Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
4 March 1940
Nirodbaran: How far can withdrawal be useful in sadhana?
Sri Aurobindo: Mere withdrawal is not enough. A man may separate himself from the contacts of the world but it doesn’t mean that all his desires and hankerings have ceased. If you simply withdraw without throwing away the seeds of attachment and don’t replace the ordinary by the spiritual consciousness, the problem remains unsolved. If you permit the seeds to remain, they may keep quiescent for a time but as soon as circumstances present themselves they may come up. Withdrawal may lead to a neutral state but that is not our Yoga. We want spiritual dynamism as the source of action.
Nirodbaran: If one writes about metaphysics or philosophy with a spiritual attitude the spiritual consciousness must be there.
Sri Aurobindo (laughing): Must it? Attitude is not enough. There must be an inner change too. Of course if one wrote from his personal experience and vision it would be different. But remaining withdrawn need not lift one into the spiritual consciousness: one may very well be in the mental consciousness. Philosophical writings are of the mental plane.
Nirodbaran: Calm and peace may be there behind.
Sri Aurobindo: That is not sufficient. There must be the spiritual dynamism too, which would be projected into all the activities.
Satyendra: There are many people who have peace or have experienced a descent of peace into them – solid peace which is the peace of Brahman. (To Nirodbaran) You had it yourself.
Nirodbaran: No, I didn’t.
Sri Aurobindo: He is indignantly denying it.
Satyendra: At least the experience of light and force.
Nirodbaran: Not of light.
Satyendra: He is speaking about his own problem, Sir. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: His own problem? Is it to get to the Brahman or to the psychic being?
Satyendra: His psychic has emerged.
Sri Aurobindo: Simple emergence will not do, the psychic must come forward.
Nirodbaran: I am a little surprised. When you said that there are five or six people in the Ashram who are living in the Brahmic consciousness, I thought X was one of them.
Sri Aurobindo: The Brahmic consciousness? I must have used the term loosely. Peace and calm is only a part of that consciousness and not the whole of it. One may be in contact with it or able to go into it at will or there may be the reflection of it in the mind and the vital. All that is partial. One has to go further, into the higher consciousness above the head and remain there.
Nirodbaran: Then I suppose one won’t be disturbed by these things.
Sri Aurobindo: Even if they come, one won’t be touched by them. They will be on the external surface, coming and passing away, or one may look upon them as if they belonged to somebody else. This Brahmic consciousness descends first into the mental and then the peace and calm remains in all the activities of the mind. The test comes when it descends into the vital. Unless the vital is purified, one may fail. This is called falling from yoga, yogabhrashta, as happened here in the early years. When the Brahmic consciousness descended into the vital, all broke down.
Nirodbaran: But one can keep it in the mind. It need not come into the vital.
Sri Aurobindo: No, but that would be the old Yoga, in which people want to depart from the world, living in their highest mental consciousness. But when they come into contact with the external world, they can’t keep that poise and silence. The seeds have not been thrown away: they have only remained dormant. There are also cases where people leave the vital to do as it likes. You know the story of the Vedantin and Ramakrishna. The Vedantin came to the Math with a concubine. Ramakrishna asked why he was moving about with her. He replied, “What does it matter? Everything is Maya.” “Then I spit on your Vedanta,” Ramakrishna exclaimed.
Satyendra: There are many Yogis with this consciousness, who live in the world and have contact with the world and yet are in that consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, one may exercise a sufficient mental control over the vital.
Nirodbaran: Then the question is: are they controlling the vital with the mind or has the Brahmic consciousness actually descended into the vital so that all their activities come from that higher dynamism.
Satyendra: Of course their activities are of a limited kind. They accept life only as much as is necessary for their purpose.
Nirodbaran: Then that is different from what we are speaking of.
Satyendra: Some people here say that such a realisation is imperfect.
Sri Aurobindo: Not imperfect. They mean incomplete, and that too from our standpoint. From the standpoint of others it is complete and perfect.
Satyendra: It is only you, Sir, who have brought in this idea of acceptance of life, descent and transformation. Others wanted liberation.
Sri Aurobindo: Liberation is all right. Everybody wants it and must have it.
Satyendra: Even the Vaishnavites and Tantrics wanted an extraterrestrial Goloka or an escape into Shiva. In the South, Ramalinga Swami had the idea of physical transformation and immortality.
Sri Aurobindo: In the South such an idea is more common.
Satyendra: I have also come in contact with Yogis who have lived up to an old age. One was about a hundred and two years old. He died a few years after I saw him and another died at eighty or so. That was also one or two years after my contact.
Sri Aurobindo: How is it that people who have lived up to an old age died soon after you have come in contact with them? Brahmanand who is said to have been more than two hundred, died soon after I met him and Sakharia Baba who was about eighty, died from dog-bite soon after my meeting him.
Satyendra: In reference to Dr. Becharlal’s mention of getting peace by looking at the moon, I may say that some people whom I know get peace by concentration on breath and by repeating a mantra – say, Ramanama – with each breath.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is quite a well-known method. Any kind of concentration that quiets the mind gives peace.
Satyendra (looking at N and smiling): If Nirod’s path had been of Brahmic consciousness he would have got it by now. His is of the psychic, perhaps.
Nirodbaran: I may get it unconsciously one day.
Sri Aurobindo: Unconsciously you may have got it already. (Laughter)
Nirodbaran: I couldn’t quite follow the first part of your answer about the replacement of the ordinary consciousness by the spiritual.
Sri Aurobindo: What I said was that withdrawal is not enough. The seeds of the ordinary life have also to be thrown away and one has to get the spiritual consciousness; one has to get to the true spiritual dynamism which is the source of right action.
Evening
Satyendra: There is a difference between the reflection of peace and the descent of peace, isn’t there?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. The descent of peace is more intense and powerful. Besides, the descent opens the way.
Satyendra: For other things?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and also for the ascent.
Satyendra: Another question: how can one be free from ego, have a complete release from ego?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by a complete release?
Satyendra: I mean that the sense of individuality will be lost.
Sri Aurobindo: When one gets into the cosmic or the transcendent, then the sense of ego is lost. Complete release is difficult unless the nature is transformed. When the sense of ego is lost, still the habits remain, the habits of the old nature. Of course, there is no I-ness. One is not egoistic in one’s actions, etc., but the habits persist. Even when everything is rejected from all the parts, the subconscious remains and it carries the stamp of all the old things. But one is not affected or touched by these habits. One can see that they are something exterior, not properly belonging to one’s being. People sometimes think and say that they have no ego, that their ego has disappeared. But others can see quite clearly the egoistic movements or actions which are not clear to themselves. Y, who is dead now, used to say the same thing, that he had no ego. The more we contradicted him and pointed out to him the truth, the more he would insist. He used to say that he was moved by some Force. That was true, but he was moved by it because it flattered his ego; if it had not flattered his ego, he wouldn’t have been moved. He was lacking in self-criticism. You can judge from one statement of his whether he had ego or not. He said, “I alone possess the Truth.” (Laughter) He was of a rajasic nature and it is very difficult with that nature to get rid of ego.
After this, Sri Aurobindo lay down and addressed Champaklal.
Sri Aurobindo: Champaklal, I am going to be Gandhi-like tomorrow. I will wear a dhoti high enough to make my walking easy and from tomorrow I will sit in the chair and write.
Champaklal: And what about going for bath?
Sri Aurobindo: Everything will come step by step. You don’t want me to be like Subhas Bose, do you? (Laughter)