From: Devabrata

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Devabrata

Promod Kumar Chatterjee-a painter and a seeker

Promod Kumar Chattopadhyay (1885-1979) was an interesting personality who travelled through many vicissitudes in his life. He was a traveler and travelled extensively all over India, Nepal and Tibet for pilgrimage. But it was not merely for the purpose of pilgrimage –though its spiritual significance was not absent in his psychology-but for his passionate seeking for meeting the enlightened yogis and sadhus, he spent a considerable period of his early and middle life in the paths of the Himalayas and other places of India like a barefooted sannyasin. But he was not a sannyasin. He was already married then and his wife was a loving and dutiful woman. He was a painter of high quality. However, nothing could bind him with the normal familial life and ordinary world. Actually, for an indomitable aspiration for realizing the spiritual truth he became a little restless. This moved him to the dusty path of eternal India. He met innumerable spiritual personalities of almost all the disciplines of the spiritual kingdom of India in the course of his frequent travelling. His love and respect for sacred India and his thirst for India’s spiritual treasure were the predominant factors that determined and shaped predominantly the course of his life. Eventually, he became a realized person, a siddha in Vrindavan –a sacred pilgrimage place of North India- famous for Lord Krishna and Radha’s lila there on the bank of river Yamuna from time immemorial. He then returned home and pursued his career as a painter to earn a livelihood. He joined Baroda School of Arts as its Principle in the Twenties of the last century. Later he founded National Art Gallery in Masilipattanam in Andhra Pradesh in South India and became its President. He wrote many books on his experiences in the course of his extensive travelling in Bengali. His thirst to know about Tantric philosophy and practice led him to visit many renowned places of Tantric sadhana and he met many enlightened yogis and sadhaks of Tantra-discipline. He will be remembered for his renowned book “Tantrabhilasir sadhusanga” which is rich with the history, philosophy and the past glory and present decadence of Tantric sadhana in India and other places. Later he joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry in 1958. He painted some portraits of Sri Aurobindo which were highly praised by the Mother as they reflected the inner being of Sri Aurobindo to a great extent. He was amongst a very few who saw a vision of Supramental consciousness in the form of a winged bird. He came to Calcutta again for some personal work in 1975. But he did not return to Pondicherry as his daughters wanted his presence amongst them for the remaining days of his life.* He left his body on 22 September 1979 at the age of 94.

Once when Promod Kumar was returning home after visiting the Kailash Mountain and the lake Manas sarovar in Tibet he, by mistake, walked through a wrong path near Chmpawati in Almora district and entered into a deep forest. He was to reach Tanakpur to catch the train the next day with an elderly person with whom he was travelling. He was detached from his companion who was much behind Promod Kumar in the path. Promod Kumar as was natural to him was walking faster than his companion and was deeply engrossed in the beauty of the surrounding nature. After an hour he came to realise that he was following the wrong path which led him in the deep forest in stead of his destination. He was to reach Tanakpur before the evening. Then it was already evening in the forest and there was no path found for coming out of it. Then to worsen the situation, rain began to fall from already thickly overcast sky. It became gradually severe and the darkness became absolute. He fell from a height on a boulder, which hurt him badly. He was horrified in that dangerous and frightful situation. Leeches clung to his both feet and legs up to the thighs and were sucking his blood. He was bleeding and became extremely weak.

He lost his sense, remained there in the severe cold, and got completely drenched. After sometime he woke up only to suffer consciously. In the middle of that night he cried out to the God, “Why have you put me in such a situation?” Then all of a sudden he heard someone telling clearly in grave voice “Do you regard God as the doer of all your work?” Instantaneously an inner lightening struck him and by a flashing light he realized that he always thought himself as the doer of all his works and enjoyed the results himself, good or bad, that ensued from his works and regarded God as a separate and vast collective consciousness who was not anyway related to his individual work arising out of his personal initiatives. He said to himself “Then why do I call the God to come to my rescue for coming out of this danger that befalls on me for my wrong work? Actually it is the mechanical response of my vital nature. In childhood we call our parents for help and later we call the God whenever we get troubled as consequence of our own works. It becomes as spontaneous as our breathing lungs!”

Perhaps he knew it before but never before was so much aware of this fact. **

The writing of this article is based on this realization of Promod Kumar Chattopadhyay. We all know from our reading of The Gita that we should not expect the fruits of our work. We do not have right for the fruits or results of our work. So we should work not for ourselves but for the Divine. In the same way we do not have any right to work by ourselves. We are mere instruments through whom the Divine is working for something only known to Him. The basic principle of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is not to attain Brahman or God but to make oneself open to the Divine so that He can work through us. One does not know what is to be achieved from his life. What one is to become. So what makes the feeling that it is I who is working? It is the ego that so feels. But one may raise a point that one does many wrong and heinous works for narrow self satisfactions. Are all these works are done by God? Yes. There is none except Him in His creation. He is evolving i.e. he is in the process of attaining or achieving in myriad ways in all things and beings including the sadhus and murderous criminals. In this journey of evolution everything is progressing towards Him through Him. There is no wrong act. It is the ego only that defines. According to the status of ego in the evolution the work or karma is done in ignorance. We started to compare good and bad karma from the time we started to get in touch of consciousness higher than the general or ‘normal’ in enlightened beings and also in times even in ourselves. There is only one divine pressure behind the evolutionary urge. In some it is less hindered and so we meet a yogi or a poet or great visionaries and in some it is to move through obstacles and we are met with criminals or a Hitler. Every wrong act is an upheaval or catastrophe from the perverse point of ego.

But a bhakta may well ask where does he stand personally in this evolutionary process? He may obviously want to be justified of his individual dignity in his existence! Yes –the Divine approves and acknowledges his want.

But before that one must consecrate all his work and life to the Divine until one feels that it is the Divine that works through him and moves through him. When one consciously feels that the Divine is absolutely established as the driver in his being and one acts from the status of his union with the divine then only he will feel his individual justification in the vibration of the delight of unfolding of the supreme Divine will in this infinite creation. But one must be aware of one’s individual soul first as it is the individual link of the divine that exists within one.

The first essential work in this yoga is to give the right and the fruit of one’s work to the Divine. So the Mother tells us to work with a prayer “Grant that I may do as well as I can the best things to do.” She insists to be in our best in all our works so that she may face less hindrance in her work in us. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother always insisted on the perfection of our instrumentality.

*As told to me by Promod Kumar in presence of his daughter.

**Promod Kumar was able to come out from that jungle and caught the scheduled train on the next day at Tanakpur.

Emerging of a new world

From time immemorial regions in and around the Himalayas were liked by the sadhus, yogis and seekers of spiritual life. For the people of India, the Himalayas generally stand as the platform from where one may reach God. Actually, the most casual travelers also feel a subtle divine presence in the Himalayan regions. One feels elevated and even for a moment, though transitory and short-lived one gets inclined for spiritual life. This is not due to the natural beauty only of the Himalayas but for the spiritual atmosphere of the place thanks to the sadhana of the seekers and yogis that took place for thousands of years in these places. This is not the belief and feeling of Indians only but for many foreign travelers who have also felt the spiritual air of the Himalayas. Therefore, the Himalayas enjoy a special status as spiritual field. However, the spiritual seekers always sought calm, serene natural places for their sadhana. It is very difficult to practice yoga living in crowded, noisy urban places. It is very natural for man to go for secluded life whenever he feels an urge for higher spiritual existence. The human nature with its mind and restless life movements are required to be calmed and peaceful before taking a step in the path. Whatever the spiritual school –all seekers feel the need of secluded life first to discipline the gross human nature-or to get rid of it. Therefore, spiritual life was generally associated with calm natural places in India. Those who did not find the Himalayas convenient to their situation went to different places that were at least a little far from busy places. The riverside, the forests, the hills were most suitable places for living a calm life for practicing yoga. There were exceptions-but very few. The purpose of this writing is not about the seekers of spiritual life notwithstanding. The nature is inner breathing in man though man is not always aware of it. But always seek to rush to the nature for getting refreshed and touched with feelings that are vast, infinite, peace, silence and calmness and for this, peaceful natural places are most convenient and helpful. There was no dearth of such peaceful places in India and other places earlier. With the growing population, massive industrialization and destruction of nature along with change of an all-out system of social life with the support of the scientific developments, the world has become small and very cohesive organisation. In the modern world, man cannot live a secluded life psychologically and geographically ignoring his social involvement. The whole world has changed, with this is changed also our view of the outer world. The sky is not infinite –it is a relative notion. There remains no unknown place for exploration. The Moon is not the same moon; it is going to be a camp for further travel in space. The Ganga is polluted, the Everest has been desecrated. The birds and wild animals are being extinct. The crickets are not found chirping to silence the night. Man has landed in a small, limited and noisy place known conventionally as the beautiful green earth. He, in absence of nature and calm life-is detached from all the great feelings that were solace to his mind and life. He is constantly pushed with his back to the wall. He is now made a nut in a giant and automatic machine-called life. But he is still that man who aspired to go beyond everything, all limitations. But in this way he has lost the world, the natural world also that sustained and supported him. The old world of nature and living will not return for him. They are lost forever. But the basic urge within will push him to get all the great feeling that once nature gave him. But where shall he find the infinity of the sky, the vastness of the oceans, the silence of the forests…? For this, he will fall back on himself to find all that moved and thrilled him earlier. He will discover the world and the universe in infinite ways in himself. The world created outside will find its root in him. Then and only the then the purpose of God in man will be fulfilled.

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The fading remnant of a song

Yesterday I suddenly woke up from sleep in the night just before the beginning of dawn. I was dreaming. Now I cannot recollect what the dream was all about. Actually, I am unable to say convincingly whether it was a dream at all. But, there had been something that I felt before I woke up. What was it? There was a feeling in me. It was that I had been hearing a very sweet melodious song. I tried to remember the wording of the song but I could not. I had heard it in the last line when it was fading as if moving far from me. The most peculiar thing was that I had a feeling that I knew the whole song and its beautiful tune. It had been so captivating that I felt it was a song sung for my life; actually, it was a call for me where I live in my unknown existence. Naturally, I sought to hear it again and perhaps I wanted to remember myself in that song after waking up. I felt that I had been living for this song and I could live till the last day of my life for the sake of this song. I had wanted to know and hear and understand many things in my life but when I heard the fading remnant of the tune I had known it for certain that all the response of my seeking was carried through this tune. As I woke up, I was deeply sad and thought that I missed it forever. At the same time I went on thinking that, it was something that one could never miss. It was like missing oneself! I knew it and but I could not remember. If I ever remembered it I would discover myself!

Author of my life

In my last posting, I wrote about formation of individuality in life. I think this is the basic thing one must know about spirituality. Whatever I like to know or love to know is obviously related to my own inclination as to how I can be satisfied. Man is not driven by reason. He is carrying a spontaneous and continuous thirst to get himself harmonized in what he seeks to know. In his seeking, he unknowingly wants to get resonance of a truth that is already in him. Even reason is a godhead that we worship not for its own sake but for the sake of overall existential harmony.

However, my point is not to get to the root of reason as the prime mover of our search for truth. We are not always happy to know a truth that we arrive through reasoning. It is because we want a truth that can make us satisfied happily. If a truth arrived through reasoning fails to satisfy an individual or a collective body then it is in confliction of our sense of harmony-which again is the basis of truth. The fallacy lies in our inability to conceive a reality in its wholeness. It is not my interest here to discuss this aspect of reasoning in man.

I am concerned only with our satisfaction in relation to truth. We want to know only to be satisfied. What is this satisfaction? This is an existential phenomenon. I seek only to be complemented with a truth that sustains me. I may say that I have been searching myself in all my seeking. It is I –but it is hidden I. So there is a constant pressure in life to seek it in everything-and everything for the satisfaction of being discovered.

He is the author and this life of mine is his satisfaction-his tale.