Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2123

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 9, 1938

[Sri Aurobindo and the Mother]

R.B. says she has no pain today even while walking. She can take more oranges.

[Mother:] I fear we cannot go on increasing oranges like that. They are not easily found in the market and they are costly.

We gave Arjava an Ayurvedic tonic called “Lohasava» containing iron. It is available in Madras.

[Mother:] It is better to order for some.

[Sri Aurobindo:] S has started taking douches daily – she writes that she is taking salt lotion (is it permanganate?) in the douche, and has taken from the dispensary but not in liquid form and has to melt in hot water “till she gets the right colour”. Now in the old Doctor’s time S once as an experiment took a tenfold dose of permanganate in her douche just to see whether it would not cure her at once in a trice! So Mother considers she cannot be trusted in these matters (she believes too much in her own cleverness) and she says the exact amount needed should be given her every day so that no “mistakes” may be possible.

X came to me with the letter you have written to him. He said that he showed the letter to D but D had not done anything, not even spoken to Mother about it saying that he had to make some changes and arrangements. I was much surprised that D hadn’t put it before the Mother. He should have at least done that.

But why on earth should things be done in a slap-dash hurry just to please X? Mother said nothing to D and did not ask him to make the new arrangement at once. There are many things beside the mere displacing of one sadhak by another that have to be considered and he was quite entitled to consider all that was involved before placing the matter definitely before the Mother for orders.

I thought that perhaps D did not want X in the kitchen, as he would not be able to do with him as he did with N and that your praise of X’s cooking might not be palatable to him.

It would be quite natural if he felt like that. Since N and S are working, there has been a halcyon peace in the kitchen (in the D.R. also for different reasons) which are unprecedented in their annals. For years and years it has been a cockpit of shouts and quarrels and disagreements, all the “big” workers quarrelling with each other, each trying to enforce his own ideas and all (except Charu) trying to ignore and push aside D, all getting furious against the Mother because she did not “side” with them (X has also written that if Mother “sides” with D in a clash between them, he would not stand it), and the “little” workers quarrelling with each other or with some big worker. It was like the present state of Europe or worse. Things got so bad that Mother had to eliminate J, M and others and quiet down other would-be-bosses in order to still the uproar, for each time somebody who was till then less boisterous arose to take up the inheritance of quarrel and revolt. Finally we had arrived, as I say, at a halcyon peace – it might have been the tail of the supramental, it might have been only a lull; but anyhow it was precious. When we got X’s letter showing by signs with which we were familiar that he was preparing to take up the inheritance, our immediate reaction was “No, thank you!” – hence my letter. We were determined to put our foot down at the first sign and not wait for farther developments.

X told me that he has definitely told D that he won’t make any independent move; whatever D gives, he will cook with that.

In his letter to us he wrote that he did that because he did not want to increase his own disquietude. He said that his idea was after a month or so to improve the cooking after his own ideas. He spoke of independence in the work and intimated that D’s duty should be only to give whatever the রাঁধুনী¹ asked for and not exercise any farther control as he was quite ignorant of these matters. His whole tone was that of one preparing for militant self-assertion. Now he seems to deny or forget all that and wonders why I wrote any letter to him at all.

X seems to be going off the trail altogether. His letters are full of the kind of stuff we used to get from B, Y at his worst, and many others. Abhiman, revolt, demands, challenges, ultimatums, commands “You will give me the D.R. upstairs room or I won’t remain; you will answer without delay; you ought to have done this, you must do that,” charges against the Mother of falsehood, bad treatment meted out to him alone and to no other, etc., etc., also the wickedness of other sadhaks against him (P.S., S etc.); announcement of his coming departure etc. Announcements also that he will stop eating. Also a vital mind taking up partial and misrepresented facts stated by others and without any knowledge of the real situation making false inferences (e.g. that the Mother had not spoken in truth) etc., etc. All that built up into a dark and dismal farrago of which we have had a hundred examples in the past. But it is now long since I have decided not to answer letters of that kind, leave the revolters to their own devices. They expect us to flatter them, soothe them, fall at their feet and beg them not to go, comply with their demands, inundate them with anxious love and affection of the vital kind and generally dandle and pet their vital ego. We have seen that to do anything of that kind is disastrous and makes things a thousandfold worse; the vital ego and its movements increase and reach an Asuric stature. So no more of that. I wanted to answer X and put the truth of his state plainly before him in the most quiet and temperate way because it was his first outbreak; I have already pointed out to him that there is one remedy and only one, for him to reject and fight out his vital mind and ego. But he listens only for a moment and the next day “cela continue”. I have no time now to go on answering this kind of letter. If he wants to do what I say, there is a chance for him; but if he doesn’t, we are not responsible for his failure.

Because I did not at once assure him of the increase of his work, he has now written announcing fasting and departure, refusal of the work – accompanied by some damn fool nonsense about Mother’s frowning eyes, and serious face which is his own imagination. Et voilà.

¹ rāṁdhunī: cook.

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