Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2138

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 30, 1938

[Sri Aurobindo and the Mother]

I am sending you “the original hieroglyphs”. I think you have dropped one “of” before “this brief... experience.”

I haven’t, but as I thought you have transmogrified what I wrote – It is not mystical but mortal and not experience but existence, “this brief mortal existence”.

I am sure you have read the eulogies crowned upon Doraiswamy’s head, on his retirement, and enjoyed them immensely at the same time feeling proud of him and saying, “Ha, ha, here is the fruit of my Force!” What? It is indeed a great pleasure to see the prestige of the Asram elevated by at least one man, though I suppose you care a damn for prestige.

Queer idea all you fellows seem to have of the “prestige” of the Asram. The prestige of an institution claiming to be a centre of spirituality lies in its spirituality, not in newspaper columns or famous people. Is it because of this mundane view of life and of the Asram held by the sadhaks that this Asram is not yet the centre of spirituality it set out to be?

I have been really struck by his many-sided qualities. Is that all achieved by your Force alone?

These qualities are all Duraiswami’s own by nature. But all that has nothing to do with spiritual achievement which is the one thing needful here.

His legal genius, social charm, uprightness, noble character, etc., were all there or are they your Force’s gifts? How far can one be changed by your or the spiritual Force?

Changed in what way? There are plenty of upright people (uprightness, straightforwardness, a certain nobility of character are D’s inborn gifts) and plenty of able and successful people outside this Asram or any Asram and there is no need of my spiritual Force for that.

He told me that he began practice with only Rs. 15-30 a month. But that is not unusual.

Certainly not. It’s done in America every day.

It was the same with C.R. Das. Apart from legal acumen, I want more to see how far Doraiswamy’s character has been changed and moulded by the Force.

Lord, man, it’s not for changing or moulding character that this Asram exists. It is for moulding spirituality and transforming the consciousness. You may say it doesn’t seem to be successful enough on that line, but that is its object.

I suspect, however, that you are closing in your Supramental net and bringing in all the outside fish!

Good Lord, no! I should be very much embarrassed if all the outside fish insisted on coming inside. Besides D is not an outside fish.

But what about our X? When do you propose to catch him or a still longer rope required? I would call that your biggest success, Sir, and the enrichment of your Fishery.

I would not. You seem to have an exaggerated idea of X’s bigness (an example of Einsteinian relativity, I suppose, or the result of his own big view of himself.) Whatever bigness he has is my creation, apart from the fact that he was a popular singer when he came. He would have been nothing else (even in music) if he had not come here. The only big thing he had by nature was a big and lusty vital.

We are all watching with interest and eagerness that big operation of yours. But I don’t think you will succeed till your Supramental comes to the field in full-fledged colours, what?

What big operation? There is no operation; I am not trying to hale in X as a big fish. I am not trying to catch him or bring him in. If he comes into the true spiritual life it will be a big thing for him, no doubt, but to the work it means only a ripple more or less in the atmosphere. Kindly consider how many people big in their own eyes have come and gone (B, Q, H to speak of no others) and has the work stopped by their departure or the Asram ceased to grow? Do you really think that the success or failure of the work we have undertaken depends on the presence or absence of X? or on my hauling him in or letting him go? It is of importance only for the soul of X – nothing else.

Your image of the Fishery is quite out of place. I fish for no one; people are not hauled or called here, they come of themselves by the psychic instinct. Especially I do not fish for big and famous and successful men. Such fellows may be mentally or vitally big, but they are usually quite contented with that kind of bigness and do not want spiritual things, or, if they do, their bigness stands in their way rather than helps them. The fishing for them is X’s idea – he wanted to catch hold of S.B., S.C., now L.D. etc., etc., but they would have been exceedingly troublesome sadhaks, if they ever really dreamed of anything of the kind. All these are ordinary ignorant ideas; the Spirit cares not a damn for fame, success or bigness in those who come to it. People have a strange idea that Mother and myself are eager to get people as disciples and if any one goes away, especially a “big” balloon with all its gas in it, it is a great blow,– a terrible defeat, a dreadful catastrophe and cataclysm for us. Many even think that their being here is a great favour done to us for which we are not sufficiently grateful. All that is rubbish.

I gather from NK that Nirmala doesn’t take vegetable at all at noon. Only rice and curds, and that too not much. She is injuring her health!

[Mother:] You might, perhaps, explain that to her –