The Essence of a Yogi

First 'Darshan' of Sri Aurobindo

1917

In April 1917, I had received an invitation in Madras to deliver a lecture in connection with the Shankara Jayanti celebrations at Pondicherry. There was some hesitation on my part in accepting the invitation, for the organisers of the function were known to be a rather very orthodox set of gentlemen; though my way of life conformed to the usual standards of orthodoxy, I had my own doubts whether my opinions and views which ran counter to the rigidly conservative outlook would be palatable to my hosts. But they pressed their invitation. There was another and a more intimate factor which decided my choice. I had long wanted to see Sri Aurobindo. Here was an opportunity too good to be missed particularly since, as I fondly imagined then, the police would not bother one who goes on such a pious mission as to participate in a religious function like the Shankara Jayanti. Events, however, turned out to be otherwise; police attentions were not wanting, but that is a different story.

I had first heard of Sri Aurobindo under peculiar circumstances. In 1907, Bipin Pal had come down to Madras on his lecture tour and the city was all agog over his thunders on the Marina. Being caught up in the general whirlpool of the raging new spirit, I could not help attending those lectures. And it was after one of these that a friend, who was a college student then and later retired as the Principal of a local college, took me aside and said: "This Pal is a loud speaker; inspired, he orates, true, but he is not the chief leader. There is another man behind the scenes, working at the desk, giving directions. His name is Aurobindo Ghose a saintly man, a Shakti-Upasaka." I got nterested and when in the course of a year another friend returned from Nagpur where he attended a lecture by Sri Aurobindo (after the Surat Congress on his way from Bombay to Calcutta), I lost no time in getting as much information as possible from him. He was all admiration and respect while describing the leader. 'He does not have a loud voice. But when he started speaking slowly in distinctive tones, we all felt a kind of rhythm creeping over the vast concourse and when the lecture was over, we woke up as if from an enchantment,' he said. It is outside the scope of this brief narration to trace the course of my further acquaintance with Sri Aurobindo's activities and writings first political and then the epoch-making Arya, bimonthly.

So then, I decided to take the trip with this main object of visiting Sri Aurobindo. On arrival in Pondicherry, I called at Poet Bharati. He was then living in Iswaran Dharmaraja Kovil Street and when I was announced, his little daughter led me up to the first floor where I found him singing

‘Victory in this life is certain
O Mind, fear there is none.’

Then after a pause he made enquires of one or two friends in Madras. I had met Bharati in Mylapore, the last I saw him was a little before 1907. But what a change! Circumstances had conspired to wreck the physique and handsome and spirited face of the inspired poet, the national poet of Tamilnad; he was shrunken, pale and setting. Suddenly he burst out:

‘In the secret cave, O growing Flame,
Son of the Supreme’

I knew Bharati had some knowledge of Sanskrit which he had studied at Kashi but not that he had acquaintance with the Vedas deep enough to give expression to such an essentially Vedic conception or as the growing Flame in the heart of man. Besides the poet identifies Agni as Guha, Kumara, son of the Supreme. When I asked him how he caught the idea, he gave an interesting explanation in the course of which he said:

"Yes, I have studied 200 hymns (I do not quite recollect whether he said hymns or Riks) under Aurobindo Ghose."

It was from Bharati himself that I learnt he got the inspiration and general knowledge of the Vedic gods and hymns from Sri Aurobindo. Later he translated into Tamil, some of the Vedic hymns to Agni. So the talk switched on to A. G. (as he used to be known in those days).

"Where is he living?" I asked.
"There," he pointed out in the direction of the European quarters.
"I want to see him."
"But now-a-days he is very much disinclined to see people. I myself do not meet him often as I used to do before. Anyway I shall ascertain."
"Please mention that I have come on a pilgrimage to him." I pressed, as if on impulse. Indeed the pilgrimage had commenced somewhere long ago.

Bharati wrote out a short note in Tamil – a characteristically humourous one – to Nagaswami who was attending on Sri Aurobindo at that time, and signed himself as Shakti–Kumar, and he sent me with an escort to the house where Sri Aurobindo lived.

It was 3 p.m. when we arrived there. Nagaswami was obliging. He took the note, went up to A.G. and was back within a couple of minutes. "He will see you at 6 p.m. today", he said. Dilemma of dilemmas! The hour for which I had looked forward with so much eagerness had arrived. But the timing was embarrassing. For precisely at 6 the meeting was also scheduled to commence at which the lecture was to be delivered. Neither of these could be missed. And yet both could not be fulfilled at the same time. "Was it the proverbial sattva-pariksha?" I wondered. I thought for a while and sent word to the organizers of the function that the meeting could commence a little later than the fixed hour.

At six, I was escorted up the stairs of the house of Sri Aurobindo. It is now known as the Guest House, which name it acquired after Sri Aurobindo shifted to another building now in the main Ashram block. As I went up the stairs and reached the threshold, there stretched in front of me a long hall with a simple table and two chairs at the center. At the farther end was a room on the threshold of which stood Sri Aurobindo. Like a moving statue – such was his impersonal bearing – he advanced towards the table as I proceeded from my end and we both met at the center. Like Rama, the Aryan model of courtesy and nobility held up by Valmiki, Sri Aurobindo spoke first, purva-bhashi. I carried with me a lemon fruit as a humble expression of my esteem for him and after he sat down, I placed it on the table in his front and said: sudinam asid adya (a happy day today).

Sri Aurobindo leaned over to the youngster who was still there and seemed to ask him if I knew English. He was assured I knew and with what smattering of the language I had, we commenced the conversation. It would be an omission if I fail to tell here what happened the moment I stood face to face with Sri Aurobindo at the table.

The age is past when matters of this kind had to be kept to oneself and concealed from others for fear of scoffings from rationalists and skeptics. Man has come to realize that there are more things on earth and in heaven than are written in books and discovered in laboratories. Well, as soon I saw him, even from a distance, there was set in motion, all of a sudden, a rapid vibratory movement in my body from head to foot. There was a continuous thrill and throb. I seemed to stand on the top of a dynamo working at top speed and it was as powerful as it was new. It lasted for nearly four to five minutes. It did not really stop at all. In fact it continued ever since for long and every time I went to see him later, or for his Darshan after his retirement, the phenomenon tended to repeat itself.

A spiritual personality continually pours out spiritual emanations from within and it would seem that when any one with some secret affinity or even a point of contact somewhere in the being comes within the ambience of these vibrations, there is an attempt by something subtle in us to imbibe as much of these sustaining and strength-giving radiations as possible. But the physique not being so supple cannot support this occult commerce for long; it lacks the necessary nerve-force to keep up the flow and the physical palpitating movement is the result. Of course, I find this explanation now. All that I knew at that time and could not help knowing was that I was in the presence of an unusually mighty personality. Was it the sun-flower turned to the sun, or was it the filings in a tremulous dance before a block of magnet or was he the mystic spider, ever watchful, taking his prey alive to preserve it within his web biding his hour?

I had three important questions to ask, two of them are not of moment here. The question of the country's future was naturally uppermost in my mind and I was eager to know what Sri Aurobindo thought of it. I wanted to have a word of hope, if that was possible, from this statesman and prophet, from this rare gift of God to the nation, in regard to the prospects before the country and asked:

"What are the immediate possibilities of India?"

"Why possibility? It is a certainty," he returned with emphasis.

The Hindu-Muslim problem was lurking in the minds of thinking politicians who were few; in spite of Tilak and the Lucknow Pact the fear was there. "We have to bargain and purchase patriotism from them," I put in. He agreed it was a serious hurdle but hoped that reform movements would come on and influence the progressive sections of the communities.

'A larger Hinduism could find a solution and it is a necessity,' he added thoughtfully.

It was seven o'clock now, the hour to which the lecture was postponed arrived and I rose to take leave. To a question of mine, while parting, he said: "You can come here tomorrow, but by this time."

Did I part the same person who came at six o'clock? Apparently I did. But not for long. For, something had happened to me of which I was not fully mindful nor did I imagine the full significance of what took place in my first meeting with Sri Aurobindo.

Something had been set going which carried me on its wings – this is more than a figure of speech – shuttling me from and back to him with an irresistible intensity till at last I came back to him six years later (1923) in a different role. This time, as a seeker seeking the feet of the Teacher, and exclaimed marveling at the change of his appearance:

"What other proof is required, Sire! Then your complexion was dark-brown, now it is fair; today the hue is a golden hue. Here is the concrete proof of the Yoga that is yours."

Source:
Collected Works Vol. 2