There was not the idea of ‘interests’ in India as in Europe, i.e., each community was not fighting for its own interests; but there was rather the idea of Dharma — the function which the individual and the community have to fulfil in the larger national life. There were caste organisations not based upon a religio-social basis as we find nowadays; they were more or less groups organised for a communal life. There were also religious communities like the Buddhists, Jains, etc. Each followed its own law — Swadharma — unhampered by the State. The State recognised the necessity of allowing such various forms of life to develop freely in order to give to the national spirit a richer expression.
The genius of India was quite different. She depended more on life than on machines. The conception of life adopted by the ancient Indian politicians was to allow the free growth of life in all sorts of autonomous centres. They had machinery, organization, but the mechanical part of it was secondary, subordinate; the principle of life, the _svadharma_ of every group or centre was the primary thing. Thus there were the village centres, the town centres, all with their own assemblies of elected members, their own laws suitable to their peculiar needs and conditions. There were similar other groups, the clan, the family, the caste guilds, the religious _sanghas_ – each developed life in its own way without trying to thrust its law or _dharma_ on others. Thus the whole country pulsated with life; a mechanical set organization or rule from above did not hamper their free growth.
Disciple: _The description of Avatarhood that you have given in the Essays on the Gita does not tally with what is heard of Ramakrishna. Was he an Avatar?_
Disciple: _There is the lower triplicity of the mental, the vital and the physical. Does it in any way correspond to the three gunas Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas?_
Sri Aurobindo: In each of the planes there is the play of all the three gunas. But when the mind is illumined and becomes greatly developed, it shows the dominance of the sattwa. The vital can be sattwic but the rajasic play is the most suitable to it; while tamas – inertia and ignorance – is a characteristic of the physical.
Sri Aurobindo: There is no indispensable connection between spiritual sadhana and patriotic work. A man may seek his individual salvation without thinking anything about his country or one may be a great patriot or a liberator of his country without doing any sadhana for his individual salvation; one can also combine the two – as some of us did before. We did political work in the spirit of Karmayoga, as a sacrifice to God; at least we tried to do political work as a part of our sadhana. Which course a man should follow must be decided by himself according to his needs and inner call.
Sri Aurobindo: As already said, the two things are quite distinct – but one may work for the liberation of his country as a sacrifice to the highest, as Karmayoga. But there is no necessary connection between the two.
Sri Aurobindo: _Dharma_ is not religion though it has become customary to translate religion by _dharma_. _Dharma_ is law – it includes the social and moral laws; also the law of one’s own being, one’s own nature is said to be _dharma_ – _svadharma_.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think that the Gita, strictly speaking, is dealing with the origin of emotions in that couplet. It merely tries to show that when the mind “runs after” and “dwells upon” something, it gets attachment. But it does not mean that thought precedes emotions always.
Sri Aurobindo: The Gita speaks of a certain kind of passions, it does not say that this is the only way by which emotions and feelings arise. Then _dhyāyato_ means not thinking but running after; when the mind runs after something, it gets attached to it.
Disciple: _There is a marked difference between the national workers of the Swadeshi period and those at the present time. The former workers drew their inspiration from the Gita; the present workers have discarded the Gita, they laugh at spirituality, they draw their inspiration from Bolshevists or similar other European movements._
Establish the higher calm throughout the _ādhāra_ and for this stand on the Purusha-Prakriti attitude of the Gita.
Sri Aurobindo: That is the Theosophist view. The idea of reward and punishment is human nonsense. What happens is that whenever any act is done, some energy is thrown out and there is a reaction on the doer. If a person does his works in the proper attitude – without attachment, as described in the Gita – allowing Nature to do her work without allowing oneself to be identified with that, then there is no reaction.
Sri Aurobindo: The highest is what we call Purushottama, but man can get to the Ananda plane only.
In this Yoga you have to be prepared to cut yourself away from what you consider _your_ work and _your_ creation, when necessary; you have to be merciless in throwing old things away. That is really the meaning of Nishkama Karma — that you must have no attachment to anything.
Disciple: Is there any truth in the idea that every great Vibhuti who brings anything new into manifestation builds, first of all, what is called Yogapitha — a seat of Yoga? Each man who goes by his path reaches that Yogapitha and each sadhak has his place there. When once such a Pitha is made then anyone who comes afterwards finds it very easy to reach it because there is a passage already made.
Disciple: _In the Gita it is taken for granted._
Disciple: But mystic poetry is bound to be a little hazy and vague. Tagore has also written simple and clear poems in his _Gitanjali_, e.g. _āmār māthā noto kare dāo._ Perhaps one can write that sort of poem mentally also.
Nirodbaran: But mystic poetry is bound to be a little hazy and vague, at least to those who are not mystically minded. Tagore also has written simple and clear poems in his Gitanjali: for example, “Amar matha nata kare dad” (“Let my head bow down”). Perhaps one can write poetry of that kind mentally too. Is personal experience always necessary?
Sri Aurobindo: I mean by it a Consciousness of which the Gita speaks as Param Bhavam, Purushottama, Parabrahman, Paramatman. That is to say, the origin and the support and cause of everything. It is Omnipotent and Omnipresent. You can’t define it. You limit it if you define it. It can be described as Sachchidananda. It is everything, it is everywhere, it is in everything. It is impersonal, “Neti, Neti”; it is also “Iti, Iti”. You can have the experience of Sachchidananda on any plane. These things cannot be known by the mind or by discussion. The Golden Lid has to be broken.
Disciple: What do you think of his Gita? Was it inspired?
Dr. Manilal: What do you think of his book on the Gita? Was it inspired?
Satyendra: They are common, Sir, everywhere. They are given in the Gita: for example, equal love for others, equal-mindedness in all circumstances, etc.
Sri Aurobindo: I believe there was somebody – Sridhar – who has written something like an epic. I hear Jnanadev wrote brilliantly but he died at an early age: twenty-one. And Jnaneshwar wrote his Gita at fifteen.
Disciple: There was a letter from our friend X in which he has tried to show that the Gita is a book on psychoanalysis and that Sri Krishna was a great psychoanalyst! He psychoanalysed Arjuna and worked out his complexes. He was very much perturbed at your denunciation of Freud’s psychoanalysis in the _Bases of Yoga._ You have run down the greatest discovery of modern times.
It was at that time that I gave up meat diet and found a great feeling of lightness and purification in the system. Meat is a rajasic food. That is why the Kshatriyas did not give it up. Vivekananda recommended it to Indians because it gives a certain force and energy in the physical. From Tamas you pass into Rajas, Vivekananda was not quite wrong.
Sri Aurobindo: Meat is rajasic and gives a certain force and energy to the physical. That’s why the Kshatriyas did not give up meat. Vivekananda advocated it to lift our people from Tamas [inertia] to Rajas [dynamism]. He was not quite wrong.
Disciple: We have heard that you received guidance from Sri Krishna in your Sadhana: was it from Sri Krishna of Brindavan or of Kurukshetra?
Sri Aurobindo: I should think it was of Kurukshetra.
Disciple: Krishna of Kurukshetra is, I suppose, the one who gave the Gita.
Sri Aurobindo: The one who spoke the Gita is the Vishnu aspect.
Disciple: Arjuna could not bear his sight and had to ask him to resume his human form.
Veda, Upanishad, Gita all are equally great.
Satyendra: We have heard that you had guidance from Sri Krishna. Was it the Brindavan Krishna or the Kurukshetra Krishna?
Sri Aurobindo: I should think it was the Kurukshetra Krishna. I had an experience of Krishna-Kali in Alipore Jail. It was a very powerful vision.
Satyendra: It is the Kurukshetra Krishna who spoke the Gita.
Sri Aurobindo: The one who spoke the Gita is the Vishnu aspect. In the Vishnu Purana all these aspects are very finely described. The Vishnu Purana is the only Purana I have carefully read through. I wonder how it has escaped general notice that it is also magnificent poetry.
Satyendra: They are entitled to call you a philosopher, for you have followed the tradition of the Acharyas and written about the Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita.
Sri Aurobindo: I have said nothing new in my philosophy. I have not put my philosophy into the Gita. I have only tried to explain what seems to be the sense of the Gita in the light of my own experience. But I do admit to a new way of Yoga.
Disciple: In this Yoga, it seems, one has to fight like Arjuna, in the battle of Kurukshetra, because it is a Yoga of fight and battle and conquest.
I found it difficult to go through his commentary on the Gita. It is more intellectual, it lacks the life and the heart. Otherwise, it was always a pleasure to read his writings. He seems to have lost the intensity of mental vision, the seeing mind which he had, but I thought that it was due to his turning towards Knowledge.
Satyendra: Saints are, I suppose, nearer to earth and are at the top of the human ladder. In our Yoga it seems one has to face a Kurukshetra, I mean an inner Kurukshetra, and everyone has to be a fighter like Arjuna.
Disciple: S used to quote to me the famous verse of Duryodhana: _Jānāmi dharmam nacha me pravṛittih_ — I know what is the Dharma but I can’t gather force to do what I should do.
But the spiritual point of view is quite different from the moral. There is no question of right or wrong there. One goes above all standards and looks from a higher plane. But then it is essential to have the perception and feeling of the Divine in all. One can see the Divine in all behind the veil of the Gunas, the Nature qualities. From the spiritual plane one finds that the Gita is right about the Gunas and that man is made to do one thing or another by the action of the Gunas. That is why Ramakrishna said about a visiting Sannyasi that he was tamasic Narayana, God inert. But when another Vedantin came along and brought a concubine with him, Ramakrishna could not keep to the same viewpoint. He asked the Vedantin, “Why do you keep a concubine?” The Vedantin replied, “Everything is Maya. So what does it matter what I do?” Ramakrishna said, “Then I spit on your Vedanta.” But logically the Vedantin was right. So long as you believe everything is Maya, you can do as you like.
Disciple: For example, in the Kurukshetra battle, Duryodhana thought that he was in the right. He did not know that he was leading his own family into destruction.
Sri Aurobindo: Certainly. The individual can refuse to submit to Nature. For example, Arjuna refused to act according to his nature and eighteen chapters of the Gita had to be told to make him fight.
Sri Aurobindo: But the individual in Nature has the freedom to accept Nature or to refuse. Arjuna refused to fight and eighteen chapters of the Gita followed to make him fight. It is the Purusha in the individual that can withdraw its sanction from Prakriti and then Prakriti cannot act according to its own movement. Real liberation comes when the Purusha awakes and feels itself free and lord.
Sri Aurobindo: But that is not the same as service of humanity. The Gita also asks us to work for the good of the world. _Loka hita_ can be done in many ways.
The ancient sages too were less exclusive. They said, _sarva bhuteshu,_ meaning all creatures, not men alone.
World-repulsion arising from the Guna (quality) of Tamas (ignorance and inertia) in one’s nature: the two other Gunas are Rajas (dynamism) and Sattwa (refinement and poise).
Purani while sponging Sri Aurobindo: There is a story, told originally by Lalji, of a Mahratta lady. In ecstatic moments of some descent from above, she can explain the Gita and other scriptures, though she herself is not educated. In those moments her face takes on a blue colour. She says the descent is that of her true Divine Self. But what is this blue colour?
Sri Aurobindo: Because it is the mind that receives the light when she talks of the Gita and of other things in her ecstatic mood.
_At noon Nirodbaran read out a letter to Sri Aurobindo. It was written by Sisir Maitra to Anilbaran in the course of their discussion on Reason, Buddhi, Kant, Hegel, the Gita, etc. Ultimately Sri Aurobindo was referred to. In the evening Purani took up the topic._
Purani: Anilbaran asks another question. Kant says that one can arrive at the Truth by Reason. Maitra says the Gita also affirms the same thing, while Anilbaran contends that one can’t.
Sri Aurobindo: Does the Gita say so? Or is it Maitra’s own opinion? If it is, it may be all right as a constructive thought, and it may be true in a certain sense. But if the Gita is mentioned, the proper text has to be traced. I think the Gita has advocated Reason as one of the means through which one can approach the Truth. Even Shankara, I believe, doesn’t say that Reason is useless. He admits that it prepares for what is beyond – even for going beyond Sattwa, etc. It is a stepping-stone.
Disciple: A says that the Gita’s idea of Moksha demands freedom from Prakriti. Therefore, so long as man follows Buddhi he is not free.
Sri Aurobindo: Does the Gita say that he can’t be free?
Disciple: I think the text of the Gita supports this role of the Buddhi.
Sri Aurobindo: I should think so. Otherwise what is the meaning of the Gita laying so much stress on Buddhi? Buddhi helps you to detach yourself and prepares you for the higher perception of the Purusha. And even Shankara, I believe, does not say that reason is quite useless. He also admits that reason prepares the human spirit for what is beyond. Even for going beyond Sattwa, it is a stepping stone.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is an instrument that helps you to rise to the higher Nature. The Gita, as I said, maintains that Buddhi can perceive that which is beyond it.
Disciple: A does not want to admit M’s contention that Kant’s idea of following Reason and the Gita’s Buddhi Yoga are the same.
Sri Aurobindo: But that is a reason that is bound. There is a reason that can be detached. According to the Gita, one is not free by merely reasoning about stealing; it is only if he can steal with disinterestedness that he is free.
Purani after a lull in the talk: Anilbaran says that according to Kant if one follows Reason one is free but if one follows Sense one is bound. There is also the question: Is Buddhi or Intellect an instrument of Prakriti and can a man, so long as he follows Buddhi, be free in the Gita’s sense – that is, free from Nature?
Sri Aurobindo: Does the Gita say that he can’t be free?
Purani: The text of the Gita will support this role of Buddhi.
Sri Aurobindo: I should think so. Otherwise what is the meaning of the Gita laying so much stress on Buddhi?
Purani: Anilbaran does not want to admit Sisir Maitra’s contention that Kant’s idea of following Reason is the same as the Gita’s Buddhi-Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: But merely by reasoning he can’t be free. If we apply the Gita, one is not free merely because one reasons about stealing, but if one can steal disinterestedly and with detachment one can be free.
Satyendra: Wouldn’t it be difficult for Europeans to grasp such ideas – for instance, that of killing people with detachment?
Disciple: Did you read Dr. S. K. Maitra’s article on Kant and the Gita?
Sri Aurobindo: His idea of freedom is like the Sanskrit sloka: “Everything under one’s control is happiness, everything under another’s control is sorrow.” But the Gita’s idea is to go beyond oneself and one’s own freedom.
_Purani had given Sri Aurobindo Sisir Maitra’s article on Kant and the Gita. Later he asked Sri Aurobindo how he found it._
Sri Aurobindo: He has overstressed the ethical part and left out the spiritual and explained the spiritual idea from the ethical standpoint. For instance, he has interpreted the Gita’s idea of doing work as duty for duty’s sake – an ethical view. Doing work from any other motive and without desire for its fruit is too subtle for the mind to understand.
Purani: Malaviya has asked to observe it as the Gita day also.
Disciple: The Khilafat agitation was a great mistake; it only added to the fanaticism of the Muslims without giving them patriotism or nationalism.
Sri Aurobindo: Even if you make effort, you rely on the Grace for the result. _(After a pause)_ If you have to run a race you ran the race but the result does not depend on the running. You have to rely on the Grace for the result. The same is the case with medicines. One of my cousins (Krishna Kumar Mitra’s daughter) was on the point of death due to typhoid. Nil Ratan and everybody else gave up hope and said, “The only thing is to pray.” They prayed; after the prayer they found that her consciousness had revived and she was all right. I was at Baroda at that time. They wired to me about her hopeless condition. And then there is what happened to Madhavrao’s son. He was dying; the doctors had given up hope. Madhavrao wired to them to stop medicines all and pray to God. They did it and the son was cured. I know this as a fact. Madhavrao himself showed me the telegram.
Disciple: In a publication of the Gita Press the writer is trying to prove the efficacy of repeating the Divine Name and of Kirtan. He cites Tulsidas in support of his contention.
Nirodbaran: There’s another letter – from Anilbaran – regarding the people of the Gita Prachar Party who are coming to visit the Ashram. Somebody wants you to answer the question, “Is there any effect of repeating a sacred Name and doing Kirtan even unconsciously or unwillingly?” Tulsidas says there is.
Purani: One of the members of the Gita Prachar Party is a Shankarite. He asked me why we don’t recognise Shankara’s philosophy. I told him, “We recognise it but we also hold that it is not the only truth. There are other aspects of the Truth.” He says, “Your Yoga is one of surrender. Is surrender a Bhava [feeling] or a Kriya [action]?”
Purani: Dilip brought a retired Bengali judge to introduce him to Nolini. The judge is a member of the Gita Prachar Party. The man looked at Nolini for an instant and then suddenly embraced and kissed him; then he said, “I have read your writings and I like them very much.” Nolini was so surprised.
Satyendra after a lull: Some of the members of the Gita Prachar Party have died on a pilgrimage.
Purani: I read in Kalyan that somebody has conquered death.
Nirodbaran: He says the Gita is Sri Aurobindo’s favourite book. But the Gita also speaks of the gods.
Sri Aurobindo: Not only the Gita, but also Sri Aurobindo speaks of them. _(Laughter)_
Bijoy Goswami passed the last years of his life in Puri and he came to the conclusion that so long as poverty was there in India, spiritual and religious teaching had no chance. One of his disciples writes in the last issue of the _Kalyān_ that in his last years he believed in _dāna yagña_, charity. So much so that he ran into debt and when his health was failing the disciple had to arrange for the money to pay up a loan, because Bijoy Goswami said that he would not leave Puri before paying the debt. He asked his disciples not to be calculating and practical but to do work as a divine work, without thinking of tomorrow.
Sri Aurobindo with a surprised look: _ No. Only by the negative path do you arrive at Non-Being, or what the Gita calls the Indeterminate. As I said, it is the same as in Taoism and Buddhism. But it is not really Nothing. What we can say is that no attribute of Being can be posited of it. Taoism says that Non-Being is Everything rather than Nothing. By the affirmative path you come through Supermind to Sachchidananda which is both static and dynamic, while through the negative path you come to Non-Being.
Nirodbaran: Perhaps you have come as Arjuna in this new play of Krishna.
Purani: A wanted to know what you thought of his guru, S. He was telling me that S once heard a voice: “A needs help.” At that time A was passing through some difficulty. S came to him and told him about the voice. A admitted his difficulty but said it would get all right. Some time later A came by a copy of your Essays on the Gita and when he was reading it he was possessed by some power and he felt that you alone could give him guidance. By the time S came to give him the Rama Mantra which had been given to him by somebody, A had already got the same Mantra automatically; so there was no question of taking it again. Because of this connection with S, A has an attachment to him and so he has requested you to let S have your darshan. S has come here both from curiosity and because of A. He was telling A that when he was coming for the Darshan he heard a voice which was your voice, saying to him, “You are a special personality and you are welcome.” He hasn’t spoken of his impression of you or the Mother or of his own feelings; he praised only the external side of the Ashram. So I thought that to come all the way merely to hear that voice was a rather poor result. (Sri Aurobindo smiled when he heard about the voice.)
Sri Aurobindo: As I said, I read only one page of Kant and then gave it up, because it wouldn’t go in: that is, it didn’t become real to me. I was like Manilal grappling with _The Life Divine._ Plato I could read, as he was not merely metaphysical. Nietzsche also because of his powerful ideas. In Indian philosophy I read the Upanishads and the Gita, etc. They are, of course, mainly results of spiritual experience. People think I must be immensely learned and know all about Hegel, Kant and the others. The fact is that I haven’t even read them; and people don’t know I have written everything from experience and spiritual perception. Modern philosophers wrap their ideas up in extraordinary phraseology and there is too much gymnastics of the mind – even then they don’t seem to have gone deeper than the Greeks in their ideas and theories. I read some of the commentaries of Ramanuja, Shankara, etc. They seemed to me mere words and phrases and at the end Ramanuja says that nobody has experienced Pure Consciousness – a most amazing statement, absurd.
Sri Aurobindo: Even so, I suppose different interpretations will be made, just as there are Hegelians and Neo-Hegelians. Shankara wrote a brief commentary on the Gita and then there were many commentaries on his commentary. But in _The Life Divine_ some of the chapters run to sixty or seventy pages of exposition.
Champaklal: You seem to have written to Z that the Essays on the Gita was written in this manner.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it was the same with me when I was reading the Gita and the Upanishads in jail.
Champaklal: People say that Krishna gave the Gita into your hand.
Nirodbaran: He says that every eighteenth year of your life has been marked by a notable incident. In 1908 the Vasudeva experience, in 1926 the Overmind descent.
Purani: In the Kalyan, one of Bejoy Goswami’s disciples has written that in his last days Goswami was at Puri during Dana-yajna and because of that he ran into heavy debts. When he fell ill he was advised to go to Calcutta, but because of his debts he could not leave Puri. His disciples managed to pay off the debts. I don’t know if he died at Calcutta.
Sri Aurobindo: That is what I have written in the _Arya_ – that “soul-force” sometimes creates forces which are much more violent. Gandhi may agree to the change of constitution as a result of his fast but not Virawalla’s death. _(Laughter)_
Sri Aurobindo: That proves what I have written in the _Essays on the Gita_ about soul-force.
Sri Aurobindo: He has not come to that yet. But he has found the Charkha in the Gita.
Satyendra: What about the arrests connected with the Holwell monument?
