My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

The Dedication Pilgrimage

The Grace is sure to be victorious one day.

The Mother

The third Gujarati edition of Preservation of Health and Sight was published with the introduction of Kakasaheb Kalelkar in July 1972 by Gandhiji's Navajivan Trust. I received presentation copies from the publisher and when I turned through the pages of the book at night, I was held up when I came to the page of dedication. The book was dedicated to the Divine Mother. Whenever I published a new edition, I used to send an offering of some token amount to the Divine Mother, because the sale of the books was under my control. After giving away the copyright to the Navajivan Trust the position became quite different. I tried to find a way for dedication. I, therefore decided upon taking up the sale of the book.

I became calm and quiet and remembered the Mother and there was a contact with her. In that quiet concentrated mood I took a decision to stop my usual efforts to earn my bread but to start a dedication pilgrimage to approach every small or big educational institution and introduce copies of the book for their class library and for being given away as prizes. The sale proceeds of the dedication pilgrimage were to be offered to the Divine Mother. I experienced sound sleep after taking this decision and after pondering over the ways of surrender to the Mother. I was awakened at 4-30 a.m. by the idea of praying to my body which was 67 years old and by which I was to carry out the arduous programme of going from village to village for the dedication pilgrimage. I prayed to the body in a concentrated mood that it was very fortunate to get this opportunity to do this pilgrimage to realize the Divine. This work could not be carried out without the co-operation of the body. I prayed to the body to co-operate and in response joy, peace and power filled up every cell of my body. I approached members of my family early morning and told them that since the Mother had arranged for their bread and other necessities of life, I should not endeavour to earn their bread and they had to be satisfied with whatever was given by the Divine Mother. I arranged and organized my programme and started the pilgrimage and the first order I got was for one hundred copies from the President of Vaso Kelavani Mandal. The book received an encouraging response. Vaso purchased 100 copies, Borsad purchased 97 copies, Sardar University Campus purchased 63 copies. All educational institutions of Anand including D. N. High School where Dyuman, Shivabhai, Arnbu and I studied and to which we are so much grateful for preparing us for spiritual development, purchased 51 copies; Nadiad purchased 36 copies, Petlad 36 copies, Khambhat 30, Sojitra 26 and Kapadwanj 24 copies. Generally Gujarat is believed to be much backward in these matters, but the same Gujarat responded to this book with great love and respect to the Divine Mother who was approaching them through me, and my head bowed to Gujarat in all humility. The whole edition of of 2000 copies was sold out within the record time of one hundred days.

I wrote to my friend Dyuman to request the Mother on behalf of me to grant me an appointment—an opportunity—for performing the dedication ceremony of my book. With the Grace of the Mother I got the appointment on 24 August '72. Then the Mother had stopped seeing and interviewing people -since April 1972. When I reached the Ashram, I was not sure whether the Mother would grant me an interview. I approached Dyuman and inquired about my appointment. He told me to my astonishment, "Your appointment is not cancelled, so the Mother will see you on 24th of August."

When I saw the Mother on 24th August '72, she was sitting on the ground. I approached her with all humility, offered a sum of Rs. 400/-, net income of the sale of 400 copies of my book. I bowed and kept my head in her lap. She held the head with her two hands for a few minutes and blessed me in that way. I stood up after pranam, she searched out a blessing-packet from the dish that was kept by her side, and she raised her hand to give the blessing-packet to me and cast a piercing glance into my eyes. Her eyes as if conveyed to me: "Good bye… to-ta… we will not meet again physically."

This disturbed me a good deal. My difficultiy was that I could not convey this feeling to anybody else… and I had to be in this agony till the arrival of the memorable day when the Mother left the body.

The dedication pilgrimage had become a means to revolutionize the final change in my life to lead me to the Divine and to be its humble instrument. It had filled me with a new spirit of dedicated life. I was moving with great speed; I used to walk ten to fifteen miles everyday and if necessary covered more than 60 miles on cycle per day. All members of my family, the educationists to whom I approached for the sale of the book and the Ashram ' people and the Divine Mother were astonished when they came to know about it. The Mother Divine was much pleased to hear from Dyuman the story of the dedication pilgrimage and the body that was co-operating in the work so nicely and she had sent her blessings both to the work and the worker.

The fourth edition of the book was available for sale in August 1973. I had decided to visit the Ashram again in October to celebrate my birthday only after selling five hundred copies of the books so that I could offer five hundred rupees to the Divine Mother. In Gujarat the rains were very heavy and incidents of communal tension had occurred in the Modasa district, where I was moving on my pilgrimage. It was extremely difficult, almost impossible, to move in that area. Despite these circumstances I tried and could sell 495 copies within a month.

The dedication pilgrimage marks a transformation of the old life. It was the concentrated move towards the Divine. In the course of the pilgrimage on the muddy roads of the villages, birds, trees, and the whole of nature talked and sang to me musical tunes of the Grace of the Divine Mother. It was a journey in a state of peace and bliss. After my return at the end of the day I used to feed my body with fruits or whatever I got from that locality and sit in deep concentration for hours inviting the Mother's force to fill up every cell of the body to remove the exertion and to replenish with a new energy and I was ready and refreshed the next morning to restart my journey to the Divine.

Once I had been to visit Dhansura in Sabarkantha and its surrounding villages. The Principal of a High School in Dhansura expressed his desire to take me to a patient—a boy of 12 years—who had become blind all of a sudden ten months ago. We had to go to a small village named Taka-tuka 100 miles away from Dhansura. Both of us travelled by bus and sat side by side. In the bus as usual I was in a concentrated mood and went deep into trance and established a contact with the Mother. After some time a stream of Light rushed down my head. Then, with a thundering noise, Light broke through the head, pervaded the whole body and every cell of my body was filled with power and bliss and began to glimmer like gems. The whole body, each and every part, became transparent as if made of small diamonds, and began to throw multi-coloured light that created an aura of multicoloured rainbow around the body. After a time again a thundering noise and multi-coloured light began to flow from each pore of the body and established union with the whole universe, and the hills we were passing through also began to glimmer with multi-coloured light, that was flowing out of the body and melting everything into a blissful universal Sat-chit-Anand Consciousness that had descended and a strong wave of inexpressible bliss pervaded throughout. We had travelled for more than two hours and we were nearing a bus stand where we were to change our bus. So the Principal tried to wake me up. He had been watching my face and had been convinced that I was neither asleep nor awake. He had found an extraordinary light round my face and my body. He was much puzzled to see a face so quiet and so much full of some unknowable light and joy. He tried to wake me up but as I was not in the surface consciousness, I could not hear his shouts. He shook my body and went on shouting: After fifteen minutes I could open my eyes, though I could not come out immediately. It took me another fifteen minutes to come to the surface consciousness, slowly took my bag and got down from the bus. The Principal enquired with amazement and with reverence about my state in the bus, giving me the description of what he saw around my face and my body and how he felt when he was looking at me. We changed our bus and reached our destination and found out the house of the patient. I examined him and found it to be a case of detachment of retina caused by dashing his head against the door.

The above experience came and disappeared with the following poem:

The Divine Grace descended into every cell of the body
And awakened me to the touch of the Divine
It created the union with the Grace
And a union also with the Divine.

—Victory to Sri Aurobindo

(By the touch of the Grace)
There was a move in the Matter
And that created an ocean of Chaitanya
It was a shower of the nectar Grace
Thus descended as the blessings of the Divine.

—Victory to Sri Aurobindo

Every cell turned into shining Diamond
That created multi-coloured aura of Rainbow
A sun began to shine in each body
Began to shine in the whole universe.

—Victory to Sri Aurobindo

There resulted a strong wave of joy and bliss
As if Sat-Chit-Ananda was out to play.

—Victory to Sri Aurobindo

There was a great astonishment by the touch
Of waves of Joy and Bliss
And there was a realization of the Descent of
Grace of the Personal and Impersonal Divine.

—Victory to Sri Aurobindo

I launched on the dedication pilgrimage with the object of learning to live for the Divine, to do every little work as best as I can for the Divine and to establish a living and constant contact with the Divine through work. It began with the introduction of my book in all educational institutions, and along with the sale of the books it opened a way to establish a new contact with students. Principals of educational institutions requested me to give talks on the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and their Ashram and on preservation of health and sight. The sale proceeds were being offered to the Divine Mother. But all these, however attractive and useful they might appear had very little importance to me if they did not lead me nearer to the Divine and establish a closer union with the Divine.

This pilgrimage to the educational institutions was started in August 1972. It completes five years in August 1977. During this period I visited 1800 educational institutions of seven districts (Baroda, Kaira, Sabarkantha, Panchmahal, Mehsana, Gandhinagar and Banaskantha) of North Gujarat and distributed more than ten thousand copies of my Gujarati book on preservation of health and sight and 1200 copies of the first edition of this book My Pilgrimage to the Spirit.

During my visit to the Ashram in August 1972 I met the Mother on 24th August for the last time and offered the sale proceeds of the book to her. When I saw her that time I was most collected and concentrated. She was also in deep concentration. But during the period I was there, only once she opened her eyes and then closed them. I came again in October 1973 to celebrate my birthday in the Ashram for the first time. The first night after I came to the Ashram I had a dream in which I saw the same Sun that I saw on the first night after I joined the Ashram on 30th December 1927. This experience has been continuing since then. I had seen the same Sun around the Mother's face when I saw her for the first time in the morning of 31st December 1927 at 11-00 a.m. in the Library room of the Ashram. In November 1973 I had a vision in which there appeared in the Sun the upper part of Mother's transparent body except legs in deep trance. She dragged me also in trance and she showed me several worlds of Gods and the inner world of the Ashram. After more than an hour she kept her hand on my head and told me: "Integration of sincerity and faithfulness to the Divine is the present necessity. Establish integrated sincerity and faithfulness first in all parts of your being and then only will it spontaneously spread around you and in the whole universe. Without integration and harmony in the idea and action even the Ashram will lose its validity and the purpose for its existence." This experience took place on the day when the Mother left her physical frame. I woke up with the conviction that she had given me her last message and quietly tried to follow her message and began to contemplate on its significance.

On my birthday on 28th, October 1973 I went to the Ashram and sat in deep meditation near the Samadhi. Two forms made of transparent semi-fluid, golden light, energy and fragrance came out of the Samadhi and stood in front of me. Both of them had long golden hair reaching to their knees. I could recognize one that was of Sri Aurobindo whom I had seen many times before, but could not recognize the other.... I tried and tried but could not make out because the features were changing. I bowed to both the forms and prayed for their blessings. When I came out of meditation and went to see Dyuman, both the forms led me to Dyuman's room and there I stood for ten minutes in deep concentration. They were there. But when I came out of Dyuman's room both the forms proceeded towards Samadhi and disappeared. I received birthday blessing-card with the touch of the Divine Mother. I remained in contact with these two semi-liquid forms till the Memorable Day of the Mother's withdrawal. Then I could see that the second form which I could not recognize during an earlier experience was that of the Mother. It was the same form which was present by her body which was kept for Darshan. I bowed to that holy sheath of the Divine Mother.