Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
11 April 1940
Sri Aurobindo (suddenly to Nirodbaran): What is all this that Dilip writes about sadhaks siding with Meghnad Saha against X in the controversy between the two? And what is this discussion about Aldous Huxley?
Nirodbaran: It seems that in his controversy with Saha, X made a mistake, for which he got a licking from Saha. Some sadhaks were glad about X’s defeat. At this, two other sadhaks were very puzzled. They couldn’t understand how anybody could feel elated at one’s own people being beaten. Y said that he hadn’t seen such feelings even at Shantiniketan.
Sri Aurobindo: That may be true, but what was the point at issue?
Nirodbaran: I don’t know. I haven’t read the writings.
Purani: I believe it was the philosophic interpretation of the theory of relativity and the change that is coming in among scientists – for instance, Jeans and Eddington.
Sri Aurobindo: But scientists don’t recognise any metaphysics – except perhaps some scientists in America. On the Continent no recognition is given to the metaphysical views of Jeans or Eddington. The scientists there say that Science is concerned only with explaining the processes of the universe; as for the rest, it is not their business. You can no more say that Science is turning towards metaphysics from Jeans’ example than that fiction is becoming yogic from Huxley’s.
Nirodbaran: The point about Huxley seems as follows: Y told Z that Huxley had undergone a great change, becoming a Yogi and having spiritual experience. Z denied it, saying, “What is there of Yoga here? It is all mental.” Then Y spoke of Huxley’s experience of peace as described in Eyeless in Gaza. This again was contradicted by Z. Y asked him, “But have you read the description? Have you gone through Huxley’s latest books?” Z replied, “No.” At this, Y said, “How then can you speak like that?” Y was pained that without reading about the man Z had passed judgment. Z does not believe that there can be any change in Huxley.
Sri Aurobindo: Why? Just because a man has once been one way, can there be no change in him?
Nirodbaran: Y told him what you had said to me – that Huxley might have had some experience in the mind. To this, Z replied, “People interpret in their own way what Sri Aurobindo says.”
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t remember what exactly I said. It may have been to the effect that Huxley had some mental experience.
Nirodbaran: But mental experience is quite different from spiritual, isn’t it?
Sri Aurobindo: No, not quite different. For it is not something obtained by mental discussion or understanding. It is an experience of the Truth in the mind.
Purani: To go back to your statement about the change in Science, that we are fifty years behind Europe and that, except for the Russian Communists and perhaps a few scientists elsewhere, Science does not hold its old position any more. I think even the Russian Communists may be getting disillusioned with the old position.
Nirodbaran: Yes, but not our Indian Communists. Possibly because they are Communists as a fashion only. As Suhrawardy says, they call themselves Communists but build fine houses in Ballygunj.
Sri Aurobindo: That is because real Communism hasn’t come here yet. Their standpoint may be: “It is better that we Communists rather than non-Communists should have fine houses.” (Laughter)
Afternoon
Dilip had sent Sri Aurobindo an extract from Huxley describing his experience of peace. As soon as the door opened, Sri Aurobindo started to speak.
Sri Aurobindo (to Nirodbaran): You have to take this extract back to Dilip and tell him I have read it. Say that it is a big yogic experience – a psycho-spiritual one. It shows a going through the psychic down into the vital being and finding there the Unitarian principle, the principle of oneness with everybody. Huxley speaks of “dark peace” because it is down below that he goes and from there opens to the Light above. All the details are quite recognisable, and they cannot be a mental construction. This experience must have changed his life.
Evening
Sri Aurobindo saw in the afternoon that Nirodbaran was reading the extract from Huxley.
Sri Aurobindo: Have you read it? Remarkable and significant, isn’t it?
Nirodbaran: Yes, very much so – a fine description.
Sri Aurobindo: It is no poor mental imagination at work here.
Purani: Is the extract from Ends and Means?
Sri Aurobindo: No, it is from the last chapter of Eyeless in Gaza.
Purani: In Ends and Means he more or less describes the remedy for the present troubles of the world, and speaks of non-violence as a means.
Sri Aurobindo: He also discusses the future of the world and speaks of Mohenjodaro and says that the people of those ruins must have been doing Yoga.
Nirodbaran: Huxley has a powerful self-expression.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he has a remarkable style and a subtle and plastic mind. He must have done Yoga for some time to get that experience.
Nirodbaran: I wonder how from being a cynic and atheist he got converted to this.
Sri Aurobindo: Cynicism and atheism were the inheritance of the age. Even then he was dissatisfied with world conditions and there was some psychic aspiration for better things.
Nirodbaran: Joad seems to be veering round again.
Sri Aurobindo: He is floating. He had come to a spiritual standpoint but he gave it up, he said, owing to the hard knocks of the philosophers. Now he sees that it can be upheld; so he is changing.
Nirodbaran: Einstein seems to have said that cosmic religious feeling is an incitement to Science.
Sri Aurobindo: I see. But what does he mean by “cosmic religious feeling”? If Einstein could use such words, Meghnad Saha can’t say that he is not a scientist. Or perhaps he will say that Einstein is only giving his personal views.
Nirodbaran: By the way, who are the Chaldeans?
Sri Aurobindo: They are the ancient Babylonians who came to be known as Sumerians. In the places they occupied, archaeologists have found several things like those at Mohenjodaro.