Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
23 February 1940
Purani: Nolini was telling me a story of Charu Dutt’s. It is about the Bomb Case. It seems that when you were arrested you wanted to confess to the Police. Subodh Mullick wired to Dutt about it, and Dutt wired back to you, “No theatricals, please!”
Sri Aurobindo: What is that? I wanted to confess?
Nirodbaran: No, the story was like this. I was also present. When you were arrested for the first time, you wanted to plead guilty.
Sri Aurobindo: Arrested for what? For the Bomb Case? For heaven’s sake let us make it clear first.
Nirodbaran: He said it was for an article you had written in the Bande Mataram.
Sri Aurobindo: It was not an article of mine for which I was arrested. It was a reprint from the Jugantar that was put in the Bande Mataram. Then?
Nirodbaran: Then the Police didn’t know who was the editor. You seem to have thought of pleading guilty. So Subodh Mullick sent a wire to Dutt.
Sri Aurobindo: But where was Subodh Mullick at that time? I thought he was a detenue somewhere in the North. Then?
Nirodbaran: He wired to Dutt that you were going to be theatrical.
Sri Aurobindo: Theatrical? I had common sense enough not to plead guilty.
Purani: And Dutt wired to you, “No theatricals, please!”
Nirodbaran: No, not to Sri Aurobindo but to Mullick. Dutt himself first thought of going personally and persuading Sri Aurobindo but thought better of it and wired back and sent Barin with instructions.
Sri Aurobindo: Where was Dutt at that time? I thought he was in Bombay. It was the editorial staff of the Bande Mataram who arranged for the defence and gave evidence, which was rather made-up. (Laughter)
Nirodbaran: Dutt said there was no evidence that you were the editor.
Sri Aurobindo (laughing): There was, but it was erased by the knife.
Nirodbaran: Some other stories about you occur in Dutt’s Reminiscences. They are about cards and shooting.
Sri Aurobindo: What has he said?
Nirodbaran: That you knew only one card game.
Sri Aurobindo: That is really going too far.
Nirodbaran: He taught you the game and at once you picked it up and beat them all because you read their hands!
Sri Aurobindo: All I remember is that it was a game of bridge which I didn’t know and I and Mrs. Dutt were thoroughly beaten by the opposite party. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: And the shooting story?
Nirodbaran: When Dutt and others were practising shooting, Sri Aurobindo came in and he was asked to try. He didn’t know how to handle a gun. He was shown how and every time he fired he hit the target which was the tip of a matchstick.
Sri Aurobindo: What was actually the case was that I and Barin went somewhere in Midnapur to practise shooting. No doubt, it is true that I didn’t know how to handle a gun. (Laughter)
Champaklal: But Anilbaran says you may not remember these incidents.
Purani: That is not possible. When circumstances and events are described, one can bring them back to memory.
Champaklal: Dutt says that at the Surat Congress Sri Aurobindo was protected by men with pistols.
Dr. Manilal: Was there any chance of personal injury, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: Not that I know of. Only Satyen Bose was with me and he had a pistol. He said to me, “I have a pistol with me. Shall I shoot Suren Banerji?” I said, “For heaven’s sake, don’t do that.” (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: But why did he want to shoot him?
Sri Aurobindo: He must have got very excited. At any rate there was a pistol, there was Satyen and there was Banerji. (Laughter)
Nirodbaran: So why not shoot him?
Dr. Manilal: Is it true, Sir, that the British Government wanted to kidnap you and but you were guarded by men with pistols?
Sri Aurobindo: Maybe.
Dr. Manilal: I was also present at the Congress. I didn’t know of any row.
Nirodbaran: You might have been one of the protectors of Sri Aurobindo, as our Dr. Savoor was.
Satyendra: I was a child at that time. I was standing far off at a safe distance in a volunteer’s uniform and saw the procession going by.
Dr. Manilal: Champaklal applied that medicine, Sir. Nothing untoward has happened to him.
Nirodbaran: There was also nothing untoward in him.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so.
Nirodbaran: What about Purani?
Purani: There is a little redness that is due to my cloth sticking to the paste. I wanted to pull it out and, as the hairs were also stuck in the paste, the skin got irritated a little.
Satyendra: I also applied it. It gets dry in no time.
Champaklal: But one can’t walk with it.
Sri Aurobindo: The leg has to be immobile? It will then be more ankylosed. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: No, it can be applied at night and removed in the morning.
Sri Aurobindo: But I don’t see how a medicine meant to remove pain and swelling can produce flexion.
Dr. Manilal: Neither do I, Sir, but the lady said it would.
Champaklal: Is it because of the Rishi that you have faith in it?
Dr. Manilal: Yes, but the Rishi is not only a Rishi; he gave it with the blessings of Panduranga who is Sri Krishna himself.
Sri Aurobindo: To prove its effectiveness it must be tried on Purani first.
Dr. Manilal: Yes, we can apply it on his other knee.
Nirodbaran: Buddhadev Bhattacharya was very happy at your remark.
Sri Aurobindo: What remark?
Nirodbaran: You said he was a remarkable man.
Sri Aurobindo: I see. But why was he happy?
Nirodbaran: Just because you took his name.
Dr. Manilal: Couldn’t you say, Sir, whether this lady who gave the medicine had something genuine in her and in her planchette ?
Sri Aurobindo: There may be something as she goes into a trance, which means that she becomes a medium.
Satyendra: She does automatic writing – just like your book, Yogic Sadhan.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in automatic writing one becomes a medium of some power. I don’t think that whatever is written in that way is necessarily correct or right. At least I haven’t seen it to be so.
Champaklal: Sometimes other powers come in too in the name of somebody else.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they take up and come in others’ roles. So it depends on the medium and the nature of the link one has established with the occult worlds. These worlds have their own laws. There are good and bad vital worlds and the results will depend on the connection one has made.
Nirodbaran: All these powers come from the vital worlds?
Sri Aurobindo: Of course.
Nirodbaran: It would be good then if one could establish a connection with good vital worlds and cure cases.
Sri Aurobindo: Why, one can cure by a connection with bad ones also.
Satyendra: It is not always safe for the mediums.
Sri Aurobindo: No. Sometimes they suffer very badly, either from a deterioration in health or some other trouble.
Satyendra: It is not easy, either, to open into those worlds.
Nirodbaran: It is easier than into the intuitive planes.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes.
Nirodbaran: How can one open then?
Sri Aurobindo: By making one’s vital pure. There is also an indifferent vital, as there is a good vital and a bad one.
Satyendra: Nirodbaran thinks he can open simply by asking.
Nirodbaran: There are successful doctors with an impure vital.
Sri Aurobindo: That is a different matter.
Dr. Manilal: When a person inwardly calls you, do you hear, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: I may or may not. It depends on the nature and the circumstances of the case.
Dr. Manilal: When one says one hears your voice, do you know about it?
Nirodbaran: I also want to know about that point. For instance, D said he heard your voice asking him to get up at four o’clock. Do you know about it?
Sri Aurobindo: You mean whether I spoke?
Dr. Manilal: Do you know about these voices which they say are yours?
Satyendra: It may be from the Universal that the response comes and they hear your voice because they have faith in you.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. It depends on some opening in them, either in the mental, psychic or some larger vital part and they may get responses from these planes. Surely I am not going to bother about such things as D’s rising up so early.
Dr. Manilal: The Mother or you don’t hear the calls of people?
Nirodbaran: Sri Aurobindo says that the Mother hears prayers from different parts of the world.
Champaklal: The Mother narrated in the Store Room how she heard the call of people from Gujarat during a certain ceremony.
Sri Aurobindo: The Mother hears. I may or may not. The Mother has developed this power from her early age and she used to hear even in her childhood.
Dr. Manilal: At what stage, say, of an illness does the response come?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean?
Dr. Manilal: For instance, I call the Mother during an attack of illness and get no response. Does it mean that the disease has passed the stage when one can get a response?
Nirodbaran: How can that be? In that case very few people would benefit.
Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the person. A response can be had at any stage. People have been cured at critical stages, even on their death-bed. You know my maternal uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra’s daughter was saved from her death-bed by simple prayer. The doctors had given up all hope after trying all remedies, even snake-poison. She was a typhoid case – the consciousness wouldn’t come back. Then they prayed and soon after the prayer the signs of life returned. Without prayer she would not have been saved.
Nirodbaran: Charu Dutt says that the Mother’s face is not one of a human being but of a goddess though he couldn’t look at it at pranam; but when he bowed down, he caressed her feet for some time; he was feeling so happy.
Sri Aurobindo: If he couldn’t look at the Mother’s face, how could he say it was not the face of a human being?
Nirodbaran: He must have looked while waiting for the pranam. He also said that he tried to call the Mother’s Presence before coming here but couldn’t succeed except once when he felt her compassionate look.
Evening
Champaklal: Today I told Anilbaran about those stories of Dutt and what you had said about them.
Sri Aurobindo: I may not remember everything about the card incident and in one game I may have been able to tell the others’ hands. But I can’t forget the shooting incident because that was the first time I handled a gun.
Nirodbaran: And what about aiming at the tip of the match-stick?
Sri Aurobindo: That is all fantasy.
Satyendra: But do not fantasies become truths? It is in that way that God creates the world probably. Looking at hippopotamuses, zebras and all queer animals, I have come to that view.
Dr. Manilal: Why should God have created the world? Was He unhappy?
Sri Aurobindo: Does one create when one is unhappy? Or do you think like that because Nirodbaran creates poetry with such difficulty and struggle? (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: He creates for more joy, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: That means he is full of joy?
Dr. Manilal: God is always full of joy.
Sri Aurobindo: I am not talking of God. I am talking of Nirodbaran. (Laughter)
Satyendra (to Manilal): What is your idea about creation?
Dr. Manilal: Creation is Swayambhu (self-born). It is infinite and so has neither beginning nor end.
Sri Aurobindo: The hippopotamus is also Swayambhu?
Dr. Manilal: Why not, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: That is not science. Evolution doesn’t say that.
Satyendra (to Manilal): According to you, the world was and will be just as it is: everything, space and air compact with the Nigodha or Jiva from eternity? (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Space is also Swayambhu then?
Dr. Manilal: Yes, Sir, the creation is infinite; it has no beginning, no end, like a tennis ball! (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: And self-existent with Eliot and his hippopotamus existing from eternity? (Laughter)
Satyendra (To Dr. Manilal): If you don’t believe God has created this world then God can’t help you to get liberation. You have to rely absolutely on your Purushartha (self-effort).
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so.
Satyendra (seeing Dr. Manilal sprinkling on his body the water in which Sri Aurobindo’s feet had been washed): And why are you doing this?
Dr. Manilal: I believe in Grace. (Laughter) It is Jainism I am talking of. It says each one gets his liberation by his own effort. Even the Tirthankaras don’t help.
Satyendra: It is better to foist all responsibility on God for all creation good and bad. Dr. Manilal objects to this because of the creation of Rakshasas.
Sri Aurobindo: Why? Rakshasas can be interesting.
Satyendra: He objects too because of his own bad gallbladder and heart.
Sri Aurobindo: That also may be interesting to God. (Laughter) I was thinking that if the Tirthankaras don’t help, of what use are they?
Dr. Manilal: They serve as examples.
Sri Aurobindo: If one has to rely on one’s own effort, examples won’t matter. He will have to make an effort in any case.
Dr. Manilal: The beings that help are the Sashanadevas who worship the Tirthankaras.
Sri Aurobindo: Then you can worship them; why the Tirthankaras? If the Devas worship the Tirthankaras, they shouldn’t help either, because their ideal is also the attainment of a Tirthankara. Why should they help? Besides, it is a contradiction of the true law of Karma. If Karma brings its reward inevitably, then the help of God is unnecessary. If God helps and intervenes effectively and changes the result of action, the law of Karma is not true.
Dr. Manilal: Though Jainism believes in Purushartha one can pray for help.
Sri Aurobindo: Ah, you speak of Purushartha as well as of help? The former means that you do everything by your own effort. How does help come in? It is illogical.
Dr. Manilal: According to Jainism, each one is alone and the Jain prays, “I come alone, I shall go alone.” He practises this Ekatvam (aloneness) in order to get Vairagya (renunciation). But it is not outer Vairagya, like putting on the garb of a Sadhu or monk.
Sri Aurobindo: But if one is alone and has to become free by his own effort, how do the Tirthankaras, Acharyas and such an infinite number of Siddhas crowded in Siddhasila, come in? Like all religions, it is fantastically illogical. Buddha also said the same thing but the religion said, “I can take refuge in Buddha.”
Purani: There is some similarity between Buddhism and Jainism. Buddha and Mahavira were contemporaries, though they don’t seem to have met. Mahavira was born in Vaisali.
Dr. Manilal: In Jainism each soul is bound by ignorance and there are four Lokas represented by the Swastika.
Sri Aurobindo: Hitler got the Swastika from there then? (Laughter)
Satyendra: What is the destiny of the individual according to Jainism?
Dr. Manilal: Mukti.
Satyendra: Does one become a Tirthankara?
Dr. Manilal: Nobody can become a Tirthankara. There are only twenty four Tirthankaras for each cycle and they go on cycle after cycle ad infinitum.
Sri Aurobindo: Twenty-four times Infinity? Or Infinity times twenty-four? (Laughter)
Nirodbaran (To Dr. Manilal): I am staggered by your knowledge of Jainism and am surprised that you don’t understand The Life Divine which is no patch on all these complexities. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Really I don’t understand The Life Divine. I have tried. What should I do, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know.
Nirodbaran: Sisir Mitra says X is also thinking of coming for Darshan.
Dr. Manilal: How do you decide, Sir, when to give permission for Darshan?
Sri Aurobindo: It is the Mother who decides. She consults me only for important cases or when she thinks I should be consulted.
Dr. Manilal: Still you can give some idea, Sir. What aspects do you consider?
Sri Aurobindo: No aspects.
Dr. Manilal: Or whether which person will benefit, which won’t.
Sri Aurobindo: No such consideration. Each case is judged individually. It depends on each case.