Chapter 49Philosophy and Writings · Appendix: Notes of Uncertain Origin

[Sri Aurobindo struck through “the new god” and wrote:] The new brilliant god is the new Poseidon, Olympian and Greek, who in Polydaon’s vision replaces the terrible old-Mediterranean god of the seas. Perseus is and remains divine-human throughout.

[Dharma = devoir (duty)]

Devoir is hardly the meaning of the [word]1 Dharma. Perform-ing disinterested[ly] one’s duty is a European misreading of the teaching of the Gita. Dharma in the Gita means the law of one’s own essential nature or is described sometimes as action governed by that nature, swabhava.

*

[The asuric and divine natures complement each other.]

This is not in the teaching of the Gita according to which the two natures are opposed to each other and the Asuric nature has to be rejected or to fall away by the power and process of the yoga. Sri Aurobindo’s yoga also insists on the rejection of the darker and lower elements of the nature.

The . . . articles that Sri Aurobindo contributed to Arya uninspired by a book of Dr. Cousins’s: in the fullness of time, however, the review became a treatise of over three hundred pages of Arya.

[Altered to:] . . . started initially with a review of a book of Dr. Cousins’s; but that was only a starting point for a treatise . . .

It was not the intention to make a long review of Cousins’ book, that was only a starting point; the rest was drawn from Sri Auro-bindo’s own ideas and his already conceived view of art and life.

1 MS (dictated) phrase

Many of the letters that deal mainly with Yoga have now been edited and published in book form. The Riddle of This World, fruits of the Ashram period.

tioned. The main part of this book describing the four Shaktis etc. was written independently and not as a letter, so also the first part.

These discernable slow gradations — steps in the spiral of ascent — are, respectively, Higher Mind, Intuition (or Intuitive Mind) and Overmind.

No, what is called intuitive Mind is usually a mixture of true Intuition with ordinary mentality — it can always admit a min-gling of truth and error. Sri Aurobindo therefore avoids the use of this phrase. He distinguishes between Intuition proper and an intuitive human mentality.

*

When war at last becomes a mere nightmare of the past, peace will indeed reign in our midst, and even our dream of the Life Divine will then become an actuality in the fullness of time.

It is not Sri Aurobindo’s view that the evolution of the Life Divine depends on the passing away of war. His view is rather the opposite.

*

He has caught indeed a vision, a vision of the Eternal, a vision of triune glory, a vision in the furthest beyond of transformed Supernature; but the vision is not a reality yet [1944].

Better write “not, on its highest peaks, a concrete embodied reality as yet: something has come down of the power or the influence but not the thing itself, far less its whole.”

APPENDIX

Notes of Uncertain Origin During a whole year a slice or two of sandwich, bread and butter and a cup of tea in the morning and in the evening a penny saveloy formed the only food.

* These invitations [by the Maharaja] were usually for some work to be done and could not be refused.

* Sri Aurobindo’s policy in India was not based on Parnellism. It had more resemblance to Sinn Fein but was conceived before the Sinn Fein movement and was therefore not inspired by it.

* Sri Aurobindo began practising Yoga on his own account, starting with pr¯an. ¯ay¯ama as explained to him by a friend, a disciple of Brahmananda. Afterwards faced with difficulties, he took the help of Lele who was called for the purpose from Gwalior by Barindra — this was after the Surat Congress in 1908.

* There was no difference of opinion [with the College authori-so as not to embarrass the authorities. After the acquittal, the College recalled him to his post. The final resignation was given from the Alipur jail.

* The Nationalists wanted to propose Lajpatrai as President, not Tilak.

No Nationalist leader was seated on the dais.