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SRI AUROBINDO IN BARODA
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A lonely freedom cannot satisfy A heart that has grown one with every heart: I am a deputy of the aspiring world, My spirit's liberty I ask for all. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri Spiritual Life — Experiences ...spiritual experiences interested Sri Aurobindo greatly, and he had had some himself. He was not quite inclined to the actual practice of yoga in his early days. His experiences began in England, perhaps in 1892, and from the moment he stepped on the shores of India they became more frequent and more intense. But he did not associate them with yoga about which he knew nothing at the time. When, after an absence of fourteen years, Sri Aurobindo set foot on the soil of India, when he touched the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, "a vast calm descended upon him... and this calm surrounded him and remained for long months afterwards". It was as though the Mother had received her child back and enveloped him with her infinite immaculate love. Many years later, Sri Aurobindo made a reference to this transfiguring experience in the course of a letter to one of his disciples: "My own life and my yoga have always been, since my coming to India, both this-worldly and other-worldly without any exclusiveness on either side... since I set foot on the Indian soil on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, I began to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced from this world but had an inner and infinite bearing on it, such as a feeling of the Infinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material objects and bodies. At the same time I found myself entering supraphysical worlds and planes with influences and an effect from them upon the material plane, so I could make no sharp divorce or irreconcilable opposition between what I have called the two ends of existence and all that lies between them." As the days, months and years passed, as Sri Aurobindo became more and more a witness spirit beyond his normal activities of eating, sleeping and waking up, of teaching, Page - 137 reading and writing, as he saw the total Indian situation steadily and searchingly, from out of the confusions and irrelevances and side-tracking occupations of the hour, two things seemed to emerge with shining clarity: first, the paramount necessity for Revolution to redeem the Mother, Mother India; and second (though this was not at once apparent), the indispensability of Yoga to perfect the human instrument that is to plan the revolution, give it a push at the right time, and see it safely through. During his stay at Baroda, Barin read a book on spiritualism and began experimenting with the planchette and with table-tapping. Sri Aurobindo also used to join in the evenings. Two or three experiences are remarkable. Once Barin called his father Dr. K.D. Ghose. A reply came that his spirit was there. He was asked to give a sign or proof of his identity. He reminded Barin about a gold watch which he had presented to him. Barin had completely forgotten this fact but said it was true. Then he was asked to give another proof. He mentioned the existence of a certain picture on the wall in the house of Mr. Devdhar, who was an engineer. An enquiry was made but no such picture was found. The matter was reported to the spirit .that claimed to be Dr. K.D. Ghose. In reply he said that they should enquire again. Then they made another and more detailed effort, and found that there was a picture which had been covered over by whitewash. At another séance Tilak was present. The spirit of Dr. K.D. Ghose was called and asked "What kind of man is this?" He answered: "When all your work is ruined and many men bow their heads down, this man will keep his head erect." This proved true. Once Ramakrishna Paramahansa was called and was asked questions. But he kept silent for a long time. Then while going he said, "Make a temple, make a temple (Mandir karo).” At that time the idea of independence for India was dominant and so all believed that Ramakrishna had given his consent to the "Bhawani Mandir" scheme. But the true Page - 138 significance of Ramakrishna's statement was interpreted by Sri Aurobindo years later as a command to make in ourselves a temple to the Mother, to effect such a transformation of ourselves that we become the temple of the Mother. These séances have not much value from the point of view of Yoga. But they show clearly the limitation of the view that the physical is the only reality. Their importance to Sri Aurobindo lies in the fact that they showed him the existence of supraphysical agencies and planes of consciousness, and the possibility of attaining them. Sri Aurobindo kept a horse-carriage at Baroda. For a description of it see page 33 of D.K. Roy's book, Aurobindo Prasanga. An incident involving this carriage is important. Once Sri Aurobindo was going from the Camp Road towards the city. Just by the side of the public gardens an accident was narrowly averted. As he saw the possibility of the accident he found that, with the will to prevent it, there appeared a Being of Light in him who was as it were the master of the situation and was able to control the details. This experience, which came before the beginning of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana, must be the seed of the following poem:
THE GODHEAD
I sat behind the dance of Danger’s hooves In the shouting street that seemed a futurist’s whim, And suddenly felt, exceeding Nature’s grooves, In me, enveloping me the body of Him.
Above my head a mighty head was seen, A face with the calm of immortality And an omnipotent gaze that held the scene In the vast circle of its sovereignty.
Page - 139 His hair was mingled with the sun and breeze; The world was in His heart and He was I: I housed in me the Everlasting’s peace, The strength of One whose substance cannot die.
The moment passed and all was as before; Only that2 deathless memory I bore.
1 unseizable 2 its
During the year 1904 Sri Aurobindo began yoga somewhat seriously. "No, I had no knowledge. I did not know what God was", said Sri Aurobindo later about the beginning of his sadhana. "Deshpande at that time was doing Hatha Yoga, Asanas and other such Kriyas and as he had a great proselytising tendency he wanted to convert me to his view. But I thought that a Yoga which required me to give up the world was not for me. I had to liberate my country. I took to it seriously when I learnt that the same Tapasya which one does to get away from the world can be turned to action. I learnt that Yoga gives power, and I thought why the devil should I not get the power and use it to liberate my country?... It was the time of 'country first, humanity afterwards and the rest nowhere'. It was something from behind which got the idea accepted by the mind; mine was a side-door entry into the Spiritual Life.".¹ Sri Aurobindo consulted engineer Devdhar, who was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda of Chandod, for details about Pranayama. There was an idea current that yoga could not be done without Pranayama. Sri Aurobindo describes the results of his practice as follows: "My own experience is that the brain becomes Prakashmaya full of light. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for five to six hours in the day, three hours in the morning and two in the evening. The mind worked with great illumination and power. At that time I
¹ Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1961), p. 171. Page - 140 used to write poetry. Usually I wrote five to eight or ten lines per day, about two hundred lines in a month. After the Pranayama I could write two hundred lines within half an hour. Formerly my memory was dull, but afterwards when the inspiration came, I could remember the lines in their order and write them down conveniently at any time. Along with this enhanced mental activity I could see an electric energy all around the brain.'¹ On another occasion he spoke of Pranayama as follows: "The results were remarkable. Many visions of scenes and figures I used to see. I felt an electric power around my head. My powers of writing were nearly dried up; they revived with a great vigour. I could write prose and poetry with a flow. That flow has never ceased since then; if I have not written afterwards it is because I had something else to do. But the moment I want to write it is there. Thirdly, great health: I grew stout and strong, the skin became smooth and fair and there was a flow of sweetness in the saliva. I used to feel a certain aura round the head. There were plenty of mosquitoes but they did not come to me.... "When I went to Bengal and took to political work [in 1906] Pranayama became irregular and I had a great illness which nearly carried me off."² And in a letter of May 1932 he referred to Pranayama in the following terms: "After four years of prānāyāma and other practices on my own, with no other result than an increased health and outflow of energy, some psychophysical phenomena, a great outflow of poetic creation, a limited power of subtle sight (luminous patterns and figures, etc.) mostly with the waking eye, I had a complete arrest...." ³ During this period of the beginning of sadhana Sri Aurobindo used to see things on the subtle planes, as
¹Cf. A.B. Purani. Evening Talks, First Series, p. 204. ² Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks. Third Series, pp. 95-96. ³ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 78-79. Page - 141 mentioned in the letter above. He describes in the following letter how he began to see inwardly: "I remember when I first began to see inwardly (and outwardly also with the open eye), a scientific friend of mine began to talk of afterimages 'these are only after-images'! I asked him whether after-images remained before the eye for two minutes at a time he said, 'no', to his knowledge only for a few seconds; I also asked him whether one could get after- images of things not around one or even not existing upon this earth, since they had other shapes, another character, other hues, contours and a very different dynamism, life-movements and values he could not reply in the affirmative. That is how these so-called scientific explanations break down as soon as you pull them out of their cloudland of mental theory and face them with the actual phenomena they pretend to decipher."¹ Barin went away into the Vindhya mountains to search for a "place far away from the atmosphere of cities, into solitude, to find a peaceful and ennobling atmosphere" to establish there a temple of Mother India (Bhawani Mandir). He came back with very persistent mountain fever! He was being treated, but not being -cured, when a Naga Sannyasi came, from whom Sri Aurobindo had a direct proof of the powers and utility of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo later said about this incident: "I first knew about Yogic cure from a Naga Sadhu or Sannyasi. Barin had mountain fever when he was wandering in the Amarkantak. The sadhu took a cupful of water and cut it crosswise with a knife while repeating a Mantra. He then asked Barin to drink it; saying he wouldn't have fever the next day, and the fever left him." It was perhaps the same Sannyasi who gave Sri Aurobindo a Stotra of Kali. "It was a very violent Stotra with 'Jahi, Jahi' in it. I used to repeat it, it did not give any results.... It was at this time that I gave up meat diet and found a great feeling of lightness
¹ Ibid., p. 90. Page - 142 and purification in the system." Sri Aurobindo had besides the experience of certain unusual psycho-physical phenomena. Sri Aurobindo had darśan of Swami Brahmananda at his ashram. During his stay in Gujarat he went to Chandod for the last time. He had been there twice or thrice before, during his stay at Baroda, with K.G. Deshpande and others. On one of these visits, at Karnali, near Chandod, he saw Swami Brahmananda. At the time of leaving the Swami, each one who was present did pranām (bowing). Brahmananda generally kept his eyes closed and those who bowed used to get up and leave. But when Sri Aurobindo did pranām and looked at him, he found Brahmananda with his eyes open looking full at him as if he saw something extraordinary or as if he recognised somebody. Sri Aurobindo once said that Brahmananda's eyes were very beautiful. It seems that by 1906 Brahmananda had passed away and on his last visit Sri Aurobindo met Brahmananda's successor, Swami Keshavananda. During one of his visits to Chandod Sri Aurobindo went to one of the temples of Kali on the bank of the Narmada. He went there because of the company. He never had felt attracted to image-worship if anything at that time he was averse to it. Now when he went to the temple he found a presence in the image. He got a direct proof of the truth that can be behind image-worship. The following poem was written about the same experience.
THE STONE GODDESS
In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine, From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, - A living Presence deathless and divine, A Form that harboured all infinity.
Page - 143 The great World-Mother and her mighty will Inhabited the earth’s abysmal sleep, Voiceless, omnipotent, inscrutable, Mute in the desert and the sky and deep.
Now veiled with mind she dwells and speaks no word, Voiceless, inscrutable, omniscient, Hiding until our soul has seen, has heard
The secret of her strange embodiment, A beauty and mystery flesh or stone can drape. What he saw was not just an image but a Presence, even as he had in experience of the vacant Infinite when walking on the ridge of the Takht-i-Suleman in Kashmir in 1903.¹ In 1939, he wrote the following sonnet on this experience:
ADWAITA²
I walked on the high-wayed Seat of Solomon Where Shankaracharya’s tiny temple stands Facing Infinity from Time’s edge, alone On the bare ridge ending earth’s vain romance.
Around me was a formless solitude: All had become one strange Unnamable, An unborn sole Reality world-nude, Topless and fathomless, for ever still.
¹Vivekananda describes the beginning of a somewhat similar experience: But in the twinkling of an eye he (Ramkrishna) placed his right foot on my body. The touch at once gave rise to a novel experience within me. With my eyes open I saw that the walls, and everything in the room, whirled rapidly and vanished into naught, and the whole universe together with my individuality was about to merge in an all-encompassing mysterious Void". ² Last Poems by Sri Aurobindo. Page - 144
Swami Brahmananda Page - 145
Idol of Mahakali — Chandod Karanali Page - 146 A Silence that was Being’s only word, The unknown beginning and the voiceless end Abolishing all things moment-seen or heard, On an incommunicable summit reigned,
A lonely Calm and void unchanging Peace On the dumb crest of Nature’s mysteries. It is to these two singular experiences that Sri Aurobindo refers in the following passage in one of his letters: "A philosophic statement about the Atman is a mental formula, not knowledge, not experience; yet sometimes the Divine takes it as a channel of touch; strangely, a barrier in the mind breaks down, something is seen, a profound change operated in some inner part, there enters into the ground of the nature something calm, equal, ineffable. One stands upon a mountain ridge and glimpses or mentally feels a wideness, a pervasiveness, a nameless Vast in Nature; then suddenly there comes the touch, a revelation, a flooding, the mental loses itself in the spiritual, one bears the first invasion of the Infinite. Or you stand before a temple of Kali behind a sacred river and see what? — a sculpture, a gracious piece of architecture, but in a moment mysteriously, unexpectedly there is instead a Presence, a Power, a Face that looks into yours, an inner sight in you has regarded the World-Mother." But all this was merely preparatory. Sri Aurobindo realised that he was being more and more irresistibly drawn to the path of Yoga. But he had no Guru yet, for although he had had darśan of Brahmananda and received blessings from him, it was to a great Yogi he had gone, not to an accepted Guru. The ground of course was already prepared, and contacts like those with Brahmananda and the Naga sannyasi helped to plant the seed of faith whose potentialities were immense. Was it not a priceless gain in itself that Sri Aurobindo had realised like Teufelsdrockh in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus — that "Thought without reverence Page - 147
Sri Aurobindo in Kashmir Page - 148
Takht-e-Suleman, Shankaracharya's Temple, Kashmir where Sri Aurobindo had a spiritual experience in 1903 Page - 149 is barren, perhaps poisonous"? The Beast of Intellectualism was now contained within its proper sphere, and Sri Aurobindo could therefore soar unhampered into the illimitable above-mind regions; his spiritual fire-baptism had thus commenced at last in real earnest. "It is a wonderful phenomenon," writes Swami Nikhilananda, "that the consummation of our spiritual life is reached only when the student comes in contact with the teacher." Even though Sri Aurobindo had not yet found a Guru, already he felt powerfully drawn to the path of Yoga; he poised himself on its razor-edged precariousness and perilousness he pushed forward confidently although he could not glimpse with any certitude his precise destination! Regarding the details of the exact location of the Kali Mandir and its historical background, we are quoting Ranadhir Upadhyaya's letter, dated November 10, 1974. "The temple is generally called 'Mahakali Mandir of Karanali'. It is situated on the northern bank of the river Narmada, just near the famous Kubereshwar Temple. One has to climb about 100 steep steps to reach the Kali Temple after about a mile's boating in Narmada from Chandod. The Shrine is approximately 300 years old. Sri Somvargiriji Maharaj, a Mahant of Niranjani Akhada took to the Sri Chakra Upasana worship of the Divine Shakti three centuries ago. He got the three Sri Chakras drawn on three triangular pieces of metal and did Tantra Sadhana for some years. Ultimately he got "siddhi" and acquired occult powers, with great spiritual consciousness. It is said that he had realised Mahakali through the Siddha Chakras and She used to manifest before him often. He was a great yogi and Tantrik. A few days before his death he installed the three Siddha Chakras and Kali idol in front of his yajna-kund by the side of a wall and erected a small temple. Since then it is looked after and worshipped by Niranjani Sadhus. The beautiful idol of Mahakali in the temple is about three feet high and a folding wooden tiger is fixed near her feet in such a way that it appears as if the Goddess is mounted on Page - 150 the tiger with Her face in the west direction. An iron trisul is placed by the side of the idol. The three yantras are not visible. The entire atmosphere of the place is surcharged with powerful spiritual vibrations. The temple is not at all famous and is in a dilapidated condition. From the year 1903 to 1922, Niranjani Mahant, Sri Himmatpuriji was worshipping the Kali idol. With Lele and Deshpande Sri Aurobindo visited the temple in 1906 during this Mahant's lifetime and when he looked at the idol of Kali, he saw the Mother Mahakali a living Presence, deathless and divine'." Beginning of Yoga When Sri Aurobindo was at Surat he met Sakhare Baba, a Maharashtrian yogi, who was intensely interested in the question of Indian independence. Sri Aurobindo found his own sadhana becoming very irregular and disorganised on account of the political work. So he told Barin to arrange a meeting with someone who would help him in his sadhana. One of the disciples of Vishnu Bhaskar Lele was at Baroda. Barin had come to know about him and learnt that Lele was at that time in Gwalior. A wire was sent to Lele asking him to come to Baroda. So, when Sri Aurobindo went to Baroda after the break-up of the Congress, Lele had already arrived there. Lele told A.B. Purani in 1916 that when he received the telegram telling him to go to Baroda he had an intuition that he would have to give initiation to a very great soul. Thus the political activity on one side and sadhana on the other were both being intensely pursued. Lele met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in Khaserao Jadhav's house at Dandia Bazar. It was probably during the first week of January 1908 that the meeting, which lasted half an hour, took place. Lele showed his readiness to help Sri Aurobindo in his sadhana. He said he would try to give him some concrete results on condition that he would suspend for he was Page - 151
Sri Aurobindo as a Professor, 1906 Page - 152
Vishnu Bhaskar Lele Page - 153 not ready to give up entirely-his political activity. Sri Aurobindo was ready to fulfil the conditions. Lele wanted him to separate himself from others and stay with him. Sri Aurobindo agreed. He suddenly disappeared from the tumultuous political scene of which he was an important centre. Friends knew where he was but no one disturbed him. He remained with Lele for three days in the small room on the top floor of Sardar Majumdar's wada in Baroda. Lele asked him to make his mind blank which he did. Sri Aurobindo has himself described this incident more than once. Below several accounts of his experience in his own words are reproduced. "I am glad you are getting converted to silence, and even Nirvana is not without its uses in my case it was the first positive spiritual experience and it made possible all the rest of the sadhana; but as to the positive way to get these things, I don't know if your mind is quite ready to proceed with it. There are in fact several ways. My own way was by rejection of thought. 'Sit down,' I was told, 'look and you will see that your thoughts come into you from outside. Before they enter, fling them back.' I sat down and looked and saw to my astonishment that it was so; I saw and felt concretely the thought approaching as if to enter through or above the head and was able to push it back concretely before it came inside. "In three days really in one — my mind became full of an eternal silence it is still there. But that I don't know how many people can do. One (not a disciple -1 had no disciples in those days) asked me how to do Yoga. I said: 'Make your mind quiet first.' He did and his mind became quite silent and empty. Then he rushed to me saying: 'My brain is empty of thoughts, I cannot think. I am becoming an idiot.' He did not pause to look and see where these thoughts he uttered were coming from! Nor did he realise that one who is already an idiot cannot become one. Anyhow I was not patient in those days and I dropped him Page - 154 and let him lose his miraculously achieved silence. "The usual way, the easiest if one can manage it at all, is to call down the silence from above you into the brain, mind and body." "I think you have made too much play with my phrase 'an accident', ignoring the important qualification, 'it seemed to come by an accident'. After four years of prānāyāma and other practices on my own, with no other result than an increased health and outflow of energy, some psycho-physical phenomena, a great outflow of poetic creation, a limited power of subtle sight (luminous patterns and figures, etc.) mostly with the waking eye, I had a complete arrest and was at a loss. At this juncture I was induced to meet a man without fame whom I did not know, a Bhakta with a limited mind but with some experience and evocative power. We sat together and I followed with an absolute fidelity what he instructed me to do, not myself in the least understanding where he was leading me or where I was myself going. The first result was a series of tremendously powerful experiences and radical Changes of consciousness which he had never intended for they were Adwaitic and Vedantic and he was against Adwaita Vedanta and which were quite contrary to my own ideas, for they made me see with a stupendous intensity the world as a cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal universality of the Absolute Brahman." "As for calm and silence, there is no need of the supramental to get that. One can get it even on the level of Higher Mind which is the next above the human intelligence. I got these things in 1908, 27 years ago, and I can assure you they were solid enough and marvellous enough in all conscience without any need of supramentality to make it more so. Again, 'a calm that looks like action and motion' is a phenomenon of which I know nothing. A calm Page - 155
Majumdar's House Page - 156
The room in Majumdar's house where Sri Aurobindo sat for meditation with Lele. January 1908 Page - 157 or silence that is what I have had the proof is that out of an absolute silence of the mind I edited the Bande Mataram for 4 months and wrote 6 volumes of the Arya, not to speak of all the letters and messages etc. I have written since." "I myself had my experience of Nirvana and silence in the Brahman, etc. long before there was any knowledge of the overhead spiritual planes; it came first simply by an absolute stillness and blotting out as it were of all mental, emotional and other inner activities the body continued indeed to see, walk, speak and do its other business, but as an empty automatic machine and nothing more. I did not become aware of any pure 'I' nor even of any self, impersonal or other, there was only an awareness of That as the sole Reality, all else being quite unsubstantial, void, non-real. As to what realised that Reality, it was a nameless consciousness which was not other than That; one could perhaps say this, though hardly even so much as this, since there was no mental concept of it, but not more. Neither was I aware of any lower soul or outer self called by such and such a personal name that was performing this feat of arriving at the consciousness of Nirvana.... "Mark that I did not think these things, there were no thoughts or concepts nor did they present themselves like that to any Me; it simply just was so or was self-apparently so." "It was my great debt to Lele that he showed me this. 'Sit in meditation,' he said, 'but do not think, look only at your mind; you will see thoughts coming into it: before they can enter throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence.' I had never heard before of thoughts coming visibly into the mind from outside, but I did not think either of questioning the truth or the possibility, I simply sat down and did it. In a moment my mind became silent as a windless air on a high mountain summit and then I saw one thought and then another Page - 158 coming in a concrete way from outside; I flung them away before they could enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free. From that moment, in principle, the mental being in me became a free Intelligence, a universal Mind, not limited to the narrow circle of personal thought as a labourer in a thought factory, but a receiver of knowledge from all the hundred realms of being and free to choose what it willed in this vast sight-empire and thought- empire." During his stay at Baroda Sri Aurobindo met Chhotalal Purani in a private interview and explained to him a scheme for the revolutionary work by drawing a pencil sketch on a blank piece of paper. He then advised him to meet Barin who met C.B. Purani for three consecutive days, explaining to him the details of the revolutionary organisation. It was thus that the seeds were sown of that movement in Gujarat which became so well known afterwards. The inspiration for it came from Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo also met the Maharaja at the latter's request. When the Maharaja wanted to meet Sri Aurobindo a second time, Lele asked Sri Aurobindo not to meet him and so he did not. Sri Aurobindo gave three lectures at Baroda on the political situation — two at Bankaneer Theatre and one at Manik Rao's gymnasium. Sardar Mazumdar presented Sri Aurobindo with a Pashmina shawl as it was severe winter then and Sri Aurobindo was going about in a shirt with no covering over it. He kept no bedding. While travelling he slept on the sitting board and used his hand for pillow. In the second week of January Sri Aurobindo went to Poona from Baroda. Sri Aurobindo asked Lele to come with him and Lele agreed. Sri Aurobindo gave a lecture at the Gaekwar Wada, Poona, on the thirteenth. Then he went to Bombay. At Girgaum (Bombay) he delivered a lecture on the fifteenth. In Bombay the spiritual experience that had begun at Page - 159 Baroda became more intense. The vacant condition of the mind turned into the experience of the silent Brahman Consciousness. The multifarious activities of the city of Bombay, the rows of tall houses, etc. all became as if things moving on the surface, mere appearances, things unreal against the background of the silent Infinite which alone seemed real. "When I was in Bombay, from the balcony of the friend's house I saw the whole busy movement of Bombay as a picture in a cinema show, all unreal and shadowy. Ever since I have maintained that poise of mind never lost it even in the midst of difficulties.'¹ This sonnet, written in the 1930s, is a poetic expression of the same experience: NIRVANA All is abolished but the mute Alone. The mind from thought released, the heart from grief Grow inexistent now beyond belief; There is no I, no Nature, known-unknown. The city, a shadow picture without tone, Floats, quivers unreal; forms without relief Flow, a cinema's vacant shapes; like a reef Foundering in shoreless gulfs the world is done. Only the illimitable Permanent Is here. A Peace stupendous, featureless, still, Replaces all, what once was I, in It A Silent unnamed emptiness content Either to fade in the Unknowable Or thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite.
When Sri Aurobindo got an invitation from the Bombay
¹Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks, Second Series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1974), p. 62. Page - 160 National Union to address a meeting at the Mahajan Wadi on the nineteenth, he was in a fix. His mind had become calm, blank how was he to deliver a speech? He could not very well decline the invitation as he was an active political worker and a prominent all-India leader. He asked Lele, who said that it would be all right to accept and that all would be well. Here is a description of what happened in Sri Aurobindo's own words: "In that silent condition without any thought in the mind -I went to Bombay. There I had to lecture at the National Union and so I asked Lele: 'What should I do?' He asked me to pray. But I was so absorbed in the silent Brahman Consciousness that I could not pray. So I said to him that I was not in a mood to pray. Then he replied that it did not matter. He and some others would pray and I had simply to go to the meeting and make Namaskar to the audience as Narayana and then some voice would speak. I did exactly as he told me. On my way to the meeting somebody gave me a paper to read. When I rose to speak the impression of the headline flashed across my mind and then all of a sudden something spoke out. That was my second experience from Lele...."¹ It was thus that Sri Aurobindo got the clue not only to the practicality of the yoga but to its dynamism. To the sadhana leading to passivity or inactivity was added the important element of divine dynamism. Not only did he understand it, but he put it to the test throughout his tour from Bombay to Calcutta. As already mentioned above, all activities initiated afterwards were taken up in the same way. The basis of his ideal of divine life as a result of complete transformation of human nature was derived from solid experience gained in the midst of a stormy political activity. Thus, Sri Aurobindo's yoga does not rest upon the basis of a miracle, or a blind faith in something occult or some
¹ Cf. Purani, Evening Talks. Second Series, p. 62. Page - 161 intellectual abstract principle of philosophy. It is based on concrete experience and tested in the struggle of life. From Bombay Sri Aurobindo began his journey back to Calcutta. He gave speeches in several cities on the way: 24 January 1908 at Nasik, 26 January at Dhulia, 28 and 29 January at Amravati, 30 and 31 January and 1 February at Nagpur (Shyam Sunder Chakravarty was present). "All the speeches I delivered on my way to Calcutta were of the same nature with some mixture of mental working in some parts. "Before parting from Lele I asked for his instructions. He was giving me detailed instructions. In the meantime I told him of a Mantra that had arisen in my heart. Suddenly while giving instructions he stopped and asked me if I could rely absolutely on Him who gave me the Mantra. I replied that I could always do that. Then Lele said that there was no need of further instructions."¹ "The final upshot", as Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple many years later, "was that he was made by a Voice within him to hand me over to the Divine within me enjoining an absolute surrender to its will a principle or rather a seed force to which I kept unswervingly and increasingly till it led me through all the mazes of an incalculable Yogic development bound by no single rule or style or dogma or Shastra to where and what I am now and towards what shall be hereafter." In his further development in yoga, Sri Aurobindo saw that all the voices heard in sadhana are not from the Divine. Not only so, but there are voices coming from Ignorance and even Asuric voices, which the sadhak has to be on his guard against. In the light of his later development Sri Aurobindo declared that a direct Divine Guidance was possible after the attainment of the Divine and that then one could dispense with the need of the guidance (or working) of the voice.
¹ Cf. ibid. Page - 162 In February 1908 Barin wrote a letter to Lele inviting him to Calcutta. It was considered necessary for revolutionary youths to have training in the spiritual life. It was when Lele visited Calcutta that he came to know about the secret political movement of Barin and others. He became very serious and drew their attention to the grave dangers, but nobody listened to his warning. All were full of enthusiasm and unmindful of consequences. Prafulla Chaki was then in Calcutta and Lele wanted to take him to Bombay with him for sadhana. The proposal was referred to Sri Aurobindo who left it to Prafulla's own choice. Prafulla refused to be parted from Sri Aurobindo. Lele also went to Deoghar, where he stayed at Seal's Lodge. He wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo on 10 February. When they met, Lele asked him not to follow the path he was pursuing. He warned him that the voice that was guiding him was Asuric. He also said he would not be responsible for the consequences if he continued the same practice. Sri Aurobindo freed him from the responsibility of his sadhana. "When Lele came to Calcutta in February 1908 he asked me about my yoga. I had stopped the old kind of meditation as it was practically going on all the time. Then he said that the Devil had taken possession of me and wanted to give me instructions. I did not act upon his advice but I did not want to insult him. I then received the command from within that a human Guru was no longer necessary for me now." He thenceforward relied entirely on the inner guidance. Here in fact ended his relation with Lele as Guru. Sri Aurobindo ever afterwards felt greatly indebted to Lele and acknowledged his debt with deep gratitude. In March (most probably) Lele returned to Bombay. An interesting narration regarding Sri Aurobindo's association with Lele is given below in the words of Barin Ghose who played an important role in bringing them together. Page - 163 "Aurobindo's Spiritual Initiation" Excerpts from a chapter of Barin Ghose’s book "Sri Aurobindo (As I Understand Him)” After the break-up of the Congress at Surat Aurobindo came to Baroda, the capital city of His Highness the Gaekwar. A few months back while searching for a spiritual guide for our political workers I had been to Swami Brahmananda's Asram at Chandod on the banks of the river Nurbada. At that time there was a dawning sense growing in us the young dedicated workers that the deliverance of India was not possible without spiritual power. An idea of a Bhawani Mandir in the hills (a temple dedicated to that aspect of the Shakti which was worshipped by the great Sivajee of Aurangzib's time) was in the air among the secret workers. I was sent along with another friend¹ to Northern India to look for a Guru or spiritual guide who could guide India's destiny and train us the future builders of the nation along spiritual lines. Deeply imbued with the cult of violence, learnt from the Irish Seinfeinners and Russian secret societies,' and equally ignorant of what spiritual power actually meant, we in our blindness wanted to harness Divine power to our dark mission.... It was no wonder then that we wished to take to spiritual means for a holy war against the British, this idea of God helping the righteous even in murder and bloodshed being ingrained in man from his savage days. The great Yogi Brahmananda of Nurbada had passed away some years before and I found his disciple Keshavananda to be a dry as dust pedant and a mechanical Hatha Yogi knowing no higher yoga at all. But quite accidentally I had met for a few minutes a Maharashtra Brahmin, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele by name, in the Chandote Asram. I did know that this man was a great and real Yogi. While returning to
¹ Upendranath Banerjee. Upen's account of the journey is contained in the first chapter of his Nirbasiter Atmakatha (Memoirs of a Revolutionary). Page - 164 Bengal quite disappointed in my quest, I met Lele again in a friend's house at Navasari. He made me sit in a dark room with him for a few minutes and as a result three days afterwards I had my first glimpse of spiritual awakening, my first psychic experience. Aurobindo hearing about him from me had expressed a desire to meet this wonderful devotee of love. As soon as the Surat Congress was over I wired to Lele requesting him to come to Baroda to meet Aurobindo. Crowds with flags and national cries followed us from the station and students unyoked a carriage and putting Aurobindo, myself and a Sannyasi, Sakhariaswami, on it, pulled it for some distance. In the midst of a surging crowd we reached Khasirao's [sic] Bungalow at 8 a.m. and immediately after Vishnu Bhaskar Lele arrived. I left Aurobindo alone with him for half an hour. When he had left I asked my brother how he found him so far as Yoga was concerned. Aurobindo said in his characteristic cryptic way, "Lele is a wonderful Yogi." The next day Lele came again and requested Aurobindo to sit with him continuously for seven days all alone and in silence in a quiet place. At that time nothing was more difficult than this to arrange. Aurobindo had become the idol of the nation and a wonderful halo surrounded him producing a mysterious magnetic attraction for him in the hearts of our young men. Anybody, who was in national work anywhere, needed and sought his advice and guidance. Day in and day out, crowds surrounded our house and programmes of public meetings were being arranged for him. Lele suddenly spirited Aurobindo away from the midst of all this commotion to a lonely old place tucked away in the heart of the city. There, day in and day out, the two of them sat wrapped in deep meditation facing each other. Their simple needs were looked after by Vishnu Bhaskar's wife, a matriculate girl of small stature of very subdued nature. I was also there and used to sit in meditation with them Page - 165 morning and evening in my restless and perfunctory way. My mind was divided between my ambitious national work and this inner life of Yoga. Seven days passed almost in continuous and silent meditation¹ while batches of young men traversed the town in search of their newly-found leader who had so suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from among them upsetting all their crowded programmes and arrangements. When Aurobindo was at last permitted to come out and attend a meeting in the famous gymnasium there among his ardent admirers, a great and abiding peace had descended on him which from thence forward formed the basis of all his future Sadhana.... Lele had certainly acquired great yogic powers, yet he had his frailties too. He was really a khanda yogi or an imperfect Yogi. While leaving Baroda, Aurobindo could feel and clearly detect the very human frailty of this wonderful man. In the presence of the vast concourse of people assembled on the station platform to see Aurobindo off, Lele most unnecessarily made him come down from his compartment and bow down to his feet in the full view of the multitude. The whole thing was such a childish trick to show himself off as the spiritual preceptor of this great leader of all-India political fame! A yogi, conscious of his own vital nature and its weakness, will seldom yield to it as Lele did. Aurobindo had asked him earlier in the day,² how he could possibly do such vast amount of mental work and address meetings when his mind had become so very calm and passive but his political works demanded from him continuous application of active mental labour and efforts.
¹According to Sri Aurobindo he obtained the experience of the Silent Brahman in three days (or two or "really in one" day) of meditation with Lele. See On Himself, pp. 49, 82, 84, 85. He may have remained in seclusion with Lele for some days more before going out to give lectures etc. ² Not necessarily this day. Barin seems to have been writing under the impression that Sri Aurobindo and Lele parted at the station, but Lele in fact accompanied Sri Aurobindo to Poona and Bombay. Page - 166 Lele said in answer, "You need not think at all. Be calm and remain surrendered, leaving everything to the higher power to arrange for you. A voice will wake up in you, be your guide and speak with your tongue. When I am away, this voice will tell you what to do. You have only to obey it and both your Sadhana and your work will develop side by side automatically." Straight from this Aurobindo went to Poona. He had to face a huge audience in a monster meeting. He rose to speak without preparing his speech and almost went through the identical experience which had come to Vivekananda before delivering his maiden speech at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Aurobindo got up to speak not only without previous preparation, but with a mind completely empty of thoughts. A thunder roared in his ear and threw him inward and when he came out of this semi-involved state he found that the required speech had been already delivered. The next morning's papers showed him what he had actually said. It was a unique speech, and gave the already famous Aurobindo an unrivalled position as a political leader with spiritually prophetic vision unknown before in the history of India. Page - 167 |
