Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

11 January 1940

Today we showed Sri Aurobindo the Amrita Bazar Patrika “Forecast of the Year” by one Capricornicus.

Sri Aurobindo (after reading it): Hitler, it says, will be crushed in March; it may happen but there is no sign of it at present. Most of the things will happen, it seems, in the first quarter of the year.

Nirodbaran: Congress will come to power again, it says.

Satyendra: Dominion Status is near perhaps. The Viceroy has promised that it will be established in the minimum amount of time but we must come to an agreement with the minorities. Is he a Scotsman?

Purani: Yes, why?

Satyendra: He has donated Rs. 200 in Bombay. (Laughter)

Purani: He is said to be a very good man, very polite, etc. Lalji met him in Bombay; he said that our Indian Princes are not like the old English aristocrats.

Sri Aurobindo: The Princes are given a very bad education.

Purani: Lalji says he is not so young as he looks in newspaper photos. He has given a ten-year-old block perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo: He is doing like me. (Laughter)

Purani was shaking a finger from behind at Sri Aurobindo with much mirth.

Satyendra: Purani is very glad, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: Why?

Purani: Because of that statement of yours.

Satyendra: People grumble about your photos.

Purani: They say you look quite different when they see you at Darshan, they don’t recognise you.

Sri Aurobindo: Photos are not for recognition any more than the portraitures of modern painters. This man doesn’t forecast anything about Russo-Finnish War. Perhaps it is too hazardous! But who is this Indian religious leader who is going to meet a violent death? Abul Kalam Azad?

Purani: And who is the cinema star? Shanta Apte will again fast?

Sri Aurobindo: And the director will kill her in a fit of rage? (Laughter)

Nirodbaran: Some Dev, a friend of Mohini, has come to see the Ashram.

Sri Aurobindo: Is he one of the three brilliant students of P.C. Roy?

Purani: He is a student of Meghnad Saha.

Nirodbaran: He is a professor or lecturer of climatology in Calcutta University.

Sri Aurobindo: He has come to study the climate?

Nirodbaran: The climate of the Ashram perhaps.

Evening

Champaklal: It seems the Bengali professor was very much impressed by the meditation. He said, “I know now what meditation is.” After the meditation he couldn’t move, it seems. He also made pranam to Anilbaran.

Sri Aurobindo smiled when he heard that the man had made pranam to Anilbaran, and looked at Champaklal.

Champaklal: Yes, he touched his feet, I am told.

Nirodbaran: Oh, that is the Bengali manner.

Sri Aurobindo: That is very common in Bengal. They do that to an elderly or a respectable person. It doesn’t mean that he is doing it because Anilbaran is a big Yogi.

Champaklal: But in our parts they very rarely do it. If they do pranam like that, it means only one thing. It is a sign of great respect.

Satyendra: It is done commonly among Sadhus.

Champaklal: In Gujarat?

Satyendra: Yes, why do you doubt it?

Champaklal: I didn’t know it.

Satyendra: In the circles I have moved I saw it done.

Sri Aurobindo (after a while and looking at Satyendra): You have read the forecast?

Satyendra: Yes, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you find it?

Satyendra: It is too vague throughout. He speaks of a secret socialistic movement in England and India.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t find anything secret about it. Everybody knows of it.

Satyendra: Yes, I thought first he meant some secret organisation. But it is not so. He also speaks of Congress coming to power again. There may be some truth there.

Sri Aurobindo: How?

Satyendra: Because of the Viceroy’s statement. Some people seem to take it as an advance upon his previous statement.

Nirodbaran: Because he has said that Dominion Status will be given as soon as possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Within the minimum time, though what the minimum time is nobody knows.

Satyendra: Yes, that is something new though he has asked the leaders to come to an agreement with the minorities.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he has moved a little.

Satyendra: There is something else too.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, that point about India’s Dominion Status being equivalent to the Westminster Act?

Satyendra: Yes, and then he has agreed to give a few seats to the leaders in his Assembly.

Sri Aurobindo: That is another concession, in place of his previous panel system.

Satyendra: But the minority problem is not the only obstacle. He also speaks of the Scheduled Castes.

Sri Aurobindo: You mean the Rajas?

Satyendra: Yes and then the Princes.

Sri Aurobindo: Let us see how. He has conceded, though it does not come to much, that Dominion Status will be given within a minimum time if we come to an agreement with the Muslims, the Rajas and Princes.

Nirodbaran: I think he has declared these little concessions in order to prevent Congress from precipitating into action.

Sri Aurobindo: Possibly.

Satyendra: This man has made one good hit about the date – about the change of British Ministry between 5th and 10th January.

Sri Aurobindo: About the change of Ministry, there is nothing remarkable. In war-time there are always these reshufflings and changes. The date has been a bit of good luck.

Satyendra: He must have heard from somebody.

Sri Aurobindo: He doesn’t mention any other date except Hitler’s fall in March and Congress coming to power in March.

Purani: One of the members of the Gita Prachar Party is a Shankarite. He asked me why we don’t recognise Shankara’s philosophy. I told him, “We recognise it but we also hold that it is not the only truth. There are other aspects of the Truth.” He says, “Your Yoga is one of surrender. Is surrender a Bhava [feeling] or a Kriya [action]?”

Sri Aurobindo: You should have said, “It is Bhava and Kriya and everything else.”

Purani: He says there can’t be Bhava without a Bhavuka [one who feels], or Kriya without Karta [doer] so perhaps it is Bodha [understanding). I said there can’t be Bodha without a Bodhaka [one who understands].

Sri Aurobindo: And there can’t be surrender without a surrenderer.

Purani: I told him not to try to understand what this or that is, but to try to feel something here.