On the Passing of Sri Aurobindo

With a lesson for our time: “By fear, you bring about what you fear.”

During one of his classes on comparative religion and Indian philosophy at Stanford University, Frederic Spiegelberg told his students about his recent trip to India and his Darshan of Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry. “It was worth travelling 4000 miles to stand for a few moments before Sri Aurobindo,” he remarked. One of his students was Rhoda le Cocq. In late 1950 she visited Pondicherry, and she was there when Sri Aurobindo left his body. Her book (The Radical Thinkers: Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo, 1969) contains the following account of the November 24 Darshan (abridged):

A long line led from the main building around the block: people of every colour, every style of dress, government officials and high-ranking professors, young and old from dozens of countries, wanted to see the philosopher-sage. Each of us finally climbed the stairs to the floor where at the end of a long narrow room Sri Aurobindo in white and the Mother in a gold sari sat side by side upon a slightly raised platform.

As a Westerner, the idea of merely passing by these two with nothing being said had struck me as a bit ridiculous. I was still unfamiliar with the Hindu idea that such a silent meeting could afford an intensely spiritual impetus. I watched as I came up in line, and I noted that the procedure was to stand quietly before the two of them for a few silent moments, then to move on at a gesture from Sri Aurobindo. What happened next was completely unexpected.

As I stepped into a radius of about four feet, there was the sensation of moving into some kind of a force-field. Intuitively, I knew it was the force of Love, but not what ordinary humans usually mean by the term. These two were “geared straight up”; they were not paying attention to me as ordinary parents might have done; yet, this unattachment seemed just the thing that healed. Suddenly, I loved them both, as spiritual “parents”.

Then all thought ceased. I was perfectly aware of where I was; it was not “hypnotism” as one Stanford friend later suggested. It was simply that during those few minutes, my mind became utterly still. It seemed that I stood there a very long, an uncounted time, for there was no time. Only many years later did I describe this experience as my having experienced the Timeless in Time. When there at the Darshan, there was not the least doubt in my mind that I had met two people who had experienced what they claimed. They were Gnostic Beings. They had realized this new consciousness which Sri Aurobindo called the Supramental.

In mid-1950, Sri Aurobindo was becoming more and more reticent. His attendants’ attempts to draw him out were met by a monosyllabic yes or no. One day, Dr. Sanyal summoned up his courage to ask: “Why are you so serious, Sir?” “The time is very serious” was the reply. The Korean war had just broken out, and many feared that it would lead to a third world war. Around the same time, the symptoms of Sri Aurobindo’s prostatic hyperplasia reappeared. His doctors were confident that he would use his yogic force to make them subside and were dismayed when the symptoms worsened. When, on December 4, they finally asked him whether he was using his yogic power to cure himself, he replied with a simple No. “Why not?” they insisted. “Can’t explain; you won’t understand,” was the response.

Sri Aurobindo passed away at 1.30 in the morning on December 5, ostensibly of a kidney infection. At six o’clock, the doors of the Ashram were thrown open. Before the end of the day, some sixty thousand people had filed past the body. On the morning of December 6, all the major papers of the country announced the passing of Sri Aurobindo with bold headlines, long stories, and obituaries printed as lead editorials. Tributes from his countrymen ran to several columns. President Rajendra Prasad, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, central and state ministers, governors, legislators, diplomats, and maharajas, together with intellectual, educational, and spiritual leaders, recalled his contribution to the struggle for freedom, his philosophical and other writings, and his unique yogic discipline. Abroad, his death was noted by newspapers in London, Paris, and New York. A writer in the Manchester Guardian called him “the most massive philosophical thinker that modern India has produced” and reminded British readers that he was “a product of the West as much as of the East.”

On the evening of December 6, the Mother issued a message affirming that Sri Aurobindo’s body was “charged with such concentration of supramental light that there is no sign of decomposition.” Accordingly, it would “be kept lying on his bed so long as it remains intact.”

The laws of French India required funerals to take place within forty-eight hours of the time of death, so permission from the government had to be obtained to delay Sri Aurobindo’s interment. On the morning of December 7, Dr. Barbet, the chief medical officer of Pondicherry, together with Dr. Sanyal and Dr. Nirodbaran examined Sri Aurobindo’s body and found no sign of decomposition. Hence permission was given for the viewing to continue. At the same time, work continued on a vault in the Ashram’s courtyard.

On the morning of December 9, more than a hundred hours after the moment of death, the first signs of decomposition appeared. In the afternoon, the members of the Ashram were given a last darshan. The body was then placed in a rosewood casket, which was carried down to the courtyard. At five o’clock, it was lowered into the vault. Complete silence prevailed. No religious rites were observed.

A recent photo of the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

The outpouring of public grief that followed was remarkable considering that Sri Aurobindo had been out of public view for forty years. Only the older generation could remember his writings in Bande Mataram.¹ Not many were able to appreciate the thought of The Life Divine or the rhythms of Savitri. Even fewer felt called upon to follow his path of Yoga. Yet great masses of people felt touched by the passing of one who was, as a politician put it, “the last of the great geniuses born in the latter part of the last century”.²

Inscription at the Samadhi

Although the Mother had announced there would be two weeks of meditation during which she would see no one, she granted Rhoda le Cocq a farewell interview on December 15, at 6.00 p.m. This is from her account of the meeting:

“By fear, you bring about what you fear.” Then she added, and I had a feeling she spoke to the world, not just to me: “It’s ego! Ego!”

At 5.30, I went into the meditation hall, still very much mentally and emotionally upset by everything that had occurred. The Mother appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in white. When I smiled, she nodded and said: “Come on up.”

All the questions I had meant to ask seemed to vanish. I was intensely aware that the interview itself was an imposition, when she had so recently lost the companion of thirty years. “They say you wish to see me,” she said quietly. Before I could think, I blurted out that I seemed to be full of fears, fears of new wars, fears of this or that in my personal life.

“One must not fear,” she said. “By fear, you bring about what you fear.” I nodded, then she added, and I had a feeling she spoke to the world, not just to me: “It’s ego! Ego!”

Several personal matters were discussed, and then of spiritual development she said: “One must have a spirit of adventure about all this, you know.”

Only much later did I realize how fortunate I had been. Within the space of a year, far from my own shores, I had met three of the world’s greatest human beings: Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, who had said that man had outgrown his concept of God; and these two: Sri Aurobindo, and Mirra Alfassa or the Mother, who together had attempted to give the world that new needed concept of God, as those of spiritual genius always do. Because of them, life continues to have hope and meaning.

There are many passages in Sri Aurobindo’s works that I find powerfully inspiring: in Savitri, in The Life Divine, in The Synthesis of Yoga, in The Mother, among his essays, his poems, his letters. And often these passages start out dark or gloomy but then culminate in a triumph, a jubilation, or the certainty of a glorious victory. Here is a poem Sri Aurobindo wrote on June 3, 1945, which seems particularly appropriate for this period (between the 5th and the 9th of December). It is called “The End.”

Is this the end of all that we have been,
     And all we did or dreamed, —
A name unremembered and a form undone, —
          Is this the end?

A body rotting under a slab of stone
     Or turned to ash in fire,
A mind dissolved, lost its forgotten thoughts, —
          Is this the end?

Our little hours that were and are no more,
     Our passions once so high
Dying mocked by the still earth and calm sunshine, —
          Is this the end?

Our yearnings for the human Godward climb
     Passing to other hearts
Deceived, while sinks towards death and hell the world, —
          Is this the end?

Fallen is the harp; shattered it lies and mute;
     Is the unseen player dead?
Because the tree is felled where the bird sang,
          Must the song too hush?

One in the mind who planned and willed and thought,
     Worked to reshape earth’s fate,
One in the heart who loved and yearned and hoped,
          Does he too end?

The Immortal in the mortal is his Name;
     An artist Godhead here
Ever remoulds himself in diviner shapes,
          Unwilling to cease

Till all is done for which the stars were made,
     Till the heart discovers God
And soul knows itself. And even then
          There is no end.

And here is such an essay which frequently comes to mind, not least because I once translated it into German. While Sri Aurobindo may have intended it as a memo to himself, it sure focuses the mind. It’s called “The Law of the Way.”

First be sure of the call and of thy soul’s answer. For if the call is not true, not the touch of God’s powers or the voice of his messengers, but the lure of thy ego, the end of thy endeavour will be a poor spiritual fiasco or else a deep disaster.

And if not the soul’s fervour, but only the mind’s assent or interest replies to the divine summons or only the lower life’s desire clutches at some side attraction of the fruits of Yoga-power or Yoga-pleasure or only a transient emotion leaps like an unsteady flame moved by the intensity of the Voice or its sweetness or grandeur, then too there can be little surety for thee in the difficult path of Yoga.

The outer instruments of mortal man have no force to carry him through the severe ardours of this spiritual journey and Titanic inner battle or to meet its terrible or obstinate ordeals or nerve him to face and overcome its subtle and formidable dangers. Only his spirit’s august and steadfast will and the quench-less fire of his soul’s invincible ardour are sufficient for this difficult transformation and this high improbable endeavour.

Imagine not the way is easy; the way is long, arduous, dangerous, difficult. At every step is an ambush, at every turn a pitfall. A thousand seen or unseen enemies will start up against thee, terrible in subtlety against thy ignorance, formidable in power against thy weakness. And when with pain thou hast destroyed them, other thousands will surge up to take their place. Hell will vomit its hordes to oppose thee and enring and wound and menace; Heaven will meet thee with its pitiless tests and its cold luminous denials. Thou shalt find thyself alone in thy anguish, the demons furious in thy path, the Gods unwilling above thee. Ancient and powerful, cruel, unvanquished and close and innumerable are the dark and dreadful Powers that profit by the reign of Night and Ignorance and would have no change and are hostile. Aloof, slow to arrive, far-off and few and brief in their visits are the Bright Ones who are willing or permitted to succour. Each step forward is a battle. There are precipitous descents, there are unending ascensions and ever higher peaks upon peaks to conquer. Each plateau climbed is but a stage on the way and reveals endless heights beyond it. Each victory thou thinkest the last triumphant struggle proves to be but the prelude to a hundred fierce and perilous battles...

But thou sayest God’s hand will be with me and the Divine Mother near with her gracious smile of succour? And thou knowest not then that God’s grace is more difficult to have or to keep than the nectar of the Immortals or Kuvera’s priceless treasures? Ask of His chosen and they will tell thee how often the Eternal has covered his face from them, how often he has withdrawn from them behind his mysterious veil and they have found themselves alone in the grip of Hell, solitary in the horror of the darkness, naked and defenceless in the anguish of the battle. And if his presence is felt behind the veil, yet is it like the winter sun behind clouds and saves not from the rain and snow and the calamitous storm and the harsh wind and the bitter cold and the grey of a sorrowful atmosphere and the dun weary dullness. Doubtless the help is there even when it seems to be withdrawn, but still is there the appearance of total night with no sun to come and no star of hope to pierce the blackness. Beautiful is the face of the Divine Mother, but she too can be hard and terrible. Nay, then, is immortality a plaything to be given lightly to a child or the divine life a prize without effort or the crown for a weakling? Strive rightly and thou shalt have; trust and thy trust shall in the end be justified; but the dread Law of the Way is there and none can abrogate it.

But then there are also these letters:

You say that this way is too difficult for you or the likes of you and it is only “avatars” like myself or the Mother that can do it. That is a strange misconception, for it is on the contrary the easiest and simplest and most direct way and anyone can do it, if he makes his mind and vital quiet, even those who have a tenth of your capacity can do it.... As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in this Ashram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer, a work such as I am certain none else had to do before us. For the Leader of the Way in a work like ours has not only to bring down and represent and embody the Divine, but to represent too the ascending element in humanity and to bear the burden of humanity to the full and experience not in a mere play or līlā but in grim earnest all the obstruction, difficulty, opposition, baffled and hampered and only slowly victorious labour which are possible on the Path. But it is not necessary nor tolerable that all that should be repeated over again to the full in the experience of others. It is because we have the complete experience that we can show a straighter and easier road to others — if they will only consent to take it. It is because of our experience won at a tremendous price that we can urge upon you and others, “Take the psychic attitude; follow the straight sunlit path, with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing you — if secretly, he will yet show himself in good time, — do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey.” [May 5, 1932]

No difficulty that can come on the sadhak but has faced us on the path; against many we have had to struggle hundreds of times (in fact, that is an understatement) before we could overcome; many still remain protesting that they have a right until the perfect perfection is there. But we have never consented to admit their inevitable necessity for others. It is in fact to ensure an easier path to others hereafter that we have borne that burden. It was with that object that the Mother once prayed to the Divine that whatever difficulties, dangers, sufferings were necessary for the path might be laid on her rather than on others. It has been so far heard that as a result of daily and terrible struggles for years those who put an entire and sincere confidence in her are able to follow the sunlit path and even those who cannot, yet when they do put the trust find their path suddenly easy and, if it becomes difficult again, it is only when distrust, revolt, abhiman [self­respect, hurt pride, or haughtiness], or other darknesses come upon them. The sunlit path is not altogether a fable. [November 1935]

1. This nationalistic newspaper, as Sri Aurobindo later wrote, “was almost unique in journalistic history in the influence it exercised in converting the mind of a people and preparing it for revolution.”

2. Based on P. Heehs, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo (Columbia University Press, 2008).