Tracks Across Time Into The 21st Century

SEQUENCE - 15: THE MOTHER: PARIS – 1910 – 1913

TOPIC 1:
Incident a)

First it was Paul Richard who met Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry, in April 1910.

Paul Richard was a Pastor who turned to the study of occultism. It was when he came in contact with The Mother that he received from her occult knowledge and experience. The books that Paul Richard wrote subsequently, ‘Ether Vivant’ (The Living Ether) and ‘Les Dieux’ (The Gods) were based on the occult knowledge he obtained from The Mother.

Then he became a lawyer and entered politics. In 1910 he came to Pondicherry on an electioneering campaign on behalf of Paul Bluysen, an aspirant deputy to the French National Assembly. Although the ostensible reason for his coming to Pondicherry was politics, he had the ulterior motive to find a yogi. He wanted to find out, if possible, “the inner significance of the Jewish emblem known as the Star of David or the seal of Solomon. This was also the mystic symbol of Theon’s Cosmic Movement and appeared on the front page of its organ, ‘Le Revue Cosmique’. This was a six-pointed star containing a lotus at the centre…” (KRS. 46)

Interestingly, it is the same symbol with the lotus drawn in outline diagrammatically that was to become Sri Aurobindo’s own symbol.

Incident b)

They met for two days. Sri Aurobindo had made an overwhelming impression on Paul Richard. Richard told a Japanese audience on his way to Paris:

“It is in Asia that I found the greatest among them – the leader, the hero of tomorrow. He is a Hindu. His name is Aurobindo Ghose.” On a different occasion Paul Richard said:

“It is He who has coronated Aurobindo as His Messiah. So march on he must, for harking to His call has transformed him into what he is today - a herald of the Power that never came down to earth, though it was destined.” (KRS, 49)

Incident c)

The meeting between Sri Aurobindo and Richard had built the bridge between Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. A correspondence between them began and lasted till the destined meeting took place on the physical plane.

TOPIC 2:
Incident a)

Having obtained her divorce with Henri Morisset in March 1908, The Mother agreed to marry Paul Richad in May 1911. “I have always been totally indifferent to these things,” told The Mother. “But anyway, when I met him I knew who he was and I decided I would convert him”. “Later she described him as a Vibhuti of the Lord of Falsehood, one of the four original Asuras!”

Incident b)

By 1911 the group meetings of “Idea” came to a halt but The Mother became associated with related groups of seekers in Paris, including the Bahaist. She had started another association, called, “L’Union des Pensées Feminines” (The Union of Women’s Thoughts).

It is during this year The Mother got closely acquainted with Mme Alexandra David-Neel – “an intense woman and capable of profound meditation”. The Mother described her first meeting with Mme David-Neel:

“She came to deliver a lecture … at the Theosophiscal society, I think. I attended the lecture; and while she was speaking I saw Buddha – I saw him clearly, not above her head, but a little to the side. He was present.” (MC 3, 301)

Incident c)

During her meetings in the Women’s Association, The Mother contributed causeries on, “On Thought”, “On Dreams”, “To know how to Suffer”, “The Supreme Discovery”. These meetings at The Mother’s house, at No.9, Rue Val de Grace, were encounters with poets, artists and idealists, full of intimate discussions on different subjects. The Mother, though identified with the participants, was yet apart:

“Her mind sat high pouring its golden beams,
Her heart was a crowded temple of delight…
Midst those encircling lives her spirit dwelt,
Apart in herself…” (Savitri368)

Incident d)

Perhaps, of all the subjects that were discussed in the meetings of the Women’s Association, held from 7 May to 2 July 1912, the subject of the first meet was the most important one — it is ‘the corner-stone of a magnificent edifice’ that The Mother was to build later in her life. The subject set for the meeting was:

“What is the aim to be achieved, the work to be done, the means of achievement?”

And The Mother’s answer was:

“The general aim to be achieved is the advent of a progressive universal harmony.

“The means for attaining this aim, in regard to the earth, is the realisation of human unity through the awakening in all and the manifestation by all of the inner divinity which is one.

“In other words – to create unity by founding the Kingdom of God which is within us all.

“This, therefore is the most useful work to be done:

1. For each individually, to be conscious in himself of the Divine Presence and to identity himself with it.
2. To individualise the states of being that were never till now conscious in man and, by that, to put the earth in connection with one or more of the fountains of universal force that are still sealed to it.
3. To speak again to the world the eternal word under new form adapted to its present mentality. It will be the synthesis of all human knowledge.
4. Collectively, to establish an ideal society in a propitious spot for the flowering of the new race, the race of the Sons of God.” (MCW 2, 47).

TOPIC 3
Incident a)

In this Manifesto for the Future, The Mother had already achieved the first work –– to be conscious in oneself of the Divine Presence and to identify oneself with it.

 “The realisation of the inner Divine, that’s when I started writing my ‘Meditations,” said The Mother.

These ‘Meditations’ were The Mother’s way of putting “into material shape each day a little of the conversation that she had so often with the Supreme Lord. Perhaps, this was also the means of achieving the second step of her Manifesto, namely, “to put the earth in connection with one or more of the fountains of universal force that are still sealed to it.”

Incident b)

“The diary-jottings, these articulate approaches to the Infinite .. began several weeks before 2 November 1912 and were to continue…” till 1931. (KRS, 63)

Sri Aurobindo were to comment on these Prayers and Meditations in 1936:

“The Prayers are mostly written in an identification with the earth-consciousness. It is The Mother in the lower nature addressing The Mother in the higher nature, The Mother herself carrying on the sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation come. This continues till the identification of the earth-consciousness and the higher consciousness is effected...” (SABCL 25, 383)

TOPIC 4:
Incident a)

It was around this time that one day The Mother went to visit Abdul Baha, the successor of Baha Ullah, founder of Bahai religion. On that day Abdul Baha was to give a lecture to his disciples. “But he was sick and could not get up… When I came near him, he said. ‘Go and take my place at today’s lecture’… I said to him, ‘I am not a member of your sect and I know nothing about it, so how can I talk to them about anything?’ But he insisted, saying, ‘It does not matter… go and talk… Concentrate in the sitting room and then speak.’

Then, one day, Abdul Baha asked The Mother to stay in Paris and take the responsibility for his disciples. “But I told him that as I did not myself accept the beliefs of his sect, it was out of the question for me to do so…” (MCW 2, 104).

Incident b)

Towards the end of the year, 27 December 1912, The Mother attended a talk on the Mantras given by someone who was supposed to have practised yoga for a year in the Himalayas. “Suddenly in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. Then I saw the whole room we were in fill up at once with light, a golden, vibrant light… It came - a Force like this – my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation – all, but all started vibrating…

“That particular sound holds the vibration of thousands upon thousands of years of spiritual aspiration - man’s aspiration to the Supreme is there in its entirety. And the power is automatically there since the experience is there. Oh, a tremendous power. Tremendous.

“That OM is the totality of the sounds of creation perceived by the Supreme; He hears OM like a call to him. (MCW 3, 244)

Incident c)

Through all these outer circumstances, her intimate dialogue with the Divine continues. As days go by there is a greater identification between ‘I’ and ‘Thou’:

“I do not know whether this chant goes from me to Thee or comes from Thee to me or whether Thou and I and the universe are this marvellous chant of which I have just become conscious….” (MCW, 25)

Incident d)

The last entry of the year, on 29 December 1913, reads:

“… may we take our flight boldly towards wider horizons and intenser light, a more perfect compassion, a more disinterested love… towards Thee.”

“I hail Thee, O Lord, Master of our life, and I want to proclaim Thy reign over all the earth.” (MCW1, 42)

Incident e)

Again on 22.02.1914, she noted in her diary “…Being this Love I feel myself living at the centre of each thing upon the entire earth, and at the same time I seem to stretch out immense, infinite arms and develop with a boundless tenderness all beings, clasped, gathered, nestled on my breast that is vaster than the universe…” (Prayers… 22.02.1914).

TOPIC 5:
Incident a)

In order to proclaim His reign over all the earth, there was perhaps the need to fulfil the third step in her Manifesto for Humanity’s Future, namely ‘to speak again to the world the eternal word… the synthesis of all human knowledge.’

Incident b)

On March 4, 1914 The Mother left Paris on the way to Marseilles via Geneva.

On March 8, she boarded the Japanese boat Kaga Maru. Her direction was India. Her destination was Sri Aurobindo. Her prayer was: “Grant that I may accomplish my mission, that I may help in Thy integral manifestation.”

Incident c)

On March 27, 1914 the Kaga Maru reached Colombo. That day she stayed, alongwith Paul Richard, at a noted Buddhist monk’s place. Crossing the straits at Talaimannar and reaching Dhanushkodi, they boarded the Boat Mail on March 28.

Incident d)

On 29 March, after a change at Villupuram, the train speeded towards Pondicherry — the destined meeting place:

“But now the destined spot and hour were close ;
Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal…
There expectation beat wide sudden wings,
As if a soul had looked out from earth’s face
And all that was in her felt a coming change…
(Savitri, 441)

The Mother reached Pondicherry Railway station in the mid-morning of 29 March 1914:

“Descend, O Happiness, with thy moon-gold feet
Enrich earth’s floors upon whose sleep we lie”. (Ibid, 462)

SEQUENCE - 16: SRI AUROBINDO: SILENT YOGA-1910-13

TOPIC 1:
Incident a)

“I need a place of refuge,” wrote Sri Aurobindo, “in which I can complete my Yoga unassailed and build up other souls around me. It seems to me that Pondicherry is the place appointed by those who are Beyond…” (SABCL 26, 423).

Incident b)

But the British authorities assailed him in the beginning of his stay at Pondicherry. For them he was still the one most dangerous man in India, the source of all the anti-British movement in India.

Having failed to put him behind bars in the Alipore Bomb case, the British Government now tried fraud. “An attempt was made to frame a trumped-up charge at law… The French police entered Sri Aurobindo’s residence for a search; But when their Chief found there were Latin and Greek books lying about on his desk, he was so taken aback that he could only blurt out, “il sait du latin, it sait du grec!” “He knows Latin, he knows Greek!” and then he left with all his men. (Rishabhchand, 364).

Incident c)

“In addition to force and fraud, the British Government did not hesitate to make use of temptation as well. They sent word to Sri Aurobindo … to say that if he were to return to British India, they would not mind. They would indeed be happy to provide him with a nice bungalow in the quiet surroundings of a hill-station, Darjeeling… Sri Aurobindo refused the invitation with a “No, thank you.” (Ibid, 365).

Incident d)

“Afterwards came a more serious attack, perhaps the one most fraught with danger. The first World War was on .. the British Government now brought pressure on the French Government … Either they should hand them (the political refugees) over to the British, or else let them be deported out of India. The French Govt. accordingly proposed that they would find room for [them] in Algeria ..” [Ibid]

When the proposal was brought to Sri Aurobindo, he paused a little and then said, in a quiet clear tone; “I do not budge from here.” (Ibid. 366)

TOPIC 2:
Incident a)

Dogged by continued financial stringency, Sri Aurobindo and the young pioneers around him had to shift from one house to another – Shankar Chettiar’s house, Sundaram Chettiar’s house, Raghavan House, Mission House and the ‘Guest House’.

Incident b)

The five young men around him ministered Sri Aurobindo’s needs and lived a forced ascetic life. “It is said that all five inmates had to share the same towel: they had to manage with a candle-lamp and a kerosene – lam” (KRS, 365)

A letter from Sri Aurobindo, dated 3 July 1912, gives us a glimpse of their financial situation. It reads:

“The situation just now is that we have Rs.1½ or so in hand … no doubt, God will provide, but He has contracted a bad habit of waiting till the last moment. I only hope he does not wish us to learn how to live on a minus quantity… (SABCL 27, 426).

Incident c)

The young revolutionaries did not mind these privations. They were getting the bounty of Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge. He taught them Greek, Latin, French, Italian through classics in the respective languages. There were other political exiles in Pondicherry who came to learn the Rig Veda from Sri Aurobindo.

TOPIC 3:
Incident a)

Sri Aurobindo’s outer circumstance – the threats, the obscurity, the insecurity and the enforced financial austerity – “bore, however, no relation to the ardours and advances of his yoga in the secret caverns of his soul.” (KRS 373). In a letter to The Mother, dated 12.07.1911, he wrote:

“I am developing the necessary powers for bringing down the spiritual on the material plane, and I am now able to put myself into men and change them, removing the darkness and bringing light, giving them a new heart and a new mind.” (SABCL, 26, 423).

Incident b)

Two months later, he wrote to The Mother:

“My yoga is proceeding with great rapidity, but I defer writing to you of the results until certain experiments in which I am now engaged, have yielded fruit sufficient to establish beyond dispute the theory and system of yoga which I have formed … “ (SABCL, 26, 424).

Incident c)

The ‘foundations of that knowledge’ which formed the basis of his new yoga were first given by the spirit of Swami Vivekananda. “He didn’t say ‘supermind’, clarified Sri Aurobindo. “Supermind’ is my own word. He just said to me, ‘This is this, this is that, and so on. That was how he proceeded by pointing and indicating. He visited me for 15 days in Alipur Jail … and impressed upon my mind the working of the Higher Consciousness - The Truth – Consciousness in general – which leads towards the Supermind … (SABCL 26, 28).

In the beginning years at Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo was inwardly busy preparing the foundations for establishing his new yoga. It was “a work severe and painful’, said he but he had to do it in order to “find and found the future”:

But not for self alone the self is won:
Content abide not with one conquered realm;
Adventure all to make the whole world thine.”
(Savitri, BVII, C.VI)

That was what Sri Aurobindo was doing during his early years at Pondicherry.

Incident d)

In a letter written in 1913, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “15 August is usually a turning point or a notable day for me personally either in Sadhana or life… This time it has been very important for me. My subjective Sadhana may be said to have received its final seal and something like its consummation by a prolonged realisation and dwelling in Parabrahman for many hours.. Since then, egoism is dead for all in me except the Annamaya Atma.”

Incident e)

A detailed record of his inner work done during this period was kept in his spiritual diary, ‘Record of Yoga’. He had started this around the same time in 1912, when The Mother had started noting down her ‘Meditations’.

TOPIC 4:
Incident a)

Interestingly, as The Mother crystallised her Manifesto for Humanity’s Future in 1912, so did Sri Aurobindo describe in 1913 the work he had to do:

1. “To re-explain the Sanatana Dharma to the human intellect in all its parts, from a new standpoint…
2. On the basis of Vedic knowledge, to establish a Yogic sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity and help in the restoration of the Satya Yuga…
3. India being the centre, to work for her restoration to her proper place in the world…
4. A perfect humanity being intended, society will have to be remodelled so as to be fit to contain that perfection.”
   (SABCL 26, 433).

Incident b)

Nothing much was done ‘to speak again the eternal word under a new form’ or ‘from a new standpoint’ until the beginning of 1914. Perhaps ‘a special occult action’ was necessary for the Work to begin: Their Meeting:

“In us must take place the union of the two wills and the two currents, so that from their contact may spring the illuminating spark”.
(Prayers and Meditations – June 14, 1914)

SEQUENCE - 17: THE CONVERGENCE: 29 MARCH 1914

TOPIC 1:
Incident a)

They met: Sri Aurobindo and The Mother: The East and the West.

They met on 29 March 1914, at 3.30 in the afternoon. They met on top of the stairs that led up to the upstairs of verandah of house no.41, on Rue Francois Martin: “I climbed up the staircase and he was standing there, waiting for me at the top of the stairs…,” The Mother was to describe later.

“Here first she met on the uncertain earth,
The one for whom her heart had come so far.” (Savitri, 445)

She looked at Sri Aurobindo; “Gaze met close gaze”:

“So he appeared…..

As if a weapon of the living Light
Erect and lofty like a spear of God
His figure led the splendour of the morn …”
(Savitri, 445).

“A visage was there, noble and great and calm,
As if encircled by a halo of thought,
A span, an arch of meditating light,
As though some secret nimbus half was seen;
Her inner vision still remembering knew
A forehead that wore the crown of all her part,
Two eyes her constant and eternal stars,
Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul…”
(Savitri, 449)

Incident b)

“Exactly my vision! Dressed the same way, in the same position, in profile, his head held high. He turned his head toward me… and I saw in his eyes that it was He.” (MCN,5, 580).

“As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well-known being I used to call Krishna…” explained The Mother.

“Behold the one for whom my life has waited long unfulfilled,
Behold the sudden sovereign of my days.”

And Sri Aurobindo recognised in her the Divine Mother:

“She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire,
The luminous heart of the unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God…
The might of all that never yet came down…
Once seen, his heart acknowledged only her...”
(Savitri 356)

“So, now they met in that momentous hour,
So utter the recognition in the deeps….”
(Savitri 450)

The recognition was mutual.

Incident c)

“These knew each other though in forms thus strange.
Although to sight unknown, although life, mind
Had altered to hold a new significance,
These bodies summed the drift of the numberless births
And the spirit to the spirit was the same.
(Savitri, 451-2)

Said Sri Aurobindo:

“The Mother’s consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play."
(SABCL 26, 455)

“Mother and I are one but in two bodies…” (Ibid., 457)

“The Mother is Sri Aurobindo’s Force”.  (Ibid, 458)

Said The Mother:

“Without him I exist not; without me he is unmanifest.”

TOPIC 2:
Incident a)

“The meeting of the two represents the coming together of the necessary creative powers by whom a new age would be born”:

“A moment passed that was eternity’s ray,
 An hour began, the matrix of eternity’s new Time.”
(Savitri, 452)

Incident b)

“Both Sri Aurobindo and The Mother had been pursuing the inner life on essentially identical lines.. so their joining of forces was the most natural thing. And it was not only a doubling of strengths but also a linking of complimentaries… when The Mother and Sri Aurobindo met, they completed each other, brought fully into play the spiritual energies in both and started the work of total earth – transformation from high above and deep within.

“The Mother and Sri Aurobindo complete by their combination the entire circle of the higher human activities and are supremely fitted to bring the East and West together and, blending them, lend to a common all consummating goal.”
(Mother India, February 1973, 111-12)

TOPIC 3:
Incident a)

“When I saw Sri Aurobindo,” recollected The Mother, “I at once knew that it was he, the Divine, and I wholly surrendered myself to him; my whole being gave the consent…”
(GM, 133)
“To Him I have surrendered all, will, life and self; for him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His will, with complete joy; and nothing in His service can be sacrifice, for all is perfect delight.” (Champaklal Treasures 85).

“In a wide moment of two souls that meet
She felt her being flow into him as in waves
A river pours into a mighty sea.
As when a soul is merging into God
To live in Him for ever and know His joy,
Her consciousness was a wave of him alone
And all her separate self was lost in his…
Each now was a part of the other’s unity.”
(Savitri, 465)

Incident b)

Later, Sri Aurobindo remarked: “I had never seen anywhere a self-surrender so absolute and unreserved.” (A&R April 89, 116)

Years later, Sri Aurobindo commented on their first meeting:

“That was the first time I knew that perfect surrender to the last physical cell was humanly possible, it was when The Mother came and bowed down that I saw that perfect complete surrender in action.” (GM1, 252)

Incident c)

The day after the meeting, on 30 March, The Mother noted in her spiritual diary:

“It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest Ignorance, He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.

“Lord, Divine Builder of this marvel, my heart overflows with joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope has no bounds.”
                                        (Prayers and Meditation 30 March, 1914)

Incident d)

Thus, the meeting of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on that momentous day and at that eternal moment was the turning point in earth’s destiny:

“In a new act of the drama of the world
The united Two began a greater age.”
(Savitri, 465)

SEQUENCE – 18: THE MOTHER’S RETURN TO FRANCE : 1914-15

TOPIC 1:
Incident a)

All these marvellous possibilities were hidden in the yet unrealised future. In the immediate context, there was a veritable work of creation that they had to do: “to create activities, new modes of being so that this force, unknown to the earth till today, may manifest in plenitude.” (Prayers… 14 June 1914)

So The Mother at once set about laying the foundation of her new activities. She started an Association of the young men of Pondicherry and Karaikal, called, “L’Idee Nouvelle” (The New Idea) This was to be “a sort of training ground from which men can be chosen for the Vedantic Yoga.”

Incident b)

The Vedantic Yoga itself had to be spoken under a new form adapted to its present mentality. And the organ of this new synthesis of knowledge would be ‘Arya’, a monthly philosophical Review of 64 pages. “It will be the intellectual side of my work for the world,” said Sri Aurobindo.

It had a two-fold object:

1. A systematic study of the highest problems of existence;
2. The formation of a vast synthesis of knowledge, harmonising the diverse religious traditions of humanity occidental as well as oriental…”

Incident c)

It was also decided that there should be a French counterpart of ­­­­­­‘Arya”, consisting mainly of translations from the English journal. The French version was to be called Revue de la Grande Synthese Philosophiques. “Getting ready the articles and the translations, proof-reading of the articles, purchasing paper of the requisite size, posting the journals to the subscribers and fixing up of agencies – all these works were assigned to The Mother.”

TOPIC 2:
Incident a)

While preparations were afoot to launch the ‘Arya’, - a journal that would show man that “the harmony of his faculties is the condition of the peace”, - the world at large was preparing to launch itself in a sanguinary holocaust – the First World War!
Austria declared war against Serbia, Germany declared war against Russia on 1 August and against France on 3 August. On 4 August Great Britain entered the War!
“Monstrous forces have swooped down upon the earth like a hurricane, forces dark and violent and powerful and blind,” noted The Mother on 6 August.

Incident b)

And The Mother’s anguished heart sent out a fervent prayer:

“O Lord, Lord, the whole earth is in an upheaval; it groans and suffers, it is in agony … all this suffering that has descended upon it must not be in vain; grant that all this bloodshed may produce a swifter germination of the seeds of beauty and light and love … out of the depths of this abysm of darkness the whole being of the earth cries to thee that thou mayest give it air and light; it is stifling, wilt Thou not come to its aid?” (Prayers… 21 August, 1914).

Incident c)

It was as if in response to the earth’s cries that the ‘Arya’ was launched on 15 August 1914. In the devasting passage of earth’s travail the ‘Arya’ was like a ‘divine sowing’, like the ‘Fire of Thy divine Presence’. It was like “a divine Benediction that would fill men’s hearts, penetrate their souls, illumine their consciousness and, out of this obscurity … bring forth the splendour of Thy majestic Presence.” (Prayers 4 August, 1914).

Was it a singular coincidence that the ‘Arya’ was launched almost with the beginning of the War and it was discontinued when the War clouds dispersed with the signing of Peace Treaties in 1920? “In the providential scheme of things, was there no causal connection between the two – the War and the Word?” (KRS – MO – 119).

TOPIC 3:
Incident a)

As Sri Aurobindo himself saw it ––

“The ‘Arya’ presents a new philosophy and a new method of yoga…

“My business is now not man-making but divine man-making. My present teaching is that the world is preparing for a new progress, a new evolution. Whatever race, whatever country seizes on the lines of that new evolution and fulfils it, will be the leader of humanity. In the ‘Arya’ I state the thought upon which this new evolution will be based as I see it, and the method of yoga by which it can be accomplished… my whole message is there … it has really three parts:

1. for each man as an individual to change himself into the future type of divine humanity, the men of the new Satyayuga which is striving to be born;
2. to evolve a race of such men to lead humanity and
3. to call all humanity to the path under the lead of these pioneers and this chosen race.”

(SABCL 27, 476-7)

Incident b)

This message was delivered through different books simultaneously. `The Life Divine,’ ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’, ‘The Secret of the Veda’, ‘Essays on the Gita’, ‘The Ideal of Human Unity’, ‘The Psychology of Social Development’, ‘The Future Poetry’ and ‘A Defense of Indian Culture.’

TOPIC 4:
Incident a)

Although The Mother was much occupied with the tasks of the publication of the ‘Arya’ and the ‘Revue’, she took out time to take lessons in Sanskrit and Bengali from Sri Aurobindo.

Incident b)

Meanwhile, the War in Europe turned ominous for the Allies, the forces of darkness seemed to turn violent and victorious. Paris was in danger of being occupied.

The Mother, sitting in her room in the ‘Dupleix House’, saw Kali enter her room. “I asked her, “What do you want?” And she was dancing, a truly savage dance. She told me, “Paris is taken, Paris will be destroyed”… I turned towards her and told her, “No, Paris will not be taken, Paris will be saved”… And the next day, we received the ‘dispatch … that the Germans had been marching upon Paris … But when they saw that the road was clear … they felt convinced that it was an ambush .. so they turned and went back! .. It was translated in this way; when I said to Kali, “No”, they were panic stricken. They turned back. Otherwise, if they had continued to advance it would have been all over.”
(Bulletin, April 1974, 67, 69).

Incident c)

Thus, at the very moment when all looked bleak and unpromising, ‘the hour of realisation’ seemed to be near and the Divine’s help all but assured:

“A new light shall break upon the earth.
 A new world shall be born.
 And the things that were promised shall be fulfilled.”
                                    (Prayers… 25 Sept. 1914)

TOPIC 5:

“The year 1914 was in truth a momentous interm for [The Mother] and for her sadhana of manifestation of the Divine and ministry for the Earth.” (KRS 126) The year had begun with the meeting with Sri Aurobindo whom she had at once recognised as ‘The Lord of my being and my God’. Then, she had launched the L’Idee Nouvelle society alongwith the ‘Arya’ and the ‘Revue’. Inwardly, she had made phenomenal progress in her sadhana. As she confirmed later:

“It was in 1914 that the identification with the Universal Mother took place, the identification of the physical consciousness with her. Of course, I knew that before this that I was The Mother, but the complete identification took place only in 1914.” (Mother India, Feb 1975, 95).

Her entries in the “Prayers and Meditations” for the year 1914, which occupy three-fourths of the total entries, only reveal her phenomenal progress in Sadhana and the roles she played of a collaboratrix and creatrix in laying the first obscure foundations of a new Heaven and a new Earth’. (KRS, 126)

TOPIC 6:
Incident a)

As the War prolonged itself, it became clear that The Mother would have to return to France for Paul Richard ‘had his obligations to the Reserve Army’.

So, after her thirty seventh birthday, celebrated by the ‘Arya’ group of friends and fellow – seekers, The Mother left Pondicherry on 22.02.1915. She boarded the Japanese boat Kamo Maru:

“In 1915 I had to go away. He did not keep me, but I left my psychic being with him”… told The Mother.
(Sri Aurobindo Circle, 33, 64)

Incident b)

Her diary-notes of 3^rd and 4^th March, 1915 breathe ‘the poignance of regret at having to tear herself away from her new-found peace and felicity “ at Pondicherry:

“Solitude, a harsh, intense solitude, and always this strong impression of having been flung headlong into a hell of darkness!”

“O Lord, what have I done that Thou hast thrown me thus into sombre Night?” (Prayers.. 3 March 1915)

At the same time, she is sure of “being called to new and vaster realisations.” (Ibid, 4-3-1915)

TOPIC 7:
Incident a)

“The agonies and anxieties during the voyage, the experience of war time actualities in France .. the war psychosis …” all made a concerted attack on The Mother’s nerves and she fell seriously ill.” “In fact, narrowly saved from death”. She had arrived in Paris on 18.03.1915. She moved out from the embattled Paris to a more peaceful Lunel, in the south of France on 29 March 1915.

Incident b)

But not withstanding the enforced inactivity of her body, The Mother would go on with occult experiments. “I used to concentrate on things and persons and circumstances and wanted to see if the power worked… I could go on doing my work in various parts of France and America and other places.”  (Prayers… April 19, 1915).

These wide-ranging experiments had enabled The Mother to “pour herself into the life, thought and love of the earth and its inhabitants and thus, through a total identification with the manifested world, to be able to intervene with full power in its transformations.”

This is how the individual being can be the conscious mediator between the absolute Truth and the manifested universe and intervene in the slow, uncertain march of the Yoga of Nature in order to give it the swiftness, intensity and sureness of the divine Yoga.

“This is how in certain periods the entire terrestrial life seems to cross miraculously over stages which at other times would require thousands of years to traverse.”
(MCW 1 300-01)

And, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have in all their lives been carrying on evolution.

TOPIC 8:
Incident a)

The Mother returned to her Paris home on 22.10.1915. ‘The War had been gaining in its horror. But, in the midst of this death of the earth to its old ignorance, The Mother experienced an integral and total identification with the earth – consciousness:

“The entire consciousness immersed in divine contemplation, the whole being enjoyed a supreme and vast felicity.”  (Prayers.. Nov’26, 1915)

On receiving the detailed description of this experience, Sri Aurobindo wrote back on 31 December 1915:

“The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense … It is the union of the “Earth” of the Veda … with the divine Principle… (SABCL 25, 384)

Incident b)

Suddenly, things began to move. Paul Richard got exempted from military service and he was now asked to go to Japan on a particular assignment. It was for The Mother an invitation to new horizons so they boarded the Kamo Maru at London on 14 March and arrived in Yokohama on 18 May, 1916.

Incident c)

Before leaving for Japan, The Mother had arranged for some money for an ‘Aryan Store’ to be started at Pondicherry. It was intended to not only give its managers a taste of honest and efficient business but also to provide a modest income for Sri Aurobindo’s household.

The Aryan Stores was opened in September 1916 and Sri Aurobindo had attended its opening ceremony on the Rue Dupleix and blessed it.

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