Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
19 December 1940
Dr. Manilal: Gandhi has asked people to stop the Satyagraha during Christmas.
Sri Aurobindo: I see. The Government can also release the prisoners for that period.
Dr. Manilal: This may be Gandhi’s first step towards a compromise.
Sri Aurobindo: How?
Dr. Manilal: He may stop the movement and join hands with the Government.
Sri Aurobindo: Not likely. I don’t think he will.
After some time Dr. Manilal began again.
Dr. Manilal: There is then no such thing as Sarvajna, Sir! (Laughter)
After so much battering last night by all of us when he again raised the subject, we couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
Nirodbaran: Did you have good sleep last night? (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Is there no such thing, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know.
Dr. Manilal: How could the word come then? And what could be the meaning of it?
Sri Aurobindo: It is for them to say who have used the word.
Dr. Manilal: Have you not used it?
Sri Aurobindo: I may have.
Dr. Manilal: Are not those who have realisation Sarvajna?
Sri Aurobindo: What realisation?
Dr. Manilal: Nirvana, for instance.
Sri Aurobindo: Why should one who has separated himself from everything know everything?
Dr. Manilal: What then could be the meaning of Sarvajna, Sir?
Nirodbaran: As he has said, knowledge of everything.
Dr. Manilal: What everything?
Sri Aurobindo: Everything means everything.
Purani: Their meaning of Sarvajnatva is knowing all the facts of existence.
Sri Aurobindo: Even what Lloyd George had for his breakfast or knowledge of the share markets?
Then some other talk intervened. After this Dr. Manilal again resumed the topic.
Dr. Manilal: What are the meanings of the English words omniscient, omnipotent, etc.?
Sri Aurobindo: They are applied in English to God.
Dr. Manilal: We are being asked, “Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present.” What could be its meaning then?
Purani: It means the sadhak should feel as if he was before the Mother …
Dr. Manilal: Don’t mix up the meaning.
Sri Aurobindo: Does it mean that the Mother is expected to know what one is doing in the Working Committee?
Dr. Manilal: But doesn’t it mean that she can know?
Sri Aurobindo: That is a different thing. She can know if she wants to.
Dr. Manilal: She can know then everything?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by everything? She can know what is necessary for her to know. She may not know everything in her physical body, but in her universal entity she can know. Sarvajnatva doesn’t mean knowledge of everything. It usually means knowledge of the Trikala. When the Gita says Sarvavid, it doesn’t mean knowledge of everything.
Dr. Manilal: But Trikala would mean all time.
Sri Aurobindo: No, it may mean that one knows whatever it is necessary to know, what one is concerned with in the past, present or future; beyond that he is not concerned with anything.
If Mother wants to know a particular thing she has to concentrate. A yogi can know, but by a process of concentration. It is a power, not a state of preoccupied knowledge of things. But that doesn’t mean that he knows everything.
Nirodbaran: When one gets into contact with the subliminal self, one can know whatever he wants without any concentration.
Sri Aurobindo: How?
Nirodbaran: Isn’t the knowledge there automatic?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by automatic?
Nirodbaran: I mean without any need for concentration one knows a thing directly.
Dr. Manilal: He means, for instance, that when one sees a gold ring, he will know at once that it is made of gold.
Sri Aurobindo: But it may not be made of gold, it may only appear to be so.
Nirodbaran: No, what I mean – suppose I see Dr. Manilal, I will at once be able to know without any concentration that …
Sri Aurobindo: All about his life?
Nirodbaran: No, say, what he has been doing.
Dr. Manilal: He may know about the essential parts of my being or consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo: Why? It may be the most inessential part also.
Dr. Manilal: Or for instance, if he visits a patient, he will be able to diagnose without any exam that it is a case of T.B.
Sri Aurobindo: It may not be a case of T.B. The subliminal consciousness is not all true knowledge. It is mixed with Ignorance. Also you have to develop the capacity to know. Even if you know, the capacity of utilisation may be absent; or if you have the knowledge, you may cure in some cases but it doesn’t mean you will be successful in every case.
Nirodbaran: In other words, awareness of the subliminal may give knowledge but not power?
Sri Aurobindo: You have to develop the power. It doesn’t come by itself. Even then, as I said, you may not be successful in every case. As, for example, when Christ came to some parts of Judea, he couldn’t cure. He said, “These people have no faith.”
Dr. Manilal: Faith is then always a preliminary to cure?
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. Without faith one may also be cured. Many patients get cured without their knowing about the action of the Force. Lack of faith maybe an obstacle too, especially a positive disbelief.
Champaklal: Is one born with faith?
Sri Aurobindo: One is not born with it, but one may be born with a capacity for faith.
Evening
Dr. Manilal: The Sarvajnas – (Laughter. Sri Aurobindo exclaimed, “Oh!”) – are they concerned with only a higher plane of knowledge, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean?
Dr. Manilal: I mean, are they concerned only with the higher planes of existence, not our day-to-day mundane affairs?
Sri Aurobindo: By clairvoyance also one can see things. But what is your idea about Sarvajna? Who, according to you, is Sarvajna?
Dr. Manilal: Those who have realisation.
Sri Aurobindo: What realisation?
Dr. Manilal: Of Nirvana or Kaivalyajnan.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know what Kaivalyajnan is.
Dr. Manilal: One who has a solitary realisation of the One.
Sri Aurobindo: If he has a solitary realisation of the One, how can he be expected to have knowledge of the many?
Dr. Manilal: I mean the One and the many.
Sri Aurobindo: That is not solitary. That is a comprehensive realisation.
Dr. Manilal: I mean that; it was a wrong expression.
Sri Aurobindo: Not expression, but a wrong statement. Even if one has knowledge of the many, it doesn’t mean he has knowledge of the all. That is, he may know what he has to know or wants to know.
Dr. Manilal: Like Vyasa’s shadow-reader who could by studying someone’s shadow tell his past and present, etc.
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, he can say everything! (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Nirod says that by knowledge of the subliminal one can know everything. Isn’t it so, Nirod?
Nirodbaran: No, no, I must read the chapter again.
Sri Aurobindo: What I have said in The Life Divine is that when you get into contact with the subliminal self, you get into contact with a greater source of knowledge. But it is not all pure and correct knowledge because the subliminal is also mixed with Ignorance and it has many parts and depths.
Purani: What Nirod told me was something like this – by getting into the subliminal one can project into the physical whatever incident or event one comes in contact with.
Sri Aurobindo: That is too mechanical a way of seeing it. Besides, there are so many ways of approaching and knowing the subliminal – by penetrating, by enveloping, and then there are various depths of the subliminal.
Nirodbaran: What I wanted to say was that the knowledge of the subliminal gives one a direct automatic knowledge without any need for concentration. That is how I understood the matter.
Sri Aurobindo: You may or may not have to concentrate.
Dr. Manilal: How far is the supramental from the subliminal, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by “far”?
Dr. Manilal: How distant, I mean.
Sri Aurobindo: Ten thousand miles. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: There is a Jain story about two yogis who went to Mahavideha Kshetra and met Padmadevi and asked her how distant their realisation was. She said to one three years and to the other as many years as there are leaves on a tree. The latter began to dance …
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, that is Narada’s story of the Tapaswi and the Bhakta.
Champaklal: That story you told me when I asked you on my first visit, “Shall I have realisation?”
Sri Aurobindo: This is more pointed than the Jain story.
At this stage Dr. Manilal departed.
Nirodbaran: But a contact with the subliminal may give me direct knowledge – say, correct diagnosis of a case as T.B. without any exam.
Sri Aurobindo: It may, but it is only a knowledge. How will you have the power to cure? Besides, knowledge is not necessary for cure. Plenty of people can cure without knowledge.
Purani: That is what I too told him.
Nirodbaran: How does one get the power to cure?
Sri Aurobindo: By getting the Force.
Nirodbaran: But the subliminal may give me the knowledge of the right drug.
Sri Aurobindo: If you know the right drug, will it always cure a case? Are there no failures in spite of the right drug being administered? Are all diseases curable?
Nirodbaran: So says homoeopathy, that every disease has a right drug and is curable unless the organs are too damaged.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know about homoeopathy. But there are any number of instances where cases have failed in spite of the right treatment.
Nirodbaran: Did you say in the morning that the Mother may not know something in her body but know it in her universal entity?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is not necessary for her to know in her body. There are many people whom the Mother has not met or seen but who call the Mother and get help.
Champaklal: Yes, Mother told us such a story in the stores, that some people were calling her.
Purani: I remember distinctly her other story while sitting among us. Suddenly she went into a trance and returned after twenty minutes or so. Then she said to us that she had gone to the Himalayas to help a Yogi who had been calling her. We saw her actually shivering due to the cold of the Himalayas. Mother said she didn’t know who the Yogi was.
Sri Aurobindo: In her sleep Mother goes to various places. It doesn’t mean that she knows or remembers in her waking moments all the places and persons she visits.
Nirodbaran: Now it is clear. But how will the knowledge in her universal entity be practically applied in her physical which may not know about that knowledge? I mean her universal entity may have the knowledge of a particular act done by such and such a person. How will she be able to say which particular person has done it?
Sri Aurobindo: If it is necessary for her to know, she can know by concentration. The physical brain is an instrument of the true individuality. Even the Yogis are not concerned with what is happening on Jupiter or Venus.
Becharlal: Does an Avatar know everything?
Sri Aurobindo: What everything? It is the same question. Did Rama know it was not a real deer?
Becharlal: They say that he knew it was a false deer but in order to set an example …
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! You mean to say that all he has done, the fight with Ravana and the rescue of Sita, is all deception in order to set an example? Then the Ramayana and Rama lose all their value. And his lamentation for Sita is also a pretension? Does an Avatar resort to deception in order to teach people?
Purani: What about Sita’s Agniparisha1?
Becharlal: That was real, they say. But the Sita that was stolen by Ravana was not the real Sita, but her shadow. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: So all the time the real Sita was with Rama? And why then did Rama play that deception with Hanuman about Gandhamadan parvat? He could have told him straight away that it was in such and such a place, instead of Hanuman having to search for it everywhere.
The shadow-of-Sita story reminds me of Helen of Troy’s story. Someone – perhaps Euripides – says that it was not the real Helen but her image that was taken by Paris and that after the battle was over she rejoined her husband.
1 Ordeal by fire.