Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
3 August 1940
To a letter of Dilip’s regarding the present world condition, Krishnaprem wrote a reply which was read by Sri Aurobindo.
Satyendra: Krishnaprem quotes the Gita’s, “By Me these have been slain” and says, “The war has already been fought and won,” by which he means action in the subtle worlds.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course, it is there that things first happen. They are decided in the higher worlds before they are projected here.
Nirodbaran: So what happens here will be the result of the decisions and actions above?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but what happens here doesn’t always take place exactly in the same way. There are variations, and the decisions also can be changed. When there is a struggle of forces it is always possible to change the balance of forces and thus alter the decision. But there can be variations only in what has been decided by the Supreme Vision.
For instance, there are forces which are trying to destroy the British and their Empire – forces above and here in this world – I mean the inner forces. I myself wished for the Empire’s destruction but at that time I didn’t know certain other forces would arise. These forces are working for the evolution of a New World Order which is bound to come. But for this new arrangement the British Empire need not be destroyed. It can be achieved in quite a different manner by a change in the balance of different forces, more quietly and without much destruction. Were it not for Hitler I wouldn’t have cared whether the British Empire remained or went down. Now the question is whether this New Order is to come after much suffering and destruction or with as little suffering as possible. The destruction of England would mean the victory of Hitler and in that case, perhaps after a great deal of suffering and through various difficult reactions on the part of men to Hitlerite oppression, the New Order will come or it may not come at all or come only after Pralaya! Of course the issue has been decided by the Divine Vision and there can be no change in that. But nobody knows what it is.
Krishnaprem puts it in a rather absolute way which I don’t think is true. He doesn’t give sufficient importance to the material world. If everything is fixed and whatever happens is, as he says, according to the decisions above, then this world would be only an illusion. He says that by a psychic change, the New World Order can be brought about. Psychic change is useful only for much higher spiritual purposes. Even so, it is possible only in a small number of people, and how can that alter the world? Besides, for changing the World Order the psychic change is not necessary, it can be done by a change in the balance of forces.
Nirodbaran: That balance will follow by the psychic change?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but is the psychic change possible for the whole world? By psychic I suppose he means the mental and vital changes. I don’t know how even these are to come about if Hitler wins and if everybody is busy taking refuge in cowardice and trying to save their own skin.
Nirodbaran: You said that what is decided above takes place here with a certain variation. Is that variation the process and method of working things out?
Sri Aurobindo: No, even the whole decision may be changed, as I said.
Nirodbaran: Can the Vision of the Supreme be different from the decision of these higher worlds?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? There can be a variation of the play of forces in the different planes. The play of forces may appear as if the destiny were in favour of one or another group of forces and that they were the makers of destiny. There are different layers of destiny, so to say. When one is born one comes with a physical destiny, then there is the vital and mental destiny. By bringing in vital and mental forces the physical destiny can be changed. It is the mental destiny that is difficult to change. The astrologers are usually concerned with the physical destiny. They don’t see the others and hence make mistakes because they look at the physical graph of things. Only the Supreme Vision can’t be changed.
Nirodbaran: What is the Supreme Vision?
Sri Aurobindo: Nobody knows.
Nirodbaran: Not nobody; you must know, and as you said just now the New World Order is bound to come, that must be the Supreme Vision?
Purani: But at present before the Supreme has a chance there are many others who are already busy with their own idea of the New World.
Nirodbaran: To the supramental vision the Supreme Vision must be known.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but I haven’t yet become the Supermind and no one knows whether the Supermind will descend1.
Nirodbaran: How is that? You have already said it is bound to descend.
Sri Aurobindo (laughing): But I didn’t fix a date – whether it will be tomorrow or not.
Nirodbaran: The Mother seems to have said that the Divine Descent will take place when everything will be dark with not a ray of hope anywhere.
Sri Aurobindo: That was the ancient prophecy she repeated.
Purani: I suppose the world is sufficiently dark already. England alone stands in the way of Hitler’s triumph.
Sri Aurobindo: Have you not read the Mother’s prayer this year2?
Nirodbaran: I have.
Sri Aurobindo: Those who received it in France are already realising what it means.
Evening
Nirodbaran: I couldn’t quite follow Krishnaprem when he said that this war is not a real war. His words are: “It is the troubled wake of a ship that has passed, the trail of a snail, the dead ash of a forest fire,” etc.
Sri Aurobindo: He means the psychic past as he makes clear afterwards. All Karma that has been done in the past has passed into the inner worlds. What is here now is only the result of it. It is a one-sided view of the matter. Of course he takes the psychic in another sense than ours as he speaks of the world-psyche.
Purani: He takes his stand on the Buddhistic Karma theory.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. His contention that everything is fixed reduces this world to Maya. Even the result of the psychic past belonged once to the material world before it passed away into the subtle. And the material can always modify the result. He himself admits that in the case of Hitler he could reject the influence. So can others. It is the same as in Yoga. If you accept the influence, it will then try to throw its formations on you and come true in the material plane. There also the manner of acceptance makes a difference. If you accept it in one way, a certain result comes; you accept it in another, then there is a different result.
Nirodbaran: Krishnaprem says England has some soul-purpose to manifest.
Sri Aurobindo: He puts a big if and says that if it is so England will win.
Satyendra: Yes, he says that every drop of his blood says this. His English blood!
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in spite of his being a Sannyasi, his blood is English. At this moment all Englishmen will feel like that. Even Arjava who cavilled at the English would have felt so. By soul-purpose Krishnaprem means perhaps some higher values. But standing for higher values doesn’t make for victory. Look at Poland and Czechoslovakia. Perhaps you may say Poland made many mistakes, but wasn’t Czechoslovakia absolutely blameless?
Satyendra: Japan has now openly declared her aim and policy toward Indo-China, the Dutch East Indies and the South Sea Islands.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but let China be settled first, though there is no sign of settling.
These Russians are the most brazen-faced people. Have you seen Molotov’s speech?
Purani: No.
Sri Aurobindo: He says America is trying to be imperialistic in the Western hemisphere. That is the move he sees behind the Pan-American conference (regarding the transfer of American territories to the Western Powers). And Russia is going to take steps against America and England’s illegal action in freezing the Baltic States’ finance. What can she do against America?
Nirodbaran: To these Russians everybody is imperialistic except themselves and their grabbing of the Baltic States is for self-protection! The world is not so foolish as to believe that.
Sri Aurobindo: That is meant for the communists who will believe everything from Russia.
1 What is perhaps meant – as we suspect from other pronouncements of Sri Aurobindo and from the Mother’s statements – is that bodily Sri Aurobindo had not yet become the Supermind. In other words, the final plenary stage of supramentalisation – the total transformation of the body by the Supermind’s descending power – had still not been reached.
2 The New Year message of 1940: “A year of silence and expectation … Let us find, O Lord, our entire support in Thy Grace alone.”