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IV. CORRECTIONS OF WRONG STATEMENTS IN THE PRESS
¹This is my answer to the questions arising from your letter. Except on one point which calls for some explanation, I confine myself to the plain facts. 1. I was the writer of the series of articles on the "Passive Resistance" published [in the Bande Mataram} in April 1907 to which reference has been made; Bepin Pal had nothing to do with it. He ceased his connection with the paper towards the end of 1906 and from that time onward was not writing any editorials or articles for it. I planned several series of this kind for the Bande Mataram and at least three were published of which the "Passive Resistance" was one. 2. The articles published in Dharma during February and March 1910 were not written by me. The actual writer was a young man on the sub-editorial staff of the paper. This is well known to all who were then in the office or connected with it, e.g., Nolini Kanta Gupta who was with me then as he is now still with me here. 3. I did not go to the Bagbazar Math on my way to Chandernagore or make praṇāma to Sri Saradeshwari Devi. In fact I never met her or even saw her in my life. It was not from Bagbazar but another Ghat (Ganga Ghat) that I went straight by boat to Chandernagore. 4. Neither Ganen Maharaj nor Nivedita saw me off at the Ghat. Neither of them knew anything about my going: Nivedita learned of it only afterwards when I sent a message to her asking her to conduct the Karmayogin in my absence. She consented and from that time to its cessation of publication was in control of the paper; the editorials during that period were hers
¹ Girija Shankar Page - 56
5. I did not take my wife for initiation to Sri
Saradeshwari Devi; I was given to understand that she was taken there by
Sudhira Bose, Debabrata's sister. I heard of it a considerable time afterwards
in 6. I did not go to Chandernagore on Sister
Nivedita's advice. On a former occasion when she informed me that the
Government had decided to deport me, she did urge me to leave 7.
Here are the facts of that departure. I was in the Karmayogin Office
when I received the word, on information given by a high-placed police
official, that the Office would be searched the next day and myself arrested.
(The Office was in fact searched but no warrant was produced against me; I
heard nothing more of it till the case was started against the paper later on,
but by then I had already left Chandernagore for Page - 57
reached I
may add in explanation that from the time I left Lele at You can on the strength of this letter cite my authority for your statements on these points to the editor of the Udbodhan.
SRI AUROBINDO'S NOTES ON GIRIJA SHANKAR'S ARTICLE
Sister Nivedita was invited in 1904 to
I do not remember whether she was invited but I think she was there as a State guest. Khasirao and myself went to receive her at the station. I do not remember Nivedita speaking to me on spiritual subjects or about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. We spoke of politics and other subjects. On the way from the station to the town she cried out against the ugliness of the College building and its top-heavy dome and praised the Dharmashala near it. Khasirao stared at her and opined that she must be at least slightly cracked to have such ideas! I was very much enamoured at the time of her book Kali the Mother and I think we spoke of that; she had heard, she said, that I was a worshipper of Force, by which she meant that I belonged to the secret revolutionary party like herself, and I was present at her interview with the Maharaja whom she invited to support the secret revolution; she told him that he could communicate with her through me. Sayajirao was much too cunning to plunge into such a dangerous business and never spoke to me about it. That, is all I remember. Page - 58 Earth of Dakshineshwara was found in Sri Aurobindo's room when the police searched his house in April, 1908. The earth was brought to me by a young man connected with the Ramakrishna Mission and I kept it; it was there in my room when the police came to arrest me.
the
"Bande Mataram" started on
Bepin Pal started
the Bande Mataram with Rs. 500 in his pocket donated by Haridas Haldar.
He called in my help as assistant editor and I gave it. I called a private
meeting of the young Nationalist leaders in Page - 59 its publication, so that the Bande Mataram might end with some éclat and in all honour.
Girija Shankar's statements about Sri Aurobindo cannot be taken as they are; they are often based on false or twisted information, tend towards misrepresentation or are only inferences or guesses. 2
¹I am authorised by Sri Aurobindo to contradict the statement quoted in your issue of the 17th inst. from the Hindustan Standard that he visited Sri Saradamani Devi on the day of his departure to Pondicherry (?) and received from her some kind of dīkṣā. There was a story published in a Calcutta monthly some time ago that on the night of his departure for Chandernagore in February 1910 Sri Aurobindo visited her at Bagbazar Math to receive her blessings, that he was seen off by Sister Nivedita and a Brahmachari of the Math and that he took this step of leaving British India at the advice of Sister Nivedita. All these statements are opposed to the facts and they were contradicted on Sri Aurobindo's behalf by Sri Charu Chandra Dutt in the same monthly. Sri Aurobindo's departure to Chandernagore was the result of a sudden decision taken on the strength of an ādeśa from above and was carried out rapidly and secretly without consultation with anybody or advice from any quarter. He went straight from the Dharma Office to the Ghat — he did not visit the Math, nobody saw him off; a boat was hailed, he entered into it with two young men and proceeded straight to his destination. His residence at Chandernagore was kept quite secret; it was known only to Srijut Motilal Roy who arranged for his stay and to a few
1The Sunday Times, a weekly paper of Madras, reproduced in its issue of the 17th June, 1945 a news item from the Hindustan Standard saying that Sri Aurobindo received initiation from Sri Sarada Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna, prior to his departure to Chandernagore. This was a completely baseless story and was contradicted by this statement which appeared in the issue of the 24th June of The Sunday Times. The statement appeared under the name of the Secretary of Sri Aurobindo Ashram but was dictated by Sri Aurobindo himself. Page - 60 others. Sister Nivedita was confidentially
informed the day after his departure and asked to conduct the Karmayogin
in place of Sri Aurobindo to which she consented. In his passage from
Chandernagore to Pondicherry Sri Aurobindo stopped only for two minutes outside
It
may be added that neither at this time nor any other did Sri Aurobindo receive
any kind of initiation from Sarada Devi; neither did he ever
take any formal dīkṣā from anyone. He started
his Sadhana at November, 1945
3
¹In his reply to Suresh Chakravarty's article, my old friend Ramachandra Majumdar congratulates himself on the strength of his memory in old age. His memory is indeed so strong that
'Suresh Chandra Chakravarty, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, wrote an article on Sri Aurobindo in the Bengali journal, Prabasi (issue of Baisakh 1352 B.S. April, 1945). Ramachandra Majumdar who was on the staff of the Karmayogin wrote a reply to this article contradicting what seemed to him to be the wrong statements in S. Chakravarty's article. Majumdar's reply was not only based on wrong memory but also included a number of entirely fictitious statements. This note was dictated by Sri Aurobindo to correct Majumdar's wrong and fictitious statements; it was translated into Bengali by Nolini Kanta Gupta who also wrote an article in Bengali (published in Prabasi and Bartika) which was practically a translation of this note. Page - 61 he not only recollects, very inaccurately, what actually happened, but recalls also and gives body to what never happened at all. His account is so heavily crammed with blunders and accretions that it may provide rich material for an imaginative and romantic biography of Sri Aurobindo in the modern manner but has no other value. It is a pity to have to trample on this fine garden of flowers, but historical and biographical truth has its claim. I shall correct some of the most flagrant errors in this narrative. First of all, Suresh Chakravarty's article about the journey to Chandernagore confined itself to inaccurate statements of the facts and denied the story of a visit to Sri Sarada Devi in the course of that journey. This point has now been practically conceded for we see that the alleged visit has been transferred to another date a few days earlier. I may say that Suresh's narrative of the facts was brought to the notice of Sri Aurobindo who certified that it was true both as a whole and in detail. But now another story has been brought up which is full of confusions and unrealities and is a good example of how myth can be established in place of the truth. Sri Aurobindo never spoke with Sister Nivedita about any case intended to be brought against him by the Government in connection with the murder of Shamsul Alam, for the good reason that no such intention was ever reported to him by anybody. Sister Nivedita never directed or advised him to go into hiding. What actually happened had nothing to do with the departure to Chandernagore. What happened was this: Sister Nivedita on a much earlier occasion informed Sri Aurobindo that the Government intended to deport him and advised him "not to hide", but leave British India and work from outside; Sri Aurobindo did not accept the advice. He said that he would write an "Open Letter" which he thought would make the Government give up its idea; this appeared in the Karmayogin under the title "My Last Will and Testament". Afterwards Sister Nivedita told him that it had had the desired effect and there was no more question of deportation. Sri Aurobindo did not see Sister Nivedita on his way to Page - 62 Chandernagore; this is only a relic of the
now abandoned story of his visit to the Math at Baranagar on that occasion in
which it was related that she had seen him off at the Ghat. She knew nothing
whatever of his departure to Chandernagore until afterwards when he sent her a
message asking her to take up the editing of the Karmayogin in his
absence. Everything happened very suddenly. Sri Aurobindo, as he has himself
related, while at the Karmayogin Office, heard of an approaching search
and his intended arrest; he suddenly received an ādeśa to go
to Chandernagore and carried it out immediately without informing or consulting
anybody — even his colleagues and co-workers. Everything was done in fifteen
minutes or so and in the utmost secrecy and silence. He followed Ram Majumdar
to the Ghat, Suresh Chakravarty and Biren Ghosh following at a little distance;
a boat was hailed and the three got in and went off immediately. His stay in
Chandernagore also was secret and known only to a few like his later departure
to The
new story now told that Devabrata Bose and Sri Aurobindo both asked to be
admitted into the Ramakrishna Mission and Devabrata was accepted but Swami
Brahmananda refused to accept Sri Aurobindo, is another myth. Sri Aurobindo
never even dreamed of taking Sannyasa or of entering into any established order
of Sannyasis. It ought to be well known to everybody that Sannyasa was never
accepted by him as part of his Yoga; he has founded an Ashram in Page - 63 Swami was preoccupied with a communication from the Government and consulted Sri Aurobindo as to whether there was any need of an answer. Sri Aurobindo said no, and the Swami agreed. After seeing the Math Sri Aurobindo came away and nothing else happened. He never by letter or otherwise communicated with Swami Brahmananda before or afterwards and never directly or indirectly asked for admission or for Sannyasa. There have been hints or statements about Sri Aurobindo taking or asking for initiation from certain quarters about this time. Those who spread these legends seem to be ignorant that at this time he was not a spiritual novice or in need of any initiation or spiritual direction by anybody. Sri Aurobindo had already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his Yoga and his spiritual philosophy are founded. The first he had gained while meditating with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman gained after a complete and abiding stillness of the whole consciousness and attended at first by an overwhelming feeling and perception of the total unreality of the world, though this feeling disappeared after his second realisation which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is, which happened in the Alipore jail and of which he has spoken in his speech at Uttarpara. To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in the Alipore jail. Moreover, he had accepted from Lele as the principle of his Sadhana to rely wholly on the Divine and his guidance alone both for his Sadhana and for his outward actions. After that it was impossible for him to put himself under any other guidance and unnecessary to seek help from anyone. In fact Sri Aurobindo never took any formal initiation from anyone; he started his Sadhana on his own account by the practice of prāṇāyāma and never asked for help except from Lele. One or two less important points have to be mentioned to show how little reliance can be placed on the details of Ramchandra's narrative. His statement about the automatic writing Page - 64
is only an imaginative inference and
in fact quite groundless. Sri Aurobindo totally denies that he used the
automatic writing for any kind of moral or other edification of those around
him; that would have meant that it was spurious and a sort of a trick, for no
writing can be automatic if it is dictated or guided by the writer's conscious
mind. The writing was done as an experiment as well as an amusement and nothing
else. I may mention here the circumstances under which it was first taken up.
Barin had done some very extraordinary automatic writing at Baroda in a very
brilliant and beautiful English style and remarkable for certain predictions
which came true and statements of fact which also proved to be true although
unknown to the persons concerned or anyone else present: there was notably a
symbolic anticipation of Lord Curzon's subsequent unexpected departure from
India and, again, of the first suppression of the national movement and the
greatness of Tilak's attitude amidst the storm; this prediction was given in
Tilak's own presence when he visited Sri Aurobindo at Baroda and happened to
enter first when the writing was in progress. Sri Aurobindo was very much struck
and interested and he decided to find out by practising this kind of writing
himself what there was behind it. This is what he was doing in Page - 65
A smaller but
more amazing myth presents Sri Aurobindo as a poet in Tamil — and this
apparently after only a few days of study. Far from writing Tamil poetry Sri
Aurobindo never wrote a single sentence even of Tamil prose and never spoke a
single phrase in the Tamil language. He listened for a few days to a Nair from
Malabar who read and explained to him articles in a Tamil newspaper; this was a
short time before he left
ABOUT SRI AUROBINDO'S QUESTION OF BECOMING A KING
Ramchandra's
whole account is crammed with reckless inaccuracies and unreal details. Sirish
Goswami has pointed out in a letter that the astrological writings of Sri
Aurobindo of which Ramchandra speaks were only some elementary notes and had no
importance. Sri Aurobindo drew them at It is not a fact that Sri Aurobindo's wife, Mrinalini Devi, was residing at Sj. K. K. Mitra's house in College Square; Sri Aurobindo himself lived there constantly between the Alipore trial and his departure to French India. But she lived always with the family of Girish Bose, Principal of Bangabasi College. One is unable to understand the meaning of the saying attributed to Sri Aurobindo that he was a man rising to humanity unless we suppose that he was only the animal man rising towards the status of a thinking being; certainly Sri Aurobindo never composed such a resonant and meaningless epigram. If it had been to a Divine Humanity it might have had some meaning but the whole thing sounds unlike what Sri Aurobindo might have said. In fact all that Ramchandra puts into Sri Aurobindo's mouth Page - 66 is of a character foreign to his habits of speech, e.g., his alleged Shakespearean and Polonius-like recommendation to Ramchandra himself while departing to Chandernagore. He may have enjoined silence on Ramchandra but not in that flowery language. This should be enough; it is unnecessary to deal with all the inaccuracies and imaginations. But I think I have said enough to show that anyone wanting the truth about Sri Aurobindo would do well to avoid any reliance on Ramchandra's narrative. It can be described in the phrase of Goethe, "poetic fictions and truths", for the element of truth is small and that of poetic fiction stupendous. It is like the mass of ale to the modicum of bread in Falstaff's tavern bill. In fact it is almost the whole. 1945 4
¹The account which seems to have been given to X and recorded by her on pages 317-324 of her book is, I am compelled to say, fiction and romance with no foundation in actual facts. I spent the first part of my imprisonment in Alipore jail in a solitary cell and again after the assassination of Noren Gossain to the last days of the trial when all the Alipore case prisoners were similarly lodged each in his own cell. In between for a short period we were all put together. There is no truth behind the statement that while I was meditating they gathered around me, that I recited the Gita to them and they sang the verses, or that they put questions to me on spiritual matters and received instructions from me; the whole description is quite fanciful. Only a few of the prisoners had been known to me before I met them in prison; only a few who had been with Barin had practised Sadhana and these were connected with Barin and would have turned to him for any help, not to me. I was carrying on my Yoga during these days, learning to do so in the midst of much
1A French lady, interested in Indian spirituality, published a book in French on Sister Nivedita's life—Nivedita, fille de l'Inde—in which she made some statements about Sri Aurobindo and his contacts with Sister Nivedita. A French disciple of Sri Aurobindo, who brought these statements to his notice, received from him this reply. Page - 67
noise and clamour but apart and in silence and
without any participation of the others in it. My Yoga begun in 1904 had always
been personal and apart; those around me knew I was a Sadhak but they knew
little more as I kept all that went on in me to myself. It was only after my
release that for the first time I spoke at Uttarpara publicly about my spiritual
experiences. Until I went to Pondicherry I took no disciples; with those who
accompanied me or joined me in Pondicherry I had at first the relation of
friends and companions rather than of a Guru and disciples; it was on the ground
of politics that I had come to know them and not on the spiritual ground.
Afterwards only there was a gradual development of spiritual relations until the
Mother came back from Japan and the Ashram was founded or rather founded itself
in 1926. I began my Yoga in 1904 without a Guru; in 1908 I received important
help from a Mahratta Yogi and discovered the foundations of my Sadhana; but from
that time till the Mother came to India I received no spiritual help from anyone
else. My Sadhana before and afterwards was not founded upon books but upon
personal experiences that crowded on me from within. But in the jail I had the
Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated
with the help of the Upanishads; these were the only books from which I found
guidance; the Veda which I first began to read long afterwards in Pondicherry
rather confirmed what experiences I already had than was any guide to my Sadhana.
I sometimes turned to the Gita for light when there was a question or a
difficulty and usually received help or an answer from it, but there were no
such happenings in connection with the Gita as are narrated in the book. It is a
fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a
fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence, but this
had nothing to do with the alleged circumstances narrated in the book,
circumstances that never took place, nor had it anything to do with the Gita.
The voice spoke only on a special and limited but very important field of
spiritual experience and it ceased as soon as it had finished saying all that it
had to say on that subject. Page - 68
purely in the field of politics.
Spirituality or spiritual matters did not enter into them and I do not remember
anything passing between us on these subjects when I was with her. Once or
twice she showed the spiritual side of her but she was then speaking to someone
else who had come to see her while I was there. The whole account about my
staying with her for 24 hours and all that is said to have passed between us
then is sheer romance and does not contain a particle of fact. I met Sister
Nivedita first at Page - 69 Later on I began to make time to go and see her occasionally at Bagbazar. In
one of these visits she informed me that the Government had decided to deport
me and she wanted me to go into secrecy or to leave Page - 70 details about the French boat and the
disappearing lights are pure romance. I sent someone from the office to
Nivedita to inform her and to ask her to take up editing of the Karmayogin in
my absence. She consented and in fact from this time onward until the
suspension of the paper she had the whole conduct of it; I was absorbed in my
Sadhana and sent no contributions nor were there any articles over my
signature. There was never my signature to any articles in the Karmayogin
except twice only, the last being the occasion for the prosecution which
failed. There was no arrangement for my staying in Chandernagore at a place
selected by Nivedita. I went without previous notice to anybody and was
received by Motilal Roy who made secret arrangements for my stay; nobody except
himself and a few friends knew where I was. The warrant of arrest was
suspended, but after a month or so I used a manoeuvre to push the police into
open action; the warrant was launched and a prosecution commenced against the
printer in my absence which ended in acquittal in the High Court. I was already
on my way to Page - 71 |
