Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
25 December 1938
Dr. Rao arrived and, as before, was insisting that the splints could safely be removed from Sri Aurobindo’s leg on New Year’s day. We couldn’t assent to this.
Dr. Rao: I discussed the point with the specialist. But we begged to differ. The specialist’s opinion is that the splints should be kept for ten weeks more.
The Mother: Do doctors change their opinions?
Dr. Rao: This specialist has changed his. But the question is to be decided by Sri Aurobindo.
When Dr. Rao had gone, the Mother asked Sri Aurobindo what he thought.
Sri Aurobindo: I can’t take the risk. I have to be very careful as I am not sure that violent movements won’t take place in sleep. Besides, the adverse forces have to be considered. The specialist said, “Ten weeks more.” Dr. Rao says, “Six weeks in all.” We will take the via media. That will satisfy both.
Nirodbaran: Dr. Rao always emphasises that you are an extraordinary patient who can be trusted to follow directions.
Sri Aurobindo: Then I have to take extraordinary care. (Laughter)
After a few minutes the Mother departed for the general meditation and there was a spell of silence. We were wakened from it by a remark of Sri Aurobindo’s.
Sri Aurobindo: Doctors are born to differ. It seems to me that medical science has developed much knowledge but in application it is either an art or a fluke.
Satyendra and Purani agreed with the remark and said that as regards application medical science was not exact as yet. Nirodbaran observed that this was so because of individual variation.
Sri Aurobindo: They have not found any drug that can cure a particular disease in all cases. I am talking of allopathy, not homoeopathy, about which I know nothing. Even in theory, which they have developed remarkably, there is always a change of opinion. What they hold as true today is discarded after ten years. Now TB has been proved by a French doctor with statistics not to be a contagious disease. He says it is hereditary. What a great relief this will be! I myself haven’t found it contagious. Take also the question of diet. They are changing their ideas constantly. Some day medical science will become exact.
Then Satyendra brought in the question of the unscrupulousness and incapacity of private practitioners and held that medical practice should be under State control.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t believe in that. I like State control less than medical control.
Nirodbaran: It will be a better arrangement. Take the example of country councils which particularly enjoin the regular examination of people by medical attendants.
Sri Aurobindo: What about poor Yogis then, who may not like being examined?
Nirodbaran: The patients of a particular area under the charge of one doctor can’t change to another doctor without sufficient reason.
Sri Aurobindo: What if one doesn’t believe in a doctor or doesn’t like him?
Nirodbaran: That isn’t a sufficient reason, for the council sees that all doctors are well trained.
Sri Aurobindo: Why isn’t it a sufficient reason? It is an excellent reason. Why should there be no choice? You may as well force a patient here to be under Ramachandra and not go to Savoor. I have no faith in such Government controls, because I believe in a certain amount of freedom, freedom to find out things for oneself in one’s own way, freedom to commit blunders even. Nature leads us through various errors and eccentricities. When Nature created the human being with all his possibilities for good or ill, she knew very well what she was about. Freedom for experiment in human life is a great thing. Without freedom to take risks and commit mistakes, there can be no progress.
Nirodbaran: But without a sufficient growth of consciousness one may abuse the freedom.
Sri Aurobindo: One must take the risk. Growth of consciousness can’t come without freedom. You can of course have certain elementary laws and develop sanitation and spread the knowledge of health and hygiene among the people. The State can certainly provide efficient medical service, but when one exceeds one’s province the error comes in. To say that one can’t change one’s doctor even if one does not believe in him or like him is, it seems to me, a little too much.
It all began from the pressure of the development of the physical sciences in Europe. In these sciences one can be exact and precise and everything is mechanical and fixed. This is all right as far as physical things are concerned because there if you make a mistake Nature hits you on the nose and you are made to see it. But the moment you try to apply the same rules in dealing with life and mind, you may go on committing errors and never know it. You will refuse to see them because of a fixed mental idea which tries to fit everything to its own view.
Everything is moving towards that in Europe. The totalitarian States do not believe in the existence of any individual variation, and even non-totalitarian States are obliged to follow them. Yes, they do it for the sake of efficiency. But whose efficiency? It is the efficiency of the State, the organised machine, not that of the individual. The individual has no freedom, he doesn’t grow. Organise by all means, but there must be scope for freedom and plasticity.
In India, even in spirituality they allowed all sorts of experiments, including the Vama Marga, the left-hand path of the Tantra, and you see how wonderfully Indian spirituality has developed.
Nirodbaran: Sometimes people justify both totalitarianism and imperialism. Shaw, for instance, justifies Italy’s conquest of Abyssinia. To show up Abyssinia’s inefficiency he says that when one passes through the Denakal desert, one runs the risk of losing one’s life.
Sri Aurobindo: In that case let Shaw keep out of the desert. What business has he to pass through it?
Nirodbaran: But surely Italy’s conquest will bring in culture, aesthetics, roads, buildings, etc., into Abyssinia, a country which is said to be without a civilisation at all?
Sri Aurobindo: Aesthetics? The Negroes have no art? And what culture will be brought in? Of course, if you walk into a Negro den, you may get killed, but the same thing may happen among the present-day Germans. How many people are aesthetic in England? And as regards roads and buildings, could anyone, looking at life in Port Said, say that the people there are more civilised than the Negroes? Have you read Phanindra Bose’s book on the Santals? He says that the Santals are not at all inferior to other classes of people in the matter of ethics. So also with the Arabian races. Wilfred Scawen Blunt praised them highly as a very sympathetic and honest people. Do you think the average man today is better than a Greek of 2500 years ago – or than an Indian of that time? Look at the condition in Germany today. You have seen the Kaiser’s remark on Hitler. (Smiling) You can’t say Germany is progressing.
I have come in contact with the Indian masses and I have found them better than the Europeans of the same class. So too the working classes here – they are superior to the European ones: the latter may be more efficient but that is due to external reasons. The French Governor Solomiac said during the riots that the labourers were really so docile, meek and humble and only when they took to drink did they turn to violence. The Irish doctor in Alipore Jail could not understand how the young anarchists who were so gentle and attractive could be revolutionary. Even the ordinary criminals I found very human; they were better than European criminals.
There will always be different states of development of humanity. It is a fallacy to say that education will do everything, and your so-called civilisation is not an unmixed good. You have only to look at the “civilised” countries. Take the condition of affairs under Nazism. It is terrible. It is extremely difficult for the individual to assert himself. Everyone is living in a state of tension. Under that tension either the whole thing will break up with a crash or all life will be crushed out of the people. In both cases the result will be a disaster.
Society is after all reverting to the old system – only in another form. It is the revival of monarchy, with an aristocracy and the masses. There is the Führer or leading or sovereign man, like a king; then there is his party, which is the aristocracy, the elite, and there is the general herd of common people. The same arrangement holds with Fascism and Communism, except that the Brahmin classes, the intellectuals, have no place.
After this, a few remarks were exchanged on democracy.
Sri Aurobindo: It is curious how a thing gets spoiled when it is given recognition. Democracy was a far better thing when it was not called democracy. When it was given a name, much of the truth went out of it.
Nirodbaran: H used to be a great admirer of Socialism. He would say it is a heaven without God.
Sri Aurobindo: Why didn’t he go and settle in Russia then? If he had done so, he would have been at once suppressed. I foresaw that Socialism would destroy all freedom of the individual.
Nirodbaran: Is there any difference between Communism and Nazism?
Sri Aurobindo: Practically none. The Nazis call themselves National Socialists; the others are simply Socialists. In Communism it is a proletariat government where there are no separate classes: they have abolished the classes and they say that the government is a transitional stage. The Nazis have kept the classes: only, the classes are all bound to the State, everything being under State control just as in Communism.
Nirodbaran: But Communism began with a high ideal and it is certainly better than Fascism or Nazism. The masses have their own government.
Sri Aurobindo: In what way is it better? Formerly the masses were unconscious slaves. Before they could strike when they were dissatisfied; now they can’t. The main question is whether the people have freedom or not. They are all bound to the State, the Dictator and the Party. They can’t even choose the Dictator. And whoever differs from him is mercilessly suppressed. You know about the way they are doing it.
Nirodbaran: But with the abolition of class distinctions there is now a sense of equality: nobody feels superior or inferior.
Sri Aurobindo: How? At first, all the generals and soldiers went to run the machines and industrial organisations. But they found that they could not do it. Then they brought in the specialists with high pay and other advantages. The condition of the working classes is no better than in England or France. Some good things have been done in regard to women and children, medical attendance, etc. But they are being done in France also. You must know that a famous fashionable aristocratic resort has now been given over to the working people in France.
Nirodbaran: Why then are Romain Rolland and others so enthusiastic about Russia?
Sri Aurobindo: That is because they are Socialists. But even they are getting disillusioned now. Plenty of French workers went to Russia but came back disappointed. The same thing happened when democracy came in. People thought there would be a lot of liberty but found that it was a delusion.
Nirodbaran: But formerly they were serving the Emperor and now they serve their own people.
Sri Aurobindo: Certainly not. Where did you get that idea? The Emperor had nothing to do with the government. It was the capitalist class that ruled the country, and the same thing happens today, whatever the name you may give it. The whole thing is a fraud. It is impossible to change humanity by political machinery. It can’t be done!