Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
24 December 1940
Dr. Manilal: Is there, Sir, such a condition of detachment that one is not disturbed or perturbed by anything whatsoever?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not?
Dr. Manilal: Practicable, Sir? (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Is it only a theory, then? An ideal not realisable in practice? As with Tagore who is reported to have said that yogic realisations are only ideals, not realisable, not meant for practice?
Dr. Manilal: Has anybody achieved it, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: It is one of the aims of Yoga.
Dr. Manilal: I know, but it is possible? (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: If it is impossible, why should it be an aim of Yoga? Merely as an ideal? Honesty is an ideal to be observed in commercial transactions. Does it mean you must observe it only when it suits you? (Laughter)
Purani: Is the synopsis ready?
Sri Aurobindo: No, I have just made a summary from which the synopsis will be made. After it is done, we can try it on Manilal and see if he understands it.
Dr. Manilal: If you make me understand, I will, Sir.
After some time Nirodbaran asked what was meant by space being coexistent with souls. Sri Aurobindo explained it but Nirodbaran could not follow.
Dr. Manilal: Souls have no space, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: There is a theory to that effect.
Dr. Manilal: According to Jainism they have no space.
Sri Aurobindo: What is space then according to Jainism?
Dr. Manilal: Akasha.
Sri Aurobindo: What is Akasha?
Dr. Manilal: Empty space.
Sri Aurobindo: How is it empty?
Dr. Manilal: There are many atoms pervading it.
Sri Aurobindo: Where do the atoms come from?
Dr. Manilal: They don’t come from anywhere. They have been always there from time immemorial.
Sri Aurobindo: From time immemorial? How do they get there?
Dr. Manilal: They have been there, Sir. We have to take it for granted. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: What is time then according to Jainism?
Dr. Manilal: There is no time; it is indivisible. What we see as present becomes past and what is future becomes present.
Sri Aurobindo: So there is past and present.
Dr. Manilal: How, Sir? What we call “just now” has already become past. So there is no present. Mahavira and Buddha were at one time present but they no longer exist.
Sri Aurobindo: If time were indivisible, they should exist now. You speak of from moment to moment.
Dr. Manilal: Relatively, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by relatively? Otherwise it is absolute timelessness.
(Here there was talk about a discussion of Sri Aurobindo’s Life Divine by philosophers.)
Dr. Manilal: Is space indivisible?
Sri Aurobindo: Not unless it is useful for it to be so (Laughter), otherwise you have to go on walking for three miles without stopping.
If you have to take everything for granted, take my philosophy also for granted and don’t discuss it. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: That requires a lot of Shraddha, Sir. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Then should I be asked to have Shraddha, in your Jain philosophy? (Laughter) There are some postulates that are taken for granted. After a time they are given up in favour of some other postulates. For instance, matter was at one time thought to be the source and origin of everything. Now they have upset that theory.
Space is indivisible in the sense that existence is indivisible. If you look at existence as a whole, as the one Being, then space and time are indivisible. But if you look at the individual being, they are divided when you want to do anything. India is indivisible but it is very much divided! (Laughter)
Evening
Sri Aurobindo (to Purani): What is the news of the world?
Purani (smiling a little): I have no news. You have read Lloyd George’s speech?
Dr. Manilal: It is a very balanced speech, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: Very balanced? Nonsense! The one thing he lacks is balance. The one thing he has is vigour.
Dr. Manilal: He has made a strong attack on the Government. Chamberlain, Churchill and others are saying that they have committed big mistakes.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, everybody makes mistakes except him. Who doesn’t make mistakes? Gandhi has also admitted that he has made “Himalayan blunders”.
Purani: Lloyd George is asking the Government to state its war aims and peace terms. How can one do that now?
Dr. Manilal: And he refers to his own Government in 1917.
Purani: Yes, but that was when they were winning the war, while now they are just in the thick of the fight, with at most a fifty percent chance of success. And if they start stating war aims and peace terms now, division and quarrel will start among them giving a handle to Hitler to break up their alliance.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. What peace terms did Lloyd George offer?
Dr. Manilal: It was the Versailles treaty and this war is the result. Perhaps he wants to be the Prime Minister.
Sri Aurobindo: He is too old for that. Besides, he is most unreliable.
Dr. Manilal (after a short while): There is a Jain sloka which means that mind is a bondage to Mukti. Can it be true, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: Bondage? Instrument, if you like. But mind is not the only instrument of Mukti; it is the power of the Spirit also that brings Mukti. You can say that mind is an instrument of bondage in the sense that it is the dividing principle that separates itself from the Unity and brings in division and ignorance. Life can properly be more said to be the real instrument. The life principle is the principle of desire, a straining after various objects of desire. Life is the root of all desires with which it affects the mind. The desires of the mind are not really its desires because its business is to know, to perceive.
Dr. Manilal: Life is the seat of emotions, I thought.
Sri Aurobindo: Emotions, sensations and several other things. That is the mistake most people usually commit, especially those influenced by Western ideas. They don’t make any distinction between mind and life, they consider them the same. This President of the Philosophical Congress at Madras says that mind is hungry. Mind is not hungry; it is the life and body that are hungry.
Purani: Professor Atreya calls Krishnamurti a philosopher.
Sri Aurobindo (chuckling): Bhagwan Das also and Radhakrishnan. Is Radhakrishnan really a philosopher? Has he contributed anything new?
Purani: No, he is only an exponent of Indian philosophy.
Sri Aurobindo: That’s what I thought. He is one of the highest authorities on Indian philosophy but I don’t know that he has produced any new philosophy. He is a Shankarite, isn’t he?
Purani: Yes.
Dr. Manilal: He may have realised Shankara’s philosophy.
Sri Aurobindo: Realised? You mean he is a Yogi? Everybody knows he is not. He is only an interpreter.
Dr. Manilal: He could be both, Sir?
Sri Aurobindo: He is not! What do you mean by could be? Anybody could be, you could be, Lloyd George could be. (Laughter)
Purani: A Ceylonese young man, a Buddhist has come to see the Ashram. He says Buddha didn’t teach that the world was full of evil.
Sri Aurobindo: Oh!
Purani: But I asked him whether or not Buddha said that the world is “full of sorrow” and that “one must escape from it”?
Sri Aurobindo: Not full of evil but that it is undesirable.
Purani: He also makes out that Buddha spoke of a divine consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo: I see!
Dr. Manilal: He meant Nirvana, probably.
Sri Aurobindo: Buddha didn’t mean that by Nirvana. Of course he didn’t say what Nirvana is.
Purani: This man doesn’t believe in the Jataka stories of Buddha.
Nirodbaran: Tell it to Dr. Manilal.
Dr. Manilal: Why? I believe in them.
Sri Aurobindo: That is just the point.
Dr. Manilal: Are there no previous births, Sir?
Purani: The point is whether all that is said is true.
After this Dr. Manilal was going away. Suddenly he came back and said, “Mother has said to Sir Hukum Chand, ‘I know you.’”
Sri Aurobindo: Well, what about it?
Dr. Manilal: That means there are previous births.
Sri Aurobindo: Nobody denies it.
Dr. Manilal: Nirod doesn’t believe it.
Nirodbaran: I didn’t say that.
Purani: He doesn’t deny the principle of rebirth but is doubtful about all that is said about the knowledge possessed by Yogis or Tirthankaras about so many previous births; for example, that Manilal’s Adishwar knew about all his previous births and that his mother was a banana tree. (Laughter)
Dr. Manilal: Why, a Tirthankara is supposed to be Sarvajna.
Sri Aurobindo: How do you know that?
Dr. Manilal: It is said in the books, Sir. (Laughter)
Sri Aurobindo: Who said it?
Dr. Manilal: If it was not true and if Krishna and Arjuna didn’t exist, you would not have written Essays on the Gita, Sir.
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? Whether they existed or not I would still have written the book if the truth of the Gita was there.
Nirodbaran: Sri Aurobindo himself has said in the preface that the important point is not whether Krishna and Arjuna did actually exist but whether the things said in the Gita are true.
At this point Dr. Manilal left.
Sri Aurobindo: I have been reading today Plotinus on Matter by Dean Inge. It is curious that what he was trying to describe in various ways with much difficulty is what we call the Inconscient in Matter. But as he had no knowledge of the Inconscient he couldn’t express it properly. Of course he is speaking of Matter as a principle, not as a form. This Dean Inge has a confused mind, he can’t state his thoughts clearly and logically and bungles the whole thing. But what Plotinus says is that Matter is infinite, indeterminate and non-being – that means the Inconscient; and if Matter is raised to the level of the Spirit it could become divine, that is to say, Matter itself is the Divine.