Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
25 January 1939
There was no talk till after 7 p.m., when the Mother went for the general meditation.
Purani: After our talk yesterday I suddenly remembered Ramakrishna’s phrase, “Lok na pok?” “Men or insects?” So he could not have commanded Vivekananda to do humanitarian work.
Nirodbaran: Anilbaran says the idea of service of humanity is Christian and was brought in by Vivekananda on his own. I am told Ramakrishna asked him to do more Tapasya, achieve greater Yogic realisation.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know exactly what Yogic realisation he had. I have read many books about him but couldn’t gather a precise idea of it. Even the official biography of him doesn’t give any definite information.
Purani: People say he did a lot of Tapasya at the time he was a parivrajaka, a wandering Yogi.
Sri Aurobindo: Was it this kind of Tapasya Ramakrishna meant?
Satyendra: Vivekananda had a sort of Nirvanic experience. He has himself mentioned something about it.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that experience is the only one definitely known.
Purani: He also had a vision at Amarnath. But he seemed always torn between two tendencies – world-work and direct sadhana.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. And he used to put more intuitive flashes into his conversations than into his writings. That’s what I found on reading Nivedita’s book, The Master As I Saw Him. As a rule, it is in talk that such flashes come – at least in his case it was so.
Nirodbaran: You said the other day that his spirit visited you in Alipore Jail and told you about the higher consciousness from which, I suppose, these intuitive flashes come.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he did tell me. I had no idea about things of the higher consciousness. I never expected him and yet he came to teach me. And he was exact and precise even in the minutest details.
Nirodbaran: That is very interesting. He has nowhere in his books or conversations spoken of these things. Could his spirit know after death what he didn’t know in life?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? He may have got it afterwards.
Satyendra: Can the spirit evolve after death?
Sri Aurobindo: Of course. But either he may not have known in life or else he may have known and kept silent. A Yogi doesn’t say all that he knows. He says only what is necessary. If I wrote all that I know, then it would be ten times the amount I have written.
Satyendra: People will judge you by what you have written.
Sri Aurobindo (Laughing): That doesn’t matter.
Purani: Lok na Pok!
Nirodbaran: Then we shan’t know all that you know?
Sri Aurobindo: Well, realise first what I have written.
Nirodbaran: Isn’t it possible for those who live in a spiritual consciousness to know about the realisations of other Yogis?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. If one establishes a special contact, it is possible.
Purani: Vivekananda, in his writings, stresses the realisation of the Brahman in all and says in particular, “I worship my God the poor, the down-trodden, the pariah.”
Sri Aurobindo: Are we to understand that the Brahman is more in the poor and the down-trodden than in others?
Purani: If the Brahman is at all present, it is samam brahma, Equal Brahman.
Sri Aurobindo: Anilbaran is right. Vivekananda brought in the idea of service of humanity from Christianity – and also from Buddhism. Both Vivekananda and Gandhi derive it from them. But I don’t understand why they speak of serving humanity only. Buddhism, as well as Jainism, includes animals also in its idea of service. Even then the chief idea in Buddhism is Karuna, compassion.
The ancient sages too were less exclusive. They said, sarva bhuteshu, meaning all creatures, not men alone.
Satyendra: But how is one to make a practical application of it?
Sri Aurobindo: That depends upon the individual and his temperament.
Satyendra: Buddha wanted liberation not only for himself but for the whole of mankind.
Sri Aurobindo: It was not liberation he wanted; what he wanted was to be beyond the suffering of existence.
Satyendra: Still, that was not only for himself but for all.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, yet he had to do it for himself first before he could do it for others.
Satyendra: Tibetan Buddhists say, “Nirvana is only a stage.”
Sri Aurobindo (surprised): Is that so?
Purani: In Buddhism they have two paths: knowledge and devotion. They consider Buddha an Avatar.
Sri Aurobindo: It is the Mahayana path that goes through devotion. But isn’t it a fact that all Buddhists utter: Buddham saranam gacchami, dharmam saranam gacchami, sangham saranam gacchami?’ Buddha himself couldn’t have said it, for he said that one has to do everything by one’s own effort1.
Satyendra: It is said that Buddha turned back from the gate of Nirvana.
Sri Aurobindo: I thought it was Amitabha Buddha who refused to enter Nirvana. He is venerated very deeply in Japan.
Modern European scholars are now trying to prove that Buddha’s life-story was a later invention.
Purani: The Tibetan Lamas are believed to be in a direct line from Buddha. But to find the true Dalai Lama is not easy at all. You know about the various signs by which he has to be recognised?
Satyendra: Is Zen Buddhism alive in Japan?
Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes. Lady Batesman is going there to study it. The Zen Buddhists have a very severe discipline.
Purani: I am told that in Lhasa the meditation is very rigorous and the monks are thrashed for breaking the discipline.
Sri Aurobindo: We might also begin that here! Purani could be deputed as one of the thrashers.
Purani: Madame David-Néel divides the Lamas into three classes: the low and ordinary, who are the commonest and care only for food and comfort; the intellectual and artistic; the mystic or Yogi.
Sri Aurobindo: But that applies to all monastic orders. I remember the description of a feast in which the Sannyasins got drunk and began to dance. Also the Sannyasin who is a Pundit is a well-known type. In the Christian orders too, you have the professional monks who practise professional piety; the second type of monks are those who study religion and philosophy; only a very few are dedicated to spiritual practice.
The Carmelite Order has given and is still giving many saints to Roman Catholic Christianity. The latest is St. Theresa of Lisieux.
Satyendra: There are two Saint Theresas. One is the great and famous saint, she was Spanish. The recent Theresa is French.
The Spanish Theresa’s life was very quiet but intense. She said, “I will spend my heaven for mankind.” Many miracles happened after her death.
Sri Aurobindo: The Spanish have produced many remarkable saints. Some of them had very powerful experiences. The German mystics show more the knowledge aspect of mysticism because they are more philosophic-minded. Boehme and Eckhart are examples. Among the French saints you find more love and charity and a flaming intensity. But the English saints are tremendous politicians. I don’t know how they manage to become saints at all. They either kill or get killed. St. Thomas Beckett was murdered. St. Duncan was a minister to a king but was in fact the real ruler.
The Irish or Celtic saints and preachers converted the greatest part of the European continent to Christianity. They have also given the greatest Christian philosopher. They were like the Vedantins. They followed a discipline very similar to the Indian. They were first suppressed by the Roman emperors who suspected they would help resistance to Roman rule, and afterwards by the Christian authorities themselves.
The Jews have many mystic symbols in their Cabbala. Originally they had no mysticism and didn’t believe in the immortality of the soul. They believed that God breathes life into you at birth and takes it away at death. There is no future life or reincarnation. You are rewarded or punished in this single life on earth. The Jews got their mysticism from the Chaldeans and from the Persians. They were captives in Babylon and the Persians freed them. They got their mysticism from contact with these peoples.
There is a similarity between Chaldean occultism and Egyptian.
1 “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.”