Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
December 1938
Nirodbaran: The other day, while we were talking about poetry, you quoted some passages from the Veda. I would like to know how the Mantras in the Vedas and the Upanishads were composed. It seems they were actually heard by the Rishis. Is it an inner hearing?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is an inner hearing. Sometimes one hears a line, or a passage, or even a whole poem; sometimes they simply come down. The best poetry is always written in that way.
Nirodbaran: I remember very well that line of mine, “A fathomless beauty in a sphere of pain,” coming as if someone had whispered it into my ear.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite; that is the inner hearing. But occasionally one may be deceived. Inspiration from the lower planes also can come in an automatic way.
Nirodbaran: Oh yes. I have been deceived many times like that. Lines which came at once and automatically and which I thought high-class turned out quite ordinary by your remarks.
Sri Aurobindo: One writes wonderful poems in dreams, surrealist poems; but when they are written down on paper they seem worthless.
Even in a poet like Shakespeare, in whom, I suppose, poetry always flowed, there are differences of inspiration. In the passage in Henry IV, invoking sleep, the three lines:
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge?
leap out strikingly from the rest. There is no doubt at all that they have descended from above without any interruption. Or look at that lyric of his, beginning “Take, O take those lips away1”, the whole of it has come down from above.
At this point of the conversation Dr. Manilal entered the room. Dr. Manilal asked Sri Aurobindo about his health. After some time the Mother came in and sat on the spare cot.
Dr. Manilal (addressing the Mother): Is it a sin to kill scorpions, bugs and mosquitoes? Somehow I can’t kill bugs but I kill mosquitoes.
The Mother: Why? Because of the smell of bugs?
Dr. Manilal: Probably.
The Mother: Put your question to Sri Aurobindo. (Smiling to Sri Aurobindo) When I first came here, I used to drive away mosquitoes by Yogic Force. Sri Aurobindo didn’t approve of it.
Sri Aurobindo: Because you were making a friendship with them.
Dr. Manilal: Sir, is it a sin to kill them?
Sri Aurobindo: What is sin? If you don’t kill them, they will go and bite some other people and won’t that be a sin to you?
Dr. Manilal: But they have life, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they have …
Dr. Manilal: And if one kills them …
Sri Aurobindo: Well, what happens?
Dr. Manilal: One will be liable to sin.
The Mother: Plants also have life. You don’t mean to say that a mosquito is more precious than a rose? You don’t know perhaps how the plants feel.
Dr. Manilal: I don’t mean that we otherwise don’t kill, say, when we breathe micro-organisms.
The Mother (smiling): Don’t doctors kill?
Dr. Manilal: Yes, Mother, but our killing isn’t intentional.
Nirodbaran: It is said that the Jains hire people to feed bugs.
Dr. Manilal: No, that’s just a story.
Sri Aurobindo: At any rate I know a story that is historically true, in connection with the Jains. When Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India, he defeated a Jain king through the help of that king’s brother. He imprisoned the king and put the brother on the throne and left the dethroned king in his charge. The brother didn’t know what to do with the prisoner. Being a Jain, he couldn’t kill him. So he got a pit dug below his throne and threw his prisoner there and covered up the pit with mud. As a result, the dethroned king died – but the brother didn’t kill him! (Laughter)
The Mother: In order to be a true non-killing Jain, one must be a Yogi. Then one can deal rightly with these animals and insects.
Dr. Manilal: Yes, Mother. But is one justified in killing scorpions and snakes?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? One must kill in self-defence. I don’t mean that you must hunt them out and kill them. But when you see that they are endangering your life or those of others, you have every right to kill them.
Nirodbaran: People say that killing a dog or a cat is not so harmful as taking the life of a human being. Do you agree?
The question was lost in a volley of other questions fired by some of the attendants.
Sri Aurobindo: Did you say that killing a dog or a cat is not so harmful as taking the life of a human being?
The Mother: Nirodbaran seems to be a humanitarian.
Sri Aurobindo: Life is life, whether in a cat or a dog or a man. There is no difference as regards that. The difference is a conception of human beings – for their own advantage perhaps.
The Mother now departed. Then the talk shifted to homoeopathy, and everyone, including Dr. Savoor who happened to be present, started citing instances in favour of homoeopathy and mentioning its miraculous cures. It was said even to cure religious depression, anger, etc.
Sri Aurobindo: Anger, the scientists say, is due to secretions of the glands. Even love, according to them, is merely due to a secretion. (Half smiling) But can homoeopathy cure egoism?
Dr. Savoor: If it did, I should be the first to apply for the medicine.
Dr. Manilal: The fact that you are conscious of egoism makes half the cure. Isn’t that so, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. But it is the first step.
Nirodbaran: And what’s the second?
Sri Aurobindo: To detach oneself from all these things. To think as if they belonged to the outer being or to someone else. As one goes on doing that, the Purusha or Soul gradually withdraws its sanction from the Prakriti or Nature, and the Prakriti loses its hold until finally a spiritual control takes place. But if one associates oneself with the Prakriti, then the Purusha becomes a slave to it, Anish. Rejection, of course, is a stronger means. One has to reject these things before they enter into one, as I did with the thoughts when I was at Baroda. This method is more powerful and the results too are quicker. There is also a mental control, but there it is the mind trying to control the vital being. The control is only partial and temporary. The thing is rather suppressed within and can come out on any opportunity.
I have heard of a Yogi in Benares who was bathing in one of the ghats. In the next ghat a beautiful Kashmiri woman came to bathe. As soon as he saw her, he fell upon her and tried to outrage her. His was evidently a case of mental control.
But sometimes, by Yoga, things which were not felt before come up. I have heard about it from many persons. In my own case, I saw anger coming up and possessing me. It was absolutely uncontrollable when it came. I was very much surprised as to my own nature. Anger has always been foreign to it. At another time, while I was an undertrial prisoner in Alipore, my anger would have led to a terrible catastrophe which luckily was avoided. Prisoners there had to wait outside for some time before entering the cells. As we were doing so the Scotch warder came and gave me a push. The young men around me became very excited and I did nothing, but I gave him such a look that he immediately fled and called the jailor. It was a communicative anger and all the young men rallied round to attack him. When the jailor who was rather a religious man arrived, the warder said I had given him an insubordinate look. The jailor asked me and I told him I had never been used to such treatment. He pacified the whole group and said while going, “We have each to bear our cross.” But by this anger I don’t mean the Rudrabhava which I have experienced a few times.
Nirodbaran: Is Rudrabhava something like Ramakrishna’s snake story?
Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. It is not at all a show of anger. It is something genuine – a violent severity against something very wrong. Anger one knows by its feeling and sensation. It rises from below, while Rudrabhava rises from the heart. I shall give you an instance. Once X became very violent, shouting at the Mother and shaking his fists at her. When I heard the shouting, a violent severity came down that was absolutely uncontrollable. I went out and said, “Who is shouting at the Mother? Who is shouting there?” As soon as X heard me, he became quiet.
Nirodbaran: X, I have been told, had a very violent temper.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He was otherwise an earnest sadhak, became conscious of many things and did make some progress. But these fits used to come to him now and then. Some Asuric forces used to catch hold of him and he couldn’t control himself. It is these forces that have made him fail in Yoga, for I hear that he doesn’t have the attacks now outside. When he was in their grip, he couldn’t see that he was in the wrong. He blamed me and the Mother, though we had been very lenient and considerate to him. After some time, he was able to recognise his fault and admit it and promise that he would never do it again. But again he would be swept away by the forces. Sometimes his vanity and self-esteem would come in the way of admitting his faults immediately.
That’s the mistake. One must not justify one’s wrong-doing. If one does that, it comes again and makes it difficult for one to get rid of it.
Nirodbaran: Purushottam, after doing so much Tapasya, is speaking of going away. He has been here twelve years!
Sri Aurobindo: What Tapasya? If we give him complete freedom and control over things, he will perhaps stay.
Nirodbaran: He says he is helping the Mother in the work.
Sri Aurobindo: Helping only? I thought he was conducting the Ashram!
Nirodbaran: But won’t these people one day realise the Divine?
Sri Aurobindo: Everyone will arrive at the Divine. Amal once asked the Mother if he would realise God. The Mother replied that he would, unless he did something idiotic and cut short his life. And that is just what he almost did!
1 Take, O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were foresworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,
Bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain,
Sealed in vain.
Measure for Measure, IV