Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

19 March 1940

As usual, Nirodbaran was meditating during Sri Aurobindo’s walk. He was in a sort of trance and so he did not know that the walking was over and the Mother had been waiting. After she left and Nirodbaran opened his eyes, Sri Aurobindo commented:

Sri Aurobindo (smiling): Deep trance?

Nirodbaran: Just at the last moment. But I don’t know if it can really be called a trance: something was happening inside.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a trance all the same: you know that you were somewhere but don’t know where. That alone is not enough; you must know where you went.

Nirodbaran: I tried again for intuition but as usual failed.

Satyendra (smiling): Nirod is trying the straight path through intuition.

Nirodbaran: To Supermind?

Satyendra: Yes.

Sri Aurobindo (laughing): I am afraid the straight path is the longest.

Nirodbaran: Satyendra tells me that instead of trying for the Supermind I should try to realise the Self first. The other is a very long path. (Sri Aurobindo began to smile.)

Satyendra: I was just going to say that again. You are trying for intuition but you don’t get it.

Nirodbaran: But I get the trance.

Sri Aurobindo: And it may lead to intuition.

Nirodbaran: My trance is only for a short time.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know? In a trance one has no sense of time.

Nirodbaran: Yes, but here I was quite awake and saw the time: 11.20 a.m., and I expected that you would stop walking at any moment. Then suddenly I went off and woke up at 11.25.

Satyendra: The word “trance” is rather vague; it doesn’t convey the real sense.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? In English that is the only word. “Trance” means the loss of outer consciousness and going within. One can’t say all that every time. Of course, as with Samadhi, there are many kinds of trances.

Nirodbaran: I read somewhere that a patient under chloroform was watching his own operation from above.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the rising of the consciousness out of the body. In hypnotism the subjects can know all their experiences and under chloroform they can do the same. During fever one can have vital experiences.

Nirodbaran: How? There is no loss of outer consciousness then.

Sri Aurobindo: The non-physical centres get excited. We can use our favourite term, “physical crust”, and say that it temporarily becomes thin and the centres just below it become active.

Purani: The English writer Hilaire Belloc has said that Germany will make a strong attempt to break through the Maginot Line. Once it breaks through it, France will be vulnerable.

Sri Aurobindo: It was German generals who were against any such attempt.

Purani: But after breaking Poland so easily they have got confidence.

Sri Aurobindo: But there was nothing to break in Poland. The Poles couldn’t offer any resistance to speak of.

Nirodbaran: Finland had some defence.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the Mannerheim Line, though nothing equal to the Maginot Line. The Russians could only make a dent.