Light To Superlight

Light to Supertight

SHREE MOTILAL

LIGHT TO SUPERLIGHT

LETTERS OF Sri Aurobindo

The letters—dated and undated in our hand—have been arranged here in some sort of a chronological series with the dated ones placed in their given order and the undated ones taking place according to some internal evidence within them indicative of time-reference; while a few only without date or without any available data for time-indication, located uncertainly in the time-stream on a bit of probable guesswork, either before or after a near fixed one, so as to link up continuity in the great life-story running throughout this letter-series.

The letters now presented, unfold a hitherto generally unknown chapter in the life of the great national and spiritual leader, Sri Aurobindo, writing to Shree Motilal Roy, the Samgha-Guru, Founder-president of Prabartak Samgha, between the years 1910 and 1920—a decade of storm and transition' also in our national history. They will therefore, surely throw some new light on an eventful period of our national life and movement, mostly hidden till now from the view of the general public.

Sri Aurobindo was regarded by Shree Motilal and also by many of us of his time as the living seer-prophet and. incarnate soul-symbol of Indian Nationalism. His deep and hard tapasya as the purest instrument in the hands of Kali, the Divine Mother whether at Chandernagore or in Pondicherry,. his two divinely chosen places of self-exile, may be considered, as the continuance of his supreme spiritual experience received during his forced confinement for a year within the iron-bars, of Alipore prison-cell.

The letters are important as written records of the inner process and stages of his spiritual and supramental self-discovery as well as complete, all-round self-preparation for his new divine mission during this decade of revolutionary-evolution, in-as-much-as they faithfully reveal also the changing phases and poises of his national as well as spiritual leadership pari-passu his inner yogic development and transformation.

His every word, every line of thought expressed in these letters verily springs directly from the nation-soul—the heart

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of the nation-being itself and we feel it our sacred duty and peremptory task to present same to every true son and daughter of Mother India, nay to every pure and aspiring soul of the new humanity, who are the real inheritors of the coming future, foreseen and fore-cast by Sri Aurobindo—his message and mission divine for all those who are chosen for it.

LETTER NO. 1

The first letter in our series is a dated one—dated the 5th July 1912. It thus gives us a fixed starting-point.

Sri Aurobindo's connection with Shree Motilal Roy began from 21st February 1910, the day of his arrival at Chandernagore. It was truly a Yoga at first sight, which grew into or rather revealed itself in course of time as a spiritual relationship—pure and profound, rich in essence with heavenly aroma as well as pregnant with deep and far-reaching meaning and consequence for our nation as well as humanity.

The first Holy Writ to reach Shree Roy from Pondicherry was on 11th May 1910, when all on a sudden, unexpected and unsought-for, he got his mantree deeksha or formal baptism in the trimarga yoga—the triple preliminary spiritual formulas of light, life and love from Sri Aurobindo on that very holy and auspicious akshoya tritiya day.

This was therefore, the opening communication, in fact, the first spiritual communion between Guru and Disciple, the Initiator and the Initiate.

True seed to fall on a fit soil. Its germination must culminate in a new creation.

But the intervening gap between 11th May 1910 and 5th July 1912 is a big gap, which we have no written material to fill up. The first letter in our hand, however, bears witness to the fact that there was continual correspondence going on between Pondicherry and Chandernagore ere-long through open and secret channels.

The French Post regularly irregular, as we get from the writer's description, was teasing enough and not free from suspicion. T see no signs of the seals being tampered with, but that is not an absolutely sure indication of security—the postman may be paid by the police' writes Sri Aurobindo, although he wittily

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phrases it to say that this is only because 'the Republican administration likes to have time on its hands.'

His instruction however, is, under the circumstances to change the old address for 'important communications to any other address known to him for the present,' adding 'of course by French Post & a Madrasi address,' while 'all others should come by the old address.'

Here the writer has also enquired about a particular letter sent by French Post 'to Mr Bonomali Pal from Achari, enclosing another to Parthasarathi.'

Evidently, Achari, Parthasarathi, Pal constitute a living channel of secret communication arranged with such meticulous care and attention for and we suppose also by Sri Aurobindo himself for his work after his retreat to Pondicherry.

Bonomali Pal, a disciple of Shree-Shree Vijoy Krishna Goswami and gurubhai (co-disciple) of the great nationalist leader, Bipin Chandra Pal, was a senior advocate of Chandernagore and as a nationalist at heart, always friendly to Shree Motilal Roy and indirectly helpful to his secret revolutionary activities.

Parthasarathi's letter enclosed by Achari, duly reached Shree Pal, who in his turn must have duly handed it over to his friend, Shree Motilal Roy for necessary action in the manner -enjoined. The following account given in Shree Roy's authentic Bengali book "Amar dekha Biplaba O Biplabee" on the affair, will show the important place and role of Parthasarathiji in this secret circle of Sri Aurobindo:

"Sri Aurobindo wrote to me that the political refugee, Shreenivas Iyengar's brother was going to Calcutta under nom-de-plume of Parthasarathi and would be staying at a certain address in Burrobazar. I was directed to secretly meet him there to get the latest news and direction about work from Sri Aurobindo. As a political leader Sri Aurobindo was very much cautious in these matters. I too was a police suspect and was dogged at every step by the C.I.D. But I managed to meander my way avoiding them and reached his house. I met him there—a handsome young man of robust health and also of sweet temper. After some introductory talk, he explained to me a code system of secret communication, which he ended saying "It is in this code that henceforth you will have to correspond

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with Sri Aurobindo on important political matters and you will also get his replies in the same code. Such correspondence even if it falls into the hands of the police, they will not be able to make anything out of them.'

Shree Parthasarathi then went on to say that he had been sent to Calcutta by Babuji (Sri Aurobindo) and from here he would have to go to Nepal to spread the revolutionary movement there. For this purpose, he needed to train some Nepali youths in bomb-making and he asked me if and how far I would be able to help him in that. The Native States of India would have to be induced and prepared to rise against British rule and he would personally approach the Rana of Nepal with this intention.

Before leaving for Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo had introduced us to a young man, named Suresh Chandra Dutta, an M. Sc. student then, but who subsequently became a professor of the then Ripon College, Calcutta. It was he, who taught my disciple, Manindra Nath Naiek, also an M. Sc. student to make bombs and 'the most powerful type of bombs that were made in Chandernagore' as reported in the Sedition Committee Report (Rowlatt) were manufactured by this Manindra Nath in our secret cell. So the very next day, I took Manindra Nath to-Parthasarathi, who immediately arranged to engage Shree Naiek as a private tutor to a Nepali student reading science in a Calcutta college and the secret training started."

About the Marathi friend of Sri Aurobindo mentioned in this letter, Shree Roy gives the following interesting statement in his other book "Yuga-purusha Sri Aurobindo", narrating about his dramatic meeting with this Marathi gentleman in his. residence in Calcutta with the letter sent enclosed for him through Bonomali Pal:

"Shree Madgodkar, a non-Bengali cloth-merchant, had his godown at Burrobazar. He resided in Ballygunje. I had to search for his address where I reached him. Perhaps, he took me at first for a police spy and so bade me farewell. But he kept Sri Aurobindo's letter with him. I met him again the next day. I now found that meanwhile he had taken particular information about me. In course of his talk now, he made queries about Sri Aurobindo—how he stayed at Chandernagore and how he left for Pondicherry. But he did not give any money in my hand, saying with a smile, 'Please do not think that I am not

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handing over the money to you out of disbelief. Much money meant for Aurobindo has been lost in the hands of intermediaries; so knowing this, we have decided to so arrange that the sum may directly reach his hands. You may therefore, rest assured. However, you may write to him to inform that I would send Rs. 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only) through our agents, the Grindlay Company.'

I felt relieved and returning to Chandernagore, reported to Sri Aurobindo accordingly.

In due course of time, Sri Aurobindo informed me that he had received the money sent by Madgodkar through the Grindlay Company."

But this money-order from Shree Madgodkar reached Sri Aurobindo later. In this letter dated 5th July, while he enclosed his letter to this Marathi friend of his, he is not so sure of the result, for he writes to Shree Motilal in this clear tone of an uncertain urgency:

"If he can give you anything for me, please send it without the least delay. If not, I must ask you to procure for me by will-power or any other power in heaven or on earth Rs. 50/- (Rupees fifty only) at least as a loan.

The situation just now is that we have Re .or so in hand."

He of course, suggests several possible sources known to him in Calcutta that Shree Roy may try to sound for the too urgently required money. His own all approachable points in Pondicherry where he could ask for or look to for help, can hold out no single ray of hope or light for him at the time. In such a situation of darkest despair, the S. O. S. message in the language of utmost urgency as quoted above, issuing from the pen of the Great Master to his chosen disciple at Chandernagore, is a historic utterance of supreme significance, which it will be our endeavour to read between the lines of this letter-series and unravel the heart of its divine mystery.

The Swadeshi-case referred to, was part of an effort of the French Government at the instigation of the British Police, to lay its hands on political suspects such as Shreenivas Iyengar and others, connected with Chidambaram Pillai's 'Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company" some of whom had taken shelter in Pondicherry. There was some general investigation, but the -case brought against the Swadeshis 'collapsed into the nether

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region'—as described in the letter, mostly due to the personality of Sri Aurobindo, who by dint of his spiritual genius and tact, had gained considerable influence with the local French authorities, as a result of which they not only 'gave him protection, but also treated him with great courtesy' (Vide, Evening Talks, first series, Page 55).

Ultimately, not only the Swadeshi friends of Sri Aurobindo-escaped legal prosecution, but Pondicherry ever since has remained a safe and peaceful haven for political suspects, swadeshis and revolutionary fugitives like Sri Aurobindo fleeing from British India and taking refuge in French territory.*

Letters No. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9

We now come to nine letters in our series—all undated ones, which we shall deal together—as from internal evidence, they appear to fall within the period between 1912 and 1914, before we get to the next letter with a fixed date on it.

The first one of these (letter No. 2) which we have to take up is one written by Sri Aurobindo to one Shree Anandrao, whose identity we have not been able to find out even from the closest associates of Sri Aurobindo who are still living, but who appears to have sent a message to Sri Aurobindo in the name of a Baroda friend of his (Sri Aurobindo's)—'who left service and was therefore, in difficulty in finding money'— evidently in support of his life-mission. 'He asks', says Anandrao, 'now that you have become a sannyasin, on what ground he can collect money. Still, if you let him know clearly your future, the time it will take to effect your siddhi and the amount of money you need, he will try to collect from Rs. 600/- to Rs. 1000/-'

*It was on information secretly supplied by the Late Bholanath Dash'-a friend of Bonamali Pal and patriotic-hearted millionaire of Chandernagore,. who was one of the partners with Chidambaram Pillai of this Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, Trichinopolly, that Shreenivas Iyengar, V. V. S. Iyer, the Tamil poet Bharati etc, had gathered on the beach of Pondicherry seaport and arranged a demonstration to receive Sri Aurobindo on his arrival there from Chandernagore in disguise on the 1st of April 1910. This-was regarded by Sri Aurobindo as an act of imprudence on the part of the young nationalist enthusiasts and it resulted in a partial disclosure of? his plan of incognito concealment at least for the time being.

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In reply to these pertinent questions, Sri Aurobindo comes out with a clear and outspoken statement about his mission and practical needs, as he himself envisages at this time in one of the most critical stages of his life-sadhana. This letter therefore, if studied closely and with detailed attention, will be found to be rewarding enough, serving as a luminous torch to throw a flood of light on some unknown corners of his inner and outer sadhana during this most crucial period of his life-time.

Sri Aurobindo announces here in unmistakable language that in retiring from active and open political life, he has not become a sannyasin.

"I have even made it clear enough in the public press", he emphatically declares, "that I have not taken sannyasa but am practising yoga as a house-holder, not even as a brahmacharin. The Yoga I am practising has not the ghost of a connection with sannyasa. It is a Yoga meant for life & life only".

As the object of this Yoga, he has in mind 'the perfecting of the moral condition and mental and physical being along with the possession of certain powers-the truth of which 'he has been establishing by continuous practical experiment with the aim of carrying out a certain mission in life which God has given' him.

He explodes the idea of sannyasa imputed to him tersely in this meaningful, laconic sentence—-'If I were a sannyasin, there would have been no money difficulty to solve.'

The explicatory exposition that immediately follows brings out his clear and deep in look into his sadhana as well as the achievement he has in his view—at once intimate, interesting beyond measure, and at the same time even chronologically self-revelatory. We cannot do better than quote his own words laying bare a clear outline of his integral spiritual endeavours:

"There are four points of the siddhi, roughly, moral, mental, physical and practical. Starting from December 1906, the moral has taken three years and a half and may now be considered complete. The mental has taken two years of regular sadhana and will be (c lo s ed ?) for the present purposes. The physical is backward and nearing completion only in the immunity from disease, which I am now attempting successfully to perfect and test by exposure to abnormal conditions. The physical also does not matter so much for practical purposes, as the moral, mental and a certain number of practical siddhis are sufficient."

A matter of enormous importance indeed, coming as it does from a yogin's own pen-the elaboration of his own yoga process, its evolution and working out in his own original manner and

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way, leading to the re-discovery of certain occult powers, known as asta-siddhi in the realm of Indian Yoga and what is still more note-worthy is their application in modern times and under modern circumstances by one of the greatest leaders of modern thought, standing in the fore-front for the advancement and guidance of ascending modern humanity. Let us quote verbatim from the same letter again to get a clearer and more precise view of the Master's practical aim and intention:

"It is these practical siddhis that alone cause delay. I have had first to prove to myself their existence and utility; secondly, to develop those in myself so as to be working forces; thirdly, to make them effective for life and impart them to others. The development will, I think, be complete in another two months, but the application to life and the formation of my helpers will take some time—for the reason that I shall then have a greater force of opposition to surmount than in the purely educative exercises I have hitherto practised. The full application to life will, I think, take three years more; but it is only for a year of that time that I expect to need outside assistance. I believe that I may have to stay in French India for another year. 1 presume that is what the question about my future means. But on this point 1 cannot speak with certainty."

Linking such an inner spiritual effort with its direct application to outer life-activity, evidently it is hard to measure its spiritual and psycho-physical progress with the yard-stick of actual material time. Evident too is his ardent desire to come out of his self-imposed exile in French India as early in time as possible, which however, did not materialise. But his fore-vision about his future work has proved itself accurate and true even as he himself briefly yet luminously outlines in the passage to follow:

"If however, it refers to my future work, that is a big question and does not yet admit of a full answer. I may say briefly that I have been given a religious and philosophical mission to explain the Veda and Vedanta (Upanishads) in the ancient sense which I have recovered by actual experience in Yoga and to popularise the new system of Yoga (new in arrangement and object) which has been revealed to me and which as I progress, I am imparting to the young men staying with me and to others in Pondicherry. I have also to spread certain ideas about God and life by literary work, speech and practices, to try to bring about certain social changes and finally, to do a certain work for my country in particular, as soon as the means are put in my hands. All this to be done by God's help only and not to be begun till things and myself are ready."

This is indeed, a grand master-view of a great life-mission, embracing within its sweeping gaze the entire panorama of a

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new vision of the past, present and future of Indian culture and spirituality, and in that light also the re-valuation and transformation of the religious and philosophical thought, idealism as well as the social life of mankind, but being based on a deep and growing self-realisation, not merely academic and static, but also full of a dynamism of creative potentiality, ever ready and vibrantly urge full to spread and expand, to act and materialise. And when in this panoramic in-view and out-view he includes also the urge and aim of what he cryptically puts as 'to do a certain work for my country in particular', we are apt to take it in the sense and term of his inborn, life-long will and aspiration, gradually hardening into a crystallised, resolute determination—the completion of his work for the liberation of his dear, beloved motherland. But he is very much careful here, in the light of his mature political and revolutionary experience of life—to add with it a clause of inner caution—'all this to be done by God's help only and not to be begun till things and myself are ready' or 'as soon as the means are put in my hands.'

Forthwith now he proceeds to the other important point of the questioner's query—coming down pointedly to answer about his actual requirement of money. He writes:

"The amount of money I shall need for the year in question are Rs. 300/- to clear up liabilities, I have contracted during the last nine or ten months (in which I have had only fortuitous help) and some Rs. 1200/- (or 1500/- reckoning up to August 1913) to maintain myself & those I am training. I had hoped to get the money from a certain gentleman who had promised me Rs. 2000/- a year for this purpose and given it for the first year from October 1910 to October 1911. But there are great difficulties in the way and I can no longer reckon merely on this support which would render it unnecessary for me to tax my friends. If I get other help from this side, the same will be lightened."

Apparently, the good-hearted donor who had promised to help him with Rs. 2000/- a year, could not continue his donation for the second year. His contribution for the first year, which was to cover the period from October 1910 to October 1911, ended by that time. From this time, nine or ten months onward, Sri Aurobindo had to carry on 'with only fortuitous help', incurring a debt of Rs. 300/-. Reckoning from July 1912 or August 1912 therefore, at the rate of Rs. 100/- a month, he estimates a sum of Rs. 1200/- plus Rs. 300/- to clear off the liability, i.e. Rs. 1500/- that he will require for his maintenance

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and of those tinder his training up till August 1913—a time-clue which fits in well in a way with the time-table, already given above—to schedule his moral, mental, physical and practical chart of Yoga. Thus starting from December 1906, his moral sadhana took three years and a half reaching completion towards the middle of 1910. From thence two years more being taken for his regular mental sadhana, we come up to about July or August 1912, which tallies almost exactly with the economic timing enumerated above. So we now stand on a very sure and solid ground to read and interpret the import of his letters in their proper time-setting.

Sri Aurobindo had always an inborn faith and reliance on God for his material needs and living. From his very school and college days in early boyhood or growing maturity, it had ever been so in his long and trying life-experience. He had never thought of saving anything from his earning when he earned. From his intimately—nay actually the most private letters written from Boroda to his wife—indecorously, perhaps also unlawfully seized and produced in the Alipore Bomb Case, even the general public came to know how intensively he had imbibed and been practising the teaching of the Geeta to dedicate one's all—even every bit of farthing earned—for God's work, in this case for the uplift of the 300 millions of his countrymen, living images of God struggling against grim poverty. God provides such all-consecrated yogins according to the Geeta itself—with their yoga-kshema—all their actual and potential necessities of life.

Since Sri Aurobindo suddenly left Calcutta for Chandernagore at the Call of God and thence for Pondicherry, he had neither time nor opportunity to think of or make any financial arrangement for his own self and for those who would be staying with him. Shree Motilal just on his first visit to Pondicherry in October 1911, came to realise in what an abject condition of poverty the great leader of the nation was living. 'That we had so long kept no information whatsoever of how our great leader was faring in a distant land and arranged nothing for his provision is a matter of shame as well as misfortune for us'—so confessed he to one of his guru-bhais there and resolved in his heart of hearts to do his duty on behalf of the Bengalee people in this matter on his return to Chandernagore.

Writes Shree Motilalji in his "Yuga-purusha Shree

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Aurobindo", in this connection: "I had come to know about Sri Aurobindo's monetary needs when 1 had been in Pondicherry. Not only want of money but want of clothing too. So (on my return to Chandernagore), I hurriedly took Rs. 50/-out of the current account of my family cabinet-firm and sent same to Pondicherry along with some clothings. Sri Aurobindo's acknowledgement came forthwith: 'Your money (by letter & wire) & clothes reached safely.'

Letter No 3 of Sri Aurobindo opens with the money account first:

"We have received from you in December Rs. 50/- & Rs. 20/- and in this month Rs. 10/-. According to N's (Is it Shree Nalini Kanta Guptaji?) account, Rs. 10/- belongs to November account, Rs. 50/-to December, Rs. 20/- we suppose to have been sent in advance for the January account. If so, we still expect from you Rs. 20/- this month."

Although undated, the account given in the letter justifies a rough fixation of a month of January as its writing-time. Can it be January 1912 or 1913? Let us find out which dating fits in with any given data available or discoverable. We know that Shree Roy after his first visit to Pondicherry returned to Chandernagore about the middle of December 1911. We also may recall in this time-connection that the first monetary arrangement made by "a certain gentleman" who had given Rs. 2000/- for one year's expenses of Sri Aurobindo had ended in October, 1911. We may call it a step of destiny that Shree Roy, his disciple in Bengal, forthwith went to Pondicherry to take up a God-given charge in this very month of October 1911. In the letter to Anandrao, Sri Aurobindo admitted that for the nine or ten months to follow he had had 'only fortuitous help', as already noted by us. On his own admission, he was then 'at the height of his difficulties—in debt, with no money for the morrow, besieged in Pondicherry and all who could help him in temporary or permanent difficulties or else absent and beyond communication'. But one must not fail to note in what brave spirit of exalted optimism his inner being was facing such an abnormal situation. We have to listen to his own memorable words vibrating with a hope and faith, conscious and confident of self-victory:

"I take it from my past experience as a sign that I am nearing the period of trial. I would ask you if you can do no more, at least to send

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me some help to tide over the next month or two. After that period for certain reasons, it will be easier for me to create means, if they are not created for me",

The period of trial is not actually over. The financial ' contributions from Shree Roy which this letter No. 3 acknowledges, is clearly a monthly instalment of Rs. 50/- which may be starting from a previous November-December and January following suit on the same limited scale. This is obviously insufficient. The more so, as the letter itself explains in the writer's own words:

"Up till now we have somehow or other managed to fill in the deficit of Rs. 35/- monthly; but now that all our regular sources here are stopped, we have to look to mere luck for going on." So writes Sri Aurobindo to Shree Roy:

"I should be glad to know if there is any prospect of your being able to increase the amount now or shortly'' The great Yogin, of course has not lost his faith in the

The great Yogin, of course has not lost his faith in the 'Yoga-Kshema'-Iaw of spiritual life. His resignation is not passive inactivity, but creative energy awaiting divine knowledge to descend and inform it for application as normal working of the .siddha is in life. So he goes on to say further in this same letter:

"Inactive nirbhara can only be a temporary movement of our sadhana, it cannot be · permanent. There will have to be a change before long, but I cannot see clearly whether the regular and sufficient arrangement which must be instituted some time, is to come from you or from an unexpected quarter or whether I have myself to move in the matter. It is a question of providing some Rs. 450/- a year in addition to what you send, unless God provides us with some new sources for the Sharirajatra as he did two years ago."

If the financial arrangement provided for his 'Sharirajatra' two years ago be the one we have already referred to in the context of the Anandrao-letter, the date of this present letter would bring us from the 1910-1911 year-period to 1912-1913.

The amount figures mentioned in the course of this very letter also lead us to a conclusion as may be shown below.

Shree Roy has arranged to send a regular monthly contribution of Rs. 50/- only from Chandernagore from November 1911, onwards whose yearly yield would total a sum of Rs. (50 x 12) = Rs. 600/- only. The deficit falling there-after at the rate of Rs.35/-monthly would bring us to Rs. (35 xl2)=Rs. 420/- i.e. a round figure of Rs. 450/- approximately.

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This therefore, was the economic question looming large in Sri Aurobindo's mind at the time he wrote this letter to Shree Roy, which explains particularly well its contents on the economic side. But no less remarkably does it fit in also with his central yogic endeavour, which he elaborately discloses thus:

"All these matters as well as the pursuance of my work.... depend on the success of the struggle which is the crowning movement of my sadhana—viz, the attempt to apply knowledge and power to the events and happenings of the world without the necessary instrumentality of physical action. What I am attempting is to establish the normal working of the siddhis in life i.e. the perceptions of thoughts, feelings and happenings of other beings and in other places throughout the world without any information by speech or any other data. 2nd, the communication of the ideas and feelings I select to others (individuals, groups, nations) by mere transmission of will-power. 3rd, the silent compulsion on them to act according to these communicated ideas and feelings, 4th. the determining of events, activities and results of action throughout the world by pure will-power. When I wrote to you last, I had begun the general application of these powers which God has been developing in me for the last two or three years, but as I told you, I was getting badly beaten. This is no longer the case, for in the 1st. 2nd, & even in the 3rd I am now largely successful, although the action of these powers is not yet perfectly organised. It is only in the 4th. that I feel a serious resistance."

Thus continuing, he comes to the financial point at last:

"In some directions I seem to succeed, in others partly to fail & partly to succeed, while in some fields, e.g., this matter of financial equipment both for my personal life and for my work I have hitherto entirely failed. When I shall succeed even partially in that, then I shall know that my hour of success is at hand and that I have got rid of past karmas in myself and others, which stands jn our way and helps the forces of Kaliyuga to baffle our efforts".

The fourth letter placed in our series contains a reference to "Yoga & its objects," a booklet on the new Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, which in type-written manuscript was handed over personally by Sri Aurobindo to Shree Roy on the eve of the latter's departure from Pondicherry in December 1911. In this letter, the Master enjoins upon his disciple not to print the booklet—'unless and until he gives the latter positive directions.

There is reference to money matters in it also-—about 'the financial position in which they in Pondicherry have 'to provide any cases for every need and the failure of any expected sum reduces them to difficulties.

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A special reference to the Madgodkar transaction as we find here, recalls to mind the predicament a great national leader like Sri Aurobindo had to face in these critical times for our failure to meet adequately his pecuniary' requirements on promised lines. No wonder therefore, that he has to write in a rather painful language when describing the situation:

"I had reckoned on the remainder of Madgodkar's money to pay the sum still due for the rent of our last house. Fortunately, the litigation connected with the house has kept the matter hanging, but it may be demanded from us any day and we shall have to pay at once or face the prospect of being dragged into court and losing our prestige here entirely. In future, let me ask you, never to undertake any payment to us which you are not sure of being able to fulfil, because of the great disorder in our arrangements which results."

Subsequently however, it is learnt that the arrear rent of Rs. 130/- which Sri Aurobindo had kept unpaid thitherto on the excuse of the litigation connected with the house, could be liquidated with the balance of Madgodkar's money.

Sri Aurobindo's removal to No. 41 Rue Francois Martin in Pondicherry also took place in 1913.

In this letter too, Sri Aurobindo had to write in some detail about the extremely hard-pressed monetary situation he and his disciples were passing through:

"Our position here now is at its worst, since all efforts to get some help from here have been temporarily fruitless and we have to depend on your Rs. 50/- which is insufficient. We have to pay Rs. 15/- for rent, other expenses come to not less and the remaining Rs. 20/- cannot suffice for the food expenses of five people. Even any delay in your money arriving makes our Manager 'see darkness!' That is why he had to telegraph."

This fourth letter, which may, as seen above, be placed in our series—either just before or after—but very close to the third one, ends with this pertinent paragraph reflecting the actual struggling mood and trying situation:

"I shall write nothing about Sadhan etc, until I am out of my present struggle to make the spirit prevail over matter and circumstances, in which for the present I have been getting badly the worst of it. Till then you must expect nothing but mere business-letters, if any."

The disciple took up the cue as he should, ardently eager to meet the keenly felt desire and need of his Guru. But he himself was now in a very hard-pressed, precarious pecuniary situation at home. Disruption having taken place in his family-life, he

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had to dissociate himself from his family business-firm and purse —he had been forced to shift for himself depending on a petty voluntary contribution of Rs. 12/- a month from one of his early devotee-friends.* He, however, soon set up a cabinet-firm of his own with the help of another young devotee-student—the urge behind all this was to earn an independent living for himself and there-through also for his Master, Sri Aurobindo. After a heroic struggle he did succeed too and when the first instalment in the increased amount reached Sri Aurobindo, he wrote back in a mood of deep spiritual satisfaction, clearly reflecting itself from the very first line of his letter that followed:

"It is a great relief to us that you are able to send Rs. 80/- this time and Rs. 85/- for March. Owing to the cutting off all other means of supply, we were getting into a very difficult position. I welcome it as a sign of some preliminary effectiveness through you in this direction, in which everything has gone against us, also as one proof of several that the quality of your power and work is greatly improving in effectiveness and success. I need not refer to the other proofs, you will know what I mean."

The other proofs that he refers to above, of course, are no other than the outstanding revolutionary activities that were being enacted at this time under the leadership of Shree Motilal Roy's group of Chandernagore revolutionists, one of which actions 'had been attended with unique spectacular success' about the year-end of 1912, of which we shall have to write in greater detail later on.

The economic urge and action, effort and fulfilment on the part of the disciple in response to his Guru's spiritual as well as material need and demand was undoubtedly a great fact of their life-yoga, which essentially served to change the very nature and character of money. Lucre, that is the ordinary need and motive for money here appears to have lost its sordid sense and value through such a spiritual operation and became the symbol and standard of a spiritual battle and victory. The Master himself like a veteran Generalissimo is building up as if his crack fighting

*It should be noted for the sake of historic authenticity in this matter that in the interim-period, Shree Motilal Roy, had to seek the help of his revolutionary friends, especially that of the 'Anushilan Samiti' to get the money required to be sent to Pondicherry to meet the needs of Sri Aurobindo. He has expressed his heart's gratitude to them for same in his "Jeevan-sanginee" volume here-after in its proper place.

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team of tried and experienced generals in the rough and crude battle-field of actual economic strife. Sri Aurobindo's very language here is couched in a military sense and term which cannot escape any one's notice while going through these epistles. Let us quote his own words again from this letter to appreciate better by getting into deeper touch with his true battle-spirit and mood:

"Just now I find every forward step to be made is violently com batted and obstinately obstructed. Our progress is like the advance of a modern regiment under fire in which we have to steal a few yards at a run and then lie down under cover and let the storm of bullets sweep by. 1 neither hope for nor see any prospect of a more successful rapidity."

He does not pause here, but proceeds on with a vivid and accurate description as well as assessment of his own actual fighting position:

"I have been lying down under cover ever since February after a very brilliant advance in January and the early part of February. I keep the previous ground, but can make as yet no sure progress further. There is only a slow preparation for further progress. The real difficulty is to bring force, sureness and rapidity into the application of power and knowledge to life—specially sureness, for it is possible to bring the force and rapidity, but if not attended by unfailing sureness of working, they may lead to great errors in knowledge and great stumbles and disasters in action which counteract the successes. On the other hand, if sureness has been gained only by not stepping except where everything is sure (which is the first stage of action and knowledge necessary to get rid of rajasic rashness.), progress is likely to be slow. I am trying to solve the dilemma."

This is purely military language of an exactly militant commander-in-chief thinking out deeply and intensively in terms of his war-strategy—only the context is not that of the ordinary, actual, blood-red battle-field, but part of a spiritual-cum-material warfare—of Sri Aurobindo's poorna-yoga or integral life-sadhana.

This poorna-yoga, which includes within its vast, all-round purview and scope all the salient parts and features of life and society—cannot and does not leave money-matters out of it. One has to read between the lines of the epistles of Sri Aurobindo, specially such of those where-in he refers to his financial needs and in most of these letters in our letter-series of this time, there is hardly any single one, where-in there is no mention at all of his acute monetary needs—which all bear witness

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to the continuous economic strain and struggle of a very extreme nature that he had been undergoing during all this period between 1910 and 1920—a span of time spread over a decade—if one is to get an inner glimpse into this important aspect of his integral life-sadhana, which however, few even among his closest and most devoted disciples or followers have cared to dwell upon, much less even felt the need to study and know. They like perhaps to stress more upon the sidclhi than upon the sadhana and are thus more likely to miss the essential truth and greatness of the siddhi itself. Success is only the crowning movement of a hard and toilsome struggle and endeavour. The long and pain-staking process of Sri Aurobindo's creative life-yoga—his will and effort, 'to make the spirit prevail over matter and circumstances— especially in the matter of financial equipment both for his personal life and for his work'—as mirrored in line after line of these letters—is a running story of an epic battle waged in the coarse and crude economic field by this great spiritual man—the priest-prophet of a new age and a new life—and it has also been an inspiring, living, flaming lesson to his worthy spiritual disciple, to whom these letters were written—demonstrated and illustrated in the very life-creation of the latter—to be, we hope and believe, an equally impelling and instructive, inspired message of creative life for all chosen leaders of the new nation and the new humanity of the future.

Let us now turn our gaze to four other undated letters, obviously belonging to this period—as inferable from their internal data before we reach up to the dated one.

From two of these letters—(Letter No. 6) and (Letter No. 7), we find that Sri Aurobindo himself wrote two letters to Shree C. R. Das between 1913-1914. :

"I enclose a letter to C. R. Das'"—

Writes he in one of them to Shree Motilal, then adding.

"Please transmit it and get a reply written or verbal." (Letter No. 6) In the second one, (Letter No. 7) wrote he in the same manner to Shree Motilal again :

"I enclose a letter to C. R. Das. Please let me know as soon as possible whether he has received the M. S. S."

The M. S. S. mentioned in the second letter undoubtedly refers to Sri Aurobindo's translation of C. R. Das's 'Sagar-sangeet'—a book of Bengali poems composed by the latter which

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it was the author's desire to have it rendered in the English language. When the appeal for financial assistance from Sri Aurobindo himself through his letter conveyed by Shree Motilal Roy reached him, we have it on the authority of Shree Roy, writing in his 'Yuga-purusha Sri Aurobindo'—that Barrister Das made up his mind to provide this assistance in a way so as to serve both the donor's as well as the receiver's purposes—without exposing either to any possible suspicion in the eyes of the then ever-watchful British Government that would sense a liaison of the Barrister in a revolutionary conspiracy with the Arch-revolutionary Sri Aurobindo, now staying out of their reach under the protection of a foreign Government in French territory. This he thought could best be done under cover of this non-political i.e. purely business transaction.

Shree Motilal who carried Sri Aurobindo's enclosed letter in person to Shree Das writes about his first visit in his book thus:

"Sri Aurobindo wrote to me again in his letter to approach Chittaranjan Das for some monetary help for him (Aurobindo). I went to Das with Sri Aurobindo's letter. Shree Das sat for a while a thinking, then he asked me to come and see him on another day. I went to him on the appointed date. He took out his book of poems 'Sagar-sangeet' and told me 'If Sri Aurobindo translates this into English for me, I shall give him one thousand rupees for this work.'

I reported the talk to Sri Aurobindo, who wanted the book 'Sagar-sangeet' to be sent to him. Sri Aurobindo made two sets of English translation (so far as we remember)—one in rhymes, the other unrhymed. Das also paid the sum in course of some time."

It appears that a great literary genius that he was, Sri Aurobindo did his part of the job in an exceedingly satisfactory manner to deserve Rs. 1000/- fetched by it—a sum however, he badly needed at the time. We learn from Shree Nalini Kanta Gupta that 'Sri Aurobindo took only two or three days to complete this translation—one may say almost at one stretch of breath in an easy flow of spontaneous inspiration.'

The second letter in this connection was evidently sent by Sri Aurobindo just after the task of translation had been completed and the manuscripts sent to Shree Das. A sum of

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Rs. 300/- seems also to have been received from him through his agents Grindlay & Co with a note saying that he will get Rs. 1000/- for the translation—this made Sri Aurobindo ask Shree Roy :

"Is the Rs. 300/- part of the Rs. 1000/- or separate? I ask this for information only, because you wrote that he intended to give me one year's expenses & Rs. 300/- extra. I need some extra money badly now for materials for the work I have now seriously entered on in connection with the Veda and the Sanskrit language:'

We may note that in letter no. 5, Sri Aurobindo while acknowledging receipt of Bipin Pal's 'Soul of India' previously sent to him, he had asked for getting from 'Hiranyagarbha' (probably it was the revolutionary Amarendra Nath Chatterjee of Uttarpara who had been so nicknamed by Sri Aurobindo or it might be this was-as was the prevailing vogue among revolutionaries themselves in those days to take to such nom-deplumes to hide their identities from the British Government and Police) - Sister Nivedita's 'The Master as I saw him' and also a copy of R. C Dutt's Bengali translation of the Vedas which he needed obviously for his research-work in Vedic-literature. In ·this letter no. 7, he reiterates this need and asks Shree Roy 'to make a serious effort this time to get hold of Dutt's Bengali translation of Rigveda and send it to him or any translation for the matter which gives the European version.'

This is a phase of Sri Aurobindo's mission of culture we may have occasion to come to again for discussion in our letter-commentary later on.

In letter no. 6, Shree Aurobindo recalls an episode which has some interesting connection with this move of approach to Shree C. R. Das. :

"You will see''

Writes he to Shree Roy that

"I did not authorise Bhaga to ask him for money; at the same time, in doing so, he obeyed an unspoken general vyapti from myself which his mind seems to have got hold of and mixed up with its own desires and anxieties. I am drawing now towards the c103e of my internal Yogic tapasya and the time is not very distant when I shall have to use its results for the work God ' has sent me to do in this world. For that work I shall need larger sums of money. So long as I was only perfecting myself and sending out Shakti to others, all I needed was enough for the maintenance of myself and those who are with me. This charge I gave to you and the charge is not withdrawn; (the italics

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are ours) but, as you know, it covers only the bare physical necessities of life in Pondicherry. More than that, you are not likely to afford and certainly you could not provide me with the same I shall need even in the earlier part of my work. To limit myself to the Rs. 85/- a month you can send us, would be denying myself the material means for doing what I have to d o and to accept stagnation and quiescence.

It is true I am not beginning the work immediately, but before it begins, I have to bend circumstances to my will in this very particular, so that the obstacle of paucity of means which has been my chief stumbling block for the beginning, may be got rid of once for all. My will ha s to become effective on this point above all and the impediments both subjective and objective for its mastery have to be eliminated. Therefore I have sent out the general Vyapti I spoke of. Biren's action was one of first responses, but as it was impure response, it has created more golmal than effect. As to confining the appeal for pecuniary assistance to those who are entirely of one way of thinking with ourselves, it was a good rule for you to observe, but it cannot bind me when I begin my larger movement. From whatever quarter money or help comes to me. it comes from God."

Apparently , it was Biren, nicknamed Bhaga, who on his .own initiative, but virtually in obedience to an inner compulsion, which Sri Aurobindo terms and recognises as-his vyapti siddhi-had first approached Barrister Das for contribution of money in aid of his Guru, Sri Aurobindo. This urge, being not pure but mixed up with his desires and anxieties, 'created more golmal than effect'. Yet the idea was taken up by the Master himself, when he decided to send his letter to Das through his . newly chosen disciple, Shree Motilal Roy. And, the result we know-was this 'Sagar-sangeet' transaction.

As in the two previous letters, we have already gone through before, where he speaks of his 'nearing the period of trial' (Letter No. 2) or 'the success of the struggle which is the crowning movement' of his sadhana, here too, he takes occasion to touch on the same vital issue once again:

"I am drawing now towards the close of my internal Yogic tapasya and the time is not very distant when I shall have to use its results for the work God has sent me to do in the world. For that I shall need larger sums of money."

Here he has spoken also of 'a charge' he has given to Shree Roy and he clearly declares too 'and the charge is not withdrawn.'

This charge—in his own words—'covers only the bare physical necessities of our life in Pondicherry. More than that, you are not likely to be able to afford. To limit myself to the Rs. 85/-

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a month you can send us, would be denying myself the material means for doing what I have to do.'

The 'charge' spoken of therefore, concerns—in one word— with Sri Aurobindo's 'Sharirjatra' for which God provided him from 1910 to 1911 through 'a certain gentleman' referred to in our Anandrao letter.

This 'certain gentleman'—noble-hearted first 'rasaddar' (to use Thakur Shree Rafnakrishna-deva's apt term used by him in his usual colloquial parlance to mean his 'financial supporters') of Sri Aurobindo has remained unnamed and unknown to us up till now. But the 'charge' resting on him—we may say 'created' by destiny or Providence—ended automatically, as we have seen, on October 1911 and it was from November 1911 i.e. the very next month of the same year, that Shree Motilal stepped into that place—for the function of the second 'rasaddar' of Sri Aurobindo, if we so view it—but here, remembering his own memorable words in such connection—'it will be easier to create means, if they are not created for me,' we may say also, that the Master by imposing the 'charge of his Sharirajatrd' on his new disciple Shree Roy, was now busy partly 'creating' his second 'rasaddar'—for an appointed period of time.

In letter No. 6, his cogitation on this point is worth our attention and reflection. It was on the eve of his new spiritual mission just as it was unfolding itself before his opening inner eye, that he was rallying his self-energy 'to bend circumstances to his will in this particular, so that the obstacle of paucity of means which has been his chief stumbling-block from the beginning may be got rid of once for all'. Indeed, for this, 'his will has to become effective on this point above all and the impediments both subjective and objective for its mastery have to be eliminated.'

The vyapti-siddhi he has applied for such purpose—is to awaken this will-power in others not only to contribute and dedicate but also to create money and means for the upkeep of life and its organisations—all that is necessary for the expression of the Divine in life. This will is to be exercised first through his own people, his. chosen disciples who are fit for it; but for his larger movement, it is also necessary to take the help of his known .friends, whom he can count upon as his helpers, willing to come

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to his aid out of deep and genuine admiration and sympathy for his great spiritual work and mission, so far as they are able to understand its aim and purpose and also materially to assist it.

This observation of ours will emerge with greater relevance and assume helpful significance if read alongside another letter —a third one, written from Arya office, Pondicherry and sent to C. R. Das on 18th. November 1922—almost a decade after—-through Shree Barin Ghosh (Vide Appendix-A). There also he speaks in even clearer accents of his larger movement—'work on a larger scale than before' and for which he 'needs therefore, much larger resources than he can at present command.'

In that letter (Vide Appendix-A), he, however, hastens to make it clear to his same large-hearted friend whom he addresses as 'Dear Chitta'—that there is a distinction between this new work and the work already undertaken—specially that going on at Chandernagore.

"One word" says he "to avoid a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economic organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying: to work out in his Samgha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about—my own work which I must do myself and no one else can do for me." (the italics are ours.)

A confirmation of this financial charge on Shree Motilal Roy and his Samgha at Chandernagore, we may find also in "Evening. Talks", first series, page 22, where we read:

"A. B. Purani told him (Sri Aurobindo) that financial aid would be arranged from Boroda, if necessary, to which he replied:

"At present, what is required comes from Bengal, especially from: Chandernagore. So there is no need."

The date of this talk was an evening in December 1918.

Four other letters No. 10, 11, 12 and 13 have now to b& taken up in their order of time-sequence to complete our review of this economic phase of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana as revealed through his letters, before we touch upon some other salient, very important features of his integral yoga of life as also involved there-in.

Here we get also two letters with fixed dates along with two. undated ones. The date of one is 17th. April 1914 and that of the.

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other is 5th. May 1914. The two undated ones lie closer either to the first one or to the second. The first two deal purely with an election matter of French India, to which we shall have to return later on.

In his letter No. 12 dated 5th. May 1914, Sri Aurobindo refers to his acute financial situation once again:

"Next as to money-matters. My present position is that I have exhausted all my money along with Rs. 60/, Richard forced on me and am still in debt for the Rs. 130/- due for the old rent. I do not like to take more money from Richard, for he has sold one fourth of his wife's fortune (a very small one) in order to be able to come and work for India, and the money he has, can only carry him through the two years he thinks of staying here. I should therefore, be impoverishing them by taking anything from them. Of course, they believe that money will come whenever it is necessary but then God's idea of necessity and ours do not always agree."

There is reference in this letter No. 12 and letter No 13, to a few possible sources from which he was expecting money due to him. A s one of such expected sources, we find the mention of a Madrasi gentleman's name-that of Rangaswamy. But he is a disappointment as Shree Aurobindo himself writes about him:

"As for Rangaswamy, there is a fatality about his money—it is intercepted by all sorts of people and very little reaches me even on the rare occasions when he sends anything. I have no hope therefore, of any regular help from that quarter. Even in the facts of your being unable to meet him, fate has been against us.

" We do not know if this Rangaswamy is the same "messenger to the South" of whom Sri Aurobindo wrote in letter No. 1 of 5th. July 1912, about two years ago, thus:

"The last time he came, he brought a promise of Rs. 1000/- in a month and some permanent provision afterwards, but the promise like certain predecessors has not yet been fulfilled and we sent him for cash. But though he should have been here three days ago, he has not returned and even when he returns, I am not quite sure about the cash and still less about the sufficiency of the amount."

In any way, as this promise of Rs. 1000/- frittered away in 1912, so even two years after also, such a source did prove equally disappointing.

The 'Das' money of Rs. 1000/- however,-paid in installments - as we gather from his letters-was in fact, money actually earned by him by his literary labour.

The 'garden-money', we are told, was his share of the sale-proceeds received by his uncle for selling the garden-property

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owned by the joint-family and this he had to get after too much delay and after too many 'tagids' through Sourin and others. The amount of this share was Rs. 500/- only as mentioned by him.

In letter No. 12, writes he to Shree Motilal about this garden-money :

"Sourin says there is Rs. 500/- awaiting me, my share of the garden-money. He wants it for his 'commerce', but when I have no money to live on, I can hardly comply......If you see him in Calcutta, ask him to get it and send it to me at once. With this money I may be able to go on for a few months till something definite and regular can be settled and worked out."

He continues:

"As for the sum I need monthly, so long as Sourin and others do not return, I need Rs. 50/- monthly for my own expenses and Rs. 10/-not for myself, but still absolutely indispensable. When Sourin and the others return, that will no longer be sufficient. I am writing to Sourin to try and make some real bondobasta about money before coming back.

Please also press Shyam Babu and the others for the money due to me. This habit of defalcation of money for noble and philanthropic purposes in which usually the ego is largely beneficiary, is one of the curses of our movement and so long as it is continued, Lukshmee will not return to this country. I have sharply discontinued all looseness of this kind myself and it must be discouraged henceforth wherever we meet it. It is much better and more honest to be a thief for our own personal benefit than under these holy masks. And always, if one must plunder, it is best to do it as a Kshatriya, not with the corruption of the Vaishya spirit of gain which is the chief enemy in our present struggle......"

We have not hesitated to quote this passage from the letter at some length, because this strong and pungent remonstrance coming as it does from one of the greatest of our spiritual and national leaders, deserves our closest attention even in our present-day public life and body politics. Sri Aurobindo categorises this as 'one of the curses of our movement' and says that 'so long as it is continued, Lukshmee will not return to this country'—a clear-worded note of caution and warning for all to note and heed.

In letter No. 13 also, he writes again:

"I have written to Sourin about the garden-money and he says he has asked Sukumar to send it. But I have received nothing as yet."

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He then calculates:

"If I get this money and the remaining Rs. 200/- from Das (out of Rs. 1000/- which he hopes to receive by next August in addition to Rs. 400/- already received through Grindlay company), that will be Rs. 1100/- in hand. With 100/- more and Rs. 130/- on account of the old rent, say Rs. 250/- altogether, we shall be provided for bare necessities for a year during which other conditions may arise. That Rs. 250/- ought to come from Shyam Babu and Sharma."

But about this latter sum, he still feels as diffident as ever, for he goes on to say, with a bit of bitter and painful humour:

"But there is little hope of money once swallowed by a patriot being disgorged again. His philanthropic stomach digests sovereignly. I must seek it elsewhere. If this can be done, the only burden which will fall on you is to refurnish us with apparel and foot-wear from time to time. At the same time our attempt should be made to keep up the arrangement with Das, if possible, for we do not know whether our attempt to provide otherwise will succeed."

To a Yogin like Sri Aurobindo, even so minute a detail of life's everyday necessity such as 'apparel and footwear' is not excluded from his attention. In letter No. 5,

"There is the pressing cry for cloths in this quarter, as these articles seem to be with us to remind us of the paucity of matter".

In letter No. 12 he appends a similar note again with a . singular personal touch upon it this time as follows:

"Please get us some clothes sent from Calcutta, as they are very urgently needed, specially as I may now have to go out from time to time breaking my old rule of seclusion. I am also in need of a pair of shoes, as Bharati has bagged the pair I had."

In letter No. 13, while acknowledging receipt of the cloth and shoes. he drops in a witty personal remark anew:

"But for myself only the slippers are useful, as the shoes are too large."

His conclusive speculation expressed with almost childlike simplicity in the sentence quoted above—'If this can be done, the only burden which will fall on you is to refurnish us with apparel and foot-wear'—may well appear to us as an oversimplified summary of his bare physical needs—when just before in his fore-going letter No. 12 he has given a very clear-cut call or mandate to his disciple. Shree Roy, in: the following words:

"What you have to do is to try to make some real arrangement, not a theoretical arrangement by which the burden of my expenses may be

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shifted off your shoulders until I am able to make my own provision. Meanwhile, get me Rs. 500/- due to me (garden-money) and if afterwards we can make no other arrangement, we shall then have to consider the question again. It is this point of equipment, not only for myself but for my work in which the opposition of the Kaliyuga forces is just now the most obstinate. It has somehow to be overcome."

Such a call or demand coming from the Guru, though covered in terms of material need and money, was received by his worthy spiritual disciple in a deep spiritual sense and significance. It was a call of the spirit hidden in the material claim, which had touched Shree Roy's heart and fired his creative imagination. He felt in his heart of hearts that a claim like this for one's material requirement can only come from one who looks upon the other as his very own. The will and effort to fulfil it were a veritable practical sadhana.

The subjective keynote of this objective sadhana is best expressed in his own words by Shree Motilal Roy himself writing, in the pages of "Jeevan Sanginee"—his autobiographical masterpiece of great historical value as well as exquisite literary excellence.

"My anxieties and efforts to meet the demands of Sri Aurobindo—it is hard to express in words. In those days when men were afraid to take the name of Sri Aurobindo out of fear of the British Government — when I myself lived surrounded day and night by a ring of police spies—it was this burden of responsibility in bearing which my own foot-stand became steady and firm. I learnt the true lesson of life that it would not do to take into account my own needs alone, but that I should also make Sri Aurobindo's needs too as my very own. This right to take up my Master's charge upon my shoulders as mine own was my very sadhana at that time. It is as the crowning experience of that sadhana—as its very siddhi—that I can claim to regard all my economic endeavours as a part of my religion of life today. The divine use of money was taking shape in me through that strenuous labour of love it was my fortune to undergo in those times.

The mandate of my Guru upon me was to procure the money he needed 'by will-power or any other power in heaven or on earth'—-I also felt intense satisfaction and highest fulfilment my self in this endeavour to fulfil his needs through any means that

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came to my hands—from my family expenses, my business-income, my wife's ornaments, by loan.

My dream to build one indivisible spiritual family—which I am striving to realise—grew out of this spring-root of economic consecration and dedication received from and through Sri Aurobindo. It is also the ever-green seed-essence of our new life-creation—the Samgha."

Indeed, through the purest aim and effort to meet his Master's needs and demands, slowly but irresistibly awakened the disciple's hidden creative genius, which took shape after shape as the years rolled by in a hundred-fold avenues of economic activity and fruitfulness.

"What little Sri Aurobindo needed or demanded from me for his personal requirement contained within it like a shell the seed of Tswara-prasada' or the 'Grace of the Lord'—uttered the elated disciple out of a fullness of heart in gratefully recognising and acknowledging this perennial source-spring of all his spiritual and material creativities.

In the annals of sadhana, the truth of such intimate spiritual relationship over-flowing like sahasradhara in an abundance of spiritual as well as mundane creativity—is a rare but precious phenomenon of life—the fruit of affinity of heart and mutual understanding—a spiritual and living communion of two great souls resulting in a new creation—a spiritual and living ideal community—the Samgha, with a new mission of its own for the regeneration of life and society.

Like pure and supernal heavenly blossoms—the evolving life at the two divinely chosen centres at Pondicherry and Chandernagore, will bear living witness to the inner and outer sadhana that took place during this decade—long hidden from the public view, but which one day has to reveal itself to the nation and humanity to inspire and guide them both in the spiritual and the material spheres of their life and existence.

We shall now have to come to some other points in these letters, which should require elucidation. In letter No. 9 Sri Aurobindo writes about sending of some 'proofs' and also about 'despatch of books'.—'Tantric books' as he says in his letter No. 9. What can these words actually mean ? The first mention about

Page 27

the "books" occurs in letter No. 6 in connection with one, who is called 'psalmodist'—apparently a nom-de-plume.

Evidently, these are cryptic or code words referring to some secret fact or facts which cannot be known unless disclosed by some one who directly knew. Shree Motilal Roy states in his 'Yuga-purusha Sri Aurobindo' on this point:

"Pondicherry being a free port at that time, numerous articles from foreign countries were imported there. The revolutionaries of Chandernagore decided to import six revolvers from Pondicherry and entrusted this task to me. I had to refer the matter to Sri Aurobindo and wrote to him for the purchase of these six revolvers. Sri Aurobindo did not leave my prayer unfulfilled. But prompted by caution, when the revolvers were procured, he had arranged to keep them concealed underground. For a long while no opportunity presented itself for their despatch to Chandernagore. Sri Aurobindo had found many friends in Pondicherry but to them he had stated that he had arrived there for the practice of Yoga. That he had any connection with the Bengal revolutionaries he would by no means let them know. It was almost after a year that arrangement was made to take the revolvers to Chandernagore with great care and caution through Sachindra Nath Sannyal. But having remained underground for about a year, the revolvers had become practically useless."

'Tantrik books' in this passage therefore, stand for 'revolvers'. But the 'Psalmodist'—who might he be? Could he be Bharati, the budding South Indian poet of Tamil literature ? Bharati was indeed, a fiery revolutionary youth, but the description that just follows from the writer's pen about him as 'a future karmobira' (Karmaveera) does not seem to fit well with that great and genuine poet's character. We may therefore, leave aside any such fumbling guess-work here and keeping in mind the mantra-gupti rule (practice of secrecy) in strict vogue, amongst the revolutionary workers in those days, it is better to let the 'psalmodist' remain incognito to us even now too.

Then about the West Indian friend, his publication and about the 'usual formula' of communication mentioned in letter No. 7.

We had personally heard from Samgha-Guruji about a retired Mahratta General, who had met Shree Motilal with a manuscript on War-strategy, written in English, with some Sanskrit

Page 28

quotations in it in the devanagri script—this he had a mind to publish, if approved by the Revolutionary Party and especially, the great revolutionary leader hiding in Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo writes to Motilalji:

"Also let me know the address of your West Indian friend in that connection which you omitted to give in your last letter, of course, in the usual formula. Please explain how you expect him to befriend you if there is any difficulty in the final stage of the publication."

As we had then come to know from our Samgha-Guruji, that this Mahratta General from West India, like some others at the time, was thinking of a revolutionary insurrection under the leadership of the Hindu King of Nepal. His revolutionary fire and fervour as a true Mahratta, we felt, had the naming inspiration of the great Shivaji and the warrior Peshwas. We had a chance occasion to skip through the pages of this rare manuscript and dimly remember (after this long lapse of about 56 years)—some of its contents bristling with descriptions about ' Vyooha-rachana' on the lines laid down in ancient Sanskrit texts-formation of army manoeuvres, guerilla warfare etc, adapted to modern battle-strategy. As youngsters in teens, we had no further access to more serious consultations in our leading circle about this matter. But from the tone and trend of Sri Aurobindo's remark in his letter on this point we have to conclude that there must have been what he says 'difficulty in the final stage of the (risky) publication' and the matter had to be dropped. Under the crucial circumstances of those times, the publication surely could not proceed farther—for nothing further we remember to have heard about it then or there-after.

The 'usual formula' of communication alluded to by Sri Aurobindo himself, also requires an explanatory comment on our part, which too, we shall give in the words of Shree Motilalji again. Writes he in 'Yuga-purusha Sri Aurobindo' : "Sri Aurobindo of that day not only used a secret code himself in communicating such secret messages, but he actually regarded the revolutionary movement itself as Veeracharee Tantra or Shakti-sadhana in Indian politics and his only aim in view there-in was to achieve Mukti and Bhukti—liberation and happiness—not for any individual person but collective salvation and happiness for the entire nation. I did not fully comprehend like many others in those days the full implication and application

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of this great endeavour and aim he was pursuing, but I had taken the determination to follow his lead and do whatever he would dictate me to do."

It was according to such direction that Shree Roy had gone to meet Shree Parthasarathi sent by Sri Aurobindo in Calcutta and it was through Parthasarathi that this secret code-system was transmitted to Shree Roy with the instruction that the communication about secret matters thenceforth would have to be carried on in this code between Sri Aurobindo and his group in Bengal through Motilalji.

Such code-communication must therefore, be the 'usual formula' mentioned in the letter No. 7.

In letter No. 9, Sri Aurobindo 'subjoins certain explanations about the matter of the Tantric books' and he himself 'puts them in cypher.' Why in cypher? He himself explains it in the very next clause to follow 'because there are certain things, as you can understand, not comme de faut according to the ideas of modern social decorum which ought not to fall under unfit eyes.'

And here, he utters a clear and verily stern note of warning to his spiritual-cum-revolutionary disciple for what seems to be an unwary serious lapse of writing or action on the part of the latter:

"It appears that you did not understand my last letter. However, from henceforth please leave the mailer entirely in my hands. You will see from the explanations given how highly undesirable is the kind of correspondence you have been carrying on in another quarter."

An amount of Rs. 30/- at least that Sri Aurobindo had to spend 'for expenses attached to that particular transaction ought to be replaced'-he enjoins, while he hurries to send the urgent 'accompanying note in cypher' 'subjoining his explanations about the matter of the Tantric books'-for speedy attention of the Chandernagore revolutionary group engaged in secret action. The 'proofs'-mentioned above-=-however, if concerned in any way with this book'-i. e. secret arms-supply transaction-it is not clear to us what the word positively refers to.

The reference to one R. S. Sharma in letter No. 4 and to Biren in letters No. 6,8 and 12, may need certain observations worthy to be noted in their connection.

Sharma, professing to be a nationalist and devotee of Sri Aurobindo, was sent by Shree Shyam Sundar Chakravarty to

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Shree Motilal Roy to be introduced. to Sri Aurobindo. Shree Roy, relying on Shree Chakravarty's words, sent the man to Pondicherry with his introduction. But Sri Aurobindo refused to see him on receiving 'a warning against him from within', which was always repeated and also confirmed by external facts. He was undoubtedly a police-spy, who having failed to win the confidence of the swadeshi friends of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry who were warned against him, tried his hand with Shree Roy through Shree Chakravarty at Calcutta and succeeded beyond his expectations. Therefore, this clear note of caution and warning from Sri Aurobindo to Shree Roy:

"I wonder when you people will stop trusting the first stranger with a glib tongue who professes nationalist fervour and devotion. Whether you accept my estimate of him or not, you may be sure that his bhakti for me is humbug.

...... You must accept at least the facts I have given you and draw any conclusion that common sense may suggest you."

Just in contrast to this case of Sharma, is the case of Biren (Ghose). Biren is an actual devotee of Sri Aurobindo, but a controversial character in the eyes of Sourin etc. Biren had been a close associate of Sri Aurobindo, —one of the two who accompanied him in the boat on the way to his 'agnatabas'— secret retreat in Chandernagore.

In his letter No. 6, the Master himself cites the endeavour of this same Biren from an inner compulsion of spiritual influence (termed as vyapti-power) to collect money for his. Guru, though he criticises at the same time his mixed psychological state of mentality. In letter No. 8, Sri Aurobindo writes about him again:

"Biren is all right, I believe, he said nothing to anybody about that matter. There were some legitimate doubts in some quarters, owing to his unsteady nature and other defects of character. I thought it right to give them as much value for practical purposes as was reasonable; therefore, I wrote to you."

In letter No. 12, in face of some accumulated black impressions about Biren from some of his close associates, Sri Aurobindo came out with a clear and unprejudiced reading of the young man's mind and character from his own deep and unbiassed spiritual viewpoint. Shree Motilal, on hearing from Shree Sourin Bose some statements about Biren, full of suspicion against him, suspecting him even to have become a police-spy, wrote to his

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Master by way of setting him on his guard. It was in course of reply to this letter from Shree Roy that Sri Aurobindo wrote this serious note, which reveals a super-luminous aspect of a great Spiritual Guru's will and heart, bent upon purifying and transforming the life of his disciples and through the disciples the life of the nation and society:

"You write about Biren being here. I do not hold the same opinion about Biren as Sourin etc do, who are inclined towards a very black interpretation of his character and action. It seems to me that events have corroborated all he said about his relations with certain undesirable persons. Moreover, I see that he has taken yoga earnestly and has made for him a rapid progress. I am also unaware of anything he has said to other persons which would help any evil-minded person in establishing wrong interpretation of your philosophic and social activities. I fail to find in him, looking at him spiritually, those ineffable black nesses which were supposed to dwell in him, only flightiness, weakness, indiscretion, childishness and erratic impulsiveness and self-will and certain undesirable possibilities present in many Bengalis, in a certain type indeed, which has done much harm in the past. All these have recently much diminished and I hope even to eradicate them by the Yoga. In fact, the view of his presence here forced in me by that which guides us, is that he was sent here as representative of this type and that I have to change and purify it. If I can do this in the representative, it is possible in the future to do so in the class and unless I could do it, the task I have set for myself for India will remain almost too difficult for solution. For as long as that remains strong, Bengal can never become what it is intended to be.

The Master does not stop here in his thought, in his process of deeper and wider self-examination. So he further writes on:

"You will say, supposing I am wrong and Sourin right or supposing I fail. In any case, he cannot strike your work except by first striking at me, since he does not know anything about you directly or independently of his stay here. Still, there is the possibility (intellectually) of even that happening. That raises a whole question which it is necessary to settle— the entire separation of Vedantic Yoga from other activities."

The great leader's deep and firm faith in the highest possibilities of human nature, his undying optimism as well as superb resolve as a true spiritual nation-builder 'to change and purify' the character of his countrymen, specially that of the young generation—so shiningly manifest in every word and sentence in the first-quoted passage concerning Biren and the type of the youthful generation of Bengal—as it is felt by Shree

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Aurobindo, he has been sent by the Guiding Power above to represent—do not get a bit bedimmed by the second quotation of his further cogitation; but we find his great intellect now shooting out towards a central question—a question of questions—that is bound to arise out of an over-all consideration of the entire situation. His new assessment of this over-all situation and his own re-adjusted position there-in—are placed in view of Shree Roy on the basis of certain palpable facts in words which speak in a language of concrete personal experience as follows:

"You must realise that my work is a very vast one and that I must in doing it, come in close contact with all sorts of people including Europeans, perhaps even officials, perhaps even spies and officials. For instance, there is Biren. There is a French-man, named Shair Sidd her now in Chandernagore, who came to me and whom I had to see and sound. He is a queer sort of fool with something of the knave but he had possibilities which I had to sound. There is Richard who is to know nothing about Tantricism. There are a host of possible young men whom I must meet and handle, but who may not turn out well. It is obviously impossible for me to do this work, if the close connection with Tantrics remains and every one whom I meet and receive is supposed by people there to be a mighty and venerable person who is to be taken at once into perfect confidence by reason of having been for a time in my august shadow. It won't do at all. The whole thing must be re-arranged on a reasonable basis."

After a four-step outline for such reasonable re-arrangement along with some other necessary particular details, he ends the letter No. 12 with this closing remark:

"Unfortunately, the manner in which the Tantric Yoga has been carried out is so full of the old faults of the former Tantric sadhana that a catastrophe was inevitable. The new Yoga cannot be used as a sort of sauce for old dishes, it must occupy the whole place, on peril of serious difficulties in the Siddhi and even disasters. I shall write to you about what I propose to do about Vedantic Yoga and publication as yet it has not been sufficiently formulated to write. We have only started a new society here, called L'Idea Nouvelle (the New Idea) and are trying to get an authorisation."

A new idea is on the anvil—a transition from new thought to new action also at the same time. In his letter No. 10, we find Sri Aurobindo 'waiting to give some shape to the decision he has arrived at to resume personally his work on the material plane' and to that end, he has felt it necessary to make some new arrangement by which the Vedantic work can go on unhampered by the effects of error in Tantric kriya, which if carried on in the

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old style, 'to which the Bengal revolutionaries seem to be scundivorceably attached, can only help to keep up the yogic flame in the hearts of a few, but full of danger to the spirit and the body.'

"It is only by a wider Vedantic movement leading later to a greater Tantra that the work of regeneration can be done" —declares the great Master to his disciple—in a tone and mood of experience, unique and intimately self-revelatory as never so emphatically, unequivocally and outspokenly uttered before :

"and of that movement neither you, nor Sourin can be the head. It needs a wider knowledge and a greater spiritual force in the Adhara through which it is cngineered; it needs, in fact, the greatest which India contains and which is at the same time willing to take it up. I see only Devavrata and myself who have the idea-for the Dayanandas, and others are a negligible quantity and Dcvavrata seems to me to have gone off for the moment on a wrong route and through egoism has even allowed his spiritual force to be used against us by secret rorces, in the sukshma world which he is not advanced enough to understand. Therefore, if God wills, I will take the field ." (letter No. 10)

The new idea or rather the new spirit descending on Sri Aurobindo was in fact, a new attempt which took the form of a new philosophical review with Paul Richard and himself as-editors—the "Arya" to be brought out in French and English two separate editions—one for France, one for India, England and America. In this Review—as he says in his letter No. 13:

"my new theory of the Veda will appear, as also translation and explanation of the Upanishads, a series of essays giving my system of Yoga and a book of Vedanta. philosophy (not Shankar's but Vedic-Vedanta) giving the Upanishadic foundation of my theory of ideal life towards which humanity must move.

Along with this as his own intellectual contribution to the world, there will be published also in it Mr Richard's collection of the central sayings of the great sages of all times, called the 'Eternal Wisdom.'

Since the time when his great nationalist friend and colleague, late Bipin Chandra Pal, wrote about him in his "Swaraj" that 'Aurobindo who was the leading spirit, the central figure in the new journal, found in the pages of the 'Bandemataram' the opportunities that were denied him in the National College and from the tutor of a few youths he thus became the teacher of a whole nation'-—since that time this was his third venture in the journalistic line.

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The "Bandemataram"—renowned daily organ of the Nationalist Party of Bengal—started on the initiative of the great nationalist leader, Bipin Chandra Pal himself, but subsequently whose charge devolved on Aravinda Ghosh, 'was almost unique in journalistic history in the influence it exercised in converting the mind of a people and preparing it for revolution, but its weakness was on the financial side, for the extremists were still a poor man's party'—we are quoting from ''Sri Aurobindo on Himself and the Mother." So long as Sri^ Aurobindo was there in active control, he managed with great difficulty to secure sufficient public support for running the paper, and when he was arrested and held in jail for a year—in the desperate economic condition generated, the paper was made 'to die a glorious death.'

Sri Aurobindo's later venture in the journalistic line, were the twin weekly organs of spiritual nationalism—"Dharma" and "Karmo yogin"—started by himself, on his own initiative we have it from his same direct evidence—these 'had a fairly large circulation and-were, unlike the "Bandemataram" easily self-supporting.'

When launching his latest journalistic magnum opus—the 'Arya'—Sri Aurobindo's inherent care or concern was to make it not only self-supporting but also lucrative. In his own words in letter No. 13:

"If the Review succeeds, if that is to say, we get in India 850 regular subscribers, and 250 in France etc, we shall be able to meet the expense of the establishment, translation-staff etc and yet have enough for each of the editors to live on with their various kinds of families, say Rs. 100/- a month for each. In that case the money-question will practically be solved. There will of course, be other expenses besides mere living and there may be from time to time exceptional expenses, such as publication of books etc, but these may be met otherwise or as the Review increases its subscribers".

'Therefore,' he writes to Shree Motilal, 'use your best endeavour towards this end.' He there-after adds that the prospectus would come out in the middle of this month (June, as we suppose) and the Review on the 15th of August, 'so there would be nearly two months for collecting subscribers.' So he would naturally like to know how much he (Shree Roy) can help him in this work and how many copies of the prospectus should be sent to him for the purpose of circulation.

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But it should really be not only interesting but even striking to note in this connection that quite confident as he seems to be about his prospective project as a sound practical proposition, his optimism is carefully bracketted with a singular ring of caution in these words :

"There is one thing about which great care has to be taken, that is, there should be no entanglement of this review in Indian politics or a false association created by the police finding it in the houses of some political suspects they search for, in that case people will be afraid to subscribe."

"There are difficulties enough"—he goes on to say, "let us not will fully increase them" and incidentally points out: "you have seen for instance, that in recent political trials, yoga pamphlets and books seem to have been kept together everywhere with the queerest incongruity. That is a thing we could not control, we can only hope it will not happen again. But meanwhile the work of publicity and spreading our Yoga has got an unnecessary difficulty thrown in its way. Do not let any add to it by associating Vedanta and Tantra together in a most undesirable fashion."

Shree Motilal's reply brought the promise of 200 subscribers that he would try to collect. Such a response while kindling aray of hope in Sri Aurobindo's mind, evokes a quick reply in letter No. 14 as follows, mixed up with the same feeling of concern and caution as before :

"I do not think we can dispense with the 200 subscribers whom you promise. The only difficulty is that, if there are political suspects among them, it will give the police a handle for connecting politics and the Review and thus frightening the public."

A way out was of course, immediately suggested by him in the same letter, as he writes on :

"But this is not a sufficient reason for the Review refusing so many subscribers or for so large a number being deprived of the enlightenment it may bring them. Therefore, some arrangement must be made."

And the arrangement proposed by him — in the absence of a better one — was to appoint a trustworthy representative to act as a commissioned agent to take over that number of copies of the Review without the necessity of enlisting subscribers.

The subscription matter perhaps did not materialise as expected or dropped due to the above reason ; for Sri Aurobindo in his letter No. 1 5

"Received your letter. Please let us know how many copies of the Arya you want sent to you for sale, since you cannot get subscribers."

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"The divorce from Tantricism is necessary"—it is again insisted upon— "if you are to do the work of the Review or the other work I wish you to undertake. You must surely see that, neither will march, if there are any occurrences of the old kind of mixing them up together."

Undoubtedly, the two main currents of Tantra and Vedanta— which we have already come to know in Sri Aurobindo's terminology, mean—on the one hand, the method and technique of armed revolution with its branching offshoot of active terrorism as a temporary tactical policy and measure ; and on the other hand, spiritual philosophy and culture, the subjective discipline of the mind and soul with its larger outlook on life and society even as his letter-series continually bears witness to, are undergoing a process of fundamental transformation in accord with the changing world-situation and his own increasing inner self-unfoldment. In letter No. 13, he says :

"Tantric yogins are few and should be comparatively reticent—for Vedanta is a wider thing and men may then help to fulfil it in all kinds of ways. Let the Tantrics then practise Vedanta silently, not trumpeting abroad its connection with their own particular school but with self-restraint and the spirit of self-sacrifice, knowing that they are only one small corps in a march that is vast and (so) meant to be all-embracing. The more they isolate themselves from the rest of the host that is in formation, the more they will be free for their own work and the more they will help without hampering the wider march."

He then turns to the work of the Tantric discipline and Kriya itself. The Master asks his disciple to :

"Remember that Tantra is not like Vedanta, it is a yoga for material gains, that has always been its nature. Only now not for personal gains, but for effectivity in certain directions of the general yoga of mankind."

He asks his disciple too, if he thinks that with its present imperfect basis it can really do the work for which it was intended. For himself he sees it cannot.

"There have been two stages: first, the old Tantra which has broken down and exists only in a scattered way, ineffectual for the great end of humanity; secondly, our new Tantra which succeeded at first, because it was comparatively pure in spite of the difficulties created by the remnants of egoism. But since then two things have happened. It has tried to extend itself with the result of bringing in undesirable elements; secondly, it has tried to attempt larger result from a basis which was no longer sufficient and had begun to be unsound. A third stage is now necessary that of a preparation in full knowledge, no longer

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resting on a blind faith in God's power and will, but receiving consciously that will, the illumination that guides its workings and the power that determines its results. If the thing is to be done, it must be done no longer as by a troop stumbling on courageously in the dark and losing its strength by failures and the results of unhappy blunders, but with the full divine power working out its will in its instruments.

After this clear analysis of the situation, as quoted above, he then follows it up to its logical as well as the only intimate practical conclusion thus :

"What is necessary for that action? First, that the divine knowledge and power should manifest perfectly in at least one man in India. In myself it is trying so to manifest as rapidly as the deficiencies of my mind and body will permit, and also—this is important— as rapidly as the defects of my chief friends and helpers will permit. For all those have to be taken on myself spiritually and may retard my own development. 1 advance, but at every stage have to go back to receive some fresh load of imperfection that comes from outside. / want now some breathing- time—however brief-—which will enable me to accomplish the present stage which is the central of my advance. This once accomplished,, all the rest is inevitable. This not accomplished, the seed of our yogic movement is externally a failure or a pitiful small result. That is the first reason why I call a halt." (Italics are ours)

He continues :

"The second necessity is that others should receive the same power and light. In the measure that mine grows, theirs also will increase in power provided always they do not separate themselves from me by the ahankara. A sufficient Vedantic basis provided* a long and obscure Tantra will no longer be necessary. The power that I am developing if it reaches consummation* will be able to accomplish its effects automatically by any method chosen. If it uses Tantric kriyas, it will then be, because God has chosen that means, because He wishes to put the Shakta part of it to go forward first and not the Vedantic and that Kriya will then be irresistible in its effect, perhaps even strange and new in its means and forms. I have then to effect that power and communicate it to others.

But at present the forces of the material Prakriti strive all then-remaining energy against the spiritual mastery that is being sought to impose on them. And it is especially in the field to which your kriyas have belonged and kindred fields that they are too strong for me. You will remember that the Sadhana shall first be applied in things that do not matter and only afterwards used for life. This is not an absolute rule, but it is the rule of necessity to apply for sometime now in this particular matter. I see that I have the necessary powers, I shall communicate them to you and some others, so that there may be a centre of irresistible spiritual light and effective force wherever needed. Then a rapid and successful Tantra can be attempted. This is the second reason why J have called a halt.'"'' (Italics are ours)

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Thereafter the clear and distinct directive of Sri Aurobindo now to Shree Roy, his Bengal revolutionary disciple, is :

"The first and supreme object you must have now is to put forward in yourself and in others the Vedantic Yoga in the sense I have described. The spread of the idea is not sufficient, you must have real yogins, not merely men moved intellectually and emotionally by one or two of the central ideas of the Yoga. Spreading of the idea is the second necessity, for that the review at present offers itself among other means. The other is to form brotherhood, not formal but real, (not societies of the European kind but informal groups of people united by one effort and one feeling) for the practice of the Vedantic Yoga (without any necessary thought of the Tantric). (Letter No. 13).

In this same letter to Shree Roy the Master has given a strict note of warning against unenlightened mixed organisation or mis-construed propaganda. Writes he :

"The second part of my work is the practical, consisting in the practice of Yoga, by an ever-increasing number of young men all over the country. We have started here a society called the 'New Idea' with that object, and a good many young men are taking up Vedantic Yoga and some progressing much. You say it has spread in the North all over. But in what way? I am not at all enamoured of the way in which it seems to be practised outside Bengal. It seems there to be mixed up with the old kind of Tantrik, sometimes of the most paisachic and undesirable kind and to be kept merely as a sauce for that fierce and gruesome dish. Better no vyapti at all outside Bengal, if it is not to be purified and divine Yoga. In Bengal itself, there are faults which cannot but have undesirable consequences. In the first place, there is the misplacement of values. Vedanta is practised or so seems to be in some quarters, for the sake of Tantra, and in order to give a force to Tantra. That is not right at all. Tantra is only valuable so far as it enables us to give effect to Vedanta and in itself has no value or necessity at all. Then the two are mixed up in a most undesirable fashion, so that the Vedanta is likely to be affected by the same disrepute and difficulties on the way of profession as hamper the recognition of the truth in Tantra i.e. in its real sense, value and effectivity."

His followers—he hopes—should take note of these difficulties and not do anything that are likely to enhance them.

The World War 1 had already started and was vigorously going on.

"Our position here since the war has become increasingly difficult and delicate", he states in letter N o. 16: "I have therefore, adopted a policy of entire reserve including abstention from correspondence

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with Bengal even with officially unobjectionable people. Our correspondence now is chiefly limited to Arya business."

To Shree Roy also he advises an attitude of similar spiritual awareness and caution :

"Your internal struggle in the Yoga has naturally its causes. I shall help you as much as possible spiritually, but you must get rid of everything that gives a handle to the enemy in ourselves. Your letters for a long time showed a considerable revival of rajasic egoism contracted, I suppose, by association with the old Tantrics and that always brings in our Yoga disagreeable consequences. If you could make yourselves entirely pure instruments, things would go much better. But there is always something in the prana and intellect which kicks against the pricks and resists the purifier. Specially get rid of the Ahang Karta element, which usually disguises itself under the idea I am the chosen yantra'. Despise no one, try to see God in all and Self in all. The Shakti in you will then act better on your materials and instruments."

Meanwhile, news has reached Sri Aurobindo that Bejoy Nag, one of his closest associates, has been arrested and detained under the Regulation III Act, on his way to Khulna, his hometown. Monsieur Paul Richard at Sri Aurobindo's instance, wrote to the Madras Government pleading for the release of Bejoy as a spiritual follower of Sri Aurobindo and having no anti-government political connection or activity to deserve such a punishment, but to no result. In Pondicherry, V. V. S. Aiyar, known as a Swadeshi, has been hauled up for circulating un authorised pamphlets from America. "So Aiyar, a fervently anti-German in his sentiments—pro-Belgian and pro-Servian— has been made a martyr"—comments Sri Aurobindo—'by this wonderful French administration—-for the cause he denounces.* A hit of bitter sarcasm !

"My connection with Aiyar has been practically nil, as in normal times I only saw him once in two years"—(also says Sri Aurobindo), "But here all the Swadeshis are lumped together—so we have to be careful not only that we give no handle to our enemies, but that other people don't give them a handle against us which is just a little difficult."

About pamphleteering, he adds a little note of interest :

"One thing I could never appreciate is the utility of this pamphleteering business, of which Indian revolutionaries are so fond. Pamphlets won't liberate India, but they do seem to succeed in getting their distributors and non-distributors also into prison."

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In the paragraph :

"You have decided, it seems, to carry on Tantra and Mantra, anusthatr and pure Vedanta together. My objection to it was from the standpoint of the Review and Vedanta-work generally. Anusthan and the Review do not go well together. Of course, a synthesis is always possible, but amalgamation is not synthesis".

Indeed these were words breathing a certain calm toleration mixed with a dose of mild enlightening caution. But the Master just there-after does not miss to add in postscript—a word from spiritual experience—in fact, a hint as an internal eye-opener :

"By the way, try to realise one thing. The work we wish to do cannot produce its effects on the objective world, until my Ashta-siddhi is strong enough to work upon that world organically and as a whole and it has not yet reached that point. No amount of rajasic eagerness on my part or on yours or any body else's will fill the place or can substitute itself as the divine instrument which will be definitely effective. In the matter of the Review Bejoy has found that out by this time. I have found it out myself by constant experience and warning. You also, if you wish to profit by my teaching, should learn it also without the necessity of experience."

It may be noted that Bejoy Nag, his devoted disciple, had left Pondicherry to come over to Bengal apparently out of an eagerness of heart to spread the "Arya"—i.e. to propagate the new gospel of his Guru. One is sure to appreciate that this heart's urge of a devout and sincere disciple was pure and noble, but we are reminded by the Master that even such pure and noble eagerness of heart, unless dittoed directly and one-d with the divine will, is of the rajasic (or even sattwa-rajasic, if we may say so) natural-quality, and motion or movement sped by such a high impulse too, could serve only to make the young devotee move out of the ring of spiritual protection of his Guru, with the result that he is clapped into detention for an indefinite period in those very uncertain times. From letter No. 15, we have already noted the Master's direction to Shree Roy about 'the work of the Review or the other work I wish you to undertake,' for which 'the divorce from Tantricism' is felt by him as necessary. This has a clear reference to his specific direction given in course of his earlier letter No. 13 already quoted :

"Spreading of the idea is the second necessity, for that the review at' present offers itself among other means. The other means is to form brotherhood, not formal but real (not societies of European kind, but

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informal groups of people united by one effort and one feeling) for the practice of the Vedantic Yoga (without any necessary thought of the Tantric)".

The idea of organisation—based on pure Vedantic Yoga .and unmixed with any necessary thought of or connection with the Tantric or political revolutionary idea—is worth noting. We are reminded of one of his remarkable speeches delivered at Howrah in 1909 shortly after his release from Alipore Jail-custody, in course of which we meet with a very suggestive utterance, (Vide 'Karmo yogin' Vol. 1, 2nd issue dated 12th Ashar 1316 B.S.), that may be regarded as the incipient stage of a growing intuitive idea. The reported passage, long yet lucid, will speak for itself :

".........After all, what is an association? An association is not a thing which cannot exist unless we have a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman and a Secretary. An association is not a thing which cannot meet unless it has a meeting-place. Association is a thing which depends upon the feeling and the force within us. Association means unity, association means brotherhood, association means binding together in one common work. Where there is life, where there is self-sacrifice, where there is disinterested and unselfish toil, where there are these within us, work cannot stop. It cannot stop even if there is one man who is at all risks prepared to carry it on.---It is a question of working and not of means. It is not that these things cannot be done except by the forms which European education has taught us to value.

The association that we shall have, will be the association of brothers who are united heart to heart, of fellow-workers joined hand-in-hand in a common labour, the association of those who have a common motherland. It is the whole country, to which every son of India and every son of Bengal ought by the duty of his birth to belong—an association which no force can break up, the association of an unity which grows closer everyday, of an impulse that comes from on high and has drawn us together in order that we might realise brotherhood, in order that the Indian nation may be united and united not merely in the European way, not merely by the common self-interest, but united by love for the common country, united by the ideal of brotherhood, united by the feeling that we are all sons of the common Mother, who is also the manifestation of God in an united humanity. That is the association which is coming into being—the mighty association which unites the people of West Bengal with the people of East and North Bengal and defies partition—because it embraces every son of the land— bhai-bhai ek fhairt—-brother and brother massed inseparably together. This is the ideal that is abroad and is waking more and more consciously within us. It is not merely a common self-interest. It wakes God within us and says 'You are all one, you are all brothers. There is one

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place where you all meet and that is your common Mother. That is not merely the soil. That is not merely a division of land but it is a living thing. It is the Mother in whom you move and have your being.

Realise God in the nation, realise God in your brother, realise God in a wide human association. This is the ideal by which humanity is moved all over the world, the ideal which is the dharma of the Kali-yuga and it is the ideal of love and service—love and service to your brothers, love and service to your Mother—and this js the association we are forming—the great association of the people of Bengal and of the whole people of India, This is forever our national ideal and in its strength our nation will rise and live by the force of the law of its own being. For the fiat of God has gone out to the Indian nation—'unite, be free, be one, be great."

When this ideal of association was first uttered in that memorable speech at Howrah—the idea of association within the heart—as a seed-idea of love and service to bind together in one common bond of unity an entire nation and people— it was spoken in a political situation—amidst turmoil and transition that Bengal and India were then passing through. It had a political ring or echo about it—for the conception of nationhood then in Sri Aurobindo's mind was yet a political nationhood though to be well-founded on the spirituality of its ancient soul and culture. His own mission of life however, was emerging purer and clearer, ever brightening with his inner spiritual and supramental illumination, till the nebulous idea in his mind developed and ripened into a more concrete and realizable form—the idea of the "Samgha."

Both the ideal and the dynamic form of collective organism as that ideal is going to put itself into its proper mould, are on the way to an increasingly revealing clarification and formulation.

In letter No. 16, the Master is significantly clarifying his own mission-ideal to his Chandernagore disciple :

"There is another point. You sent a message about an 'Aurobindo Math', which seemed to show you had caught the contagion which rages in Bengal. You must understand that my mission is not to create maths, ascetics and Sannyasis, but to call back the souls of the strong to the Lila of Krishna and Kali. That is my teaching, as you can see from the review and my name must never be connected with monastic forms or the monastic ideal. Every monastic movement since the time of Buddha has left India weaker and for a very obvious reason. Renunciation of life is one thing; to make life itself—national, individual, world-life greater and more divine is another. You cannot enforce one ideal on the country without weakening the other. You cannot

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take away the best from life and yet leave life stronger and greater. Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life is the Yoga I teach—no other renunciation."

Sri Aurobindo is preaching his message through the 'Arya', as he himself declares, but he is getting report from many quarters that the Arya philosophy—both in its language—style as well as thought-contents—is being felt even by great scholars, and even renowned philosophers of the first rank to be coo stiff and hard to digest. The Master is sorry to learn about it-In letter No. 19, he comes out with a pensive comment on it :

"It is regrettable that Bengal should be unable to find anything in the 'Arya, but not surprising. The intellect of Bengal has been so much fed on chemical tablets of thought and hot-spiced foods that anything strong and substantial is indigestible to it. Moreover people in India are accustomed only to second-hand thoughts—the old familiar ideas of the six philosophies, Patanjal etc, etc. Any new presentation of life and thought upsets their expectations and is unintelligible to them. The thought of the 'Arya demands close thinking from the reader; it does not spare him the trouble of thinking and understanding and the minds of the people have long been accustomed to have the trouble of thought spared them. They know how to indulge their minds, they have forgotten how to exercise them."

After this first psychological analysis he probes deeper in a more optimistic mood about the real, dynamic prospect of such a new philosophy :

"It does not matter very much just now, so long as the people who practise the Yoga, read and profit. The Arya presents a new philosophy and a new method of Yoga and everything that is new takes time to get a hearing. Of course, in reality it is only the old brought back again, but so old that it has been forgotten. It is only those who practise and experience, that can at first understand it. In a way, this is good, because it is meant to change the life of Bengal and not merely satisfy the intellect. In France, it is very much appreciated by those who are seeking the Truth, because these people are not shut up in old and received ideas, they are on the look-out for something which will change the inner and outer life. When the same state of mind can be brought about here, the Arya will begin to be appreciated. At present, Bengal only understands politics and asceticism. The central ideas of the 'Arya* are Greek to it."

What follows just hereafter in this very connection throws a flood of self-luminous light on his own new message and life-mission thus :

"Soon after 'Arya began, I got a letter from some graduates saying that what they wanted was 'man-making'. I have done my share of

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man-making and it is a thing which now anybody can do. Nature herself is looking after it all over the world, though more slowly in India than elsewhere. Arya business is now not man-making, but divine man-making: My present teaching is that the world is preparing for a new progress, a new evolution. Whatever race, whatever country seizes on the lines of that new evolution and fulfils it, will be the leader of humanity. In the 'Arya' I state the thought upon which this new evolution will be based as I see it, and the method of Yoga by which it can be accomplished. Of course, I cannot speak plainly yet my whole message, for obvious reasons, I have to put it in a severe, colour less fashion which cannot be pleasing to the emotional and excitement-seeking Bengali mind. But the message is there, for those who care to understand.

It has three parts—(1) for each man as an individual to change himself into the future type of divine humanity, the men of the new Satyayuga which is striving to be born. (2) to evolve a race of such men to lead humanity and (3) to call all humanity to the path under the lead of these pioneers and this chosen race.

India and especially Bengal have the best chance and the best right to create that race and become the leaders of the future—to do in the right way, what Germany thought of doing in the wrong way. But first they must learn to think, to cast away old ideas and turn their faces resolutely to the future. But they cannot do this, if they merely copy European politics or go on eternally reproducing Buddhistic asceticism. I am afraid the Ramakrishna Mission with all its good intentions is only going to give us Shankaracharya Sc Buddhistic humanitarianism. But that is not the goal to which the world is moving. Meanwhile, remember that these are very difficult times and careful walking is necessary. It is just possible that the War may come to an end in a few months, for the old immobility is beginning to break down and the forces at work behind the veil are straining towards a solution. While the war continues, nothing great can be done, we are fettered on every side. Afterwards things will change and we must wait for the development."

In this letter No. 19 and also in the next letter No. 20, we find the war-situation continuing. To Shree Roy, he advises special caution—to beware of political entanglement.

"It is regrettable" says Sri Aurobindo "that the Government should think you are mixed up in political matters and that you are in the list of suspects. But once they get that idea into their heads, it is impossible to change it—once a suspect, always a suspect is their rule. They are particularly good at purchasing trouble for themselves and others in this way and just now they are all fear and suspicion and see revolutions in every bush. The only thing is to be extremely careful. You should not on any account move out of Chandernagore so long as the war-measures are in force, for in these times innocence is no defence."

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The Master is always alert about the world-situation. His global sight of circumspection is constantly studying the world around and weighing the nature, direction and impact of the universal forces working behind the veil and at the same time measuring his own spiritual will and energy to be able to make a break-through for outer self-assertion. Letter No. 20 begins with such an over-all assessment of the world-forces in action and his mission-position there-in :

"I have not written for a long time, because nothing definite came to me to be written. We are in a state of things in which every movement fails to come to a decisive result, because everywhere and in everything the forces are balanced by contrary forces. At the present moment the world is passing through an upheaval, in which all forces possible have been let loose and none therefore, has a triumphant action. Ordinarily there are certain puissances, certain ideas which are given a dominant impulsion and conquest, those opposing them being easily broken after a first severe struggle. Now everything is different. Wherever a force or an idea tries to assert itself in action, all that can oppose rushes to stop it and there follows a 'struggle of exhaustion*. You see that in Europe now, no one can succeed; nothing is accomplished; only that which already was, maintains itself with difficulty. At such time one has to act as little as possible and prepare and fortify as much as possible—that is to say, that is the rule for those who are not compelled to be in the battle of the present and whose action tends more towards the future."

With an in look from his own stand-point of self-mobilisation, his reflection continues ;

"I had hoped that we should be much 'forward' at this period, but the obstacles have been too great. I have not been able to get anything active into shape. Consequently we have to go on as before for some time longer. Our action depends on developing sufficient spiritual power to overcome the enormous material obstacles opposed to us, to shape minds, men, events, means, things. This we have got as yet in very insufficient quantity."

He, however, expresses a certain feeling of satisfaction at the rather changed stand taken by hi? disciples at Chandernagore or for that matter—of Bengal, in the light and lines of his own spiritual outlook and objective direction with regard to Vedantic and Tantric Yoga—for he now writes in the very next paragraph of this letter to Shree Roy, the 'eader of the Bengal group of his followers :

"You have done well in confining yourself to Vedantic Yoga; you can see for yourself that the Tantric bears no secure and sufficient fruit

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without a very strong and faultless Vedantic basis. Otherwise you have a medley of good and bad sadhakas associating together and the bad spoil the kriya of the good; for a collective Yoga is not like a solitary one, it is not free from collective influences, it has a collective soul which cannot afford to be in some parts raw or rotten. It is this which modern Tantrics do not understand, their aspiration is not governed by old Shastra founded on the experience of centuries. A Chakra for instance, must either be perfectly composed or immediately governed and protected by the spiritual force of some powerful Guru. But our modern minds are too impatient to see to these things."

Regarding the practical situation—specially in relation to the police and government, his advice to Shree Roy is very particular, in a sense personal and intimate, and that much crystal clear :

"As for your external difficulties, I mean with regard to the bad ideas the government and police have about you and the consequent obstacles and pressure, that is a result of past karma and probably of some present associations and can hardly be cured. I see people are interned who have no connection at all with politics or have long cut off whatever connection they had owing to the work, the authorities are uneasy and suspicious and being ill-served by their police, act on prejudgments and often on false report. You have to sit tight, spiritually defend yourself and physically avoid putting yourself where the police can do you harm, and so far as possible, avoid also doing anything which would give any colour or appearance of a foundation for their prejudices. More can hardly be done. One cannot throw aside friends —because they are suspects: in that case, we should have to begin with ourselves. If on the ground of such associations we are ourselves more suspected, as for instance, the officials make it a grievance against me that although I am doing nothing political myself yet I associate with my Madrasi friends against whom they have chosen to launch warrants for sedition—it cannot be helped. We cannot suffer political or police dictation in our private friendships."

The words are bold and robust, the advice is correct and sound, inasmuch-as the stand taken by the Master himself and to be taken by his disciple is at once one based on dignified manhood, self-respect, yet not un-sauced with cautious wisdom, but no more. Sycophancy or anything of cringing spirit or obsequious servility in fear of an all-powerful hostile Government or its watchful, ever-suspicious myrmidons hanging about all around— is far from his view or intention in the matter of our household family or social relationships.

In this same letter, he queries about "Prabartak"—the Bengali

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magazine started with his benediction from 1st September 1915. He anxiously asks :

"What has become of Prabartak? The last number was very good, but for a long time we have had no other. Is the administration withholding visa or are there other reasons for the irregularity? I hope it is not discontinuance. We have the Arya here visaed without delay or difficulties."

Then in a re-assuring tone he adds a paragraph not only of solace and consolation, but also quick spiritual re-in force ment, in memorable words, sure to inspire new strength and confidence in the heart of his dear disciple—nay in all true disciples of a true Guru of such a noble stature :

"If you have difficulties of any kind, it is as well to let me know at once; for I can then concentrate what force I have more particularly to help you. The help may not be always or immediately effective, but it will count and may be more powerful than a general will not instructed in the particular necessity. You must not mind if you do not get always a written answer: the unwritten will always be there. I leave it to the Manager of the 'Arya' to write to you about business matters." (Our italics).

"The unwritten will always be there"—this is a word of spiritual assurance and promise, which like the one uttered by Shree Krishna to Shree Arjuna in the Geeta—

मामेबैष्यसि सत्यं ते प्रतिजाने प्रियोऽसि मे,

( Thou shalt certainly dwell in me, this I truly promise thee, O my beloved one.)—when thus confidently spoken and listened to with appropriate grace and reverence, is bound to create a heaven of this earth and life of man through such hallowed transfiguration of our mortal relations.

The transition from old Tantra to new Vedanta is progressing apace. This has been already noted above. In letter No. 18 which we have a little by-passed, for reasons which will be soon made evidently clear, Sri Aurobindo's attention has been drawn to a case recently appearing in the papers—"of one Rasbehary Bose against whom a warrant of extradition has been granted by the Chandernagore Administrator in a political case." This is a matter which he has reasons to take up with particular interest as he himself says :

"Although ordinarily we do not concern ourselves with political matters, this concerns me and my friends, because it is an attack on

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the security of our position. If this kind of thing is allowed to go unchallenged, then any of us may at any moment be extradited on a trumped up charge by the British police. I must therefore, ask you to interest yourself in the matter even though it interferes with your Yoga."

So this is a matter of importance—so very important that the Master has to ask his Chandernagore disciple, Shree Motilal Roy, to take it up in right earnest, even if it offers some interference in his yogic sadhana.

Rasbehary Bose is a revolutionary figure of historical importance—not only in the revolutionary history of our country —India, but also in the international life and history of the joint-continent of Eurasia i.e. Europe and Asia. He is an arch-revolutionary personality who played an active, super-significant part in a revolutionary struggle which extended uninterruptedly from World War I to World War II—without a moment's pause or leisure. His case deserves therefore, worthy attention of a world-statesman like Sri Aurobindo even from an impartial standpoint of national revolutionary history as well as international revolutionary chronicles. But Rasbehary is more than a mere political revolutionary figure and personality to draw Sri Aurobindo's more than impersonal interest and academic study of his extradition warrant issued by the French administration. Here is needed more than a mere impersonal study of his case and its intellectual solution. Rasbehary Bose is not only a great revolutionary hero, but also a spiritual follower of Sri Aurobindo's school of thought, one of those few political yogins of the rarest dimension and quality of character, who accepted the Yoga of Atmasamarpana or Self-consecration, re-discovered and formulated by Sri Aurobindo, which Bose received in a moment of highest patriotic exaltation through his friend and revolutionary co-worker Shree Motilal Roy and dedicated himself heart and soul thereafter to the cause of national independence. Rasbehary coined a new name and term for this Yoga, calling it the Yoga of Automation—and he held himself from that very holy moment to be a living automaton—moved from within—head and heart and limbs— in the hands of a Third Power—Mahashakti Kali, the Inner Goddess, whom he felt in his heart of hearts to have chosen him for the purpose of achieving the freedom of his dear Motherland.

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Let us therefore, skip through a few pages back across this letter-series to pick up the inner thread of the present theme— of the heroic revolutionary or Tantra-sadhana of this great son of India, who in conjunction with the great Motilal Roy and his other revolutionary colleagues and collaborators, galvanised the secret movement of armed revolution, initiated by Sri Aurobindo himself and spread it throughout the length and breadth of India and even outside India's borders—from Kabul to Singapore, during the First World War. The inward roots of this Tantric Yoga-Sadhana are well-recorded in-between the lines of Sri Aurobindo's letters, a bird's eye review of which may be now a worth-study for our present purpose— to enter into the inner reason and essential significance of his momentous call—'the cry of halt'.

In his earlier letters, we have taken note of his secret communication-channel and code for continuing contact with a few selected revolutionary followers and friends. We have read about his future plan 'to do a certain work for his country with God's help as soon as the means are put into his hands. In his letter No. 3 in the series, writing about Tantric Yoga, Sri Aurobindo mentions about a Tantric kriya with a degree of elation, which may seem strikingly amazing to come from the pen of one so serious-minded a thinker-philosopher as Sri Aurobindo. This matter that we had over passed before, now needs a closer study and appraisal in connection with the Tantra-Vedanta theme under our present discussion.

"Your experiment in the smashana" Writes Sri Aurobindo in a language of symbolic euphemism purposely invented and used by him

"was a daring one—but it seems to have been efficiently and skilfully carried out and the success is highly gratifying".

One has to know what this "experiment in the smashana" really meant, if the true connotation and denotation of the entire discourse that follows in this letter is to be properly understood.

It is just after the historical Delhi Bomb incident that took place in the imperial capital of Delhi on 23rd December 1912, on the Coronation Celebration-day, that Sri Aurobindo gives expression to his immediate re-action in his mind as the revolutionary leader of leaders in this historic letter. No wonder

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this was indeed, one of the boldest deeds known in the annals of revolutionary history not only in this country of ours, but in any country where-so-ever the freedom-struggle is on—an event which like an electric thunderbolt hurled from the blue, stupefied the ruling authorities and shook the very foundations of the British Empire.

The bomb-incident was hatched and planned by the Chandernagore revolutionary group led by Shree Motilal Roy. The actual plan itself was conceived by Shree Shreesh Chandra 'Ghosh and executed by Shree Rasbehary Bose—both colleagues hailing originally from Raina, Burdwan, but who had made Chandernagore the home-seat and centre of their revolutionary inspiration and activities under the direct leadership of Shree Roy. The bomb itself—of the same type, termed 'as a most powerful one' in the infamous Sedition Committee Report (Rowlatt Act), was manufactured in the Chandernagore bomb-making factory conducted by Shree Manindra Nath Naiek and actually hurled at Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, riding on the elephant with his consort, Lady Hardinge at Chandni Chawk, Old Delhi—by Shreeman Basanta Kumar Biswas, a youth still in his teens—all belonging to the Chandernagore revolutionary school and in heart and soul dedicated to Sri Aurobindo, as their supreme spiritual leader. Sri Aurobindo's profond interest in this striking Tantric kriya in imperial Delhi, aptly and perhaps sarcastically also designated in figurative contrast as 'smashana'—cemetery-ground of mighty empires in the past and destined sepulchre of the ruling British Empire too—as well as his feeling of genuine gratification at its world-shaking, nay also world-recognised success—are therefore, both thoroughly understandable.

Such warm appreciation followed immediately thereafter by what may be regarded as a long thesis on the theme of Tantric kriya itself—flowing from the very pen of Sri Aurobindo, adept leader and guide of this under-current movement—will remain a memorable document on the object and technique of Tantric kriya—presented to Shree Roy as a guide-line to his group for their activities to be carried on with greater mastery and fuller success in the future—and bearing out outstanding testimony to the practical genius of the leader of the team in a hitherto mostly unknown and surely unsuspected line, but a from the

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standpoint of an adhyatma-yogin, viewing it as part and parcel of his spiritual and national sadhana.

It runs as follows :

"In these kriyas there are three considerations to be held in view; 1st. the object of the kriya. Of course, there is the general object of Afukti-Bhukti which Tantriks in all ages have pursued, but to bring it about certain subjective results and conditions are necessary in ourselves and our surroundings and each separate kriya should be so managed as to bring about an important result of the kind. Big kriyas or numerous kriyas are not always necessary; the main thing is that it should be faultlessly effective like your last kriya or the small one with which you opened your practices. That is the second consideration viz, the success of the kriya itself and this depends on the selection and proper use of the right mantra and tantra—mantra, the mental part, and tantra, the practical part. These must be arranged with the greatest scrupulousness. AH rashness, pride, ostentation etc,—the rajasic defects, also all negligence, omission, slipshod ritual,—tamasic defects—must be avoided. Success must not elate your minds, nor failure discourage. 3rdly (Thirdly), angarakshana is as important as siddhi. There are many Tantriks in this Kali-yuga who are eager about siddhi, careless in anga-rakshana. They get some siddhi, but become the prey of the devils and bhutas they raise. Now what is the use of the particular siddhi, if the sadhakas are destroyed? The general and real object—mukti, bhukti—remains unfulfilled. Angarakshana is managed, first by the selection and arrangement of the right siddha-mantra and kriya, secondly, by the presence behind the sadhaka of one who repeats what is called an anga-rakshana mantra, destructive of the pretas and rakshasas or prohibitive of their attacks.

The last function I have taken on myself it is your business so to-arrange the kriya that the bhutas get no chance for abesha) or for the seizure and destruction of the sadhaka. I have found that my mantra has been more and more successful in protection, but it is not strong enough to prevent all(Upadraba) of a dangerous character. It will take some more (Avritte) to increase its. power. It is for this reason that I do not yet tell you to go on swiftly with your practices. Still there is no harm in quickening the pace in comparison with the past. Remember always the supreme necessity of mauna in Tantric practices. In Vedantic and Puranic exercises, expression is not dangerous, but the goddess of the Tantra does not look with a favourable eye on those who from pride, ostentation or looseness blab about the mantra and the kriya. In Tantra-sadhana secrecy is necessary for its own sake. Those who reveal mantra or kriya to the unfit, suffer almost inevitably ; even those who reveal them unnecessarily to the fit, impair some-what the force of their Tantric action.

Kali"

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The sentence above in our italics is meant to signify what role of serious and leading responsibility, the Mahaguru of Revolution or national Tantra-sadhana had self-chosen and self-undertaken for the success of the Tantric kriyas or acts of political terrorism and armed revolution involved in the process of the mighty movement—with the goal of mukti-bhukti— liberation and happiness of this great nation.

Undoubtedly, we have to recognize and admire him as the greatest revolutionary leader of the times and even adore him not only as an adept worshipper of Kali, the Mother, but even as Mahashakti Herself incarnate in body—just as admittedly Shree-Ramakrishna of Dukshineswar in his spiritual being was. Sri Aurobindo's significant signature itself as 'Kali' under-signed in this very letter No. 3 as in several other letters, may be understood only thus in its proper sense lying deep beneath the outer surface, the mighty spiritual force or revolutionary mother-energy hidden in that shuddha adhara or purest human receptacle — descended to initiate the greatest change in the life of mankind — its most potent, profound and fundamental revolution.

That Sri Aurobindo was keenly watching all the while the progress of this under-flowing revolutionary movement is also evidenced in course of some other of these letters.

Thus in letter No. 9, his foot-note remark says :

"I received information of your Tantric kriyas. It is clear that you are far from perfect yet, all the more reason why you should not be in a hurry to progress physically. Get rid of the remnants of sattwic ahankara and rajoguna, for that which we are within, our karma and kriya will be without. Kali demands 'a pure adhara for her works and if you try to hurry her by rajosic impatience, you will delay the success instead of hastening it. I will write to you fully about it later."

Meanwhile, Monsieur Paul Richard and Madame Richard a rare type of European Yogins'-as Sri Aurobindo describes-have arrived. The elections in French territory are on. Sri Aurobindo, residing in French territory, has to involve himself in the vortex of this political election in a so-called -dernocratic, republican administration-in a certain indirect way from behind-of course, under a veritable spiritual impulsion. In writing to Shree Roy on this impending election a little before April 1914, he gives in his own words the reason which has impelled him to take part in this election:

"I send you to-day the electoral declaration of M. Paul Richard, one of the candidates at the approaching election of the French

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Chamber. This election is of some importance to us, for there are two of the candidates who represent our views to a great extent, Laporte & Richard. Richard is not only a personal friend of mine and a brother in the Yoga, but he wishes like myself and in his own way works for a general renovation of the world, by which the present European civilisation will be replaced by a spiritual civilisation. In that change the resurrection of the Asiatic races and especially India is an essential point. Monsieur and Madame Richard are rare example of European Yogins who have not been led away by Theosophical and other aberrations. I have been in material and spiritual correspondence with them for the last four years. Of course, they know nothing of Tantric Yoga. It is only in the Vedantic that we meet. If Richard were to become deputy for French India, that would practically mean the same thing as myself being deputy for French India. Laporte is a Swadeshi with personal ambitions, his success would not mean the same but at any rate it would mean a strong and, I believe, a faithful ally in power in this country and holding a voice in France.

Of course there is no chance, humanly speaking, of their being elected this time.......... Still, it is necessary, if it can at all be done, to stir things a little at the present moment and form a nucleus of tendency and, if possible, of (positive?) result which would be a foundation for the future and enable us at the next election to present one or other of these candidates with a fair chance of success."

With this aim in view, Sri Aurobindo wanted to know from Shree Roy whether it would be possible for him 'without exposing himself—to spread the idea in Chandernagore, especially among the younger men, of the desirability of these candidatures and the abandonment of the old parochial and rotten politics of French-India with its following of interested local Europeans and sub-servience to their petty ambitions in favour of a politics of principles which will support one of our own men or a European like Richard, 'who is practically an Indian in belief, in personal culture, in sympathies and aspiration, one of the Nivedita type.' (Our italics).

The idea was that 'if a certain number of votes could be recorded for Richard in Chandernagore, that will mean a practical beginning, a tendency from the sukshma world materialised initially in the sthula'. "If you think this can be done, please get it done", so went on the clear cautious mandate, but "always taking care not to expose yourself—for your main work is not political but spiritual"—and to be "always steering clear of extremism, and British Indian politics in any statement to be issued and distributed.

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on the situation campaigning the desirability of the candidature succeeding.

There was an auxiliary intention too, working in Sri Aurobindo's mind, which he expressed when he said :

"I lay stress on these things, because it is necessary that the conditions of Chandernagore and Pondicherry should be changed, the repetitions of recent events rendered impossible and the cession of French territories put out of the question. There would be other, more positive gains in the change, but these I need not emphasise now."

It may be noted that it was the time when the question of cession of Chandernagore was in the air and Sri Aurobindo in his talks with the French or French-Indian leaders, had been informed that under the cover of a move for the rectification of Pondicherry boundaries', the cession of Chandernagore was a settled fact and therefore, any refugee in Chandernagore, desiring safety under French protection must run to Pondicherry at once. It was his desire therefore, to make this fact known to the population of Chandernagore, if it was not already known, so that they might have a solid reason to decide their choice of votes in favour of that candidate, who would stand against such a move of cession as its stern and furious opponent as well as be a staunch defender of the Swadeshis.

The election went on in full swing. We need not go into the thick and thin of this electoral warfare, rampant with ugly evil practices as usual every-where and more so in the then French territory, a hot-house of republican experiment with its electoral colleges, full of all possibilities—in the testimony of Sri Aurobindo—'of fraud and violence and purchase of votes with even foreign money and help. For in his letter No 11, he cites the instance of a candidate, supported by the entire local administration who 'has brought over 50,000 rupees for his election and is prepared to purchase the whole population, if necessary'.

"Is it British rupees, I wonder?"—he exclaims, "The British Government is also said to be interfering in his behalf and it is certain the Mahommedan Collector of Cuddalore has asked his co-religionists to vote for this master of corruption."

And not only so, it seemed to him just as if 'this candidate by the help of the administration money, the British Government and the devil were likely to win an easy victory'.

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Sri Aurobindo's call to Shree Roy was virtually a call to the youth of Chandernagore, as he wrote :

"Therefore, I say, throw aside all other considerations and let the young men of Chandernagore put all their strength on Richard's side and against the two representatives of Evil who dispute the election between them. For if they do not, humanly speaking, Chandernagore seems to be doomed."

Every vote given for the other two candidates in Chandernagore is in his view, a vote for the cession of Chandernagore—late or soon—to the British—for while one is 'an Anglo-phil with English connections', the other has 'sold himself to England, selling and buying himself and others seeming to be his only profession in the world'.

On the other hand, he wants it to be known that Richard, the candidate of his choice

"is a Hindu in faith, a Hindu in heart and a man whose life is devoted to the ideal of lifting up humanity and especially India and Asia and supporting the oppressed against the strong, the cause of the future which is our cause against all that hampers and resists it. If after that Chandernagore still votes for Bluysen or Lemaire, it is its own choice and it will have itself to thank for anything that may follow."

His final word to Shree Roy on this matter is typically spiritual in its ring and urge :

"Put faith in God and act. You have seen that when He wills, He can bring about impossibilities. Do not look too much at the chances of success and failure in this matter."

His following letter dated 5th. May 1914, opens with the lines :

"The election is over or what they call an election—with the result that the man who had the fewer real votes has got the majority."

Such a result was indeed, a foregone conclusion.

The elected candidate, Paul Bluysen—who 'has made himself a by-word for every kind of rascality and oppression', would now—says Aurobindo

"reign inspite of the hatred and contempt of the whole population by the terror of the administration and the police. This Madras! population is so deficient in even the rudiments of moral courage that one cannot hope very much from it."

Closely connected with this latter remark of Sri Aurobindo on the Madrasi electorate together with this other observation

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of his on the French political system as revealed in such an election —let us quote his own words :

"There is an ugly rumour that (President) Poincare supports Bluysen and there are always corrupt financial dealings underlying French politics which the outside world does not see.

Which all together makes the great seer pronounce the only verdict that now comes out from his lips :

"If so, we must put spiritual force against the banded forces of evil

"In Pondicherry, we have seen a very fine object-lesson in democracy. If I had not come to Pondicherry, perhaps, I would not have lost all my faith in democracy."

To Shree Motilal Roy, his effort to work for the election of Monsieur Paul Richard at the bidding of his Master in 1914 served as a political training-ground in electioneering experience, which acted as urge and inspiration for his participating in the election of 1919 just after the declaration of Royal Clemency, when his disciples Shree Manindra Nath Naiek and Shree Nirmal Chandra Bakshi were duly elected from Chandernagore to the General and Local Assembly respectively of French India.

Mons. Richard after the election did not leave India, but decided to remain here for two years and work for the people. The "Arya" was started by Sri Aurobindo in collaboration with him as we have already seen and also an Association of the young men of Pondicherry and Karikal as a sort of training-centre from which 'men can be chosen for the Vedantic Yoga'.

Everything was indeed, nebulous, but the transition had already taken a new, clear and firm tone and turn.

In Europe, the War was raging in full vigour. Britain had to withdraw the major part of her occupation troops from India. The revolutionary leaders of Bengal—restless to take advantage of the weak situation of the British Power in India, had assembled together in the darkness of night at a dilapidated temple on the Ganges-ghat at Uttarpara to consult and decide upon a course of active programme with the firm determination to strike a fatal blow on a vast scale at the enemy. The great giants — Rasbehary, Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin), Jadu Gopal Mukherjee,

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Amarendra Nath Chatterjee, Bipin Behari Ganguli, Motilal Roy had grouped together there to fix up the plan of insurrection—a simultaneous rise among the Indian soldiers—in their armed camps at strategic points—from Rawalpindi to Singapore. A date also was fixed—the 21st. of February 1915 for this general uprising—vast and simultaneous—a second Sepoy-rebellion. Rasbehary himself took the lead specially in the Punjab and Northern and Central India, Jatin Mukherjee, Jadu Gopal along with the great Anushilan Party leaders in north-eastern India, including Bengal, Assam and Orissa. Maharastra-leaders Pingley and others joined with Rasbehary to work among the Shikh and Mahratta regiments. But treachery betrayed. The Government fore-warned, took ruthless measures to nip the movement in the bud. The plan was changed and the rising pre-dated to 21st. January to forestall and mislead the wily enemy. But the mischief was already at work. The military uprising was checked and halted everywhere except in the Singapore Garrison, where the regiments unapprised, rose in revolt according to plan, and was immediately seized, rounded up and drastically crushed. The entire plan crashed and the rebellion collapsed. A dismal failure—a revolutionist disaster, due to failure in national character !

The leaders themselves were left to their fate. Jatin Mukherjee, hero of heroes, with his equally heroic associates boldly faced the challenge of the redoubtable Mr. Tegart with his armed battalion and after a bloody hand-to-hand gun-battle at Balasore on the Buribalam river-bank—a second history-famed patriotic battle of Haldighat—laid down their lives—in the heart of Orissa. Amarendra with his tall bulky body escaped from an Assam jungle-site after a deadly resistance against the British armed forces and slipped into hiding, while Nalini Kar fell down dead under enemy bullets. Jadu Gopal and Rasbehary also went into hiding under-ground. A heavy five-figure—sum-price was specially set on Rasbehary's head, who had conspired with the Shikhs and had even won a place of confidence amongst the followers of Ajit Singh as their succeeding warrior-guru. Rasbehary with his legendary tales and actual instances gathering about his name of dodging, outwitting, misleading the wily British C.I.D. and Police, himself moving about in a hundred disguises side by side or even face to face with them, as if throwing

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dust in their very eyes—was coming and going off and on and to and from Benares, Bengal or even Chandernagore—traced and followed too often, but without being discovered or caught red-hand—an extradition warrant was extorted from the French administration of Chandernagore by the British Government as a measure of assistance and co-operation from their war-ally. It is this Extradition Warrant that Sri Aurobindo, the leader of leaders of the revolutionary movement of India, has taken up for challenge and grapples within his letter No. 18 with a forensic skill and political wisdom befitting a seasoned Barrister or a veteran lawyer-statesman. Let us follow closely his clear and detailed arguments as given in the letter :

"The case is clearly a political one ; for the main charges in the Delhi case seem to be (1) a charge of conspiracy relating to State (i.e. political offences) ; (2) a charge of murder u/s 302 read in connection with the State offences section, therefore an assassination with a political intention ; (3) a charge under the Explosive Act which is an extraordinary measure passed in view of certain political conditions.

Moreover, all these cases may be tried together and form part of the same transaction, i.e. a political conspiracy directed against the existing form of Government and having for its object the change and overthrow of that Government.

Under the Extradition Treaty between France and England —unless that has been altered by the latest Treaty to which I have not had access, there can be no Extradition for (1) a political offence, (2) an offence of political character or tendency, (3) on a charge which, though preferred as for an ordinary offence, is really an excuse or device for laying hands on a political offender.

Rash Behary Bose is reported to be in hiding either in Chandernagore or in the Punjab. If any body moves therefore, it can only be a relative or friend on his behalf,—a relative would be much better. What you have to do is to get hold of some one entitled to act for him, consult the text of the latest Extradition Treaty between France and England and, if it is as I have stated, then let it be put in the hands of a lawyer of the French Court who must move in the matter according to the French procedure about which I know nothing. I presume he would have to move the Government in France or failing there the Court of Cassation in Paris, but the latter would be an expensive affair. So long as Bose is not handed over to the British (if he is in Chandernagore), the Court of Cassation has, I should suppose, the power of canceling the warrant. I do not know whether it is necessary first to appeal to the Procureur-General in Pondicherry before going to the Higher Court. On these points of procedure Bose's representative will have to consult a French lawyer.

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In case he is handed over, the Hague decision with regard to Savarkar will come in the way and make the thing almost helpless. The French Government may still move on the ground that Bose is a French subject, but it could only succeed by strong diplomatic pressure, which the present French Government might be unwilling to employ.

In any case, it might be worthwhile to get a decree of the Court of Cassation so as to establish the principle. There is always, however, the danger in these political cases, where justice and law are so seldom observed, often opposite decision making the position worse than before. It would be worthwhile finding out what exactly was done and on what grounds in Charu Chandra Roy's case and seeing whether these grounds can be made to apply. If you will give me the exact facts of the warrant, the charges etc, I may be able to get a letter written to France so that Jnanon or others may move in this matter."

The lucid reasoning based on factual analysis makes our quotation long, but it is worth our study and reflection ; because it shows with what clarity and cogency of logical insight, legal acumen and well-informed argumentation, his brilliant, versatile, gifted intellect works upon a matter of such international forensic complication in defence of his great revolutionary follower and it bespeaks also his deep and ardent desire to get him out of the Extradition trap-net, so desperately laid down by two conspiring governments in war-alliance ingeniously acting together. Sri Aurobindo naturally remembers in this connection the case of Shree Charu Chandra Roy, his co-accused in Alipore Bomb Case, who had been unlawfully dragged out of Chandernagore under perhaps similar extradition warrant and clapped into prison, but had subsequently to be released on the strength of French Treaty-laws, by the Calcutta High Court presided over by a wise, independent-minded legal luminary like Justice Ashutosh Mukherjee and possibly with some helpful conniving support from the Paris Parliament, which had been ably and successfully moved by nationalist-minded advocates like Bonomali Pal on behalf of the republican citizens of Chandernagore.

May we not passingly also recall here in our memory or imagination under the law of association of thought how the Master himself might have been working out in his brilliant brain a similar deft and cogent defence-brief of his own, until God sent Barrister Das to take up his case and prompted him to leave the matter entirely and unreservedly in the hands of

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that able, noble man of law who had come to defend him under inner divine guidance ?

There arose no need or opportunity however, to seek or take recourse to the law-court on the lines suggested by Sri Aurobindo for the defence and release of Rasbehary ; for this great political yogin impelled by his own inner automatory guidance, soon decided to move out of India and escape under an adopted nom-de-plume of P. N. Tagore—as 'a fore-runner of Poet Rabindra Nath Tagore himself as if deputed by him to arrange things for the great poet on the eve of his impending visit to Japan. Rasbehary Bose started on his voyage to Japan by the Japanese Ship' "Sankimaru" of Nippon Company on the 12th of May 1915.

But this letter does not end here. The historic failure of the revolutionary movement was stinging deeply in the Master's mind and heart. He comes out in the very next part of the letter with his strong and piercing comment on this Tantric Yoga :

"As to your Tantric Yoga, the reasons of your failures are so obvious that I am surprised you should attribute it all to the Goddess and not to the unpardonable blunder we have all been making in our Yogic kriya. Kali of the Tantra is not a Goddess who is satisfied with mere tamasic faith and adoration. Perfection in kriya is indispensable or at least a conscientious and diligent attempt at perfection. This has not been made; on the contrary, all the defects that have made Tantra ineffective throughout the Kali-Yuga abound in your anusthana. All this must be changed ; for the warning h as been given and it will be wise to give heed to it. If not, well, you know what the Gita says a b o u t those who from ahankara hear not."

The situation in which the Master has taken up his pen, is thus a very extra-ordinary one. The revolutionary movement as we have see n had taken its most daring and aggressive turn and expansion under the heroic stalwarts, whose names we: have mentioned before. The military insurrection planned by the leaders and to be supported with German money and arms expected to be supplied from abroad through Naren Bhattacharya (Manabendra Nath Roy), Abani Mukherjee and others-had failed through inner treachery or heaviest outer odds and opposition presented by a most powerful Government, which had staked its all to fight a ruthless life-and-death war. Our leaders were almost all gone into concealment, if not arrested, jailed or hanged -hunted and hounded everywhere by police-spies-they seemed

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to have nothing to do now except to bide their time for new and more opportune turn of events and circumstances. It was at such a juncture, in an atmosphere of gloom, frustration and despair, wide-spread amongst his revolutionary followers, that the Guru hits at the root of the matter in an incisive, penetrating analysis to drive home into the minds of those followers through Shree Roy, who was in a sense, in his person, their dynamic nerve-centre, where the different revolutionary leaders and parties with their different active currents met and merged together and to them he expounds his new stand thus :

"The root of the whole evil is that we have been attempting an extension of Tantric Kriya without any sufficient Vedantic basis. You specially were going on the basis that if a man had faith, enthusiasm, intellectual and emotional sincerity and preferred self-surrender, all that was necessary was there and he could go on straight to difficult Tantric anusthana. This basis is condemned. A much stronger and greater foundation is necessary. It was the basis of the Sattwic ahankara, which said to itself ; 'I am the chosen of Kali, I am her bhakta, I have every claim on her. I can afford to be negligent about other things, she is bound to help and guard me.

It is this sattwic ahankara, which I have long felt to be the great obstacle in our Yoga, some have it in the sattwa-rajasic form, others in the sattwa-tamasic, but it is there in you all, blinding your vision, limiting your strength, frustrating your progress. And its worst quality is that it is unwilling to admit its own defects, or if it admits one, it takes refuge in another. Open your eyes to this enemy within you and expel it. Without that purification you can have no success.

'To do rajasic kriya in a sattwic spirit'—is merely to go in the old way while pretending to oneself that there is a change. Going on in the old way is out of the question. That path can only lead you to the pit. / speak strongly, because I see clearly, if not yet with absolute vision, yet without misleading false light which marred all my seeing till now and allowed me to be swept in the flood of confused sattwa-rajasic impure Shakti which came with you from Bengal.

My first instruction to you therefore, is to pause, stand on the defence against your spiritual enemies and go on with your Vedantic Yoga. God is arranging things for me in my knowledge, but the process is not yet finished. I shall send you (it will take two or three letters) the lines on which I wish the Vedantic and Tantric lines have to be altered and developed ; afterwards we shall see when we have recovered these from the Shastras, that is Upanishadic elements to work them out in practice." (Italics are ours)

From the other end, Shree Motilal was slowly but keenly realising that since the advent of Monsieur Richard, Shree

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Aurobindo was changing his outward poise and attitude in tune with an inner change of his consciousness and to create a new field and environment for spiritual enlightenment and renovation of life and character of the men and women of our country or of other countries on the foundation of that higher light and truth and in the process, he was withdrawing himself more and more away from connection with the old revolutionary movement and its outmoded activities. Shree Roy was very keenly feeling also that it was the Master's deepening intention to have him—his disciple to follow suit on the same lines. It was increasingly evident from his letters that to Sri Aurobindo the old revolutionary path seemed to have exhausted its necessity and therefore, he was preparing himself to start his work on a new level and scale. He was also searching for fit instruments into whom he could transmit his new power as his helpers and spiritual missionaries. But surrounded as Shree Roy was by his revolutionary comrades and co-workers and deeply immersed in the roaring tide of the revolutionary movement, originally initiated by Sri Aurobindo himself and so long led by him from behind with Shree Roy only at the fore-front of the active group—it was not easy for Shree Roy now to stem this mighty rolling tide and to get out of its whirling torrent at the new bidding of the Master. Sri Aurobindo expressed his appreciation and inner satisfaction at his disciple's heart-moved endeavour to confine himself to Vedantic Yoga which we have already seen from his earlier quoted letter No. 20.

Shree Motilal from his own similar, maturing experience in connection with his Tantric Yoga i.e. revolutionary endeavour, was veering round to his Master's intended aim and goal as he himself records in his semi-auto-biographical treatise 'Amar dekha Biplaba O Biplavee' (The Revolutionary Movement and the revolutionaries as I have seen) thus : "Sri Aurobindo, who himself had initiated me in the Cult of Revolution, now gave me the call to halt in the mid-current.

The force of circumstances eventually however, compelled me to carry his order into actual effect. I had heard that in 1907, Shreemat Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, the adhyatma-guru of Sri Aurobindo in the Yoga of Atma-samarpana, had given him the warning and to his band of revolutionary workers (at Maniktola-garden secret centre) that the independence of India would not

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come in the orthodox revolutionary way, but would be achieved through the power of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo could not however, desist from that path even long, long after he had heard that word of warning. The same cry of halt now came from Sri Aurobindo himself to me. And no less than two years after, that is in August 1916 that I could dissociate myself completely from that path of armed revolution and finally adopt the constructive task of character-transformation of the nation.

Whatever the course of historical events and happenings, the freedom of India has come at last on the line and lead given by its spiritual souls or saintly leaders.

Sri Aurobindo wanted Sangathan—regeneration of man through the yoga of complete self-surrender and consecration to God and creation of Samgha or a spiritual community by bringing together such re-born men and women and evolving a new nation and society on the foundation of divine love and unity.

I have accepted this aim and objective as the summum bonum of my life-mission. Dropping the curtain over my tale of revolution, I sing this mantra-tune to-day

घम्मॅं शरणं गच्घामि सहघं शच्छामि''

Historic confirmation from the other end of the same spirit and almost similar maturity of conviction and conclusive decision comes from Sri Aurobindo himself in his own version of this momentous course of events as given in the authentic volume of "Sri Aurobindo on himself and the Mother"—here he is writing about himself in the 3rd person singular :

"At Pondicherry, from this time (4th. April 1910) onwards, Shri Aurobindo's practice of Yoga became more and more absorbing. He dropped all participation in any public political activity, refused more than one request to preside at sessions of the restored Indian National Congress and made a rule of abstinence from any public utterance of any kind not connected with his spiritual activities or any contributions of writings or articles except what he wrote afterwards in the 'Arya'. For some time he kept up some private communication with the revolutionary forces he had led through one or two individuals, but this also he dropped after a time and his abstention from any kind of participation in politics became complete.

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"As his vision of the future grew clearer, he saw that the eventual independence of India was assured by the march of forces of which he became aware, that Britain would be forced by the pressure of Indian resistance and international events to concede independence and that she was already moving towards that eventuality with whatever opposition and reluctance. He felt that there would be no need of armed insurrection and that the secret preparation for it may be dropped without injury to the nationalist cause, although the revolutionary spirit had to be maintained and would be maintained in tact. His own personal intervention in politics would therefore, be no longer indispensable. Apart from all this, the magnitude of the spiritual work set before him, became more and more clear to him and he saw that the concentration of all his energies on it was necessary. Accordingly, when the Ashram came into existence, he kept it free from all political action ; even when he intervened in politics twice afterwards on special occasions, this intervention was purely personal and the Ashram was not concerned in it.

"The British Government and numbers of people besides could not believe that Sri Aurobindo had ceased from all political action and it was supposed by them that he was secretly participating in revolutionary activities and even creating a secret organisation in the security of French India. But all this was pure imagination and rumour and there was nothing of the kind. His retirement from political activity was complete, just as was his personal retirement into solitude in 1910."

His open declaration through the columns of our weekly Chandernagore organ, the 'Standard Bearer' in 1920, will also bear out in the clearest manner his new super-revolutionary view and stand as we shall find just here-after when we come to letter No. 26, the last one in our series.

The urge and need to abstain from revolutionary Tantra which arose in Sri Aurobindo's mind about 1914 almost synchronised with the arrival of Richard couple at Pondicherry ; it grew clearer and clearer with the march of events both in the inner and outer worlds. It however, could take firm foothold only when the one or two individuals, specially his spiritual-cum-revolutionary disciple Shree Motilal Roy, along with his Chandernagore group was seized with the same necessary urge and zeal in their growing mature experience. This was between

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the years 1915 and 1916. The complete change came from both ends, when the two one-d together in pure Vedantic aim and purpose, as we have found in this thorough study of the foregoing letter-series. By 1918-1920, the transition was accomplished and successfully concluded, both wings entering into a new phase of creative spirituality or spiritual creativity at the same time.

Letter No. 17, dated 29.8.1914, is a memorable, historic document of grave national importance. It was in early August 1914, that Lord Hardinge had declared an offer on behalf of his Government to take 2000 young men as stretcher-bearers to constitute a Volunteer-Corps, subsequently whittled down to a mere harmless 'Ambulance Corps'—as interpreted by Sri Aurobindo, 'in which the young men have plenty of chances of getting killed, but none of learning real warfare.' The idea behind Lord Hardinge's policy was to give an opportunity to the youths of Bengal to take training in some kind of war-service, thus finding some outlet for their youthful energy and thereby diverting their mind from the revolutionary path. Chittaranjan Das, as one of the leading men in Bengal at that time, referred the matter to Shree Motilal Roy and other revolutionary leaders to know their views regarding this Government-proposal. The heads of the various revolutionary groups had met together at Chandernagore in the house of Shree Motilal and had a long consultation. But no definite decision could be arrived at. So it was resolved that Shree Motilal would write about this to Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry for his considered view as well as final decision.

The letter that Sri Aurobindo wrote in reply is one worthy of the genius, fore-sight and far-sight of the greatest national and revolutionary leader of the country during that time. And we have to remember that 50,000 heroic youths of Bengal were to be led by him—to rise and move at his beck and call.

The Government eventually withdrew the proposal. As Sri Aurobindo says, 'after testing the temper of the people and you may be sure, watching closely what young men came forward as volunteers and who did not, they have removed an offer, already whittled down.' He clearly points out that

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'Loyalty and Ambulance Corps means the same thing in India* and that 'the conditions of India are not those of (Gandhiji's) S. Africa ; our position is different and our aim is different.'

"What Gandhi has been attempting in S. Africa is to secure for Indians the position of kindly treated serfs,—as a stepping-stone to something better ; whereas our aim is not to secure a few privileges but to create a nation of men fit for independence and able to secure and keep it."

We have been beaten in the first attempt, like every other nation similarly circumstanced. That is no reason why the whole people should go back to a condition of abject fear, grovelling loyalty & whining complaint. The public Nationalist policy has always been

1.Eventual independence.

2.No co-operation without control.

3.A masculine courage in speech & action. Let us add a fourth,

4.Readiness to accept real concessions & pay their just prices, but no more. Beyond that, I do not see the necessity of any change. We recognise that immediate independence is not practicable & we are ready to defend the British rule against any foreign nation, for that means defending our future independence."

The four-fold principles so precisely and concisely defined by him, had been the wisest guide-line of public Nationalist policy as enunciated by Sri Aurobindo and deserves to be remembered in spirit as well as letter by every nationalist statesman of every country struggling for its right of freedom.

The aim is eventual independence. The people can co-operate with the ruling power only where the latter offers substantial control. But this would be possible not through a spineless policy of 'abject servility' or 'whining complaint', but through manly will and character—'a masculine courage in speech and action.' To these three vital principles, the leader—as a practical diplomat and politician—has soundly added a fourth—'readiness to accept real concessions and pay their just prices, but no more.

Sri Aurobindo was far-seeing enough to recognise that immediate independence was not practicable and that we should be ready to defend the British rule against any foreign nation, for that means defending our future independence.

With this clear-sighted light in view, the great leader therefore, pronounces his considered opinion in the matter at issue saying 'if the Government accepts volunteers or favours the institution

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of Boy-scouts, we give our aid, but not to be mere stretcher-bearers.'

Sri Aurobindo does not appreciate the attitude of Sarat Maharaj of Ramakrishna Math, Belur, who in this matter, would advise the acceptance of the Government offer as an opportune channel for the exercise of 'seva-vritti'—the cult of service and self-sacrifice. Sri Aurobindo frankly declares—'if self-sacrifice is the object, every human being has the whole of life as a field for self-sacrifice and does not depend on any Government for that. We can show our sacrificing activities every moment, if we want. It is not a question of sacrifice at all—it is a question of military training. If the young men wish to organise for charitable work, the Government is not going to stop it, even though they may watch and suspect. I put that aside altogether.'

Stressing from his own standpoint, based on the second and fourth principles as enunciated by him, his comment on the attitude of some political leaders over this very question is also clear-cut, logically correct and also diplomatically sagacious though couched in very bitter, caustic terms. He says:

"The leaders suggested co-operation in return for some substantial self-government. They are now offering co-operation without any return at all. Very self-sacrificing, but not political. If indeed. Government were willing to train thousands of young men in military service, as volunteers, territorial or boy-scouts, whether for keeping the peace or as a reserve in case of invasion, then we need not boggle about the return. But, after so much experience, do these addle-headed politicians think the Government is going to do that except in case of absolute necessity and as a choice between two evils? When will that absolute necessity come? Only if the war goes against them seriously and they have to withdraw their troops from India."

His analysis about the 'utility of the things offered us or offered by us' is also not only penetrative, but also cautious and circumspective, really befitting a clear-headed, far-sighted, constructive national leader bent on rebuilding his nation's fife and character on effective, fruitful lines so as to make it fit 'to win independence and able to secure and keep it.' One by one he discusses the alternatives thus:

"Our men generally do not need to become stretcher-bearers in a European war in order to have the necessary nerve, courage, steadiness and discipline. If therefore, an Ambulance corps is again suggested and accepted, either refuse or let only those young men go who are enthusiastic but still light-headed, self-indulgent or undisciplined.

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Possibly the experience may steady and discipline them. It may be necessary to let this be done if the circumstances are such that to refuse entirely would reflect on our national courage or be interpreted as a backing out from a national engagement.

Boy-Scouts—Volunteer Corps—Territorial—all these are entirely good, provided the police are kept at a distance & provided officers as well as men are trained & the Government control is limited to the giving of military discipline in the first two cases. Even without the second proviso, any of these things would be worth accepting.'

Here again he adds a cautious but very judicious rider:

"Only in the case of volunteers going to the scene of war, you must see that we are not crippled by all our best men or even a majority being sent ; only enough to bring in an element among us who have seen actual warfare."

The leader's intention was clear and definite. What Bengal needs is not any opportunity for cultivation of seva-discipline —-such opportunities we have in ample abundance here. What we need is real military training. If such an opportunity arrives, we should accept and take full advantage of it without any condition or stipulation, at once. And Sri Aurobindo prophetically uttered :

"I think any of these things may one day become possible."

His words proved true to the very letter in a singular manner in the contemporary life-history of Chandernagore. It was on 30th December 1915, that President Poincaire, the then President of the Republic of France, declared that the people of French India, Hindu, Muslim or Christian, would be allowed to enlist as volunteers in the European War.

This was at least a symbolic fulfilment of the hidden martial desire of our countrymen, specially of the Bengali sub-nation. In 1886, during the 2nd session of the Indian National Congress, under the presidentship of Mr Dadabhai Naoroji, a resolution was proposed by Shree Ram Pal and with the entire support of a House of 440 members unanimously passed that every Indian be given the right to enter as volunteer in the Indian Army. We know that this resolution was not carried into execution.

Exactly about the same time, the French Government also had taken a move to pass the Conscription Law in French India.

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The citizens of Chandernagore had piteously appealed to the French Government to desist from such a move. Bengalis of those days spoke fiery language, but ventured not to act up to it. But in 1915, it was at Shree Motilal Roy's house-compound that hundreds of young men gathered together with the fiery aspiration to face death for the freedom of their country. A number of youths—mostly from Chandernagore and two from outside its borders—enthusiastically applied to be enlisted as "volunteers for the French Army and were selected. They started in two batches—to be trained first in Pondicherry and then in Marseilles, France, and were ultimately sent to the battle-field —the great blood-red, historic battle-field of Verdun. They formed the first Bengali artillery regiment since the battle of Plassey, fighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, with the heroic sons of the great French nation.

It was 158 years after—-since the battle of Plassey—that Bengali heroes found the opportunity and scope to display their martial character. A red-letter day indeed, it was for the whole Bengali sub-nation, when these heroic bands were marching forward, greeted by the entire population, men and women, young and old and blessed by the leading men of Calcutta such as Lord S. P. Sinha, Justice Chandravarkar, Motilal Ghosh etc who had on that occasion come to Chandernagore with an upsurge of patriotic feeling of pride and glory overflowing in their hearts. The mothers, wives or sisters of these volunteer youths—with their mixed feelings of glory as well as tearful separation—-together with the representative womanhood of Chandernagore and also outside, had collected together at Shree Roy's house, under the leadership of reverent Samgha-mother Sm. Radharani Devee, wife of Shree Motilal, from whose holy hands, the war-bound heroic youths were receiving vijoy-tilak—the auspicious mark of victory—on this send-off triumphant journey.

We are glad to add in this connection that these youths all except one who died of cholera on the way, returned with -victorious laurels—at the end of the World War 1.

It was a fulfilment also of Sri Aurobindo's prophetic utterance from which we have quoted before. A further excerpt even though a very lengthy one from the same letter will be well worth our deeper consideration in-as-much-as it will testify also to

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the far-seeing genius and statesman-like fore-sight' of our great national leader:

"Since the last year new forces have come into the world, and are now strong enough to act, which are likely to alter the whole face of the world. The present war is only a beginning, not the end. We have to consider what are our chances and what we ought to do in these circumstances. The war is open to a certain number of broad chances:

I.Those bringing about the destruction of the two Teutonic Empires—German and Austrian.

This may happen either by an immediate German defeat, its armies being broken and chased back from Belgium and Alsasce-Lorraine to Berlin, which is not probable, or by the Russian arrival at Berlin and a successful French stand near Rheims or Compiegne, or by the entry of Italy and the remaining Balkan States into the war and the invasion of Austria-Hungary from two sides.

II.Those bringing about the weakening or isolation of the British Power.

This may be done by the Germans destroying the British Expeditionary Force and entering Paris and dictating terms to France, while Russia is checked in its march to Berlin by a strong Austro-German force opening in the German quadrilateral between the forts of Dazing, Thorn. Posen and Kongsberg. If this happens, Russia may possibly enter into a compact with Germany based on a reconciliation of the three Empires and a reversion to the old idea of a simultaneous attack on England and a division of her Empire between Germany and Russia.

III.Those bringing about the destruction of British Power.

This may happen by the shattering of the British fleet and a German landing in England.

In either of these two last cases, the invasion of India by Germany, Russia or Japan is only a question of time and India will be unable to resist except by one of three means—

1.Universal conscription in England & the colonies.

2.The aid of Japan or some other foreign power.

3.The aid of the Indian people.

The first is useless for the defence of India in case III, and can only be applied in case II, if England is still mistress of the seas. The second is dangerous to India herself, since the ally who helps, may also covet. The third means the concession of self-government to India.

In case 1, there will only remain four considerable powers m Europe and Asia—Russia, France, England and Japan, with perhaps a Balkan Confederacy or Empire as a fifth. That means at the next stage a struggle between England and Russia in Asia. There again England is reduced to one of the three alternatives or a combination of them.

Of course, the war may take different turns from the above, with slightly altered circumstances & result; the one thing that is impossible is that it should leave the world as it was before. In any case, the question of India must rise at no very long date. If England adopts

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more or less grudgingly the third alternative, our opportunity arrives and we must be ready to take it—on this basis, continuance of British rule & co-operation until we are strong enough to stand by ourselves. If not, we must still decide how we are to prepare ourselves, so as not to pass from one foreign domination to a worse."

When the World War 1 ended and the Treaty of Versailles, was signed on the 28th of June 1917, of the three sets of chances forecast by the prophetic seer, it was the first set, outlined by him, which from the world of possibilities took realised shape in the world of actuality. German defeat and Allied victory —was the outcome. It certainly did not leave the world as it was before. The question of India also did arise in the course of historical circumstances.

The August Declaration of the British Government, ushering the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms, Rowlatt Bills, Jallian-wallabagh tragedy and the Khilafat issue—all leading to the momentous Non-co-operation Movement launched by the All-India National Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi—all following one after another as if in a quick-changing chain of ceaseless succession in the hands of destiny. But Sri Aurobindo who under divine call, had already moved far away from the open political arena, was by then slowly but surely steering away also from the under-ground terrain of revolutionary thought and preparation.

The Royal Clemency declared by the British Government on 23rd December 1919 set the field clear for release of the political prisoners, which was a sure indication for the opening of a new era in the movement of our national awakening.

On the 15th of August 1914, as we have already noted, had come out Sri Aurobindo's "Arya" in collaboration with the French savant, Monsieur Paul Richard. It was—so far as Sri Aurobindo's share in it was concerned in his own words—'the intellectual side of his work for the world.'

"Curiously enough" significantly remarked Professor Jyotish Chandra Ghosh—our "Master Mahashaya"—one of the purest of Sri Aurobindo's revolutionary-cum-spiritual disciples —in his tiny master-piece under the title "Life-work of Sri Aurobindo"—a gem of genuine tribute to his Master's memory —"the birth of the Arya synchronies with the great war in Europe, thus illustrating the truth that when the West was busy

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in breaking and destroying, the East was engaged in upholding the Causal Truth and in opening the sacred fountain of life to thirsty humanity, thus indicating the line of the future evolution of humanity and the respective functions of the two master-continents; each absolutely necessary for the final consummation, the two processes being counterparts of each other."

The "Arya" in Pondicherry was followed in September 1915, by the publication of the Bengali fortnightly (which subsequently several years after developed into a monthly) organ—"Prabartak" from Chandernagore—as a vernacular mouthpiece of the same constructive ideal and mission of spiritual nationalism. About "Prabartak", Sri Aurobindo later told Shree Upendra Nath Banerjee, another revolutionary follower of Sri Aurobindo after his return from Andaman exile : "Whether I myself write or not, it is God who through me, makes Moti write Prabartak"—a recognition in his way of the true missionary role of this Bengali mouth-piece of the Prabartak Samgha.

Still later, on 15th August 1920, the "Standard Bearer" was started with the words "under the inspiration of Sri Aurobindo" inscribed on it—as a weekly organ in English published from Chandernagore to preach in the light of his new thought and directive to the nation. Its opening article under the caption "Ourselves"—from the pen of the Master himself—was at once a blessing for the journalistic venture as well as a guide-light, outlining the message for the future and a call to the young generation of India to imbibe and follow.

On 1st November, towards the close of the same year appeared "Navasamgha"—Bengali weekly—another vernacular mouthpiece to voice and spread the gospel of the "New Commune" amongst the Bengali-speaking population.

Thus from the side of Sri Aurobindo, his new movement had already begun in right earnest and on the right lines—that of 'satyam-ritam-vrihat'—as envisaged by him in his new spiritual vision. And meanwhile, amidst the amorphous conditions of the mind and life of humanity in this exciting period of transition, a new creation too, of untold potentiality had at the same time commenced to sprout forth from the seed of this new vision or causal idea—in India—the heart of Asia.

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Letter No. 21 begins with the topic of "discipline"—It is a deep and luminous spiritual discourse on the first principles of Adhyatma Yoga. The occasion was a 'hunger-strike' of a disciple of Shree Motilal Roy at Chandernagore, about which Shree Roy had reported to the Mahaguru as to what should be done to deal with such a disturbing internal situation. The very language and trend of the Master's reply bespeaks a mood of self-poised calmness, an assured and secure stability in Vedantic Yoga, enabling the Master now not only to take his stand, but to play his part with fullest confidence as a spiritual preceptor and guide, a teacher of the new yoga. It is now the Guru of gurus asserting himself and imparting to his intimate disciples yogic lessons; and this is a first lesson or a lesson on the first fundamental principle of the new yoga, which he wants to be learnt, assimilated and followed by those who have determined to follow him. We may note that there is no word here in this letter as in most of the earlier letters—having any reference to Tantric Yoga or Tantric matters. Both the Guru and the Disciple are now completely seated in the adhyatma yoga of the Vedantic path that they were so long struggling for. The new mission is discovering itself and taking its stand on its own pure, spiritual foundation. Sri Aurobindo's 'cry of halt' has been fully responded to and successfully implemented. The Samgha, based on yoga— adhyatma-yoga—is born. Above struggle, there is a calm and reposeful self-footing now.

"If you want discipline" declares the Master in a very calm and confident tone, "the first thing of that kind I would impose on you or ask you to impose on yourselves is self-discipline—atmasatnyama and the first element in that is obedience to the law of the Yoga, 1 have given to you. If you bring in things which do not belong to it at all and are quite foreign to it, such as 'hunger-strikes' and vehement emotional revolt against the divine will, it is idle to expect any rapid progress. That means that you insist on going on your own bypath and yet demand of me that I shall bring you to my goal. All difficulties can be conquered, but only on condition of fidelity to the way that you have taken. There is no obligation to any one to take it—it is a difficult and trying one, a way for heroes, not for weaklings—but once taken, it must be followed, or you will not arrive."

It is the Veera-marga—the way for heroes as he says and .repeats that it is the strong who can accept it and follow it —those who believe in heroic self-conquest and world-conquest—

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attainment of swarayya and samrayya—न मे मतं तस्य दुबॅलस्य —it is not the faith or the path for weaklings.

There is a distinction to be noted between this adhyatma yoga and the old bhakti school, which the Master clearly expounds:

"Remember what is the whole basis of the Yoga. It is not founded upon the vehement emotionalism of the bhakti-marga to which the temperament of Bengal is most prone, though it has a different kind of bhakti, but on samata and atmasamarpana, Obedience to the Divine Will, not assertion of self-will, is the very first mantra, But what can be a more violent assertion of self-will than to demand the result you desire, whether external or internal, at once,( Ei Muhurte, Ei Kshane,) and not in God's muhurta, God's moment? You say that there is complete utsarga but it cannot be complete, if there is any kind of revolt or vehement impatience. Revolt and impatience mean always that there is a part of the being or something in the being which does not submit, has not given itself to God, but insists on God going out of His way to obey it. That may be very well in the Bhakti-marga, but it will not do in this Way. The revolt and impatience may come and will come in the heart or the prana when these are still subject to imperfection and impurity; but it is then for the will and the faith in your buddhi to reject them, not act upon them. If the will consents, approves and supports them, it means that you are siding with the inner enemy. If you want rapid progress, the first condition is that you should not do this; for every time you do it, the enemy is strengthened and the shuddhi postponed. This is a difficult lesson to learn, but you must learn it. I do not find fault with you for taking long over it. I myself took full twelve years to learn it thoroughly and even after I knew the principle well enough, it took me quite four years and more to master my lower nature in this respect. But you have the advantage of my experience and my help: you will be able to do it more rapidly if you consciously and fully assist me, by not associating yourself with the enemy 'Desire'; Jahi Kamam durasadam,-remember that utterance of the Gita, it is a key-word of our Yoga."

Adhyatma Sadhana is a spiritual battle. The Geeta itself as we believe or know-was spoken in the battle-field of Kurukshetra on the eve of a World-war. The incident of hunger-strike that has occasioned this letter of Shree Aurobindo-was that -of Haradhan Bakshi, the young boy, who yet in his teens took the lead in Chandernagore to be the first volunteer to respond to the call of the French President announcing the Volunteer Force to be raised in French India and in other -colorries of France. Haradhan joined in the great battle of Verdun, fought on French soil, as a heroic soldier with his classmate, Siddhas war Mullick and their other Bengali comrades and

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won laurels of worthy praise from the French Lieutenant, their Commander. Sri Aurobindo therefore, takes this opportunity to remind Haradhan as a soldier just coming from a world-war :

"As for Haradhan, he should show the way in calm patience and endurance. He has been a soldier. How does he think that the nations of Europe could carry this war to an end, if they had grown so impatient of the fatigue of the trenches, suffering, disturbance, scarcity, continual postponement of the result, and declared that either they must have victory in a given time or throw up the struggle? Does he expect the inner war with our lower selves, the pesonal habit of thousands of lives and the human inheritance of ages, to be less arduous or to be carried out by a rapid and easy miracle? Hunger-striking to force God or to force any body else is not the true spiritual means. I do not object to Mr Gandhi or any one else following it for quite other than spiritual purposes, but here it is out of place; these things, I repeat, are foreign to the fundamental principle of our Yoga."

Hunger-strike as a means—whether for atma-shuddhi self purification or for the attainment of any other objective, 'other than spiritual purposes' has become a vogue since Gandhiji's days in our society and body-politics. As a peaceful and somewhat innocuous measure of self-reform or social reform, though generally preferable to the other cruder and far more harmful method of physical violence, hunger-strikes- because of its cheap fashion ability, fast losing its popular glamour and charm and also even practical effectivity now-a-days. Even in terms of coercion, hunger-striking is looked upon as a method of self: coercion in the eyes of the Geeta itself -and is classified amongst qualities under the asuric category, Sri Aurobindo's denunciation of hunger-striking, as 'not the true spiritual means'-justified by both reason and scripture, is therefore in the case of Haradhan appropriately considered as 'out of place'.

Sri Aurobindo's denunciation of hunger-striking, as 'not the true spiritual means'—justified by both reason and scripture, is therefore in the case of Haradhan appropriately considered as 'out of place'.

Shuddhi is necessary in sadhana. Sri Aurobindo significantly writes:

"Shuddhi is the most difficult part of the whole Yoga, it is the condition of all the rest, and if that is once conquered, the real conquest is accomplished. The rest becomes a comparatively easy building on an assured basis—it may take longer or shorter, but it can be done tranquilly and steadily. To prevent the Shuddhi, the lower nature in you and around you will exhaust all its efforts, and even when it cannot prevent, it will try to retard. And its strongest weapon then is, when you think you have got it, that it is far away, and so arouse disappointment, grief, loss of faith, discouragement, depression and revolt, the whole army

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of troubles that wait upon impure Desire. When you have once found calm, peace of mind, firm faith, equality and been able to live in it for some time, then and only then, you may be sure that Shuddhi is founded; but you must not think it will not be disturbed. It will be so long as your heart and prana are still capable of responding to the old movements, have still any memory and habit vibrating to the old chords. The one thing necessary when the renewed trouble comes, is to stand back in your mind and will from it, refuse it the sanction of your higher being, even when it is raging in the lower nature. As that habit of refusal fixes itself,—at first you may not be able to do it, the buddhi may be lost in the storm,—you will find that the ashuddhi, even though it still returns, becomes less violent, more and more external, until it ceases to be anything more than a faint and short-lived touch from outside and _ finally comes no more. That is the course it has followed with me, not only with regard to this kind of disturbance, but with regard to all imperfections. You, since you have chosen to share my Yoga for mankind, must follow the same way, undergo the same disturbances."

He enlighteningly continues:

"This is a thing which it is necessary for you to understand clearly. I myself have had for these fourteen years, and it is not yet finished, to bear all the possible typical difficulties, troubles, downfalls and backslidings that can rise in this great effort to change the whole normal human being. How else could I have been able to help or guide others on the same way?

Those who join me at the present stage, must share in my burden, especially those who are themselves chosen in any degree to lead, help and guide. It may be that when I have the complete siddhi—which I have not yet, I am only on the way to it,—then, if it be God's will to extend very largely and rapidly my work in this body, those who come after may have the way made very easy for them. But we are the pioneers hewing our way through the jungle of the lower prakriti. It will not do for us to be cowards and shirkers and refuse the burden, to clamour for everything to be made quick and easy for us. Above all things 1 demand from you endurance, firmness, heroism—-the true spiritual heroism. I want strong men. I do not want emotional children. Manhood first,(Devatwa) can only be built upon that. If I do not get it in those who accept my Yoga, then I shall have to understand that it is not God's will that I should succeed. If that be so, I shall accept His will calmly. But mean-while I go on bearing whatever burden He lays on me, meeting whatever difficulties He puts in the way of my siddhi. Personally, I am now sure of success of everything except in the Kaya siddhi, which is still doubtful, and in my work. The work can only succeed, if 1 find noble worthy helpers, fitted for it by the same struggles and the same endurance. I expect them in you. Again you must not expect the shuddhi or any part of the siddhi to be simultaneous and complete at once in all whom you associate with. One may attain, others progress, others linger. You must not expect a sudden collective miracle.

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I have not come here to accomplish miracles, but to show, lead the way, help, in the road to a great inner change of our human nature,— the outer change in the world is only possible if and when that inner transmutation is effected and extends itself. You must not expect to establish a perfect Samgha all at once and by a single leap. If you make such demands on me, I can only say, that I cannot do what is not God's will. Go forward calmly and firmly, not attached to success, my help will then not fail you."

It is a master-piece sermon, in which the Guru of gurus has begun to reveal himself in all his true and self-completing guru hood. His voice is calm, but clear and firm. His call is ringing, vibrant and resounding—to the strong, the brave—-the true spiritual heroes among men—not emotional babies and children—those who have elected to share the burden of the Master—'especially those who are themselves chosen in any degree to lead, help and guide.'

These are the pioneers in the great march, leaders of 'the true spiritual movement'—they are the God-chosen yuga-Prabartak, heralds and fore-runners of the coming new age that the Master himself has fore-seen. And in a sure and certain language does he proclaim his own hope and faith:

"My work can only succeed, if I find noble and worthy helpers fitted for it by the same struggles and the same endurance. I expect them in you." (our italics)

Shree Motilal Roy, after turning from the old revolutionary path, is now intent and bent upon starting his constructive work and movement on new, positive lines. He seems to have submitted also a scheme-a rough outline of this work for the sanction and blessing of the Master.

Sri Aurobindo's comment on that scheme or idea is also worth-noting here:

"As to your idea of work, it seems to me a little crude in form; but I have no objection to your beginning it, since you feel the pressing necessity. I shall write to you later on about it at more length. The only reason why I do not lay great stress on outer work, is that it must always be kachha, much embarrassed by difficulties, at least only a preparatory thing, until we are Inwardly and spiritually ready. That is no reason why it should not be done. Work done in the right spirit will itself become a means of the inner siddhi,"

From letter No. 22 of this series, we are nearing towards the close of this period of correspondence that is left in our hands.

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We first pass on to the scheme of a weekly paper in English, proposed to be published from Chandernagore.

Several names were suggested for the name to be given to this new weekly mission-organ—'Path-finder,' 'Standard Bearer' etc, of which the name 'Standard Bearer' was finally chosen and received the blessing of the Master's approval. He writes about it thus:

"About your scheme of weekly paper—as for the name it is not difficult to find—it could be called the 'Standard Bearer'. But are you quite sure you will be able to live up to the name and carry the thing on in the requisite manner?"

The question was pertinent and important. His own suggestive thought and advice on the matter is also interesting enough to deserve our attention even at this distance of time—for it shows with what clear precision and detailed attention he would give his directions in any matter.

We have marked such precise and detailed direction on his part when launching the publication of the 'Arya' Review. That main burden he had taken then on his own shoulders—from the writing and editing side of the Review down to the side of of its management and circulation.

As to this scheme of weekly organ now going to be undertaken by his Chandernagore disciple, the Master's circumspect thinking is also no less interesting or remarkable.

As to possible available writers for the English weekly, he estimates:

"Nalini (Gupta) and Suresh (Chakraborty) are not likely to be able to write; one does not write at all in English, the other can do it if he likes, but even more '(manthara-gati) than in Bengali. To write for an English weekly would be beyond his present energies".

As to whether his own contribution could be expected, he states:

"As for myself, I am at present unable to write or do anything substantial, because of the extreme pressure of my Yoga, which has. entirely occupied my time,--except for what I am obliged to give to the 'Arya' and even that 1 have cut short as much as possible,-for the last few months. This state of things is likely to go on for the rest of the (English) year,-whether it will be changed in the beginning of the next is more than 1 can tell with any certainty."

"The whole work might fall on your two Chandernagore writers. An English weekly cannot be conducted like a Bengali monthly or

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fortnightly. And it is not going to be a political paper of the ordinary kind which can be filled up anyhow. It will have to maintain a high reputation to be at all successful.

These things however, are for you to consider; you know your own strength and how far the field in Bengal is ready."

There was the question of symbol also to be considered and decided by him. He gives his views :

"As to the symbol, none has come to me. I am not altogether favourably inclined to the Uttar-Yogi idea nor any one else here. It sounds too like the old style of spiritual pretension, and, when it is put in a current English production, suggests bugrake. Plain colours and as few symbols as may be are what we want at the beginning. Indian spirituality has lost itself in a jungle of symbols and shlokas and we have to get out of these to the plain and straight ways and the open heights, where we can see the much work that had still to be done".

He however, suggested a design for the paper—

"the only thing that now suggests itself to me is the Hansa in Sun, that is the free soul lodged in the Vijnana and the legend 'in this sign thou shalt conquer' which is appropriate, but has the disadvantage of being borrowed from Christianity and Constantine, It would perhaps be better if you could find a Sanskrit equivalent or substitute."

'The Hansa in the Sun' design was adopted and it found its proper place in every issue of the "Standard Bearer"

The Master did not miss to give his impersonal dictation about who is to be the editor. "Why an editor ? Let the Shakti herself be the editor."-this was hi s own pertinent , significant reply. It is indeed, remarkable that this letter is the la st one in
the series bearing his initial of 'Kali' or 'K' at the end and remembering the idea that Sri Aurobindo was now the incarnate embodiment of Shakti, the Divine Power, we substituted the words "Under the inspiration of Sri Aurobindo" in place of any editor's name-for the " Standard Bearer ."

Some interesting remarks about the Bengali magazine 'Prabartak' and its writing and writers do not escape our notice, so clothed in his usual witty humour as they are, yet bespeaking his keen sense of observation of as well as particular and affectionate interest in every detail characteristics of the men and things about him, not even sparing himself and his own genuine mood and manners in the vivid presentation:

"As to articles for the Prabartak, Nalini used to be your mainstay and he is now in another atmosphere, mainly hitherto of marriage and

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football, and complain of inability to write. As for the other, he has produced nothing since he left here, except a drama for the Bijoli and the answer to his Prabasi articles which was written and sent before he left for Bengal—Moni's inspiration now flowing in channels hardly suitable for Prabartak.

As for myself, it was only as a result of a solitary inspiration and with much trouble of re-writing that I got one thing done for you. Since then I have been too much occupied by my Yoga and not at all visited by any prerana or at least none which lasted long enough to produce more than a few lines. In this matter I am entirely dependent on the थथानियुत्लोऽस्मि as I have no natural control of the language and I have no time at present for exercising it by constant practice. It seems to me that Prabartak is getting on well enough as it is, though if Nalini could write, it could produce an element of greater variety."

But his suggestive comment about the development of writers for Prabartak applied equally to both the Bengali and the English sections of the mission-publications running under the new flag—it is indeed a very useful, helpful and fruitful message of creative urge, still applicable to all and sundry, eager to develop and evolve men and institutions, not only in the literary but also in every other field of human activity and self-manifestation, being conversant with this deep, universal, spiritual law of creativity:

"You should be able to develop more writers with the necessary spiritual experience, grasp of the thought and literary ability—these things the Inner Shakti can bring to the surface if it is called upon for them,—so that Prabartak will not have to depend on three or four people only for its sustenance."

Sri Aurobindo himself—we do remember—had contributed a memorable article—an original Bengali article from his pen for the Bengali magazine, "Prabartak'—under the caption of "Jagannather Rath" —a masterpiece of constructive thought, suggestive of a new cultural, social and economic world to be evolved in the coming future by the World-Spirit. It was subsequently also translated into English and published in 'Standard Bearer' under the title 'The Car of Jagannath' for English-knowing readers.

We have already neared the year 1920 and letter No. 23 comes with the date of January 2, 1920 on it.

The World War-1 had already ended. The Royal Clemency Proclamation was declared on 23rd December 1919. An election had taken place in French India and from Chandernagore,

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Shree Manindra Nath Naiek had been returned as a member of the General Assembly of French India, holding its sittings in the capital town of Pondicherry and Shree Nirmal Chandra Bakshi, the other elected member to the Local Assembly, had also to attend it under rule.

Hitherto Manindra Nath had been like Shree Motilal Roy and a few other political suspects living a self-interned life confined to Chandernagore, since the beginning of the War. Should Shree Naiek now take the risk of going out of Chandernagore? This question was put to Sri Aurobindo by Shree Roy, to whom Sri Aurobindo replies in this letter with a positive affirmation:

"they have only to get a sauf-conduit from the Chandemagore Administrator and then, as they are called here by the French Government for Government work, no-body can interfere with their coming and going'. 'This is what I am told"-

writes the Master after having had necessary consultation in the matter with local officials or non-officials in the know"

and it ought obviously to be so."

Sri Aurobindo wants to know "How are you people going to vote?" and notes : "Martineau and Flandin are the two candidates at present and Martineau is impossible."

He also 'notes with some amusement' the Secretary's letter to Bejoy Chatterjee, with the comment: "The logic of the Bengal Government's attitude is a little difficult to follow." However, he 'supposes that the King's proclamation will make some difference,' but at the same time 'fancies that the Government of India is the chief obstacle in these matters and that they will perhaps try to limit the scope of this qualified warrant'. Still he hopes that the restriction of Shree Roy's own movement will be removed before long.

On another side, Sri Aurobindo had received the news of Shree Bejoy Nag's 'release from his quite causeless imprisonment after five long years, but that he had been interned again in or near Ramnagar in Birbhum.'

Interesting indeed, is to read in this letter :

"As for me, I do not see, if Lajpatrai is coming to India, how they can object to my going to Bengal. But allowed or not allowed, I have not the least intention of doing that at present or for another year at the earliest. When I do go, this or that circumstance will make no difference."

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His intention to return to Bengal, it is obvious—was till then lying in his mind.

Meanwhile, in the field of Indian politics Mahatma Gandhi was just now about to launch his historic movement of non-violent non-co-operation and he had sent his son, Shree Deva das Gandhi, as a messenger to Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo's reply was consonant with his changed spiritual stand. Writes he about this in this same letter :

"Mr Gandhi, like the man in Macedonia with St. Paul, sent me a message to 'come over and help', but I had to say that I was not ready to join in the old politics and had no new programme formed for a more spiritual line of work, and it would be no use my going till I see my way."

As to writing for the 'Standard Bearer', he says:

"I cannot write now, as it would take too long and delay this letter. I shall write afterwards or send word".

The 'Standard Bearer' however, was soon to come out from the 15th of August 1920, his 48th birth-day even as 'Arya' had come out before on another 15th August 1914, his 42nd holy birth-day; and he blessed its first number with his very first article "Ourselves" of outstanding light and inspiration (Vide Appendix)—another master-piece from his master-pen to guide, inspire and set the thought-standard not only of the narrow, limited circle of his contemporary reading circle, but also successive generations of men and women called upon there-in to conceive, perceive and materialise that highest ideal of regenerated life and society in India and the world of the new times.

His famous book, compiled from the pages of the 'Arya'— under the title of 'War & Self-determination' was also out by this time—as we note K. Amrita, devotee-manager of Arya publications, adding a foot script to this letter to-day that '50 copies of the new volume are being sent soon,'—surely for sale and circulation. No doubt, this timely publication was a fit work to carry the Master-thinker's new word of hope and light to all those peoples like of India herself, struggling for self-determination in a world just risen from a global, epochal bloodbath.

The last three letters in our series are all dated ones and also initialed with signatures of A. G. instead of K or Kali.

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This, in our view, it will be right for us to regard as a sure-sign of completion of this decade of transition from 1910 to 1920—a transition as we have rightly assumed to be an inner release from 'aropa to 'swarupa'—from ''Kali' to 'Atma or 'Brahman to use Shastric terms to denote or connote significant phases of such spiritual self-realisation. We have it in the-life of Shree Ramakrishna, that Shreemat Totapuri, the great Reverend Vedanta-Guru, had to watch and help with supreme spiritual interest a similar transition of his great disciple Ramakrishna—from the phase of relative but all-absorbing Kali-consciousness to the phase of absolute self-absorbed Atma-consciousness or Brahma-consciousness.

In Sri Aurobindo's own words, he has risen from "the mind of knowledge"—the highest mental—to the "vijnanamaya or supramental gnostic consciousness." Our assumption should be taken of course, as only that of a humblest student in spiritual life, basking in the sunshine of the Supreme Master's Grace and Love—a child in the lap of the Divine Mother— tasting the milk of her heavenly breast—the milk of supreme affection and elixir of life—confident in the aim of entering through such grace and affection into the heart of its deepest truths and feasting on the sweetness of its life-nourishing nectar-qualities.

In letter No 24, the Master, who has already given call to Shree Roy to come over to Pondicherry for which he is waiting, meanwhile draws the attention of the latter to some matters of pressing importance for the work. He says :

"The circumstances under which you have to work have now changed a great deal and you will have in order to meet it to enlarge your view and inner attitude on many sides; this I think you are preparing to do, but it will be as well for me to make it as precise as possible. Up till now you were working alone in a Bengal which was in a state, first, of the last fragmentary and chaotic agitations of the old violent spirit of rajasic qualities and then of torpor and inaction; and the thing that had to be done was to get rid of the errors of the past (errors once necessary for the development, but likely if persisted in to ruin and frustrate the future), to get at a firm spiritual basis and found a centre of spiritual unity and action; a samgha, on a small scale but sure of its principle and capable of a large development. This has now been done, but at the moment of its firm effectuation, new conditions have come in, which create a new and larger problem. First, many imprisoned forces have been let loose and, secondly, the chaos of incertitude, confused.

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agitation and unseeing unrest which has followed upon the war and is felt all over the world, is now at work in Bengal.

The nature of this unrest is a haste to get some thing done without knowing what has to be done, a sense of and vague response to large forces without any vision of or hold on the real possibilities of the future of humanity and the nation. The old things are broken up in their assured mould and are yet persisting and trying to form themselves anew, the new exist for the most part only in vague idea without a body or clear action and without any power as yet to form what is lacking to them. The old politics of India persist in a chaos of parties and programmes centred round the Congress quarrel and the Reforms, and in Bengal we have a rush of the commercial and industrial spirit which follows the western principle and, if it succeeds on these lines, is likely to create a very disastrous reproduction or imitation of the European situation with its corrupt capitalism and the labour struggle and the war of classes. And all that is the very reverse of our own ideal. The one advantage for us is that it is a chaos and not a new order, and it is essential that we should throw our spirit and idea upon this fermentation, and draw what is best among its personalities and forces to the side and service of our ideal so as to get a hold and a greater mass of effectuation for it in the near future."

This as he conceives it, has to be done on two lines :

"First, what has already been created by us and given a right spirit, basis and form, must be kept in tact in spirit, in tact in basis and in tact in form and must strengthen and enlarge itself in its own strength and by its inherent power of self-development and the divine force within it. (Our italics). This is the line of work on which you have to proceed.

We have to confront the confusion around us with a thing that is sure of itself and illumined by self-knowledge and a work that by its clear form and firm growth will present more and more the aspect of an assured solution of the problem of the present and the future. The mind of the outside world may be too shallow, restless and impatient to understand a great, profound and difficult truth like ours on the side of the idea, but a visible accomplishment, a body of things done has always the power to compel and to attract the world to follow it. The only danger then is that when this body of things becomes prominent and attractive, numbers may rush into it and try to follow the externals without realising and reproducing in themselves the truth and the power of the real thing that made it possible.

It was that against which I warned you when there came the first possibility of a considerable expansion. It is your business to enlarge your field of work and the work itself but not at the cost of any lowering or adulteration of its spirit. The first condition you have to assure is that all who have the work in hand or share in its direction must be of the spirit and work from the self outward; they must be men of the yoga; but, secondly, all who enter in, must have this imposed on

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them as the thing to be developed, must learn to develop this self-realisation first and foremost and the work only as its expression. The safety of the work lies in a strict adherence to this principle. The majority of the educated people of Bengal care only to get something done—and are not troubled by the fact that really nothing sure and lasting does get done or else only something that is likely to do as much harm as good; they care nothing about the spiritual basis of life, which is India's real mission and the only possible source of her greatness, or give to it only a slight, secondary or incidental value, a something that has to be stuck on as a sentiment or a bit of colouring matter. Our whole principle is different and you have to insist on our principle in all that you say and do. Moreover, you have got a clear form for your work in association and that form as well as the spirit you must maintain; any loosening of it or compromise would mean confusion and an impairing of the force that is working in your samgha."

But the Master himself now visualises and has come face to face with a new situation which he indicates thus just here-after :

"But on the other hand, there is another line of work which is also necessary at the present moment, because the Shakti is moving in that direction also and the Shakti is the doer of the work,—and that is for others, like Barin, to enter into the fermenting mass and draw out of it elements that are fit but not yet ready to take our whole idea and first to get into and then occupy existing or newly created means and activities,—as he is doing with the Narayan, —which can be increasingly made instruments of our purpose. This work will be attended with all the difficulties and uncertainties and obstacles which go with a mixed and yet unformed working,—such as you had at the beginning, but have now got over (our italics), —but we must trust to the Divine Shakti to overcome them. The one difficulty that it is in our power to avoid is that of the relation between those who are working on these different lines. There the first necessity is that there should be no clash or spirit of rivalry, sense of division or monopolising personal or corporate egoism to bring discord among those who receive their inspiration from the same source and have the same ideal. A spiritual unity and a readiness for co-operation must be the guiding principle of their relations."

The Master himself has taken up this question for discussion and is ready with a true solving answer. Thus he writes :

"I have already answered to Shirish the first very natural question that arose in your mind at the inception of these new conditions, why Barin and others should cast themselves separately into the to create a out of it, when there is already a form and a body of associated communal work in the spirit of our ideal and why all should not unite in that form and create a greater power of associated driving force to bring a bout a rapid enlargement and victory of the ideal. The first th ing is that the particular form given is the right thing

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for those who are already associated together, because it has arisen naturally out of themselves and by the Will that guides, but it may well be that the same precise form may not be applicable or extended everywhere. The spirit, the truth must be the same, but the formations may be different with advantage to the spirit. To insist on one form only might well bring in that rigidity which grew upon Indian society and its civilisation in the past and brought about an imprisonment and decline of the spirit. India was strongest and most alive when she had many variations of form but one spirit. And I think, —that at least was the pre-vision that came on me in the Alipore jail and I do not yet see a different prospect,—that this will be the case also in the future. Then, secondly, there is a psychological necessity which we cannot at the present moment leave out of consideration. The Samgha at Chandernagore is a thing that has grown up with my power behind and yours at the centre and it has assumed a body and temperament which is the result of this origination (our italics). But there are others, people of strong personality and full of shakti, who receive their spiritual force direct from me and are made themselves to be central spirits and direct radiators of the Shakti; and for these to subordinate themselves to the existing body and temperament would not be easy for any and in most cases impossible, —such a subordination would not have grown out of themselves and would only be imposed by nigraha, a thing contrary to the prakriti, —and it would besides, clog up the natural action of the power in them. And on the other hand to bring them in as coordinated central figures into the existing form would not be feasible, for it would mean a disturbing change and new fermentation of forces in the work that is already being well done on established lines. It would mean, even if at all successful, a sort of conducting by spiritual committee and that is not the line on which the Shakti has proceeded at Chandernagore. The more perfect co-ordination of all who are at work can only come, as far as I can see, after I myself go to Bengal and can act by my direct presence. Thirdly, there are a considerable number of people in the country who are not yet of us, yet can be given the necessary turn, but owing to temperamental and other causes they would not be drawn to the existing centre, but could be easily drawn by Barin, Sourin, Bejoy and others. And in all these and similar cases we must leave freedom to the guiding Shakti to use her own means and instruments. Finally, there are things to be done which need to be done, but which I would not like to impose on your Samgha as it now stands; first, because it would disturb the characteristic frame and ideal temperament of your work, a thing which it is important to keep; and secondly, because it would impose on you unnecessary complications; and these things can best be done by Barin and others while seeming to work independently for their own hands. And there are needs also to be met for which these other activities are required. Of that I can better speak to you in person than by letter. This being the situation, the need that remains is to keep a right relation between those who are working, and that means to extend the spirit of unity which is our basis so as to

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embrace all the work and workers, undeterred by differences of mentality and divergences of actions."

The return of Barindra Kumar Ghose, with his other revolutionary co-workers from the Andamans on the strength of the Royal Clemency, has created a new situation. Barindra himself was a fiery soul who with Sri Aurobindo's inspiration behind, had worked as the most potent instrument in the hands of Kali in the previous decade to initiate the revolutionary movement in India. His natural relationship with Sri Aurobindo together with his indomitable urge to resume work again and play his part as a prominent figure in the new movement now initiated by and evolving in the hands of the Master, has compelled such a re-thinking and a re-assessment of the forces at work. The Master's mind is deeply busy—first, in observing the different trends and temperaments of the persons who are already working and those who have accepted his new ideal and lead and are willing to work for it—and secondly, to establish and maintain the right relation between them so as to avoid any clash of minds and temperaments in the course of the movement both afoot and ahead.

We have to read very closely and carefully the entire long passage that follows, if we are to enter more fully into his vast and over-seeing outlook and appreciate his salutary direction and stand. Taking up the main theme of relations, he goes on to say :

"In our work we have to fix our relations with three different kinds of people; first, those w ho are working for the country but without any greater ideas or spiritual motive; secondly, those who have the spiritual motive but not the s ame ideal and inspiration as ourselves; thirdly, those who have the same ideal and inspiration, but are working in different bodies and at first on different lines. Our relation to the first class of people and their work must be based on the fundamental principle of our Yoga to see God in all and the one Self in all acting through different natures and all energies, even those which an: hostile, as workings of the Divine Shakti although behind the veil of the ahankara and the ignorant mentality. There are movements at work new and old which are not the definite reality of the future but are needed at the present moment as part of th e transition. It is in this light, for example, that I regard many things that are in process in Europe and I am even moved to give a temporary spiritual support to efforts and movements which arc not in consonance with our own and must eventually fail or eease by exhaustion of their utility but are needed as transitional powers. This too is how I regard

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the work of men like Tilak and Gandhi. We work in the faith that it is our vision of the future that is the central divine will, the highest actual sable possibility and therefore, the one thing that must be made the object of our action; but that does not mean that the Shakti is not working in her own covert way and for her own ends through others, No doubt, these movements are of a western and materialistic inspiration or else an imperfect mixture, and some day it may be we shall have to give battle to them as certainly we shall have to overcome the spirit that informs them. But that time has not come yet, and meanwhile what we have to do is to develop and spread our own vision and idea and give it body so as eventually to confront the things that are in possession of the present with a realisation of the things that belong to the future. I think that at this juncture we should avoid a too direct attack or criticism of them as that only creates avoidable opposition to our own work. The positive rather than the negative method is the one we should adopt until we are strong enough to convince by our visible strength and work the minds that are now attracted by the present power and activity of other movements, -to assert our own ideal as the true and the right way but not to invite conflict by a destructive frontal attack on the others."

As for the second c1ass,'-now he faces them with the blazing analytic gaze of acute discernment just as before, and referring to 'such as the other spiritual movements in Bengal', .clcarly declares :

"Our attitude to most of them should be that of a benevolent neutrality and sympathy for such of their elements as are at all in consonance with our own ideal. The one thing which we have to get rid of is the idea of Maya and ascetic abandonment of the life and effort of humanity and also though that is social and religious rather than directly spiritual, the clinging to old forms and refusal to admit new development. The movements that admit life and Ananda and are ready to break away from the old narrowness of social and other forms, are so much to the good even though they have not the full largeness of the integral spiritual idea and realisation. These we must leave to go on their own way and run themselves out or else enlarge themselves till they are ready to coalesce with us. I do not mean that with regard to either of these classes we should refrain from all criticism of the insufficiency of ideal or method, but this should be as far as possible quite general, a discussion on the enforcement of a greater principle and truer method, distinguishing truth from error but not too pointedly aggressive against particular things or so expressed as to seem to hit straight on this or that person or body. To insist on our own propaganda and work is always necessary and sometimes though not always to meet any attack on it ; but we need not go out of our way to invite conflict. To this rule there may be particular exceptions; I only indicate what seems to me for the present the right general attitude." On the back

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spiritual understanding between the inner subjective and the outer environmental movement and forces, the Master now comes directly to the most salient point drawing the attention of his disciples to the heart of the problem thus :

"This once understood, the really important thing becomes at once our own work and the relation between different workers, and here, as I have said, what we need is the growth of spiritual unity and a readiness to take the work of others as supplementing one's own and, where ever it is called for and possible, to co-operate.

There is a danger here from the subtler forms of egoism. It is not enough to realise unity among those who are already working with one mind as one soul in many bodies; there must be unity of spirit with others who are following different ways or working separately for the present and complete samata with regard to their action, even if it seeems to one wrong or imperfect, and patience with regard to mental and moral divergences. This should be easy for you, as it means only getting rid of 't he remnants of your sattwic ahankara, it may not be so easy for others who have still a rajasic ahankara to trouble them. But if people like you and Barin give the example, that difficulty can eventually be got over; if on the contrary, you also allow misunderstandings among yourselves, the work is likely to be very unnecessarily hampered."

He cites an instance in point—a very particular one which may appear somewhat interesting enough in a way not altogether to pass over:

"I may give as an instance, the matter about the Prabartak. Certain casual utterances of Sourirr's, made in answer to queries and not volunteered, have come to you quite misreported as a sort of intentional campaign to belittle the paper and the other half of what he said, namely, that the Prabartak was inspired, though not actually written by me and the spirit and substance were that of my ideal, never reached your ears."

"The Master himself recognised a spiritual identity with his creation or creations inspired by him to such a profound and cordial degree, which we may well note and remember as remarkable as for example, he had written in a private letter to Shree Upendra Nath Banerjee, in connection with this very matter of Prabartak the following words, which subsequently were quoted on the front page of that magazine as a source of self-inspiration:

Whether I myself write or not it is God who through me, makes Moti write Prabartak."

There is another alleged incident to which he refers with a view to clearing up:

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"I may add also that the alleged incidents to which you took exception, as to his method of raising money, never actually happened. Again the advertisement or rather paragraph about Narayana in the Amrita Bazar was not inserted by Barin, but by some one else according to that other person's idea after a conversation with him. Barin was not responsible for the form nor had he any intention of claiming the Narayana as the sole and direct mouth-piece of my ideas."

''It is these misunderstandings"—he very definitely and emphatically calls upon at least all his chief disciples "which I want to see all of you avoid and it can be easily done, if those who are among the principal channels of the Shakti preserve the spiritual unity which ought to prevail among those, who derive their inspiration from the same source and follow the same ideal. Others less developed may give cause for offence owing to their inability to control the rajasic ego still working in them, but calm, patience, prema and samata are the spirit in which we should meet such causes of offence; otherwise where is the perfection we seek by our Yoga?"

Another small matter due to such mis-information of Haradhan about Nalini Gupta, he does not miss to clarify:

"Let me add, while I am on this subject that Haradhan seems to have been misinformed about Nalini. As a matter of fact, he has mixed with no नल (Dala) nor engaged in any kind of associated activity whi le in Bengal. And if he had, it would have been with no other purpose than to draw others to our yoga and our way of thinking; but as a matter of fact he remained inactive."

Anticipating difficulties in the field of propaganda-work, immediately in his view, he thinks out in a clear-seeing, deliberative as well as practical manner such as follows:

"As for the other matter of the different lines of work, there is one instance which illustrates the difficulties that may arise. Barin has taken up the 'Narayana with the idea of gradually and eventually making it another instrument of propaganda for our ideas, and if he succeeds, that will be so much the more strength for us. It will not be a mere doubling of the work of the Prabartak as it will present our ideas in a different way and so as to catch minds of a different type from those who are naturally attracted by the Prabartak which demands from its readers, a mind already tuned to spiritual things or at least naturally able to enter into that atmosphere. To others who are of a less spiritual and intuitive, a more intellectual or literary and artistic temperament, the articles of the Prabartak written out of an experience to which they are strangers, are not easily assailable, and it is these minds which it may be possible to approach through the 'Narayana'. But if there is not a right understanding, the attitude of the two to each other may be that of separation and competition rather than of activities supplementary to each other in the same work. In addition he has now the chance of getting hold of a strong publishing agency in Calcutta,

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as Shirish must have already told you, but he hesitates to take it up from fear that it may be regarded as a rival agency to the Prabartak Publishing House. He is not afraid of any misunderstanding between you and him, but of others connected with either work taking things in the wrong light and bringing in an unwholesome spirit of competition. This is a thing which might easily happen, but must not be allowed to happen. I have told him that I would write to you and ask you to see that there is no misunderstanding in the matter, before giving him sanction to take up the possibility. Afterwards, it will be for you and him to see that things on both sides are managed in the right spirit. This agency, if it comes into Sarin's control, will be conducted with the same idea and method as the 'Narayana' and all the profits except what is necessary for the maintenance and extension of the agency, will come to us and our work. These two things are the first fields the Shakti has offered to his energy and they are of a kind for which he is well-fitted; their success means for us a great advantage. A time is now coming in which the Shakti is pressing to break down the barriers in which we have had hitherto to move and we must be ready to follow her indications without allowing our personal preferences and limitations to attempt to dictate to her any mind-made limits."

With what he artful affectionate care would the great Guru interest himself even in personal matters affecting his disciple.

Regarding extension of certain Samgha-works he has already discussed the matter personally with Shirish Chandra Ghosh, the indefatigable all-dedicated co-worker of Shree Roy, for which he had gone on a special visit to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo in connection with the nationalist movement in Bengal in general and Chandernagore affairs in particular. He expresses his intention to say what more he has to say in a more particular manner on those matters, when Shree Roy himself comes to Pondicherry as he has already been summoned.

A bit worried on being informed about Shree Roy's ailment, he has not missed to advise his disciple by way of warmhearted precaution:

"It is regrettable that at this moment the physical strain should take an effect on your body; I trust it is only a part of a temporary invasion of Roga, of which many of us, including myself have recently felt some touch. But you must be careful not to throw too much strain on the physical system. A timely sparing of the physical system when there is an indication of overstrain is often necessary before the Shakti has taken perfect possession of the more external parts of the adhara or the vijnana-will is strong enough to set right at once weaknesses and disturbances."

Sri Aurobindo has now made up his mind to settle some differences amongst his old and newly arrived disciples—who are

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now all on the way to move each on his line of work according to his bent of nature and mind. For this, he is calling them together to come to Pondicherry and in his presence evolve accord and harmony among them on the basis of spiritual understanding and self-illumination. Apprehending from Shree Roy's letter about the suspicious and watchful attitude of the Government and that they might be putting opposition in the way or pouncing upon him having got the chance to find him in their clutches out of the wall of protection enjoyed under the French Administration, Sri Aurobindo after a close and careful consideration over the matter gives this final all-clear decision:

"I hardly suppose that Nelson's curious reservation about your visit means anything serious; otherwise he would have been more positive about it. I take it that they do not like the idea and would he suspicious about its motive and watch your actions more narrowly after it; but as they are obstinately determined to be suspicious about anything we doing any case, this by itself cannot be allowed to be an obstacle. I should suggest therefore, that you might come over after making arrangements for work in your absence in such a way that the visit may be a fairly long one," (our italics)

The Master's own mind, intention and occupation are vividly reflected in the concluding paragraph of this letter, which has an importance for us to note:

"The work of the Arya has fallen into arrears and I have to spend just now the greater part of my energy in catching up, and the rest of my time, in the evening, is taken up by the daily visit of the Richards. 1 hope to get over the worst part of this necessity by the middle of June, so that by the time you come, I may have a freer atmosphere to attend to the currents of the work and the world about me. There is now the beginning of a pressure from many sides inviting .m y spiritual attention to the future कर्म and this means the need of a greater out flowing of energy than when I had nothing to do but support a concentrated nucleus of the Shakti. I doubt however, whether I shall be in a fit condition for meeting the demand till August, especially as I have not been able to get the physical basis yet put right by the power of the vijnana. After that we shall see what and how much can actually be done under the new circumstances.

Meanwhile your visit may help to get things into preparatory line both in the inward motor-power and the outward determination". (Our Italics)

The last but one letter (No. 25) is dated the Sept. 2, 1920. It centres round a Samgha-affair about a social marriage, to which the Master's attention has been drawn from Chandernagore. The commune or Samgha-idea has taken name and form in Chandernagore as the Prabartak Samgha. Sri Aurobindo is

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alert to give it guidance and direction whenever occasion arises as regards its way of happenings and development.

The new life to be evolved in the Samgha includes within its integral ideal not only celibate life but also married life. Marriage according to the ancient Hindu ideal is not only confined to physical connection of flesh and blood, but also sublimated into a spiritual relationship between man and woman. Marriage proposal coming from a disciple of Shree Motilal, Khagendra Nath Bose by name, within the communal circle, had raised a storm of opposition in the social environment Arovindo. The matter was referred to Sri Aurobindo both in respect of the idealism behind as well as the fact of social opposition in the society. It was in reply to this information from Shree Roy, that Sri Aurobindo writes in this letter in a detailed manner, but in the light of his wise and far-seeing cautious comprehension:

"My "My impression about your marriage idea is that you are going too fast. What you say about the commune and the married couple is quite right as our ideal or rather as one side of our ideal, but there is here a question of time and tactics. In our work there must be not only spiritual hardihood. साहस but skill and prudence. कौशलम् The question is whether it is necessary o r wise and advisable to' engage in a battle with society at the moment on a point which it considers to be vital but which is to us subordinate,"

In his considered view :

"Our first business is to establish our communal system on a firm spiritual, secondly on a firm economical foundation, and to spread it wide, but the complete social change can only come as a result of the other two. It must come first in spirit, afterwards in form.

If a man enters into the commune by spiritual unity, if he gives to it his life and labour and considers all he has as belonging to all, the first necessity is secured.

The next thing is to make the movement economically se lf-sufficient, and to do that requires at the present moment all the energy you can command.

These two things are, the one a constant, the other an immediate necessity. The institution of a communal ceremony of marriage can only be a future necessity; it involves nothing essential at the moment."

He elaborates his idea more clearly as he further writes on the point:

"The idea is that the family in future is not to be a separate unit, but a sub-unit of the communal whole. It is too early to decide exactly what form the family life will take, it may take many forms. not always the same. The principle is the important thing. But this principle can be

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observed whatever the form of the marriage ceremony they may have gone through at the time of personal union, whether recognized or not by the present social system. An external necessity does not arise in the present case, as Khagen is not marrying outside his caste."

Now he discusses the pros and cons of the step in his larger outline of thought and more experienced judgment as he goes on :

"It remains to be seen whether this step, though not necessary, is advisable. In the first place, by your action you declare your commune to be an entirely separate thing from the rest of Hindu society; you will be following in the way of the Brahmo Samaj or more exactly in that of Thakur Dayananda. That means a violent scission and a long struggle, which is likely greatly to complicate your other work and put difficulties in the way which need not have been there. My own idea was for our system to grow up in the society, not out of it, though different from it, first bringing in a new spiritual idea,—a field in which opposition and intolerance cannot now long endure, —and secondly, justifying itself in the outward plane by becoming a centre of economical regeneration and new power for the country, a work in which we shall have sympathy more than opposition, and getting forward with other matters according to need and opportunity and with a considerable freedom and latitude, meeting social orthodoxy with the plea of reemploying the old free Hindu idea in new forms rather than with the profession of a violent rejection both of the past and the present.

In this process a clash will be inevitable sooner or later, but a deliberate precipitation of the conflict in so extreme a form as you suggest was not within my intentions. That was to come, but only when we were strong and had already a hold on the country, so that we might have a strong support as well as enemies."

The Master's own balanced judgement as reflected in the suggestive discourse to follow is strikingly interesting and packed with ripe, practical, and mature constructive wisdom:

"Your point is that the commune should not depend either on Government or society for the validity of the union. It seems to me sufficient if that is spiritually insisted on or at most given an outward indication. I would suggest that the exchange of garlands should be done before the commune, as it was done in the old Swayamvara before the assembly. The conventional marriage can then be added as a concession to the present society, as in old times the sampraddya by the father was added to the Swayamvara, although in fact the swayamvara itself would have been quite valid without it. If a case should arise in future where the mutual giving would be necessary by itself, we then might go to the more extreme course.

This would, it seems to me, satisfy everything immediately necessary or advisable,—first, the assertion of free choice as the principle of marriage; secondly, the formal inclusion of the couple in their

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united life in the commune, apart from any conventional marriage ceremony; thirdly, the justification of a continuity between our movement and the great past of India.

The movement, of course, is not to stop with the forms of the past or a modernisation of them, but this sort of preliminary advance under cover will prepare more easily its future advance into the open, which we can afterwards make as rapid as we choose. At the same time it will have the advantage of awaking a less vehement opposition at a moment when it seems to me we are not yet ready for a frontal attack in the social field and a decisive battle. If a battle becomes necessary, of course, we must not flinch from it, but I should myself prefer to have it after I have reached the proper state in my Yoga and after I return to Bengal. At present, I have so many calls upon an energy which is still largely occupied with pushing forward to its own perfection that I do not quite like the idea of the heavy drain on it such a struggle would entail. This at least is my present view on the matter."

The Master's stand in this matter as in his general stand everywhere, whether in the spiritual or political or even economic field—is that of a Supreme Kshatriya, a General fighting his battle of life and he couches his thought or feeling in all such matters in terms of warfare—spiritual battle, economic battle, so also social battle as here. We may also note here that he is still thinking of returning to Bengal, where it is his intention and idea to launch the final decisive battle in all fields of his supreme mission of life.

His remarks on 'Standard Bearer' at the end of this letter is just to be noted also:

"It is a sort of weekly Arya', but the Arya style and method are not what is wanted for a weekly paper." What should be done is

The anxiety felt by the Master for the weekly paper brought out with his blessing, due to its actual imperfections as correctly indicated in his remarks, naturally recalls to our mind his interrogative observation in letter No. 22, when he christened the name 'Standard Bearer' for the weekly scheme :

"But are you quite sure you will be able to live up to the name and carry the thing on in the requisite manner?"

The instruments were undoubtedly not up to mark and should have much benefited by further guidance, if the Master thereafter had found time to write more about it, as promised in the closing line.

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In the "Standard Bearer" Vol 1, No. 13 issue, of Sunday, the 21st November 1920, appeared the following authorised declaration of Sri Aurobindo along with an explanatory editorial note there-on, which will throw apposite light on Sri Aurobindo's letter, (the last one in the letter-series) bearing date Nov. 11,1920, now to follow.

"Sri Aurobindo's declaration

In view of the conflicting rumours that have been set afloat purporting to represent Sri Aurobindo's views on the Reforms and on Non-co-operation, Shree Motilal Roy, his spiritual representative in Bengal was requested by those in charge of 'Standard Bearer' to write to Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry —as a result of which, Shree Motilal has received the following reply from his Master, which being authorised, we are publishing below:

"Dear M

All these assertions are without foundation. I have made no pronouncement of my political views. I have authorised nobody whether publicly or privately to be the spokesman of my opinions. The rumour suggesting that I support the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms and am opposed to Non-co-operation is without basis. I have nothing to-do personally with the manifesto of Sir Ashutosh Choudhury and others citing a passage from my past writings. The recorded opinions of a public man are public property and I do not disclaim what I have written; but the responsibility for its application to the Montague Chelmsford Reforms and the present situation rests entirely with the signatories to the manifesto. The summary of my opinions in the Janmabhumi, representing me as an enthusiastic follower of Mahatma Gandhi of which I only came to know the other day, is wholly unauthorised and does not 'render justice to my views' either in form or in substance. Things are attributed to me in it which I would never have dreamed of saying. It is especially adding insult to injury to make me say that I am ready to sacrifice my conscience to a congress mandate and recommend all to go and do like-wise. I have not stated to anyone that 'full responsible Self-Government, completely independent of British control or any other purely political object is the goal to the attainment of which I intend to devote my efforts. I have not made any theoretical prophecy of a colossal success for the Non-eo-operation movement. As you well know, I am identifying myself with only one kind of work or propaganda as regards India, the endeavour to reconstitute her cultural, social and economic life within larger and freer lines than

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the past on a spiritual basis. As regards political questions, I would request my friends and the public not to attach credence to anything purporting to be a statement of my opinions which is not expressly authorised by me or issued over my signature.''

"Our Explanation

"It has become necessary for us to give a categorical denial to all the rumours and ascriptions of opinion which irresponsible people are publishing from time to time about Sri Aurobindo and his mission and objects. The Janmabhumi nonsense was especially unwarranted (we refrain from quoting the still stronger word from the unpublished portion of the letter addressed to Sri Roy.) and as we are privately told, Sri Aurobindo himself does not understand how any one with brains in his head could have accepted such childish rubbish to have come from him (Aurobindo). The authorised declaration of Sri Ghose, which we publish above, over his own initials, giving the lie direct to all the misleading attributions woven around his name, will, we hope, be sufficient to silence for ever these wild outbursts of fertile imagination and seal the mouth of silver-tongued Dame Rumour against all such light-hearted pronouncements about the man and his mission in future.

"There is only one truth in all these other wise meaningless talks, it is that the country is anxious to know Aurobindo and have him in their midst in this day of supreme trial to lead them and guide them, to inspire their hearts and show them the way. The desire is sincere, it is natural, it is inevitable; for the country loves Aurobindo and Aurobindo loves his country and the longing, the attraction, the call of real love is always genuine, natural and inevitable. Such a call is bound to be fulfilled at the right moment and in the right direction, in the manner decreed by the Mother Herself and not as you or we resolve or as the country determines. The path chosen by human wisdom and the path willed by the Mother do not always agree. Sri Aurobindo's all-consecrated sadhana is to incarnate the Mother's Will. That Will in him with which he has identified himself—let the country read and remember his words:

"As you well know, I am identifying myself with only one kind of work or propaganda as regards India, the endeavour to reconstitute her cultural, social and economic life within larger and freer lines than the past on a spiritual basis"

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"That is Aurobindo's mission, so far as it is yet revealed by the Mother. That is the work given unto us in Bengal.

"Men wonder how the great political leader of yesterday is changed into the new spiritual Man of today. They are not to blame for this astonishment of theirs, poor people, they could never find opportunity to go deep into the soul of their past political Guru and read the heart of his intention. Before the Swadeshi movement began in Bengal and Aurobindo was drawn into the vortex of the national struggle, before even his stay at Boroda as the great educationist and the expected helmsman of that paramount Indian State, even far back in the days of his youth, when still as the young lad yet in his teens, as the brilliant scholar, who scored marks in literature unexampled in the academic history of England since the day of Milton, he was prosecuting his studies in the chilly climate of London, half-fed and half-clothed, subsisting on the scantiest diet of a few crumbs of bread and a cup of tea and a penny-worth slice of saveloy at dawn or at nightfall, left by a rich and noble, yet self-forgetful father under the shelter of a kind-hearted English host, a friend of his father, in a far-off foreign land—Aurobindo had felt a cry, a voice, a call in his heart of heart coming from somewhere he knew not whence nor what all it meant for his life and soul in that distant immaturity of youth—yet though dim, though mystic, though inscrutable, that call was always irresistible to him and it had compelled him in the morning of his early life to withdraw willfully from the Civil Service Examination, when he absented himself from the last day's riding test to the mighty wonder and sorrow of his high-minded guardian and all the host of his expectant relatives, who have been legitimately with buoyant hope dreaming of a highly prosperous prospective official career for him. At a later stage, it was the same Secret Power that had whispered in half-audible, half-intelligible language an unknown message of inspiration, which made him leave at an instant his calling worth Rs. 700/- per month and dragged him into the public field—it was the same that tried to express and articulate itself out through him when he was brought to man the National Education Movement and then to conduct the Bandemataram journal in Calcutta—organs and instruments seized by Force wprk-inginhim for the purpose of the education and enlightenment—

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first of the youths of his land and then of his countrymen in general, but which failed as it was destined to fail, for he had not yet completely seen and realised what he felt half-consciously or rather half intuitionally in him and by what he was moved about from experiment to experiment, till he was driven into a final baptism of fire, when in the silent secrecy of his hallowed jail-life, blessed by the divine touch of his hidden Lord and Master, Sri Krishna, he was visited with a new revelation and received a new sadhana and he could pounce upon the heart of the infinite mystery, which is at the back of the new awakening of New India and New Asia.

"Then as the days rolled on, the touch grew deeper, the call clearer. Sri Aurobindo, as he came out of the ordeal, preached the new word to the nation—the word which is the true and real word of the nation itself, but lies deep down at its heart, still hidden and unexplored—for in the passion and agitation of the passing hour, it is unable to catch its own hidden mantra and sells itself up to a call of distraction. The eyes, hovering over the troubled surface of the sea of national self-existence, are barred from a deeper vision of itself and in the midst of a misty atmosphere of sattwic egoism, are misled from blind-driven disaster to disaster. Bengal in 1910 was passing through such a dark age— the people in agony, the government in anger were too agitated, too self-blind to hearken unto the new message or understand the new call, which spoke through Aurobindo. Then, as we have told once before in these columns on another occasion, Aurobindo was made to leave his dear land of work, for a greater tapasya, for a mightier siddhi on behalf of his nation and mankind.

"We are pledged to the country to reveal Sri Aurobindo to his people, as his lowliest of the lowly channel of expression. But for which Aurobindo? We, ourselves know definitely, certainly, unmistakably only one Aurobindo, the Aurobindo of unbroken spiritual career, the Aurobindo, who in his soul of soul, (through whatever exterior expression of work or outward direction, circumstances and the needs of the time and the will of the Mother might have sped its movement and variegated its formation with diverse tone and complexion)—has all along borne a mighty spiritual message for his country and humanity, which he has always attempted to deliver with consummate strength and clarity and which now in his ripe maturity of spiritual experience and

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Kali.

Kali.

K.

17th April 1914

K.

K. Amrita.

Pondicherry

Sept. 2. 1920

Pondicherry

Nov. 11. 1920