Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

5 January 1939

Today again we had our usual discussion with Dr. Rao on the removal of splints, the growth of bone, its shadow in the X-ray picture, etc. After he had gone, the Mother asked Nirodbaran: “Up to what age can the skull-bone grow?” She said that she had seen cases where even at the age of fifty-five the skull had not completely ossified. “In such cases,” she remarked, “the brain goes on developing.” Then she departed for the general meditation.

There was very little prospect of conversation afterwards, for every time after Dr. Rao’s visit we would keep revolving the same problem, the disagreement among doctors, and cut jokes about it. But a question by Satyendra, following a piece of information given by Purani, started the general ball rolling.

Purani: X has been arrested.

Sri Aurobindo (surprised): Really?

Purani: He has been a leader from a very young age.

Satyendra (addressing Sri Aurobindo): Sir, you must have been very young too when you started the Nationalist movement.

Sri Aurobindo: About thirty-three, though we were doing Swadeshi long before.

Satyendra: Did you begin your Yoga with the experience of Nirvana at Baroda?

Sri Aurobindo: It was somewhere about 1905. But I did have some other experiences before it. I felt an immense calm as soon as I landed in Bombay. Then there was the experience of the Self, the Purusha. I had these experiences when I had not yet begun Yoga and knew nothing about it. I was more or less an agnostic. Then I had two experiences of contact with the Infinite – one at Poona on the Parvati hills and the other on the Shankaracharya hill in Kashmir. Again, at Karnali, where there are many temples, I went to one of them and saw in an image of Kali the living Presence. After that, I came to believe in God.

Nirodbaran: What led you to Yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: What led me to Yoga? God knows what. It was while at Baroda that Deshpande and others tried to convert me to Yoga. My idea about Yoga was that one had to retire into mountains and caves. I was not prepared to do that, for I was interested in working for the freedom of my country.

Then I began to practise Pranayama – in 1905. A Baroda engineer who was a disciple of Brahmananda showed me how to do it and I started on my own. Some remarkable results came with it. First, I felt a sort of electricity all around me. Second, there were some visions of a minor kind. Third, I began to have a very rapid flow of poetry. Formerly I used to write with difficulty. For a time the flow would increase; then again it would dry up. Now it revived with astonishing vigour and I could write both prose and poetry at tremendous speed. This flow has never ceased. If I have not written much afterwards, it is because I had something else to do. But the moment I want to write, it is there. Fourth, it was at the time of the Pranayama practice that I began to put on flesh. Earlier I was very thin. My skin also began to be smooth and fair and there was a peculiar new substance in the saliva, owing to which these changes were probably taking place. Another curious thing I noticed was that whenever I used to sit for Pranayama, not a single mosquito would bite me, though plenty of mosquitoes were humming around. I took more and more to Pranayama; but there were no further results.

It was during this time that I adopted a vegetarian diet. That gave lightness and some purification.

Nirodbaran: What about meat diet? Vivekananda advocated it.

Sri Aurobindo: Meat is rajasic and gives a certain force and energy to the physical. That’s why the Kshatriyas did not give up meat. Vivekananda advocated it to lift our people from Tamas [inertia] to Rajas [dynamism]. He was not quite wrong.

Then I came into contact with a Naga Sannyasi. I told him I wanted to get power for revolutionary activities. He gave me a violent Mantra of Kali, with “Jahi, Jahi”. to repeat. I did so, but, as I had expected, it came to nothing.

Barin at that time was trying some automatic writing. Once a spirit purporting to be that of my father came and made some prophecies. He said that he had once given a golden watch to Barin. Barin tried hard to remember and at last found that it was true. The spirit prophesied that Lord Curzon would shortly leave India: he saw him looking across a blue sea. At that time there was no chance at all of Curzon’s going back. But the prophecy came true. Curzon had a row with Lord Kitchener and had to leave India very shortly afterwards. The spirit also said that there was a picture of Hanuman on the wall of the house of Deodhar, who was present at the sitting. Deodhar tried to remember and said there was no such picture. When he went back, he asked his mother about it. She replied that the picture used to be there, but it had been plastered over. Lastly the spirit prophesied that when everybody had deserted us a man who was present there – meaning Tilak – would stand by us. This also came true.

On another occasion a spirit purporting to be that of Ramakrishna came and simply said, “Build a temple.” At that time we were planning to build a temple for political Sannyasis and call it Bhawani Mandir. We thought he meant that, but later I understood it as “Make a temple within.”

This gave me the final push to Yoga. I thought: great men could not have been after a chimera, and if there was such a more-than-human power why not get it and use it for action?

I had been to Bengal twice or thrice for political work. I found the workers quarrelling among themselves and got a little disappointed.

While I was residing at Baroda a Bengali Sannyasi came to see me and asked me to help him financially. I did so. But I found that the man was extremely rajasic, jealous and boastful and could not tolerate anyone greater than himself. He used to curse everybody who was greater than him. Once he went to see Brahmananda. He began to curse him because he was so great. Shortly after, Brahmananda died of the prick of a nail. The Sannyasi took all the credit himself! What might have happened was that Brahmananda’s death was near and this man got the suggestion of it from the subtle planes.

When I went to Bengal for political work, my Pranayama became very irregular. As a result I had a serious illness which nearly carried me off. Now I was at my wits’ end. I did not know how to proceed further and was searching for some guidance. Then I met Lele in the top room of Sardar Majumdar’s house.

After my separation from Lele, I had to rely on my inner guide. The inner guide led me through many mistakes. For days and days together I would follow wrong lines and come to know only at the end that it was all a mistake. At that time, I was making all sorts of experiments in order to see what truth there was in various methods.

I fasted twice – once in Alipore jail and once here. The Alipore fasting gave more results than the second one. Though the fast lasted only ten days I lost ten pounds, whereas here the fast lasted twenty-three days but the loss of weight was less. At Alipore I was having tremendous visions which were all experiences on the vital plane. But as a part of my mind was critical I took them all with reservations. At Pondicherry I was walking eight hours a day while fasting.

Dr. Becharlal: We have seen in the Guest House the floor marked by your walking at that time.

Sri Aurobindo: The Guest House? Which room?

Dr. Becharlal: Amal’s room.

Sri Aurobindo: No, no, no! I fasted in Shankar Chetty’s house. Experiences on the vital plane are most exalting and exhilarating at the same time that they are most dangerous and terrible. There are many pitfalls and no reality.

Yogis living in the vital plane can’t bring down those experiences into the physical. One can have some power, of course. But the forces of the vital plane take up a man like Hitler and make him do things. The man opens himself to the constant suggestions of these forces and believes they are the Truth. NB used to hear such suggestions which he called intuitions coming from the Mother. And when the Mother told him that it was not true he got angry and would not believe her. At last he had to leave the Ashram.

B was another case. He used to say that the Mother and I were there deep in his psychic being and these were the true Sri Aurobindo and the true Mother, while the physical Mother and Sri Aurobindo were false! The Mother repeatedly warned him about these illusions but he was so headstrong that he would not listen and had to go. We heard that he was making disciples in our name outside.

Dr. Becharlal: How did he die so suddenly?

Sri Aurobindo: Why suddenly? He was suffering from stomach-ache here, in spite of which he used to stuff himself with food. As long as he was here, somehow the protection kept him up. The Mother told him many times that if he left Pondy he would die. So when he went he passed the death-sentence on himself.