Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

10 January 1939

Today Sri Aurobindo opened the talk by inquiring from Satyendra about X’s health. Then the talk proceeded to homoeopathy. The Mother came and took some part in it. After she had gone, the talk on medicine continued.

Sri Aurobindo: Once in Baroda I had a nasty abscess on the knee. All treatment failed. Then Madhavrao Jadhav called in a Mohammedan who pricked the knee at a particular point and brought out a big drop of black blood and the abscess was cured soon afterwards! He must have known the spot to prick.

I also remember Jatin Banerji curing many cases of sterility by a Sannyasi’s medicine given to him. Cases of ten or fifteen years’ sterility were cured by it and people got children within ten months. There were some peculiar rules to be observed before taking the medicine: for example, the woman had to take a bath, the hair had to be down, etc., etc.

Many such things known to India are being lost now.

Satyendra: I don’t think medicines will succeed in curing disease. I believe only the Yogic power can do it.

Nirodbaran: Quite so; but, even there, one has to fulfil certain conditions. (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: He expects that the Yogic power will simply say, “Let the disease be cured” or “Let there be no disease for life” and the thing will be done!

Satyendra: Not that way, Sir! But we have even seen cases that have been cured miraculously.

Sri Aurobindo: That is another matter. But otherwise the Yogi has to get up every morning and say, “Let everybody in the world be all right” and there will no more be disease in the world!

There are many miracles of Christ of that sort: he spat on some earth and put it on a blind man’s eyes and the man was made to see.

Champaklal: Satyen’s Guru also cured a case of leprosy and the man became a painter afterwards!

Sri Aurobindo: In the Bible there is also the multiplication of fish and the descent of the Holy Ghost and the disciples getting the gift of tongues – speaking many languages perhaps? I don’t understand what they mean by it.

Satyendra: What is the significance of the Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost?

Sri Aurobindo: The Son, I suppose, could be the individual Divine, the Divine in man – they speak of the Christ in man; the Father is the personal Divine, the ruler of the world; and perhaps the Holy Ghost is the Impersonal.

But I don’t understand what they mean by saying, “A sin against Christ and the Father is pardonable but that against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable.” It would seem to mean that if you destroy your soul you can’t be redeemed.

Dr. Becharlal: The soul can be destroyed?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in the sense that if you go against the essential Divine in you and drive out the psychic being, the nature is left without any divine support.

Then Dr. Becharlal and others cited some cases of miracles.

Dr. Becharlal: Brahmananda on several occasions fed many people out of a small quantity of food. Also, when the ghee ran short, he used to take water from the Narmada and have things fried in it. And when the occasion was over and a fresh supply of ghee came along he would throw into the river a quantity equivalent to the water taken.

Nirodbaran: Are such things possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, they have happened. You can’t say Brahmananda played a trick.

Dr. Becharlal: No, no, it was not magic.

Sri Aurobindo: Magic is different. There you use a medium to bring or carry things to a distance, like the stone-throwing in the Guest House. I heard of a Yogi who used to put his feet in one corner of the room and his hands in another – perhaps to give them proper rest! (Laughter)

Purani: Is there any sign or test – not necessarily outward – by which one can know that a certain element is removed from the subconscious, apart from the fact that it would not repeat itself?

Sri Aurobindo: No test; but you can become aware that it has gone. After that, it may come up like a habit. It goes from the mind, the vital and yet it comes up like something physical.

In that case, it comes from what I call the environmental nature and you feel it as a concrete suggestion or as a pain (if it is physical) or as a sex-impulse. It comes and passes transversely. If it comes as a sex-impulse, there is no question of love in it; it is purely physical. It tries to enter in. If you consent, it creates a disturbance. But as soon as you feel it is coming, you can throw it away like a thought and you can see it actually passing away like that.

Nirodbaran: Is it very difficult to be conscious of these things?

Sri Aurobindo: In some cases, it is very easy. Naik was very conscious, for he was high-strung, with nerves very sensitive. With people whose constitutional make-up is of that sort, people who have a natural power of vision, it is easy.

But for those who have a thick physical layer and are fond of good food and have a hold on matter, it is difficult and takes time. Also people who are mentally active, intellectual, find it difficult. On the other hand, if one has subtle intelligence, instead of external intellectuality, one may be greatly helped. A.E., for example, was very intellectual; but he was very developed in many other things also and had a remarkable power of vision. At one time I had great difficulty myself because of my mind, especially as regards visions.

The faculty can also come if one lives in his inner being. As you can feel these things, you can see them also. But it is very difficult sometimes to bring down into oneself the thing which the vision symbolises, because people are so preoccupied with the vision that we find it difficult to make them feel and embody the consciousness.

Sometimes for years and years this faculty stops. Mental people also give a mental form to things by their ideas and thoughts and so the true vision-form does not appear to them. But even if one is not able to see, one can feel or perceive these forces or presences. And feeling is a step towards realisation.

There are, in the inner vision, symbols which are as old as the Vedas.

Nirodbaran: The cross is a significant one.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is ancient and very well known. It marks the meeting-point of the Individual, the Universal and the Transcendent. These symbols are seen even when you don’t know anything about them. There are some symbols which have not been fixed but which accompany the opening to the Brahman. Thus, I used to hear sounds of crickets and bells. The sounds of crickets were so noisy that I wondered whether there were many crickets outside!

Here a discussion followed about schools of Yoga and sound (Nada). At the end someone said, “The swastika is an old sacred symbol and now it has become Hitler’s symbol.”

Sri Aurobindo: It was a sign of the spiritual consciousness and now it is a danger signal. (Addressing Purani) Have you heard Jean Herbert’s opinion of Hitler?

Purani: No.

Sri Aurobindo: Someone told him that the Mother had described Hitler as possessed by a demon. He was greatly shocked and replied that the Mother could not have said so. Of course, the Mother had simply said that he was “possessed”.

Purani: That Russian S also took Hitler to be a great man; he was full of admiration for him. He said that the Germans of today are the most cultured nation.

Sri Aurobindo: What culture do they have? I should think on the contrary that Germany before Hitler was more cultured than the present Germany. That reported interview with the Kaiser expressed the contrast very well.

Purani: Yes, he said the Nazis were a gang of ruffians and blackguards, without God, tradition and dynasty.

Sri Aurobindo: That’s the disadvantage for the country. When Hitler and Mussolini go they won’t leave any tradition behind. They have no families of cultural distinction such as there used to be in the old times. In India there was also the traditional line of culture handed down from Gurus to disciples.

Then the talk took a sudden turn. Someone began to speak about Ramatirtha who could recite “Om” in such a wonderful way in meetings that people were entranced by it. But after staying some months in the plains, he used to run away to the mountains saying that he was losing his consciousness and people were dragging him into active life.

Sri Aurobindo: I am not surprised to hear that, for they can drag a Yogi down from spiritual heights. But that shows he had the realisation in his mental being only.

Satyendra: No, sir, he was a Bhakta also.

Purani: He had two strains: intellectual and emotional.

Sri Aurobindo: In that case it means that his experience of the Brahmic consciousness was in the mental and emotional parts and had not been brought down to the vital and physical. One loses the experience in such cases when the vital becomes active.

But it is not necessary that it should be so. In my Nirvana experience the peace I had never left me and that peace remained unbroken even in the midst of crowded meetings. I had not to make any effort to keep it. It was always there. Even here when I used to go to marriage parties like David’s, I used to feel the people rather tiring but at the same time this consciousness and peace were there overhanging all and enveloping all.

Nirodbaran: Does it mean in Ramatirtha’s case that the experience was not worked upon in the vital and physical planes?

Sri Aurobindo: Certainly. Usually you find these experiences worked upon in the mental and emotional planes, in the vital less while in the physical almost not at all.

Nirodbaran: Where is the difference? In the nature of the conquest or the extent?

Sri Aurobindo: It is in the extent of the achievement. From the time of the Upanishads the cleavage began.

Satyendra: What about the Vedic Rishis?

Sri Aurobindo: They accepted life. But the other paths made a sharp cleavage between life and the Brahmic consciousness. It was more markedly so under the influence of Buddhism and lastly Shankara made a sharp cut between the two.

Satyendra: Why should this cleavage be necessary?

Sri Aurobindo: If you hold that life has no divine purpose, then it is not necessary to go beyond the escape into Laya. Then you are perfectly right in leaving life and, from the point of view of the Brahman, life and body are a bother.

The “why” of life and body has not been satisfactorily answered by those who have advocated the escape. They have either said about their existence, “It is Maya”, which means there is no explanation for it, or “It is Lila”, which means God has been merely playing about and you can’t expect any purpose in play. But I should think that God had a purpose when he created this world.

Nirodbaran: What purpose?

Satyendra: Progressive manifestation of the Divine perhaps. (To Sri Aurobindo) But what you call “Supramental”, is it your own idea – something thought out by you – or was it given to you from above?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not my thought or idea. I have told you before that after the Nirvana experience I had no thoughts of my own. Thoughts used to come from above. From the beginning I didn’t feel Nirvana to be the highest spiritual achievement. Something in me always wanted to go on farther. But even then I didn’t ask for this new experience. In fact, in Nirvana, with that peace one does not ask for anything. But the truth of the Supermind was put into me. I had no idea of the Supermind when I started and for long it was not clear to me. It was the spirit of Vivekananda who first gave me a clue in the direction of the Supermind. This clue led me to see how the Truth-Consciousness works in everything.

Nirodbaran: Did he know about the Supermind?

Sri Aurobindo: He didn’t say “Supermind”. “Supermind” is my own word. He just said to me, “This is this, this is that” and so on. That was how he proceeded – by pointing and indicating. He visited me for fifteen days in Alipore Jail and, until I could grasp the whole thing, he went on teaching me and impressed upon my mind the working of the higher consciousness – the Truth-Consciousness in general – which leads towards the Supermind. He would not leave until he had put it all into my head.

Nirodbaran: Do Gurus come in that way and give teachings?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? That is the traditional experience from ancient times. Any number of Gurus give initiation after their death.

Nirodbaran: You once spoke about Ramakrishna’s and Vivekananda’s influence in your life. Was it this you meant?

Sri Aurobindo: No. I referred to the influence of their words and books when I returned from England to Baroda. Their influence was very strong all over India. But I had another direct experience of Vivekananda’s presence when I was practising Hathayoga. I felt this presence standing behind and watching over me. That exerted a great influence afterwards in my life.

In regard to the sounds, I am reminded of another experience. It was when Annie Besant invited me to see her. I heard, during the whole time of the meeting, the noise of thunder in my ears. I believe she was trying to throw an influence on me and my being was violently throwing it back.

Then came some talk about Haranath. It was said that many people saw him after his death. Someone even saw him at Madras. His miracles and his initiation were mentioned.

Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of experiences: some people see visions with open eyes, others with closed eyes. Those who see with open eyes can easily mistake their visions for material forms and feel as if the individual seen was physically present.

Nirodbaran: But is materialisation possible?

Sri Aurobindo: There is a well-known case of such materialisation. It relates to the mother or the grandmother of the present Queen of England, – Lady Strathmore or some such name. The husband and wife always used to discuss religious things, the reality of after-life. They made a pact that whoever died first would come back and tell the other about the reality of after-life, if anything existed beyond. The husband died first. Several years later, he returned and spoke about the truth of their religion. Then the wife said, “Can you give me some proof that you physically came here, a proof that would always last with me?” He said “Yes”, and then he took her hand and pressed it very hard. She felt a very acute burning sensation at the place. That burning left a permanent mark on her hand which she had to cover in order to conceal the mark from others.

That was materialisation, if you please!

Appendix

Vivekananda’s Visitations in Alipore Jail

The following note throws further light on the subject of Vivekananda’s visitations to Sri Aurobindo in Alipore Jail: It was written by the editor of Mother India, the journal in which these talks first appeared. See also the talk of 25 January 1939.

Nirodbaran’s report of Sri Aurobindo’s statement about his own discovery of the Supermind after the pointer, given in Alipore Jail by Vivekananda’s “spirit”, to the Higher Consciousness – the planes of divine dynamism above the mind – provides some body of detail to the general indications found in the published writing of Sri Aurobindo on this subject. Thus we read in Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother:

 “It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence … The voice spoke only on a special and limited but very important field of spiritual experience and it ceased as soon as it had finished saying all that it had to say on the subject.” (p. 115)

“[Before coming to Pondicherry] Sri Aurobindo had already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his Yoga … is founded. The first he had gained while meditating with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman. … His second realisation which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is, … happened in the Alipore Jail. … To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore Jail.” (pp. 107-108)

Further light on Vivekananda’s coming to Sri Aurobindo is shed by the report found in the notes kept by Anilbaran of a talk with Sri Aurobindo in July 1926. Like Nirodbaran’s report, it also brings us some significant particulars. It runs:

Sri Aurobindo: Then there is the incident of the personality of Vivekananda visiting me in jail. He explained to me in detail the work of the Supramental – not exactly of the Supramental, but of the intuitivised mind, the mind as it is organised by the Supramental. He did not use the word “Supermind”, I gave this name afterwards. That experience lasted for about two weeks.

Q: Was that a vision?

Sri Aurobindo: No, it was not a vision. I would not have trusted a vision.