Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

30 November 1939

Nirodbaran (while Sri Aurobindo was waiting for the Mother to come): Nolini Sen is practically all right. Yesterday I told you that he was feeling a vague irritation and restlessness and a sense of sadness all day long, and badly needed assistance. He didn’t know the cause of the irritation but yesterday he began to think of what wrongs he had done to others in the past. Then he felt as if somebody had touched him on the shoulder, after which he felt calm. He didn’t know whose hand it was!

Sri Aurobindo (after laughing): He seems to be receptive.

Nirodbaran: He doesn’t understand what is meant by the mental, vital, and physical consciousness. As for his wife, she says the intensity of pain and pleasure seems to have diminished in her. But at the same time she feels disinclined to do any work.

Sri Aurobindo: Does she feel like that after taking up Yoga?

Nirodbaran: Yes.

Sri Aurobindo: That often happens. When the motive that supplied the incentive to work or gave energy in the ordinary life is lost, such a condition sets in until that energy is replaced by another energy.

Champaklal: How to know whether or not it is Tamas?

Sri Aurobindo: There is a certain element of Tamas in it. The physical is being driven by the rajasic vital energy and when that energy is not there the physical may fall into Tamas or inactivity.

Nirodbaran: What to do in such cases?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on circumstances. If one has no work to do, he can retire into silence.

Nirodbaran: But she can’t do that with so many children to look after! (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: No, she can call in the higher energy and do whatever she has to do without being involved in the work or getting attached to it.

Nirodbaran: I told her that she could do everything as the Mother’s work.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes.

At this point the Mother came. While sponging Sri Aurobindo, Purani took up the previous day’s talk about the colour blue.

Purani: I asked Lalji about the woman. She seems to be a devotee of Sri Krishna.

Sri Aurobindo: Then it is clear.

Nirodbaran: But why is only the face blue?

Sri Aurobindo: Because it is the mind that receives the light when she talks of the Gita and of other things in her ecstatic mood.

Satyendra: You said yesterday that the blue colour might be of Vishnu or of Krishna. What is the difference between them?

Sri Aurobindo: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva manifest certain powers of cosmic consciousness. Krishna manifests the Ananda. Krishna is said to be an Avatar of Vishnu, which means that he manifests the Vishnu aspect rather than the Shiva aspect.

Satyendra: Are Vishnu and Krishna Gods of the Overmind?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is, they manifest through the Overmind.

Purani then related a few more experiences of that Mahratta lady. There was no comment from Sri Aurobindo. After some time Sri Aurobindo himself started to speak.

Sri Aurobindo: About Nolini Sen. I don’t understand what the difficulty is about the vital. What is it he doesn’t understand? Just as there is the mind with its ideas and perceptions, so there is the vital with its forces of action, emotions, aesthesis. Is it so difficult? Perhaps he wants to know by experience?

Nirodbaran: Probably. He gave me one instance. He wants to know, when he hears music and gets joy, whether it is due to the song or the singer.

Sri Aurobindo: That has nothing to do with the vital. If there were no music but only the musician, would he feel that joy? Of course it is his vital – his aesthetic vital – that feels it and the musician also may be expressing his songs through his vital.

Purani: He told me about his difficulty with thoughts.

Sri Aurobindo: What sort of difficulty?

Purani: It is not a difficulty of intellectual ideas or perceptions; simply of the control of thoughts.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the life-mind. Of course his irritation and restlessness are due to the pressure of the psychic on his vital. His brooding or thinking about the wrongs he has done and the yearning within means that.

Nirodbaran: But the wrongs were done in the past.

Sri Aurobindo: That doesn’t matter. It means that the psychic is putting pressure on the vital to change. (After some time) Restlessness, irritation don’t matter, but he must get some sleep.

Nirodbaran: He says he can’t understand your English; he has to translate it into Bengali first to understand.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? Doesn’t he know English well enough?

Nirodbaran: That’s what he says. He was a science student, a classmate of Satyen Bose.

Sri Aurobindo: Which Satyen Bose?

Nirodbaran: Dilip’s friend, the scientist. I think it is your terminology that he finds difficult to grasp – mental, vital, physical.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a demarcation which is not rigidly fixed. Each overflows into the others. In man, all are ultimately differentiated aspects or states of the mental consciousness in general.

Evening

The Mother came in with a telegram for Sri Aurobindo, smiled and said, “Another problem to be solved.” The telegram said, “Praying permission for our residence.”

The Mother: Permission for residence where? Shall I ask back?

Sri Aurobindo: Don’t know. Does residence mean the Ashram? (Laughing) It can be asked “Who are you?” (General laughter)

Then Purani read the radio news about Russia attacking Finland, and about the All India Sugar Conference being postponed.

Satyendra: Plenty of sugar has been destroyed because of a surplus.

Sri Aurobindo: Instead of destroying it, they could have given it free to the Ashram. (Laughter)

While sponging Sri Aurobindo, Purani brought up the war news.

Purani: Molotov said Russia has no territorial claims.

Sri Aurobindo: Who? Vallabhbhai? (Laughter)

Purani: No, Molotov.

Sri Aurobindo: No territorial claims? Is it just a territorial walk then? Or is he going to deliver the Finnish people as he did the Ukrainians? I don’t understand why these people don’t clearly declare their objectives.

Purani: I hope the Americans will do something.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think so. They can only talk.

Purani (when some of the others had gone and Sri Aurobindo was resting): There’s a lady who used to feel your presence in her own home, just as at Darshan; but last time on her way home from here she saw Ramana Maharshi and then lost that feeling.

Sri Aurobindo: Naturally.

Purani: At first she couldn’t detect the reason why. Then she suspected the cause and I told her the Mother didn’t approve of mixing up things. Now she thinks it must have been due to that visit.

Sri Aurobindo: That was another influence. Besides, if Maharshi had been alone, it would have been different. But there are always other people around.

Nirodbaran: But the purpose is the same – seeking for spirituality – and it is in the same line.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not the question. (After some time) Purani received something from Lele.

Purani: Oh yes, I know to my cost. He gave me a terrible fever just when I was in the peak of health; the fever left me only after I received a letter from here. My encounter with another Yogi gave me vomiting, giddiness, etc. Otherwise I got nothing from them.

Sri Aurobindo (smiling): But Lele did give you something after all.

Purani: Yes – but I didn’t go to him again. Another friend after coming here asked me if he should go to see some Yogi. I told him he should not. He replied, “What’s the harm? It is the same spirituality.” I explained, “Maybe, but there are different spiritual energies and one may oppose another.”

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so.

Purani: But the man didn’t believe me. And he has paid the penalty for five years. He still hasn’t come here again!