Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

20 December 1938

After Sri Aurobindo’s lunch at about 4.30 p.m. Nirodbaran was reading to him the memorial orations on a prominent figure in local politics and business. One person after another, beginning with the Governor, had praised him in superlative terms: “upright”, “generous”, “great friend of the poor” etc. Hearing this, Sri Aurobindo exclaimed, “Good Lord!”, burst into laughter and remarked, “He ought to be canonised – Saint X! Such is public life! When Y died, all his life-long political enemies did the same thing.”

At about 7.00 the talk started again. It turned on homoeopathy and its difference from allopathy in regard to dosage and other matters.

Sri Aurobindo: Homoeopathy is nearer to Yoga. Allopathy is more mechanical. Homoeopathy deals with the physical personality – all the symptoms put together and making up this personality. Allopathy goes by diagnosis which does not consider the personality. The action of homoeopathy is more subtle and dynamic.

Savoor: Some Yogis go into Samadhi as a release from bodily pain and suffering. But there are others who don’t do that and bear the pain.

Nirodbaran: Ramakrishna was one such.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, Yogis can go into Samadhi and put an end to the Samskara. But I don’t see the utility of going into Samadhi to escape from pain. On the other hand, when one decides to bear a disease, it seems to me in a way an acceptance of it.

Ramakrishna once, when he was seriously ill, said to Keshab Sen that his body was breaking up under the stress of his spiritual development. But spiritual development need not always lead to disease.

Nirodbaran: If Ramakrishna had so willed it, he could have prevented the disease.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, but he didn’t believe in using his will to cure his disease or in praying to the Divine for a cure.

Nirodbaran: It is said that he got his cancer because of the sins of his disciples.

Sri Aurobindo: He said that himself and, if he did, it must be true. The Guru has to take up many things of the disciples. The Mother does that because she unites herself with the sadhaks and takes them up into herself. Of course, at the same time she also stops many things from happening in herself. A famous Yogi told a disciple, when the latter was becoming a Guru, “In addition to your own difficulties you will now take up those of others.” No doubt, if one cuts the connection with the disciples, this can’t happen, but that means no work, and the sadhaks are left to themselves without support.

Interchange of forces between persons is very common. Whenever two people meet, the interchange goes on. In that way one contracts a disease from another without any infection by germs. A disciple here was very conscious of what he was receiving from others, but he didn’t care to think about what he was passing on to them!

Even without meeting, there can be mutual effects. Even thought has power for good and evil. Bad thoughts may affect others. That’s why Buddha used to emphasise right thinking.

The need of company which people feel is really their need to interchange forces. What after all is the passion of man and woman for each other? Nothing but a vital interchange, a drawing in of forces from each other. Of course, the interchange or drawing in of forces takes place unconsciously and sometimes in spite of oneself. Thus when a person doesn’t like another, he doesn’t always know the reason, but it means that the vital beings of the two don’t agree; the interchanges are unpleasant. You know Sheridan’s lines:

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

The reason why I cannot tell.

But at times, even when there is incompatibility, people come together. You see men and women quarrelling violently and yet unable to do without each other. That is because each has a need of the other’s vital force. Woman has almost always such a need and that is what is called “being in love”. Surely the need has been imposed on her by man. But Indian society established the relation between the husband and the wife in such a way that an equation might result.

Nirodbaran: But if one draws more than the other, there is a risk.

Sri Aurobindo: Certainly. If one receives more than one gives, bad consequences may be there for the one who gives more. Hindu astrology speaks of Rakshasa Yoga: a husband losing many wives one after another means an incompatibility so that instead of supporting them he is eating them up.

Nirodbaran: What are vampires?

Sri Aurobindo: Those who constantly draw from other people’s vital beings without giving anything in return.

Nirodbaran: Are they so by nature or through possession?

Sri Aurobindo: They may be so either way. And there are men vampires as there are women vampires.

There is also another kind of vital nature: an expansive one. And in that case one has the need to pour out. Still another kind, again expansive, is the Hitlerian vital, catching hold of other people in its grip.

Nirodbaran: Does psychic love ever catch hold like that?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course not! The law of psychic love is to give without making any demand.