Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry

man patiently mending the defects of his work. These seem to me to be the foundation and condition of all the rest. As they become firmer and more complete the system is more able to hold consistently and vividly the settled perception of the One in all things and beings, in all qualities, forces, happenings, in all this world-consciousness and the play of its workings. That founds the Unity and upon it the deep satisfaction and growing rapture of the Unity. It is this to which our nature is most recalcitrant. It persists in the division, in the dualities, in the sorrow and unsatisfied passion and labour, it finds it difficult to accustom itself to the divine largeness, joy and equipoise - especially the vital and material parts of our nature; it is they that pull down the mind which has accepted and even when it has long lived in the joy and peace and oneness. That, I suppose, is why the religions and philosophies have had so strong a leaning to the condemnation of Life and Matter and aimed at an escape instead of a victory. But the victory has to be won; the rebellious elements have to be redeemed and transformed, not rejected or excised.

When the Unity has been well founded, the static half of our work is done but the active half remains. It is then that in the One we must see the Master and His Power, - Krishna and Kali as I name them using the terms of our Indian religions; the Power occupying the whole of myself and my nature which becomes Kali and ceases to be anything else, the Master using, directing, enjoying the Power to his ends, not mine, with that which I call myself only as a centre of his universal existence and responding to its working as a soul to the Soul, taking upon itself his image until there is nothing left but Krishna and Kali. This is the stage I have reached in spite of all set-backs and recoils, imperfectly indeed in the secureness and intensity of the state, but well enough in the general type. When that has been done, then we may hope to found securely the play in us of his divine Knowledge governing the action of divine Power. The rest is the full opening up of the different planes of his world-play and the

Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry, 1918-20

subjection of Matter and the body and the material world to the law of the higher heavens of the Truth. To these things towards which in my earlier ignorance I used to press forward impatiently before satisfying the first conditions - the effort, however, was necessary and made the necessary preparation of the material instruments - I can now only look forward as a subsequent eventuality in a yet distant vista of things.

To possess securely the Light and the Force of the Supra- mental being, this is the main object to which the power is now turning. But the remnant of the old habits of intellectual thought and mental will come so obstinate in their determination to remain that the progress is hampered, uncertain and always falls back from the little achievement already effected. They are no longer within me, they are blind, stupid, mechanical, incorrigible even when they perceive their incompetence, but they crowd round the mind and pour in their suggestions whenever it tries to remain open only to the supramental Light and the Command, so that the Knowledge and the Will reach the mind in a confused, distorted and often misleading form. It is, however, only a question of time: the siege will diminish in force and be finally dispelled.

23-3-1916

After the Congress of 1914 Sri Aurobindo gave an interview to a correspondent of the Madras paper, Hindu. We quote the following as it appeared in the Hindu:

"But what do you think of the 1914 Congress and Conferences?" I insisted.

'He spoke almost with reluctance but in clear and firm accents. He said:

"I do not find the proceedings of the Christmas Conferences very interesting and inspiring. They seem to me to be mere repetitions of the petty and lifeless formulas of the Past and hardly show any sense of the great breath of the

future that is blowing upon us. I make an exception of the speech of the Congress President which struck me as far above the ordinary level. Some people, apparently, found it visionary and unpractical. It seems to me to be the one practical and vital thing that has been said in India for some time past."

'He continued: "The old, petty forms and little narrow, make-believe activities are getting out of date. The world is changing rapidly around us and preparing for more colossal changes in the future. We must rise to the greatness of thought and action which it will demand upon the nations who hope to live. No, it is not in any of the old formal activities, but deeper down that I find signs of progress and hope. The last few years have been a period of silence and compression in which the awakened Virya and Tejas of the nation have been concentrating for a greater outburst of a better directed energy in the future."

"We are a nation of three hundred millions," added Mr. Ghosh, "inhabiting a great country in which many civilisations have met, full of rich material and unused capacities. We must cease to think and act like the inhabitants of an obscure and petty village."

'I asked: "If you don't like our political methods, what would you advise us to do for the realisation of our destiny?"

'He quickly replied: "Only by a general intellectual and spiritual awakening can this nation fulfil its destiny. Our limited information, our second-hand intellectual activities, our bounded interests, our narrow life of little family aims and small money-getting have prevented us from entering into the broad life of the world. Fortunately, there are ever- increasing signs of a widened outlook, a richer intellectual output and numerous sparks of liberal genius which show that the necessary change is coming. No nation in modern times can grow great by politics alone. A rich and varied life, energetic in all its parts, is the condition of a sound, vigorous national existence. From this point of view also the last five years have been a great benefit to the country."

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'I then asked what he thought of the vastly improved relations that now exist between the Briton and the Indian in our own country and elsewhere.

"It is a very good thing," he said, and he explained himself in the following manner: "The realisation of our nationhood separate from the rest of humanity was the governing idea of our activities from 1905 to 1910. That movement has served its purpose. It has laid a good foundation for the future. Whatever excesses and errors of speech and action were then disclosed came because our energy, though admirably inspired, lacked practical experience and knowledge.

"The idea of Indian nationhood is now not only rooted in the public mind, as all recent utterances go to show, but accepted in Europe and acknowledged by the Government and the governing race. The new idea that should now lead us is the realisation of our nationhood not separate from, but in the future scheme of humanity. When it has realised its own national life and unity, India will still have a part to play in helping to bring about the unity of the nations."

'I naturally put in a remark about the Under-Secretary's "Angle of Vision".

"It is well indeed," observed Mr. Ghosh, "that British statesmen should be thinking of India's proper place in the Councils of the Empire, and it is obviously a thought which, if put into effect, must automatically alter the attitude of even the greatest extremist towards the Government and change for the better all existing political relations.

"But it is equally necessary that we Indians should begin to think seriously what part Indian thought, Indian intellect, Indian nationhood, Indian spirituality, Indian culture have to fulfil in the general life of humanity. The humanity is bound to grow increasingly on. We must necessarily be in it and of it. Not a spirit of aloofness or a jealous self-defence, but of a generous emulation and brotherhood with all men and all nations, justified by a sense of conscious strength, a great destiny, a large place in the human future - this should be the Indian spirit."

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'The oneness of humanity is a topic dear to the heart of Babu Arabinda Ghosh and when I suggested to him that Vedantic ideas would be a good basis for unity, his reply was full of enthusiasm:

"Oh, yes," he said, "I am convinced and have long been convinced that a spiritual awakening, a re-awakening to the true self of a nation is the most important condition of our national greatness. The supreme Indian idea of the oneness of all men in God and its realisation inwardly and outwardly, increasingly even in social relations and the structure of society is destined, I believe, to govern the progress of the human race. India, if it chooses, can guide the world."

'And here I said something about our "four thousand" castes, our differences in dress and in "caste-marks", our vulgar sectarian antipathies and so on.

"Not so hard, if you please," said Mr. Ghosh with a smile. "I quite agree with you that our social fabric will have to be considerably altered before long. We shall have, of course, to enlarge our family and social life, not in the petty spirit of present-day Social Reform, hammering at small details and belittling our immediate past, but with a larger idea and more generous impulses. Our past with all its faults and defects should be sacred to us. But the claims of our future with its immediate possibilities should be still more sacred."

'His concluding words were spoken in a very solemn mood:

"It is more important," he said, "that the thought of India should come out of the philosophical school and renew its contact with life, and the spiritual life of India issue out of the cave and the temple and, adapting itself to new forms, lay its hand upon the world. I believe also that humanity is about to enlarge its scope by new knowledge, new powers and capacities, which will create as great a revolution in human life as the physical science of the nineteenth century. Here, too, India holds in her past, a little rusted and put out of use, the key of humanity's future.

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"It is in these directions that I have been for some time impelled to turn my energies rather than to the petty political activities which are alone open to us at the present moment. This is the reason of my continued retirement and detachment from action. I believe in the necessity at such times and for such great objects of Tapasya in silence for self-training, for self-knowledge and storage of spiritual force. Our fore- fathers used that means, though in different forms. And it is the best means for becoming an efficient worker in the great days of the world."

IX

In 1917, B. Shiva Rao, a co-worker of Annie Besant, visited Sri Aurobindo. A report of his interview was published in the Hindu of Sunday, May 10, 1959, which we reproduce below:

"The Home-Rule movement was at that time quickly gathering support and vitality mainly as a result of the internments. Some of us who were on the staff of New India went out on trips to build up a campaign of organisation. One of these trips took me to Pondicherry where Sri Aurobindo had made his home after leaving Bengal in 1910. Even in those early days there was an atmosphere of great peace and serenity about him which left on me a deep, enduring impression. He spoke softly, almost in whispers. He thought Mrs. Besant was absolutely right in preaching Home Rule for India, as well as in her unqualified support of the Allies in the first World War against Germany. It was a brief meeting of some minutes' duration. I believe I saw him again some months later. For twenty-five years I had no sort of contact with him but he was gracious enough to remember me, during Sir Stafford Cripps' wartime mission to India in 1942. I was surprised one morning when the negotiations were

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threatening to reach a deadlock (on the transitional arrangements in regard to defence) to receive a message from him for Gandhiji and Sri Nehru: the Cripps' offer, it was his deliberate view, should be accepted unconditionally by the Congress leaders. It is futile to speculate now what India's subsequent fate might have been, if the advice of the sage at Pondicherry had been accepted."

Chandrasekhar, a young scholar of Andhra, first came to Pondicherry probably in 1919. He came again in 1920 and stayed for some time. In 1923 and 1926 he stayed much longer and came into close contact with Sri Aurobindo. Speaking about him, Amrita says in Old Long Since, "Once on my way to Pondicherry I met an Andhra young man, Chandrasekhar Ayya by name. He enquired of me, 'How can I meet Sri Aurobindo?' I told him, 'You may come with me and take your chance.'

"...His first interview with Sri Aurobindo for only five minutes laid the foundation of the priceless things he gleaned in future from Sri Aurobindo.

"A man of intellectual attainments, he was a scholar in Sanskrit and knew English very well... Sri Aurobindo kindled the fire in him.

"...He gave himself entirely to Sri Aurobindo. There grew up steadily an intimacy between them.

"Subramania Bharati learnt the Rig Veda from Sri Aurobindo. Chandrasekhar also studied the Rig Veda with Sri Aurobindo methodically at a particular hour. He studied in this way for two or three years, not by the old traditional commentaries, not in the old style, but in the light of Sri Aurobindo's own revealing interpretation. I listened to the interpretation with great delight, whenever I could be present."

Nolini Kanta, Subramania Bharati and Chandrasekhar attended the reading of the Rig Veda regularly. Chandrasekhar's younger brother, V. Chidanandan, who was then a student of English literature, saw Sri Aurobindo once or twice and sought his advice on his literary studies. He also

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recorded some of the talks from day to day.

A.B. Purani, who had been reading the Arya and feeling greatly attracted towards Sri Aurobindo, saw him for the first time in December, 1918. We quote a part of Purani's report of the interview which shows that even in 1918 Sri Aurobindo knew and assured him that the freedom of India would be won by other means than revolutionary activities.

".. .he put me questions about my sadhana, spiritual practice. I described my efforts and added: 'Sadhana is all right, but it is difficult to concentrate on it so long as India is not free'.

" 'Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activity 34 to free India', he said.

" 'But without that how is the British Government to go from India?' I asked him.

" 'That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, why should you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on the Yoga - spiritual development', he replied."

" 'But the concentration of my whole being turns to- wards India's freedom. It is difficult for me to sleep till that is secured.'

"Sri Aurobindo remained silent for two or three minutes. It was a long pause. Then he said, 'Suppose an assurance is given to you that India will be free?'

" 'Who can give such an assurance?' I could feel the echo of doubt and challenge in my own question.

"Again he remained silent for three or four minutes. Then he looked at me and added, 'Suppose I give you the assurance?'

"I paused for half a minute - considered the question within myself and said, 'If you give the assurance, I can accept it'.

" 'Then I give you the assurance that India will be free', he said in a serious tone.

34.  Purani had told Sri Aurobindo that they were prepared to start executing their plan of the revolutionary work.  

"The question of India's freedom again arose in my mind, and at the time of taking leave, after I had got up to go, I could not repress the question, - it was a question of life for me - 'Are you quite sure that India will be free?'

"Sri Aurobindo became very serious. His gaze was fixed at the sky that appeared beyond the window. Then he looked at me and putting his fist on the table, he said:

" 'You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising of the sun tomorrow. The decree has already gone forth, it may not be long in coming.'

"I bowed down to him. That day in the train after nearly two years I was able at last to sleep soundly. In my mind was fixed for ever the picture of that scene: the two of us standing near the small table, my earnest question, that upward gaze, and that quiet and firm voice with the power in it to shake the. world, that firm fist planted on the table, - the symbol of self-confidence of the divine Truth. There may be rank kaliyuga, the Iron Age, in the whole world but it is the great fortune of India that she has sons who know that Truth and have an unshakable faith in it, and can risk their lives for it. In this significant fact is contained the divine destiny of India and of the world."

Amrita came in 1919 and was permitted to stay with Sri Aurobindo. In 1918 the Montagu Chelmsford Reforms were announced by the British Government. Mrs. Annie Besant wrote to Sri Aurobindo pressing him to express his opinion of the Reforms. In reply Sri Aurobindo sent an article signed "An Indian Nationalist" in which he characterised the Reforms as a "Chinese puzzle" and "a great shadow".

In 1919 the artist Mukul Chandra De, who later became the Principal of the Calcutta School of Art, came to Pondicherry and drew a portrait of Sri Aurobindo, but it was not successful. Let us quote a short letter written by Rabindranath Tagore in connection with a review of his novel, The Home and the World, in the November, 1919, issue of The Modern Review. The letter has been recently acquired by us  

Sri Aurobindo with disciples, 1918-20

and we quote it only because it throws further light on Rabindranath's attitude towards Sri Aurobindo.

Shantiniketan

Nov. 30,1919

Dear Sir,

I have not yet read Jadu Babu's review of my book, but I feel sure that he could never mean to say that Sri Aurobindo Ghose belongs to the same type of humanity as Sandip of my story. My acquaintance with the literature of our contemporary politics being casual and desultory, I do not, even to this day, definitely know what is the political standpoint of Aurobindo Ghose. But this I positively know that he is a great man, one of the greatest we have and therefore liable to be misunderstood even by his friends. What I myself feel for him is not mere admiration but reverence for his depth of spirituality, his largeness of vision and his literary gifts, extraordinary in imaginative insight and expression. He is a true Rishi and a poet combined, and I still repeat my Namaskar which I offered to him when he was first assailed by the trouble which ultimately made him an exile from the soil of Bengal.

Yours sincerely,

 Rabindranath Tagore

In 1920 Joseph Baptista, a barrister of Bombay, wrote to Sri Aurobindo at the instance of Tilak, requesting him to accept the editorship of a paper they wanted to bring out as a mouthpiece of the Nationalist Party which had gained considerable strength under the leadership of Tilak. Sri Aurobindo sent the following reply explaining in detail the nature of the spiritual work he was engaged in and regretting his inability to accede to his request.

Pondicherry, January 5, 1920

 Dear Baptista,

Your offer is a tempting one, but I regret that I cannot  

answer it in the affirmative. It is due to you that I should state explicitly my reasons. In the first place I am not pre- pared at present to return to British India. This is quite apart from any political obstacle. I understand that up to last September the Government of Bengal (and probably the Government of Madras also) were opposed to my return to British India and that practically this opposition meant that if I went back I should be interned or imprisoned under one or other of the beneficent Acts which are apparently still to subsist as helps in ushering in the new era of trust and co-operation. I do not suppose other Governments would any more be delighted by my appearance in their respective provinces. Perhaps the King's Proclamation may make a difference, but that is not certain, since, as I read it, it also does not mean an amnesty, but an act of gracious concession and benevolence limited by the discretion of the Viceroy. Now I have too much work on my hands to waste my time in the leisured ease of an involuntary Government guest. But even if I were assured of an entirely free action and movement, I should yet not go just now. I came to Pondicherry in order to have freedom and tranquillity for a fixed object having nothing to do with present politics - in which I have taken no direct part since my coming here, though what I could do for the country in my own way I have constantly done, - and until it is accomplished, it is not possible for me to resume any kind of public activity. But if I were in British India, I should be obliged to plunge at once into action of different kinds. Pondicherry is my place of retreat, my cave of tapasya, not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention. I must finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped for my work before I leave it.

Next, in the matter of the work itself, I do not at all look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal or contempt or disgust of secular things. There is to me nothing

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secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life, and the importance of politics at the present time is very great. But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably from anything now current in the field. I entered into political action and continued it from 1903 to 1910 with one aim and one alone, to get into the mind of the people a settled will for freedom and the necessity of a struggle to achieve it in place of the futile ambling Congress methods till then in vogue. That is now done and the Amritsar Congress is the seal upon it. The will is not as practical and compact nor by any means as organised and sustained in action as it should be, but there is the will and plenty of strong and able leaders to guide it. I consider that in spite of the inadequacy of the Reforms the will to self-determination, if the country keeps its present temper, as I have no doubt it will, is bound to prevail before long. What preoccupies me now is the question what it is going to do with its self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to determine its future?

You may ask why not come out and help, myself, so far as I can, in giving a lead? But my mind has a habit of running inconveniently ahead of the times, - some might say, out of time altogether into the world of the ideal. Your party, you say, is going to be a social democratic party. Now I believe in something which might be called social democracy, but not in any of the forms now current, and I am not altogether in love with the European kind, however great an improvement it may be on the past. I hold that India having a spirit of her own and a governing temperament proper to her own civilisation, should in politics as in everything else strike out her own original path and not stumble in the wake of Europe. But this is precisely what she will be obliged to do, if she has to start on the road in her present chaotic and unprepared condition of mind. No doubt people talk of India developing on her own lines, but nobody seems to have very clear or sufficient ideas as to what those lines are to be. In this matter I have formed ideals and certain definite ideas of my own, in  

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which at present very few are likely to follow me; since they are governed by an uncompromising spiritual idealism of an unconventional kind and would be unintelligible to many and an offence and stumbling-block to a great number. But I have not as yet any clear and full idea of the practical lines; I have no formed programme. In a word, I am feeling my way in my mind and am not ready for either propaganda or action. Even if I were, it would mean for some time ploughing my lonely furrow or at least freedom to take my own way. As the editor of your paper, I shall be bound to voice the opinion of others and reserve my own, and while I have full sympathy with the general ideas of the advanced parties so far as concerns the action of the present moment and, if I were in the field would do all I could to help them, I am almost incapable by nature of limiting myself in that way, at least to the extent that would be requisite.

Excuse the length of this screed. I thought it necessary to explain fully so as to avoid giving you the impression that I declined your request from any affectation or reality of spiritual aloofness or wish to shirk the call of the country or want of sympathy with the work you and others are so admirably doing. I repeat my regret that I am compelled to disappoint you.

Yours sincerely,

Aurobindo Ghose

The Mother came again on April 24, 1920 and settled in India. She knew that her work was the same as Sri Aurobindo's and that their collaboration was the secret of its success. At first she stayed at Magrie's Hotel, then at Subbu's Hotel in Rue St. Louis, and from there she moved to 1, Rue St. Mar- tin. While she was staying at this house, one day there was a great storm and heavy rain and the old house was considered unsafe to live in. Sri Aurobindo advised her to move to his own house, 41, Rue Francois Martin where she remained till October, 1922. when they all moved finally to the building in 9, Rue de la Marine which is the present Ashram building.  

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A few memorable interviews that took place in 1920 are noted below:

W.W. Pearson came from Shantiniketan and met the Mother.

James H. Cousins came and met Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Dr. Munje came and stayed with Sri Aurobindo. He had long talks with the Master on political subjects.

Sarala Devi Choudhurani came sometime in 1920 or later and had an interview with Sri Aurobindo.

Colonel Joshua Wedgewood, an English M.P., visited Sri Aurobindo.

X

In 1919, after the armistice, Barin was released from the Andamans. He wrote to Sri Aurobindo asking him about his personal sadhana, the future of the country and the nature of the movement to be carried on for its freedom and resurgence. Sri Aurobindo's reply was a long one covering practically all aspects of national life and indicating his own line of spiritual work for humanity. We reproduce here some lines from that Bengali letter which has been translated into English:

April 7,1920

Dear Barin,

...First about our yoga. You wish to give me the charge of your yoga and I am willing to take it, but that means giving its charge to Him who is moving by His Divine Shakti, whether secretly or openly, both you and me. But you must know that the necessary result of this will be that you will have to walk in the special way which He has given to me, the way which I call the path of Integral Yoga, - what I began with, what Lele gave me was a seeking for the path, a circling in many directions - a touch, taking up, handling, 

scrutinising this or that in all the old partial yogas, a complete experience in some sense of one and then the pursuit of another.

Afterwards, when I came to Pondicherry this unsteady condition came to an end. The Guru of the world who is within us then gave me the complete direction of my path - its complete theory, the ten limbs of the body of this Yoga. These ten years He has been making me develop it in experience, and it is not yet finished. It may take another two years; and as long as it is not finished I doubt if I shall be able to return to Bengal. Pondicherry is the appointed place for my yoga siddhi, except indeed one part of it, and that is action...

I shall write and tell you afterwards what is this way of yoga. Or if you come here I shall tell you about it. In this matter the spoken word is better than the written one. At present I can only say that its root-principle is to make a harmony and unity of complete knowledge, complete works, and complete Bhakti, to raise this above the mind and to give it its complete perfection on the supramental level of the Vijnana. The defect of the old Yoga was here - the mind it knew and the Spirit it knew, and it was satisfied with the experiences of the Spirit in the mind. But the mind can grasp only the divided and partial, it cannot utterly seize the infinite, the indivisible. The mind's means to reach the infinite are Sannyasa, Moksha and Nirvana, and it has no others. One man or another may get indeed this featureless Moksha, but what is the gain? The Brahman, the Self, God are always there. What God wants in man is to embody Himself here in the individual and in the community, to realise God in life.

The old way of yoga failed to bring about harmony or unity of the Spirit and life: it rather dismissed the world as Maya or a transient play. The result has been loss of life- power and the degeneration of India. As was said in the Gita, 'These peoples would perish if I did not do works', these people of India have truly gone down to ruin. A few Sannyasis and Bairagis to be saintly and perfect and liberated,  

Sri Aurobindo, 1950

a few Bhaktas to dance in a mad ecstasy of love and sweet emotion and Ananda, and a whole race to become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep tamas - is this the effect of a true spirituality? No, first we must get indeed all the partial experiences possible on the mental level and flood the mind with the spiritual delight and illumine it with the spiritual light but afterwards we must rise above. If we can not rise above, that is, to the supramental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world and the problem it raises remains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of opposition between the Spirit and Matter, between truth of spirit and truth of life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes possible to fully know and fully possess God - to do what is said in the Gita, 'To know me integrally'. The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the super- mind and the Ananda - these are the Spirit's five levels. The higher we rise on this ascent the nearer to man comes the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, the fundamental principle.

This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that God will through me give to others the Siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time. I have no impulse to make any unbalanced haste and rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. If even I did not get  

success in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but God's. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move....

Now let me discuss some particular points of your letter. I do not want to say much in this letter about what you have written as regards your yoga. We shall have better occasion when we meet. To look upon the body as a corpse is a sign of Sannyasa, of the path of Nirvana. You cannot be of the world with this idea. You must have delight in all things - in the Spirit as well as in the body. The body has consciousness, it is God's form. When you see God in everything that is in the world, when you have this vision that all this is Brahman, sarvamidam brahma, that Vasudeva is all this - vasudevaḥ sarvamiti, then you have the universal delight. The flow of that delight precipitates and courses even through this body...

... Not our strength but the Shakti of God is the sadhaka of this yoga.

...But to get that Shakti one must be a worshipper of Shakti. We are not worshippers of Shakti. We are worshippers of the easy way. But Shakti is not got by the easy way. Our forefathers dived into a sea of vast thought and gained a vast knowledge and established a mighty civilisation. As they went on in their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The force of thought diminished and with it also the strong current of Shakti. Our civilisation has become acalayatana,35 our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues any permanent resurgence of India is improbable...

...I wish to make a large and strong equanimity the foundation of the yoga. I want established on that equality a

35. The fossilled House or the Home of Conservatism.  

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full, firm and undisturbed Shakti in the system and in all its movements. I want the wide display of the light of Knowledge in the ocean of Shakti. And I want in that luminous vastness the tranquil ecstasy of infinite love, delight and oneness. I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God. I have no faith in the customary trade of the Guru. I do not wish to be a guru. If anybody wakes and manifests from within his slumbering godhead and gets the divine life - be it at my touch or at another's - this is what I want. It is such men that will raise the country.

Yours Sejda 36

Barin came to Pondicherry. Ullaskar Datta, one of the revolutionaries and a fellow worker of Barin also came. Some of the revolutionaries were trying to seek inspiration and guidance from Sri Aurobindo, but since Sri Aurobindo had cut off all connection with active politics, his influence upon them was mainly spiritual.

At about this time the Mother took charge of the management of the house and the kitchen, and, as in every- thing else she took up, there was a marked and progressive improvement. Order, harmony and beauty flowed spontaneously out of her touch.

Sarojini Ghose, Sri Aurobindo's sister, came to Pondicherry in 1921. In order to render her some financial help Sri Aurobindo gave her the right to take the sale proceeds of his book, War and Self-determination.

The magazine Arya which Sri Aurobindo had started in 1914 discontinued publication in the beginning of 1921, as probably Sri Aurobindo's yoga left him little time for such philosophical writing. He became more and more absorbed in his life's real work: the ascent to and the descent of the Supermind.

36. Elder brother.

In this year collective meditation began. In Purani's words, "At four in the evening the inmates of the house practised meditation with Sri Aurobindo in the verandah of 41, Rue Francois Martin."

Arunchandra Dutt, a disciple of Motilal Roy, came from Chandernagore and stayed at Sri Aurobindo's house for a few months.

Mrinalini Chattopadhyaya and Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya also came and met Sri Aurobindo in this year.

In September, 1922, as already stated, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved with their disciples to No 9, Rue de la Marine which is now the main building or central quarter of the Ashram.

On the 15th August, 1920, the Prabartak Sangha of Chandernagore, which was founded by Motilal Roy under the inspiration of Sri Aurobindo, had brought out a weekly paper The Standard Bearer. Motilal Roy had come into close contact with Sri Aurobindo and his visits to Pondicherry helped him to avail himself of Sri Aurobindo's direct guidance. But after 1920 he separated from Sri Aurobindo who then withdrew his inner help and guidance.

To some of the issues of The Standard Bearer Sri Aurobindo contributed articles on different subjects. In the very first issue he wrote the leader under the caption "Ourselves". The article written about 50 years back reads so fresh today and contains the most vital message for modern India which if carried out in life, can raise this ancient nation to heights of an unprecedented glory and greatness. To struggle in a quagmire is not to progress. To be tossing about in a welter of imported ideologies is not to advance the cause of the nation. There must be determined ascent from the obscurity of the mind into a higher Consciousness. Other- wise the struggle and the tossings will never end and one will have only the illusion of doing something useful. Spirituality is the very soul of India's culture, and to revert to it and to let it remould and direct life is the only way to national resurgence.  

The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, 1950

OURSELVES

The Standard-Bearer comes into the field today entrusted with a special mission and as the bearer of an ideal and a message. The standard it carries is not that of an outward battle, but the ensign of a spiritual ideal and of a life that must be its expression and the growing body of its reality. Our endeavour shall be to prepare the paths and to accomplish the beginning of a great and high change which we believe to be and aim at making the future of the race and the future of India. Our ideal is a new birth of humanity into the spirit; our life must be a spiritually inspired effort to create a body of action for that great new birth and creation.

A spiritual ideal has always been the characteristic idea and aspiration of India. But the progress of Time and the need of humanity demand a new orientation and another form of that ideal. The old forms and methods are no longer sufficient for the purpose of the Time Spirit. India can no longer fulfil herself on lines that are too narrow for the great steps she has to take in the future. Nor is ours the spirituality of a life that is aged and world-weary and burdened with the sense of the illusion and miserable inutility of all God's mighty creation. Our ideal is not the spirituality that with- draws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit. It is to accept the world as an effort of manifestation of the Divine, but also to transform humanity by a greater effort of manifestation than has yet been accomplished, one in which the veil between man and God shall be removed, the divine manhood of which we are capable shall come to birth and our life shall be remoulded in the truth and light and power of the spirit. It is to make of all our action a sacrifice to the master of our action and an expression of the greater self in man and of all life a Yoga.

The West has made the growth of the intellectual, emotional, vital and material being of man its ideal, but it has left aside the greater possibilities of his spiritual existence. Its highest standards are ideals of progress, of liberty, equality  

and fraternity, of reason and science, of efficiency of all kinds, of a better political, social and economical state, of the unity and earthly happiness of the race. These are great endeavours, but experiment after experiment has shown that they cannot be realised in their truth by the power of the idea and the sentiment alone: their real truth and practice can only be founded in the spirit. The West has put its faith in its science and machinery and it is being destroyed by its science and crushed under its mechanical burden. It has not under- stood that a spiritual change is necessary for the accomplishment of its ideals. The East has the secret of that spiritual change, but it has too long turned its eyes away from the earth. The time has now come to heal the division and to unite life and the spirit.

This secret too has been possessed but not sufficiently practised by India. It is summarised in the rule of the Gita, yogasthaḥ kuru karmāni. Its principle is to do all actions in Yoga, in union with God, on the foundation of the highest self and through the rule of all our members by the power of the spirit. And this we believe to be not only possible for man but the true solution of all his problems and difficulties. That then is the message we shall constantly utter and this the ideal that we shall put before the young and rising India, a spiritual life that shall take up all human activities and avail to transfigure the world for the great age that is coming. India, she that has carried in herself from of old the secret, can alone lead the way in this great transformation of which the present sandhyā of the old yuga is the forerunner. This must be her mission and service to humanity, - as she discovered the inner spiritual life for the individual, so now to discover for the race its integral collective expression and found for mankind its new spiritual and communal order.

Our first object shall be to declare this ideal, insist on the spiritual change as the first necessity and group together all who accept it and are ready to strive sincerely to fulfil it: our second shall be to build up not only an individual but a communal life on this principle. An outer activity as well as  

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an inner change is needed and it must be at once a spiritual, cultural, educational, social and economical action. Its scope, too, will be at once individual and communal, regional and national, and eventually a work not only for the nation but for the whole human people. The immediate action of this will be a new creation, a spiritual education and culture, an enlarged social spirit founded not on division but on unity, on the perfect growth and freedom of the individual, but also on his unity with others and his dedication to a larger self in the people and in humanity, and the beginning of an endeavour towards the solution of the economic problem founded not on any western model but on the communal principle native to India. Our call is to young India. It is the young who must be the builders of the new world - not those who accept the competitive individualism, the capitalism or the materialistic communism of the West as India's future ideal, nor those who are enslaved to old religious formulas and cannot believe in the acceptance and transformation of life by the spirit, but all who are free in mind and heart to accept a completer truth and labour for a greater ideal. They must be men who will dedicate themselves not to the past or the present but to the future. They will need to consecrate their lives to an exceeding of their lower self, to the realisation of God in themselves and in all human beings and to a whole- minded and indefatigable labour for the nation and for humanity. This ideal can be as yet only a little seed and the life that embodies it a small nucleus, but it is our fixed hope that the seed will grow into a great tree and the nucleus be the heart of an ever-extending formation. It is with a confident trust in the spirit that inspires us that we take our place among the standard-bearers of the new humanity that is struggling to be born amidst the chaos of the world in dissolution and of the future India, the greater India of the rebirth that is to rejuvenate the mighty outworn body of the ancient Mother.

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