Light To Superlight

Foreword

There are twenty-six letters in this series, written between 1912 and 1921, all addressed to Sri Motilal Roy except the second one, which was to Anandrao. Sri Aurobindo's letters of this period are not only of gripping national interest to his countrymen, but are of vaster importance to a greater humanity that could read in them the extraordinary evolution of a meteoric patriot-politician emerging out of his ten years' veil to become the renowned architect of The Life Divine. It may be helpful to unknowing readers better to understand the situation in which he wrote those letters, with a little contextual preliminary background, which we shall try to supply here, briefly.

Sri Aurobindo had gone over to Pondicherry as he had come, in secrecy, under "a command from above", on 4th April, 1910, from his retreat at French Chandernagore, arranged by Sri Motilal Roy. His coming here, if anything, forestalling his arrest on a sedition charge that was to fail, was to his fortuitous host a rarest god-send, whom it was providentially given thus to receive his future spiritual Guru and charismatic guide one historic morning, which wc would date on Sri Roy's authority, as 21st February, 1910. Sri Aurobindo did not know his good Samaritan, much less thought to be his guest. On a chance information Sri Motilal hastened to meet his distinguished countryman at the river-ghat at Chandernagore, where he had come in a country-boat from Calcutta. Like a true Yogin dependent on his inner call, Sri Aurobindo did not refuse his adventitious host and followed him to his home,—unobserved or undetected.

He could not stay put here long and left for an undisclosed destination. By an irony of fate, his incognito travel however, succeeded only in its discovery to the police on the very day of his arrival on the 4th day of April 1910 at Pondicherry, betrayed by the grandiose reception that his young friends had unwittingly arranged at the landing pier, and in consequence he was virtually made a prisoner in his own house under British Police

*This was in connection with an article published in the "Karma-yogin". The printer who also was sued, was exonerated by the Calcutta High Court.

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surveillance. His compatriots in Bengal however, knew nothing of his movements, and gossip started being bandied about.

Sri Aurobindo's 39 days' stop-over at Chandernagore in close touch with his humble devotee, Sri Roy, made the latter in days to come, his trusted friend and instrument through whom for some years his politico-revolutionary activities guided from Pondicherry, seeped and fanned out to his followers in Bengal and made Sri Motilal famous almost overnight, while the prime mover remained veiled in far-off French territory un located and unbeknown except to a few, until the curtain was raised by the appearance of his cultural review, the "Arya", on the 15th August, 1914. Even then he preferred to live in seclusion. Thus Sri Roy's house functioned as a hot-bed of subversive activities—often independently of Sri Aurobindo in later years, and served as a secret base of operation for British India, in the comparative safety of the French Administration. His doors remained open to all coming from the rough and tumble of the battle for freedom.

Sri Aurobindo's earlier correspondence on secret matters between 1910 and 1912 was in a numeral code invented by him or his followers to obviate the police. He wrote in this code by French post to his disciple Sri Roy and received replies through the French postal system at a given local address a friend had arranged. All this correspondence of this period in code had to be burnt in 1916 on the eve of a search in Sri Roy's house by the Police Commissioner of Calcutta, Sir Charles Tegart, forewarned by the French authorities at Chandernagore. The language-correspondence that survived has been included in this series.

The earliest communication that Sri Roy received was not a letter but a blank sheet of paper on which was inscribed in pencil in the Guru's own hand, just three Sanskrit mantras based on Jnana, Shakti and Prema, transmitted through Sudarshana Chatterjee, who had been commissioned from Chandernagore in the last week of April, 1910, to get news of Sri Aurobindo, who had since his departure kept up an uneasy silence. The messenger returned on the day of Akshoy Tritiya, 11th May, 1910, with these mantras and a secret address to which letters could be written for Sri Aurobindo. Sri Roy availed himself of the special benefit of holy Akshoy Tritiya, accepting under

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its auspices the mantras for spiritual sadhanas, side by side with his earlier mantras of other Gurus. Thus began for him a new spiritual novitiate under a new Master's guidance in an all-inclusive Maha yoga. The Prabartak Samgha built itself over the years, held by this life-line, with its organ, the "Prabartak" founded at its headquarters at Chandernagore on the 1st September 1915. Sri Aurobindo was an eager reader of this Bengali magazine.

The intimate nature of the Master's relationship with his disciple can be discerned in every one of these letters. The former's solicitude for,—his trust, dependence and hope on, the disciple, are out of the question; they are restrained evenly behind the script with yogic equanimity. Sri Aurobindo was in extreme straits at this time, almost stony-broke, yet with superb humour expressive of his inner calmness he writes to Sri Motilal: "No doubt God will provide, but he has contracted a bad habit of waiting till the last moment."

Sri Aurobindo's financial difficulties had started almost from the beginning and continued for some years, easing off as his freedom enlarged. If he wrote for money in harrowing snippets, one must realise that he had his companions' pressing needs in mind, that he was constantly spied on to immobility, and those who could help him were beyond communication. Naturally Sri Motilal Roy was his only dependable stay at this time, not only for the upkeep of the Pondicherry establishment but also for contact with friends in Bengal unprotected by the safety of the French territory that Sri Roy enjoyed. Sri Roy was grateful for this; he tried to serve his Master in a way that his jejune offertory could be taken as a devotee's tribute to his Guru. It was a blessing in disguise, opening out rich vistas of new creation in the economic field to the contributor.

Sri Roy went to Pondicherry four times, viz. in 1911, 1913, 1920 and 1921. In 1920 Madame Mirra Richard—later the Mother, had taken charge of the Ashram. Sri Aurobindo's financial situation and personal well-being had been in a mess-up. The Mother had retrieved him back into shape. Sri Motilal Roy had noted all that then. Now when he went for the last time with his wife at his Guru's desire, the Pondicherry Institution was well on its feet with an assured future. The Mother's infinite care and far seeing had freed Sri Aurobindo of his external.

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pressure, herself taking it and more. She had put the Ashram in its right evolutionary setting. Sri Aurobindo now could devote himself more intensely to his Yoga.

The Master was full of tenderness for his pupil—solicitous for his spiritual well-being, affectionate; the disciple, reverent, dedicated. Yet Sri Motilal somehow was not happy. In his previous visit in 1920 he had almost a presentiment of what was to follow without knowing what it was to be. Struck one day by the Master's remark, "he puts a wall between him and me", the pupil had been distressed and disconsolate beyond measure for three days. Reconciliation however, had then healed the wound. This time, when all was well, a brace of months had scarcely gone, events of that scarred past cast their shadows again, foggily. The separation had to come—the "wall", inexorably, none of them knowing it. Sri Roy's unhappiness visibly proved to be a call from Chandernagore to go back, Sri Aurobindo tried to stay it,—"Write a big 'No' there", he advised. True, Sri Roy had new faces and other minds to care for there in his own Ashram, but that could hardly account for his irresistible unhappy impulse. The mystery of the unhappiness then burst out and the stern hand of Destiny tore Sri Motilal away from his Master's bosom. He turned back tears in eyes, with his wife. That was the end of this series of correspondence, 10th August, 1921. Sri Motilal was not happy at this finale, either.

There is a semblance of similarity between Sri Roy's parting and Sri Aurobindo's unseating of his spiritual preceptor, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, in favour of his awakened Inner Guide. The one,—Sri Lele, was "a bhakta with some experience and evocative power", "infinitely inferior" and hardly known to his illustrious disciple; the other, in the eyes of his followers, a penultimate Superman, who even in his bounty of spiritual gift, overshadowed Sri Roy's innate genius, that by this seeming rift, found back its full measure to try it in a different creative field on his own, with conspicuous success, without deviating from the Master's basic teachings.

A word needs to be said about the chronology and condition of the letters. Few of them are dated; they are address less and signed with a pseudonym, "Kali". There was a purpose in it —a matter of precaution, we believe. Later when things had

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begun to return to normal, he subscribed his letters with his initials, A. G. for Aurobindo Ghosh.

We have marked the undated letters with the approximate year of their issue in each case with a note of interrogation following. The original dates, if any, have been left in their places.

Sri Aurobindo had to write these important letters in an absurdly ill-provided situation. He used any scrap of paper he could make available, writing closely on both sides. Now, for more than half a century, the ravages of time have impaired their textural quality, colour, and legibility. They are brittle, some have crumbled in parts or extensively. We have had a formidable task in deciphering them. No pains have been spared in this toil, yet a few gaps remain—to the readers' guess, or are filled as we felt suggested, by expressions of our choice, segmented in brackets with interrogation marks juxtaposed inside. The blanks however, are not likely to distort the integral sense or seriously to extenuate interest in them. No punctuation marks have been placed where they are not in the original.

The original letters contain a few words under-lined by the writer himself, which have been replaced by italics.

The letters have been prefaced with a commentary, which will serve as guide-notes to the understanding of the times and circumstances that shaped their contents in the hands of the Master, whom Sri Arun Chandra Dutt, the writer of the commentary, had the exceptional privilege to personally know in his retreat at Pondicherry, sitting at his feet during his intimate talks* to his half a dozen early disciples on topics of varied interest —spiritual, cultural, constructive nationalism, etc. Sri Dutt also was, from the beginning, closely associated with Sri Motilal Roy's political and spiritual activities directed from Pondicherry by means of these secret letters, and happens at present to be the only living authority competent to undertake an illuminative exposition of them. Sri Dutt is the present successor as President of the Prabartak Samgha founded by Sri Motilal Roy.

* Sri Arun Chandra Dutt has recorded a part of the conversation in his book "Aurobindo-Mandire" in Bengali.

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