the first four years of his retirement in Pondicherry. This was a period of "silent yoga".... Sri Aurobindo experimented earnestly and incessantly in the delectable laboratory of his soul; he presently outgrew the instructions that had been given to him by Lele and his predecessors. That ...
... Page 268 necessary result of this will be that you will have to walk in the special path which He has given to me, the path which I call the path of the Integral Yoga. What I began with, what Lele 1 gave me, was a seeking for the path, a circling in many directions—a first touch, a taking up, a handling and scrutiny of this or that in all the old partial yogas, some sort of complete experience... not ready. If the unripe goes amidst the unripe what work can he do? 5 Your Sejda , 6 Sri Aurobindo × Lele, a tantric guru Sri Aurobindo met in 1908, who gave him the realization of mental silence and Nirvana. × ...
... angry! 2 It's one of the most ironic things Sri Aurobindo has written. I've known that and have always taken great care to avoid it, for it opens the door to all deformations. Lele 3 was like that—Lele did Page 230 the same thing: he behaved like a lout; he said it wasn't himself, it was Nature—he had nothing to do with it. This is all very well, but still there's a sort of ...
... the Maharashtrian Yogi Lele in Baroda, one is apt to wonder how the distressed state could ever occur. The answer can be derived from a statement of Sri Aurobindo's in the course of the talks which Nirodbaran has recorded. On December 22, 1938 Sri Aurobindo refers to the Nirvanic realisation and explains: "My experience of peace and calm after my first contact with Lele never left me, but in ...
... a serious illness which nearly carried me off. Now I was at my wits' end. I did not know how to proceed further and was searching for some guidance. Then I met Lele in the top room of Sardar Majumdar's house. After my separation from Lele, I had to rely on my inner guide. The inner guide led me through many mistakes. For days and days together I would follow wrong lines and come to know only at the ...
... has written about him. SRI AUROBINDO: Bejoy Goswmi also was poisoned by sannyasins but by the process called stambhan he controlled the effect, they say. SATYENDRA: Barin speaks of Lele also. He recounts how Lele warned him against terrorism. SRI AUROBINDO: Doesn't he speak of the ditch? And do you know the story of how he was asked to cut his tongue loose from the lower palate? PURANI: They ...
... and stillness, a perfect void! Then one day Sri Aurobindo met his teacher Lele Maharaj and told him that he was doing political work then and the next day he had to deliver a lecture, how was he to do it if he has to continue to be in a blank mind. If I speak, I have to think, I have to choose a subject. What am I to do? Lele Maharaj answered, "Do one thing, go to the meeting, stand in front of your ...
... until at last the mind will be under perfect control. . . . ") "Well, that is one way of achieving mastery over your thoughts," Sri Aurobindo said after explaining the process. "There are others. Lele, for instance, showed me one. 'Make your mind quiet,' he told me, 'don't think actively. Then you will see that the thoughts you believe to be yours come from outside; throw them away as they come... bound to take place in life based on interchange and mutual exchange of influences. The only living person from whom Sri Aurobindo received direct spiritual help and guidance was the late Vishnu Bhaskar Lele. Their connection as Guru and disciple Page 355 seems to have lasted three months and it terminated with a clear understanding on both sides. The fact that Ramakrishna was under ...
... symbolic verses of the Veda and throws a new light on the history of ancient Indian spiritual culture. It should be recalled that Sri Aurobindo's mind fell silent when he meditated with the Yogi Lele for three days in Baroda in December, 1907, and he ceased to think at all. All that he spoke and wrote since then came down to him from the higher planes of consciousness above the thought-mind. ... 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 Integral Yoga, - what I began with, what Lele gave me was a seeking for the path, a circling in many directions - a touch, taking up, handling, Page 419 scrutinising this or that in all the old partial yogas, a complete experience ...
... asserts, (1) that I have adopted the saffron robes of the ascetic, but 'continue to direct' the Page 251 movements of the Anarchist society from Pondicherry; (2) that one Balkrishna Lele, a Lieutenant of Mr. Tilak, is in Pondicherry for the same purpose; (3) that the most dangerous of the Madras Anarchists (it is not clear whether one or many) is or are at Pondicherry; (4) that a number... masquerading or have ever masqueraded as an ascetic; I live as a simple householder practising Yoga without Sannyas just as I have been practising it for the last six years. It is untrue that any Balkrishna Lele or any Lieutenant of Mr. Tilak is at Pondicherry; nor do I know, I doubt if anybody in India except the Madras Times knows, of any Mara-tha politician of that name and description. The statement about ...
... certainly; it was the condition of silence of the mind to which he had come by his meditation for 3 days with Lele in Baroda and which he kept for many months and indeed always thereafter, all activity proceeding on the surface; but at that time there was no activity on the surface. Lele told him to make namaskar to the audience and wait and speech would come to him from some other source than the ...
... The Anglo-Indian Journal asserts, (1) that I have adopted the saffron robes of the ascetic, but "continue to direct" the movements of the Anarchist society from Pondicherry; (2) that one Balkrishna Lele, a Lieutenant of Mr. Tilak, is in Pondicherry for the same purpose; (3) that the most dangerous of the Madras Anarchists (it is not clear whether one or many) is or are at Pondicherry; (4) that a number... masquerading or have ever masqueraded as an ascetic; I live as a simple householder practising Yoga without sannyas just as I have been practising it for the last six years. It is untrue that any Balkrishna Lele or any lieutenant of Mr. Tilak is at Pondicherry; nor do I know, I doubt if anybody in India except Madras Times knows, of any Mahratta politician of that name and description. The statement about ...
... often speculated about this period of his life, but most of these speculations have been wide off the mark. Sri Aurobindo turned to yoga in earnest around 1907-8 when he first met Lele. But his brief contact with Lele lasted only from 30 December 1907 to February 1908. But he continued his spiritual life. He had by then experienced two of the most cardinal spiritual siddhis known to traditional ...
... Maharashtrian Yogi, Lele, who showed him Page 6 the way to silence the mind. Through meditation with him at Baroda, Sri Aurobindo attained complete silence of thought and feeling and freedom from all the ordinary movements of consciousness just within three days. Describing this meditation and experience, Sri Aurobindo wrote in one of his letters: 'It was my great debt to Lele that he showed ...
... phenomena they pretend to decipher.³ The first decisive turn and experience came to Sri Aurobindo in 1907 when he was groping for a way. At this juncture he was induced to meet a Maharashtrian Yogi, Lele, who showed him the way to _________________________ ¹ . Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, Centenary Library, Vol. 26, p. 77. ². Ibid., pp. 78-9. ³. Ibid., p. 90. Page 8 ... feeling and of all the ordinary movements of consciousness within three days. Describing this meditation and experience, Sri Aurobindo wrote in one of this letters: 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 ...
... (After some time) Purani received something from Lele. PURANI : Oh yes, I know to my cost. He gave me a terrible fever just when I was in the peak of health; the fever left me only after I received a letter from here. My encounter with another Yogi gave me vomiting, giddiness, etc. Otherwise I got nothing from them. SRI AUROBINDO (smiling) : But Lele did give you something after all. PURANI: Yes-but ...
... Maharashtrian Yogi Shakhere Baba who was interested in Indian independence. Later, towards the end of December, met Vishnu Bhashkar Lele, another Yogi of Maharashtra, from whom Sri Aurobindo received spiritual help. Meditating according to Lele"s guidance Sri Aurobindo had realisation of silent Brahman and a complete stillness of mind. 1908 January I9: Made in Bombay ...
... 1948-10-06 Mother saw my right hand when we were in her salon and said; “One aim in life. All lines are joined.” Then Mother examined my nails and said: “Dreamer; Writer; Poet.” Long back, when Lele had seen my right hand, he had pointed out the three main lines and said, “Very, very interesting. These lines are rarely connected in this way.” ...
... life, with the heart and mind lines joined unusually and said: “Very interesting, very interesting, very interesting. Generally we do not find lines like this.” And she kept looking at me for long. Lele too, on seeing these three lines, had said the same thing. ...
... to the Balcony and back. Mother saw the disciples whom she had permitted to wait in fixed places. × Lele also had said the same thing when he had seen my palms. [Champaklal's note] ...
... But you must know the necessary result will be that you will have to follow that special way which He has given to me and which I call the integral Yoga. What I began with, what was given to me by Lele, that was a seeking for the path, a wandering around in this and that direction touching this or that in all the old partial Yogas; lifting it up, taking it in the hands and scutinising it and, having ...
... eventful life. First there was the decisive inner change which came about because of his search for a firm psychological foothold amid the fleeting stream of outer events. He met the yogi Vishnu Baskar Lele in Baroda shortly after the Surat congress. The event would prove determinative for Aurobindo’s further life as, totally unexpected, he had the stunning experience of “the silent Brahman” which he has ...
... who would revolutionize the spiritual destiny of the world, was an “agnostic,” to use his own term. 1908 was an axis year in his life. In the beginning of this year he met the yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele and had with him his first great spiritual experience, the realization of the silent Brahman. Later he was imprisoned in Alipore Jail under accusation of revolt against the Crown, which could cost him ...
... thought-waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing Nature Force. 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 them away from you till your mind ...
... youthful enthusiasm and in both the turning to spirituality was equally powerful. While Sri Aurobindo had the Nirvanic experience in Bombay, thanks to the Maharashtrian guru Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, Sethna recalls that he sought out in his city men in ochre Page xxi robes, Sadhus and Sannyasis and questioned them about the Unknown. It was from a South Indian Theosophist ...
... freedom. It is difficult for me to sleep till that is secured.’ 43 He was from Baroda and had heard Sri Aurobindo give speeches there after the Surat Conference, at the time of his first meeting with Lele. ‘Ever since I had seen him I had got the constant feeling that he was known to me.’ Purani had subscribed to the Arya and even translated it in Gujarati. He had his first meeting with Sri Aurobindo ...
... that point of view that I gave my answer. It was about some special character-making virtue that he seemed to attribute to literature. 18 November 1936 Page 716 I don't understand why Lele told you that because you are a poet, sadhana will be easy to you through poetry. Because I told him I wanted to do Yoga in order to get a new inner Yogic consciousness for life and action, not ...
... (written around the same time as the pieces on Theosophy that follow). The Claims of Theosophy . Circa 1910-12 (certainly written after January 1908, when Sri Aurobindo met V. B. Lele, the "member of the Theosophical Society who [gave] me spiritual help" mentioned in paragraph six). This article, like the others on Theosophy, was never published by Sri Aurobindo. However much he ...
... thought-waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing NatureForce. 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 them away from you till your mind ...
... had originally intended; impelled by an inner urge, he undertook a political tour instead in the Bombay presidency and the Central Provinces. There was no tour. Sri Aurobindo went to Poona with Lele and after his return to Bombay went to Calcutta. All the speeches he made were at this time (except those at Bombay and at Baroda) at places on his way wherever he stopped for a day or two. ...
... two newspapers ceased from that time. Afterwards, under the same "sailing orders", I left Chandernagore and reached Pondicherry on April 4th 1910. I may add in explanation that from the time I left Lele at Bombay after the Surat Congress and my stay with him in Baroda, Poona and Bombay, I had accepted the rule of following the inner guidance implicitly and moving only as I was moved by the Divine. ...
... Sri Aurobindo began practising Yoga on his own account, starting with prāṇāyāma as explained to him by a friend, a disciple of Brahmananda. Afterwards faced with difficulties, he took the help of Lele who was called for the purpose from Gwalior by Barindra—this was after the Surat Congress in 1908. There was no difference of opinion [ with the College authorities ]; the resignation was because ...
... all who are out of harmony with the atmosphere necessary to the yogic quietude. He sees no one and receives no visits. His friends in Madras do not see him when they come. Even his old guru Vishnu Lele who proposed to come here at this time has been requested to postpone indefinitely his visit. For the same reason he has ceased altogether to write. His own works, even those of which the publication ...
... The Old Yoga and the New Goal (An excerpt from a personal letter of Sri Aurobindo to his brother, Barin. Original in Bengali, written around 1920.) What I started with, what Lele gave me, what I did in jail — all that was a searching for the path, a circling around looking here and there, touching, taking up, handling, testing this and that of all the old partial yogas, getting ...
... the Guru said, "The Devil has caught hold of you." SRI AUROBINDO: "I"? I don't remember. (After a while) Yes, I remember now. It was about a Sannyasi in the Ramakrishna Mission. DR. MANILAL: Lele also said something like that to you. And you said you would then surrender to the Devil. SRI AUROBINDO: That was a different matter. I didn't say that to him. I said it to myself: "You have handed ...
... y] Sri Aurobindo had already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his Yoga... is founded. The first he had gained while meditation with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman.... His second realisation which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings ...
... n doesn't require labour or effort. By the way, at times one may make an effort for a thing, but the result comes in quite a different way. SRI AUROBINDO: That very often happens. In my case, Lele wanted me to get devotion, love and hear the inner voice, but instead I got the experience of the silent Brahman. SATYENDRA: And he prayed with incantations, etc., to pull you up to the other condition ...
... side and I don't refuse them. I accept them and see what they are like. But if you mean thinking, I never do that. Thinking ceased a long time ago—it has stopped ever since that experience of mine with Lele, the Silence and Nirvana at Baroda. Thoughts, as I said, come to me from all sides and from above and the receptive mind remains quiet or it enlarges itself to receive them. True thoughts always come ...
... manifesta- tion), 111 1958 (Withdrawal to her room),130 Leaders of the way, difficulties of, 69 1959 (Discovery of Sri Aurobindo in his abode in the subtle physical), 131 Lele, 8-9 1961(Junction of body consciousness with the supreme consciousness), 134-44 Letters of Sri Aurobindo, 87 1962 (Manifestation of the supreme love), 144-56 Levitation ...
... brother Haribhai was a well-known political leader of his day. Kamalaben recalls having seen many great personalities including CF. Andrews, Gandhiji, Annie Besant, and Pagal Harnath. Vishnu Bhaskar Lele too was closely connected with her family. Haribhai, although a follower of Swaminarayan, used to receive spiritual guidance regularly from Sri Aurobindo in his quest. Remembering her golden past ...
... 36,37,44,49,53,55,62,63, 64,66,67,68,69,70,73,83,85, 91,92 knowledge-ignorance 68 karma 21, 43 karma yoga 43; the perfection of 46 (The) Life Divine 3, 15 Lele (a Maharashtrain Yogi) 6, 7 Letters on Yoga 15, 79, 80, 81, 84, 87,96,97,98,99,100,101,102 levitation (utthapana) 11 light 14,15,16,17,18; mind of 17 life planes 54 ...
... disciple of his, well-known to me, a Baroda Sardar, Mazumdar (it 167. Last Poems by Sri Aurobindo. Page 131 was on the top storey of Mazumdar's house by the way that I sat with Lele in 1908 and had my decisive experience of liberation and Nirvana). Mazumdar learned that he (Swami Brahmananda) was suffering from a bad tooth and brought him a bottle of..., a tooth wash then much ...
... 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, Yogi 11,81,327,458 Leopardi 309 Lewis, C.S. 174,326,337 Life Divine, The 5,30,32-37, 111, 112,126, 210,282,293,294,298,323,329,347,359, 400,411,416 ...
... things. It made me go into trance, and sometimes sent me to a superior plane of consciousness. (But reliance on these outer stimulants was found to be the greatest drawback of this method.) I met Lele when I was searching for some guidance and practicing meditation under his guidance. I had the Nirvana experience in Sardar Majumdar's house in the room on the top-floor. After that I had to rely on ...
... long time after? Sri Aurobindo : Not necessarily; it will not come by arms but without arms. Disciple : How? Sri Aurobindo : There is a prophesy among the Sannyasis and also Lele used to tell us that there is no chance of freedom by fighting. Disciple : Italy or Japan can come to help India. Sri Aurobindo : That is not so easy. Naval equipment is not enough; ...
... Not necessarily. There may be some modification in the nature-part but the transformation is not automatic. It is not so easy as all that. My experience of peace and calm in the first contact with Lele has never left me, but in my outer nature there were many agitations and every time I had to make an effort to establish peace. From that time onwards the Page 43 whole object of ...
... Congress. December 28 Presides over a meeting of the Nationalists. December 31 Leaves Surat for Baroda. Page 814 1908 — January In Baroda. Meets Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a Maharashtrian yogi. Following Lele's instructions, establishes complete silence of the mind, attaining to the experience of the Silent Brahman. Gives three public speeches. January ...
... Aurobindo who was sitting in silence listening to their talk received a clear ādeś, or inner command 'in three words': "Go to Chandernagore." Ever since his first Nirvanic realisation with Yogi Lele in Baroda two years earlier, Sri Aurobindo had heard the Voice on crucial occasions, and had learned to obey it implicitly. This was beyond cold reason or calculation; this was a Divine Command. So ...
... first group, Idea. 1907 First arrest of Sri Aurobindo. 1908 Divorce from Henri Morisset. Mother moves to 49 rue de Levis. January: Sri Aurobindo meets the tantric yogi Vishnubhaskar Lele. Realization of mental silence and Nirvana. May 2, the “Alipore Bomb Case”: imprisonment of Sri Aurobindo for one year. 1910 February, Sri Aurobindo escapes to Chandernagor, in French India ...
... rapid flow of poetry; c)his "mind began to work with great illumination and power" as did his memory. But pranayama did not "carry me far." It was in January 1908 that Sri Aurobindo met Lele, the Tantric Yogi. Results: a) "My mind became full of an eternal silence—it is still there." Page 263 b) "In seven days I got the Nirvanic experience ..." otherwise called the ...
... a break-up; on the 28 th , Sri Aurobindo presides over the conference of the Nationalists. 1908, January - Sri Aurobindo meets the Maharashtrian yogi Vishnu Page 586 - Bhaskar Lele at Baroda. May 2 — Sri Aurobindo is arrested in the Alipore Bomb Case. He is defended by Chittaranjan Das. June 30 — A large area at Tunguska in Siberia is devastated, supposedly by the ...
... तस्थुर्मुहूर्तं परिचिन्तयन्तः कृष्णं नृपास्ते समुदीक्षमाणाः ॥ 9) संघट्टिताः surely means "assembled" and nothing else. P. C. Roy in taking it as "drew their attention to" shows his usual slovenliness. Lele also errs in his translation. He interprets it Page 345 "as soon as the talk was over Krishna assembled the kings for the affairs of the Pandavas." But the kings were already assembled & ...
... an occasional almost accidental utterance. One of these was spoken to a disciple of his well known to me, a Baroda Sardar, Mazumdar (it was on the top storey of his house by the way that I sat with Lele in Jan. 1908 and had a decisive experience of liberation and Nirvana). Mazumdar learned that he was suffering from a bad tooth and brought him a bottle of Floriline, a toothwash then much in vogue. ...
... what effort to make, all having failed. Then in three days I got an experience which most Yogis get only at the end of a long Yoga, got it without wanting or trying for it, got it to the surprise of Lele who was Page 237 trying to get me something quite different. But I don't suppose you are able to understand—so I say no more. I can only look mournfully at your ununderstanding pate. ...
... presiding over its conference breaks away from the Moderates First session of the Muslim League at Karachi. 1908, January In Baroda, Sri Aurobindo meets Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a Maharashtrian yogi, and experiences the Brahman consciousness. Gives many speeches on his way back to Calcutta. 1907-1908 Many Nationalist leaders, such as Lala Lajpat Rai, Tilak ...
... constant Yoga behind them for methodically dynamising life with spirituality. In 1905, at the age of thirty-one Sri Aurobindo took to Yogic discipline. One of his helpers in Yoga, the Mahratta Lele, relates that three days of meditation in Baroda in 1908 brought Sri Aurobindo the complete cessation of the mind's activity in a Nirvanic peace: henceforth all his movements, inward or outward, derived ...
... control. This practice became irregular when he started his political career in 1906 and by the end of 1907 he suffered a "complete arrest" of yogic experience. In January 1908 a yogi named Vishnu Bhaskar Lele showed him how to silence the activity of his mind. This led to the experience of the static Brahman or Nirvana. A few months later, in Alipore Jail, he had the experience of the dynamic Brahman or ...
... passing statement, while of the realisation behind a fourth (Nirvana) he has given several descriptions. In a note dictated regarding his early spiritual experiences we read: "Before he met Lele, Sri Aurobindo had some spiritual experiences, but that was before he knew anything about Yoga or even what Yoga was,— e.g., a vast calm which descended upon him at the moment when he stepped first ...
... 1918-1920 This enormous ‘mental’ activity, which we can witness for almost seven full years thanks to the Arya, used as its instruments a completely inactive brain (since the realization with Lele in Baroda) and fingers that typed directly on a prehistoric Remington what was inspired into them, including the corrections. In summer it is dreadfully warm in Pondicherry, but Sri Aurobindo, in yogic ...
... the one example you give - Sri Aurobindo's silent mind, though it followed his carrying out of Lele's instruction to feel thoughts as corning from outside and to repulse them, was not transmitted by Lele, unlike the Mother's complete silence of mind which was gifted at one sitting by Sri Aurobindo. From this you seem to conclude that, whatever be the Mother's outlook on gifts from the Guru, spiritual ...
... the physical beings of both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He is recorded as saying: 4 "The inner guide may fail after a time in the sadhana. I had attained an inner calm, before J took help from Lele. But when I came to ¹ Ibid., 367. ² Talks with Sri Aurobindo (Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir, Calcutta, 1966), p. 6. ³ The Mother —Sweetness and Light, pp. 204-205. ...
... karma , 5 kensho experience, 151 knowing, 102 knowledge Advaita process of the way of, 114 methods of, 102, 103 paths of, 115, 116 spiritual, 116 L Lele, Vishnu Bhaskar, Yogi, 141 liberation, 23, 40-42, 65, 120, 144, 146, 147 Lila, concept of, 83, 84 M Mahabharata , 20, 107 Page 170 Mayavada ...
... after coming to Pondicherry, he had already had three great realisations of his yoga. By that time, he had the realisation of the Brahmic nirvana, under the guidance of the Maharashtrian Yogi called Lele. He had a further realisation of the universal Vasudeva — Krishna — in the Alipore jail. And he had already in the Alipore jail, also heard the voice of Vivekananda for fifteen days uninterruptedly ...
... DAV College Managing Committee Chitragupta Marg, Pahar Ganj New Delhi-110055 115.Lehri, G.K Dean (Academic) NCERT Sri Aurobindo Marg New Delhi -110016 116.Lele, Madhukar P. Kendriya Jeevan Vigyan Academy Chhatarpur Marg New Delhi-110030 Page 736 117.Luther, M.M. 27, Silver Oaks Apartments DLF ...
... first realisation was that of the transcendental silent Brahman. He had attained to this realisation within three days of his concentration at Baroda, in 1907, when under the instruction of an adept, Lele, he could bring about utter silence of the mind. His second major realisation had come to him when he was detained in Alipore jail in 1908 during the course of his trial under the charge of sedition ...
... vegetables and food grains. (Used chemical fertilizers destroys fertility of the soil.) *It is essential to have a perpetual discourse on science, religion and development. Speaker: Professor Lele *Role of basic values of human and society highlighting self-discipline, respect for others, patience, simplicity, compassion etc. are some of the values, which need to be inculcated in the children ...
... what effort to make, all having failed. Then in three days I got an experience which most Yogis get only at the end of a long Yoga, got it without wanting or trying for it, got it to the surprise of Lele who was trying to get me something quite different. But I, don't suppose you are able to understand—so I say no more. I can only look mournfully at your ununderstanding pate. Calling for ropes and ...
... power. And you should know that the inevitable result of this will be that you will have to follow the path of yoga which He has given me, the path I call the Integral Yoga.... What I started with, what Lele gave me, what I did in jail — all that was a searching for the path, a circling around looking here and there, touching, taking up, handling, testing this and that of all the partial yogas, getting ...
... her. Most reprehensible conduct for a self-respecting Muse. I am caught by a fear that the store is over and nothing new will come. No fear! May 22, 1938 I don't understand why Lele told you that because you are a poet, sadhana will be easy for you through poetry, or why you quote it either. Poetry is itself a damn hard job and sadhana through poetry—well, the less said the better ...
... Yoga. Thus, whilst talking with you at this moment, I have no thoughts. I see what is around me but without thinking (unless I want to do so and call the thought). When I began Yoga I went in search of Lele to ask him to help me. He ordered me to sit beside him and practise this mental separation. At the end of three days I had succeeded and slain the thoughts. There are other means of arriving at ...
... Then I was an arth ā rthi Bhakta. Disciple : A mixture of jnani and arth ā rthi . Sri Aurobindo : No. I had no knowledge. I did not know what God was. It was two years before I met Lele that I began yoga seriously. Deshpande at that time was doing Hatha Yoga, Asanas and other practices and as he had a great proselytising tendency he wanted to convert me to his view. But I thought that ...
... from every side and I don't refuse them. I accept them and see what they are. But what you call "thinking" that I never do. Thinking in that sense had ceased long ago since I had that experience with Lele. Thoughts, as I said, come to me from all sides and from above and the transmitting mind remains quiet, or it enlarges to receive them. True thoughts come in this way. You can't think out such thoughts ...
... Not necessarily. There may be some modification in the nature, but entire transformation is not automatic. It is not so easy as all that. The experience of peace and calm after my first contact with Lele never left me, but in my outer nature there were many agitations and again and again I had to make an effort to establish peace and calm there. Ever since that early experience the whole object of my ...
... ; for if they make a habit, from the Abhyasa (habit) the response comes more readily, the response too gets into a habit of fixed time! But, of course, there are variations with different cases. Lele asked me to meditate twice a day, and when he heard that I didn't do it he gave me no chance to explain that my meditation was going on all the time. He said I was caught by the Devil. NIRODBARAN: ...
... the two letters ): When you are doing mental work there is of course no silence in the mind, but things can come to you when the mind is silent and then it won't be mental work. After my meeting with Lele, when I used to give speeches or write articles for the Bande Mataram, my mind was silent and things came from above. The mind didn't take any part. CHAMPAKLAL: You seem to have written to Z that ...
... written about effort and rejection in the earlier part. If he says that passivity is an intermediate stage, that is another matter. Otherwise, by simple passivity you expose yourself to various forces, as Lele did, thinking that everything is being done by the Divine. PURANI: Besides, one can't lift one passage out of its context and apply it in a general way. SRI AUROBINDO: I have very clearly said ...
... case, I got a definitive experience in three days quite suddenly. That was not the result of effort. NIRODBARAN: But you must have been making effort before. SRI AUROBINDO: Not for this result. Lele asked me to silence the mind and throw away the thoughts if they came. I did it—in three days—and the result was that the whole being became quiet and in seven days I got the Nirvanic experience which ...
... I see the stamp of a Yogi on him. Of course he is not a Siddha but one who is doing Yoga. PURANI: It is not always easy to make out, especially in people who follow an ordinary profession. I met Lele; nobody could say that he was a Yogi. He moved about just like an ordinary man. SRI AUROBINDO: One must have the vision. There are signs also, signs in the eyes and face, which one must know. ...
... Burma nothing authentic remains, I am told, but the Burmese people show a great respect for their Bhikshus. DR. MANILAL : Yes, respect for the appearance and not for the reality. SRI AUROBINDO: Lele also used to think that the appearance has some value. Once I met X with him. He asked me, "Why don't you bow down to him?" I replied that I didn't believe in the man. He said, "But you must respect ...
... this inner voice doesn't give any reason; it only says, "Do this" or "Do that" and "If you don't do it, bad results will follow." Strangely enough, when you don't listen to it, bad results do follow. Lele used to say that whenever he didn't listen to his inner voice he met with pain and suffering. PURANI: But there are many kinds of voices owing to the forces on different planes and it is extremely ...
... Divine, lay herself in the hands of the Divine. As Vivekananda very insistently said, "Abhi". The Yogi has no fear. I don't know whether I have told you of an experience of mine. After my meeting with Lele, I was once meditating at Calcutta felt a tremendous calm and then it seemed as if my breath would stop. A silly fear or rather an apprehension caught hold of me and said, "If my breath stops, how shall ...
... Will works through various factors—forces, one's own nature, etc. The murderer also can say that behind his murder there is the Divine Will. Then his being hanged also has to be taken in that light. Lele supported his queer acts by saying they were due to the Divine Will. If everything is taken like that, what is the use of doing Yoga? ( To Purani ) I hear that the Darshan was a very happy one. ...
... words “P Chaki, Baidyanath”. This becomes material in the light of the oral evidence of the postal peon that Profulla Chaki was at Seal’s Lodge. Among those proved to have been at Seal’s Lodge was V. B. Lele, and Exhibit … contains his name with the address, 12, Wellington Square, Calcutta, while Exhibit 382 found at No. 15, Gopi Mohan Dutt’s Lane, and Exhibit 667, found at 134, Harrison Road, also contain ...
... 'Extremists' broke with the Moderates led by Phirozeshah Mehta and G.K. Gokhale, so the Congress ended in a fiasco. Page 10 January 1908 Sri Aurobindo was with Yogi Lele for three days in Baroda, and had an ineffable Advaitic-Vedantic experience which enabled him to see, "with a stupendous intensity the world as a cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal ...
... that this inner voice does not give any reason; it only says : "do this; if you do not do that, bad results will follow.” Sometimes, strangely enough bad results do follow if you don't listen to it. Lele used to say that whenever he did not follow the inner voice he had pain and suffering. Disciple : But many kinds of voices are there according to the forces on different planes. I believe it ...
... early mornings are supposed to be the best for meditation. We ask people to have a fixed time for meditation, for, if they are habituated to it then the response comes at that time due to Abhyas . Lele asked me to meditate twice but when he came to Calcutta he heard that I did not do it. He did not give me time to explain that my meditation was going on all the time. He simply said : "the devil ...
... there is no fear. This is done by the mind. As Vivekananda very insistently said, the Yogi must be "Abhihi" – without fear. I don't know whether I told you about my experience. After my meeting with Lele I was meditating at Calcutta. I felt a tremendous calm and then felt as if my breath would stop. A silly fear, or rather an apprehension, caught hold of me and I said : If my breath stops how shall ...
... require effort or labour. Page 309 One may concentrate for one thing and quite a different result may come – one may go to quite another line. Sri Aurobindo : In my own case, Lele wanted me to get devotion and love and hear inner voices. Instead I got into the Silent Brahman Consciousness. Disciple : And he prayed and tried to pull you into the other condition. Disciple ...
... pull of the outside world, and he had therefore desisted from listening to that voice; politics and poetry were too dear to him, and he could not give them up completely. Had he not, indeed, told Lele that he, Sri Aurobindo, would follow the path of Yoga only if it did not interfere with his politics and his poetry? So long as he was a free man, Sri Aurobindo would not break the bonds himself ...
... 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." It was at this juncture that he met the Maha-rashtrian Yogi, Lele. About the faculty of vision, Sri Aurobindo said that it is difficult for mentally active people. "At one time I had great difficulty myself because of my mind, especially as regards vision." ...
... at the Shankaracharya Hill at Kashmir and at Parvati Hill near Poona, and the reality of the image in a temple at Karnali near Chandod." In his visit to the Parvati Hill in 1908 he was accompanied by Lele. Sri Aurobindo, in a letter to Dilip, gave a comprehensive account of his pre-yogic spiritual experiences. Recalling the effect on him of Max Müller's books during his college days, Sri Aurobindo ...
... retreat is called for, and Aswapati resolutely withdraws into a void, an absolute condition of silence of the mind. Sri Aurobindo is here evidently recalling his own experience at Baroda under Yogi Lele's guidance. It is a unique cathartic or 'beyonding' experience, 28 and Aswapati leaves "earth-nature's summits", mounts "burning like a cone of fire", and quests "for God as for a splendid prey" ...
... and returned to It; but these four shining land-marks in his spiritual life have also their particular significances. First came the experience of utter silence and calm and void when, under Yogi Lele's guidance, Sri Aurobindo, early in January 1908, learned in a room on the top floor of Sardar Mazumdar's house in Baroda to fling his thoughts back and create the desert of silence in his mind." ...
... arrival in India, and trace the course of his spiritual life with the aid of such external sign-posts—his poems and his letters, for example —as are available: his experience of cosmic silence under Yogi Lele's guidance; his beatific vision of Narayana the Omnipresent God in the Alipore Jail; his experience of the besieging of his fields of trance by the cosmic ignorance; his spiritual association with Madame ...
... of any sort, quiet acceptance of the doctor's direction. It is this submission that made Dr. Rao remark afterwards that Sri Aurobindo was an ideal patient. With the same submission he had accepted Lele's instruction to reject all thoughts. We know however that he was not always submissive in other fields of life. The following day, Dr. Manilal had to face from the Mother such an unexpected thundering ...
... some of the earlier chapters, from one or two unexpected experiences to the tentative period of prānāyāma and then on to the all-annihilating experience of the silent Brahman at Baroda, under Yogi Lele's guidance. At the Alipur jail, the blissful experience of Narayana Omnipresent had suddenly overwhelmed Sri Aurobindo, and he had won his way to the heart of the Gita's integral Yoga; and he had been ...
... of divine seeking, etc. or creates music of that kind, it means that there is a bhakta or seeker inside who is supporting himself by that self-expression. There is also the point of view behind Lele's answer to me when I told him that I wanted to do Yoga but for work, for action, not for Sannyasa and Nirvana, but after years of spiritual effort I had failed to find the way and it was for that ...
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