Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
15 September 1940
Sri Aurobindo (Addressing Purani): Have you mentioned yesterday’s points to Anilbaran? What does he say?
Purani: I have told him a few of them as there was not enough time. He is coming round and was especially impressed by the example of the machine.
Satyendra: All these questions don’t arise if one accepts Nirvana as the goal.
Sri Aurobindo (smiling): Yes.
Satyendra: After all the explanations the mystery remains the same.
Sri Aurobindo: Because Truth is supra-rational, hence it must be mysterious. Buddha in that way was most logical. He was concerned with how things started and got stuck together and how to unstick them and make oneself free. It is the Upanishad’s standpoint – psychological. Shankara bringing in Maya created the difficulty.
Satyendra: Isn’t there some difference between Buddha’s and Shankara’s ultimate goals?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Shankara speaks of the One and the One-in-Many. For Buddha there is no ultimate Self of all; each by his own effort attains separate liberation. Radhakrishnan is now trying to prove that Buddhism believes in the Self. But then illogicality will come in.
Satyendra: The Tibetan Buddhists say that Nirvana is a halfway house.
Sri Aurobindo: What is beyond?
Satyendra: That I didn’t find in Madame David-Néel’s book.
Sri Aurobindo: I met a Muslim scholar in Calcutta who said that Islam also has ascending planes of experience of the Divine.
Satyendra: Maybe a Sufi.
Sri Aurobindo: Bhaskarananda of Poona spoke to me of the same ascending planes.
(after some time) Germany is speaking of invasion of England but again says that invasion is not necessary. Their air attacks and submarine blockade will break down the English. (laughing) They are preparing their people in case the idea of invasion is given up.
Purani: Yes, it must be that.
Sri Aurobindo: In the meantime the R.A.F. is battering the French coast and Germany too.
Purani: I don’t know how far an invasion will be successful.
Sri Aurobindo: Now it will be difficult. Hitler had his chance after the fall of France. If he had attacked at once it would have been difficult for England to resist. Hitler really missed the bus. Now England is equally strong in air and navy. Only on land, if they come to grips, it has to be seen what the outcome will be.
Purani: Hitler will have to pay a heavy toll for an invasion.
Sri Aurobindo: He doesn’t care about that. What he is afraid of is failure.
Satyendra: It seems there are eight hundred thousand Italians in Egypt.
Sri Aurobindo: Eight hundred thousand?
Satyendra: So the Indian Express says.
Purani: It must be eighty thousand or so.
Sri Aurobindo: Eight thousand!
Purani: The other French colonies are now moving towards De Gaulle.
Sri Aurobindo: How? (Laughter)
Purani: That is what somebody writes in the Indian Express …
Satyendra: Can we believe it?
Champaklal: That is why he didn’t name the Indian Express before!
Purani: No, but they say there is a great tension in Syria.
Evening
Satyendra: The Indian Express holds the opinion that the Congress should have accepted the Viceroy’s extension of Council and then fought for more.
Sri Aurobindo: That would obviously have been a practical step. A practical politician like Tilak would have done that, accepted half a loaf and fought for the rest. If you won’t accept any compromise, then the only alternative would be to prepare for a revolution.
Satyendra: Nehru is speaking bitterly against the Government policy and saying that Congress can’t remain in such inactivity for long.
Sri Aurobindo: He is the Kerensky-type. Any resumption of Satyagraha when England is being threatened with invasion would be serious. Besides, talk of independence is absurd. England won’t concede that, especially if after that you declare yourself neutral. When the British Government offered Dominion Status of the Westminster variety …
Nirodbaran: That was as good as independence and, as in the case of Ireland, the British Government could not force India to join the war.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and Egypt too. Suppose today Hertzog gets a majority and tries to make peace with Hitler; England can’t do anything about it. It can only create a split separating Natal and Cape Town.
Nirodbaran: Nolini Sen is asking whether, after the ego-sense has disappeared, any selective action can remain.
Sri Aurobindo: After the disappearance of the ego-sense ego-movements remain and they go on, the habitual movements of the old Prakriti, but one is not bound by it as in the Ignorance.
Satyendra: Two liberated souls won’t act in the same way. They will have some selective action.
Sri Aurobindo: In the old Yogas one used to leave the nature-part to act in its own way, thinking that it would fall off with the falling of the body. They would either allow the Cosmic Force to act on their nature so that the Bhavas of Bala, Unmatta, etc. would result, or they would open to the Cosmic Force with a controlling influence. Or it would be the nature of their own being that would go on with its movements to exhaust the Karma.
Satyendra: Unless after liberation one becomes entirely passive as did Ramakrishna …
Sri Aurobindo: Even Ramakrishna used to pray, “Give me whatever you like but not lust.” So he kept a preference there. Among the saints, there is the egoism of the Bhakta. Besides, one may say that the ego-sense has gone, while in fact it may be there. We have seen a number of cases like that where people have claimed that their egos had disappeared.
Nirodbaran: In the other state, where there is no ego-sense or ego-movement, can’t there be selective action still?
Satyendra: That is the supramental state; before Supermind it is not possible.
Sri Aurobindo: One can have a reflection of it. But that is a very difficult state. There the individual becomes as it were a divine personality. He acts and lives in the Divine Presence. There is no longer any selective action.