Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1881

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

March 18, 1937 (Evening)

What? X also has a “message”? But all I heard was that he had become restless.

I said that his [Y’s] outing was somewhat like X’s – i.e. a social round.

What, Y has gone out to deliver a “message”? What message, Sir?

There is nothing about message. Marriage, marriage – two marriages, in fact. Not that he is going to marry 2 wives, but he is going to see the misfortune of two others consummated and gloat over it.

But why exactly did D.S. tumble? – if not private. Self-aggrandisement only? Can’t be!

Why not? Never heard of megalomania?

I heard he was touchy regarding his wife and wife touchy about him – My God, grazes the skin, almost, Sir!

Touchy means what? And how does touchiness graze the skin?

Now about X’s tea and butter!...

It isn’t butter – it’s “tea and talk”.

All these were, it seems, generously granted by you to X. No bar, no restriction – full freedom, carte blanche ...

They were granted by me as a concession to his nature, because by self-deprivation he would land himself in the seas of despair – not as a method of reaching the Brahman. He was trying to do what his nature would not allow. It was only if he got intense spiritual experience that he could give up tea and talk without wallowing in misery – Is it so difficult to understand a simple thing like that? I should have thought it would be self-evident even to the dullest intelligence.

You remember your reply to his “ascetic” letter about giving up cooking, shaving his head, etc., etc.? Well, what is this now? Sociability not the base of Brahman, surely? That’s what we all thought, but your sanction and support that each has a different path etc., took our support away.

Because I allowed him to talk, and objected to his making an ostentatious ascetic ass of himself, does it follow that the talk and tea were given as part of his Yoga? If the Mother allowed butter or eggs to Y for his physical growth, does it follow that butter and eggs are the bases of the Brahman? If somebody has a stomachache and I send him to the dispensary, does it follow that a stomachache, the dispensary, Nirod and allopathic drugs are the perfect way to spiritualisation? Don’t be an a – , I mean a Gandhilike logician!

My poems are now getting less surrealistic and losing all charm of incomprehensibility ...

Necessary transition, I suppose.

Also the power of bold expressions, images, etc. are disappearing... Why?

Get them in another way, bold and original but not surrealistic, so that people instead of crying “Very fine but what the devil does he mean?”, will shout “Ah ha! Wah! wah!” in a chorus of approbation for your genius and personality much as X is getting in Calcutta. How do you like the prospect?