My Savitri work with the Mother

12 January 1957

On 12th January 1957 the Mother inscribed on a card:

I am sending the Goddess of Mercy. Paint it on a white background. Observe well and you will see that there are not two whites alike—there is bluish white, pinkish white, creamish white etc., etc... and if you copy well you can make a very interesting harmony in whites.

The image of the Buddhist Goddess Kwan-yin, called Kwan-yin in Japan, was made out of porcelain. It was milk-white and I was supposed to paint it on a white background! I thought that it was a master idea! I was confused. I went to the Mother that very morning and asked her: "Mother, how is it possible to paint white on white? It is really difficult." First she looked at me intently, then said sharply:

Nothing is difficult. First of all you must see the image with your open eyes.

She opened her own eyes wide and said:

Like this.

She continued:

Then you must find out how many colours there are in white—because Nature is full of iris hues. Concentrate properly, and paint by giving different shades of pale colours. If you wish to learn painting perfectly well, you must observe objects minutely and copy them accurately.

Then she smiled sweetly and gave a kiss on my forehead.

While going back to Golconde I thought: "These types of paintings are certainly not easy. I must give up painting." However, I finished the painting according to the Mother's instructions. I showed it to her in the evening. She looked at it for quite a long time. Then she said with a happy smile:

This painting is really full of light and vibrations—it is vivid; if you concentrate on the painting, you will surely see the light.

The Mother revealed to me about her way with paintings:

I enter into their consciousness and find out their meanings, the truth and beauty behind each painting.

Some paintings are indeed very nice to look at—they have pretty and gorgeous colours, but when there are no living vibrations and deep harmony, then obviously the paintings are lifeless and without value. But where there is a combination of the two—outward charm and inner vision—then they are real and can be considered as true art.

In your paintings I have felt the living vibrations and that is very good.

The Mother added:

A true artist never speaks of what he has done: "Oh! I have done a nice painting! " Instead he thinks and says, "Oh no. I could not do it nicely, it is not what I wanted to do."

In fact, he is never satisfied with his work and he continues his effort until he paints masterpieces. An artist puts the full power of his aspiration in his work to reach perfection.

Not only was the Mother teaching me painting, but also giving me lessons of life: how to be modest and persistent in my endeavour to reach perfection and develop into a true artist.

None can beat the Mother's vision, conception and knowledge. A pointer to her being and her ways may be found in Savitri, Book Four, Canto 1: p. 406:

And from her eyes she cast another look
On all around her than man's ignorant view. ||94.35||
All objects were to her shapes of living selves
And she perceived a message from her kin
In each awakening touch of outward things. ||94.36||
Each was a symbol power, a vivid flash
In the circuit of infinities half-known;
Nothing was alien or inanimate,
Nothing without its meaning or its call, ||94.37||
For with a greater Nature she was one.... ||94.38||

The art the Mother had been teaching me was not all roses and ribbons. I found the technique too hard to grasp. I did not have the sense of perspective and colour and scarcely knew how to observe properly. Above all I did not have patience. My fault was: I never looked at objects carefully while painting. It was annoying and irritating to move my head every now and then from the object to the board on which I was painting. I was quite at a loss to understand the meaning of this wonderful teaching. Once again the inferiority complex engulfed me. I went to the Mother in her apartment in the Ashram and told her: "Mother, I have decided to give up painting. It is beyond my capacity to follow your technique." She placed her hands on my shoulders and looked at my face and said forcefully:

I say, will you paint or not?

I just nodded meekly. She raised my face towards her and regarded my tear-filled eyes. Then she embraced me and said:

All right, my child.

After this she gave me the flower Hibiscus Mutabilis—"Divine Grace—Thy goodness is infinite. We bow before Thee in gratitude."

The Mother has explained about the Art-discipline in Words of the Mother:

The discipline of Art has at its centre the same principle as the discipline of Yoga. In both the aim is to become more and more conscious; in both you have to learn to see and feel something that is beyond the ordinary vision and feeling, to go within and bring out from there deeper things. Painters have to follow a discipline for the growth of the consciousness of their eyes, which in itself is almost a Yoga. If they are true artists and try to see beyond, and use their art for the expression of the inner world, they grow in consciousness by this concentration, which is not other than the consciousness given by Yoga.

Why then should not Yogic consciousness be a help to artistic creation?

After that the Mother started sending me numerous objects from her rare collections for painting, and also many varieties of exquisite flowers, along with her own sketches, in order to show me their right composition and perspective.