At the Feet of the Master

The Journey Starts

When I went to stay with the Master for the third time he asked me to stay with him for a year. Had I not read in books about the wonderful powers exercised by great saints and Yogis over their disciples by according to them mysterious experiences and powers in a short time? So, I believed innocently that a year’s stay with a mighty Yogi like Sri Aurobindo, the Divine Master, would bring all blessings and powers to me and change me completely. Little did I know then about the magnitude and complexities of the Integral Yoga propounded and practised by Sri Aurobindo.

The Divine Master was ready to impart his experiences and pour his light and power into the disciple. But should not the disciple’s “adhar”, receptacle, be pure and ready and able to hold the divine contents? An unbaked vessel would only break and spill the divine nectar.

Sri Aurobindo did not impart instructions or give initiation through a mantra or a set code of spiritual practices, such as doing japa or pranayama or bhajan, or other methods of concentration or meditation. No rules were laid to be followed, and no philosophy or religion to be accepted or studied. There was therefore full freedom for a sadhaka to pursue any method or all methods congenial to his or her nature. The Divine Master's experiences in the shape of philosophy were to be found in his immortal writings in the Arya for our theoretical and practical guidance. His divine personality was before the sadhaka like a full-blown lotus, radiating peace, power, light and bliss to draw from. The only practical rule of sadhana was to surrender one’s entire being to the Divine and invoke the Divine Shakti to purify and lighten up the being and transform the same from top to toe by ardent and sincere aspiration, rejecting all lower suggestions. “All Life is Yoga,” declared the Master. These are very simple rules, indeed; but when we enter the path, all the difficulties of the nature appear, and the Divine cows representing Light, have to be rescued from the tenebrous caverns in us where they are imprisoned, and thereafter we must yoke the Divine horses representing Power to our chariot, win the battle against the Dasyus, representing evil forces, and drink the ambrosial Soma juice after great labour and victory, at the completion of the sacrifice (Yoga-Yajna).

The Sadhana chalked out by Sri Aurobindo consists of an ascent to the highest plane of consciousness and a descent from there with the superconscient Light, power and Ananda, to the conscient, subconscient and inconscient lower levels of mind, life and body, to effect a change of the lower being. It is a very hard endeavour and only rare souls can achieve the complete victory of the supramentalisation of the whole being as envisaged by the Divine Master. The plan was there before me and it bad to be worked out patiently in all its details. The task seemed to be tremendous when I thought of it carefully. But, having made a choice, there was no going back. I decided to give it a trial.

I was at first put up in the same hotel which accommodated me when I first visited Pondicherry. The atmosphere there was not congenial for sadhana. So, I was spending my time outside the hotel, for a long time on the pier at the sea in the mornings and evenings, and going to the hotel only for meals. I did not mind the mosquito trouble and the dirty smell emanating from the drains, during night-time at the hotel. I had no funds to rent a room and so I got on leading a Puritan life; when the Master was having only a dhoti on, and leading a frugal life, why should I not follow his august example? I felt that he was guiding my steps. Looking back, I see that what I wanted earnestly, I got. I wanted the necessary books and I got them. I wanted to meet the Guru and I met him miraculously. And so why should I complain? With such an attitude, I felt happy.

Days passed. I made acquaintance with a Tamil friend, who volunteered to give me a room in an old unoccupied house of his. It was welcome and so I shifted to that room, continuing hotel meals, which I got for Rs. 10/- a month. After a couple of months, I started cooking food, taking but one meal a day at about noon time. I had two pairs of dhoties to see me through and I never used the two shirts which I had at the time. An ordinary mat served as my bed. My sadhana at this time consisted mostly of long walks on the beach and on the seashore pier and meditation in my room. Sri Aurobindo was meditating while walking in his room and verandah for more than six hours a day, and we disciples began to follow his example.

At this time and later on also, I used to see a flood of visitors visiting the house of the Master praying for his darshan, but many were not given the chance, as they were mostly politicians. Sri Aurobindo saw only genuine aspirants for Yoga, and politics was excluded from his abode. My class-mate and friend, Sri P. V. Krishnarao from Kakinada, after taking his B.A. degree came to see the Master and wanted to stay with me and I obliged him. Later on, one Tamilian, Sri P. S. Ramachandran, the son of a Tanjore lawyer who had discontinued his B.A. Hons. studies, saw the Master and afterwards came to stay with me. His father came to snatch away Ramachandran, but the latter would not go and I pacified the lawyer telling him that his son was not compelled to remain with Sri Aurobindo, and that he would remain for some time with the Master and then join him. But the father was not satisfied and he began to criticise the Master, saying that he was keeping his son against parental authority. His criticism was unfounded and he had to go away. Then came Krishnarao’s widowed mother and pleaded with me to dissuade her son from staying with the Master, as she was helpless and poor and wanted her son to go with her and earn a living and marry. Krishnarao would not go and decided to remain for a year. At last we induced her to go away, holding out hopes of her son’s return home after a year. Myself, Krishnarao and Ramachandran lived together and cooked our food by turns in the old house of our Tamil friend for some time.

By now, I became sufficiently acquainted with Sri Vindhyeshwari Prasad Varma, afterwards known as Satyendranath Varma of Bihar, who was residing in one of the downstairs rooms of the Master’s house, 41 Rue François Martin. So, I spent long hours with him in studies and meditation. He was straightforward and warmhearted, though a little quick tempered. Possessed of a keen intellect, he was a linguist and an ardent soul with critical faculties. He offered to accommodate me in his room and so I shifted to his room, and from then I began to live under the direct shadow of the Guru. My friends shifted to another small house rented by some Bengali visitors, as a portion of it was vacant. Later on, this house was rented by Sri Aurobindo, and was used by guests who visited him now and then. As cooking meals became inconvenient to us, it was arranged that we could take meals in the rented house along with others there after paying Rs. 10/- each per month. As Krishnarao could not pay even this, he was a free boarder. As I had some money still out of the amount given to me by my father-in-law, I consented to pay Rs. 10/- per month. The Master had given me free lodgings.

In those days, we used to sit around the Master in chairs during the evening meditation time which lasted for about half an hour from 4.30 p.m. after initial talks on varied topics and things and events, from 4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. The disciples and visitors who were allowed for the talks discussed everything on all kinds of subjects and indulged in frank criticism and Sri Aurobindo freely cracked jokes with a hearty laugh. He was jubilant when he chatted with persons round him, having a delightful smoke which lasted till the commencement of meditation. Smoking was not considered to be offensive nor an obstacle to Yogic practices, as it was a physical habit. I was the only non-smoker in the group of disciples. As some persons contracted this habit after coming there and seeing the Master smoke, he later on gave it up to the dismay of all who were victims to it. It is easy to get into a habit

but difficult to give it up and it is impertinent to imitate great souls who could give up anything at will. So, my friends who took to smoking left off the habit after some difficulty.

With regard to food also, no definite rules were laid down. Bengalis were generally fish-eaters, and nonvegetarians. Vegetarian and non-vegetarian food was served to suit the tastes of Bengalis, Tamilians and Andhras at that time. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother insisted on taking food that nourishes the body, observing moderation, and sattwic food was preferred. But there was a strong criticism regarding food and smoking in the Ashram, and so after the Ashram was regularised, cosmopolitan vegetarian food became the rule and smoking was completely banned, in the interests of all. Sri Aurobindo was tasting all kinds of food taking the rasa in it with equanimity (samata). For those who are engrossed in spiritual sadhana, the attachment to the palate becomes unimportant.

At this time, in the Master’s house, there were in the downstairs rooms, Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta, Amrita, V. P. Varma, Sureshchandra Chakravarty (Moni) and Bijoy Kumar Nag⁹. In the first floor rooms were the Mother and Miss Hodgson¹⁰ (Datta), an English lady. Miss Hodgson was supervising the kitchen and serving tea in the morning and evening to the inmates. Sri Durgadas¹¹, a Bengali devotee was coming from Bengal for short stays. There was no regular Ashram at the time and everyone was free to do what he liked. Though there were no outer restraints, everybody felt the Master’s presence and force working in him and guiding them all whatever their outer activities. The Master insisted on the observance of Brahmacharya very strictly.

We used to spend our time in meditation in our rooms, and reading books on literature, philosophy and art and various journals, and contributing articles to journals. Nolini was a good football player and he used to go with Moni and Bijoy to play the game. I was going out for walks with Varma or other friends and sometimes alone. Mother was having meditation separately with Sri Aurobindo and it was said that she used to go into trance for long hours. Time did not hang heavy upon me and I felt as if transported into a higher world, always feeling happy, with an ever-present inner delight. I forgot completely everything about my friends and relatives in the outer world, and everything in the world appeared as play. For some months, I felt strongly about the illusory nature of the world, where human beings, animals and plants seemed to act like automatons moved by a Mysterious Power, and Sankara’s dictum that the world is an illusion and Brahman alone is true (brahma satyam, jaganmithya) seemed to be valid. The soul felt as if it was unaffected by what passed on in the world and by the dualities that affected living creatures and landed them in pain and sorrow and death. I wished to be in this happy state for ever and I thought that I had reached the goal. But what an illusion!

Sri Barindra Kumar Ghose, the younger brother of Sri Aurobindo, was a great revolutionary who was sentenced to transportation for life in the Alipore Bomb case in 1908 along with others and he went to serve his sentence in the Andamans. After the termination of the First World War, as a result of the royal amnesty, he was released in 1919 along with Upendranath Banerji, Hrishikesh Kanjilal¹² and others. So these three persons came to stay with Sri Aurobindo in 1921. Barindra lived in one of the ground floor rooms in the Master’s house and Upen and Hrishikesh lived in the rented guest house. Both Barindra and Upendra were great humorists, talented journalists and story writers like Moni. Barindra was a tall person, fair in complexion, with a broad forehead and big moustache, and a little bent, evidently as a result of the physical and mental troubles he underwent in the stormy revolutionary days and after. He was calm in demeanour and did not appear to be the fiery revolutionary he was depicted to be. He and Upendra did not like the Gandhian methods of approach to Swaraj, and wanted Sri Aurobindo to come out and lead the country once again to attain freedom. After Tilak’s death, Mahatma Gandhi sent his son Devadas Gandhi requesting Sri Aurobindo to lead the country, but the request was refused. Sri Aurobindo told Devadas and others that “the freedom of India is as sure as the rising of the sun tomorrow” and his future work would be on a different spiritual foundation and level.

Barindra was an active worker and so he wanted to organise spiritual centres like the “Prabartak Sangha” that was started by Motilal Roy¹³ in Chandernagore. But the Prabartak Sangha though originally inspired by the Master strayed away from his ideals and was getting into troubled waters. Sri Aurobindo was of the view that the Deva Sanghas, divine centres, could not function without proper men and the men must first be built up and so he was not in a hurry about the work.

Barindra was of a sociable temper and used to talk to me and take me along with him for his morning walks, though I was by nature reserved. Nolini was reserved by temperament, but a deep thinker and scholar he was. Moni and Bijoy were good conversationalists, the latter being often boisterous also. Amrita was a devout soul who had utterly dedicated himself to the Master’s work. Sri Aurobindo’s way of knowing persons was done on an inner sign, and knowledge by identity was the rare method adopted by him to know everything. He never bothered himself to ask persons about their antecedents, parentage, qualifications and other such things. He saw the persons or their photos and knew everything about them. He could also will and get knowledge of persons and things and happenings. Such was the way of knowledge adopted by the seers of old. I respected the persons in the Master’s house as they were all elders to me in age and experience and were in touch with the Guru for a very long time.

Barindra was narrating to me about the terrible ordeals he and others underwent during the revolutionary days in our morning walks. We used to gather flowers and Barindra kept them in a

flower vase on the Master’s table. In those days the disciples did not observe the formality of saluting the Master or making pranams to him daily at the meditation time or in the mornings when they happened to see him. They sat in the chairs before the Master and even smoked. But Sri Aurobindo never took exception to this or any other failings and treated everyone as an equal and enjoyed the company of all kinds of persons. Unfortunately, we were blissfully ignorant of the heights and depths and width of his vast spiritual consciousness which could discern everything so calmly and coolly and remained unaffected like the vast unmoving ocean. Arjuna could not understand the might of the Avatar, till Sri Krishna showed his cosmic being to him in divine vision and so were we unable to comprehend the ways of the Master. He once remarked that we were like cats in his view. One can understand the state of supramental consciousness in which he was stationed, when he said so.

Upendranath Banerji had the highest regard for the Master, but he was a rationalist and political revolutionary and an unbeliever in supernatural or superconscious phenomena. He often joked and made fun of Supermind and its descent and was sceptical about the dawn of the Era as visioned by the Master. When once I told him of the visions seen by me with eyes open and closed, he pooh-poohed me and since then I ceased to talk to him about them. He attended the evening sittings before the Master only to talk about politics and somehow convert Sri Aurobindo to his views and lead him into the political arena. But the Master was too astute and elusive a personality to be hoodwinked by such persons. All the same, the Master had a soft corner in his heart for everyone, and condescended to come down to our level and be compassionate to all that came into contact with him. Such was his magnanimity.

As if to convince Upendranath and others of his way of thinking, there occurred in the Master’s house the occult phenomena of stone-throwing, in the mid-winter of 1921, to which I and others living at the time in Sri Aurobindo’s house were direct witnesses. Stones began to fall daily at the fall of dusk and continued for some days with increased violence. The duration and size of stones increased from day to day. The stones covered with moss began to fall in the verandah before our room, in the kitchen and everywhere, downstairs in the closed room where I and V. P. Varma were put up. The stones fell on our table also. The C.I.D. of Police in those days were watching the movements of the inmates and keeping watch over the Master’s house as the British feared the Master though he had left off politics. The French police were sent for and along with them some C.I.D. also came and saw the occurrence and when one of the constables “got a stone whizzing unaccountably between his two legs,” the police went away saying that it was not a man-made affair. The attack was mostly before and in Bijoy’s room where the servant-boy was sheltered and it seemed that the boy was the medium and centre of attack. The servant, who was a semi-idiot boy, got hurt by the stone attacks. And Sri Aurobindo was called by Bijoy to his room. In the Master’s presence, another stone fell before the boy who was in the room. Mother was a great occultist and she studied the process along with the Master and they concluded that it was black magic, and ordered the removal of the boy to the rented house where Hrishikesh and others were staying. Then the whole phenomenon stopped when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother hurled back the force on the black magician. When the dismissed cook Vittal’s wife came and prayed for the Master’s mercy, as her husband was in a dangerous condition, on account of his black magic performance, Sri Aurobindo forgave him, and the cook recovered after that, his life spared by the generosity of the Master.

I had no doubts about such phenomena as such things were practised by black magic experts in our Andhra districts in villages due to local feuds in order to destroy each other. I had also read about such phenomena in Tantrik works and in the books of Sir John Woodroffe. My belief in these phenomena was confirmed when I witnessed this occurrence. After this event, all of us began to

develop greater faith in the Divine and the sadhana became more intense. I was eager to advance quickly and thought that by fasting I could remove some of the defects in my nature and move rapidly. So, I undertook a fast without even taking the advice of the Master. After I fasted for seven days, Barindra came and asked me to stop the fast, as the Master wanted me to break it, saying that it was unnecessary and unhelpful in Integral Yoga. I obeyed the direction of the Guru, Barindra on the eighth morning served bread and tea to me kindly and I thanked him and gave up the fast. Later on, when I met the Master, he told me that moderation in food and sleep were essential in Yoga, and vital impulses have to be transformed by change of consciousness and fasting may not be helpful to cure such defects.

My friend Krishnarao, a philosophy graduate, was suffering from bronchitis when he first came to Pondicherry. On account of the Master’s grace, he got well and he was managing the house where he was living with Upendranath and others. But as he had no grit, the servants were misbehaving and so he wanted to be relieved of his work of management. So, V. P. Varma took charge of the management and shifted to the other house. And I also followed him. I was given a separate apartment in the new house.

After the expiry of a year, I asked the Master whether it was necessary for me to stay longer with him, as I felt that I had gained a settled poise by his grace. He smiled and asked me to stay for another year. I bowed to him in reverential silence and decided to stay on for another year.