Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

5 January 1941

Nirodbaran: In Nishtha’s case, is it the Force that has produced this rapid improvement or is it the right medicine?

Sri Aurobindo: You can infer or believe as you like.

Nirodbaran: If the Force, why then was there no effect for such a long time but as soon as the right medicine was given she improved?

Purani: It may be that the right conditions were absent before and now they have been brought about and so there is a cure.

Sri Aurobindo: But does the right medicine always cure?

Dr. Manilal: No, Sir.

Nirodbaran: If the right medicine can be found, yes.

Sri Aurobindo: There are many instances where the right medicine has no effect. According to the French doctor, the medicine is an excuse; it is the doctor that cures.

Nirodbaran: If that were true, why couldn’t André, who has been treating Nishtha all along, cure her before and is only now able to do it?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the French doctor’s opinion, not mine.

Nirodbaran: What is yours then?

Sri Aurobindo: As for me, there is the Force, the doctor and the medicine. It is the combination of all these that brings about the cure. From my point of view, a disease is a play of forces. If you make a combination of one kind of forces, it gives one result, a different combination a different result. But in Nishtha’s case the main credit goes to the chicken (Laughter) and one can say that the doctor has hit on the right medicine.

Dr. Manilal: After the Inconscient, Sir, aren’t the mind and vital to be worked out?

Sri Aurobindo: No, that has already been done; not in each and every one but in principle. In the mind and vital again there are many parts. There are also the subconscient mental, vital and physical.

Dr. Manilal: What is the difference between the Inconscient and the Subconscient?

Sri Aurobindo: In the Subconscient, consciousness is suppressed but it is there, while in the Inconscient all is black, there is no consciousness at work, and yet consciousness is involved in it, out of which matter and everything else emerge by evolution.

Dr. Manilal: Jada is Inconscience, isn’t it?

Sri Aurobindo: No, consciousness may also be Jada; Jada is a result of Inconscience.

Nirodbaran: What is the difference between Inconscience, Ignorance and Nescience?

Sri Aurobindo: Ignorance is knowledge that is wrong, partial or imperfect. Nescience is absence of knowledge; knowledge develops out of Inconscience. The theory I have put forward in The Life Divine is that the Inconscient and the Superconscient are two sides or counterparts of the same reality, though they appear to us as opposed to each other. The Inconscient is a black trance – the dark counterpart – while the Superconscient is a luminous trance. Out of the Inconscient, knowledge emerges by evolution. In the Superconscient, knowledge is always there, it only manifests out of it. They are the two opposite poles of the manifestation of the Absolute.

Nescience may be sensitive to impulses without knowing what these impulses are, whereas Inconscience is insentient. This is the great riddle, that Inconscience can yet create perfect order. It is like the Sankhya Prakriti which is Jada and at the same time intelligent.

Nirodbaran: What are the effects of the working out of the mind and vital?

Sri Aurobindo: Opening to the higher consciousness and a capacity to receive it.

Nirodbaran: Why don’t we see any effect then?

Sri Aurobindo: It is only in principle. If everybody were able to receive it, then the whole of humanity would be changed.

Nirodbaran: But we are slightly different from humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: But still part of humanity unless you want to say that you have achieved the Supermind.

Dr. Manilal: We ought to have at least a little taste of the Supermind since we are here. If an incense burns in a room, one gets the smell of it.

Sri Aurobindo: But if you don’t have a nose like Sayajirao? (Laughter)

Nirodbaran: If the work is now in the Inconscient, why do some people, especially newcomers, get experiences? Is the work in them not in the Inconscient?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on what kind of experiences – inner or higher experiences or those in the vital. One may think that one has become the Supreme and the Supermind, but the fact may be otherwise.

Nirodbaran: But don’t some newcomers have psychic experiences?

Sri Aurobindo: The work may be going on in the psychic, the Inconscient coming in between to hinder it.

Purani: Those who have been here long may be participating in the working and in them the Inconscient may rise up.

Sri Aurobindo: So that you may suddenly feel stupid. (Laughter)

Purani: That should give some consolation!