Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

6 May 1940

The Prabuddha Bharata gave a summary of The Life Divine, chapter by chapter.

Sri Aurobindo (after reading the summary): It is a mess – ideas are strung together without any connection. All very scrappy and loose!

Purani: Nolini also said something similar. How can anyone give a summary in such a short space?

Satyendra: There may be people who will find something in it. This headmaster’s booklet is being asked for by some friends of mine. Have you read it, Nirod?

Nirodbaran: No, thank you.

Sri Aurobindo: Which book?

Nirodbaran: The book on your Yoga, which is nothing but a heap of references. Radhananda also has written a book on your Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: Not my Yoga, but all Yogas.

Nirodbaran: But the title is about your Yoga.

Now the talk turned on K.

Satyendra: He has grown very thin.

Sri Aurobindo: By retirement one may get either Brahman or lose one’s head.

Satyendra: But it may do good in some way.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if one knows the way.

Satyendra: Radhananda is also in retirement.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but with the Mother’s sanction. Besides, he knows the way. He has done it many times.

Purani: However, he talks with people whenever necessary and he is quite normal in his behaviour. Only when I had to take him to the French police station last time, he got a shock of surprise at everything. Looking at the French flag he remarked, “Why is that here? Why isn’t it the Congress flag?”

Sri Aurobindo: He thought the Congress has established Swaraj already? (Laughter)

Champaklal: But he exaggerates things and always talks about himself.

Satyendra: People in retirement usually do that.

Champaklal: He had a bunch of bananas. He said they were for you, but he ate them all.

Sri Aurobindo: He has a strong imagination. Perhaps he meant that when he ate the bananas, I ate them and that when he eats I eat. (Laughter)

Satyendra: This K, when asked by somebody why he took to retirement last time, said, “Some Power and Will behind told me to do so and that Will is still there behind.”

Sri Aurobindo: That is the danger. No one knows where that Will will land him.

Purani: He seems to have or have had an inferiority complex: he believes that people don’t respect him and that he has no personality, etc. This led him to the resolve to pass the M.A.

Sri Aurobindo: The M.A. will give him personality? That shows what he wants. It is because people seek personal power that retirement becomes dangerous.

Evening

Nirodbaran: Lloyd George has used terms like yours about the war management!

Sri Aurobindo (laughing): Yes, his speech is very truculent. This Chamberlain does not seem to want anybody with individuality around him. In place of Hore-Belisha he has put a man who knows how to do only routine work.

Nirodbaran: Our X is fighting on many fronts while the British are fighting only on two fronts.

Sri Aurobindo: How?

Nirodbaran: He says he has to fight Imperialism, the High Command, the Muslim Ministry, Ad Hoc committees, the Hindu Sabha and the reactionary press!

Satyendra: About the Hindu Sabha leaders he says, “Where were they when we were in prison? Let them come out from the high courts and fight.”

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t see why they should. They haven’t, like him, given an ultimatum to the British Government.

Purani: “And where was he when Savarkar and Parmanand were in the Andamans?”, the Hindu Sabha will say.