Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

2 January 1940

Sri Aurobindo (suddenly): Is Nolini Sen going today?

Nirodbaran: He has already gone.

Sri Aurobindo: His wife has sent a poem which she received in meditation. It is very good. Pavitra has seen the horoscopes of both husband and wife. He says they are complementary to each other. He has ability, the power of success.

Nirodbaran: Nolini Sen told me about his wife. About himself he said that he had some organising ability. The Government used to send him to places that were difficult to organise. So he has acquired a bad name as being strict and disciplinary.

Sri Aurobindo: He has a clear mind and seems to be an intellectual.

Nirodbaran: He was one of the three most brilliant students of his year, the first being Satyen Bose. He says there are only two people who understand Einstein’s relativity theory.

Sri Aurobindo: In India or the world? I thought there were five or six in the world.

Nirodbaran: I mean in India. One of the two is Bose and the other is Kothari. He further says that Bose pointed out some mistake in Einstein’s thinking; his corrections have been accepted and scientists now speak of the Bose-Einstein statistics.

Sri Aurobindo: I see. That is very creditable for India.

Purani: What about Suleman?

Nirodbaran: Sen says Suleman also pointed out some mistakes.

Purani: No, Suleman refutes the whole theory.

Nirodbaran: Sen says the results of the last solar eclipse have not come out yet. They should have a bearing on the relativity theory.

Nirodbaran (after a lull): In the message on our New Year calendar the Mother says that this is a year of silence and expectation. We are wondering: expectation of what?

Sri Aurobindo: Of what is to come.

Nirodbaran: That is to say?

Sri Aurobindo: Whatever the expectation is for.

Nirodbaran: For individuals or in a general sense? We are all expecting the Supermind to come.

Sri Aurobindo: How can it come unless you are all prepared to receive it?

Purani: I thought it was more or less an individual matter.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by “expecting the Supermind?” Do you expect the Supermind to come without any preparation?

Nirodbaran: No, I don’t mean for myself. I mean that the Supermind will descend into you and the Mother and perhaps a few disciples first and we shall be benefited by it. At least that is what I understood.

Sri Aurobindo: You want to be benefited without doing anything yourself. And do you expect the Supermind to do everything for you? That is supreme laziness.

Nirodbaran: I don’t say that. I say that if at present in spite of my efforts I don’t get satisfactory results and my progress is slow and tardy, the Supramental Force, being the Highest Force, will help me to overcome my troubles in comparatively less time. That is what you wrote to me on the action of the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo: So you will wait for the Supermind’s descent. That is like Moni’s idea. He says that the Divine will do everything and one has nothing to do at all. Anyway, this used to be his idea. I don’t know what he thinks now.

Nirodbaran: That is an extreme view. I don’t go so far. I believe or I have been led to believe that the Supermind will help me in every way possible.

Sri Aurobindo: Will it?

Nirodbaran: Won’t it? As for Moni’s idea, I can’t say there is no truth in it if one sincerely believes in it and sticks to it.

Sri Aurobindo: Ah, sticks to it!

Nirodbaran: There are people who rely entirely on Divine Grace and have the faith that the Divine will do everything for them. It is not entirely wrong, is it? I think you have yourself written something like that, though, as you have said, such people are rare.

Sri Aurobindo: Faith and ideas are quite different. Ideas are of the mind and they are abstract. If they have no dynamic power behind them, they remain ideas till the end.

Satyendra: I am also coming round to Moni’s idea.

Nirodbaran: But yours is from a different point of view. You have tried.

Satyendra: Unless the fellow within, as Y calls it, awakes, nothing can be achieved. One must have the hunger first.

Nirodbaran: Yes, that hunger also can be created by the Supermind.

Here Sri Aurobindo smiled. Purani brought in some other topic, at the end of which both Satyendra and Nirodbaran looked at each other and broke into smiles. Purani thought it was as if Nirodbaran had thrown a jet of refreshing water on Satyendra.

Purani: Jetting the Supermind on Satyendra?

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, baptising him into the Supermind?

Evening

Nirodbaran: In the Hindu’s editorial on the defence forces of India it is said that there is not a single Bengali unit in India’s land forces. The majority are comprised of Punjab Muslims.

Sri Aurobindo: Muslims?

Nirodbaran: Yes.

Sri Aurobindo: What land forces? The army?

Nirodbaran: Perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo: People say the Bengalis and the Madrasis are non-martial races. But it has been pointed out that the English conquered Bengal with the help of Madrasi sepoys, the United Provinces with that of Bengali sepoys and the Muslim Punjab itself with that of Hindu sepoys. And now they are all non-martial races!