Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
19 January 1939
It was again the day of Dr. Rao’s visit. Whenever he came, we had some fun, as he never forgot to bring up his pet subject: the removal of Sri Aurobindo’s splints. In the course of the talk he remarked, in connection with the swollen knee, that all disease or illness is an inflammation. After he had gone, Sri Aurobindo asked, “In what sense is all illness an inflammation?” Nirodbaran explained as well as he could.
After this, Purani continued yesterday’s topic: Aldous Huxley’s ideas. He quoted from his book Ends and Means. Huxley suggests two ways of change. One is to change existing institutions of education, industry, etc., and thus bring about a change in the individual. For industries he suggests small industrial units federated in a central organisation, so as to do away with large-scale productions which are the root of all trouble. The other way is to change the individual and make him, as he puts it, a non-attached ideal man. Purani also mentioned a French author who advocated small industrial institutions.
Sri Aurobindo: That was my idea too, which I proposed to Motilal: namely, a spiritual commune. I did not call it a commune but a Sangha, based on spirituality and living its own economic life. It would develop its small-scale industries, agriculture, etc., and have an interchange of products with other communes.
Nirodbaran: Did you also give X the idea of the paper he is bringing out?
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t remember. I asked him to start handlooms and weaving.
Nirodbaran: But now he is producing Khaddar.
Sri Aurobindo: That is because of Gandhism, and he took it up after he had been cut off from us. We used to call our cloth Swadeshi; now they call it Khaddar.
Satyendra: Was the commune something like the Dayalbagh Centre? But there they don’t seem to have much spirituality.
Sri Aurobindo: That may be due to their large-scale productivity. I have heard also that Anukul Thakur has started to work out the same idea.
Nirodbaran: Doesn’t he belong to the Dayalbagh Centre?
Sri Aurobindo: Oh no! He may be of what they call the Radhaswami School.
Satyendra: But to start that sort of commune, one must have some spiritual realisation first, and hence it will take a long time.
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. Obviously if one has to wait for spiritual realisation, especially the highest or supramental realisation, it will take time. Spiritual experience is enough for the purpose and that is not difficult to have. I told Motilal, “Spirituality must be the basis; otherwise your success will be your failure.”
There were religious communes of this sort before. The Dukhobor commune in Russia was very powerful and very well-organised and very strong in its faith. Its members held together in spite of all persecution. At last they had to migrate to Canada. One of their tenets was nudism, which the Canadian Government didn’t like and so they got into trouble with it.
Then there were the Mormons, who became famous in the United States. The name of their founder was Joseph Smith – a prosaic name for a prophet! But it was Brigham Young, a most remarkable man, who really made this commune. Curiously enough, one of their tenets was again unacceptable; it was polygamy. Their religion was based on the Old Testament. But when they were made to give up polygamy, they became quite like ordinary men. They lost their special characteristics. Mark Twain said that when the chief was interrogated, he used to reply that he knew his children by numbers and not by their names!
There was yet another commune in America which didn’t allow any marriage.
Satyendra: Do you know of any such commune in India?
Sri Aurobindo: India? The Sikhs are the only community here organised on a religious basis.
Thakur Dayanand established or tried to establish an order of married Sannyasins. I don’t know if sexual union was advocated too.
Nirodbaran: I have heard that Anukul Thakur also adopted it for his disciples.
Sri Aurobindo: Disciples are another matter.
Satyendra: I think it was for his Sannyasins as well, if I remember rightly.
Sri Aurobindo: There is the same principle among the Vaishnavas too: they accept a Vaishnavi.
Satyendra: All sorts of attempts seem to have been made and one is driven to despair like the man who looking at Edward VII’s bald head said, “I give it up! I give it up!” (Laughter) No hope now except your Supermind. Have you any idea how the Supermind will proceed?
Sri Aurobindo: No idea. If one has an idea the result will be what has been in the past. We must leave the Supermind to work everything out.
Satyendra: But that sort of work has to be based on love; one must have love for everyone.
Sri Aurobindo: Love is not enough. What is more important is the unity of consciousness.
Satyendra: The trouble is that as soon as one begins something one tends to become egocentric: quarrels start, like the “aggravations” in homoeopathy.
Sri Aurobindo: And love also leads to quarrels. Nobody quarrels more than lovers do! (Then looking at Purani) You know the Latin proverb that each quarrel is a renewal of love? (Laughter) Love is a fine flower, but unity of consciousness is the root.
People become egocentric because, when they receive something of the higher power, they gather it into their vital being and turn it over to their lower nature. They think the power is their own.
When we were only a few people and the Ashram had not grown much, A and B tried to convert all sorts of people to spirituality. They were great propagandists. C and D were quiet. B caught anyone he could and made him do yoga and didn’t consider such a thing as Adhikara. He once caught hold of a young sheepish Tamilian. After a few months of contact with us, we found that he was no longer a sheep. He became a lion – quarrelsome, violent – a great transformation had taken place in him! (Laughter) It was A who got hold of a politician here and made him what he is now. One thing he did, at any rate, was to make him get rid of all scruples about right and wrong, good and evil! This politician once said to Dr. L.M., “It is impossible for me to fail. I am Sri Aurobindo’s disciple.” All say that he has power and that he is the one man who can do something if he wants to. It was from the Mother he got his power. He considers himself a Godman – to use an American phrase.
Even people staying here for some time get that egocentric outlook. Mrs. R writes, “What has Nakas come to? He is writing to us, ‘Do this, do that’ and keeps finding fault with us in our work.” Of course, they were quarrelling in Japan too.
Purani: We had a hard tussle with Gandhi’s followers over the question of morality, etc. They think that going beyond the dualities of the world is immoral. All that does not correspond to their moral code is immoral.
Satyendra: That is the usual ethical standpoint.
Sri Aurobindo: Of course all can’t go beyond the dualities. The ethical standpoint is true in its own field. It follows a mental rule and so long as one cannot come into contact with the dynamic divine source of action in oneself, one has to be guided by a mental law of conduct. Otherwise one may take up the attitude, “There is no virtue, no sin. So let us indulge ourselves merrily!” What Krishna says in the Gita – “Abandon all dharmas” – is at the end of the Gita, not the beginning. And he does not say this only; he also says, “Take refuge in me.” The stage at which the ethicists are is the sattwic. Most people have to pass through it. Only a very few can start from the beginning without the dualities.
Satyendra: Does the psychic being always want transformation? It is Doraiswamy’s question. He says, “Yes, because the psychic being is in the evolution, while the spirit can merge in Laya.”
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being wants transformation if it is developed and in front. But it can also take any spiritual turn and not necessarily that towards transformation.
Nirodbaran: What sort of transformation? Transformation of the psychic being itself or of the lower nature in general?
Satyendra: Of the psychic being itself.
Sri Aurobindo: Many Yogis have had that. All saints had the psychic transformation: they have the pure Bhakta nature. But many spiritual men have not had such transformation. All spiritual men are not saints. Of course one can be both spiritual and saintly.
Nirodbaran: You make a distinction between saints and spiritual men?
Sri Aurobindo: Certainly. Saints are limited by their psychic realisation. The spiritual men remain above in the higher spiritual consciousness. The saints are Bhaktas.
Satyendra: It is not very clear to me, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: Well, the psychic being means the Purusha in the heart, not in the spirit. I never feel like a saint myself, though Maurice Magre calls me a saint and a philosopher. Krishna was not called a saint, and spiritual men may not behave like saints – say, for example, Durvasa. He may have many other things in him.
Satyendra: Saints are, I suppose, nearer to earth and are at the top of the human ladder. In our Yoga it seems one has to face a Kurukshetra, I mean an inner Kurukshetra, and everyone has to be a fighter like Arjuna.
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily; it depends on the nature of the being. For instance, some people in their vital beings or during dreams fight with the attacking forces, while others call for protection. Those who have the psychic attitude need not fight. It is the vital and mental types that make the fighter: the mental type of course fights against ideas.
Nirodbaran: Some people regard quarrelling with the Divine for the fulfilment of their aspiration as the psychic way.
Sri Aurobindo: In that case all people here are psychic!
Purani: I remember Dilip writing a long letter to you in which he refers to Ramprasad’s song claiming that the Divine should satisfy his demands because he has sacrificed everything for the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo: Claim! – claim by what rights? His argument seemed to be, “You must give me the thing because I badly want it.”
Nirodbaran: What did you reply to him?
Sri Aurobindo: It was not addressed to me. It was addressed to Krishna.
Nirodbaran: I see. Then I will ask him to write to you now.
Sri Aurobindo: No, no, don’t do that. In that case I shall have to be as hard as Krishna.
Nirodbaran: They say Shiva is a very kind and generous god and very easily gives boons. Is it true?
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know. Very inconveniently he gives boons to the demons also and then has somehow to wriggle out. He is a god who doesn’t seem to care for consequences; Vishnu has to come afterwards to save the situation.
Satyendra: Krishna is hard to please, they say.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes.
Purani: Talking of Krishna reminds me of X. They say he has turned a Buddhist now.
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord!
Purani: He had such a fervour and devotion for Krishna.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t understand why he should have become a Buddhist. Living with one’s realisations as in a fortress, one can gather and add whatever knowledge one wants to one’s original line of sadhana. It is not at all necessary to give up Bhakti for Knowledge. After all that ground gained, one can add more and more.
The European mind is much taken up with Buddhism. Magre was first a Buddhist. Blavatsky was much influenced by it. Next, when the Europeans understood Shankara they considered that there was nothing more in India than Shankara’s Vedanta. Buddhism is most severe and exacting. It is one of the most difficult paths, a path of hard Tapasya.
Nirodbaran: By the way, somebody said that woman is no problem to him. That seems to me an overconfidence. Is there any sex-danger even after a true realisation?
Sri Aurobindo: What is true realisation? You have not heard of Yogabhrasta (a fall from Yoga)?