The Sun and The Rainbow

Two Independent Remembrances

(These remembrances are independent not only in .the sense that both record individual impressions that arose spontaneously on the two occasions mentioned but also in the sense that neither author saw the writing of the other before putting down his own vision.)

1

SEHRA — LAST VIEW (25.4.1980)

by Ravindra Khanna

I entered the room a little trepidant — expecting to see a face with all the mental agonies and physical afflictions engraved on it. But a most marvellous sight met my gaze. Such beauty of a blissful calm enveloped it that its ripples could be felt all over the room. She was no longer the Sehra I had been seeing over the years — as if all the ravages of long physical agonies had been effaced and given place to the radiance of a spiritual love and compassion for all. All through my stay in the room I could not take my eyes off this spiritual beauty suffusing a human body and it was impossible to believe that it was a corpse with all life extinct from it.

Surely her soul chose this blessed hour to depart obeying some gesture from Above. Even to recall her face in imagination opens up new heights for the soul. I could visualise what Sri Aurobindo had meant when he wrote:

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Calm faces of the gods on backgrounds vast...

There was no trace of any dissatisfaction or disgust with life but only a benign and compassionate goodwill for all from one who had left the unquiet lands far away.

12.5.1980

2

FREEDOM — 24.4.1980

by Amal Kiran

With the Far-away's call

Quickening your heart-beat

You freed yourself from all

Earth's bitter-sweet.

Terrible at times the means

By which the soul

Drops out of mortal space

To its inmost goal.

A moment your whole life hung

'Twixt heaven and abyss;

Then the Great Mother caught you

In Her arms of bliss.

No shadow fell from the past.

A smiling future's light

Flowered through your face to answer

Our clamorous questioning sight.

26.4.1980

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR :

1.The Problem of Aryan Origins: From an Indian Point of View

2.Karpasa in Prehistoric India: A Chronological and Cultural Clue

3.Problems of Ancient India

4.Ancient India in a New Light

5.The Beginning of History for Israel

6.Life-Poetry-Yoga, Personal Letters, Vol. I

7.Life-Poetry-Yoga, Personal Letters, Vol. II

8.Life-Poetry-Yoga, Personal Letters, Vol. III

9.Parnassians

10."Two Loves" and "A Worthier Pen" — The Enigmas of Shakespeare's Sonnets

11.The English Language and the Indian Spirit: Correspondence between Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna

12.Indian Poets and English Poetry: Correspondence between Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna

13.The Obscure and the Mysterious: A Research in Mallarme's Symbolist Poetry

14.Blake's Tyger: A Christological Interpretation

15.The Inspiration of Paradise Lost

16.Inspiration and Effort: Studies in Literary Attitude and Expression

17."A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" — An Interpretation from India

18.The Thinking Corner: Causeries on Life and Literature

19.Adventures in Criticism

20.Classical and Romantic — An Approach through Sri Aurobindo

21.Mandukya Upanishad: English Version, Notes and Commentary

22.Science, Materialism, Mysticism

23.The Indian Spirit and the World's Future

24.A Follower of Christ & a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo:

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Correspondence between Bede Griffiths and K.D. Sethna (Amal Kir an)

25.Problems of Early Christianity

26.The Virgin Birth and the Earliest Christian Tradition

27.Is Velikovsky's Revised Chronology Tenable? A Scrutiny of Four Fundamental Themes

28.Teilhard De Chardin and our Time

29.Aspects of Sri Aurobindo

30.Sri Aurobindo and Greece

31.The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

32.Sri Aurobindo - The Poet

33.The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System and the Mother's Contribution to it

34.The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo

35.Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare

36.Our Light and Delight— Recollections of Life with the Mother

37.The Mother: Past-Present-Future

38.Life-Literature-Yoga: Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

39.The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and Consequence

40.Light and Laughter: Some Talks at Pondicherry by Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran

41.The Spirituality of the Future: A Search apropos of R.C. Zaehner's Study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin

42.The Secret Splendour: Collected Poems

43.Evolving India: Essays on Cultural Issues

44.The Adventure of the Apocalypse (Poems)

45.Altar and Flame (Poems)

46.The Sun and the Rainbow — Approaches to Life through Sri Aurobindo's Light

47.Poems by Amal Kiran and Nirodoaran with Sri Aurobindo's Comments

48."Overhead Poetry": Poems with Sri Aurobindo's Comments

49.Talks on Poetry

50.Some Talks at Pondicherry — Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran

51.India and the World Scene

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