Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
2 January 1939
Dr. Savoor came to see Sri Aurobindo. After pranam he sat on the carpet with us and talked about homoeopathy and how by Providence he had taken it up, a thing he never thought of. Touching on the mentality of patients he remarked, “It is better not to tell the price of a medicine. For if a patient is told that a medicine is very cheap, as homoeopathic drugs usually are, he loses all faith and respect for it. So I always keep the price a secret.” Then he said something about the Mother testing him. The Mother had come into the room meanwhile and had been listening to him.
The Mother: Testing is not the practice here. It is the play of forces or at times the adverse forces that do the testing in order to measure your strength. If you refuse to listen to them and remain firm, they withdraw.
People have enough difficulties already; why should we add any more? To say that we purposely test is not true. We never do it – never!
Dr. Savoor: I am very glad to get this answer from you. I feel perfectly assured now.
The Mother: Are there any highly priced drugs in homoeopathy?
Dr. Savoor: No, Mother. The highest price that we pay for one drachm of medicine is about five rupees. And with that one drachm we can by trituration treat a huge number of patients.
Sri Aurobindo: Are there no exceedingly rare drugs for which you have to pay a big sum?
Dr. Savoor: It is only drugs of very high potencies that are rare in India. One has to get them from America. Otherwise almost all drugs are available in Calcutta and other places and most homoeopaths get them from there.
After this, the Mother went out to get ready for the general meditation. All of us fell silent, though some were anxious to start a conversation. Purani had been preparing something but waited for the Mother’s departure.
Purani: How far is it desirable for the Ashram to be self-sufficient?
Sri Aurobindo: Self-sufficient in what way?
Purani: In meeting the needs of daily life: say, the clothes here. Virji who has come from Bombay wants us to introduce the spinning loom to make our own clothes. How far is such self-sufficiency desirable in an Ashram like ours?
Sri Aurobindo: The question is not whether it is desirable but whether it is practicable. No objection to spinning or weaving. (Suddenly looking at Nirodbaran and smiling) Will you set Nirodbaran spinning, to begin with?
Nirodbaran: I have been spinning all the time, Sir! (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: There are all sorts of mental formations that can be carried out. But here it is by the Mother’s intuition that things are taken up and done.
Purani: They have done many things for self-sufficiency successfully at Dayalbagh.
Sri Aurobindo (smiling): First of all, the spinners and weavers will at once start quarrelling with one another, and that is one way in which the Ashram is not the fit place. In other organisations they impose a discipline and ensure obedience by force, and people are obliged to take their orders from the one at the head. But here we don’t impose such discipline from outside. People are left free.
Even if you want to do that kind of work, there are difficulties on the way that have to be guarded against. First, the tendency to degenerate into mere mechanical and commercial activity.
Secondly, ambition: there is a great desire among the sadhaks to make the Ashram figure before the world. That must go.
And then the whole thing won’t be possible unless Dr. Savoor promises to homoeopathise all into health!
It is not that we don’t want to do that sort of work; we have many ideas but we can’t take them up unless the foundation is ready. Even now, in the Gardens, the Building Service and the Dining Room, two or three people can’t work together. Their egos come to the front and they want a mental independence.
Work as a part of sadhana or work for the Divine is all right. But work must primarily be spiritual and not merely creative in a personal way. Work as part of spiritual creation is, of course, right, but we can’t take this up unless the inner difficulties are overcome. Neither can it be according to mental constructions; it must only be according to the Mother’s intuition. Even then there are so many difficulties. Not that we have no workers; there are people here with considerable capacity.
Then the talk was diverted to a totally different subject by Sri Aurobindo asking Dr. Savoor: “Is there any cure for baldness in homoeopathy? I was looking at Nolini’s head when he came to dust my books and I was thinking if homoeopathy could do anything for him.” A long discussion on baldness followed, with a mention of its various treatments. The example of King Edward VII came in.
Sri Aurobindo: At Baroda there came a Kaviraj who claimed to have cured his own baldness. He showed some patches which had been bald and where hair was now growing. But unkind critics said that he used to shave his head in patches and call them bald. He treated one of my cousins for baldness, but with no result.
In this connection came in the topic of Dr. Ramchandra and we discussed him.
Sri Aurobindo: He is a man with an abundant vitality. With that vitality there is nothing that he could not have done. But at the same time there is no discipline, order and control in the vital being. He has written some very fine poems in English. He had made a name here as a doctor and, as soon as he entered the Ashram, people wanted to crowd in to be treated by him. He was successful with outside people because he could enforce his will and the patients were obliged to follow all his instructions.
After this Dr. Becharlal came out suddenly with a question.
Dr. Becharlal: What is the difference between peace and silence?
Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean?
Dr. Becharlal: Is peace included in silence, or vice versa?
Sri Aurobindo: If you have the silence, then there is naturally peace with it; but the opposite may not be true. One can do a lot of work with the peace within.
Nirodbaran: Can one do work with the silence intact? Does not the silence get disturbed?
Sri Aurobindo: Certainly one can do work. By silence I mean inner silence. It is perfectly possible to carry on any amount of activity in that state. I told you about my experience, which is still with me. It has not been disturbed by any activity.
Dr. Becharlal: Is silence dynamic or static?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not the silence that is dynamic but you can have full dynamic activity out of the inner silence. Also you can remain without doing anything. People who are kinetic in a vital or mental way cannot remain like that.
Some Marathas came to see me here and inquired what I was doing. I replied, “Nothing.” One of them remarked that it was a great thing to do nothing. This is true.
Nirodbaran: Isn’t the silence associated with some sort of emptiness?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends on what you mean by emptiness. There is an emptiness which is full of the divine Presence and can hardly be called empty. There is another emptiness of silence which is neutral and still another in which one empties oneself, waiting for something higher to come and fill it.
Nirodbaran: In that emptiness one feels somewhat dry, doesn’t one?
Sri Aurobindo: No. On the contrary it is a very pleasant state, with a sense of great release. The neutral silence may be associated with some dryness and dullness – to the ordinary mind.
Nirodbaran: It seems you said once to Barin, when he was having such emptiness and dryness, that it comes to everybody and he had to pass through that phase or stage.
Sri Aurobindo: Well, it need not come to everybody, but when it does come to somebody he has to pass through it. People like Bertrand Russell can’t bear this emptiness. He says that as soon as he tries to go within he begins to feel empty and wants to come back. It is foolish on his part to want to come back, for if he is able to feel this emptiness it is something good, the sign of a valuable capacity. These Europeans can’t do without thought and the external interests of life. They think that nothing of value can come into the consciousness except from outside.
Satyendra: We know of Bansali who stitched his lips for a long time to maintain silence. It was only after persuasion by Gandhi that he gave it up.
Sri Aurobindo: It is what the Gita calls Asuric Tapasya.
Nirodbaran: Can one gain anything and advance by that?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? But there is the question: what and how far? Physical and vital Tapasya can give some control over the body and the vital being. But it looks more like Nigraha, forceful suppression.
Nirodbaran: It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with divine realisation.
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by divine realisation?
Nirodbaran: I mean Peace, Bliss, Presence.
Sri Aurobindo: There is a divine realisation and there is a realisation of the Divine – that is to say, spiritual realisation. If one gains control over the vital nature by the influence of the Atman, the Self, that is a divine realisation.
Nirodbaran: Control by an influence, I suppose, comes and goes. It is not permanent and stable. One can gain control also by a constant exercise of the mind.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and I think that is a better way. These things, again, may be steps towards the Divine, just as from Hathayoga one goes to Rajayoga. Naturally there are shortcomings in the onward process. You may remember, D used to write plenty of letters complaining of the defects of Yogis. One does not look for defects in the Yogis, for it is not the defects that are important. Whatever leads to the upward growth, adding something to one’s stature, is a gain to human progress. No upward progress is to be despised.
Has Bansali gained anything by his silence?
Satyendra: He seems to have.
Sri Aurobindo: Although I don’t approve of the method, it is all right if he gained something.
Satyendra: Bansali used to go wandering from place to place, not asking for food from anybody.
Sri Aurobindo: That is an old recognised practice among Yogis. It is a great discipline and gives a control over the desires. At one time I also did that. I never asked anything from anyone. Dayanand Thakur is said to store nothing for the future. Whenever anything came to his Ashram they used to spend it away, not thinking about what would happen the next day.