Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
25 February 1940
Purani: You know Govardhan Das of Punjab? He was a Congress leader. In 1919 he came here to evade arrest during Non-cooperation. He asked you if he could be arrested here too. You said, “No, one can get protection here.” But he was asked by Gandhi to come out of Pondicherry and as soon as he reached Villipuram he was arrested. After that he was sent to jail many times in connection with the Non-cooperation movement. Afterwards he got a job in some Canadian insurance company and made money. He is here now and wants to stay and lead a spiritual life.
Champaklal: Does this going to jail benefit one?
Sri Aurobindo: Benefit in which way? You get the benefit of the experience of jail. (Laughter)
Champaklal: I mean: Is one helped in any way by trying to keep one’s promise and going to jail? Should one always keep one’s promise? He had to go from Pondicherry because as a non-violent worker he could not do anything else.
Sri Aurobindo: If one has made a promise to steal, one is not bound to keep it.
Purani: Gandhi’s view is that one has no right to forsake his duty and if by doing his duty he courts arrest he must do it. That is why Gandhi asked Das to come out of Pondicherry. Not only that: one has no right, he says, to break a promise. For instance, he told our Govindbhai that he had deserted his duty and he should go back to nationalist work.
Champaklal: Is one bound to keep such promises and does one profit by keeping them?
Sri Aurobindo: There is no rule covering all promises. It is not a question of benefit but of doing one’s duty. If one has taken up a duty, he has to discharge it so long as he feels bound by it. Otherwise it would be a fault on his part to forsake it. But if he feels that the object which he served has no longer the same value for him, he is no longer bound by any duty.
Purani: But Gandhi thinks that one can’t forsake one’s duty once it has been taken up, nor can a promise be broken for any reason.
Satyendra: We are mixing up two standards. Gandhi stands for the ethical or moral standard, and anybody abandoning that standard is guilty in his eyes. He does not take his stand on a spiritual standard.
Sri Aurobindo: The question is not that. The question is whether one is bound to keep one’s promise, bound to do one’s duty.
Champaklal: That is the point on which we want to know your view.
Sri Aurobindo: One is not bound to keep a promise if there is a call felt for a higher life or if the object or goal of life for which the promise was made has quite changed. Duty exists so long as you are on the moral plane. On the spiritual plane, one has to go where the call of the Spirit leads him. Duty no more binds him.
Dr. Manilal: When people come here for Darshan and don’t go back they receive plenty of letters accusing them of forsaking their duty.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes – and we also receive letters!
Dr. Manilal (After a while): Today I got peace again in meditation, Sir. But that gall-bladder pain came back. It comes now and then.
Sri Aurobindo: Can’t you get rid of the habit?
Dr. Manilal: No, Sir. I have left it to the Grace. (Laughter)
Purani: Perhaps you want to keep the habit?
Dr. Manilal: No, no, I don’t want to keep it at all.
Sri Aurobindo: But something in you may want it. Otherwise why should it come?
Dr. Manilal: Which part of me wants it, Sir? I myself don’t know.
Sri Aurobindo: The body consciousness may respond to the habit and the vital consciousness may want to accept the law of pain.
Purani: The Pudgals (material elements), perhaps. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: The Pudgals are hard to deal with.
Dr. Manilal: But can’t one get rid of them?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is possible but rather difficult.
Dr. Manilal: Can I follow the process?
Sri Aurobindo: Not yet, I think. (Laughter)
Champaklal: Perhaps some Karma still remains. (Laughter)
Nirodbaran (To Dr. Manilal): But the pain may be good for you in some way.
Dr. Manilal: On the contrary it comes in the way of my divine consciousness. (Laughter) I mean that when the pain comes I forget the Divine and all my concentration goes to the pain. I can remember the Divine more when there is no pain.
Sri Aurobindo: But there are people who forget God when they are happy, and remember more in the midst of suffering.
Satyendra (To Dr. Manilal): Like the Sufis and the Bhaktas you should rejoice in the suffering and think that it is a message of the Beloved.
Nirodbaran: God may have given you suffering in order to help the growth of your soul.
Sri Aurobindo: The commentators on Shakespeare say that when he was in trouble he wrote the great tragedies.
Dr. Manilal: It is like Nero fiddling when Rome was burning.
Sri Aurobindo: That is a different matter. God may smile and say, “Suffering will do good to Manilal.” (Laughter)
Nirodbaran (to Dr. ManilaI): Is there no gospel of suffering in Jainism?
Purani: Yes, there is. Jainism says that suffering helps the soul to grow from a lower to a higher status and that suffering is the result of past Karma.
Dr. Manilal: That is Nighar. There are two kinds of suffering: Sakama (with desire) and Akama (without desire). Sakama is that which one imposes on oneself and Akama is what comes uninvited to one.
Purani: Fasting has a great place in Jainism.
Dr. Manilal: Mahavira used to fast for more than six months at a time. But I cannot fast at all. When not hungry, I can live on very little milk.
Sri Aurobindo: Americans fast for forty days. Goethe used to take only one meal a day, but that meal was very big.
Dr. Manilal: How shall I get rid of this pain in the gall-bladder, Sir?
Nirodbaran: Concentrate on your Self and forget the pain.
Dr. Manilal: I can’t forget it. If I try, it says, “I am, I am.” (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Can’t you separate yourself from the body? You should try to think you are not the body, you are not the mind. Then you won’t suffer.
Dr. Manilal: No, Sir, I can’t separate myself. I try to keep quiet and detached, but when the pain comes, I forget everything. I want to be so strong that nothing will shake me. (As Dr. Manilal said this, he gave Satyendra a blow from behind. Satyendra started smiling.)
Nirodbaran: He is emphasising his strength by a blow on Satyen’s back.
Dr. Manilal: I am not beating Satyen.
Purani: Nobody beats him.
Sri Aurobindo: Nobody can beat anybody.
Dr. Manilal: It is like the story about Alexander, Sir. Alexander wanted to take away an Indian Sadhu with him. The Sadhu refused. Alexander threatened him with punishment of death. The Sadhu replied, “You have never uttered a greater lie in your life.” (Laughter) I believe, Sir, that you can take any poison without any harm. You seemed to have said this to somebody, not to me.
Sri Aurobindo: Nor to anybody else. (After a pause) But such a thing is possible. There are people who can do that. They have to do some Kriya after taking the poison. Also, one can accustom oneself to poison by taking it in small quantities. You know the story of Mithridates, the great enemy of the Romans. He accustomed himself to all poisons. There was no poison that could kill him. But when he was in danger of being caught by the Romans, he couldn’t kill himself by taking poison. He had to ask somebody to slay him.
Evening
Satyendra: You have said, Sir, in The Life Divine that only the absolute idealist can persist in this path. How, then, can ordinary mortals like us …
Sri Aurobindo (smiling): It is not for ordinary mortals.
Satyendra: Even the Vedantic realisation is too high, they say, for the Kaliyuga – and your path is so much longer.
Sri Aurobindo: Not so much a longer path as a new path – one that has not been trod before by others.
Satyendra: Will it be easier for those to come, just because we are treading it?
Sri Aurobindo (smiling): Naturally.
Nirodbaran (to Satyendra): But you will have the glory of having been a pioneer.
Satyendra: I don’t want to be a pioneer. I am satisfied with much less. (To Sri Aurobindo) Thinking of your Yoga, Sir, I feel like Arjuna when he laid down his bow after seeing the two vast armies on the battlefield ready to slaughter each other, and said to Krishna, “I am not able to stand and my mind seems to be whirling.”
Nirodbaran: Perhaps you have come as Arjuna in this new play of Krishna.
Satyendra: For you it is all right. You have begun with Intuition on the way to Supermind.
Sri Aurobindo (referring to Nirod’s famous intuition about brinjal): From Brinjal to Supermind? (Laughter)
Satyendra: I am satisfied with the realisation of the Self. Supermind can be left to Manilal.
Nirodbaran: Intuition is the first step to Supermind, isn’t it?
Sri Aurobindo: First step?
Nirodbaran: When Manilal asked you what Vivekananda had taught you during your inner contact with him in jail, you replied that he had taught you about Intuition as a first step to Supermind.
Sri Aurobindo: I may have said something like that, but I didn’t mean it as you understand it. What I meant is that one can get a glimpse of Supermind from the Intuition level, and such a glimpse was my first step.
Purani (After a while): I believe Nirodbaran feels a little dull tonight for want of discussion of Jainism.
Sri Aurobindo: How?
Purani: Because of Dr. Manilal’s departure.
Sri Aurobindo: Is all that Manilal says about Jainism correct?
Satyendra: He seems to have learnt the popular side more than the philosophic.
Sri Aurobindo: Their Tirthankaras seem to have tremendous powers which even the Avatars don’t have. The Avatars have to fight all the way with Rakshasas like Ravana.
Satyendra: Don’t the Avatars come for particular purposes and are they not concerned only with them, so that their field of action is limited?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes.
Satyendra: The Tirthankaras appear to be somewhat like Avatars, because a Tirthankara does not allow knowledge to get lost.
Sri Aurobindo: Can anybody become a Tirthankara?
Satyendra: According to Manilal, no.
Purani: No, they can be siddhas. Siddhas are something like gods, and there are any number of them, whereas the Tirthankaras are only twenty-four in a cycle.
Nirodbaran: The question is how the Tirthankaras radiate their influence.
Purani: On that we are not very clear. Satyendra was saying that something goes out from their aura that makes all get the influence and lose their enmity or their lower nature.
Satyendra: What comes from their aura is not the same as what Sri Aurobindo has said about something imparted directly by the Guru.
Purani: They say that wherever a Tirthankara stands, everybody receives according to his language, opening, etc., and all animals forget their nature, just as when the Mother stands in meditation each receives according to his mode of being.
Sri Aurobindo: That is a different matter. Each one will of course receive in his own language. An Englishman won’t receive in Bengali or Gujarati. That depends on the response of the mind, the vital being or whatever it may be. About Ahimsa (non-violence), animals feel if a person is really non-violent or not and they approach a person according to that feeling. But what I want to know is whether Jainism accepts any intermediary such as a Guru who helps a disciple in the spiritual path. There are religions like Buddhism which don’t believe in such things. Buddhism strongly says that one has to rely on one’s own effort. Nobody can help one. By the teachings or precepts or instructions, the path can be shown – that’s all – but no other direct and active help can be given. Is that the case in Jainism too?
Purani: Yes. They give the example of a cow and grass. If the grass is supplied, the cow has to manufacture its own milk from it by its own endeavour. Nobody can help the cow in that process. Thirthankaras are only Nimittas (instruments).
Nirodbaran: Surendra Mohan Ghose said to Sahana that there was a rumour in Calcutta that she had been given the Building Service work as a punishment for her egoism as a singer.
Sri Aurobindo (laughing): Then Nishikanto has been given cooking work as a punishment for his being a poet? And isn’t Sahana singing every day now?
Nirodbaran: They must have come to their conclusion at the time when she had stopped her music for a while.
Sri Aurobindo: And now is her egoism gone since she is singing as well as doing Building Service work?
Nirodbaran: Sisir says that one of the reasons for A’s anger against the Ashram is Dilip, since he attacks people for their criticism of his poetry. A says, “Why doesn’t Sri Aurobindo say anything?”
Sri Aurobindo: How is that? He can express his own views.