5th December 1950:The Triumph Over Death

Sri Aurobindo

The Pilgrim of the Night

I made an assignation with the Night;
In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous:
In my breast carrying God's deathless light I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo.
I left the glory of the illumined Mind And the calm rapture of the divinised soul And travelled through a vastness dim and blind To the grey shore where her ignorant waters roll.
And still that weary journeying knows no end;
Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time, There comes no voice of the celestial Friend,
And yet I know my footprints' track shall be A pathway towards Immortality.
26-7-1938 revised 18-3-1944

One of the disciples, Dara (Aga Syed Ibrahim), who paid his homage to Sri Aurobindo on the 5^th December, stated :

I found myself in Sri Aurobindo’s own room by the side of his cot. He seemed so peaceful and happy, and the flesh shone with a new luster which I failed to see at the daŕsan time on 24^th November. Why could I not see it before?... I could not take my eyes off his face and arms. It seemed to me he was alive. It was certain that he was in a condition of a deep and upward soaring trance just then.

Notes of Some wanderings With the Swami Vivekananda - by Sister Nivedita

Notes of Some wanderings With the Swami Vivekananda - by Sister Nivedita

St. Bismillah placed at the head of the Koran

Oct 10--

St. Bismillah placed at the head of the Koran

The movement of the Siddhi is once again overcoming the Asiddhi. The second & first chatusthayas are being restored in their completeness. The faith that disregards immediate out- ward circumstances, is developing, although still combated by the suggestions of the intellectual environment

Outward circumstances of the moment have to be understood by the vijnana. But there must first be this general faith that they have all an intelligible purpose & an intelligible sense.

---

647

It is true that they are worked out through the Pranic world by the Dwayavins using conflicting energies, but the Power that gov- erns them in spite of their ignorance & mutual misunderstanding is One, who is neither a passive Being nor a blind Force.

The only question that remains is whether the immediate guide of the Yoga is the Ishwara himself or a Spirit who errs, the Manomaya Purusha in oneself or a Manishi outside.

The faith must be that it is the Ishwara, Anandamaya & Vijnanamaya who is the guide, although He still uses the im- pulsions & ideas of the Manishi & not yet the full Vijnanamaya harmony.

It is the replacement of the mental perceptions & impulses that is the work of the Vijnanachatusthaya. It is because that work is not yet done, that the first two chatusthayas are open to shocks & disturbances through the disappointment of the faith.

This is why it has always been said that the absolute finality of the first two chatusthayas depended on the fulfilment of the third.

But the entire fulfilment of the third implies the fulfilment of the fourth and fifth and therefore necessarily of the sixth and seventh.

Therefore it is an integral fulfilment that is being worked out & this aim prevents the separate perfection of each chatusthaya by itself without relation to the rest.

Faith & Ananda Brahman are the two keys to the perfect internal state, with dasya as the joining point. Knowledge & Power are the two keys to the perfect external state, with Daivi Prakriti as the joining point.

Utthapana Arms 1 hr 45 minutes, discontinued for want of time, not failure of power. More physical unwillingness & more defect of anima than day before yesterday..

Effectivity of tapas still acts against resistance and by lapse of time.

http://www.sriaurobindoashram.info/Content.aspx?ContentURL=_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-01%20Works%20of%20Sri%20Aurobindo/-01%20English/-03_CWSA/-10_Record%20of%20Yoga/-32_29to30%20SEPTEMBER%2031%20DECEMBER%201914_1.htm

Bismillah al rahman al rahim

The Arabic phrase shown above is pronounced as Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, and is a beautifully poetic phrase which offers both deep insight and brilliant inspiration. It has often been said that the phrase Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim contains the true essence of the entire Qur'an, as well as the true essence of all religions.

Muslims often say this phrase when embarking on any significant endeavor, and the phrase is considered by some to be a major pillar of Islam. This expression is so magnificent and so concise that all but one chapter of the Qur'an begins with the words Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.

http://wahiduddin.net/words/bismillah.htm

Parabrahman

[Yusufali 2:255] Allah! There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).

SRI AUROBINDO

Collected Poems

SHORT POEMS — 1895-1908

Parabrahman

These wanderings of the suns, these stars at play

In the due measure that they chose of old,

Nor only these, but all the immense array

Of objects that long Time, far Space can hold,

Are divine moments. They are thoughts that form,

They are vision in the Self of things august

And therefore grandly real. Rule and norm

Are processes that they themselves adjust.

The Self of things is not their outward view,

A Force within decides. That Force is He;

His movement is the shape of things we knew,

Movement of Thought is Space and Time. A free

And sovereign master of His world within,

He is not bound by what He does or makes,

He is not bound by virtue or by sin,

Awake who sleeps and when He sleeps awakes.

He is not bound by waking or by sleep;

He is not bound by anything at all.

Laws are that He may conquer them. To creep

Or soar is at His will, to rise or fall.

One from of old possessed Himself above

Who was not anyone nor had a form,

Nor yet was formless. Neither hate nor love

Could limit His perfection, peace nor storm.

He is, we cannot say; for Nothing too

Is His conception of Himself unguessed.

He dawns upon us and we would pursue,

But who has found Him or what arms possessed?

He is not anything, yet all is He;

He is not all but far exceeds that scope.

Both Time and Timelessness sink in that sea:

Time is a wave and Space a wandering drop.

Within Himself He shadowed Being forth,

Which is a younger birth, a veil He chose

To half-conceal Him, Knowledge, nothing worth

Save to have glimpses of its mighty cause,

And high Delight, a spirit infinite,

That is the fountain of this glorious world,

Delight that labours in its opposite,

Faints in the rose and on the rack is curled.

Sri Aurobindo

Essays Divine and Human

Writings from Manuscripts. 1910 – 1950

Purna Yoga

III. Parabrahman and Parapurusha

God or Para Purusha is Parabrahman unmanifest and inexpressible turned towards a certain kind of manifestation or expression, of which the two eternal terms are Atman and Jagati, Self and Universe. Atman becomes in self-symbol all existences in the universe; so too, the universe when known, resolves all its symbols into Atman. God being Parabrahman is Himself Absolute, neither Atman nor Maya nor unAtman; neither Being nor Not-Being (Sat, Asat); neither Becoming nor non-Becoming (Sambhuti, Asambhuti); neither Quality nor non-Quality (Saguna, Nirguna); neither Consciousness nor non-consciousness, (Chaitanya, Jada); neither Soul nor Nature (Purusha, Prakriti); neither Bliss nor non-Bliss; neither man nor god nor animal; He is beyond all these things, He maintains and contains all these things; in Himself as world He is and becomes all these things.

The only difference between Parabrahman and Parapurusha is that we think of the first as something beyond our universe-existence, expressed here indeed, but still inexpressible, and of the second as something approaching our universe-existence, inexpressible indeed, but still here expressed. It is as if, in reading a translation of the Ramayan or Homer's Iliad, we were to look at the unapproachable something no translator can seize and say “This is not the Ramayan”, “This is not the Iliad” and yet, looking at the comparative adequacy of the expressions which do succeed in catching something of the original spirit and intention, were at the same time to say “This is Homer”, “This is Valmekie.” There is no other difference except this of standpoint. The Upanishads speak of the Absolute Parabrahman as Tat; they say Sa when they speak of the Absolute Parapurusha.

Circa 1913

Good And Evil

We may think that this is an altogether mystical vision of the universe, with very little in common with our daily reality; at every step we encounter ugliness and evil; this world is riddled with pain, saturated with strangled cries. Where is the Divine in all this? Is the Divine that barbarism ever ready to open its torture camps? Or that pervading egoism? Or that villainy, concealed or flaunted? God is innocent of all these crimes. He is perfect. He cannot be a party to this – neti neti – God is so pure that He is not of this world. There is simply no place for Him in all this suffocating squalor! We must look existence in the face if our aim is to arrive at a right solution whatever that solution may be. And to look existence in the face is to look God in the face; for the two cannot be separated.... This world of our battle and labor is a fierce dangerous destructive devouring world in which life exists precariously and the soul and body of man move among enormous perils, a world in which by every step forward, whether we will it or no, something is crushed and broken, in which every breath of life is a breath too of death. To put away the responsibility for all that seems to us evil or terrible on the shoulders of a semi-omnipotent Devil, or to put it aside as a part of Nature, making an unbridgeable opposition between world-nature and God-nature, as if Nature were independent of God, or to throw the responsibility on man and his sins, as if he had a preponderant voice in the making of this world or could create anything against the will of God, are clumsily comfortable devices.... We erect a God of Love and Mercy, a God of good, a God just, righteous and virtuous according to our own moral conceptions of justice, virtue and righteousness, and all the rest, we say, is not He or is not His, but was made by some diabolical Power which He suffered for some reason to work out its wicked will or by some dark Ahriman counterbalancing our gracious Ormuzd, or was even the fault of selfish and sinful man who has spoiled what was made originally perfect by God.... We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in His being and that so He has made it. We have to see that Nature devouring her children, Time eating up the lives of creatures, Death universal and ineluctable and the violence of the Rudra¹³⁵ forces in man and Nature are also the supreme Godhead in one of his cosmic figures. We have to see that God the bountiful and prodigal creator, God the helpful, strong and benignant preserver is also God the devourer and destroyer. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is his touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. It is only when we see with the eye of the complete union and feel this truth in the depths of our being that we can entirely discover behind that mask too the calm and beautiful face of the all-blissful Godhead and in this touch that tests our imperfection the touch of the friend and builder of the spirit in man. The discords of the world are God's discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastness of his transcendent and his cosmic Ananda....¹³⁶ For truth is the foundation of real spirituality and courage is its soul.¹³⁷

Then the wound is healed that seemed forever to divide the world between Satan and Heaven, as if there were nothing else but Good and Evil, with us in between like an infant coddled and whipped into virtuous ways.¹³⁸ All duality is a vision based on Ignorance. There is nothing but the innumerable One¹³⁹ everywhere, and "God's discords" to help the Godhead grow within us.

Darshan Day 15th Of August 2011

AUTOMATIC WRITINGS, c. 1920 [1] One of the guests of the future. . Millions of men are waiting for the day that comes but it comes not till the light has descended. And who shall make the light descend? Half lights will not do, they prepare and pass and fade. The whole light, the unveiled power. We behind the veil wait for our hour; not to a world such as is now can we come. We are the sons of the glory, the children of immortality, the flames of God. When the divine Light descends, then we descend. But we know that an hour approaches and the dawn is red, red as blood and red with blood, the fire is behind, the fire of the Angel of the Presence. Light first, strength with the light, joy with the strength, love with the joy, the fourfold splendour. Who shall contain it within himself and give harbourage to all the Godhead? Who shall have the unfathomable calm that shall support all the light and neither be blasted by the fire nor spill it like an insufficient vessel? The strength, who shall be bold enough to bear it, mighty enough not to shrink from the terror and marvel of its works, great and sweet enough to turn its lion forces into the path of the Lover? Who shall be the sea of the universal joy and swallow up into it the poisons of the universe and his throat not even be blackened by the fire of the poison?
Who shall know what the love is and take nothing out of it nor reject any face of love however strange and out of all experience it may be to the mind of the mortal? All this he must be before the Godhead of the future can descend. All else that promises to come are only glimpses of things that would intervene and take the great seat if they could or else flashes that mislead. The new age promises always, but is always the old age in another dress. This only can be the thing that is truly new born and the birth of a new humanity. One who has come near because some of the ways are opened.
(excerpt from Sri Auroibindo's record of yoga)

The Secret Part1:Simultaneous Ascend And Descend

Mohammed, flying over Paradise, looks at the houris harvesting flowers and enjoying themselves. Persian, 15th century.

Mohammed, along with Buraq and Gabriel, visit Hell, and see a demon punishing "shameless women" who had exposed their hair to strangers. For this crime of inciting lust in men, the women are strung up by their hair and burned for eternity. Persian, 15th century.

"On the second part of his journey, he proceeded from this spot to the skies (heavens). Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw), then observed the stars and the systems of the world and conversed with the souls of the previous prophets, and also with the angels of the heavens, peace and blessing be upon them all. Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) saw the centre of the tortures and the blessings (hell and heaven) and became fully aware of the secrets of creation, the extent of the universe and the signs of the Omnipotent Allah (swt)."
link

Divine consciousness Emerging

from the Inconscient

Chapter 14
The Secret

We can try to say something of this Secret, though keeping in mind that the experience is in progress. Sri Aurobindo began; he found the Secret in Chandernagore in 1910 and worked on it for forty years; he gave up his life to it. And so did Mother.

Sri Aurobindo has never told us the circumstances of his discovery. He was always extraordinarily silent about himself, not out of reserve but simply because the "I" did not exist. "One felt," his Chandernagore host reports with naive surprise, "one felt when he spoke as if somebody else were speaking through him. I placed the plate of food before him, – he simply gazed at it, then ate a little, just mechanically! He appeared to be inwardly absorbed even when he was eating; he used to meditate with open eyes."²¹⁸ It was only later, from his writings and some fragments of conversations, that his experience could be pieced together. The first clue came from a chance remark made to one of his disciples. It shows that from Alipore onward he was on the trail: I was mentally subjected to all sorts of torture for fifteen days. I had to look upon pictures of all sorts of suffering.²¹⁹ We must remember that in those worlds, seeing is synonymous with experiencing. Thus, as Sri Aurobindo ascended toward the overmind, his consciousness was descending into what we are used to calling hell.

This is also one of the first phenomena the seeker experiences, in varying degrees. This is not a yoga for the weak, as the Mother says, and it is true. For if the first tangible result of Sri Aurobindo's yoga is to bring out new poetic and artistic faculties, the second, perhaps even the immediate consequence, is to shine a merciless spotlight on all the undersides of the consciousness, first individual, then universal. This close, and puzzling, linkage between superconscient and subconscient was certainly the starting point of Sri Aurobindo's breakthrough

(excerpt from Satprem's "Sri Aurobindo or Adventure Of Consciousness")

The Ocean Of White

Mohammed arrives on the shores of the White Sea. Also from the Apocalypse of Muhammad, written in 1436 in Herat, Afghanistan (now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris).
(Hat tip: Buck.)

"We must not only cut asunder the snare of the mind and the senses, but flee also beyond the snare of the thinker, the snare of the theologian and the church-builder, the meshes of the Word and the bondage of the Idea. All these are within us waiting to wall in the spirit with forms; but we must always go beyond, always renounce the lesser for the greater, the finite for the Infinite; we must be prepared to proceed from illumination to illumination, from experience to experience, from soul-state to soul-state.... Nor must we attach ourselves even to the truths we hold most securely, for they are but forms and expressions of the Ineffable who refuses to limit itself to any form or expression; always we must keep ourselves open to the higher Word from above that does not confine itself to its own sense and the light of the Thought that carries in it its own opposites.¹⁷⁴ Then, one day, because of our burning need, after being like a mass of compressed gas, the doors will finally burst open: The consciousness rises, says the Mother, breaking the kind of hard carapace, there, at the top of the head, and one emerges into the light."

Above was an ardent white tranquillity.¹⁷⁵

(exceprt from Sri Aurobindo or Adventure Of Consciousness)

Isra And Miraj

The Angel Gabriel cleansing Mohammed's heart of impurities in preparation for his ascent to heaven, while the other angels watch. From the 16th-century manuscript The Progress of the Prophet, from Turkey

High beyond Intelligence is the Great Self,beyond the Great Self is the Unmanifest,beyond the Unmanifest is the Conscious Being.There is nothing beyond the Being-that is the extreme ultimate,that the Supreme Goal-KATHA UPANISHAD

Nirvana-Liberating,annihilation,extinction,not necessarily of all the being,but of being as we know it,extinction of ego,desire and egoistic action and mentality

The Central Being. The Universal Person
"Thou art He" – such is the eternal truth. Tat tvam asi, thou art That. This is the Truth the ancient Mysteries taught and the later religions forgot. Having lost the central secret, they fell prey to all the aberrant dualisms, substituting obscure mysteries for the great, simply Mystery. "I and my Father are one," Jesus Christ said (John 10,30); "I am He," – so'ham – the sages of India say; indeed, this is the truth all liberated men discover, whether they be from the East or the West, from the past or the present. This is the eternal Fact we must all discover. This "I," the self who asserts its identity with God, is not that of a privileged individual

"A year and a half later, he was invited to the Presence of Allah, Almighty and Exalted. From Makkah to Jerusalem (Quds) he travelled accompanied by Archangel Gabriel (Jibril) . From Jerusalem he ascended to the heavens by means of Buraq, a heavenly mount who carried him up. All the prophets in the different levels of heaven came to greet him. He ascended higher and higher, until he heard the scratching of the Pen(Kalam Of Allah or The Self Of Allah), writing out God's Decree. He approached the Divine Presence, closer and closer, until Jibril said to him, "Ya Rasul Allah (O Prophet of God), I cannot continue further, or I will be extinguished." The Prophet said, "O Jibril, accompany me!" He said, "I cannot, or I will be burned in Allah's Light." So Muhammad , the most Perfect of the Perfect, continued alone. Driven by his love for Allah's Divine Presence he approached closer and closer, achieving the State of Complete Annihilation in five different stages


From one stage to another the Prophet moved into Allah's Divine Secrets. Between each stage was five hundred thousand years. He passed through these vast Divine Oceans of Knowledge, which Allah Almighty and Exalted has created, until he was completely dissolved in Allah's Existence, seeing nothing except Him. Then Allah called him to return to existence after he had reached the State of Annihilation. He returned and Allah told him, "O Muhammad, Approach closer." From this it is understood that the Prophet , having reached the State of Complete Annihilation, was called by Allah by his name, indicating that he was appearing anew with Allah's Appearance. He reached so near to the Divine Light, that he was "two bow-lengths or nearer" [53:9]. Allah asked him, "Who are you, O Muhammad?" At that time the Prophet was not conscious of himself and he replied: "You, O my Lord." This is the perfection of the state of not associating anyone with Allah. It is the perfect sign of Tawhid (Oneness), when nothing exists except His Glory, His Essence, Himself."

http://www.naqshbandi.org/chain/1main.htm

The Lord Is Everywhere And In Everything

[Yusufali 2:115] To Allah belong the east and the West: Whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of Allah. For Allah is all-Pervading, all-Knowing.

[Yusufali 4:40] Now I do call to witness the Lord of all points in the East and the West that We can certainly-

Indeed God is not outside His world, He did not "create" the world – He became the world, as the Upanishad says: "He became knowledge and ignorance, He became the truth and the falsehood.... He became all this whatsoever that is." (Taittiriya Upanishad II.6) "This whole world is filled with beings who are His members," says the Swetaswatara Upanishad (IV.10). All to the eye that sees is One, to a divine experience all is one block of the Divine.¹³⁴

"I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva* who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell, but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna* whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana¹³¹ who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover.... I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies."
SRI AUROBINDO

But who has realized cosmic consciousness? Not the yogi; the yogi goes on drinking, eating, sleeping, being ill at times like all human animals, and dying. It is not he, but a tiny point of his being that is experiencing cosmic consciousness, the very one on which he so earnestly concentrated to break through his carapace. The rest of his being, all the human and earthly nature that he has excluded from the experience, which he has repressed or mortified in order to better concentrate on that single point of escape, does not share in his cosmic consciousness, except through indirect radiation. Sri Aurobindo was therefore making this first important observation, that a linear realization, in one point, is not enough, but that a global realization, in all points – one that embraces the individual's entire being – is necessary. If you want to transform your nature and your being, and participate in the creation of a new world, the Mother says, that aspiration, that one-pointed and linear push is no longer enough; you must embrace everything and contain everything in your consciousness. Hence the integral yoga or "full yoga," purna yoga.

Towards The Home Of Total Reality

[Yusufali 6:5] And hearkens to (the Command of) its Lord,- and it must needs (do so);- (then will come Home the full reality).
[Yusufali 6:62] That is because Allah - He is the Reality; and those besides Him whom they invoke,- they are but vain Falsehood: verily Allah is He, Most High, Most Great.

[Yusufali 26:193] With it came down the spirit of Faith and Truth-

[Yusufali 17:80] Say: "O my Lord! Let my entry be by the Gate of Truth and Honour, and likewise my exit by the Gate of Truth and Honour; and grant me from Thy Presence an authority to aid (me)."
Here is what Sri Aurobindo reported:

I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit other things into itself or modify itself at all... in the end it began to disappear into a greater Super-consciousness from above.... The aspect of an illusionary world gave place to one in which illusion is only a small surface phenomenon with an immense Divine Reality behind it and a supreme Divine Reality above it and an intense Divine Reality in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cinematic shape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment in the senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it came rather as a constant heightening and widening of the Truth.... Nirvana in my liberated consciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realization, a first step towards the complete thing, not the sole true attainment possible or even a culminating finale.¹¹⁹

Nirvana cannot be at once the ending of the Path with nothing beyond to explore... it is the end of the lower Path through the lower Nature and the beginning of the Higher Evolution.

The Triple Ignorance

7. Shunahshepa too was bound to the thousandfold post of sacrifice, him didst thou release and he attained to calm;¹ so do thou take thy seat here in us, O conscious knower, O Priest of the call, and loose from us the cords of our bondage.

(Sri Aurobindo. Hyms to the Mystic Fire, Mandala 5, Sukta 2, Verse 7)

Ignorance, this matrix of sin, has in its substantial effect the appearance of a triple cord of limited mind, inefficient life, obscure physical animality, the three ropes with which the Rishi Shunahshepa in the parable was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post. The whole result is a struggling or inert poverty of being; it is the meagreness of a mortal undelight and the insufficiency of a being that collapses at every moment towards death. When Varuna the Mighty comes and sunders this threefold restraint, we are freed towards riches and immortality. Uplifted, the real man arises to his true kingship in the undivided being. The upper cord flies upward releasing the wings of the Soul into superconscient heights; the middle cord parts both ways and all ways, the constrained life breaking out into a happy breadth of existence; the lower cord collapses downward taking with it the alloy of our physical being to disappear and be dissolved in the stuff of the Inconscient. This liberation is the purport of the parable of Shunahshepa and his two great hymns to Varuna.

[Sri Aurobindo. Secret of the Vedas, The Guardians of the Light]

The triple cord in the Upanishads

He, verily, who knows that Supreme Brahman becomes himself Brahman; in his lineage none is born who knows not the Brahman. He crosses beyond sorrow, he crosses beyond sin, he is delivered from the knotted cord of the secret heart and becomes immortal.

[Mundaka Upanishad Chapter III, 2.9]

Yea, when all the strings of the heart are rent asunder, even here, in this human birth, then the mortal becomes immortal. This is the whole teaching of the Scriptures.

[Katha Upanishad, 2.3.15]

Mother Mirra Alfassa

The cords symbolise the limitations of the mind; and there are three of them because there is a physical mind, a vital mind and a mental mind.

(Some Answers From The Mother Volume-16, Series Eleven, 9 November 1968)

Sunil Bhattacharya's Music On Savitri

Sunil Da's mesmezing music on Savitri

Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo THE "INDIA" INTERVIEW (1909)

Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo

THE "INDIA" INTERVIEW (1909)

Article from India (Tamil weekly) 18 September 1909

1

A Conversation with Sriman Aravinda Ghosh

A few days ago one of our correspondents went to Calcutta and spoke to Mahajnani Sriman Aravinda Ghose on several topics. We give here excerpts from the conversation.

Our correspondent had the darshan of Aravinda-babu at 6, College Square Street [sic], Calcutta. The house belongs to Babu Krishna Kumar Mitra, who has been deported. The family of Babu Krishna Kumar resides downstairs, while the office of his journal Sanjivani is located upstairs. In two rooms here, Aravinda-babu does his writing work and speaks to those who come to see him.

When our correspondent saw Aravinda-babu there, the first thought that came to his mind, it seems, was, “Is this Aravinda-babu?” But then, he had not seen Aravinda-babu’s eyes as yet. Aravinda¹ is of a lean frame; and he was sitting like a very ordinary man with a piece of cloth thrown over his upper body. On seeing him our correspondent could only wonder, “Is this the Yogi born to redeem us through an upheaval, showing a new way to India?”

It was when he saw the eyes that our correspondent felt reassured. Oh! how knowing those eyes were! What grace in them! What peace! Mahashanti, mahashanti! The room exuded a great sattwic shanti.

Our correspondent asked a few questions about the Narayan darshan which Aravinda-babu had experienced when he was in prison. Since a darshan of the Supreme is a rarity in this age, our correspondent wondered whether Aravinda-babu’s darshan could have come about in the dream-state. But when he listened to Aravinda’s reply, all his doubts vanished. When our correspondent saw the humility, the peace, the solemnity, the innocence and the light that appeared on Aravinda’s face when he answered, it was very clear to him that Aravinda is indeed a Mahasiddha.

Aravinda: “Yes, I saw Narayana. I had all my darshans in the waking state; they were not dreams.”

Correspondent: “Is there a way to reach the state you are speaking about?”

Aravinda: “Yes. Yoga is the way.”

Correspondent: “Was it only you who were practising yoga sadhana in the prison, or were there others who practised with you?”

Aravinda: “Barindra too was practising sadhana as I was.”

Correspondent: “What kind of yoga was it?”

Aravinda: “It was Bhakti Yoga. Leave all responsibility to the Divine. Try to realize that whatever you think, speak, or do is not yours, and that it is the Divine who thinks, speaks and acts through you. The realization will come in time. Realization is different from vision. Crush your ego, be without the “I”, practise self-renunciation.”

*

Rumour of Deportation

Later our correspondent turned the conversation from spiritual to worldly matters.

Correspondent: “All Calcutta is rife with the rumour that the Government is going to deport you. If perchance they take you away from us what shall we do?”

Aravinda: “It seems that the Viceroy and his council have not accepted the suggestion from the Calcutta police that I should be deported.”

Correspondent: “The authorities will not do anything against you now. We know that God shall allow none to touch you, because you are destined to show the way to the nation for a while yet.”

Aravinda-babu smiled.

*

Our Correspondent’s Thoughts

Our correspondent writes of the thoughts that rose in his mind even as the conversation was going on:

Aravinda’s voice was very calm. A state of peace was born in my mind. There was peace everywhere. It gave me great bliss to think that I was in the presence of a great being who has suffered much out of his love for the country, one whose utterances have been the wonder of the whole nation, and who was one of the Rishis of the Swadeshi Dharma. I was astonished to see him conversing with me calmly and peacefully even while his own brother was awaiting the death sentence.

*

The Upheaval

Aravinda continued to answer with great grace the several questions put to him by our correspondent. Finally our correspondent started speaking about the present confused state of India. When he asked Aravinda some questions in this regard, he gave this Divine answer:

“There will be an upheaval.² There are signs to indicate its coming. The year 1906 completes 5000 years of Kaliyuga, and a new age has begun with the year 1907. The upheaval will have developed well enough to be visible to all. It will be complete in a further period of four to five years.”

Correspondent: “What kind of upheaval is it?”

Aravinda: “The upheaval will be one of a revolutionary change, a great step; the low will be raised and the high brought down. There will be change, change, everywhere — change in Government, change in our people; new resolves, new thoughts, new ways for all actions.”

2

Extract from Government of India, Home Department-A, June 1912, 41-68: 67.

Aravinda Ghose who is proved to be living in Pondicherry is stated to have declared in reply to a Karmayogin correspondent³ that 5,000 years of the Kaliyuga have expired, that a new epoch has commenced and in the next 4 or 5 years there will be “great deluge, change, revolution, great revolution, great persons falling, low persons rising, change, change, change everywhere, change in the Government, change in our people, new methods, new ideas in all” — See exhibit BBB.⁴

¹ The newspaper throughout used the respectful form Aravindar.

² The words pralaya and mahāpralaya in the Tamil text have been translated as “upheaval”.

³ There was a Tamil newspaper called Karmayogi that was related to India.

⁴ An exhibit in the Ashe murder and conspiracy cases (1912).

Julian Assange Is The Equalizer

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