An Interview with Nirodbaran

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Foreword This monograph prepared by Professor Supriyo Bhattacharya covers a vast area though written in a short compass. Nirodbaran is quite well-known as a Sadhak and a poet. But here Professor Bhattacharya acquaints us with Nirodbaran's intimacy with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in a fascinating manner. In 1987 Nirodbaran, in course of his discussion with Professor Bhattacharya, describes how he could emerge as a Sadhak and a poet under the spiritual umbrella of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

As the scribe of Sri Aurobindo, Nirodbaran was inextricably linked with the composition of the great epic Savitri. Sri Aurobindo dictated this epic to Nirodbaran day after day and Nirodbaran takes `down line after line'. Referring to it, Nirodbaran says that "I do not know whether such a thing happened in the case of other poets."

Sri Aurobindo himself pointed out that "different levels of inspiration had been at work" when he composed Savitri. Explaining these 'different levels of inspiration' Nirodbaran observes that Sri Aurobindo took poetry as 'a part of his Sadhana'. For that reason the Mother had said that "the reading of Savitri can be a great help to Sadhana."

Nirodbaran's 'insightful remarks' about some disciples of Sri Aurobindo and some hints on "the present difficulties and the prerequisites of Sadhana" would help us to understand the 'inside-view of Yoga.' There is no doubt that in a very lucid way Nirodbaran analyses the `Subconscient', which is 'the depot of all the contents of the lower nature like passion, anger etc" in human beings. He points out that "Sri Aurobindo's Yoga would not be fulfilled or realised unless the Subconscient is totally transformed."

Introduction It was a beautiful evening in 1987. Sitting in the delightful warmth of Shri Nirodbaran's room downstairs in the Ashram building in Pondicherry, I had a long talk with him on topics ranging over many areas. Nirodbaran talked mostly in Bengali, occasionally in English. The interview was pre-arranged with his kind permission and recorded on a tape-recorder. An early version of the interview appeared in Bengali on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday in 1993 in a collection of beautiful essays (in Bengali) offered to Nirodbaran as a small token of gratitude, love and appreciation of his various qualities, by a few of his friends and admirers. This collection entitled `Nirodbaran: Sadhak 0 Kabi' was edited by Shri Aurobindo Basu and Shri Ramen Sengupta. Grateful acknowledgement is here made to the editors of the volume. Since I came to learn from numerous readers that they had found the interview very interesting and quite useful in many respects, I am naturally convinced that it should be published in English so that it may reach a wider Audience. Accordingly, it had been translated into English by me and revised and slightly enlarged to include a few points not covered earlier in the Bengali version.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages