Aldous Huxley
Eyeless in Gaza
Chapter LIV (last chapter)
- “(Dilip had sent Sri Aurobindo an extract from Huxley describing his experience of peace. As soon as the door opened, Sri Aurobindo started to speak.)
Sri Aurobindo: (to Nirodbaran): You have to take this extract back to Dilip and tell him I have read it. Say that it is a big yogic experience — a psycho-spiritual one. It shows a going through the psychic down into the vital being and finding there the unitarian principle, the principle of oneness with everybody. Huxley speaks of ‘dark peace’ because it is down below that he goes and from there opens to the Light above. All the details are quite recognisable, and they cannot be a mental construction. This experience must have changed his life.”[1]
- (Sri Aurobindo saw in the afternoon that Nirodbaran was reading the extract from Huxley.)
Sri Aurobindo: Have you read it? Remarkable and significant, isn't it?
- Nirodbaran: Yes, very much so – a fine description.
It is no poor mental imagination at work here.
- Purani: Is the extract from “Ends and Means”?
No, it is from the last chapter of Eyeless in Gaza.
- Purani: In “Ends and Means” he more or less describes the remedy for the present troubles of the world, and speaks of non-violence as a means.
He also discusses the future of the world and speaks of Mohenjodaro and says that the people of those ruins must have been doing Yoga.
- Nirodbaran: Huxley has a powerful self-expression.
Yes, he has a remarkable style and a subtle and plastic mind. He must have done Yoga for some time to get that experience.”[2]
- “Satyendra: Huxley hasn't developed any philosophy in his book. He has only described his experience. It is ‘neti, neti’ (‘Not this, not that’).
Sri Aurobindo: No, it is not all neti, neti. So far as I have gathered from the extracts I have read, it is not that alone.
- Satyendra: But he has not given any philosophy.
- Purani: He is a moralist.
He has said, as I have done, that there is no solution to the problem of the world except by spirituality and the spiritual way.
- Satyendra: Can spiritual experience solve the problem?
It is the basis.”[3]
(Amal Kiran asked Aldous Huxley to contribute to “Mother India”:)
“At
Sage and Sun Apts
Palm Desert
Cal
Jan 29th 1949
Dear Mr Sethna,
Thank you for your letter of Dec 26th last, which has reached me after some delay. I have not been well and am behindhand with my work, consequently I cannot undertake my new commitments. I am sorry to have to say no; but cannot, in self-protection, do otherwise. Meanwhile I can only wish you all success in your venture. You will, of course, be a voice crying in the wilderness. But if a few individuals pay attention, something will have been accomplished.
Aldous Huxley”[4]
- ↑ Talks with Sri Aurobindo (Vol. 2), p.601, 11 April 1940
- ↑ Ibid., p.602
- ↑ Ibid., p.667, 26 May 1940
- ↑ K.D. Sethna (Amal Kiran): A Centenary Tribute, p.xlv
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