Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
31 January 1939
Nirodbaran: There is a tempting offer by the Calcutta Statesman. Arthur Moore writes to Dilip that he will pay Rs. 100 per article if Sri Aurobindo writes in his paper on world events in the light of Yogic experience.
Sri Aurobindo (bursting into laughter): In the light of Yogic experience! And what reply is Dilip going to give?
Nirodbaran: He has asked me to get your reply.
Satyendra: S also offered good money to Dilip to write articles for his paper. It is an unscrupulous pro-Government paper, perhaps even financed by the Government.
Purani: S came for the last Darshan.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes; and his eyes were constantly roving about. Isn’t he the same chap who wanted to see me when he was a young man? I refused to see him because I had a feeling that he was a spy. Then when the police took interest in the matter and asked people why I had not seen him, my suspicion was confirmed. In fact, it was more than a feeling, it was a concrete intuition.
Later, I found he had become a notable figure in the Executive Council. I was much surprised.
Arthur Moore is also suspected by some people of being a spy – not an ordinary spy but a secret agent of the Government. But spy or not, he knows how to meditate.
Purani: How can he be a spy when he has supported Congress ministries and given them praise.
Sri Aurobindo: People will say he has done it to spy better – to get sympathy.
Then there was medical talk about some old patients. One had said he had no substance left in his brain! Another had complained of hernia due to Asanas.
Nirodbaran: There is a remarkable change in L.
Sri Aurobindo: At one time she gave up work and that made her worse. Thinking constantly of disease and harbouring fear – these two things stand in the way of cure.
Nirodbaran: Now L eats and digests anything.
Sri Aurobindo: She used to write to us, “I am going to eat. You please digest for me.” (Laughter)
Purani: The Gaekwar is still in Bombay, he seems to have been suffering for a long time.
Sri Aurobindo: What is the disease?
Dr. Becharlal: Thrombus in the brain.
Purani: He is seventy-six now – rather old.
Sri Aurobindo: Not very old for a sturdy man like him. In India they consider one old after fifty and fit to die at sixty. In England and China, one is ripe between sixty and seventy, and only after eighty is one considered old. These things depend upon the atmosphere of the place – I don’t mean the external atmosphere.
Satyendra: In India, Government servants have to retire at fifty or fifty-five. After that, they have no energy left to do anything new, especially as they are accustomed to an easy way of living.
Sri Aurobindo: They don’t find work and therefore die. One can always do something new at fifty-five.
Purani: Hindenburg lived actively up to eighty-seven. Chamberlain is seventy-seven and is now Premier of England.
Sri Aurobindo: The Mother’s brother, after retiring from governorship in Africa, has been doing a lot of things – president of this, member of that and so on. He was made to retire. He did a great deal in Africa, but other people got the credit. It is men like him who built up France and also made it possible for the Ashram to continue here. Otherwise I might have had to go to France, or else to America and supramentalise the Americans.
When the Mother came here and I met her, her brother got interested. These things look like accidents but they are not. There is a guidance behind these events.
Purani: Joswant writes that he is more and more distracted and wants to know how he will be able to come back. He is the secretary of some students’ federation.
Sri Aurobindo: He will have to federate less and consolidate more.
Purani: He complains of being wrecked.
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, the usual old things! That is a kind of neurasthenia that makes one restless and produces a want of balance. He wants to show off, appear bigger than he is, do something startling and striking. He has capacity but it has to be organised before it can be useful.