Sri Aurobindo: Various motives are played upon — pride, the desire not to be like others, not to be dependent on the Mother, the wish to protect some wrong movement from the Mother’s control, the idea of doing the sadhana in one’s own way free from the pressure of the Truth etc.    That is a suggestion which should be entirely rejected. It is the usual attack trying to act on the physical consciousness through dryness and depression.    is doing like many others — they are cheerful outside, but sorrowful or displeased or suffering when they come to the Mother or write to her.


Sri Aurobindo: There is a sort of idea (which was long current in the Asram) and there is still a feeling in the vital that the more you do that with the Mother the more you will get out of her. Of course it is absurdly untrue — the truth is the opposite; the more one is cheerfully open to her and lives in the light and gladness, the more one is likely to receive.  It is the ordinary attitude of the physical consciousness — but once the fundamental consciousness is ﬁxed, there is no reason why the sadhana should stop for a single day or need rest.    Yes, but the vital’s test is very foolish.


Sri Aurobindo: If the sadhana goes on whether you see the Mother or not, that would rather show that the psychic connection is permanently there and active always and does not depend on the physical contact. The vital seems to think the sadhana ought to cease if you do not see the Mother, but that would only mean that the love and devotion need the stimulus of physical contact; the greatest test of love and devotion is on the contrary when it burns as strongly in long absence as in the presence. If your sadhana went on as well on nonpranam as on pranam days it would not prove that love and devotion are not there, but that they are so strong as to be selfexistent in all circumstances.  Mother has not ﬁxed places for anyone but the rule of the “ﬁxed place” does obtain in the morning Pranam.


Sri Aurobindo: It is Nolini who sees after these things. So you had better ﬁnd a place in the sun not claimed or pegged out yet by any imperial Power and inform Nolini that you now claim that country.   The present arrangement about the morning Meditation is for so long as the Mother has need of rest. It is not intended as a permanent arrangement.


Sri Aurobindo: Only, if the sadhaks really want the Pranam to continue as before, they should make a better use of it. Many spend the time looking at what the Mother is doing, whom she smiles on, whom she pats or how she blesses people and gossip about it afterwards — most take it as a routine. All that is a wrong spirit and it puts a great strain on the Mother who has to ﬁght all the time against the wrong forces this wrong attitude brings into the atmosphere.    Well, if people withdraw into themselves, they might ﬁnd the Mother there!


Sri Aurobindo:   It is not essential — the inner touch is the essential thing. But it can be of immense help if properly received. For certain things it is essential but these certain things nobody yet is ready for.


Sri Aurobindo: Whatever is necessary for the inner being, yes.  But there was never any necessity for such people coming to the Pranam! It is not obligatory.  That is it. The Pranam (like the soup in the evening before) has been very badly misused.


Sri Aurobindo: What is the Pranam for? That people might receive in the most direct and integral way — a way that includes the physical consciousness and makes it a channel — what the Mother could give them and they were ready for.  Instead people sit as if at a court reception noting what the Mother does (and generally misobserving), making inferences, gossiping afterwards as to her attitude to this or that person, who is the more favoured, who is less favoured — as if the Mother were doling out her favour or disfavour or appreciations or disapprovals there, just as courtiers in a court might do. What an utterly unspiritual attitude. How can the Mother’s work be truly done in such an atmosphere?


Sri Aurobindo: How can there be the right reception? Naturally it reacts on the sadhak, creates any amount of misconception, wrong feelings etc. — creates an open door for the suggestions of the Adversary who delights in falsehood and administers plenty of it to the minds of the sadhaks. This apart from the fact that many throw all sorts of undesirable things on the Mother through the Pranam. The whole thing tends to become a routine, even where there are not these reactions.  Some of course proﬁt, those who can keep something of the right attitude


Sri Aurobindo: . If there were the right attitude in all, well by this time things would have gone very far towards the spiritual goal.  Psychic depression (a queer phrase — you mean vital, I suppose) can help no one. To try to receive within is always the true thing, whether through meditation or pranam.


Sri Aurobindo: The difﬁculty is that apart from the slight incident to the eye that has happened, Mother badly needs a rest from the storm she has undergone physically so long and I don’t think it would be wise to disregard the need any longer — for the storm has been there a long time. I hope that after a period of rest, things can be renewed but at present meditation is the only way, for there is no strain on her.     In regard to the proposed change which would vary Pranam with Meditation — not stop pranam altogether.


Sri Aurobindo: It had nothing to do with the temporary rest taken by the Mother — that was absolutely indispensable. I had often asked her to take some rest before but she had refused because it might disturb the sadhaks too much — what happened made the break physically indispensable. The sadhaks ought to concede that much to her after she has laboured night and day for so many years without giving herself any real rest even at night. You yourself wrote asking her to take the rest she needed. Even so she did not fail to begin going down morning and evening and renewing interviews as soon as it was physically possible.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is only if one can feel the inward touch of the Mother without the necessity of the physical contact that the true value of the latter can be really active. Otherwise there is a danger of its becoming like a mere artiﬁcial stimulant or a pulling of vital force from her for one’s own beneﬁt.


Sri Aurobindo:   If they are so dependent on the physical touch that they cannot feel anything when it is not there, this means that they have not used it at all for developing the inner connection; if they had, the inner connection after so many years would already be there. The inner connection can only be developed by an inner concentration and aspiration, not by a mere outward pranam every day. What most people do is simply to pull vital force from the Mother and live on it — but that is not the object of the Pranam.   Pulling is a psychological act — people are always pulling vital force from each other though they do not do it consciously, i.e. with a purpose in the mind — it is instinctive in the vital to draw force from wherever it can.


Sri Aurobindo: All contact is in fact a receiving and giving of vital forces in a small or great degree. You have yourself said that after meeting such and such person you felt empty and exhausted — that means the person drew your vital force out of you. That is what people do at pranam, instead of being quiet and receptive, they pull vitally. It can be stopped by cutting off connection, but if the Mother did that at pranam, then the pranam would be useless.


Sri Aurobindo:  Different people react differently to the change. Pranam had become to many a routine, to many a mere occasion of pulling the Mother’s vital forces away from her so as to supply themselves with vital provender for the day, to many a mere occasion for gossip as to how the Mother had behaved with this one or that one (all founded on their own “observation”, imagination and inference); the attitude to it had become twisted. If there had been the right attitude in all and the right use of the contact, it would have been a different matter.    Mother has told you what to reply to about other points.


Sri Aurobindo: You may add this from me, that all this about Mother’s smile and displeasure is simply the wrong play of the vital in her. It is because so many of the sadhaks were indulging in this wrong play of the vital about Mother’s smile and her pleasure and displeasure and all kinds of revolts and jealousies and anger against the Mother and canvassing despondency and talk of going away etc. that the Pranam had to be stopped. Nothing can be worse for the sadhana than to give play to ignorant vital movements like these. She must throw these things away from her if she wants to make any progress in sadhana.  The permission for Pranam and meditation cannot be given.


Sri Aurobindo: In between the Darshans it will now be no longer allowed to people from outside or only in exceptional cases.    Why on earth can’t people wait for outsiders to ask for Pranam instead of goading them to come to it? It makes the Pranam cheap and makes people think we are yearning for them to come and make Pranam, which is a damned mistake and not conducive to the dignity of the spiritual life.


Sri Aurobindo: Write to him that what he is doing is quite right. While making the Pranam he should aspire to be open to the Mother’s inﬂuence and her workings in him and to become conscious of her workings.  Why is there this imagination? is as human as she can be and not in the least superhuman. Nobody is to be bowed down to except myself and the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: Be on your guard against allowing these or other imaginations to take hold of you — they come easily when the mind is exalted and should be looked at carefully, not accepted without discernment.     It [] is a wrong suggestion from somewhere. It is very necessary not to take the attitude of Pranam to others or to give even in thought a place at all approaching or similar to the Mother’s.


Sri Aurobindo:  It was evidently a vital formation, as Mother’s order could not possibly be for the pranam to be to another, since such a thing is forbidden and would be disastrous.  It is the kind of formation was persistently making that all must approach and realise the Truth through him and he even hoped that one day we would realise the fact that the supramental Truth had descended into him and into him alone and would order all to approach it and us only through him! You probably saw in your dream something like that moving about and the dream gave it form. Several people had this delusion before, but I think with it went out of the Asram. Still some remnants may be ﬂoating still.


Sri Aurobindo: It is’s own idea. The only thing Mother insisted on is that the Reception Hall is primarily meant for visitors and at the time when visitors come sadhaks should not occupy the place or do meditation or pranam there. There has never been any restriction on meditation or pranam before our photographs as such — external worship was never forbidden. It is only a question of the place being kept mainly for its original purpose. had at one time almost occupied the place keeping some kind of mattress or something there and meditating for long periods — that was objected to certainly.


Sri Aurobindo: Idolatry comes in only when the image pushes out the Person — there were one or two who said that for them that (the photograph there) was the Mother (more even than the living Person). There was a growing atmosphere of excess about all this and the Mother had to recall people to a sense of measure. That is all. But there is no prohibition of it on principle.  The soup was instituted in order to establish a means by which the sadhak might receive something from the Mother by an interchange in the material consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: Owing to the past association probably you see like that when your material consciousness in dream receives something from the Mother.  The Mother is within but the darshan of her helps to realise the Divine on the physical plane also.    If you attach any value to the darshan, it is better to be.  If her coming is only one incident of the day’s routine like taking dinner, then of course it does not matter.


Sri Aurobindo:   means drawn back, quiet and collected in oneself.     The best way for Darshan is to keep oneself very collected and quiet and open to receive whatever the Mother gives.  That is quite wrong.


Sri Aurobindo: Fasting will not in the least remove any bad things — it is by receiving the Mother’s Light and Force in you that they will go. You must eat tomorrow.     Not uneasy; but it is not easy to absorb and deal with all that when the number is so many and so much is foreign matter.


Sri Aurobindo:  Mother cannot see her. The most we can concede is that she may be brought for Darshan in the way proposed, but she must simply take the blessing and pass, there must be no lingering. It is a mistake to bring sick people or the insane to the Darshan for cure — the Darshan is not meant for that. If anything is to be done or can be done for them, it can be done at a distance. The Force that acts at the time of Darshan is of another kind and one deranged or feeble in mind cannot receive or cannot assimilate it — it may produce a contrary effect owing to this incapacity if received at all.


Sri Aurobindo: If the Force is withheld, then Darshan is useless, if received by such people it is unsafe. It is similar reasons which dictate the rule forbidding children of tender years to be brought to the Darshan.  No — we don’t put our picture inside anybody when we give the ﬁrst blessing. But if you go on looking inside, you will one day ﬁnd the Mother there.  It is not by knowledge of music that the understanding [ ] comes; nor is it by effort of the mind — it is by becoming inwardly silent, opening within and getting the spontaneous feeling of what is in the music.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is not necessary to have technical knowledge in order to feel what is behind the music. Mother of course does not play for the sake of a technical musical effect, but to bring down something from the higher planes and that anyone can receive who is open.     The Mother has played music from her childhood upwards — so it is no trouble to her to sing or play several times.


Sri Aurobindo:   What else is the Mother’s music except the bringing down of these things? She does not play or sing merely for the music’s sake, but to call down the Divine Consciousness and its Powers.


Sri Aurobindo: I think it is fairly correct. At any rate the ﬁrst and second parts are quite correct. I do not remember the third in this form but it was a ﬁrm assurance of the realisation.


Sri Aurobindo: Not consciously.    They may be.    If she did not bring something, why should she play at all?


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother’s music has often been recognised by as Indian music of this or that raga. The Mother plays whatever comes through her — she does not usually play any previously composed music whether European or Indian — the latter in fact she has never learned.    Yes.


Sri Aurobindo: All that is very true. It is a prayer or an invocation that Mother makes in the music.  Why should you think the Mother does not approve of expression, — provided it is the right expression of the right thing, — or suppose that silence and true expression are contradictory?  The truest expression comes out of an absolute inner silence. The spiritual silence is not a mere emptiness; nor is it indispensable to abstain from all activity in order to ﬁnd it.


Sri Aurobindo:   For the moment I am answering only to your question about the music. Let me say at once that all of you seem to have too great an aptitude for making drastic conclusions on the strength of very minor facts. It is always perilous to take two or three small facts, put them together and build upon them a big inference.


Sri Aurobindo: It becomes still more dangerous when you emphasise minor facts and set aside or belittle the meaning of the main ones. In this case the main facts are (1) that the Mother has loved music all her life and found it a key to spiritual experience, (2) that she has given all encouragement to your music in special and to the music of others also. She has also made clear the relation of Art and Beauty with Yoga. It is therefore rather extraordinary that anyone should think she only tolerates music here and considers it inconsistent with Yoga. It is perfectly true that Music or Art are not either the ﬁrst or the only thing in life for her, — any more than Poetry or Literature are with me, — the Divine, the divine consciousness, the discovery of the conditions for a divine life are and must be our one concern, with Art, Poetry or Music as parts or means only of the divine life or expression of the Divine Truth and the Divine Beauty.


Sri Aurobindo: That does not mean that they are only “tolerated”, but that they are put in their right place.   On the music days it is always the Mahalakshmi aspect that is prominent.     What can be stranger than this idea of yours that Mother likes only European music and does not like or appreciate Indian music — that she only pretends to do it or that she tolerates it so as not to discourage people!


Sri Aurobindo: Remember that it is the Mother who has always praised and supported your music and put her force behind you so that your music might develop into spiritual perfection and beauty. In your poetry it was I that supported you most, in detail; the Mother could only do it with a general force, because she could not read the original (though she found them in translations very beautiful), but that in music it has been just the other way round. You surely are not going to say that all that was unfelt? And the development of? That too was Indian music, not European.


Sri Aurobindo: And then when I write to you in praise of your music, do you think it is only my opinion that I am transmitting? Most often it is her words that I use to express our common feeling.    Approval or permission? People get it into their heads that they would like to do some music, because it is the fashion or because they like it so much, and the Mother may tolerate it or say, “All right, try.”


Sri Aurobindo: That does not mean they are predestined or doomed to be musicians — or poets — or painters according to the case.  Perhaps one of them who try may bloom, others drop off. X  starts painting and shows only a fanciful dash at ﬁrst, after a time he brings out work, remarkable work. Y does clever facile things; one day he begins to deepen and a possible painter in the making outlines.


Sri Aurobindo: Others, — well, they don’t. But they can try — they will learn something about painting at least.  Labour at your sestets if the spirit pushes you. The Angel of Poetry may be delivered out of the labour, even if with a forceps.


Sri Aurobindo: You have spoken of your singing. You know well that we approve of it and I have constantly stressed its necessity for you as well as that of your poetry. But the Mother absolutely forbade ’s singing. To music for some again she is indifferent or discourages it, for others she approves as for, and others. For some time she encouraged the concerts, afterwards she stopped them.


Sri Aurobindo: You drew from the prohibition to and the stopping of the concerts that Mother did not like music or did not like Indian music or considered music bad for sadhana and all sorts of strange mental reasons like that. Mother prohibited because while music was good for you, it was spiritually poison to — the moment he began to think of it and of audiences, all the vulgarity and unspirituality in his nature rose to the surface. You can see what he is doing with it now! So again with the concerts — though in a different way — she stopped them because she had seen that wrong forces were coming into their atmosphere which had nothing to do with the music in itself; her motives were not mental. It was for similar reasons that she drew back from big public displays like Udayshankar’s.


Sri Aurobindo: On the other hand she favoured and herself planned the exhibition of paintings at the Town Hall. She was not eager for you to have your big audiences for your singing because she found the atmosphere full of mixed forces and found too you had afterwards usually a depression; but she has always approved of your music in itself done privately or before a small audience. If you consider then, you will see that here there is no mental rule, but in each case the guidance is determined by spiritual reasons which are of a ﬂexible character and look only at what in each case are the spiritual conditions, beneﬁts, possibilities. There is no other consideration, no rule. Music, painting, poetry and many other activities which are of the mind and vital can be used as part of spiritual development or of the work and for a spiritual purpose — “it depends on the spirit in which they are done”.


Sri Aurobindo: The institution of visitors’ cards was not made for love of discipline or rule-making, but out of practical necessity. People from the town were coming in pretending to be visitors and taking their meals in the dining room and unpermitted visitors were passing themselves in for the Darshan; it was not possible for the dining room workers or the gatekeepers to know all the visitors or who were or were not genuine. I don’t see myself why anybody should object or resent this necessary precaution. The alternative would be to let everybody who wanted enter for the Darshan and to let anybody who wanted to take his meal in the dining room. That would soon make things impossible.


Sri Aurobindo: As fors handbag that is part of the special rules for Golconde. These rules, which do not obtain for the rest of the Asram houses, are read out to everybody who is to stay in Golconde and if he does not want he can be given accommodation elsewhere.   seemed to be very happy about his stay here; if he was not really so and felt badly about these rules, why on earth did he refuse to stay in your place?  I may mention that he told that there were two things he specially admired in the Asram, ﬁrst the fact that everybody here rich or poor or of whatever caste was on the same level, and secondly the discipline of the Asram. He said, according to , that the absence of discipline was the great bane in India, neither individuals nor groups had any discipline.


Sri Aurobindo: Then why did he weep merely because he was not allowed to put his handbag in a place not intended for it? I do not agree myself with him in the idea that there is perfect discipline in the Asram; on the contrary, there is a great lack of it, much indiscipline, quarrelling and self-assertion. What there is, is organisation and order which the Mother has been able to establish and maintain in spite of all that. That organisation and order is necessary for all collective work; it has been an object of admiration and surprise for all from outside who have observed the Asram; it is the reason why the Asram has been able to survive and outlive the malignant attacks of the Catholic priests and of many people in Pondicherry who would otherwise have got it dissolved long ago. The Mother knew very well what she was doing and what was necessary for the work she had to do.


Sri Aurobindo: Discipline itself is not something especially Western; in Oriental countries like Japan, China and India it was at one time all-regulating and supported by severe sanctions in a way that Westerners would not tolerate. Socially whatever objections we may make to it, it is a fact that it preserved Hindu religion and Hindu society through the ages and through all vicissitudes. In the political ﬁeld there was on the contrary indiscipline, individualism and strife; that is one reason why India collapsed and entered into servitude. Organisation and order were attempted but failed to endure. Even in the spiritual life India has had not only the free wandering ascetic, a law to himself, but has felt impelled to create orders of Sannyasins with their rules and governing bodies and there have also been monastic institutions with a strict discipline.


Sri Aurobindo: Since no work can be done successfully without these things — even the individual worker, the artist for instance, has to go through a severe discipline in order to become efﬁcient — why should the Mother be held to blame if she insists on discipline in the exceedingly difﬁcult work she has had put in her charge?  I don’t see on what ground you expect order and organisation to be carried on without rules and without discipline. You seem to say that people should be allowed complete freedom with only such discipline as they choose to impose upon themselves; that might do if the only thing to be done were for each individual to get some inner realisation and life did not matter or if there were no collective life or work or none that had any importance. But this is not the case here. We have undertaken a work which includes life and action and the physical world.


Sri Aurobindo: In what I am trying to do, the spiritual realisation is the ﬁrst necessity, but it cannot be complete without an outer realisation also in life, in man, in this world. Spiritual consciousness within but also spiritual life without. The Asram as it is now is not that ideal, for that all its members would have to live in a spiritual consciousness and not in the ordinary egoistic mind and mainly rajasic vital nature. But all the same, the Asram is a ﬁrst form which our effort has taken, a ﬁeld in which the preparatory work has to be done. The Mother has to maintain it and for that all this order and organisation has to be there and it cannot be done without rules and discipline.


Sri Aurobindo: Discipline is even necessary for the overcoming of the ego and the mental preferences and the rajasic vital nature, as a help to it at any rate. If these were overcome outward rules etc. would be less necessary; spontaneous agreement, unity, harmony and spontaneous right action might take its place. But while the present state of things exists, with the abandonment or leaving out of discipline except such as people might choose or not choose to impose upon themselves, the result would be failure and disaster. One has only to think what would have been the result if there had been no rules and no discipline prohibiting sex-indulgence; even with them things have not been so very good. On that principle the work also would have gone to pot, there would have been nothing but strife, assertion by each worker of his own idea and self-will and constant clashes; even as it is, that has abounded and it is only the Mother’s authority, the frame of work she has given and her skill in getting incompatibles to act together that has kept things going.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not ﬁnd that Mother is a rigid disciplinarian. On the contrary, I have seen with what a constant leniency, tolerant patience and kindness she has met the huge mass of indiscipline, disobedience, self-assertion, revolt that has surrounded her, even abuse to her very face and violent letters overwhelming her with the worst kind of vituperation. A rigid disciplinarian would not have treated these things like that.  I do not know what ill-treatment visitors have received, apart from the insistence on rules of which you complain, but it cannot be a general complaint, otherwise the number of visitors would not be constantly increasing nor would so many people want to come back again or even come every time or so many want to stay on if the Mother allowed them. After all they do not come here on the basis of a social occasion but for Darshan of those whom they regard to be spiritually great or in the case of constant visitors for a share in the life of the Asram and for spiritual advantage and for both of these motives one would expect them to submit willingly to the conditions imposed and not to mind a little inconvenience.


Sri Aurobindo: As regards Golconde and its rules — they are not imposed elsewhere — there is a reason for them and they are not imposed for nothing. In Golconde Mother has worked out her own idea through Raymond, Sammer and others. First, Mother believes in beauty as a part of spirituality and divine living; secondly, she believes that physical things have the Divine Consciousness underlying them as much as living things; and thirdly, that they have an individuality of their own and ought to be properly treated, used in the right way, not misused or improperly handled or hurt or neglected so that they perish soon or lose their full beauty or value ; she feels the consciousness in them and is so much in sympathy with them that what in other hands may be spoilt or wasted in a short time lasts with her for years or decades. It is on this basis that she planned Golconde.


Sri Aurobindo: First, she wanted a high architectural beauty, and in this she succeeded — architects and people with architectural knowledge have admired it with enthusiasm as a remarkable achievement; one spoke of it as the ﬁnest building of its kind he had seen, with no equal in all Europe or America; and a French architect, pupil of a great master, said it executed superbly the idea which his master had been seeking for but failed to realise; but also she wanted all the objects in it, the rooms, the ﬁttings, the furniture to be individually artistic and to form a harmonious whole.  This too was done with great care. Moreover, each thing was arranged to have its own use, for each thing there was a place, and there should be no mixing up, or confused and wrong use.  But all this had to be kept up and carried out in practice; for it was easy for people living there to create a complete confusion and misuse and to bring everything to disorder and ruination in a short time. That was why the rules were made and for no other purpose.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother hoped that if the right people were accommodated there or others trained to a less rough and ready living than is common, her idea could be preserved and the wasting of all the labour and expense avoided.  Unfortunately the crisis of accommodation came and we were forced to house people in Golconde who could not be accommodated elsewhere and a careful choice could not be made.  So, often there was damage and misuse and the Mother had to spend sometimes 200/300 Rupees after Darshan to repair things and restore what had been realised. has taken the responsibility of the house and of keeping things right as much as possible. That was why she interfered in the handbag affair — it was as much a tragedy for the table as for the doctor, for it got scratched and spoiled by the handbag — and tried to keep both the bag and shaving utensils in the places that had been assigned for them.


Sri Aurobindo: If I had been in the doctor’s place, I would have been grateful to her for her care and solicitude instead of being upset by what ought to have been for him triﬂes although, because of her responsibility, they had for her their importance. Anyhow, this is the rationale for the rules and they do not seem to me to be meaningless regulation and discipline.  Finally, about ﬁnancial arrangements. It has been an arduous and trying work for the Mother and myself to keep up this Asram, with its ever-increasing numbers, to make both ends meet and at times to prevent deﬁcit budgets and their results, especially in this war time, when the expenses have climbed to a dizzy and fantastic height. Only one accustomed to these things or who had similar responsibilities can understand what we have gone through.


Sri Aurobindo: Carrying on anything of this magnitude without any settled income could not have been done if there had not been the working of a Divine Force. Works of charity are not part of our work, there are other people who can see to that.  We have to spend all on the work we have taken in hand and what we get is nothing compared to what is needed. We cannot undertake things that would bring in money in the ordinary ways. We have to use whatever means are possible.


Sri Aurobindo: There is no general rule that spiritual men must do works of charity or they should receive and care for whatever visitors come or house and feed them. If we do it, it is because it has become part of our work. The Mother charges visitors for accommodation and food because she has expenses to meet and cannot make money out of air; she charges in fact less than her expense. It is quite natural that she should not like people to take advantage of her and allow those who try to take meals in the dining room under false pretences; even if they are a few at ﬁrst, yet if this were allowed, a few would soon become a legion. As for people being allowed to come in freely for Darshan without permission, which would soon convert me into a thing for show and an object of curiosity, often critical or hostile curiosity, it is I who would be the ﬁrst to cry “stop”.


Sri Aurobindo: I have tried to explain our standpoint and have gone to some length to do it. Whether it is agreed with or not, at any rate it is a standpoint and I think a rational one. I am writing only on the surface and I do not speak of what is behind or from the Yogic standpoint, the standpoint of the Yogic consciousness from which we act; that would be more difﬁcult to express. This is merely for intellectual satisfaction, and there there is always room for dispute.


Sri Aurobindo:   As for Golconde, it is in that house of all the 80 or more houses in the Asram that she has been trying to carry out her idea of physical things, their harmony and order and proper treatment, she has not been imposing it elsewhere except in the matter of cleanliness and hygiene, which are surely not objectionable.  I may say that you are mistaken in thinking that everybody who stays in Golconde is in a state of misery or revolt. On the contrary, there are many who have asked to be put and are put there at their own request every time they come. And they are not Europeans.


Sri Aurobindo: Mother thoroughly appreciated and praised the old Indian way of living, its simplicity, harmony and order when she saw it exempliﬁed by and his brother in the Asram, but that is not the way of living most prevalent nowadays which is a mixture. Chairs, tables, electric fans etc. are European introductions, but I don’t suppose those who have got accustomed to them would like to give them up or return to the true simplicity of Indian life. That however is by the way.  But I fail to see why you should treat this external triﬂe as of so stupendous an importance. Mother should be free to carry out her idea in this corner of her kingdom; all that is to be seen is that those who violently dislike it should not stay in Golconde.


Sri Aurobindo: Many of the questions asked in your letter about the condition after death are dealt with in the French book.  This book was written by Paul Richard, but all the substance was taken by him from the Mother, as he himself had no knowledge about these things. You can send the book to the Mother and she will mark the passages. You should also read what is said in the about these things.  Mother cannot say particularly because so many people come to her in the night for the passage to the other side whom she has not known in the body.


Sri Aurobindo: Your brother may very well have been one of them and in view of’s account, there is little doubt that he must have been.    When Mother said that it was not good to try to meet the dead, she was speaking from a spiritual standpoint which is not usually known or regarded by the spiritists.   It is not for everything that the souls of the departed come direct to the Mother, but this is a special action of hers and usually she  sees the persons whom she has to help.


Sri Aurobindo: But she has seen only ’s mental being and it was still interested in earthly things; his vital being she has not seen and it is that that usually comes for help. Some however come at a later stage of the passage and not at ﬁrst.  The Mother only speaks to people about their past births when she sees deﬁnitely some scene or memory of their past in concentration; but this happens rarely nowadays.


Sri Aurobindo: Mother does not usually look into past lives; only when things come of themselves from the past she looks.  There is much truth in what you write — there are beings of that kind and your description is good. But it is not to one that Mother sends them — only to some when there is an opening.   has reported Mother’s observation correctly but he does not seem to have understood it. The Mother never meant that by merely willing one could know at once what was in someone else or that all one’s impressions about him would be spontaneously and infallibly correct.


Sri Aurobindo: What she meant was that there is a faculty or power (an occult or Yogic faculty) by which one can get the right perceptions and impressions and if one has the will to do so, one can develop it. Not at once, not by an easy method — tra la la and there you are: it may take years  and one has to be careful and scrupulous about it. For these are intuitive perceptions and intuition is a thing that can easily be imitated by many other movements of consciousness that are much more fallible. Your impressions may be mental or vital and a mental or vital impression may have something to justify it or may not — but even in the ﬁrst case there is no certainty at all that it will be correct; even if there is that something, it may be incorrectly caught or caught with much mixture of error, twisted into falsehood, put in the wrong way etc. etc.


Sri Aurobindo: And there may be no justiﬁcation at all; it may be a mere wrong formation of your own mind or vital or else somebody else’s wrong impression conveyed to you and accepted by you as your own.  Your impression may be the result of a want of afﬁnity between you and the other person, so that if he impresses you as null and neutral, it is because you cannot feel what is in him, it does not come home to you — or, again, if you feel that he is in a wrong condition, it may be only because his vital vibrations rub yours the wrong way. There are lots of things like that which one must have the power to distinguish very carefully and exactly; until one knows one’s own consciousness and its operations well, one cannot know the operations of the consciousness of others. But it is possible to develop a certain direct sight or a certain direct feeling or contact by which one can know, but only after much time and much careful, scrupulous and vigilant observation and self-training. Till then one can’t go about saying that this is an advanced sadhak or that one is not advanced and that other is no good at all.


Sri Aurobindo: Even if one knows, it is not necessary always to air one’s knowledge.  It is much easier for the sadhak by faith in the Mother to get free from illness than for the Mother to keep free — because the Mother by the very nature of her work had to identify herself with the sadhaks, to support all their difﬁculties, to receive into herself all the poison in their nature, to take up besides all the difﬁculties of the universal earth-Nature, including the possibility of death and disease in order to ﬁght them out. If she had not done that, not a single sadhak would have been able to practise this Yoga. The Divine has to put on humanity in order that the human being may rise to the Divine. This is a simple truth, but nobody in the Asram seems able to understand that the Divine can do that and yet remain different from them — can still remain the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo:   Pleasantly? It would be anything but pleasant either for you or for us.  It is rather a crude statement of a fact. The Mother in order to do her work had to take all the sadhaks inside her personal being and consciousness; thus personally (not merely impersonally) taken inside, all the disturbances and difﬁculties in them including illness could throw themselves upon her in a way that could not have happened if she had not renounced the selfprotection of separateness.


Sri Aurobindo: Not only illnesses of others could translate themselves into attacks on her body — these she could generally throw off as soon as she knew from what quarter and why it came — but their inner difﬁculties, revolts, outbursts of anger and hatred against her could have the same and a worse effect. That was the only danger for her (because inner difﬁculties are easily surmountable), but matter and the body are the weak point or crucial point of our Yoga, since this province has never been conquered by the spiritual Power, the old Yogas having either left it alone or used on it only a detailed mental and vital force, not the general spiritual force. It was the reason why after a serious illness caused by a terribly bad state of the Asram atmosphere, I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise the most concrete part of the pressure upon her.  Naturally the full conquest of the physical would revolutionise matters, but as yet it is the struggle.


Sri Aurobindo: The nature of the terrestrial consciousness and of humanity being what it is, these things were to some extent inevitable. It is only a very few who escape with the slighter adverse movements only. But after a time these things should disappear. It does so disappear in individuals — but there seems to be a great difﬁculty in getting it to disappear from the atmosphere of the Asram —  somebody or other always takes it up and from him it tries to spread to others.


Sri Aurobindo: It is of course because there is behind it one of the principles of life according to the Ignorance — a deeply rooted tendency of vital Nature. But it is the very aim of sadhana to overcome that and substitute a truer and diviner vital Force.   When Mother stands on the stairs in full concentration it is quite a different thing from standing talking with people. In the former condition nothing can touch her. In the second she has to identify herself with the general physical consciousness and open herself to its forces, so the conditions are not the same.


Sri Aurobindo: Nowadays there is an improvement in the physical, but still limits must be kept.     The danger of helping others is the danger of taking upon oneself their difﬁculties. If one can keep oneself separate and help, this does not occur.


Sri Aurobindo: But the tendency in helping is to take the person partially or completely into one’s larger self. That is what the Mother has had to do with the sadhaks and the reason why she has sometimes to suffer — for one cannot always be on guard against any backwash when one is absorbed or in action. There is also the difﬁculty that the persons helped get the habit of drawing and pulling on your forces instead of leaving it to you to give just what you can and ought to give. And many other smaller possibilities one who helps others has to face.


Sri Aurobindo:   There are many who did that in the past. I don’t know that he does it now. But all bad thoughts upon the Mother or throwing of impurities on her may affect her body as she has taken the sadhaks into her consciousness, nor can she send these things back to them as it might hurt them.   There is not the slightest necessity for the Mother drawing impurities into herself — any more than for the sadhak inviting impurity to come into himself.


Sri Aurobindo: Impurity has to be thrown away, not drawn in.     The idea of unburdening desires, imperfections, impurities, illnesses on the Mother so that she may bear the results instead of the sadhaks is a curious one. I suppose it is a continuation of the Christian idea of Christ suffering on the cross for the sake of humanity.


Sri Aurobindo: But it has nothing to do with the Yoga of transformation.    I cannot say that it does not have an effect — sometimes it may not have, if she is on her guard, at other times it has. It is not the imputations that do it, but the force behind which throws the darkness in you and takes the form of a vital upsetting in you but passes on to her as an attack on the body since other things in her are unattackable. That is why these moods should never be formed against her.


Sri Aurobindo:   What you saw is correct, but if the attitude of the sadhak is the true psychic attitude, then the Mother has not to suffer ; she can act on them without anything falling on her.    It is due to attacks.


Sri Aurobindo: As the material is not yet conquered, the Mother’s body has to bear the attacks which come daily and to which the sadhaks freely open the doors. If she cut off her consciousness altogether from that of the sadhaks or put them outside her consciousness, these things would not happen.   It is due to the impurities of the sadhaks thrown on the Mother.  There seems to be no remedy possible before the physical change.  If the Mother puts an inner wall between her and the sadhaks, it would not happen, but then they would be unable to receive anything from her.


Sri Aurobindo: If all were more careful to come to her with their deepest or highest consciousness, then there would be less chance of these things happening.  Mother does not use medicines so it is no use sending them to her. But there are people who send to her suggestions such as “Oh you are very ill, you won’t be able to sit through the Pranam” and some of these are thrown with force and she has to work them out of the system, as happened today at Pranam.  If you will give these people a medicine which will stop this habit of theirs, it will be very useful.


Sri Aurobindo:   What is ptosis?  Why do people make such prognostications? Suggestions of the kind ought never to be made, mentally even — they might act like suggestions and do more harm than any good medicines could do.  Then why don’t you understand?


Sri Aurobindo: If medicines can’t help, what’s the use of putting foreign matter in the eye merely because it is a medicine? Medicines have a quite different action on the Mother’s body than they would have on yours or’s or anybody else’s and the reaction is not usually favourable. Her physical consciousness is not the same as that of ordinary people — though even in ordinary people it is not so identical in all cases as science would have us believe.   Prognostications of that kind should not be lightly thought or spoken — especially in the case of the Mother — in other cases, even if there is a possibility or probability, they should be kept conﬁdential from the person affected, unless it is necessary to inform. This is because of the large part played by state of consciousness and suggestion in illness.


Sri Aurobindo: But, confound it, there is nothing of the kind. The drooping of the eyelid was quite voluntary.   It is no use discussing these matters — the Mother’s views are too far removed from the traditional nostrums to be understood by a medical mind, except those that have got out of the traditional groove or those who after long experience have seen things and can become devastatingly frank about the limitations of their own “science”.  Ideas differ. Both the Mother and were horriﬁed at the idea of a child of 4 months being given a purgative.


Sri Aurobindo: The leading children’s doctor in France told the Mother no child under 12 months should be given a purgative, as it is likely to do great harm and may be dangerous. But here, we understand, it is the practice to dose children freely with purgatives from their day of birth almost. Perhaps that and overadministration of medicines is one cause of excessive infant mortality.    Well, so that’s how the Mother’s statements are understood!


Sri Aurobindo: A free permit for anything and everything calling itself an intuition to go crashing into the ﬁeld of action! Go at it, indeed! Poor it!  What the Mother says in the matter is what she said to Dr.  with his entire agreement — viz. reading from symptoms by the doctors is usually a mere balancing between possibilities (of course except in clear and simple cases) and


Sri Aurobindo: the conclusion is a guess. It may be a right guess and then it will be all right, or it may be a wrong guess and then all will be wrong unless Nature is too strong for the doctor and overcomes the consequences of his error — or at the least the treatment will be ineffective. On the contrary if one develops the diagnostic ﬂair, one can see at once what is the real thing among the possibilities and see what is to be done. That is what the most successful doctors have, — they have this ﬂashlight which shows them the true point. agreed


Sri Aurobindo: and said the cause of the guessing was that there were whole sets of symptoms which could belong to any one of several diseases  and to decide is a most delicate and subtle business, no amount of book knowledge or reasoning will ensure a right decision. A special insight is needed that looks through the symptoms and not merely at them. This last sentence, by the way, is my own, not’s.


Sri Aurobindo: About development of intuition afterwards — no time tonight.    All “science” does not recommend castor oil for children — I think it is a nineteenth century fad which has prolonged itself.  The Mother’s “children’s doctor” told her it should not be done — also in her own case when a child the doctors peremptorily stopped it on the ground that it spoiled the stomach and liver.  I suppose you will say doctors disagree?


Sri Aurobindo: They do! When’s child reached Madras, the ﬁrst doctor said “Stop mother’s milk for three days”, the second said “Mother’s milk to be taken at once, at once!” So, sir. Anyhow for Mother proposes diet ﬁrst — small bananas will give, very good for constipation — papaya if available in the garden. Also as he is pimply, cocoanut water on an empty stomach.


Sri Aurobindo: Afterwards we can see if medicine is necessary.  The Mother has seen that these methods are perfectly effective, but she cannot follow a treatment because she has no time. Her sight is variable: when she can rest and concentrate a little and do what is necessary, she can read without glasses.  You will ﬁnd with this a letter from the Mother giving you her point of view with regard to the request for a written statement from herself about approaching people for money. You must make understand that this is not done and cannot be done.


Sri Aurobindo: If he feels moved to do this as work for the Mother, the knowledge that it is needed should be enough. It is not a question of a public appeal for funds, but of getting friends and sympathisers to help.  You will see from the Mother’s letter the spirit in which it should be done.    The Mother has never objected to people who “cannot pay” residing or visiting the Asram without paying; she expects payment only from visitors who can pay.


Sri Aurobindo: She did object strongly to the action of some rich visitors (on one occasion) who came here, spent money lavishly on purchases etc. and went off without giving anything to the Asram or even the smallest offering to the Mother, that is all.    If you give the money to the Mother, that can’t be commercial; commerce implies personal proﬁt, and here your proﬁt is only spiritual.  I suppose your explanation is correct — at least from the occult point of view. The Mother is always having these numerical harmonies in her accounts.


Sri Aurobindo: Beauty is as much an expression of the Divine as Knowledge, Power or Ananda. Does anyone ask why does the Mother want to manifest the divine consciousness by knowledge or by power and not by ignorance and weakness? It would not be a more absurd or meaningless question than this one put by the vital against wearing artistic and beautiful dress.    Outer things are the expression of something in the inner reality.


Sri Aurobindo: A ﬁne sari or a palace are expressions of the principle of beauty in things and that is their main value. The Divine Consciousness is not bound by these things and has no attachment, but it is also not bound to abstain from them if beauty in things is part of its intended action. The Mother, when the Asram was still unformed, was wearing patched cotton saris; when she took up the work, it was necessary to change her habits, so she did so.  Yes, very many do.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes.  The Mother gave names for cats because they understand and answer; she has never given any for birds and does not wish to do it. Now even for cats she is not giving names.   Centre and 4 powers white.


Sri Aurobindo: The 12 all of different colours, in three groups, (1) top group red passing through orange towards yellow, (2) next group yellow passing through green towards blue, (3) blue passing through violet towards red. If white is not convenient, the centre may be gold (powder).     The central circle need not have a strap — simply a gold disc.


Sri Aurobindo:   Essentially (in general principle) the 12 powers are the vibrations that are necessary for the complete manifestation. These are the 12 seen from the beginning above the Mother’s head. Thus there are really 12 rays from the sun, not 7, 12 planets etc.


Sri Aurobindo: As to the exact interpretation of the detail of the powers, I see nothing against the arrangement you have made. It can stand very well.   About the blue ﬂag.


Sri Aurobindo: I presume you mean the ﬂag with the white lotus. If so, it is the Mother’s ﬂag, for the white lotus is her symbol as the red lotus is mine. The blue of the ﬂag is meant to be the colour of Krishna and so represents the spiritual or Divine Consciousness which it is her work to establish so that it may reign upon earth. This is the meaning of the ﬂag being used as the Ashram ﬂag, that our work is to bring down this consciousness and make it the leader of the world’s life.  The Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth, even from her childhood, upward and she had done sadhana and developed this knowledge very long before she came to India.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Prayers are mostly written in an identiﬁcation with the earth-consciousness. It is the Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation come. This continues till the identiﬁcation of the earth-consciousness and the higher consciousness is effected.  The word “” is general, I believe, referring to all born into the earth-consciousness — it does not mean “the Mother of the ‘’ and myself”.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the Divine who is always referred to as and. There is the Mother who is carrying on the sadhana and the Divine Mother, both being one but in different poises, and both turn to the or Divine Master. This kind of prayer from the Divine to the Divine you will ﬁnd also in the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.    The rule is that Mother never gives a copy unless she gets a letter in French written by the person without help asking for it.


Sri Aurobindo: He must know enough French to do that.  It was not meant as a general rule — it was only a necessity felt with regard to that particular prayer and that experience. It all depends on the person, the condition, the need of the moment or of that stage or phase of the consciousness. These things in spiritual experience are always plastic and variable. In some conditions or in one phase or at one moment expression may be needed to bring out the effectuating force of the prayer or the stability of the experience; in another condition or phase or at another moment it may be the opposite, expression would rather disperse the force or break the stability.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is correct. Perfection for oneself is not the true ideal; sadhana and instrumentation are only useful as a means for the “ ”.


Sri Aurobindo:   When the divine consciousness is veiled, one has to fall back on the reason, but the human reason is an individual action quite unreliable. That is the sense.


Sri Aurobindo: To say so has no value unless you realise all things as coming from the Divine. One who has realised as the Mother had realised in the midst of terrible sufferings and difﬁculties that even these came from the Divine and were preparing her for her work can make spiritual use of such an attitude. For others it may lead to wrong conclusions.    There has been a change for the worse — the descent of the vital world into the human.


Sri Aurobindo: On the other hand except in the “possessed” nations there is a greater longing for peace and feeling that such things ought not to happen. India did not get any real touch of the war. However what the Mother was thinking of was an opening to the spiritual truth. That has at least tried to come. There is a widespread dissatisfaction with the old material civilisation, a seeking for some deeper light and truth — only unfortunately it is being taken advantage of by the old religions and only a very small minority is consciously searching for the new Light.


Sri Aurobindo:   When there is a pressure on the vital world due to the preparing Descent from above, that world usually precipitates something of itself into the human. The vital world is very large and far exceeds the human in extent. But usually it dominates by inﬂuence not by descent. Of course the effort of this part of the vital world is always to maintain humanity under its sway and prevent the higher Light.


Sri Aurobindo:  The vital descent cannot prevent the supramental — still less can the possessed nations do it by their material power, since the supramental descent is primarily a spiritual fact which will bear its necessary outward consequences. What previous vital descents have done is to falsify the Light that came down as in the history of Christianity where it took possession of the teaching and distorted it and deprived it of any widespread fulﬁlment. But the supermind is by deﬁnition a Light that cannot be distorted if it acts in its own right and by its own presence.  It is only when it holds itself back and allows inferior Powers of consciousness to use a diminished and already deﬂected Truth that the knowledge can be seized by the vital Forces and made to serve their own purpose.


Sri Aurobindo:   It was in reference to Asuras who had taken birth in human bodies — a thing they usually avoid if they can, for they prefer to possess human beings without taking birth — with the claim that they wanted to regenerate themselves by serving the Divine and doing his work. It did not succeed very well.


Sri Aurobindo:   Mother was not speaking of these but of others met by herself.  But “” here does not mean great in the worldly sense, that is incarnating in famous people, but powerful in the vital world.


Sri Aurobindo: Do you think the Mother has a rigid mind like you people and was laying down a hard and fast rule for all time and all people and all conditions? It refers to a certain stage when the consciousness is sometimes in activity and when not in activity is withdrawn in itself. Afterwards comes a stage when the Sachchidananda condition is there in work also. There is a still farther stage when both are as it were one, but that is the supramental.  The two states are the silent Brahman and the active Brahman and they can alternate (1st stage), coexist (2d stage), fuse (3d stage).


Sri Aurobindo: If you reach even the ﬁrst stage then you can think of applying Mother’s dictum, but why misapply it now?  Certainly it is realisable in work. Good Lord! how could the integral Yoga exist if it were not?


Sri Aurobindo: It is very probable. But at present it is only in France that anyone is awake, with some movement towards it in America. People from other parts have sometimes come and gone, but they were evidently not the stones chosen.    Yes, certainly.


Sri Aurobindo: It is essentially the same truth put in different ways. It might be put in a negative form — “if we cling to things as they are in their imperfection in the Ignorance, we cannot have them in their truth and perfection in the Divine Light, Harmony and Ananda.”


Sri Aurobindo: ¸Cakya-Mouni is a name of Buddha — “the sage of the ¸Cakyas” — the clan to which Buddha belonged by birth and of which his father was the “king”.   Love cannot be cold — for there is no such thing as cold love, but the love of which the Mother speaks in that passage is something very pure, ﬁxed and constant; it does not leap like ﬁre and sink for want of fuel, but is steady and all-embracing and selfexistent like the light of the sun. There is also a divine love that is personal, but it is not like the ordinary personal human love dependent on any return from the person — it is personal but not egoistic, — it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other. But to ﬁnd that, liberation from the ordinary human way of approach is necessary.


Sri Aurobindo:   Not necessarily, as the phrase can easily come to one who has read the Bible and the English are very biblical. The idea of the hostile beings also is not new, in fact it is as old as the Veda. The expectation of the Advent is also pretty widespread, as according  Pri`eres et M´editations de la M`ere to the old prophecies it must be when the Advent is due.  When an intense Power is put out, it will naturally give a thrill to those who receive it.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is so. The words are only a vehicle. When the consciousness opens one feels all that is behind the words.  Power is a general term — it is not conﬁned to a power to communicate .


Sri Aurobindo: The most usual form of power is control over things, persons, events, forces.  The two words have not the same meaning. Purpose means the intention, the object in view towards which the Divine is working. Will is a wider term than that.  Concentration here means gathering of the consciousness into one centre and ﬁxing it on one object or on one idea or in one condition.


Sri Aurobindo: Meditation is a general term which can include many kinds of inner activity.    A ﬁre is not a being — it is the psychic ﬁre, an intense condition of aspiration.


Sri Aurobindo: No, what you feel is probably the intimation from the psychic being through the mind. To be directly conscious of the psychic ﬁre, one must have the subtle vision and subtle sense active or else the direct action of the psychic acting as a manifest power in the consciousness.  It is a general principle announced which covers all who are called to the work. At the time the Mother was seeing the past (or part of it) of those to whom she spoke and that is why she said this. At present we are too much occupied with the crucial work in the physical consciousness to go into these things.


Sri Aurobindo: Moreover we ﬁnd that it encouraged a sort of vital romanticism in the sadhaks which made them attach more importance to these things than to the hard work of sadhana, so we have stopped speaking of past lives and personalities.    Those who went away were also of these and still are of that circle. Temporary checks do not make any difference to the essential truth of the soul’s seeking.  By the victory is meant the ﬁnal emergence of the embodied consciousness on earth from the bondage of the Ignorance.


Sri Aurobindo: That had to be prepared through the ages by a spiritual evolution.  Naturally the work up till now has been a preparation of which the long spiritual effort and experience of the past has been the outcome. It has reached a point at which the decisive effort has become possible.    There is a tapasya that takes place automatically as the result of surrender and there is a discipline that one carries out by one’s own unaided effort — it is the latter that is meant in the “two paths of Yoga”.


Sri Aurobindo: But Agni as the ﬁre of tapasya can burn in either case.    They were not prominent because they were getting some satisfaction or at least the vital generally was getting indulged in one way or another. When they are no longer indulged then they become obstreperous. But they are not new forces created by the Yoga — they were there all the time.


Sri Aurobindo: What is meant by the mental control being removed, is that the mental simply kept them in check but could not remove them. So in Yoga the mental has to be replaced by the psychic or spiritual self-control which could do what the mental cannot.  Only many sadhaks do not make this exchange in time and withdraw the mental control merely.


Sri Aurobindo: It refers to strong vital impulses.  I don’t know that it is. One has to go very far on the path before one is so secure as that.


Sri Aurobindo: The central being is the Purusha. If it is surrendered, then all the other beings can be offered to the Divine and the psychic being brought in front.    The Mother did not mean that one must be usual in one’s excitement at all — she meant that the man is not only excited but also wants to be unusual (extraordinary) in his excitement. The excitement itself is bad and the desire to seem extraordinary is worse.


Sri Aurobindo:   No. It is a comparatively elementary stage.    At night, when one sinks into the subconscient after being in a good state of consciousness, we ﬁnd that state gone and we have to labour to get it back again.


Sri Aurobindo: On the other hand, if the sleep is of the better kind, one may wake up in a good condition. Of course, it is better to be conscious in sleep, if one can.    Conversations with the Mother  It means the Divine seen outside in things, beings, events etc. etc.  I don’t see how the question of transformation comes in.


Sri Aurobindo: Jeanne d’Arc was not practising Yoga or seeking transformation.    Not so elementary.   No.


Sri Aurobindo: But it is not easy to do it completely.  You can’t, unless you have the inner vision .


Sri Aurobindo: It means an offering of the food not to the ego or desire but to the Divine, who is behind all action.    It means that in the full spiritual consciousness the sense of separate existence and my and mine disappear. All depends on the Divine and exists only by the Divine. The ordinary consciousness does not feel or miss this Divine support because it takes as its own the knowledge and power that are given to it; it is quite satisﬁed with that and is not aware of the Divine Existence behind it, or the Divine Force and Knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes.   Conversations with the Mother  The place of repentance is in its effect for the future — if it induces the nature to turn from the state of things that brought about the happening. For the sadhak however it is not repentance but recognition of a wrong movement and the necessity of its not recurring that is needed.


Sri Aurobindo: That is taking things in the mass. In a metaphysical sense whatever happens is the consequence of all that has gone before up to the moment of the action. Practically, particular consequences have particular antecedents in the past and it is these that are said to determine it.  From where are these quotations? In the exact intention of a sentence much sometimes depends on the context.


Sri Aurobindo:   The subject is too large for any special instances to be usefully given, as an instance can only illustrate one side or ﬁeld of a very various action. The point is that people take no trouble to see whether their intellect is giving them right thoughts, right conclusions, right views on things and persons, right indications about their conduct or course of action. They have their idea and accept it as truth or follow it simply because it is idea.


Sri Aurobindo: Even when they recognise that they have made mistakes of the mind, they do not consider it of any importance nor do they try to be more careful mentally than before. In the vital ﬁeld people know that they must not follow their desires or impulses without check or control, they know that they ought to have a conscience or a moral sense which discriminates what they can or should do and what they cannot or should not do; in the ﬁeld of intellect no such care is taken. Men are supposed to follow their intellect, to have and assert their own ideas right or wrong without any control; the intellect, it is said, is man’s highest instrument and he must think and act according to its ideas. But this is not true; the intellect needs an inner light to guide, check and control it quite as much as the vital. There is something above the intellect which one has to discover and the intellect should be only an intermediary for the action of that source of true Knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo:   Often it is, but even if it is correct, it has nothing spiritual in it. Many mediums, clairvoyants or people with a special faculty, tell you these things. That faculty is no more spiritual than the capacity to build a bridge or to cook a nice dish or to solve a mathematical problem. There are intellectual capacities, there are occult capacities, — that is all.


Sri Aurobindo:   Conversations with the Mother  First of all what is meant is not that the vampire or vital being even in possession of a human body tries to possess yet another human being. All that is the description of how a disembodied (vampire) vital being takes possession of a human body without being born into it in the ordinary way — for that is their desire, to possess a human body but not by the way of birth. Once thus humanised, the danger they are for others is that they feed on the vitality of those who are in contact with them — that is all.  Secondly in this case, Mother only said vampirelike to some extent.


Sri Aurobindo: That does not mean that she is one of these beings, but has to some extent the habit of feeding on the vitality of others.  There is no need to say anything to your brother — it would only disturb him and not help in the least.   It might; especially if that person were himself desirous of coming, it could give the decisive push. But in most cases desire or will behind the thought-force would be necessary.


Sri Aurobindo: If they are sufﬁciently open to the Divine it can be done — but most sadhaks have too much egoism and lack of faith and obscurity and self-will and vital desires, — it is that that shuts them to the Mother and calls in the action of the hostile forces.   Faith in the Mother and complete surrender.  Illusion means that they think their action is all-important and its egoistic objects are the truth that must be followed.    Conversations with the Mother


Sri Aurobindo: The knowledge about the bad effect of depression is meant for the sadhak to learn to avoid these things. He cannot expect people to ﬂatter his failures or mistakes or indulge his foibles merely because he has the silly habit of indulging in depression and hurting his nervous envelope if that is done. To keep himself free from depression is his business, not that of others. For instance some people have the habit of getting into depression if the Mother does not comply with their desires — it does not follow that the Mother must comply with their desires in order to keep them jolly — they must learn to get rid of this habit of mind. So with people’s want of encouragement or praise for all they do.


Sri Aurobindo: One can be silent or non-intervening, but if even that depresses them, it is their own fault and nobody else’s.  Of course, it is the same in ordinary life — depression is always hurtful. But in sadhana it is more serious because it becomes a strong obstacle to the smooth and rapid progress towards the goal.


Sri Aurobindo: It is meant in the inner sense only — no outer greatness is meant.  All submission is regarded by the ego as lowering and lessening itself, but really submission to the Divine increases and greatens the being, that is what is meant.     She was speaking of the true spiritual sacriﬁce of self-giving, not the bringing of an unwilling heart to the altar.


Sri Aurobindo: About the Gujarati translation of the the Mother had told you she did not want it published or sent outside. In the original or in translation, the book is not one meant to be given or shown to everybody. If wants to make copies for himself and he can do so; but, as it comes from the Asram, it might be taken for an authoritative issue from the Asram.  It should be understood that it is translation, only made for your personal use; we have not seen it and cannot therefore guarantee its correctness.  The Prayers ought not to be given to anyone who is not practising Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: The “Conversations” are for those who are interested in Yoga.    It is possible to intensely identify oneself with the Mother’s consciousness through what you read — in that case the result you speak of could come. It could also have an effect on the vital up to a certain point.  No — “” simply means “when they die”.


Sri Aurobindo: What Mother intended was that when they actually arrive at their Nirvana they ﬁnd it is not the ultimate solution or largest realisation of the Supreme and they must eventually come back and have their share of the world action to reach that largest realisation.     There is no ambiguity that I can see. “” and “” do not convey any sense of inevitability.


Sri Aurobindo: “” means simply that in fact, actually, as things are at present all life (on earth) has death attached to it as its end; but it does not in the least convey the idea that it can never be otherwise or that this is the unalterable law of all existence. It is at present a fact for certain reasons which are stated, — due to certain mental and physical circumstances — if these are changed, death is not inevitable any longer. Obviously the alteration can only come “if” certain conditions are satisﬁed — all progress and change by evolution depends upon an “if” which gets satisﬁed. If the animal mind had not been pushed to develop speech and reason, mental man would never have come into existence, — but the “if”, a stupendous and formidable one, was satisﬁed. So with the ifs that condition a farther progress.


Sri Aurobindo:   I believe the Mother was referring to the mental Asuras as opposed to the vital hostiles. There are no hostiles above the mind and cannot be, for it is with the mind that the opposition begins.  When the were translated, Mother made certain corrections so as to express the thought better than in the original report.   “” in French usually means not the whole universe but the “world” — the earth.


Sri Aurobindo: There must be a progress in the earthconsciousness, otherwise there could have been no evolution.  The evolution of mankind may go by circles or spirals, but there is all the same an opening of more and more complete possibilities till the possibility of the evolution of a higher race becomes valid.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not know whether it is of much utility. Besides, it would be only myself who could speak of things in my past, giving them their true form and signiﬁcance. But as you have arranged it, it can be done.  This [] is not a publication for which the Asram is responsible. If the outer facts of the life are corrected there is no harm, but nothing should be said about the inner things of the life here.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary to give the book so much importance or try to make it an authoritative biography.    I am not interested in my own biography. Who is this Dhurandhar or this Kulkarni?  I don’t think a reply is necessary.


Sri Aurobindo: If I am to be murdered in cold print, it had better be done without my disciples becoming abettors of the crime.    This idea of a “Life” going into details and personalities is itself an error. I wrote the brief life given to Dilip as containing all that I wanted to be said about me for the present. The general public can know about my philosophy and Yoga and general character of my work, it has no claim to know anything about the personal side of my life or of that of the Asram either.


Sri Aurobindo:   First of all what matters in a spiritual man’s life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what historicity or biography comes to, does it not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have, and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great ﬁgures, so crowded and teeming with signiﬁcant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it.


Sri Aurobindo: There is no one who can write my biography nor is this the time to do it, supposing it has to be done at all. If the outward facts of the life are meant, anybody can do that and it has no importance — the best thing is to have some outsider to do that mess, if mess there must be.  Girija’s writings are of no importance. I don’t think there is anything on which we can call upon them to stop his articles.  He will claim the right to personal judgment and interpretation of facts, as regards the mask of spirituality over the secret society and the “ruthless murders”


Sri Aurobindo: and there is nothing else on which objection can be based. Let him go his way unnoticed.  But look at the irony of human decisions and human hopes. My father who wanted all his sons to be great men — and succeeded in a small way with three of them — in a sudden inspiration gave me the name Aurobindo, till then not borne by anyone in India or the wide world, that I might stand out unique among the great by the unique glory of my name.


Sri Aurobindo: And now look at the swarm of Aurobindos with their mighty deeds in England, Germany and elsewhere! Don’t tell me it is my fault because of my indiscretion in becoming famous. When I went to the National College in the Swadeshi days which was my ﬁrst public step towards the ignominies of fame, there was already an Aurobindo Prakash waiting for me there with the sardonic comment of the gods printed on his learned forehead. Aurobindo Prakash, indeed!  I do not use the initials AG — they have been discarded long ago.


Sri Aurobindo: I am not at all concerned about Nicodemus and what seems to me his stupid and ignorant question; he brings a fantastic physical notion across Christ’s teaching and I am afraid I must hold him partially responsible for Freud’s sexual meanderings and his craze for going back into his mother’s womb. I don’t myself remember any blissful sojourn in that locality in my case and I don’t believe in it and I am quite sure I never felt any passion for returning there. The great Sigismund must have had it, I suppose, and remembered that blissful period and felt a longing for beatiﬁc return and I suppose others must have had it unless its acceptance is only a result of a general acceptance of the papal infallibility of Sigismund in psycho-analytical matters, about which few people have any direct reliable knowledge or can form a truly independent conviction based on truly independent evidence. I believe the practical methods and evidence for the success of psycho-analysis are made up mostly of suggestion and auto-suggestion; for suggestion and auto-suggestion can do almost anything and can make you believe in anything and everything. Many of these suggestions seem to me quite artiﬁcial and their forced connection with sex to be quite groundless.


Sri Aurobindo: For instance, there is the suggestion of the dream of being stabbed with a knife, which they say is a rendering by the subliminal of an actual sex-probe, and of that you can obviously persuade a patient who is under your inﬂuence. I myself had when a boy of 8 or 9 a vivid dream which I never forgot of myself alone in my bed — I used to be sent to bed much earlier than my brothers — and lay there in a sort of constant terror of the darkness and phantoms and burglars till my brothers came up [ ]   [


Sri Aurobindo: ] Lord God! you bring me back to my childhood’s agonies in an English Nonconformist chapel.   No — I don’t sing on the physical plane.


Sri Aurobindo: My education in England was badly neglected — though people say to the contrary.  I ﬁlled in most of the afterwards, but some remained of which the musical gap is one. But that is no reason why I should not sing on the supraphysical plane where you met me.  There is no exact correspondence between the formation here and the formations there. On the contrary on these inner planes the subliminal as they call it in Europe — that is to say, our inner selves — is full of powers which have not emerged — yet at least — in the physical consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: And especially as I was full of Shiva in your experience there is no reason why I should not have sung for I suppose Shiva sings as well as dances?  Not likely that they keep such things.  Lies? Well, a Punjabi student at Cambridge once took our breath away by the frankness and comprehensive profundity of his afﬁrmation: “Liars! But we are all liars!”


Sri Aurobindo: It appeared that he had intended to say “lawyers”, but his pronunciation gave his remark a deep force of philosophic observation and generalisation which he had not intended! But it seems to me the last word on human nature. Only the lying is sometimes intentional, sometimes vaguely half-intentional, sometimes quite unintentional, momentary and unconscious. So there you are!  I suppose most learn only to be able to read French books, not to know the language well.


Sri Aurobindo: writes and reads ﬂuently but he does not know the grammar — he has only just begun to learn it. does not know French so well — he has learned mostly by typing a lot of things in French. It is not many who know French accurately and idiomatically. was the best in that respect. I don’t think many people would consent to make a principle of reading each book 3 or 4 times in the way you advocate, for very few have the scholarly mind — but two or three books should be so read — I learnt Sanskrit by reading the Naladamayanti episode in the Mahabharat like that with minute care several times.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it must be the familiarity — for I remember when I ﬁrst read the OM Shanti Shanti Shanti of the Upanishads it had a powerful effect on me. In French it depends on the form or the way in which it is put.  It is largely the latter — to show one’s bad moods in society is considered bad form and indicating want of self-control; so people in Europe usually keep their worse side for their own house and family and don’t show it outside. Some do but are considered as either neurasthenic or as having a “sale caract`ere”.  But apart from that Europeans have, I think, more vitality than Indians and are more elastic and resilient and less nervously sensitive.


Sri Aurobindo: There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but generally, I think, that is true. In family life it is more of the rajasic ego than gloom and moroseness that creates trouble. Gloom and moroseness generally meet with ridicule as a “Byronic” or tragic affectation, so it is very soon discouraged. Cunning, strategy and selﬁshness in social life is considered in France at least to be more a characteristic of peasant life — in the middle class it is supposed to be the sign of the “arriviste”.  But what was it due to?


Sri Aurobindo: The sense of swinging of the scaffolding communicating itself to the walls as it were in the impression upon some brain centre? After travelling long in a boat I had once or twice the swaying sense of it after coming off it, as if the land about me was tossing like the boat — of course a subtle physical impression, but vivid enough.  I hope it did not turn out like my ﬁrst taste of Mahratti cookery — when for some reason my dinner was and somebody sent to my neighbour, a Mahratta professor, for food. I took one mouthful and only one. Oh God!


Sri Aurobindo: sudden hell-ﬁre in the mouth could not have been more surprising. Enough to burn down the whole of London in one wild agonising swoop of ﬂame!  Well, there are people who say that smallpox attacks immunise for only a few years.  But if it is as you say, then there are others, I suppose. There is among the servants for instance who nearly died of smallpox.


Sri Aurobindo: I myself had a slight attack in Baroda soon after I came from England — so you needn’t try to come up and vaccinate me.  As for prayer, no hard and fast rule can be laid down. Some prayers are answered, all are not. An example? The eldest daughter of my Mesho, K. K. Mitra, editor of, not by any means a romantic, occult, supraphysical or even imaginative person, was abandoned by the doctors after using every resource, all medicines stopped as useless.


Sri Aurobindo: The father said “There is only God now, let us pray.” He did, and from that moment the girl began to recover, typhoid fever and all its symptoms ﬂed, death also. I know any number of cases like that. Well? You may ask why should not then all prayers be answered?


Sri Aurobindo: But why should they be? It is not a machinery — put a prayer in the slot and get your asking. Besides, considering all the contradictory things mankind is praying for at the same moment, God would be in a rather awkward hole, if he had to grant all of them — it wouldn’t do.  Quite agree with your estimate of Kashmir. The charm of its mountains and rivers and the ideal life dawdling along in the midst of a supreme beauty in the slowly moving leisure of a houseboat — that was a kind of earthly Paradise — also writing poetry on the banks of the Jhelum where it rushes down Kashmir towards the plains.


Sri Aurobindo: Unfortunately there was the over-industrious Gaekwar to cut short the Paradise! His idea of Paradise was going through administrative papers and making myself and others write speeches for which he got all the credit. But after all, according to the nature, to each one his Eden.  There is no incontrovertible proof. 400 years is an exaggeration.


Sri Aurobindo: It is known however that he lived on the banks of the Narmada for 80 years and when he arrived there, he was already in appearance at the age when maturity turns towards overripeness. He was when I met him just before his death a man of magniﬁcent physique showing no signs of old age except white beard and hair, extremely tall, robust, able to walk any number of miles a day and tiring out his younger disciples, walking too so swiftly that they tended to fall behind, a great head and magniﬁcent face that seemed to belong to men of more ancient times. He never spoke of his age or of his past either except for an occasional almost accidental utterance. One of these was spoken to a disciple of his well known to me, a Baroda Sardar, Mazumdar (it was on the top storey of his house by the way that I sat with Lele in Jan. 1908 and had a decisive experience of liberation and Nirvana). Mazumdar learned that he was suffering from a bad tooth and brought him a bottle of Floriline, a toothwash then much in vogue.


Sri Aurobindo: The Yogi refused saying, “I never use medicines. My one medicine is Narmada water. As for this tooth I have suffered from it since the days of Bhao Girdi.” Bhao Girdi was the Maratha general Sadashiv Rao Bhao who disappeared in the battle of Panipat and his body was never found. Many formed the conclusion that Brahmananda was himself Bhao Girdi, but this was an imagination.


Sri Aurobindo: Nobody who knew Brahmananda would doubt any statement of his — he was a man of perfect simplicity and truthfulness and did not seek fame or to impose himself. When he died he was still in full strength and his death came not by decay but by the accident of blood poisoning through a rusty nail that entered into his foot as he walked on the sands of the Narmada. I had spoken to the Mother about him, that was why she mentioned him in her which were not meant for the public — otherwise she might not have said anything as the longevity of Brahmananda to more than 200 years depends only on his own casual word and is a matter of faith in his word. There is no “legal” proof of it. I may say that three at least of his disciples to my knowledge kept an extraordinary aspect and energy of youth even to a comparatively late or quite advanced age — but this perhaps may be not uncommon among those who practise both Raja and Hatha Yoga together.


Sri Aurobindo: I learned Gujarati not for the literature but because it was the language of Baroda where I had to live for 13 years. I have now picked it up again because there are so many Gujarati sadhaks who do not know English — just as I am picking up Hindi now.  My dear sir, I am not a materialist. If I had seen India as only a geographical area with a number of more or less interesting or uninteresting people in it, I would hardly have gone out of my way to do all that for the said area.  Merely a poetic or patriotic sentiment — just as in yourself only your ﬂesh, skin, bones and other things of which the senses give their evidence are real, but what you call your mind and soul do not really exist being merely psychological impressions created by the food you eat and the activity of the glands.


Sri Aurobindo: Poetry and patriotism have of course the same origin and the things they speak of are quite unreal. Amen.   Sri Aurobindo has received your letter. He says there were two wings to the Independence Movement.


Sri Aurobindo: First, there was the external political and constitutional movement. And secondly there was the revolutionary movement which meant a preparation for an armed revolt. He considered both the movements necessary and had his share in preparing both.  The whole of Gandhi’s affair is simply our passive resistance movement given an ethical instead of a political form, applied with a rigid thoroughness which human nature except in a minority cannot bear for long and given too a twist which seems to me to make it harmful to the sane balance and many-sided plasticity necessary for national life. What with Gandhi, Hitler and the rest (very different people but all furiously one-sided and one-ideaed) a large part of humanity seems to have gone off its balance in these times.


Sri Aurobindo:   Subject, politics, — taboo. Writer Kripalani a “romantic” and “idealistic” visionary without hold on realities, living only in academic ideas — so not worth commenting. All the present Congress lot seem to be men who live in ideas only, mostly secondhand, borrowed from Europe (Socialism, Communism etc.), borrowed from Gandhi, borrowed from tradition or borrowed from anywhere; Kripalani looks down on the old Moderates for being in a different way exactly what he himself is — only they were classics and not romantics.


Sri Aurobindo: So what is the use of reading their “histories”? However quite privately and within brackets I will enlighten you on one or two points.  (1) The Swadeshi movement was idealist on one side (no great movement can go without an ideal), but it was perfectly practical in its aims and methods. We were quite aware of the poverty of India and its fallen condition, but we did not try to cure the poverty by Khaddar and Hindi prachar. We advocated the creation of an industrial India and made the movement a Swadeshi movement in order to give that new birth a ﬁeld and favourable conditions — cottage industries were not omitted in our view, but there were no fads.


Sri Aurobindo: The Swadeshi movement created the following very practical effects:  (a) It destroyed the Moderate reformist politics and spread the revolutionary mentality (as Jawaharlal now calls it) and the ideal of independence.  (b) It laid the foundations of an industrial India (not of course wholly industrial, that was not our intention) which is however slowly growing today.  (c) It brought in the commercial classes and the whole educated middle class into the political ﬁeld — and not the middle class only, while Moderatism had touched only a small fringe.  (d) It had not time to bring in the peasantry, but it had begun the work and Gandhi only carried it farther on by his ﬂashy and unsound but exciting methods.


Sri Aurobindo: (e) It laid down a method of agitation which Gandhi took up and continued with three or four startling additions, Khaddar, Hindiism, Satyagraha = getting beaten with joy, Khilafat, Harijan etc. All these had an advertisement value, a power of poking up things which was certainly livelier than anything we put into it. Whether the effects of these things have been good is a more doubtful question.  (2) As a matter of fact the ﬁnal effects of Gandhi’s movement have been  (


Sri Aurobindo: a ) A tremendous ﬁssure between the Hindus and Mahomedans which is going to be kept permanent by communal representation.  (b) A widening ﬁssure between caste Hindus and Harijans, to be made permanent in the same way.  (c) A great confusion in Indian politics which leaves it a huge mass of division, warring tendencies, no clear guide or compass anywhere.


Sri Aurobindo: (d) A new constitution which puts the conservative class in power to serve as a means of maintaining British domination or at least as an intolerable brake on progress — also divides India into ﬁve or six Indias, Hindu, Moslem, Pariah, Christian, Sikh etc.  (e) A big ﬁasco of the Non-Cooperation movement which is throwing politics back on one side to reformism, on the other to a blatant and insincere Socialism.  That, I think, is the sum and substance of the matter.  As for the Hindu-Moslem affair, I saw no reason why the greatness of India’s past or her spirituality should be thrown into the waste-paper basket in order to conciliate the Moslems who would not at all be conciliated by such a stupidity. What has created the Hindu-Moslem split was not Swadeshi, but the acceptance of the communal principle by the Congress, (here Tilak made his great blunder), and the farther attempt by the Khilafat movement to conciliate them and bring them in on wrong lines.


Sri Aurobindo: The recognition of that communal principle at Lucknow made them permanently a separate entity in India which ought never to have happened; the Khilafat affair made that separate political entity an organised separate political power. It was not Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, Swaraj (our platform) which made this tremendous division, how could it? Tilak whom the Kripalani man blames along with me for it, is responsible not by that, but by his support of the Lucknow affair — for the rest, Gandhi did it with the help of his Ali brothers.  There you are. On a tabooed subject — it is, I think, enough.


Sri Aurobindo: Not at all for circulation you understand and quite conﬁdential.  There is a coward in every human being — precisely the part in him which insists on “safety” — for that is certainly not a brave attitude. I admit however that I would like safety myself if I could have it — perhaps that is why I have always managed instead to live dangerously and follow the dangerous paths dragging so many poor’s in my train.    I was so astonished by this succinct, complete and impeccably accurate biography of myself that I let myself go in answer!


Sri Aurobindo: But I afterwards thought that it was no use living more dangerously than I am obliged to, so I rubbed all out. My only answer now is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thank you for the safe, rich, comfortable and unadventurous career you have given me. I note also that the only danger man can run in this world is that of the lack of money. Karl Marx himself could not have made a more economic world of it!


Sri Aurobindo: But I wonder whether that was what Nietzsche meant by living dangerously?    Why the devil should you know anything about it?  You are writing like Samuel Smiles. Poverty has never had any terrors for me nor is it an incentive.


Sri Aurobindo: You seem to forget that I left my very safe and “handsome” Baroda position without any need to it, and that I gave up also the Rs. 150 of the National College Principalship, leaving myself with nothing to live on. I could not have done that if money had been an incentive.   Not in the least.  Certainly not the commercial test.


Sri Aurobindo: I was quoting Nietzsche — so the mention of him is perfectly apposite.  I won’t. It is altogether unnecessary besides. If you don’t realise that starting and carrying on for ten years and more a revolutionary movement for independence without means and in a country wholly unprepared for it meant living dangerously, no amount of puncturing of your skull with words will give you that simple perception. And as to the Yoga, you yourself were perorating at the top of your voice about its awful, horrible, pathetic and tragic dangers.


Sri Aurobindo: So —    Wait a sec. I have admitted nothing about “Barinbabu” — only to having inspired and started and maintained while I was in the ﬁeld a movement for independence. That used at least to be a matter of public knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not commit myself to more than that. My dear fellow, I was acquitted of sedition twice and of conspiracy to wage war against the British Raj once and each time by an impeccably British magistrate, judges or judge. Does not that prove conclusively my entire harmlessness and that I was a true Ahimsuk?  Politics, war, revolution are things of stratagem and ambush — one cannot expect the truth there. From what I have heard Gandhi himself has played tricks and dodges there.


Sri Aurobindo: Das told me it was impossible to lead men in politics or get one’s objects without telling falsehoods by the yard and he was often feeling utterly disgusted with himself and his work, but supposed he would have to go through with it to the end.  There is no necessity to reveal one’s plans and movements to those who have no business to know it, who are incapable of understanding or who would act as enemies or spoil all as a result of their knowledge. Secrecy is perfectly admissible and usual in spiritual matters except in special relations like that of the shishya to the guru. We do not let people outside know what is going on in the Asram but we do not tell any lies about it either. Most Yogis say nothing about their spiritual experiences to others or not until long afterwards and secrecy was a general rule among the ancient Mystics.


Sri Aurobindo: No moral or spiritual law commands us to make ourselves naked to the world or open up our hearts and minds for public inspection. Gandhi talked about secrecy being a sin but that is one of his many extravagances.  I knew very well Sister Nivedita (she was for many years a friend and a comrade in the political ﬁeld) and met Sister Christine, — the two closest European disciples of Vivekananda. Both were Westerners to the core and had nothing at all of the Hindu outlook; although Sister Nivedita, an Irishwoman, had the power of penetrating by an intense sympathy into the ways of life of the people around her, her own nature remained non-Oriental to the end. Yet she found no difﬁculty in arriving at realisation on the lines of Vedanta.