My Savitri work with the Mother

23 August 1960

Unfailingly the Mother sent me white roses and "Prasad". I wanted very much to unburden my heart to her. A card dated 23rd August 1960 came from the Mother, depicting the picture-stamps of Mount Fuji and the Imperial Palace, Tokyo, and her words were:

Huta, My dear little child,

On the 12th September, I shall give you some time in the morning at 10 o'clock.

With my love and blessings

The clock pinged ten delicate notes as I walked into the Meditation Hall upstairs. There the Mother was sitting on her high-backed carved chair. She received me with flowers and a smile. I went down on my knees before her. She looked into my eyes deeply, searchingly. Countless questions welled up in me and passed unvoiced. Her eyes never broke contact with mine. Then slowly she closed them and slid into a trance for quite some time. Finally she spoke—her words seemed to quiver in the air like sudden music:

Child, do painting and the things you have learnt in London. Continue your French lessons at the Alliance Frangaise.

The Mother added with appreciation:

When you were in London I was watching all your movements from here. (Pointing at the centre of subtle vision between the eye-brows) In whatever situation you were, whatever difficulties you went through, your aspiration for the Divine was straight like a sword (gesture) I congratulate you.

When you came from London and met me, I was really amazed to see the flame of the aspiration grown more luminous, very high and steady.

I saw the vision of your aspiration in 1957 after our meditation in my room at the Playground But just now I saw the flame—erect—rising high up and then it merged into the golden Light above. As the huge sea-waves splash against rocks, and their glittering spray sprinkles all over, so this flame which merged into the Infinity of golden Light sent sprays of sparks flying on all sides and when they came down they showered on the world and enveloped it with Light.

Child, this was the beauty of your soul. This beauty is now established firmly in you and will never perish.

Paint the vision I have seen this morning.

The Mother paid me lavish compliments. I sat and stared with rapt attention. I said: "Mother, now I am getting old—there is so much to do in this life but time is running out. I am nowhere near my goal." Hot tears scalded my eyes. She held my hands and said with solicitude:

You are very young. Do you know that Yogis live for 125 years?

"Oh, but, Mother, I am not a Yogi and it is doubtful whether I shall ever be one." Tears refilled my eyes. She leaned down and regarded me more closely, her blue-grey eyes growing warm with an exquisite expression of compassion I had never witnessed before. Our love had stood the test of time.

That night I was musing over the time I had spent with the Mother in the morning. Her words about the Divine Beauty and the Higher Worlds kept ringing in my ears.

The Mother has written in Art—Revelation of Beauty:

In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. The physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the Ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher

Sri Aurobindo's words are apt here:

Art can express eternal Truth, it is not limited to the expression of form and appearance.

The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty; the highest Art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the door of the spirit.