Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
21 December 1940
Dr. Manilal: In the Gita Sri Krishna says that he knows all about Arjuna’s past lives.
Sri Aurobindo: What about it? A past life can be known.
Dr. Manilal: Then he knew all the details of his past life?
Sri Aurobindo: Who says that? Does Krishna say that? (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: He knew at least the salient features.
Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily; he may have known only the general features.
Dr. Manilal: Simply from general features one won’t be able to make out the character and quality of a man.
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? The first impression one gets, on knowing the general features of a man’s past life, is that of character.
Purani: He wants to say that one must be able to know what he had for his breakfast.
Nirodbaran: What was your point in that question?
Dr. Manilal: I wanted to say that Krishna was Sarvajna. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Then that girl from Mathura who knew all the details of her past life was also Sarvajna. When Arjuna said to Krishna, “Will you tell me again all you told me about Kurukshetra etc., etc.?” Krishna replied, “Good Lord, do I remember all that blessed lot now? At that time I was in Yoga.”
Dr. Manilal: But he was always in Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: He didn’t say that. He said he had forgotten.
Dr. Manilal: How could he have heard Draupadi’s lamentation then during Vastraharan?
Sri Aurobindo: His subliminal heard it! (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Is that story true, Sir, and not an allegory?
Sri Aurobindo: Why an allegory?
Dr. Manilal: Of course you yourself have said somewhere that all these stories are true.
Sri Aurobindo: Where have I said that? What I have said is that the Gita was recorded as a fact in the Mahabharata, intended to be a fact of life, not an allegory. But do you mean that Hanuman’s taking the sun under his armpit and jumping into Lanka and burning Lanka by his tail-fire were all facts?
Dr. Manilal: What are they then? Poetry?
Purani narrated the story of the ex-Maharani of Porbandar who had come here. It is said she commuted the death-sentence of a criminal in her court because she was so moved by the piteous cry of his wife.
Dr. Manilal: Could this be called a Punya karma or Kuta karma, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: Which part of her action?
Dr. Manilal: This pardon and release of the murderer.
Sri Aurobindo: It is an act of mercy. Mercy is a Punya karma.
Dr. Manilal: But can the release of an arch-murderer be called Punya karma?
Sri Aurobindo: How do you know he was an arch-murderer? He may have been innocent.
Dr. Manilal: Let us take for granted he was an arch-murderer.
Sri Aurobindo: Why should you take it for granted?
Dr. Manilal: Suppose an arch-murderer is released under such circumstances, he may go on committing more murders. Can that be called a Punya karma?
Sri Aurobindo: It maybe both. (Laughter) You are looking at it from the social point of view and don’t see the character or nature of the act itself. Compassion is a virtue and an act of compassion is a virtuous act.
Dr. Manilal: Suppose a man is asked by a hunter about an antelope that has passed his way …
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, that old story of the Yogi? A Yogi was asked by some murderers if he had seen a man running away. He said “Yes”, and showed the way. The man was caught and killed. The Yogi after his death was taken to hell.
Dr. Manilal: Was he right in telling the truth?
Sri Aurobindo: There was no necessity.
Dr. Manilal: Should one speak the truth in all circumstances?
Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the circumstances. Every action has to be judged on its own merits.
Dr. Manilal: But in this case?
Sri Aurobindo: He need not have told the truth as he knew what would be the consequence of his doing so.
Dr. Manilal: According to Jainism, one could have remained quiet.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. In this case he told the truth, not for the sake of telling the truth but from ethical vanity.
Nirodbaran: Or perhaps for fear of his own life.
Sri Aurobindo: That can’t be a virtue either. To endanger another’s life in order to save one’s own can’t be a Punya karma.
Evening
Dr. Manilal: Have you read Professor N.N. Sen’s lecture at the Madras Philosophy Conference?
Sri Aurobindo: I have waded through it.
Dr. Manilal: The Hindu gives a short note on it, but I don’t grasp it myself very well. It says, “What is mind? No matter” and “What is matter? Never mind.” Something like that.
Sri Aurobindo: It means mind and matter are not the same.
Dr. Manilal: But one thing I can’t understand, Sir, about life and existence. If a living organism consists of living cells and each living cell has a soul …
Sri Aurobindo: A cell has a soul?
Dr. Manilal: Yes, Sir, otherwise how could it live?
Sri Aurobindo: It lives because of the life in it, not because of the soul in it. You can ask “What is life?”
Dr. Manilal: What is life then?
Sri Aurobindo: For that you have to read The Life Divine (Laughter)
Purani: He wants a shortcut.
Nirodbaran: If each cell has a soul, then there are so many thousands of souls in the body?
Sri Aurobindo: He is referring to Nigodh or Jiva. (Laughter) In that case one can say everything existing has a soul. A tree has a soul, a stone has a soul. That may be but it is not self-evident.
Dr. Manilal: That is what Jainism says. (Laughter) J.C. Bose has shown that the tree has a nervous system.
Sri Aurobindo: A nervous system is not a soul. It is capable of response to a stimulus. If a cell dies, what happens to the soul?
Dr. Manilal: It also dies. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: So body and soul are the same: both are destructible. If one dies, the other follows? That is the Western idea which makes no distinction between body and soul and life.
Dr. Manilal: What is your idea then?
Sri Aurobindo: As I said, read The Life Divine. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Is there no shortcut to it? (Laughter) When a person dies …
Sri Aurobindo: A person dies? You mean the body dies?
Dr. Manilal: No, Sir! Say, when a human being dies …
Sri Aurobindo: A human being dies? What is a human being?
Dr. Manilal: When the Atman departs – (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: That means the body dies. If the Atman or soul departs, it does not die; it is the body that dies. Either the body dies because the soul departs or the soul departs because the body is destroyed. According to one conception the soul is a portion of the Divine, and hence indestructible, while mind, life and body are instruments of its self-expression. It is the materialist’s conception that soul and body are the same so that when the body dies existence ceases.
Dr. Manilal was so thoroughly battered that he had no more words to utter after this. After a short while he made his usual pranam and departed.