Dearest Mrinalini
I have received your letter of the 24th August. I am
sorry to learn that the same affliction has fallen once
more upon your parents. You have not written which of
the boys has passed away from here. But then what can
be done if the affliction comes? This is a world in
which when you seek happiness, you find grief in its
heart, sorrow always clinging to joy. That rule touches
not only the desire of children, but all worldly
desires. To offer, with a quiet heart, all happiness
and grief at the feet of God is the only remedy.
[…]
Now I will write the other thing of
which I spoke before. I think you have understood by
now that the man with whose fate yours has been linked
is a man of a very unusual character. Mine is not the
same field of action, the same purpose in life, the
same mental attitude as that of the people of today in
this country. I am in every respect different from them
and out of the ordinary. Perhaps you know what ordinary
men say of an extraordinary view, an extraordinary
endeavour, an extraordinary ambition. To them it is
madness; only, if the madman is successful in his work
then he is called no longer a madman, but a great
genius. But how many are successful in their life's
endeavour?
Among a thousand men, there are five or
six who are out of the ordinary and out of the five or
six one perhaps successful. Not to speak of success, I
have not yet even entirely entered my field of work.
There is nothing then for you but to consider me mad.
And it is an evil thing for a woman to fall into the
hands of a mad fellow. For woman's expectations are all
bound up in worldly happiness and sorrow. A madman will
not make his wife happy, he can only make her
miserable.
The founders of the Hindu religion
understood this very well. They loved extraordinary
characters, extraordinary endeavours, extraordinary
ambitions. Madman or genius, they respected the
extraordinary man. But all this means a terrible plight
for the wife, and how could the difficulty be solved?
The sages fixed upon this solution; they told the
woman, "Know that the only mantra for womankind is
this: 'The husband is the supreme guru.'[Up to this
point the translation follows an early version by
Barindra Kumar Ghose which was seen and revised lightly
by Sri Aurobindo. The rest of the translation is new.]
The wife shares the dharma [law of conduct] of her
husband. She must help him, counsel him, encourage him
in whatever work he accepts as his dharma. She should
regard him as her god, take joy in his joy, and feel
sorrow in his unhappiness. It is for a man to choose
his work; the woman's part is to give help and
encouragement."
Now, the point is this. Are you going
to choose the path of the Hindu religion or follow the
ideal of the new culture? Your marriage to a madman is
the result of bad karma in your previous lives. It is
good to come to terms with one's fate, but what sort of
terms will they be? Will you also dismiss your husband
as a madman on the strength of what other people think?
A madman is bound to run after his mad ways. You cannot
hold him back; his nature is stronger than yours. Will
you then do nothing but sit in a corner and weep? Or,
will you run along with him; try to be the mad wife of
this madman, like the queen of the blind king who
played the part of a blind woman by putting a bandage
across her eyes? For all your education in a Brahmo
school, you are still a woman from a Hindu home. The
blood of Hindu ancestors flows in your veins. I have no
doubt you will choose the latter course.
I have three madnesses. The first one
is this. I firmly believe that the accomplishments,
genius, higher education and learning and wealth that
God has given me are His. I have a right to spend for
my own purposes only what is needed for the maintenance
of the family and is otherwise absolutely essential.
The rest must be returned to God. If I spend everything
for myself, for my pleasure and luxury, I am a thief.
The Hindu scriptures say that one who receives wealth
from God and does not give it back to Him is a thief.
So far, I have given two annas to God and used the
other fourteen annas for my own pleasure; this is the
way I have settled the account, remaining engrossed in
worldly pleasures. Half my life has been wasted - even
the beast finds fulfilment in stuffing his own belly
and his family's and catering to their happiness.
I have realised that I have been acting
all this time as an animal and a thief. Now I realise
this and am filled with remorse and disgusted with
myself. No more of all this. I renounce this sin once
and for all. What does giving to God mean? It means to
spend on good works. The money I gave to Usha or to
Sarojini causes me no regret. To help others is a
sacred duty; to give protection to those who seek
refuge is a yet greater sacred duty. But the account is
not settled by giving only to one's brothers and
sisters. In these dark days the whole country is
seeking refuge at my door. I have three hundred million
brothers and sisters in this country. Many of them are
dying of starvation and the majority just manage to
live, racked by sorrow and suffering. They too must be
helped.
What do you say, will you come along
with me and share my ideal in this respect? We will eat
and dress like ordinary men, buying only what is truly
needed and offering the rest to God:this is what I
propose to do. My purpose can be fulfilled, once you
give your approval, once you are able to accept the
sacrifice. You have been saying, "I have made no
progress." Here I have shown you a path towards
progress. Will you take this path?
My second madness has only recently
seized me. It is this: by whatever means I must have
the direct vision of God. Religion these days means
repeating the name of God at any odd hour, praying in
public, showing off how pious one is. I want nothing of
this. If God exists, there must be some way to
experience His existence, to meet Him face to face.
However arduous this path is, I have made up my mind to
follow it. The Hindu religion declares that the way
lies in one's own body, in one's own mind. It has laid
down the rules for following the way, and I have begun
to observe them. Within a month I have realised that
what the Hindu religion says is not false. I am
experiencing in myself the signs of which it speaks.
Now I want to take you along this way. You will not be
able to keep step with me, for you do not have the
requisite knowledge. But there is nothing to prevent
you from following behind me. All can attain perfection
on this path, but to enter it depends on one's own
will. Nobody can drag you onto it. If you consent to
this, I shall write more about it.
My third madness is that while others
look upon their country as an inert piece of matter - a
few meadows and fields, forests and hills and rivers -
I look upon my country as the Mother. I adore Her, I
worship Her as the Mother. What would a son do if a
demon sat on his mother's breast and started sucking
her blood? Would he quietly sit down to his dinner,
amuse himself with his wife and children, or would he
rush out to deliver his mother? I know I have the
strength to deliver this fallen race. It is not
physical strength, - I am not going to fight with sword
or gun, - but the strength of knowledge.
The power of the Kshatriya is not the
only one; there is also the power of the Brahmin, the
power that is founded on knowledge. This feeling is not
new in me, it is not of today. I was born with it, it
is in my very marrow. God sent me to earth to
accomplish this great mission. The seed began to sprout
when I was fourteen; by the time I was eighteen the
roots of the resolution had grown firm and unshakable.
After listening to what my aunt said, you formed the
idea that some wicked people had dragged your simple
and innocent husband onto the bad path. But it was this
innocent husband of yours who brought those people and
hundreds of others onto that path - be it bad or good -
and will yet bring thousands and thousands of others
onto that same path. I do not say that the work will be
accomplished during my lifetime, but it certainly will
be done.
Now I ask you, what are you going to do
in this connection? The wife is the shakti, the
strength of her husband. Will you be Usha's disciple
and go on repeating the mantras of Sahib-worship? Will
you diminish the strength of your husband by
indifference or redouble it by your sympathy. and
encouragement? You will say, "What can an ordinary
woman like me do in these great matters? I have no
strength of mind, no intelligence, I am afraid to think
about these things." But there is an easy way out. Take
refuge in God. Enter once the path of God-realisation;
He will soon make good your deficiencies. Fear
gradually leaves one who takes refuge in God. And if
you can put your trust in me, if you can listen to me
alone and not to all and sundry, I can give you my own
strength; that will not diminish my strength but
increase it. We say that the wife is the husband's
shakti, his strength. This means that the husband's
strength is redoubled when he sees his own image in his
wife and hears an echo of his own high aspirations in
her.
Will you remain like this for ever: "I
shall put on fine clothes, have nice things to eat,
laugh and dance and enjoy all the pleasures"? Such an
attitude cannot be called progress. At the present time
the life of women in this country has taken this narrow
and contemptible form. Give up all this and follow
after me. We have come to this world to do God's work;
let us begin it.
You have one defect in your nature. You
are much too simple. You listen to anything anyone
might say. Thus your mind is for ever restless, your
intelligence cannot develop, you cannot concentrate on
any work. This has to be corrected. You must acquire
knowledge by listening to one person only. You must
have a single aim and accomplish your work with a
resolute mind. You must ignore the calumny and the
ridicule of others and hold fast to your devotion.
There is another defect, not so much of
your personal nature, as of the times. The times are
such in Bengal that people are incapable of listening
to serious things in a serious manner. Religion,
philanthropy, noble aspirations, high endeavour, the
deliverance of the country, all that is serious, all
that is high and noble is turned to ridicule. People
want to laugh everything away. At your Brahmo school,
you picked up a little of this fault. Bari also had it;
all of us are tainted by this defect to some extent. It
has grown in surprising measure among the people of
Deoghar. This attitude must be rejected with a firm
mind. You will be able to do it easily. And once you
get into the habit of thinking, your true nature will
blossom forth. You have a natural turn towards doing
good for others and towards self-sacrifice. The one
thing you lack is strength of mind. You will get that
through worship of God.
This is the secret of mine I wanted to
tell you. Do not divulge it to anybody. Ponder calmly
over these matters. There is nothing to be frightened
of, but there is much to think about. To start with,
you need do nothing but meditate on the Divine each day
for half an hour, expressing to Him an ardent desire in
the form of a prayer. The mind will get prepared
gradually. This is the prayer you are to make to Him:
"May I not be an obstacle in the path of my husband's
life, his aim, his endeavour to realise God. May I
always be his helper and his instrument." Will you do
this?
Yours
