Sri Aurobindo and Dr. Nirodbaran
Nirod: My brain is now less hampered by the body’s indisposition.
My boil has burst and as you see
From the depression I am free.
Thanks Guru, thanks to thee!
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I got irritated last night by your persistent boiling and put a gigantic Force which, I am glad to see, burst the little boil.
Thank God for that!
Free from boil,
At poems toil
Laugh and grow fat.
Nirod: You actually propose “Laugh and grow fat” though laughing never makes fat!
Sri Aurobindo: You oppose one of the most ancient traditions of humanity by this severe statement. But your statement is mistaken even according to Science. We are now told that it is the activity of certain glands that makes you thin or fat. If glands, then why not gladness?
Nirod: Really I am now wondering at my own revelry and hilarity. No particular concern about yoga, yet I am happy. What kind of psychic attitude is this?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not a psychic attitude, but is better than depression.
Nirod: Again a blessed boil inside the left nostril — painful, feverish. A dose of Force please!
Sri Aurobindo: As the modernist poet says —
O blessed blessed boil within the nostril,
How with pure pleasure dost thou make thy boss thrill!
He sings of thee with sobbing trill and cross trill,
O blessed boil within the nostril.
I hope this stotra will propitiate the boil and make it disappear, satisfied.
Nirod: I couldn’t make out one word. Is it bows thrill?
Sri Aurobindo: I thought you’d boggle over it. “Boss”, man, “boss” = yourself as owner, proprietor, patron, capitalist of the boil.
Nirod: One more blessed boil! Dr.B says it is a good sign, for it means purification!!
Sri Aurobindo: All that’s a discovery. The boil is then truly a blessed one!
Nirod: Boil burst!!
Sri Aurobindo: Hurrah!
Nirod: Bad frontal headache, feverish, hope no complication of left frontal sinus suppuration!
Sri Aurobindo: What’s all this? Is this time to start suppurating sinuses? Drop it, please.
Nirod: Guru,
My head, my head
And the damned fever --
I am half dead!
Sri Aurobindo: Cheer up! Things might have been so much worse. Just think if you had been a Spaniard in Madrid or a German Communist in a concentration camp! Imagine that and then you will be quite cheerful with only a cold and headache. So
Throw off the cold,
Damn the fever,
Be sprightly and bold
And live for ever.
Nirod: I am better today. But what about the lack of interest in everything? Imagination of Madrid or concentration camp will have a reverse effect.
Sri Aurobindo: Don’t understand. You want to get rid of the interest in everything or to get rid of the lack of interest?
What reverse effect? Increase of cold and headache?
Nirod: By the Guru! Please don't forget to give a supramental kick to my main impediments at Darshan; only no after-effect please, what?
Sri Aurobindo: “By the Guru”! What kind of oath is this? But the object of imagination was not to liberate your nose or forehead but to liberate your soul.
Kicking is easy. As to the effects or after-effects, that has to be seen.
Nirod: Boil again inside the right nostril! But perhaps you will ask me to imagine being a Spaniard, German, Jew, Japanese-German pact, Russian inflammation at it etc., etc. All right, Sir, I will imagine all these if you will imagine giving me a dose of Force, what?
Sri Aurobindo: It is for you to do that. I can only send Force.
Nirod: Boil paining, what to do? Suffer with a smile?
Sri Aurobindo: Smile a while.
Nirod: Again a boil on the left cheek, Good Heavens! No improvement.
Sri Aurobindo: As Rene’s doctor says, “Tut tut tut tut tut tut!”
Nirod: Punishment for too much talking or eating or subconscious welling out?
Sri Aurobindo: Probably.
Nirod: Boil a little ripe, but still —
Hard and big as hazel-nut,
In spite of your tut, tut, tut!
Give one more dose at the least
Or I howl on like a beast!
Sri Aurobindo: Tut nut tut, not nut tut tut! Hope this will have the effect of a Tantric mantra which it resembles. So if you like Om ling bling bring kring!
Just try repeating either of these 15,000 times concentrating on your boil (bling) at the time.
Nirod: Did you really want me to chant that mantra? I took it as a big piece of joke.
Sri Aurobindo: You couldn’t realise that Tut Tut Tut was a serious mantra with immense possibilities? Why, it is the modern form of ------ and everybody knows that ---- ---- ---- is a mantra of great power. Only you should as a penance for not having accepted at once, do it not 15,000 but 150,000 times a day -- at a gallop, e.g. Om Tut or Tut Tut a Tut, Tut a Tut and so on at an increasing pace and pitch till you reach either Berhampur* or Nirvana.
Nirod: I am not only ignorant about all things spiritual, Atma, Yog-biyog etc., they are as nauseating to me as quinine which I had to gulp. And see the trick of Fate, it is such things now that I am called upon to do.
Sri Aurobindo: You are justly punished — but what is Yog-biyog? I thought that had to do with mathematics, not spiritual philosophy.
Nirod: Is it for nothing that I see the Red Light as the outcome of my misadventure?
Sri Aurobindo: Take courage. Say Tut tut tut to the misadventure and go ahead.
Nirod: By the way I am trying your mantra though by fits and starts.
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! What mantra? Om Tut a tut tuwhit tuwhoo? Man! But it is to be recited only when you are taking tea in the company of four Brahmins pure of all sex ideas and 5 ft. 7 inches tall with a stomach in proportion. Otherwise it can’t be effective.
Nirod: Hard, throbbing, painful boil. Slight fever, headache in the morning. Hot fomentation etc. Went to the miracle doctor, 4 powders! added to these the Force! Does it budge? The game must be over tomorrow, Sir. Otherwise I have to lie flat!
Sri Aurobindo: All this for a poor little boil? What would it be if you were put to roast?
Nirod: Boil has burst today! Swelling less, pain none but still it is oozing and oozing. By tomorrow it will be over, I hope.
Sri Aurobindo: R has written to me insisting that you should continue the treatment for a fortnight even after the oozing is past history so as to erect a barrier against further boilings.
*A place where there is a mental hospital.Share with us (Comments, contributions, opinions)
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