Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

26 February 1940

Nirodbaran: The Princess of Gauripur, whenever she looks at the Mother, finds tears flowing from her eyes. She can’t look at the Mother!

Sri Aurobindo (smiling): She can look at her but can’t see her.

Nirodbaran: She doesn’t know why the tears come. She can’t analyse her feelings.

Sri Aurobindo: They are psychic tears. Her psychic being is behind the veil but sufficiently near the surface.

Nirodbaran: She says she is seeking refuge, inner refuge.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course.

Nirodbaran: But she doesn’t know where to get it. Her family life is in a way quite happy. She is the pet of the family. Her husband loves her very much but she feels guilty that she cannot give him any response.

Sri Aurobindo: These things can’t be helped.

Nirodbaran: Family life doesn’t appeal to her. When her mother was dying, she prayed to God to spare her but God didn’t listen, so she thought, “If God doesn’t listen, what is the use of calling him?” She said, “If he does everything according to his own will, I have no use for God.” So she became indifferent.

Sri Aurobindo: She wanted God to act according to her will and not his own? (Laughter)

Purani: A wanted to know what you thought of his guru, S. He was telling me that S once heard a voice: “A needs help.” At that time A was passing through some difficulty. S came to him and told him about the voice. A admitted his difficulty but said it would get all right. Some time later A came by a copy of your Essays on the Gita and when he was reading it he was possessed by some power and he felt that you alone could give him guidance. By the time S came to give him the Rama Mantra which had been given to him by somebody, A had already got the same Mantra automatically; so there was no question of taking it again. Because of this connection with S, A has an attachment to him and so he has requested you to let S have your darshan. S has come here both from curiosity and because of A. He was telling A that when he was coming for the Darshan he heard a voice which was your voice, saying to him, “You are a special personality and you are welcome.” He hasn’t spoken of his impression of you or the Mother or of his own feelings; he praised only the external side of the Ashram. So I thought that to come all the way merely to hear that voice was a rather poor result. (Sri Aurobindo smiled when he heard about the voice.)

Nirodbaran: He didn’t come in order to hear that voice.

Satyendra: But it may have a far-reaching result for him. (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: If he is a special personality, he need not have come all the way here to know that. (Laughter)

Satyendra: That special personality was hiding there, Sir, and it came out here. (Laughter)

Purani: He hears many voices and attaches great importance to them. And because he has got some correct guidance at times from such voices he takes them as authentic. Just before the Hindu-Muslim riot in Lahore, he heard a voice predicting that a great calamity would befall him but that he would in the end be all right. Actually he got stabbed in the back. The voice told him not to be perturbed and he became well soon.

Sri Aurobindo: There are many kinds of voices. Some are of greater beings who have more knowledge than human beings. Some voices come from one’s own mental, vital and physical planes. And then there are voices of the inner being which are very difficult to distinguish.

Purani: In external affairs too he is guided by his voices, for example, in connection with changing houses. He gets warnings about accidents also.

Sri Aurobindo: Such voices are good for the external life and they can be beneficial but they don’t carry one far in the inner life.

Purani: And this voice about special personality? I can’t believe that at all. He must have wanted to hear such a voice.

Sri Aurobindo: Wish-fulfilment? (Laughter)

Satyendra: The voices sometimes want to mock him perhaps. (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: The man has force and a great ambition but he has not gone very deep. That was the Mother’s impression.

Purani: When V went back from here S asked him to take initiation from him. V refused, saying, “I have had my initiation.”

Sri Aurobindo: S has the ambition to be a Guru.

Purani: It’s very strange he didn’t feel anything else here, while Ganapati who is also not a disciple felt a higher consciousness here.

Sri Aurobindo: Ganapati had considerable spiritual experience. S didn’t appear to have gone very deep. Does he know the source of his voices?

Purani: He says that they come from the Overmind.

Satyendra: That is your term, Sir.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. (Laughter)

Purani: According to S he goes to the Truth above the mind and hears the voices.

Sri Aurobindo: From the Truth-Consciousness? (Laughter)

Purani: Yes. By Overmind he means anything above the mind. He has many influential disciples and many rich persons follow him.

Satyendra: It is all right if he only gives them Rama-nama and stops there.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, otherwise, if they go by voices, they will land themselves in difficulties.

Satyendra: I was the first to come in contact with him, Sir. He had some tooth-trouble and he came to me. I may have passed something to him! Anyway, he seems to be in fine health and is a personality.

Sri Aurobindo: He is a fine-looking man.

Purani: A was anxious to know what your impression of him was, and also of his spiritual destiny. He feels that S is stuck. But can’t he be helped out?

Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to help people who are self-satisfied with their condition, and, unless he gets rid of his ambition, further advance may be difficult.

Purani: When somebody said to him that the work here is different from that outside, he answered, “This is said to create faith in the followers. Every great man says about whatever work he is doing that it is divine. Gandhi calls his Harijan work divine work.”

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? The Divine has several works.

Satyendra (after some time): I find that you are the first to distinguish the planes above the mind.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? I have met many Sannyasins who spoke to me about them. They call these planes Bhumis. They didn’t give any names to them but they knew about them.