Champaklal Speaks

My Room in Library House

After Mother and Sri Aurobindo shifted to Meditation House [February 1927], Mother gave me her room in Library House. One day Barin came to my room and was very happy with the way I had kept my things. He said, “Your room is really nice and beautiful. I like it very much. I wish my room too were like this.” At that time, I, could not understand whether he was joking or telling the truth. It is not easy for me to distinguish between a joke and a serious statement. But from his expression he seemed really impressed.

That same evening Amrita came to my room and said, “Barin told me that Champaklal's room is worth seeing and insisted I come and see for myself. So I have come.” This is how the Mother cleared my doubts about Barin's statement.

You may wonder what was there in my room that Barin liked it so much. There was no furniture, just a thin narrow quilt and a pillow; in a corner, on a small chest (for clothes etc) covered with a cloth, I had kept a photo of Mother and Sri Aurobindo and a single flower of Divine's love. The chest also served as my table. In my present room, there is no space left to keep any extra piece of furniture. In those days, Barin's room was like my present room. However, I was happy in that Library House room and I am equally happy now in my present room, in Meditation House.

I saw this happening also in Mother's life. In 1953, when her new room on the second floor was ready, she told Soli Albless (the sadhak-architect who built it), “I do not want to keep anything in my room.” Though she did not in the beginning, gradually everything came in.

For me too, it was possible to keep nothing in Library House because in those days I had no interest other than serving them, not even reading books. One single aim: to be with them and serve them. But afterwards it was not possible because my work kept changing. It is one thing to want to do something but quite another to be able to do it. For instance, visitors to the Ashram highly praise the food served in our Dining Room; they often say, “When we come here, we eat only Dining Room food.” We hear such glowing praise of this food but I have never heard of anybody preparing the same things in their homes. Some may actually have prepared to cook such food at home, but they must be very few.