Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 4

Letter ID: 955

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

April 28, 1943

I have typed what you wrote just now but the last three lines please revise. “I think you need not be eager,” is what you wrote.

I will try to persuade them then to pay more say Rs. 50 for the radio. They will consent I think. I will then write also to the Gramo, as they expected me about the middle of this month. A week out in Madras about the middle of July then ?

Yes.

I will try the scenario then. Please grant it to me that I may try it as a real spirit of offering. Who knows it may bring what to the Ashram ? I will also write another article for Aria.

But please bear with me if I hasten to ask you a question or two. Krishnaprem made me promise I was not to blurt it out to anyone. But as you don’t fall under the category of “anyone” – I must tell you everything – so I have no qualms in asking you.

The sloka I quoted was from the book [Dharmo Pras-angy] of Swami Brahmananda. He says then,

uttamo brahmasadbhavo madhyama dhyanadharana stutirjapodhamo bhavo bahyapujadhamadhama

[The highest is to dwell rightly in the Brahman, meditation and concentration come next. Lowest is prayer and Japa; lower than the lowest is external worship.]

Krishnaprem smiled and said that he could not accept it as true in all cases, as through bahyapuja he has had remarkable objective experiences.

What is meant by bahyapuja? If it is purely external, then of course it is the lowest form; but if done with the true consciousness inside, it can bring the greatest completeness of the adoration by allowing the body and the most external consciousness share in the spirit and act of worship.

The experience which struck me most (and which I would have found it difficult to believe if it came from some other man) was this that time and again when he offered bhoga to Krishna in the temple, Krishna actually ate it – sometimes whole of it, sometimes a part of it. The bhoga is left for a little while when the curtain is drawn and nobody then is about: it is upstairs and no servant is allowed there inside the temple. So one is forced to accept it. He told me that once such a big part of the bhoga disappeared that the servants who had expected part of it were very much disappointed as the amount was considerable. They deliberated which of the sadhaks ate up such a huge amount. Is this possible? Where does the bhoga go? Does Krishna then eat it up sometimes? If it had been only Krishnaprem’s testimony I would have understood but Motirani (his guru’s daughter, who is very truthful) and his guru both have seen the dwindling of the bhoga often enough! Qu’en dites-vous? Hallucination or day-dreaming can’t account for the disappearance of the anna [food], can it?

And three persons saw it repeatedly. So how can this testimony be invalid unless they are solemnly lying. And Krishnaprem does not lie, that everybody knows, and he himself is the pujari – none else does the puja now!

The “scientific” explanation would be that somebody, a servant perhaps, disregarding prohibitions got secretly in and polished off the food of offering when there was nobody to see! That however assumes that occult manifestations are impossible, which is not the case; it is besides only a probable inference or theory. Occultists, or some of them hold that the taking of food offered to unseen beings is, sometimes (but, by not any means always), taken in its subtle elements, leaving the outward body of the food as it was. The natural taking of the food, physically, is rare, but instances are believed to have happened where the bhakti was very strong.

Lastly I would like to ask you about this darshan of Krishna. I have heard many people saw Him. But are there darshans and darshans? You know what I mean? I mean, does Krishna give different kinds of fulfilment to different people according to their need or karma or adhar? Krishnaprem’s guru evidently sees Him with deep devotion and this darshan to her means milan which changes her life completely – necessarily. But say Puranmal, I find his repeated visions of Krishna have not changed much. I give the two instances as I have thought on these lines. In conclusion I would like to know if milan is synonymous with darshan? In our bhaktimarga [path ofbhakti] darshan has been looked upon, very often, as the last grace of the Divine – I mean for the sakar worshippers.

Seeing is of many kinds. There is a superficial seeing which only erects or receives momentarily or for some time an image of the Being seen; that brings no change, unless the inner bhakti makes it a means for change.

There is also the reception of the living image of the Divine in one of his forms into oneself – say, in the heart; that can have an immediate effect or initiate a period of spiritual growth. There is also the seeing outside oneself in a more or less objective and subtle-physical or physical way.

As for milan, the abiding union is within and that can be there at all times; the outer milan or contact is not usually abiding. There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship, the deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it; others may feel him always present, outwardly, subtle-physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room; but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly – that is also a kind of milan. The greatest milan is one in which one is constantly aware of the Deity constantly abiding in oneself, in everything in the world, holding all the world in him, identical with existence and yet supremely beyond the world – but in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone – and this does not exclude such specific personal manifestations as those vouchsafed to Krishnaprem and his guru. The more ways there are of the union, the better.

P.S. Please forgive me if I ask you to explain what was the darshan of Krishnaprem’s guru when she saw Krishna with open eyes first in her room and then in the temple. Krishnaprem did not see Him but “I have felt Him,” he said with tears in his eyes. So there was evidently some concrete manifestation which the guru visualised and the other felt.

One can receive the manifestation by any of the senses or by a feeling in the consciousness – in the complete objective manifestation there can be sight, hearing, touch, everything.