Drawn from personal letters and reminiscences, this compilation traces Sunil’s spiritual journey and enduring musical legacy
Satprem wrote to Sunil after hearing the music Devi Sukta:
1963
Sunil
I just listened to Devi Sukta. It is very beautiful, very moving. I want to thank you.
Could you compose many pieces like that for the joy of all? Sri Aurobindo said that the true poetry, the poetic mantra, should survive "…. the descent of the gods into life" — but the music even more! A 'mantric music' if I dare to say, I have felt a bit of that in listening to you. It's like that that I understand and I love your music.
… Again, thank you,
Satprem
*
After hearing the music Sunil had prepared for the 1965 New Year, Satprem wrote:
30.11.64
I was too far withdrawn and moved yesterday evening to speak to you. Mère told me: "Suddenly, the sound comes, which is just the sound that one hears above." It's that. There is nothing more to say, it enters suddenly, clear, clear, so pure, and everything is full. The music has no other meaning, it is the music of the future.
I have written a lot of words, but I have never caught this sound — I would like to write like you do music. Who knows, maybe one day we will do something together.
Sometime ago Mother had given me a very short musical notation of Wanda Landowska that she had found very beautiful, do you know it? It is a notation of a Polish Tzigane. There is also there something very pure. I send it to you in case you have not heard it (I have recorded it repeatedly several times). You will give me back the tape because I don't have another one.
… Thank you Sunil, your music makes life more real.
An appreciation of Stockhausen's music by Satprem, along with his response to Sunil's 1972 New Year Music:
4.2.72
Dear Sunil,
You are certainly better qualified than me to give your opinion on Stockhausen's music. I am curious to know what you think about it.
For me, I have listened to this music, or this sound, rather, and I have felt the enormous mental effort to burst his mechanism — we feel easily, we see nearly all the parts of the mental clock which bursts and scatters through space.
But it is still the mental which plays as if all is destruction and enjoys itself never more than when it pretends to negate itself. He is too preoccupied with himself and too preoccupied to break his own limitations to really arrive at the unlimited — there is not at all some limitlessness in it. There is only limitation which would like to pull back till the end of space. And finally it is still the human ego which insulates itself, which blows itself up till it bursts its belly without ever being really able to explode, because the explosion does not happen through contortion, but through the forgetting and offering of oneself.
Stockhausen makes me think in terms of music of what the first cubists were doing in painting when they wanted to make the visual mental mechanism burst and succeeded only in putting aside pieces of torture and dismembered faces — a grimace was left. The sound of Stockhausen looks like a formidable spiritual grimace and we hear wandering around far away the steps of Frankenstein, rather than the cascade of divine laughter among 'the illuminated continent of violet peace, and a country without sorrow under the purple sun.'
Finally, it matters little from where the music of Stockhausen comes; what is important is that he thinks that it comes from Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo puts up very well with everybody impartially and he knows how to insert his humour everywhere — who knows, maybe he will finish by actually putting the Illimitable in Stockhausen's head if he is a bit sincere. As always, there is too much head and not enough heart.
Let me take this occasion to tell you that your music of the first of January was really sublime and divine — there, yes, one melts, one disappears in the illimitable. Thank you.
Sunil passes on Satprem's letter and his own response to a friend in France:
13.2.72
My dear Pierre,
I received your letter and the catalogue which you sent for me in care of Gilbert. I also received the tape on which you recorded the music "Illimite" by Stockhausen. I heard this music as soon as I received the tape, but I was waiting to have the comments of Satprem before writing to you — hence this delay, for which I hope you will excuse me. I am enclosing herewith the letter I received from Satprem and I add that I felt exactly the same sentiments when I heard this music for the first time.
Satprem has asked me to tell you that he does not want this letter to be made public. You can show it, if you want, to your very close friends, but in any case it should not reach the hands of persons who are likely to bring this letter or the contents of this letter to the notice of Stockhausen. He should not be hurt unnecessarily. The important thing is that Stockhausen thinks of Sri Aurobindo and respects him, and we should not do anything to interfere with whatever is going on within him at the moment.
Sending you my affection, Sunil
On Satprem and the Inner Brotherhood
During the period of tension following the Mother's passing, Sunil writes to a friend on Satprem in 1976:
Satprem held that the "Bulletin" had served its purpose and he had the feeling that its publication could now be discontinued; the Trustees of the Ashram were not convinced and they felt it their duty to continue its publication. It was only a difference of opinion and naturally under the present circumstances, the Trustees' opinion prevailed. Some strong letters were exchanged, but, finally, all became quiet and I perceive now no ill-feelings anywhere.
Satprem, Counouma, Dyuman, Madanlal, Shyamsundar, Navajat, Mona, are all our brothers and they keep in their heart the same ideal, the same goal of our lives. Until and unless they start hewing at the branch on which they sit, their unique refuge, everything should be safe and sound. When I say "refuge" what I have in mind is the awareness of Her Will at work in and around our lives here, there and elsewhere. And I am certain that, under all circumstances, Her will shall prevail. Grief at Her loss does serve no useful purpose, but a yearning has its own magic, it can render into gold the ties that bind you to your beloved.
Do not worry about Satprem. He is our brother and he is a wise man. He chose the Divine, and, surely, the Divine will choose for him his path. Have faith in Her and trust that Her Will will know how to execute what She wants.
Later, Sunil returns to the theme:
Satprem had privileges which few amongst us had. His service to Her and to Sri Aurobindo's mission on the earth is real and exemplary. His is the face of a child free, happy and intense in communion with his mother. I have the greatest respect for him, and I am sure all of us are happy to have him here with us.
Regarding Satprem, it is hard to know what to say without being liable to be misunderstood in some way or other.
Rijuta wrote to Sunil when she heard his "Shakti" music:
30.11.65
I resisted writing for a moment, but am spilling over with a grateful gladness for this latest wealth of music you've given us — Sunil, I was horrified to learn that you had been reluctant to produce this last score… how can you dare to limit your composition when it is so important an agent in Mother's Work, present and future?!
For myself, I know that the effect of Her Force and its result has very often been multiplied many degrees because your music has opened me to a wide receptivity instead of a narrow slot, or else shot me off into intense aspiration when I was caught in a lifeless doldrum — not to mention the sheer joy in itself that surges up apart from sadhana-benefits and which returns again and again all during the year when I play this Magic stuff. The thrill is always there — always fresh and new and powerful!
With most fervent appreciation, Rijuta
Rijuta writes again about what she calls the "Maheshwari" music, referring to the 1965 Shakti dance drama:
2.4.67
Dear-to-us-Sunil,
A half-dozen times I've resisted the temptation to make this suggestion, but now I give in — Sunil, really it is a shame that Mother has not been able to listen to your 'Maheshwari' music — just because a few bits and pieces could be improved here and there is no reason to deprive Mother of enjoying this truly lovely composition! Can't you salvage it by incorporating it somewhere in Savitri? Sit down today and listen to it again and find a way to use it, letting Mother enjoy it!
Cheers — R
3 November 1967
Oh Sunil,
how good it is to participate in your fête today, not so much with Birthday Wishes but rather with an intense Invocation …. your progress is going to be reverberating so strongly in the rest of us! Bonne Fête, indeed!
-Rijuta
On the 1968 New Year Music:
28.12.67
O Sunil —
"(Red-letter day)"
if it's true that Response comes in direct proportion to the Call, then 1968 is surely a year of towering fulfilment! The poignancy of the yearning in this music has truly torn me into ribbons…
Rijuta
Rijuta writes on the 1987 New Year Music:
26.1.87
The 1987 New Year Music has come. How lucky you are, Sunil, to be able to bring into this scarred, ugly, aching planet this redemptive Action! You give us the means to savour now the Real, the True, the Beautiful.
In happiest appreciation, Rijuta
Sunil responds:
1987
Dear Rijuta,
A letter from you always takes me by surprise and it is, always, with a quivering in my heart I realize that you are no longer there in that corner near Golconde. Remembering your face brings me back the beautiful images of our Ashram days in the forties, fifties, sixties… as if like a presence they owed in our memory. The contours of those days in lines and colour have not faded nor have they lost their substance. Something was there which lived with us, grew in us, continues to remain and even appears to expand. I believe it is indelible because it was a design painted by Their hands. Around a Light your life has always moved. May this Light continue to sustain all that is pure and fair in you!
I have mailed to you two cassettes with Savitri Bk VI C2, BK VII C1 & 2. The rest of the cassettes will be mailed to you later on as soon as possible. Thank you for your solicitude which comes from an intimacy grown over the years. I am in fairly good health now. The work that She gave to me has become for me a cross to bear and carry on. I pray to Her to give me the strength to do that with a happy heart.
Sending my affectionate thoughts to you, Yours Sunil
Rijuta responds:
6.5.87
One line at the end of your letter — which I read before the music came — had me howling 'Oh No!' loudly enough to shake the beams of your studio and set me worrying about what the music would be. Needless worry. There are those passages in this BK 7 music that, as always, arouse in the listener those poignant yearnings that are simultaneously and magically provided with the Force that satisfies those longings before the notes fade. Since your music both stirs and fulfils us in this way, you, while composing must have yourself felt all this, so how in heaven's name, can you dare to write that this great opportunity 'She has given you has become a cross for you to bear!'… You must be referring to the recording process or other material difficulties — but do put things in perspective! The Divine's nightingale contributes her surpassingly lovely part, and I hope all eye problems and infection are past history.
I'm convinced that each one who maintains the inner contact with Mother is given the place and conditions that best foster self-giving.
With love, Rijuta
24.3.88
Dear Sunil and Patrick,
Your cassette has come, Patrick, and I happily count on your kind offer to send me all future music. You take for granted 'future creations', Patrick, but for me, there is a sense of wonder every time a new composition emerges — Sunil, how do you manage to keep on distilling these heavenly strains that continuously work on the development of our being!?
Yet my delight and applause is only for side two. Side one I found to be a thicket of sound effects — sound effects uncannily suggestive of the harrowing scenes of the poem, but to get at the few nuggets of real music on that side, the prolonged punishment of the sound effects don't warrant repeated listening. I will stick to side two only.
The Mother's lavish Grace in providing for all, all one's needs here on every level — especially the need to grow — has to be lived to be believed.
With a happy heart, and wishing you the same, Rijuta
After the Mother's Passing
To Rijuta, who has moved back to the United States:
Only when a letter comes from you I feel with a little quivering in my heart that you are no longer living in that corner near Golconde. Remembering your face brings me back the beautiful images of our Ashram days in the forties, the fifties, the sixties, a magic presence that now dwells in our memory. The contours of those days in lines and colours have not faded nor have they lost their substance. Something lived with us and in us continues to live and grow. It was a design painted by Their hands. Around a Light your life has moved through expanding years. May you remain always turned towards Their Luminescence, may you receive all that is fair and beautiful.
Yours Sunil
Gambelon — Sunil's long-time friend and indispensable benefactor — wrote about Sunil's music with uncommon spiritual discernment. Their correspondence spans decades and touches on art, inner life, and the nature of spiritual work.
On Music, Emotion, and the Divine
Sunil writes to Gambelon, astonished that someone could say his Savitri music lacked emotion:
At last a quiet is settling down around me — a grey comforting shadow but — within me the stillness is yet to come. The insane relish of work is gone, the allegretto agitato of strings have died down but I can however hear muffled base chords resounding like heavy footfalls of strangers along the corridors of my mind. Yet deep within me there is a still pool which sends back the image of a light that is burning somewhere.
You knew my dear friend that my Savitri was a failure as far as public appreciation was concerned, compliments were few and far between and even then … above me. A gentleman came to congratulate me on my Savitri — He said what he liked in my music is the total absence of emotion. Oh God! What a compliment! Is that how the people feel about my music? If these musics fail to stir their senses, do not move something within them, and bring even an infinitesimal fraction of what I felt when I wrote them? Emotion if it grows to the Divine, does it look like intellect and abstraction? Yet there are men who search God and Light and they do not know Love when they see it or, in other words, do you realize the Divine without love? What I fail to understand is that my Savitri when it is most inspired is also the most emotional of my musics I have ever written. "Mortality bears ill the Eternal's Truth."
So I ponder lying on my armchair and reviewing in endless procession the events of my recent past. At any rate now I am fair and fresh — waiting and counting my days before the bell for that next bout of composition rings.
Gambelon on the wider significance of Sunil's work:
Le Mans, 10.9.71
Our time is one of humanity's spiritual synthesis. Religions, orthodoxies, dogmas, exclusiveness and prohibition are as many obstacles to human unity and spiritual harmony. Your modest work goes in the direction of this universal spirituality — beyond religions; you may not be aware of it, but it does not matter, it is a fact.
Sincerely, Gambelon
PS - Those who aspire to the Divine can come closer to themselves in your music of aspiration.
Le Mans, 16 November 1971
For the music of your recording I have been very surprised. First it is from a more beautiful inspiration than ever, rich with completely new sounds with so many things that I will have to listen to it several times to assimilate. The recording and the technical realization are the best that you have ever done; very good sound quality, voices, linings, superimpositions etc.
I am happy that Mother approved, but how could she not? It is a music from a world of light and truth.
Your two meetings with Mother are very interesting as always. I am sure that this music answers better even what she wants spiritually than her own music. I don't know if one can say that this music is the work of a genius, I think we should say that it is the work of a medium from the supramental world.
What we have called geniuses were often people who had a higher inspiration than the average consciousness, but it was not coming from the supramental plane, but from the actual consciousness. Anyway, don't have either an inferiority complex or a superiority complex. For you, you must stay and move always more in the intimacy of divine and luminous things that the Divine has allowed you for the good of everybody.
Gambelon
On Their Different Natures
May 1971
I am very interested by the end of your letter from the 6.5, because the problems of the vital transformation and consequently of the life interest me more than anything. Your way to approach things is full of common sense and simplicity. I like it a lot. You are more conscious than I thought. No doubt things do not present themselves in you so acutely as in me, and you have surely a routine of inner life calmer and surely happier.
There was in my nature a tendency towards an absolute in all. I have known anguishes, distresses, extremes, shadows, but also extraordinary moments of joy, even beatitude, divine love. It seems that one has to touch the bottom of human abysses to know the divine ecstasies. You say that everything presented and arranged itself as if by chance.
It's all the contrary for me. I was waiting for Sri Aurobindo's knowledge since the age of 10, 11 years old and when I did meet him, after reaching 20 years, I knew with certitude that there was all I was waiting for, all that I needed. And on the level of knowledge Sri Aurobindo has fulfilled me and has not brought the least disappointment. But the knowledge is one thing and the transformation of the vital nature another.
Sincerely yours, Gambelon
Near the end of his life, Gambelon writes his most concentrated appreciation:
17.3.95
Concerning your music, I was telling you that it was magnificent — music of the soul for the soul — music of psychisation — a prolongation of the action of the Mother down here — a sonorous darshan.
Clifford Gibson corresponded with Sunil over more than two decades.
The path of Sadhana
Sunil writes to a friend in the U.S. who he feels is taking an unnecessarily pessimistic view of what it means to do yoga:
March 27, 1972
My dear Cliff,
From your letter what I could gather is that all was empty within you except the lone difficulty. This is all wrong. Yoga is not simply the mastery of one’s self, a life of rigid self-discipline and a continuous fight against one’s weaknesses. Yoga is a new enlightenment, a new life in the Divine. There is a help within your reach, you should call for it; there is a power around you, be open to it and turn it into your own strength. It is only in happy harmonious happiness that you can grow richer every day. For a change, I would advise you not to accord too much importance to your difficulties, to look beyond these bodiless walls and call for joy from diviner heights. Consider yourself as the Mother’s spoilt child and aspire for Her sweetness, Her delight, and Her love.
It has always been a pleasure to receive letters from you, and I assure you that it will be my privilege to be of any service to you in future.
Sending you my warm regards, Yours, Sunil Bhattacharya
Again on taking a more positive approach to life and yoga:
May 20, 1972
I received your letter a few days ago, but I am sorry that I could not manage to send you a reply earlier than this. I am very happy to receive the coloured photograph that you have sent with your letter. But it was not very much of a surprise to me as your face seemed to fit very neatly into the image that I had formed of you in my mind. I am glad to see Lucille. Please say hello to her and tell her something nice on my behalf. Does she know me? Quite obviously, I have no comments to make on your relationship with her. Friendship and comradeship are all permissible in yoga if they remain subordinate to one absorbing passion, namely the realization of the Divine.
Each one of us has erred in someway or other. The essence of living in happiness is to look forward and forget the past, and to grow within into the beautiful and felicitous Presence of the Mother, which alone can give a purpose and meaning to our life. Try not to bear your own cross, leave it to Her to do the needful. Here are a few lines from the Rig Veda which I had used in my “New Year Music — 1970.” You may like it. “State upon state is born, covering upon covering has become conscious and aware, in the lap of the mother he sees. Awaking to an entire knowledge they have called and guard a sleepless strength, they have entered the strong fortified city.”
Sending my love to you, Yours, Sunil
In the next letter Sunil disavows any claim to superior status as a yogi and suggests looking to the one source of help available to all:
10.10.72
I am not sure of my ability to offer you any advices. It appears from your letter that you have an illusion of seeing a yogi of an advanced sort in me who could solve your problems with bursts of illuminations. No, Sir, I am very sorry to disillusion you, but this should be in the records that I have never aspired to any such powers. We are all in the same boat and we have, all of us, the same privilege to look up to something which would make our lives more meaningful. Maybe I am a little more experienced than you are because I am older; that’s all.
One thing I have realized in my 30 years of stay here in this Ashram is that mental answers to the questions in our minds are not very relevant to our life of spiritual progress. If you have a really important question, put it to your inner self or to the image of whatever you conceive as your Divine. The answer will be given to you in the proper time, in a very, very intelligible form, and help, too, if you are in need of it. Without the intervention of this Grace our sadhana cannot make a step forward. Words which can help you must be spoken to your innermost being. Peace is not just a state of mind, it is a force, an emanation from the Divine. We can have it if we call for it and are open to receive it. I write my musics when I compose them, though we do not follow them very strictly while recording. I am glad that you play on the recorder. Creativity is a great help under any circumstances. In sadhana, it is always encouraged here by the Mother.
I sincerely hope that you receive the guidance you are looking for from within you.
Sending you my love and warm regards, Yours, Sunil
The Birthday Without Her
Pondicherry — 3.11.73
It is so nice of you to have sent so many things for me; the card is beautiful, your music cassette has some wonderful musics in it and your good wishes and your appreciation of my music is, to say the least, heartening. For us, here, the birthday was always a very special day, the day when She used to come close to us as a physical mother comes to her child. On this day you were very special to Her, you were not in a crowd trying to get Her touch or Her Darshan, She gave Herself exclusively to you and you were happy to find how much your welfare meant to Her.
So, this year there will be an emptiness around me on my birthday at least physically. But Her Presence is there always within me and there She is exclusively mine.
Sending you my love. Sunil
Turning Westward
3. 6. 83
Even though I seldom write to you, you are very often in my thoughts. With you, I have felt a close kinship that does not disappear with time. There should be a meaning in whatever we do. But, it is difficult to read it. I am now sixty-three, and I have turned westwards. When I look back on the long trail behind me, these are the little things, trivial moments that stand out.
Cliff wrote to ask what he meant. Sunil replies:
22. 7. 83
When I used the word "westward" I did not mean that I have any intention to move out of Pondicherry. I used the word in a figurative way. I am, now, an old man of sixty-three, and my life is definitely tilting towards the inevitable horizon. However, inside me, I am still young. I feel myself more at home with young people. Even if the zest of my boyhood days, the gladness of my youth are receding, I do not feel empty of joy or of happiness. I admire young people like you who face with courage the harshnesses of our human life, and, yet are looking for some other values which they cherish in their heart.
A Memory Seen From Far
6. 1. 84
The memory of those few days, when you were here, has become distant and dim with time. I have a vague remembrance of a conversation that we did have in my room, but the substance of it has slipped off my mind. What I remember, still, is your face with two shining eyes, the candour with which you spoke to me about yourself, and the courage with which you wanted to cherish your lonely freedom.
However, what I spoke to you is not so important, as I have perceived that I very rarely succeed in expressing precisely what I want to convey. What is more important is the impression that these words create in the listener, the residual effect that lives; what I gather from your letter is what you understood and that remains, more or less, my view of things even though ten long years have passed with ten long, hot and very hot summers of Pondy.
Affection Across Distance
5. 11. 85
Dear Cliff,
Something within you has deepened, widened and yet you have remained the same. My affection for you is not something which formed with time. I knew of it since the moment I saw you. I don't know, even, from where it came. Your affection for me is something I value as a priceless gift. It is nice to look back upon these few days that you were with us here. We will meet each other again soon.
I have finished this year's Savitri on the 30th of October.
Morning Gladness
June 7, 1994
On the 5th of June, evening, I finished the new Savitri. It will take a few days' time to start recording it on to cassettes. I will send you one, of course.
Today is the 7th and I have at last found myself playing on my organ truly as I like. I enjoy playing when there are no obligations, no pressure to do something.
Even on such hot days when I wake up in the morning I feel a strange gladness in my heart. Perhaps when you are old the morning always bring tidings that bring joy to your heart.
I send to you and Akiko my love, and Chhobi, too.
Affectionately yours, Sunil
Agnes wrote to Sunil from France with philosophical questions about suffering, falsehood, and the pain of the world. Sunil's reply is direct, demanding, and unexpectedly revelatory of his own inner landscape.
Pondicherry — 18 February 1974
Dear Agnes,
For obvious reasons my answer to your letter should be in English, and I am sure it will be no problem for you to make sense of what I want to communicate. I do not intend to throw any light on the questions raised by you — this is not within my competence. If I tried I could, at the most, dissect your questions, analyze them, and try to trace their roots which reach far into the deepest folds of our human nature. For me it would be a disagreeable experience.
You don't have to tell me that there is falsehood, and ignorance, and pain and suffering, and hate and violence in this world, not only in Chile, and Vietnam and Pakistan, but everywhere in more or less disguised form. It has happened and could happen here in Pondy again — and why not even in my own room! The seeds of obscurity and evil are being scattered into the winds at every moment. What can you expect from a world where you would rather make everything your own, and leave nothing free? This little "I" within me, within you, and equally within others, likes best when it can feed on others' pain and it has no bounds to its ambition, it wants to swallow the whole world. But, then, is it that you want to say that because there is pain, and suffering, and perversion and darkness, there cannot be any bliss, any delight, any luminosity in the world?
I wonder — at least, it is not for me to wallow in my mud — from my childhood I knew what I really was and yet always I tried to reach for what I could become. I have always felt the One whom I call Divine very close to me. He had come to me in my dreams both waking and in my sleep. He is my friend and my love and I have unshakable trust in Him. He is much more real to me than you are (I do not even remember your face, have only your letter). However, I am miles away from the experience of the One as Absolute or Infinite. If I had, the contraries that you have cited in your letter would cease to be contraries any more to me. They would just be the faces of the same and the unique Reality.
Long ago, when I was just a young boy I was on the verge of an experience of an infinite calm and it is curious that just when it mattered most I felt within me an unreasonable fear of self-destruction. I did neither like the experience nor the fear. This helped me discover my limitations. Infinite existence is not my meat, perhaps it is yours, who can say!
The questions you have raised are vital and have been discussed by Sri Aurobindo in his various works; if I were a reading type, I could give you the names of the books and the pages. As it is, I only vaguely remember that I have read them discussed in some works of his. If you are really interested, please take the trouble to go through his works. With care, I am sure you will be amply repaid in one form or another.
As you have realized by now that my path does not exactly cross yours, I can be of very little service to you in your difficulties. We speak different languages.
Hoping that this letter will find you in excellent health and happiness, Yours, Sunil Bhattacharya
Sunil responds to a note from revered Ashramite Nolini, who had addressed him as "the Mother's musician":
Nolini-da,
You have done proper to write "the Mother's musician."
I really needed to hear this. As the days are passing, both my enthusiasm and interest are diminishing.
Last life I did some good work and therefore became capable of receiving love from elders like you. This will give a lot of joy to this worthless person.
Yours, Sunil
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