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SEQUENCE – 19: SRI AUROBINDO : THE ARYA PERIOD: 1914—20
TOPIC 1:
Incident a)
After The Mother’s departure the ‘Revue’
was discontinued though it was well received in France. “The ‘Arya’ was kept alive by Sri Aurobindo till January 1921 – alive till then, and now immortal.” (KRS, 387 )
Incident b)
Apart from
typing out articles for the ‘Arya’ and editing it, Sri Aurobindo “kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force
and silent spiritual action.” (SABCL 26, 38)
So, when the four years of the sanguinary warfare ended in the Armistice, Sri Aurobindo wrote in the ‘Arya’ in December 1918 under the heading ‘The Unseen Power”:
“It is the wrath of Rudra that has swept over the earth and the track of his foot prints can be seen in these ruins… Two great words of the divine truth have forced themselves insistently on our minds
through the crash of the ruin… freedom and unity.” (SABCL 25, 596).
Incident c)
The “Big Four” Political powers had won the War but failed to win Peace for the world. So, a year later Sri
Aurobindo wrote in the “Arya” with a prophetic note:
“The war that was fought to end war has been only the parent of fresh armed conflict and civil discord and it is the exhaustion that followed it which
alone prevents as yet another vast and sanguinary struggle. The new fair and peaceful world-order that was promised us has gone far away into the land of chimeras. The League of Nations… it is an ornamental, a quite
helpless and otiose appendage of the supreme council .. a transparent cover .. for the domination of the earth by a close-oligarchy of powerful governments…” (SABCL 15, 637)
Incident d)
“For six
years and a half, the ‘Arya’ gave its readers and the world at large the very munificence of Sri Aurobindo’s thought in the several realms of knowledge: philosophy, literature, yoga, scriptural exegensis, art and
literary criticism, history and sociology, national and international politics… What he had accomplished was … charging the WORD with POWER and turning Vision into Unfolding Reality: a manifold as well as a unified
Revelation.” (KRS, 397)
TOPIC 2:
Incident a)
All these activities were like foam on the profound depths of Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness wherein he was settled:
“Everything internal is
ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance … the spiritual force is insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance
disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter – attacks… And if there were not the strength and Ananda within, it would be harassing and disgusting work; but the eye of knowledge looks beyond and
sees that it is only a protracted episode.” (SABCL 26, 425)
Incident b)
During this period, between 1915 and 1920, Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana was, however, ‘sitting on the path’: “Sadhana and the
work were waiting for The Mother’s coming,” said Sri Aurobindo. (SABCL 26, 459)
SEQUENCE – 20: THE MOTHER IN JAPAN: 1916-1919
TOPIC 1:
Incident a)
Long before she came to Japan, The Mother had
seen its landscapes in the subtle physical world:
“… Those landscapes of Japan, well, almost all – the most beautiful, the most striking ones – I had seen in vision in France; and yet, I had not seen any
pictures or photographs of Japan, I knew nothing of Japan… they seemed to me too beautiful for the physical world, too perfectly beautiful…” (MO4, p319-20)
Incident b)
In an article published in “Modern Review” from Calcutta, she gave her impression of Japan:
“The country is so wonderful, picturesque, many-sided, unexpected, charming, wild or sweet; it is in its appearance
so much a synthesis of all the other countries of the world, from the tropical to the artistic, that no artistic eye can remain indifferent to it.”
Incident c)
Her appreciation of Japan’s
unfailing beauty of Nature is seen also in her diary note of 1 April 1917.
“Thou hast shown to my mute and expectant soul all the splendour of fairy landscapes, trees at festival and lonely paths that seem to scale the
sky…
“Once more, everywhere I see cherry trees; Thou hast put a magical power in these flowers: they seem to speak of Thy sole presence; they bring with them the smile of the Divine.” (Prayers … 1 April 1917).
Incident d)
Appreciating their ways of ‘perfection in elegance, orderliness and propriety in personal and communal life’, The Mother
described:
“A Japanese house is a wonderful artistic whole; always the right thing is there in the right place, nothing wrongly set, nothing too much, nothing
too little. Everything is just as it needed to be, and the house itself blends marvellously with the surrounding nature…
“For four years, from an artistic point of view I lived from wonder to wonder.”
(MCW, 306-10)
Incident e)
“The Japanese ‘possess the vitality – and concentrated’ energy which is their most striking ‘feature’. This accumulated
strength is perhaps the most distinctive and widely spread characteristic of the Japanese.” (Prayers… July 9, 1917)
Incident f)
“Each form, each act is symbolical, from the arrangement of
the gardens and the houses to the famous tea ceremony… Japan is essentially the country of sensation; she lives through her eyes. Beauty rules over her as an uncontested master, and all her atmosphere incites to
mental and vital activity, study, observation, progress, effort, not to silent and blissful contemplation. But behind this activity stands a high aspiration which the future of her people will reveal.” (Ibid)
Incident j)
In fact, The Mother herself had a vegetable garden in Tokyo. “And so, every morning I used to go for a walk around to choose which vegetables I could take for eating. Well, just imagine!
there were some which said to me: “No, no, no, no….” and then there were others which called, and I saw them from far, and they were saying: “Take me, take me, take me!”. So it was very simple, I looked for those
which wanted to be taken and never did I touch those which did not.” (Bulletin, April 1976, p43, 45).
TOPIC 2:
Incident a)
After a long gap of many months, her spiritual diary
recordings become once again regular, reminiscent of 1914. One of the entries reminds us of Sri Aurobindo’s own experience of Vasudeva in 1908 in the Alipore Jail:
“It was a Japanese street brilliantly
illuminated by gay lanterns, picturesquely adorned with vivid colours. And as gradually what was conscious moved on down the street, the Divine appeared, visible in everyone and everything. One of the lightly built
houses became transparent, revealing a woman seated on a tatami in a sumptuous violet kimono embroidered with gold and bright colours… And in the woman too the Divine was visible.” (Prayers… Dec. 5, 1916)
Incident b)
Again, reminiscent of Sri Krishna’s advice to Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Jail, The Mother had noted this experience in Japan.
“Here I am, what dost thou want of me, O Lord?” …
What thou willest, I will. Thou knowest well, O Lord, that I belong entirely to Thee. But shall I be able to prove equal to the task, shall I have the power of organising what the vital being has the capacity to
realise?
“It is to prepare thee for this that I am working at the moment; this is why thou art undergoing a discipline of plasticity and enrichment. Do not worry about anything: power comes with the need…
“I have appointed thee from all eternity to be my exceptional representative upon the earth, not only invisibly in a hidden way, but also openly before the eyes of all men. And what thou wert created to be, thou
wilt be.” (Prayers.. Dec 8, 1916)
Incident c)
And Lord Sri Krishna had told Sri Aurobindo eight years earlier:
“What is this that has happened to me? I believed that I had a
mission to work for the people of my country… Why then am I here and on such a charge?”
“He spoke to me again and said,
“The bonds you had not the strength to break, I have broken for you…
I have given
you a work and it is to help uplift this nation.. I give you Adesh to go forth and do my work...” (SABCL 2, 3, 8)
Incident d)
And on December 20, of the same year, Shakyamuni, the Buddha, told The Mother:
“I see in thy heart a diamond surrounded by a golden light. It is at once pure and warm, something which can manifest impersonal
love .. Learn to radiate and do not fear the storm…. Dost thou fear to be misunderstood?… Listen, I too hesitated for days… and yet I turned to earth and men and brought them my message… Turn to the earth and men..
in thy heart...” (Prayers… December 20, 1916)
Incident e)
Accordingly, The Mother, by ‘renouncing everything, even wisdom and consciousness’ became ‘the spring which always lets its
waters flow abundantly for all, but towards which no waters can ever run back’. And the voice concluded:
“Be this love in all things and everywhere, ever more widely, ever more intensely, and the whole world
will become at the same time thy work and thy wealth, thy field of action and thy conquest.” (Prayers… Dec. 25, 1916)
Incident f)
She had become not only “this love in all things” but
also the “beauty and joy” which flooded all her being spreading everywhere – even into plants and flowers:
“A deep concentration seized on me, and I perceived that I was identifying myself with a single
cherry – blossom, then through it with all cherry-blossoms, and, as I descended deeper in the consciousness, following a stream of bluish force, I became suddenly the cherry-tree itself, stretching towards the sky
like so many arms its innumerable branches laden with their sacrifice of flowers…” (Prayers... 7 April 1917)
TOPIC 3:
During her one year stay in Tokyo, The Mother shared a house with
Dr.S.Okhawa and his wife. Much later in his life Dr. Okhawa recollected:
‘There was a light in her eyes as of the great morning of the world that was about to dawn…
“An artist, she could paint pictures of
an unearthly loveliness. A musician, she enchanted my soul when she played on an organ or guitar. A scientist, she could formulate a new heaven and earth, a new cosmogony…
“To measure is to be a part and to
assess is to be far away. Distance alone can ensure description.
“How could I, who lived in the very heart of Mount Fuji, tell you about the volume of its fire and flame and the dimensions of its light?”(GM
1, 190, 91, 92)
TOPIC 4:
After a short stay at Akakura Spa, in July 1917, The Mother shifted to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. During her two years stay at Kyoto, The Mother struck a deep
friendship with Mme Kobayashi. She too spoke of The Mother with a great fondness:
“I loved her dearly. Have you seen those lovely wisteria flowers trailing down the roof of the Kasuga shrine at Nara? We call
them “hooji”. My friend loved those flowers. She was one with them. She called herself “hoojiko” when she thought of having a Japanese name...
“... It was my great good fortune that, in this strange but
explicable world, I should have met this jewel of my heart and this friend of my soul…” (GM 1, 114)
TOPIC 5:
There was another friend too – Miss Dorothy Hodgson. She had come to know The Mother
in France, and since then never separated from her. It was from The Mother that Miss. Dorothy had learnt about Sri Aurobindo and his yogic life at Pondicherry, as also of the ‘Arya’. (KRS-M-183).
TOPIC 6:
On September 12, The Mother visited Daiunji temple, at Sarasinha, Nagano prefecture. She made pencil drawings and two oil paintings of the temple as well as a scroll recording the visit.
TOPIC 7:
In 1919 Rabindranath Tagore met The Mother in Japan. The poet’s perception of an aspect of The Mother’s personality led him one day to request her to come to Santiniketan and take over charge and
build it up in the right lines. The Mother declined the offer.
Showing a photograph of a group taken in Japan, in which she is seen with Tagore and others, The Mother said, pointing to herself in the photo:
“This one is Mahalakshmi – sweet, lovable, tender, docile; beauty, harmony…” (Champaklal speaks, 59-60)
TOPIC 8:
It was in December 1918 that Sri Aurobindo’s wife, Mrinalini Devi
succumbed to the influenza epidemic at the very time when she was coming down to Pondicherry for a prolonged stay.
It was an inexplicable coincidence that in January 1919 The Mother too was attacked by the
Flu epidemic in Japan. But unlike Mrinalini who succumbed to the epidemic, The Mother with her occult force managed to immobilise the adversary. As she later narrated:
“At the end of the second day as I was
lying all alone, I saw clearly a being, with a part of head cut off, in a military uniform… approaching me and suddenly flinging himself upon my chest.. to suck my force. I took a good look, then realised that I was
about to die… I could no longer stir and he was pulling.. Then I called on my occult power, I gave a big fight and I succeeded in turning him back so that he could not stay there any longer…
… this way the epidemic ended…” (GM, 202)
TOPIC 9:
The last diary entry in Japan was on Sept. 3, 1919, written at Oiwake, a hill station on the volcano Asamayama:
“Since the man refused
the meal I had prepared with so much love and care, I invoked the God to take it.”
(Prayers… 3 Sept, 1919)
Explaining this entry, The Mother later said:
“It was a banquet I prepared for men.
Instead of a life of misery and suffering, obscurity and ignorance I brought to them a life of light and joy and freedom.. But man …. he preferred to remain in his dark miserable hole… so, I offered it to my lord
and laid it at his feet. He accepted it…
“The Feast is that of Transformation, the Divine Life on earth. Man is not capable of it naturally, cannot attain it by his own effort or personal worth . It is the
Divine who is to bring it down Himself… Then only will it be possible for the human creature to open to the urgency of the new beauty and offer his surrender..” (GM-1, 207.)
TOPIC 10:
This explanation conforms to The Mother’s conclusion regarding her impression of Japan:
“I ought to say, to complete my picture, that the four years I was there I found a dearth of spirituality as entire as
could be.” (MCW4, 309)
TOPIC 11:
Incident a)
What Japan lacks, India possesses – spirituality. So, it was as though having brought down the Golden Light on the level of mind, in France, on
the level of the occult, in Algeria, on the level of the Vital, in Japan, then The Mother proceeded to manifest the Golden Light on the physical plane in India.
So The Mother, along with Paul Richard and Dorothy Hodgson left Japan for India.
Incident b)
All along the British embassies kept a watch on her travel to Pondicherry. They instructed their
embassies along her route to intern her on the slightest ‘suspicion of carrying messages for Sri Aurobindo sent by exiled nationalists!’ (MI May 79, 268)
Incident c)
“When I came from Japan, I
was on the boat .. when all of a sudden, abruptly, about two nautical miles from Pondicherry, the quality, I may even say the physical quality of the atmosphere, of the air, changed so much that I knew we were
entering the aura of Sri Aurobindo.” (MCW4, 223)
Incident d)
On April 24, 1920 The Mother returned to Pondicherry — ‘the aura of Sri Aurobindo.’
Of this significant date, The Mother later wrote to a disciple:
“The anniversary of my return to Pondicherry, (which) was the tangible sign of the sure victory over the adverse forces.” (Champklal’s Treasures
– 86)
SEQUENCE – 21: SRI AUROBINDO: 1920 – 25
TOPIC 1:
Incident a)
The work that was waiting for The Mother’s coming was veritably a work of a new creation:
“It is a veritable work of
creation we have to do”, wrote The Mother. “To create activities, new modes of being so that this force, unknown to the earth till today, may manifest in its plenitude.”
Incident b)
The first part of this work was to acquire “the divine knowledge and power”:
“In myself it is trying to manifest as rapidly as the deficiencies of my mind and body will permit…” wrote Sri Aurobindo.
The second part of the work was to spread this Knowledge, this thought to the world through the ‘intellectual offensive’ of ‘Arya’.
But, ‘the spread of the idea is not sufficient’, “you must have real Yogins,
not merely men moved intellectually and emotionally by one or two of the central ideas of the Yoga. Spreading of the idea is the second necessity, … The other means is to form brotherhoods, not formal but real … for
the practice of the Vedantic Yoga …” (SABCL 27, 460)
Incident c)
It is for this work that The Mother had returned to India and never again left her shores. She, as “Sri Aurobindo’s Force”
had come to ‘manifest in its plenitude’ what Sri Aurobindo wanted to achieve:
“I am here to establish the divine life and the divine consciousness in those who of themselves feel the call to come to me and
cleave to it and in no others.”
The Mother, in fact, had made her decision to collaborate with Sri Aurobindo in her very first visit to Pondicherry, in 1914:
“In us must take the union of the two wills
and two currents, so that from their contact may spring forth the illuminating spark.
“And since this must be done, this will be done”. It was indeed a “sure victory’ of the work for the
Mahashakti had come to collaborate in the Avatar’s earth-changing work….” Verify did The Mother say:
“Without Him, I exist not;
Without Me, He is unmanifest.”
TOPIC 2:
Incident a)
The informal grouping of the ‘brotherhoods’ came only in 1926. Meanwhile, things and men were being prepared for
such a formation.
Incident b)
With the rising tempo of repression in the national movement, the Nationalist circles felt the need of Sri Aurobindo once again and they requested him to accept the
editorship of a paper, like the Bande Mataram, which was to be the organ of the Social Democratic Party of Bombay. Sri Aurobindo declined the offer:
“Your offer is a tempting one, but I regret that I cannot answer it in the affirmative…
“I came to Pondicherry in order to have freedom and tranquillity for a fixed object… Pondicherry is my place of retreat,
my cave of tapasya not of the ascetic kind, but of a brand of my own invention. I must finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped for my work before I leave it.” (SABCL 26, 29-30)
Incident c)
A few months later, in April 1920, Sri Aurobindo wrote to his brother Barindra:
“Pondicherry is the appointed place for my Yoga Siddhi, except indeed one part of it, and that is action...”
So,
Yoga had to come first; a new basis of action had to be found first. As he wrote to a disciple in 1922:
“…I am determined not to work in the external field till I have the sure and complete possession of this
new power of action, — not to build except on a perfect foundation.” (SABCL, 26, 437)
And what he meant by a “perfect foundation” was not any kind of an emotional excitement or any intoxication of the mind:
“I wish to make a large and strong equanimity the foundation of the yoga, “explained Sri Aurobindo. “I want established on that equality a full, firm and undisturbed Shakti in the system and in all its
movements… I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God.” (KRS, 507)
Incident d)
The ‘ocean of Shakti’ was now beside him: The Mother had returned only to share his kingdom and to walk at his side. Perhaps Sri Aurobindo had foreseen her coming when he wrote in his poem, ‘Invitation’:
“With the wind and the weather beating round me
Up to the hill and the moorland I go
Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?”
The Mother had accepted his invitation, and henceforth became his collaborator in his ascent to Supermind and in its descent to the earth.
TOPIC 3:
Incident a)
As he laboriously built the “perfect foundation”, a small group of people gathered around him. Some were enthusiasts of the freedom movement and others had decided to take a leap
into the new Yoga given by Sri Aurobindo. The anxious hearts of the enthusiasts of the freedom movement were set at rest because Sri Aurobindo had told one of them:
‘You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising of the sun tomorrow. The decree has already gone forth, it may not be long in coming."
Earlier in 1915, The Mother had told Sri Aurobindo: “India is free.. There will be no violence, this will come about without a revolution, it will be the English who will decide to go away of their own accord, for
things will become too hot for them owing to certain world circumstances.”
Incident b)
The small nucleus of aspirants, though engaged in their own activities during the day, met from 1922 in the
evening at 4 o’clock for meditation with Sri Aurobindo in the verandah of 41, Rue Francois Martin.
Incident c)
After the meditation, there was an informal gathering depending entirely upon Sri
Aurobindo’s leisure (G. M – Vol.I, 229). The talks in the evening went on, day by day, covering all branches of knowledge. To name a few: “Vaishnavism, Theosophy, Bahaism, Gandhism, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, Samata, Grace
and the Guru, Cosmic consciousness, Yogic miracles, Ouspensky, of Theon, astrology, kaya kalpa, space and time… Islamic culture, Indo-English poetry, Art, Education, Medicine”, etc.
Incident d)
“It’s all one … no subject is too trivial, none too abstruse, but Sri Aurobindo’s light sets it in the right perspective and sheds the requisite clarity on it. It is the supermind unobstrusively working through the
mind and utilising the instrument of speech to say precisely the thing that is necessary and right in each fleeting situation.” (KRS, 526)
However, after November 24, 1926, the sittings began to get later and
later and they came to a complete close in December 1926.
SEQUENCE – 22 : THE MOTHER 1920 – 26
TOPIC 1:
Incident a)
The Mother had returned to Pondicherry in 1920,
accompanied by Miss Dorothy Hodgson, later called ‘Datta’ by Sri Aurobindo, and by Mr. Paul Richard. “At first they all stayed at the Hotel d’Europe, later in Subbu’s Hotel at 15, rue St. Louis, near rue Francois
Martin and finally in a house known as the ‘Bayoud House’, No.4 rue St. Martin.” (G ML, I, 209)
Incident b)
But one day, on November 24, 1920, there was a great tempest. The terraced roof of the
Bayoud House started leaking badly. ‘as if it was going to melt away.’ “Sri Aurobindo said, ‘The Mother cannot be allowed to stay there any longer. She must move into our place.” That is how The Mother moved into
the house No.41, on rue Francois Martin. Since then, she always remained in the same house as Sri Aurobindo.
Incident c)
Before shifting to rue Francois Martin, The Mother and Paul Richard
visited Sri Aurobindo in the evenings and held talks day after day. And Sri Aurobindo, along with his four or five young inhabitants called on The Mother on Sundays and dined with them.
Incident d)
Everything seemed to go on quite smooth. One day The Mother had a vision. Sri Aurobindo revealed it long after, in 1939:
“The Mother, Richard and I were going somewhere. We saw Richard going down to a
place from which rising was impossible. Then we found ourselves sitting in a carriage the driver of which was taking it up and down a hill a number of times. At last he stopped on the highest peak.” “The highest
summit is the transformation of Nature by the attainment of the higher consciousness.”
Incident e)
Significantly, in November 1920 Paul Richard left Pondicherry and never again returned.
During a conversation in 20 May 1940, Sri Aurobindo told his disciples that “the Asuric Being with whom Hitler was in contact, the ‘Lord of the Nations’ was the same with whom Paul Richard too had established a
communion much earlier…” (KRS 208)
TOPIC 2:
Incident a)
The Mother’s joining the rest of the inmates at 41, rue Francois Martin, created a sense of dissatisfaction in the minds of the young
nationalistic minds. But, her crystalline goodness of heart and unfailing understanding of men and affairs, soon changed their hearts. Especially, her unobstrusive ministry had brought in a sea-change in the house
affairs. She brought into their outer life the French precision and orderliness and the simple artistic elegance of the Japanese.
Incident b)
More important still, The Mother “installed Sri
Aurobindo on his high pedestal of Master and Lord of Yoga. Previously, Sri Aurobindo was looked upon as a friend and comrade, but, The Mother taught the inmates what it was to be `disciple’ of a ‘Guru’, how they
were to condition their mind and soul to receive his grace. It was The Mother who opened their eyes.
Incident c)
Towards the end of 1921, once, the Pariah cook of the household was scolded, he
took vengence upon Datta with the help of a Muslim fakir well-versed in black magic. Suddenly mysterious stones began to strike at Sri Aurobindo’s house. The Mother, with her occult vision, saw “three little
entities of the vital” who were compelled to do the mischief. She ordered them to go away once for all and to “take care specially never to come back, for otherwise it will be disastrous!”
Incident d)
Not only had The Mother concerned herself with human beings and vital beings, but also with the animal creation and the life of plants.
“I had a very sweet little cat”, narrated The Mother, absolutely
civilised, a marvellous cat … Just then there was in the house a huge scorpion. And the scorpion stung it. But it was an exceptional cat; it came to me, it was almost dying, but it showed me its paw where it was
bitten… I took my little cat … and called Sri Aurobindo. I told him, “Kiki has been stung by a scorpion, it must be cured.” .. Sri Aurobindo sat before it and looked at it… Then we saw this little cat gradually
beginning to recover, to come around, and an hour later it jumped to its feet and went away completely healed…
“In those days, I had the habit of holding a meditation in the room where Sri Aurobindo slept….
There was an arm-chair in which this very cat always settled beforehand…. And regularly it went into a trance.” (MCW 4, 237-38)
Incident e)
Sri Aurobindo even wrote a poem on the cat named Bushy:
“Mute stands she, lonely on the topmost stair….
Her tail is up like an unconquered flag,
Its dignity knows not the right to wag.
An animal creature wonderfully human,
A charm and miracle of fur - footed Brahman,
Whether she is spirit, woman or cat,
Is now the problem I am wondering at.”
Incident f)
The Mother, with her multiple activities, moving elegantly in an Indian saree, gradually became the central presence in Sri
Aurobindo’s household, bringing a sense of security and assurance to the inmates of the house. Most turned up to her for spiritual guidance and looked up to her as a spiritual Mother. It was as if “Sri Aurobindo was
slowly withdrawing himself and The Mother was spontaneously coming out and taking up the great work of directing the Sadhak’s inner sadhana.” Sri Aurobindo indeed needed the relief to be able to concentrate on his
work of bringing the higher light into the lowest levels of Matter.
SEQUENCE – 23: SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER : 1926-27
TOPIC 1:
Incident a)
This is what he had declared in November 1926:
“I am trying to bring down the Supramental; things will happen, conditions for its descent will be created.. from the highest standpoint the coming of the
Supramental is decided, you can’t stand in the way.” (Purani, Evening talks, 293-4)
On 6 November, 1926, Sri Aurobindo made a direct reference to the world of the Gods, the Overmental world:
“I
spoke about the world of Gods because… I am trying to bring it down into the physical as it can no longer be delayed and then things may happen.” (Ibid, 395)
Incident b)
Then came the great day,
24 November, 1926. As The Mother saw Sri Aurobindo emerge from his room in the evening she knew that a momentous descent of Light had taken place and she sent word that all the inmates should gather immediately.
Most of the twenty-four sadhaks gathered by six o’clock in the verandah, the usual place of meditation.
Incident c)
“In the verandah on the wall near Sri Aurobindo’s door, just behind his chair,
a black silk curtain with gold lace-work representing three Chinese dragons was hung. The three dragons were so representative that the tail of one reached up to the mouth of the other and the three of them covered
the curtain from end to end.
“We came to know afterwards that there is a prophecy in China that the truth will manifest itself on earth when the three dragons meet. Today on 24 November the truth was
descending and the hanging of the curtain was significant.(Purani.Life… 216)
Incident d)
“There was a deep silence … Many saw an oceanic flood of Light rushing down from above. Everyone
felt a kind of pressure above his head. The whole atmosphere was surcharged … Expectation rose in a flood.
“Sri Aurobindo and The Mother could be seen through the half-opened door. The Mother with a gesture
of her eyes requested Sri Aurobindo to step out first. Sri Aurobindo with a similar gesture suggested to her to do the same. With a slow signified step The Mother came out first, followed by Sri Aurobindo with his
majestic gait … The Mother sat on a small stool to his right.
“Silence absolute, living silence – not merely living but overflowing with divinity. The meditation lasted for about forty five minutes. After
that one by one the disciples bowed to The Mother… Whenever a disciple bowed to The Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s right hand came forward behind The Mother as if blessing him through The Mother.” (Purani, Life 216)
Incident e)
Sri Aurobindo explained the significance of this day’s event:
“24th was the descent of Krishna into the physical. Krishna is not Supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of Supermind and Ananda.” (SABCL 25, 136).This day would be later known as the Siddhi Day.
TOPIC 2:
Incident a)
However, for Sri Aurobindo personally, the event of 24 November, 1926, made no difference, said The Mother. “It was a formation from the past which accepted to
participate in the present creation…” (Georges, Beyond Man, 151)
Incident b)
After ‘the descent of the Supreme’ into the physical, Sri Aurobindo’s identity with Sri Krishna was so
complete that once he told one of his disciples who was having a difficulty of loyalty: “There is no difference between me and Sri Krishna.” (Champaklal Speaks 12) And to another disciple, he wrote: “Krishna
is here in the Ashram and it is his work that is being done here; and to another confused sadhak: “If you can give yourself to him, you can give yourself to me.” (SABCL Vol. 25, 455)
TOPIC 3:
Incident a)
From 24 November 1926 day onwards, “Sri Aurobindo had put me in charge of the external work,” said The Mother, “because he wanted to withdraw in concentration to hasten the manifestation of the
Supramental Consciousness, and he had announced to the ones who were there that he confided me the task of helping and guiding them, that I would remain in contact with him, of course; and that he would do the work
through me...”
“Things suddenly, immediately took a certain form: a very brilliant creation was being worked out with extraordinary precision, wonderful experiences, contacts with the divine beings, all sorts
of manifestations which are considered to be miraculous. Experiences followed experiences. In brief, it developed in a completely brilliant way which was … I must say extremely interesting.” (Entretiens: 1957, 168)
Incident b)
One of the sadhaks recollected his interview with The Mother: “She said she had come to possess the Word of Creation. You know that Brahma is said to create by his Word. In the same
way whatever I would express could take place. I had willed to express a whole new world of superhuman reality. Everything was prepared in subtle dimensions and was waiting to be precipitated upon earth.” (Mother
India, November 1986, 673)
“One day I went as usual to relate to Sri Aurobindo what had been happening — we had come to something really very interesting… then Sri Aurobindo looked at me… and said.” ‘Yes,
this is an Overmind creation. It is very interesting, very well done. You will perform miracles which will make you famous throughout the world, you will be able to turn all events on earth topsy-turvy, indeed… It
will be a great success. But it is an Overmind creation. And it is not success that we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new
world, the supramental world in its integrity.”
“With my inner consciousness I understood immediately a few hours later the creation was gone… and from that moment we started anew on other basis.” (MCW-9,
147-48)
“The greatest power in any hands during human history was set aside as if it were a trifle… This was without any doubt the mightiest dead of renunciation in spiritual history,” noted one of the
sadhaks.
Incident c)
It was “the brilliant period of the Ashram”, noted Sri Aurobindo. “If our Yoga had taken that line, we could have ended by establishing a great religion, bringing about a
great creation, etc., but our realwork is different…”
And the real work of Sri Aurobindo is to establish the Supermind on earth’. In the words of The Mother:
TOPIC 4:
Incident a)
“I am
not doing an isolated Yoga … it is true that my Yoga is not for humanity; but it is not for myself either, of course, my attaining to the siddhi is the preliminary condition to others being able to attain it”, said
Sri Aurobindo on his birthday in 1925.
The ‘preliminary condition’ attained, the question of the ‘others’ gathered importance.
Incident b)
“This was the first question that arose when I
met Sri Aurobindo, recollected The Mother. “Should we do an intensive sadhana withdrawing from the world, that is to say having no contact with others any more, arrive at the goal and thereafter deal with the
others? Or should one allow all those others to come who had the same aspiration, let the group form itself naturally and spontaneously and march all together towards the goal? The two possibilities were there. The
decision was not a mental choice, not at all. Quite naturally, spontaneously the group formed and asserted itself as an imperative necessity.”
And thus was born, ‘naturally and spontaneously’, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, November 1926.
Incident c)
Writing about the significance and consequence of 24 November, 1926, Sri Aurobindo
dictated, — “perhaps his very last dictation concerning problems of yoga.” — “It is only then that Sri Aurobindo started his Ashram, being sure that with the cooperation of the Gods the Supermind could descend upon
earth…”
Incident d)
Describing the character of this Ashram, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
“This Ashram has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not
for the renunciation of the worlds but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a
greater life of the spirit.” (SABCL 20, 847)
Incident e)
The founding of the Ashram ‘for a divine life upon earth’ was not only a step towards fulfilling what Sri Aurobindo had spoken about
creating a Deva Sangha, but it was also a fulfilment of The Mother’s own dream:
“I would try to create a little world – oh! quite a small one, but still…. a small world where people would be able to live
without having to be preoccupied with food and lodging and clothing and the imperative necessities of life, so as to see whether all the energies freed by this certainty of a secure material living would turn
spontaneously towards the divine life and the inner realisation.
“Well, towards the middle of my life…. the means was given to me and I could realise this, that is, create such conditions of life.”
TOPIC 5:
Incident a)
One of the first problems to be solved in the formation of the Ashram was to quieten the grumblings of some of the members who could not accept The Mother as the intermediary,
the interceder, the paralete..
In order to establish the truth of The Mother, Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1927 a ‘rhapsodic description’ of The Mother’s triple poise and her fourfold powers and personalities:
Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati.
Incident b)
Significantly, these descriptions of The Mother’s four aspects were published in 1928 in a booklet called ‘The Mother’ and it is
this booklet that for the first time carried The Mother’s symbol. Its meaning given by The Mother reads:
“The central circle represents the Divine Consciousness.
The four petals represent the four powers of The Mother.
The twelve petals represent the twelve powers of The Mother manifested for the work.”
“Essentially (in general principle) the 12 powers are the vibrations that are necessary for the complete manifestation. These are the 12 seen from the
beginning above The Mother’s head.” (SABCL 25, 359)
The Mother’s symbol could also be seen as “the symbolic design of the white Lotus of Supreme Consciousness, with the Mahashakti (the form of The Mother as
universal creation) at the centre in her four aspects and twelve attributes.” (MCW 13, 65)
Incident c)
There existed already Sri Aurobindo’s symbol:
“The descending triangle represents Sat - Chit - Ananda
The ascending triangle represents the aspiring answer from matter under the form of
life, light and love.
The junction of both – the central square – is the perfect manifestation having at its centre the Avatar of the Supreme – the lotus.
The water – inside the square – represents the multiplicity, the creation.”
Incident d)
Closely linked with her symbol is her signature. Explaining the significance of her signature, The Mother said: “This is a
graphic representation of the signature. It means: the Bird of Peace descending upon earth. Its wings are tilted towards the earth. You see the angle of the wings and how it is descending to the earth? It is to
bring Peace. It is the messenger of Peace. The Bird of Peace descending upon earth....
“Look, first this, this is the tail of the bird. Here are the two points of the tail... Well, the two points of the tail
and one wing together make one part of the bird. And this, here is the other wing. These are large wings. And here the eyes are represented by these two dots. And here is the head. ... The body can’t be seen, it is
hidden behind its large wings....
The bird in flight descending towards the earth. It is still far away, but one day it will alight upon the earth. Then there will be Peace on earth.
That, then, is the significance of my signature.” (H&L, P.1, 5-7)
Incident e)
Like their symbols which represent the same Truth, their consciousness is one:
“The Mother’s consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play. Nothing can be done
without her knowledge and force, without her consciousness – if anybody really feels her consciousness, he should know that I am there behind it and if he feels me it is the same with hers.”
These declarations and the several statements regarding The Mother’s divinity slowly paved the way in the sadhaks’ minds and hearts into accepting her
‘spiritual motherhood’.
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