My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

How and why I came to Pondicherry

I am a deputy of the aspiring world,
My spirit’s liberty I ask for all.” ||144.54||

I was born on the auspicious Ekadashi day of Kartik, on a Sunday, which according to the Gregorian calendar was the 28th day of October, the month of revolutions, and the year was 1906 when Sri Aurobindo was living in Baroda and had already made some advance in his sadhana.

About the time I was born, my father was frantically searching for a guru who would help him to swim across the sea of ignorance which this human life is and attain liberation. He was, however, a teacher, and was endowed with a rather critical intellect. He used to say that a teacher would teach but could not easily learn from another teacher. Hence, however much he felt attracted towards a prospective guru, he would sooner or later notice some weakness in him and go away from him. Once he did succeed in finding a guru whom he could accept and he was so happy in his devotion to the chosen guru that he wrote and published a pamphlet entitled Easy Path to Deliverance. But this devotion, too, did not last long. His desire for liberation had thus remained unfulfilled, when I was born and he had been content to lead a decent moral life and be a model teacher in a Government school. After twenty-five years of brilliant career as a teacher and winning recognition for his services, he retired from service. Against the twenty-five years of active service, he lived for thirty years in retirement and died at the ripe old age of eighty-five.

My father inculcated in me a deep love for morality and religion and sent me for my secondary education to the famous Dadabhai Naoroji High School in Anand, where I was put up in the school's boarding house. I was twelve at that time. The atmosphere in the school was permeated with great moral idealism in those days and the teachers, who lived near the school premises, exercised a wholesome moral influence on the pupils. Being rather quick in my studies, I did not have to spend much time over the texts and preferred to give a good deal of it to reading biographies of saints and holy men. Thus the love of good life inculcated by my father found rich nourishment in the school and at the young age of fourteen I had imbibed the inspiring influence of men like Swami Ramatirtha, Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Inspired by the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, at the age of sixteen I started the practice of meditation. During the long school vacation, I would stay on in the boarding house and day after day pore over the book containing Sri Ramakrishna's teachings. My efforts to practise whatever I understood from the book were rewarded with happy experiences. I read the Bible, too, and under its influence tried the method of prayer to cure ailing friends. I also made successful experiments in thought-transference through mental communion with friends and sending messages to distant friends and calling them over to me. Thus the seed sown by my father sprouted into a plant and bore some fragrant flowers.

Since Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were no longer alive to guide me in my newly awakened spiritual quest, I started, even while in the D. N. High School at Anand, looking for a guru who would help me to realize the presence of God. I came to hear about Sri Aurobindo, who was asking his disciples not to renounce the world but to realize the Divine in the midst of the world. But it took me some time to procure any of his writings. At last, I read a book called Sri Aubroindo's Philosophy and felt that he would be an ideal guru for me and resolved to accept his sadhana which was to be done in the midst of the world and decided to go to him one day and surrender myself to his way of life.

While still at the school, I read Jnaneshvar's commentary on the Gita and was deeply impressed by the incident referred to in it of Jnaneshvar humbling Changdev's pride by ordering the porch where he was sitting to move forward to receive the latter who was coming to meet him, seated on a tiger. I wondered in my mind what perfect oneness Jnaneshvar must have established with the inert porch to make it obey his order. This incident silenced my sceptical mind ever prone to doubt and filled me with the ambition to cultivate strength of mind and spirit.

When, after repeated readings of the teachings of Swami Ramatirtha, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, I started practising meditation, my mind would often sink into total silence and remain in that condition for many hours. Man is a slave of his nature, prakriti. The awakened soul keenly feels this slavery and, failing in its struggle to master the prakriti, it turns towards the Lord of Mercy and prays to Him for deliverance from its slavery. In such a state of mind one day, all alone on a dark night in the school compound during the vacation, I was praying to the Lord from the depth of my heart to deliver me from the bonds of my nature, prakriti, and was sunk into the silent depths of my heart, when all at once the darkness was transformed into a blue light and I saw Sri Krishna, flute in hand, standing beside me and gently soothing me with his hand. I heard him repeat the Gita verse, "Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in me alone; I will deliver you from all sins; do not grieve". I woke up from the trance and ever since I have been trying to understand the meaning of this vision and trying to live up to Sri Krishna's teaching. The Lord's Grace descended on me and He took me up in His lap, as a mother takes her child in hers.

In the school the birth anniversary of Sri Ramakrishna, Janmashtami and other sacred days were celebrated with great devotion so as to awaken love of holiness in the pupils' hearts. Both teachers and pupils participated in these celebrations with utmost zest. During the annual day celebrations trained pupils staged skits and dramatic scenes on moral and religious themes. On one such occasion I was selected to represent the dialogue between Nachiketa and Yamaraja, the Lord of Death. Even today I find myself ceaselessly striving against Yamaraja as Savitri had done in the ancient legend.

This religious atmosphere in the school awakened and strengthened spiritual aspirations in the pupils' hearts and the pupils spontaneously engaged themselves in activities intended to build strong character. Some of us who stayed in the school's boarding house, had started a "self-improvement society". The society's meetings used to be held in secret late in the night after the other pupils had gone to bed. We met every week and each member gave an account of the efforts he had made during the preceding week to improve his habits. This exchange of our experiences was a great source of strength to those of us who really wished to grow morally and spiritually. Though our meetings were held in secret, our beloved teacher Sri Bhikhabhai Patel, who acted as a kind of moral guardian, watched the proceedings unknown to us, and rejoiced over our zeal for moral improvement.

As the Matriculation examination drew near, we realized that we would soon be leaving our dear school. We felt sad and shed tears in secret for many a day. On the other hand, my efforts to seek Sri Aurobindo's guidance had become more intense than ever. Two of my teachers had some writings of Sri Aurobindo with them and also subscribed to the journal Arya published from Pondicherry. I used to read those writings and have occasional discussions with the teachers as also practised meditation. In 1925, they left the school and went over to Pondicherry. I had left off study and joined Gandhiji's movement for swaraj which had swept over the country since 1920. I had two attacks of appendicitis that year but had cured them with the help of nature-cure methods. When, however, I got the third attack, Gandhiji decided, without asking for my consent to get me operated upon, telling me: "We don't wish to lose you." He called in the doctors and handed me over to them, after obtaining from them an assurance that I would be returned to him safe and healthy. He then left to attend the Annual Session of the Congress at Gauhati. After the operation the intestines became so weak that I could take nothing except liquids. After returning from Gauhati, Gandhiji sent me over to the Antyaja Sevamandal Ashram at Naysari to rest and recover my health there by living on mango juice and milk for some weeks.

While I was at the Naysari Ashram, I was in correspondence with my school teacher, Sri Rambhai who was living in Pondicherry. After the establishment of the Ashram in Pondicherry in November 1926, I wrote for permission to join it. The Mother asked for my photograph and it was sent to her. I was accepted as one of the sadhakas and left Naysari for Pondicherry in the last week of December 1927.

When I alighted at Pondicherry station, my school teacher Sri Rambhai, who had come to receive me, told me that Sri Aurobindo had retired into complete seclusion and the Ashram was being run by the Mother. This was news to me. I was both surprised and pained. But Sri Rambhai added that I was to meet the Mother at 11 a.m. the next day in the library-room of the Ashram and that she had got a room cleaned and furnished for me. During the very first night of my stay in that room, I had a wonderful experience. I dreamt as if a wonderful golden sun was shining in front of me and I became a small flame with my gaze fixed on it. I spent the whole night in indescribable bliss. The next day was the 31st of December and, when I met the Mother on that day, I saw shining over her the same sun which I had seen in my dream the previous night. Spontaneously I bowed down to her and obtained her blessings.

I got my first opportunity to see Sri Aurobindo on February 21, 1928. It was a great experience and I felt that the decision I had made while at school to accept Sri Aurobindo as my guru was perfectly right. I, therefore, surrendered myself heart and soul to him and felt reassured that he would save me from all my sins in the same way as Sri Krishna had promised Arjuna. When I had my second darshan of Sri Aurobindo in the August of 1928, he was satisfied with my yearnings for sadhana and progress in it and conveyed his satisfaction and had sent compliments to me through the Mother. After that day my spiritual bond with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother continually grew stronger and my gurus helped me in my sadhana with all their spiritual powers.

In 1929 Barindrakumar, the younger brother of Sri Aurobindo, left the Ashram without informing the Mother or taking her permission. Next morning the Mother sent a note asking me to shift to that room vacated by Barindrakumar. This room was situated on the back side of Sri Aurobindo's room, on the first floor of the office of the building department of the Ashram where I was working. A road was running between the Master's residence and my room.

In this way, the Master's grace granted me the boon of physical nearness, when I was striving to understand the real meaning of the word- "yoga", and the significance of the retirement of the Master. One day during meditation, the Master made me understand that the meaning of the word "yoga" is to unite, to establish inner relation. 'It is for teaching the sadhalcas, the way to establish the inner relation that I have withdrawn, so that I can help them in a better way.'

In 1931, I felt the longing to withdraw from the outer world, to hark to music of the inner Self, who was calling me. I informed the Mother of my feeling, Sri Aurobindo, replied immediately: "You can withdraw if you are feeling so. The Mother will make all necessary arrangement for you." When one accepts a guru, and the guru takes him to his heart; when their relation is deep and intimate enough, the disciple approaches and identifies himself with the Master; the Master receives him with all love and makes him sit in his great heart and he takes his seat in the heart of the disciple. They remain no more separate entities, but begin to live in union.

It was for this reason that I was granted the physical nearness. It was the Master who had suggested me to retire, so that he can teach me how to establish intimacy and union. In this way, he started sadhana within me and gave me hundreds of experiences and wrote hundreds of letters to explain them. During meditation, when I rushed to him, entered his heart, united and identified with him…, he would run with all love to his window, open it, build a bridge of Light between our two windows, and will tell me.... "I am with you". I can see his majestic form standing there to respond to the call of his devotee, defying all rules and breaking all bondages....

Here is the graceful bounty of the Divine Master. The experiences given by him and the letters written to explain them are being offered here for those who are on the path, my fellow-pilgrims, to remind them of the presence of the Master's guide lights to support their conviction and faith.

A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme:
His nature we must put on as he put ours;
We are sons of God and must be even as he:
His human portion, we must grow divine. ||15.10||
Our life is a paradox with God for key.||15.11||