Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
15 June 1940
Purani: Haradhan is convinced that France will win.
Nirodbaran: Is he sending spiritual force?
Purani: Of course he is!
Sri Aurobindo: France might win after great suffering but she is likely to be overrun before that.
Nirodbaran: Already they are being chased by Germany. The Germans have bombed the new centre of government.
Sri Aurobindo: They must have got the information from the communists. It is like Norway.
Purani: Yes, there the Germans knew the exact place where the Government had shifted.
Nirodbaran: What has happened to the communist prisoners now? Have they been released?
Sri Aurobindo: Why? They are in Brittany. I hope they will be sent to French Guiana before anything happens. (Laughter. Looking at Purani) By the way, Hitler has said that he will enter Paris on the 15th. He may have meant the army.
Nirodbaran: By Jove, how remarkably precise!
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he is getting remarkable guidance from his Asura. Sometimes the Asuras have an extraordinary foresight that comes true with perfect precision both on the vital and subtle-physical planes, just like that which is possible on the spiritual planes. Of course they are not always infallible. But Hitler committed only one mistake: when attacking Poland he thought that the Allies wouldn’t intervene. (smiling) Napoleon did not have such guidance.
Nirodbaran: Had Hitler’s Asura anything to do with your accident?
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think so.
Nirodbaran: Do the Asuras know about their own destruction?
Sri Aurobindo: No.
Nirodbaran: That’s like the astrologers who know of others’ death but not their own.
Sri Aurobindo: No, some know of their own death also. Kasherao’s father knew the exact day to the minute. He was an astrologer. Did I tell you the story of Louis XI and his astrologer? He received an invitation from Charles of Burgundy. Louis consulted his astrologer whether he should go or not. The astrologer said, “It is quite safe, you can go.” And Louis was imprisoned! From the prison Louis arranged to have his astrologer murdered. But the astrologer came to know of the plot from the hangman. The plot was that when the astrologer was about to leave after seeing the king in the prison, the king would say, “Peace be with you, peace be with you,” which would be the signal to kill him. So when the astrologer came the king asked him, “By the way, do you know the hour of your death?” He replied, “Exactly twenty-four hours before your death.” The king got the fright of his life and accompanied him all along the way to see that he might be quite safe. (Laughter) This story is told by Scott in Quentin Durward. But it turned out later on that the king actually died twenty-four hours after the astrologer. Many other stories are there where the hour of death was precisely known.
Nirodbaran: Turkey is on the point of taking grave decisions. Is it about joining the war?
Sri Aurobindo: Probably. She is bound by a treaty with the Allies to do so when war breaks out in the Mediterranean.
Nirodbaran: That means the involvement of the Balkan powers.
Sri Aurobindo: She is consulting them.
Nirodbaran: Russia seems to be frightened by Germany’s success and is taking many precautions in the Balkans and the Baltic.
Sri Aurobindo: Precautions won’t help if Hitler is triumphant. (After a while to Purani) Do you know if there are still any people with political tendencies in the Maharshi’s Ashram? Once it had revolutionaries like Ganapati Shastri.
Purani: I don’t know but I don’t think there are any such people now. Somebody in the Maharshi’s Ashram holds the view that knowledge and power are quite separate aspects of the Divine. The one is dissociated and quite distinct from the other. That is, knowledge won’t have power; they don’t go together.
Sri Aurobindo: Won’t have?
Purani: Or need not have.
Sri Aurobindo: That is another matter.
Satyendra: We have seen this in so many people who have knowledge but no power. One who may have experience or knowledge of Sat need not know of Chit and thus have no power, unless it is of Chit-rupa.
Sri Aurobindo: If knowledge gave power all intellectuals would have power, and really they have none. (Laughter)
Purani: I am not talking of …
Sri Aurobindo: I know, I know. (laughing) I am talking of principles. Even the knowledge of Chit does not necessarily give power. The power may be there but it may not manifest; it may remain quiescent. The Spirit is not impotent but it may remain static and quiescent. It depends on the line one follows, whether one leans on the witness side or the dynamic side. On the other hand there are many spiritual people who have little knowledge but much power.
Purani: Olaf is angry with Nolini because Nolini did not tell him at first that he had to accept the Mother.
Sri Aurobindo: He did not come here as a disciple but only as a visitor. Even then he has said that if he had known about the discipline of the Ashram, he would have left it at once. Anyway, I would like to see him go as soon as possible.
Purani: In the Maharshi he has found his right Guru, he says. I hope he will be able to stay half the time there. Premanand was waiting for Sarojini Naidu’s visit to the Library. Pujalal remarked, “Keep both parts of the door open!” Premanand did not understand the joke, so I said, “She may not be able to pass through only one open part of the door!” (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: It would have been awkward if she came and got stuck and then the other part of the door had to be opened. In the photographs she looks hardly human. How has she become so fat? Eats much? Of course, some people have the tendency to grow fat in spite of sparse meals. (Looking at Nirodbaran) Is it due to glands?
Nirodbaran: In women sometimes the change of life brings it in, because of the action of the glands.
Satyendra: Yes, women get fat after menopause.
Purani: Not all women.
Sri Aurobindo: Otherwise the world would be full of fat women. Suvrata1 is tolerable compared to Sarojini Naidu.
Purani: Oh yes, because she is taller too.
Nirodbaran: Sisir had a vision of the Mahakali aspect of the Mother in meditation as a sort of reply to his sorrow over the fall of Paris and he heard a voice saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.”
Purani: I had the perception of an angel praying to the Mother for Paris and the descent of peace over Paris.
Evening
Purani: I don’t know how to interpret Suvrata’s report to me that she heard on the radio that you have appealed to Roosevelt to intervene on behalf of the Allies. She heard your name clearly. (Laughter) I don’t see what the relation between you and Roosevelt is.
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, I know. It may be because of Nishtha2. That may be the relation. (Laughter)
Purani: Later on it struck me that it may be Sailen Ghose who might have appealed.
Sri Aurobindo: I see!
1 Madame Yvonne R. Gaebele.
2 An American disciple, the daughter of Woodrow Wilson.