Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

24 January 1939

There was some discussion of local politics and a reference to a turn in the fortunes of a political leader. Then we came to general topics.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a Greek saying that when one becomes too fortunate and powerful, he becomes insolent and commits excesses and that strikes against the throne of God and then retribution begins. X ought to have known that. Y was never like this. He was never insolent, never pushed things too far. When somebody asked him to arrest one of his opponents, he replied, “Ça, c’est une mauvaise politique.” (“That’s bad politics.”)

Hitler also is pushing things too far. That is why he cannot last long.

There is a famous Greek story about Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos. Do you know it? This tyrant wanted to make friends with another tyrant. The latter replied, “You are too fortunate. You must sacrifice something or have some little misfortune to compensate for your good luck. Otherwise I can’t ally myself with you.” Polycrates threw his most precious ring into a river as a sacrifice. The ring was swallowed by a fish. That fish was caught by a fisherman and brought with the ring inside it to Polycrates. When the other tyrant heard about it, he said, “You are too lucky. I will never ally myself with you.” Polycrates was later killed by his people who had risen in revolt. “The ring of Polycrates” is a proverbial expression in English.

A Roman poet says something like, “The giants fall by their own mass.” There is a similar idea in India: “The Asuras are too heavy for the earth to bear.” But I must say some Asuras are clever enough to escape and flourish in spite of proverbs!

Purani: Can it be affirmed that the Asuras by their action meddle too much in the law of evolution or that they contradict the very fundamental urge of humanity?

Sri Aurobindo (after keeping silent for a time): There is no such general law. The thing is that the Asuras can’t keep a balance. The law that demands balance then strikes.

A long silence followed. Nirodbaran, after some hesitation, blurted out a question that had been revolving in his mind.

Nirodbaran: Somebody has asked: Did Vivekananda bring into Ramakrishna’s work a spirit not intended by Ramakrishna?

Sri Aurobindo: In what way?

Nirodbaran: He spoke of service to humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: But was that Ramakrishna’s idea which Vivekananda followed? Did Ramakrishna ask him to do service to humanity and did Vivekananda bring into this work what was not intended by his Master?

Nirodbaran: As far as I remember, Ramakrishna spoke of loka hita, “the good of the world”.

Sri Aurobindo: But that is not the same as service of humanity. The Gita also asks us to work for the good of the world. Loka hita can be done in many ways.

Purani: So far as I know, Ramakrishna didn’t say anything about service of humanity. The phrase daridra narayana – “God the poor” – was Vivekananda’s. It seems not all the disciples of Ramakrishna were agreeable to the idea. But some submitted, saying, “Vivekananda should know best.”

Satyendra: Even from those who didn’t object, all didn’t take active part in the service. Brahmananda,¹ for example. We have heard that his spiritual realisation was higher than Vivekananda’s.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I think he was spiritually higher. I once met him when I went to see Belur Math. He asked me about some letter he had received from the Government. I don’t remember what it was about. I advised him to keep silent and not give any reply.

Purani: Nowadays in many places people feed the poor. On the birthdays of saints and Yogis, there is what Vivekananda called seva of daridra narayana.

Sri Aurobindo: What is the use of feeding people one day when they have to go without sufficient food all the year round? Those who feed them satisfy their own conscience, I suppose. If you could find out the cause of poverty and try to remove it, that would do some real work.

Satyendra: But that is not easy, Sir; there are so many difficulties, political, economic, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think it is so insoluble a problem as all that. If you give people education – I mean proper education, not the current type – then the problem can be solved. People in England or France don’t have the kind of poverty we have in India. That is because of their education; they are not so helpless.

Champaklal: About six thousand people were fed during the last birthday of Ramana Maharshi. But they say nobody is allowed to touch him; they have to stand at a distance, make pranam, have darshan and go away. Special consideration is shown in a few cases.

Sri Aurobindo: If all were allowed to touch him, he might feel like the President of America who recently had to shake hands with thousands of people and got an ache in the hand! I have heard that Maharshi complained of stomach trouble from eating the prasad of various people and that the pile of prasad was one of the causes of his trying to fly away from the world!

Satyendra: But destiny brought him back. People give a lot of money to Maharshi but, curiously enough, we don’t get any. A man actually told me we don’t require money, since we have so many buildings.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is the impression. They think like Lady Batesman that the Ashram is the work of a genius and genius can do without money! Actually, it is only the rich minority and the poor who give money. G, for example, earns hardly enough to maintain her family, but whenever she finds an opportunity, the first thing she does is to send some amount here. There is a rumour in Pondicherry that we have a lot of money stored away under Pavitra’s cellar!

Purani: The question of the Ashram’s wealth reminds me of X. I wanted some printing-blocks from him and he charged me so heavily that I had to write to Y to explain to X my financial position.

Sri Aurobindo: You should have written about the pocket expense you get, and said that your monthly income is two rupees.

Purani: Yes, I was just thinking of that. Anyhow, he gave me some blocks free but advised me that it is futile in India to bring out art books. One is sure to run into debt. People don’t understand art.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, people look at art as Nirodbaran looks at philosophy. (Laughter)

Purani: Elie Faure says that Greek art is an expression of unrestrained passion and has no mystery about it.

Sri Aurobindo: What is he talking about? He seems to have a queer mind. Where is the expression of passion in the art of the Greeks? On the contrary it is precisely their restraint that is so very evident everywhere in their art. The Greeks are well-known for restraint and control. Compared to the art of other peoples, theirs is almost cold. It is its remarkable beauty that saves it from real coldness. This applies to the whole period from Phidias down to that in which the Laocoon was sculptured. It is only when you come to the Laocoon that you find the expression of strong feeling or passion.

Purani: Perhaps Elie Faure makes that remark because of the satyrs.

Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another matter. The satyrs are symbolic.

Purani: He also argues, rather queerly, that the poisoning of Socrates, the banishment of Themistocles and the killing of other great men, were an expression of unrestrained passion.

Sri Aurobindo: What has that to do with art?

Purani: He means that the Greek mind being such must have found the same expression in art also.

Sri Aurobindo: It is rather the opposite. It is a sign of the Greek’s sense of control that they checked their leaders from committing what they considered excesses. When two leaders became powerful and combined, the Greeks ostracised one.

Then there was a pause. Sri Aurobindo seemed to have gone into a reverie. We were expecting him to come out of it with something for us. He started speaking on his own.

Sri Aurobindo: I was thinking how some races have the sense of beauty in their very bones. Judging from what is left to us, it seems that all people had once a keen perception of beauty. For example, take pottery or Indian wood-carving which, I am afraid, is dying out now. Greece and ancient Italy had a wonderful sense of beauty. Japan, you know, is remarkable. Even the poorest people have that sense. If the Japanese produce anything ugly, they export it to other countries! But I am afraid they are losing their aesthetic sense because of the general vulgarisation. By the way, the Chinese and the Japanese originally got their artistic impulse from India. Their Buddhist images have Indian inspiration: it is only later that they developed their own lines.

Modern artists are putting an end to art. Vulgarisation everywhere!

Nirodbaran: Indian painting is not yet so bad as European. People are not following the leaders of modernism here. Rabindranath Tagore as a painter is not much imitated. Perhaps because of Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose.

Sri Aurobindo: They, I suppose, praise Rabindranath but don’t encourage others to follow him. (Laughter)

In Europe, apart from vulgarisation, there is dictatorship acting against art. In Germany Hitler must have crushed everything fine out of existence – music, philosophy, etc. How can anything develop where there is no freedom? People in Germany have to admire only one thing: Nazism! I hope Mussolini has still kept some freedom for art.

Purani: Mussolini speaks of “our art, our poets”. He seems to be proud of Italians as a nation of artists and has tried to preserve the old tradition. A friend of mine recently visited Italy and found that the Italians still have a great sense of painting and sculpture.

Sri Aurobindo: And of music also. Painting and music are their passion. The Mother had a striking experience of their love of music. She stayed in North Italy for some time and was once playing on the organ all alone in a church. After she had finished, there was a big applause. She found that a crowd had gathered behind her and was enthusiastic in appreciation.

Purani: Indian music, especially South Indian, has been preserved by the temples; expert musicians come there on occasions and play and sing.

Nishtha (Miss Wilson) is all praise for many Indian things she sees here. For example, she finds great beauty in the way Indian women walk. She said to me, “You won’t understand it, but I can because I have seen our European women walking. Your women walk as if they were born dancers. They have a beautiful rhythm in their movements.”

Sri Aurobindo: That is true. It is, I suppose, due to their having to carry pots on their heads. This practice requires balance of the whole body.

Purani: Nishtha praises the Indian saris and says that our women have a keen sense of colour.

Sri Aurobindo: She is right. I hope our women are not going to give up their saris under Western influence.

Nirodbaran: But saris, though graceful, don’t seem to be good for active work; they are inconvenient.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? The Romans conquered the world in their togas! Plenty of Indian women do their work with their saris on. When this craze for utility comes, beauty goes to the dogs. This is the modern tendency. The moderns look at everything from the point of view of utility, as if beauty were nothing.

Nirodbaran: But beauty and utility can be combined.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but in the end utility gets the upper hand.

Nirodbaran: I at any rate have found that the European male dress gives a push for work and activity, while the Indian dhoti produces lethargy, sense of ease, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: That doesn’t prevent the European dress from being the ugliest in the world. I have seen plenty of people leading active lives with the dhoti on. The Europeans are now putting on just shorts and a shirt – most utilitarian, I think.

Purani: Some Indian women also put on the European dress.

Sri Aurobindo: Indian women’s putting on the European dress is horrible.

Purani: Nowadays European women also go about in shorts.

Sri Aurobindo: Is that so? I understand they are giving up stockings too. Yet at one time their whole body used to be covered up excepting the hands and the face. I remember an experience of Bapubhai Majumdar’s in London. He was coming down from the bathroom in his hotel with bare feet. Suddenly a lady who came out of a room saw him. She ran away at once and complained to the manager that a man was going about half naked in the house. The manager called Bapubhai and asked him not to do so again. Do you know Bapubhai?

Purani: I think I do. Once I saw him being stopped in the street by the police for breaking a traffic rule. He gave the policeman a long lecture in English, leaving the fellow flabbergasted.

Sri Aurobindo (laughing): That must be him. It is very characteristic of him. He was my first friend in Baroda. He took me to his house and I stayed there for some time. He was a nice man, but what people call volatile and mercurial.

¹ This Brahmananda should be distinguished from Brahmananda of Chandod.

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