My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

A Great Spiritual Personality

The Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry was indeed Fa great spiritual personality, very profound, most varied and highly creative. Hailing from the West, She settled in India, her "spiritual home" for all her long life, and sought to build up a new spirituality on the long traditions of India, a pathway of future growth for mankind as a whole. She created a comprehensive new Sadhana for the seekers of the East and the West, a large new process of education for children from all over, and a township for a true international living. Her writings—consisting largely of talks—are an inspiration. Her artistic recreation of Sri Aurobindo's epic poem "Savitri" is a visual pursuit of bliss and immortality. Her messages are thrilling directives for life. But the most wonderful of all is an inner contact with her, which we get in a mood of love and adoration. And our appreciation and enjoyment of Her objective creations become much intenser when they evoke or proceed from an inner contact with her.

The Mother had sought persistently to lift us to a higher vision of life—larger, wider, truer, much happier, more effective and truly harmonious. And She did this essentially by imparting to us some inspiration of her own Being through an intimate personal contact.

It is most interesting that this marvellous contact continues to be available. We have to turn towards her inwardly, think of her, concentrate on her, feel joy in doing so, do it again and again and we would soon get into the proper form for the thrilling inner contact. And when it comes, it is most vivifying. It gives us hope, joy, courage, purposiveness, a feeling of worthwhileness in life.

Evidently, we celebrate the Mother's Birth Centenary best when we thus grow in life—in joy and effectivity through repeated inner contacts with her. And these contacts may presumably be more sulabh (available) during this year of the Centenary. Such approach and such growth will surely please the Mother more than anything else. While organizing meetings, seminars, exhibitions and planning publications we naturally cannot afford to leave out of consideration this essential fact—the fact of the delightful inner contact with her.

Our celebrations can overtly take many forms. A quiet nice meditation, an inner collectedness and concentration on the Mother, on any aspect of her life or any word of her is always the most important thing, whether individually practised or collectively done. The Mother's music as an attendant circumstance to meditation, or by itself, for appreciation and enjoyment is also a very fine thing Readings from the Mother, selected for different occasions, individual or collective, are so inspiring and uplifting. Papers written on the Mother will need to reflect the central spiritual truth of her personality, whatever they may otherwise deal with. A purely academic treatment of her orientations on different matters is perfectly possible, but it has its limitations. Of course, an elaboration of the orientations, indicated sometimes in brief messages, is a legitimate field of work for the intellectual approach. And if that is done, then the orientations, perceptions and visions of the Mother will become available for an intellectual appreciation and utilization. In fact, there is quite a large field for this kind of work.

May we have a rich and an inspiring year of frequent contact with our gracious Mother and a fruitful celebration of the Centenary.