The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Mind of Light

A POEM ON A CRUCIAL EXPERIENCE

(When the Mother read this poem she said: "The first two lines are sheer revelation.

They catch exactly what took place. The rest is an imaginative

reconstruction of the event.”)

The core of a deathless sun is now the brain

And each grey cell bursts to omniscient gold.

Thought leaps - and an inmost light speaks out from things;

Will, a new miracled Matter's dense white flame,

Swerves with one touch the sweep of the brute world.

Eyes focus now the Perfect everywhere.

In a body changing to chiselled translucency,

Through nerve on fire-cleansed nerve a wine of the Vast

Thrills from heaven-piercing head to earth-blessing feet.

The whole sky weighs down with love of the abyss.

Deeper than death the all-penetrant rays take root

To make the Eternal's sun a rose of the dust.

4.4.1954

22. MCW Vol. 15, p. 183

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The Grace of Sri Aurobindo

and the Mother

SOME REMINISCENCES

There is a lot of " I " in these reminiscences. But that is an unavoidable accident. For, they are penned not because of the person to whom certain things occurred: they are penned because of these things themselves. And if the person has any significance it is that he serves to set off all the more the incalculable play of Grace from the Karmic Law of Deserved Returns.

1

It all goes back to the very beginning of my spiritual search. Something had awakened, of which I had never dreamt in my ultra-modern philosophy. And as a result I who had always kept my head intellectually high and looked down with a cool superior smile at the heat and hurry of that strange thing called "God-intoxication" - I looked around hungrily in the mundane twentieth-century city of Bombay for those flitting figures out of the past, clad in ochre robes - the sadhus and sannyasis. Several of them I caught in various corners of the metropolis and questioned about the Unknown that had come like a wind out of nowhere into my life and blown away all my worldly wits. I thus learned a few methods of meditation but the central self in me remained unsatisfied.

Then - of all persons - a Theosophist broke the name of Sri Aurobindo to me. That I should bump into a Theosophist who should speak of what he termed Sri Aurobindo's Cosmic Consciousness and not preach to me of the "White Lodge" and the "Great Masters" and the Isis-unveiling Madame Blavatsky - this was a touch of Sri Aurobindo's Grace already. What made it the more Grace-ful was that the Theosophist told me: "Nobody except Sri Aurobindo will satisfy the complex problem that you are, particularly the side of you which on the one hand is poetic and on the other philosophic."

A little later I came across a booklet in which there was a

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picture of Sri Aurobindo. I do not remember what the booklet was entitled or who its author was. Two memories have stayed with me: Sri Aurobindo was credited with the power of being in several places at once and he was described as a great linguist, having Greek and Latin at his tongue's tip and knowing French like a Frenchman - apart from being, of course, a master of English. I don't know which of the two siddhis - multi-presence and polyglottism - appealed to me more. Perhaps the latter struck me as the more unusual in a Yogi. But neither drew me into any Virgilian stretching of hands for love of the other shore. I must have been especially dense: many have become Aurobindonians at a slighter pull.

I continued my quest. But there was also the ordinary life and its material needs. One day I noticed that my shoes looked rather shabby. So I drove myself to visit the market for a new pair. I never thought the Gods could have anything to do with such a locality, though I had read of Bacon's idola fori, "idols of the market-place". I bought the shoes I had wanted and the shop-man wrapped the box up in a newspaper sheet. When, at home, I unwrapped it, the part of the sheet that fell over right in front of me bore the headline in bold type: "The Ashram of Sri Aurobindo Ghose." It was like a sun-burst. A visitor had written a long article. I devoured it and when I got to the end and understood how the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga stood for a new life not rejecting but transforming the main activities of man (including perhaps even the market-place), I rose up with the conviction that I had found what I had been seeking. Soon after, I wrote to the Ashram asking for permission to come. I got the permission and some months later - in December 1927 - I reached Pondicherry. The shoes I had gone to buy were meant by Sri Aurobindo to be those of a Pilgrim!

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Grace in the next ten and a half years during which I was an Ashramite - with the name "Amal Kiran" given by Sri Aurobindo and explained by him as "The Clear Ray" - is a story apart. I shall not deal with its abundance now. I pick up the thread from when I went back to Bombay for a long stay, keeping in contact inwardly, as well as by correspondence, with Sri Aurobindo and

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the Mother but outwardly unable to return and resume my life in the Ashram. Of course I used to make short trips. And one of them was for the darshan of November 24, 1950.

It was reported that Sri Aurobindo was not keeping well. I knew that he had complete control of the physical being. So whatever illness might be his would be something which he had consented to for some inscrutable purpose - had consented to and yet would fight against in order to work out some paradoxical victory. But there was a little tremble in my nerves. Everything, however, seemed to go right when as usual we saw the calm magnificence that was he - grand and gracious at the same time, sitting beside the radiant Mother.

From the other end of the long room across which we were going up to both of them I saw the Mother glance ahead and then lean a little to one side and say something to Sri Aurobindo. His face broke into a smile and he kept looking and smiling. My wife who was just behind me said afterwards that he was smiling until I disappeared into the next room through which we had to pass out again. Such a thing he had never done with me before.

On the night of December 3, I caught the train for Madras on way to Bombay. The Mother was to meet us before we left, but owing to a slight turn for the worse in Sri Aurobindo's condition the meeting was said to be cancelled. Then suddenly news was brought that she would see me. I rushed to the Ashram courtyard and at the bottom of the central staircase she came and sat in a chair while I sat at her feet. Cool and "translucent" she was as ever and we talked of several things connected with my work.

A day or so before fixing my departure I had had a vague feeling that I should stay on. But I gave no importance to it. I reached Bombay in the afternoon of December 5 and before I could leave the station a telegram by a friend in the Ashram was brought to me from my house that Sri Aurobindo had withdrawn from his body early the same morning.

In the midst of this news that shook me to my foundations and still shakes me somewhat after all these years of understanding why Sri Aurobindo took so drastic a step, I remembered how he had shed that wonderful sustained smile. The thought of it is always a quenchless light in the deepest darkness that may try to cover me.

But the whole afternoon and evening of December 5 in

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Bombay were a cry to get back to Pondicherry and see once more the countenance which had granted that sweet parting grace. I requested the sister of a friend of mine, whose efficiency I admired, to manage somehow a seat for me on the night-plane. She herself and another Aurobindonian who had returned with me from Pondicherry wanted also to come. So I said, "We must have three seats." The air-office declared that no seats were available. There was the additional problem of securing accommodation at Nagpur where our plane would touch down and people not only from Bombay but from Delhi and elsewhere would catch another plane to reach Madras. It might become possible to go up to Nagpur; but what then? My friend's sister would accept no defeat. She pleaded with the officials to keep inquiring in all directions. After anxious hours we heard that just three seats could be found right up to Madras owing to sudden cancellations in several places.

We arrived at Madras early next morning and took a taxi to Pondicherry. By eleven we were in Sri Aurobindo's own room, standing beside the glorious body with the face on which there was not merely the far look of peace that one often finds when the soul has gone out: here was the look of a victorious tranquillity, a power that with no effort, with no loss of peace, was radiating itself and breaking through all obstacles in the earth's consciousness. Never in all our years in the Ashram had there been such an overwhelming experience of what Sri Aurobindo himself had called in a line of poetry - Force one with unimaginable rest. With a thundering intensity, as it were, from above our heads the presence and power of Sri Aurobindo plunged down to the depths of the heart. Sri Aurobindo had never done anything so stupendously creative as his own passing from the body!

Later I learned from the Mother that the moment he had left his body what he had termed the Mind of Light, the physical mind receiving the supramental Light, had been realised in her. The strange golden light that many saw upon his body that lay without a touch of discoloration or decay for five days was a sign of the triumph that he had wrested for the earth by sacrificing his own physical frame.

Deep within, each of us felt the glory that looked outwardly a tragedy. But the little human heart in us, the outer emotional

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self, could not always share in the sense of this glory. And I who had depended so much on Sri Aurobindo in all my writing-work - when he had woken to inspiration the labouring poet, stirred to literary insight the fumbling critic, shaped out of absolute nothing the political commentator - I who had almost every day despatched to him some piece of writing for consideration felt a void at the thought that he would not be in that room of his, listening so patiently to my poetry or prose and sending me by letter or telegram his precious guidance. A fellow-sadhaka spoke to the Mother about my plight. On December 12 the inmates of the Ashram met her again and each received from her hands a photograph of Sri Aurobindo taken after his passing. It was dusk, as far as I recollect. She must have seen a certain helplessness on my face. Smiling as she alone could do, she looked me in the eyes and said, "Nothing has changed. Call for inspiration and help as you have always done. You will get everything from Sri Aurobindo as before."

This was simultaneously the Grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the crowning touch to all that they had done in those three weeks from November 24 onwards for a poor aspirant whose dependence on them was abject.

٭

I went back to Bombay with the prayer within me that soon, very soon, the Mother might help me and my wife to be near her. At least the second Pilgrimage became a possibility. As if from something above the head, some uplifted luminous watching Will, as it were, the decision seemed to come in February 1953. When it was conveyed to the Mother, she confirmed its authenticity. But to make the decision practicable in terms of rupees, annas and pies was not easy. During one of my short visits, I laid before her all the difficulties. At that time I was somewhat hard-up and I said, "Mother, I must have Rs.500 to settle a few matters and pay for a thorough migration with my wife and our dog." The Mother replied, "You must have Rs.500."

I went back and fixed the time of the second Pilgrimage a few months ahead. Weeks rolled by, but there appeared no prospect of those Rs. 500 materialising in a lump sum. In the December

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of the previous year an American journalist, Harvey Breit, had come to Bombay with a scheme of the Ford Foundation for a special India-supplement to the Atlantic Monthly. I met him and he commissioned an article on Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram. I wrote my piece, two thousand words or so. It was approved. I asked hesitatingly whether there would be any payment. "Of course," was the answer, "we'll write to you from the States." But even after months there was no sign of payment. Now the September of the next year was approaching, the month in which I had fixed my return to Pondicherry. Within a fortnight of D-Day (Divine Day, of course) I got a letter from America. It said that a cheque was enclosed on the Ford Foundation's account in an Indian Bank. I unfolded the cheque. There, unbelievably, was an order for Rs.500. Not a pie more, not a pie less.

But the story of the Grace does not end here. A week later I received another letter. It was apologetic, saying that owing to certain unavoidable circumstances the supplement had to be cut down considerably and that though my article was much appreciated it could not be used. This did not mean the withdrawal of the payment. The payment would be made and I was even told that the compilers claimed no right on my article: it could be sold by me anywhere else.

So my article went all the way from India to the United States and came back to me with a gift of the exact amount which I had mentioned to the Mother and which she had confirmed. And, to take me to the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo, it had to be appropriately an article on Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram!

٭

In connection with my second coming home there is the extraordinary incident of the house in which I was to be put. Although I got those Rs.500, I could not carry out the migration as planned. A few months earlier I had heard from the Ashram Secretary that a certain flat had been selected for me with the approval of the Mother. But the negotiations fell through. A man in Pondicherry stepped in and took away the flat. The Secretary wrote to me that the house-problem remained unsolved and was difficult to solve. He suggested that I should

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myself make a trip and help in the solution.

I arranged to come for the darshan of November 24 and stay on till December 9. I rang up a Travel Agency and made sure about my ticket. A day before leaving Bombay I went by bus to the Agency office to collect it. The bus stops a little way off from the office. I got down and was about to walk towards the office when somebody hailed me from the bus stand. It was a young man I had been introduced to in Pondicherry, a merchant. After the mutual "Hullo", I was asked where I had been hurrying. Mentioning the office, I said, "I am preparing to go away to Pondi. I shall settle there."

"Where will you be putting up?"

"God knows! Nothing fixed. I'll have to hunt for a flat."

"But why? I have a flat there. And as my business is not at all looking up I am clearing out. Why don't you take the place over?"

"Well, it must suit me. Will you give me the address and write to the landlord about me?"

He scribbled the address down - "13 rue Ananda Rangapoullé" - and I went with it to Pondicherry. When I showed it to the Ashram people they were surprised. It was the very flat that the Mother had approved of but had been snatched away at the last minute. Aided by a sadhaka who knew the landlord well, I got the place transferred with ease, and moved into it in February 1954.

The Mother's Grace is a tactician of unthinkable accuracy. It seemed to withdraw, as it were, during the first negotiations. But that was evidently a matter of "reculer pour mieux sauter" - "draw back for a better leap forward". And when it leaped, it was with an infallible aim. The number of factors combining to bring me my destined flat on a platter is quite big. The man who had butted in must be known to me: his business had to force him to leave Pondicherry: he had to be present at a particular place at a precise minute: he had to catch sight of me: he had to bring up the subject of my settling in Pondicherry. The Mother's Grace is just like the Mother herself - unexpected in turn and attentive to the smallest detail.

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On February 29, 1956, I left for Bombay on account of my grandfather, 98 years old, who had been threatening to expire for quite a long time. The Mother had told me that I should be back before the 29th of March. It was the year in which great things were expected. I left by the morning train, reached Madras in the evening and caught the night mail to Bombay.

I went to sleep in the compartment and had a dream. I saw a wide open place, with the Mother seated at one end and people going to her to make pranām. I was at the very boundary of the place. It seemed I might miss the chance of the pranām. So I tried to hurry. But in the hurry I somehow could not get my feet out of my slippers and in the excitement I woke up. When I opened my eyes I saw, against the opposite berth and the facing wall of the compartment, the Mother standing. Her body was in shadow, her face was in moonlight and both were transparent so that through them I could see the woodwork and part of the upholstery of the berth. I kept gazing for some time. Not believing my eyes, I shut them and opened them again. It made no difference to the vision. There still stood the transparent form of the Mother, the face softly shining. After looking for a quarter minute I once more shut my eyes. When I reopened them the form was gone.

On reaching Bombay I wrote to the Mother about this mysterious apparition. I got no reply, but after a time I received letters from my wife in which it was said that the Mother wished me to return soon. From a friend I got the hint that something wonderful had happened. I came back as soon as I could. What had happened was the long-awaited Manifestation of the Supermind as a universal Force in the earth's subtle-physical atmosphere. And it had happened on the 29th of February, late in the evening, during the collective meditation with the Mother, in the spacious playground of the Ashram.

Word got round that the Mother had remarked: "Only five people knew what took place - two in the Ashram and three outside." To get some clarification I took the report to the Mother. She said that she had not referred to people's knowing what had taken place: she had meant that something extra- ordinary had been experienced by five people as a result of the Manifestation: they might not at all have been aware of the true nature of the event. And she added: "Among those outside, I

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counted you. You wrote to me of your experience in the train on the night of the 29th February. Well, I had come to inform you. Don't you remember that many years ago, when you went to Bombay and the Supramental Manifestation was expected here, I promised you that I would let you know at once? I came to you now in fulfilment of my promise."

I was absolutely overwhelmed. The promise had been kept after no less than 18 years! I could only stammer out, "Mother, you came to inform me, a person like me? Oh, I feel so grateful, so grateful..."

٭

Perhaps after this, everything would read like an anti-climax. But the Mother's Grace has a variety and a versatility that cannot but be marvellous. I have already spoken of my grandfather who had been long a-dying and making fools out of the best doctors who, night after night, kept predicting the worst within hours, only to find that the next morning he would be heartily munching his breakfast. In the middle of April, 1957, he seemed to get over his troubles very markedly. He was enjoying the best health he had known for months. But just at that time the Mother suddenly called me to say, "You must go to Bombay soon. I have a strong impression that your grandfather will pass away shortly."

It was rather important that I should be in Bombay when he would die: the family situation and the financial problems demanded my presence there to take charge of everything. So I took the Mother's words as again a visitation of her Grace. But it proved difficult to book a berth from Madras. None was available till May 8. I told the Mother that I would be able to leave only on May 7 from Pondicherry. "Will this be all right?" She smiled and said, "Yes." Then she added, "I have been packing you with power all these days."

The train was delayed a little and I reached Bombay towards 4 p.m. on May 9. Everybody was surprised at my sudden appearance. Grandfather had unexpectedly taken a bad turn. The doctor was pessimistic, but, wise with past experience, did not dare to make any prediction. In the course of the next morning, grandfather breathed his last. And, strange to say, I who had

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come from a thousand miles away happened to be the only member of the family present to see him die. Nobody else, in spite of living in the same house, could appear in time for it when summoned by his secretary.

In the management of grandfather's affairs I was amazed how the several factions in the family disappeared and all worked as one. Whether I was directly thinking of the Mother or no, something seemed to move irresistibly as if the power which she had "packed" into me unfolded itself automatically and brought success everywhere. The most impossible-looking things became child's play.

Announcing grandfather's demise to the Mother I wrote jocularly of my new status as the eldest male survivor in the family. She replied, to my astonishment: "You say as a joke 'Now I am the grand old man of the family!' - but it is not a joke, it is true; for all in your grandfather that was turned towards the good and the right went straight into you when he left his body." Of course the good and the right, acting as if in tune with grandfather's own will, were much needed by me in managing his estate to everyone's satisfaction. And the Mother's remark showed clearly that she had been occultly watchful over all the results of the working of her Grace.

٭

February 21, the birthday of the Mother, is also the day on which Mother India was born, seventy-one years later. And the day of its birth in 1949 had behind it a special outbreak of the Grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

This journal was in several senses a desperate venture. It was the idea of a businessman, K.R. Poddar, but conceived without any narrow concern for business: it sought to make current the gold of a spiritual light at any material expense, and there was no calculation made about the length of time it might take for that celestial coinage to be accepted. It was because Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had taken interest in the project and blessed it that the journal was launched in the form of a fortnightly in the midst of that very centre of frantic business, the commercial capital of India, Bombay, where the word "Spirit", if it meant anything at all, might connote simply what Prohibition puts out

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of the way of celebrating or relaxing businessmen. The desperateness of the publication and its sheer need of Grace from the Divine was well hit off by the message (dated January 29, 1949) received from Aldous Huxley for the first issue:

"I wish you all success in your venture. You will, of course, be a voice crying in the wilderness. But if a few individuals pay attention, something will have been accomplished."

A further point added to the apparent quixotism: Mother India had, as part of its aim, the object of plunging into political problems with a spiritual vision. It strove to look at national and international situations from the height of Sri Aurobindo's thought. In the hubbub of political slogans it brought a standard of judgment that was non-political. In general this standard may be summed up by saying that in every field of activity the aim was to criticise whatever militated against humanity's instinct of an evolving divinity within itself and to give the utmost constructive help to all that encouraged that instinct. Without flinching, Mother India spoke forth on many political subjects in direct contradiction of official or popular ideas.

Those were the days when Stalin overshadowed, almost overawed, the world, especially the Asian world. But Mother India, while never advocating stark individualism or boosting rank capitalism, never hesitated to expose the sham of the Stalinist sociology and its rigid negation of the two beliefs or intuitions that are the authentic stamp of homo sapiens: the key-importance of the creative individual in the evolutionary process, the presence of a secret Godhead who can inspire and enlighten the consciousness of the individual. Mother India went all out in support of the American intervention in Korea, regarding as it did the attack of the communist North Koreans as inspired by Mao and Stalin and as the first step of communism towards conquest of all Asia, including our own country. Mother India, again, refused to accept any right of Red China's to invade Tibet: the historical suzerainty of China over Tibet could only be accepted if at the same time the equally historical internal autonomy of Tibet were granted. Our uncompromising protest, argued out at great length, created a bit of stir in Indian parliamentary circles. Perhaps even more disturbing to current thought was the protest, voiced in three slashing editorials, against recognition of Red China - a protest based on an all-

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round survey of the situation. We also spotlighted the delusion that there could be real cultural bonds between India and any country wedded to totalitarianism, or that a China gone Red and furiously working for world-communism would have no aggressive intentions against India. In regard to Pakistan there was the same attempt on our part to look into the heart of the matter and judge issues from insight into the psychological and occult forces at work behind the scene of the immediate physical event: India, however varied, is indivisible and her wholeness must somehow return if her full destiny is to be fulfilled: partition, a product of perverse or panicky politics, violated the country's essential oneness of being, it cut up the bodily symbol, as it were, of the single Goddess-Spirit by whose presiding genius this manifold nation had been enabled to live its history of cultural synthesis and diverse approaches to the Infinite. In everything our guide was the vast and impartial yet dynamically precise wisdom of Sri Aurobindo, and we did not care whether we found favour with persons or institutions, whether our circulation soared or slumped as a result of our unconventional views. Did we not have the blessings of the Mother to make us a success in the sense of being a force that made its mark?

The blessings of the Mother: thereby hangs a tale, particular no less than general. But before we come to it a glance may be thrown at the peculiar case of the Editor of Mother India. He was in love with poetry and deeply attached to literary criticism; he was a fast friend of philosophy and on fairly intimate terms with science; he could even have a close relationship with history; but politics was his bête noire, politics gave him the shivers. So when the privilege of editorial appointment came his way, he stood at once delighted and dazed: it was an honour indeed to fight with the pen for the Aurobindonian ideal, but the foreignness of the field, the disagreeableness of the ground, on which battle was to be waged, gave him pause. He was expected to write thousands of words on various political themes in a manner that would be clear, cogent, exact, penetrating, widely informed, easily authoritative. Here was a feat the poor fellow could not have performed even in his wildest dreams. But he had learnt from experience as well as observation that the Mother was no chaser of rainbows: if she put him in the Editor's Chair, it was surely to get solid results out of him in that position. Trusting in her

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wonderful practical flair, he unburdened his mind of fears to her. "Mother, I have to be an expert political thinker and writer. But I have no turn for politics, no touch on politics." She smiled a cool sweet smile and answered: "Neither have I." I got a start. "Well, then what shall I do?" Again the imperturbable sweetness and then the reply: "There is Sri Aurobindo. He will guide you in everything." A sudden flood of power swept over me. "Oh yes," I said, "Sri Aurobindo will do the impossible." And he did. Out of absolute nothing he created a prolific commentator on political questions. Articles simply streamed forth and it was most amazing how their author was called in by people for views on this, that and the other burning topic, as if he were a political oracle! And the wonder was that he successfully acquitted himself like one. His hearers thought that it was but natural he should talk with expertness and far-sightedness: he alone knew that the Grace of Sri Aurobindo did all the talking.

This Grace, fashioning a new mind from poor or no materials, worked in many modes at its job which was like that of Napoleon who was said to have made generals of genius out of mud. Sri Aurobindo not only put from afar his mighty spiritual force to the task of "politicising" the Editor's grey cells. He also got every editorial, however lengthy, read out to him before publication and sent a telegram of approval or modification or rejection. Matter for Mother India received preferential treatment among the sundry calls on the precious time of the Avatar of Supermind. And his interest in it had a directly personal touch. On one occasion, when a sadhaka's sceptical attitude to the opinions expressed in the fortnightly was reported to him, he said: "Doesn't he know that Mother India is my paper?" Here was Grace in abundance and without stint - initiating, fostering, shaping, supporting, championing.

٭

The presence of both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was felt constantly in all the turns of the editorial activity in Bombay. In fact, there would have been no such activity at all if this presence had not openly taken charge of things. And here what I have called the particular tale of the Mother's blessings falls into place. Let us go to the period of preparation before the first issue saw

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the light. We were about to launch a fortnightly without any experience of the brass-tacks of such an adventure. When the office was set up we had only six or seven weeks to go before the date fixed for the opening number. We had no materials in reserve except for two or three issues. One day a veteran journalist dropped in and told us that we were heading for the rocks: unless we had six months' matter in hand it was foolhardy to start by February 21. We said that our opening number would be a brilliant one and it was a shame to suppress it. A warning finger was wagged in front of the novice Editor's nose: "It is better to lie quiet for some months than go up a rocket and come down a stick." We suggested that we would work frenziedly and keep going. "Impossible! All journalistic experience is against you. Mass your forces sufficiently - six months' stuff in hand - and then make your entrance."

We were in a quandary. To commence and then flop - this was an unbearable thought. The editor had at times the apparently irrational feeling that if hard-pressed he could write the whole journal single-handed. But could one rely on such delusions of grandeur? Not to be published according to the original plan was galling. Yet he could not involve everything in a rapturous risk. He thought it best to consult the Mother. So he sent her an urgent note: "All journalists advise us to postpone publication for some months. They say we are doomed otherwise. My own instinct is that of Foch at the Battle of the Marne. When he was asked by his superior at the headquarters for a report from the field, he sent the message: 'Mon centre cède, ma droite récule, situation excellente, j'attaque!'¹ But what do you say?"

On January 27, 1949, I received the telegram: "Stick to the date. Live on faith. Blessings, - Mother." With a whoop we went into action - and our faith in the Mother's Grace has kept us in action up to now.

٭

Both the Editor and the Associate Editor, S.R. Albless, experienced again and again in their day-to-day movements in the office and at the press the blessing and guiding hand of the

¹. "My centre is giving way, my right wing is in retreat, situation excellent, I am attacking !"

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Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Difficulties rose up of various kinds - psychological, physical, technical. But all got solved and never was Mother India late by even a few hours. Occasionally there was a sudden dearth of contributions. An appeal would go forth to the secret presence. Not only would the immediate need be answered but also "God's plenty" would pour in, making possible a sumptuous Special Number close on the heels of an ordinary issue that had seemed hard to fill. On some occasions the Editor would have a relapse into his old non-political self. A helplessness would settle like a cloud over him and he would be afraid that the deadline might find him unready. But a deep inner aspiration at night cried out to the Master, "After all, Mother India is your concern. I am only your instrument. You have to look after it and see that everything is in order. Please get an editorial written tomorrow morning." And the next dawn would break on the early-risen Editor thumping away on his typewriter in a gust of inspiration.

When matters other than political were treated - and there were a lot of them, since Mother India touched on politics as only one side of its multiple Aurobindonian work - the situation of stand-still in any sense was non-existent. For, there the Editorial Staff was in its own element. But here too the enlivening stream of inner help from Pondicherry was clearly felt. And, paradoxically, the most intense experience of it came after the Master had left his body! I had flown to the Ashram on getting the heart-shattering news. As already recounted, the Mother had assured the appalled disciple that nothing had really changed and that he would get as ever the fullest help possible from Sri Aurobindo. But now the greatest challenge was to be faced: what must be written about the mystifying event that had just taken place? All the readers of Mother India would be looking up to the Editor for enlightenment.

Before leaving Pondicherry I was granted an interview by the Mother. She said, "The whole event is quite clear to me. But I will not tell you anything. You must write on it all by yourself." I meditated with the Mother for a while and then left the same night for Bombay. All through the railway journey to Madras and the flight from there to Bombay, I kept inwardly invoking Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to make me do well the job which seemed the greatest my life could confront me with - namely,

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the reading of at least some part of the spiritual secret that was behind what looked so mighty a tragedy, the secret which would reveal in this apparent tragedy a triumph in accord with all the earth-divinising Yoga taught and lived out by Sri Aurobindo.

Bombay held nothing of interest for me. I would hardly go even out of my room lest the concentration on the hidden light should flicker for a moment and my search fall short of its goal. I said to myself: "What use my whole career of writing if now I cannot bring forth words aglow with God's own truth?" And the prayer rose up: "O Mother, O Sri Aurobindo, if I could now see into the heart of this mystery and draw out of its depth the speech of revelation, I should be content to drop the pen for ever. I do not care whether I write anything else after it: but here let me not fail." Once again the old appeal took shape in my mind: "My Master, Mother India is your concern after all. Will you not save it from failure, from frustration?"

Slowly through the empty days and the hopeless nights a mass of light was felt invisibly moving towards expression. I had the urge to write. But something told me to control it. Not till I felt absolutely surcharged with that mass should I put pen to paper. I waited. Then at last came the feeling that now I should find utterance. For several days I went on writing - at times sitting at my typewriter hour after hour, producing nothing rather than let anything unworthy of the colossal theme take form. A long essay progressed towards its end - perhaps the longest editorial I had written. I had the sense that the Grace had worked, bearing me through my supreme trial as a writer.

I posted my composition to the Mother. It was entitled: "The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and Consequence." It was read out to her in two sittings. The Ashram Secretary sent me on December 27, 1950, the telegram: "Your Passing of Sri Aurobindo admirable. Fully approved by Mother. Nothing to change. - Nolini." My Associate Editor who was still in Pondicherry wrote to me what the Mother had said to our Manager Yogendra Rastogi on December 28. Her words were: "I have read Amal's article. It is excellent. Tell him I am extremely satisfied. I would like to have it printed in booklet form. He can get it printed in Bombay, if he wants. Otherwise I shall have it printed here." A little later my Associate Editor again reported her as having remarked: "It is quite the best thing

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Amal has written. I would like to print 15,000 copies of it."

Face to face with all this, I could only bow my head with inexpressible gratitude. Mother India had found its fulfilment through the Grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

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