A collection of letters, poems & paintings by Janina providing a glimpse of her inner life in 'Sri Aurobindo Ashram'. The Mother's comment on Janina is included.
This book is a collection of letters, poems and paintings by Janina Stroka, a Polish disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and a member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, from 1957 until her passing in 1964. Janina’s account of her life in Pondicherry in this book is divided into three parts. The main part of the text consists of extracts from letters written to a Dutch friend with whom Janina lived first in Palestine and later in Germany, from December 1957 to June 1958. The letters in the next section were written between 1960 and 1963 to a young Bengali, a writer and social worker. Next, the book contains selected poems and paintings by Janina and concludes with a comment by the Mother on Janina’s passing.
1.4.1958
I have given Her my mind and now I am without mind. Every time the mind wants to work the rejection brings it quietude and I see the futility of all these millions and millions of thoughts that used to fill my life, make me miserable, upset me, made me think how I shall do this or that or what will happen next. And I also understand what She means by wasting, squandering oneself - it is just all this turning and turning of useless stuff being produced instead of one single turning to Her and giving and giving oneself and all the centres and all one is and all one has. Every day is for me a new revelation in this process of self-giving because it seems to be without end and goes on and on deepening itself. I think that everything, just in deepening itself, becomes simpler. It was awful what this mind was doing with me and my life - it complicated everything. And every time I give Her something from myself completely, She flows into me. What will life be then, oh! when I really give Her all of myself - as I feel I shall? This feeling of being without mind is so overwhelming that it changes life completely. Quietude, happiness and confidence in Her can now grow and do grow without being hampered at every step. So, I go on. I give Her all my emotions and She takes them and makes me free - I give Her all the desires and my physical being - and I remain without anything. This will now be the essence of my life, repeating and repeating these acts, more and more generously and more and more freely. How can I think, when She is thinking in my mental centre, arranging, rearranging, destroying, creating there as She likes? Of course, now it is all obscured by the dirt in my mental being, but She will slowly remove that. It was the first time that I went to Her for the distribution (on the first of the month) without wanting anything. I did not want Her to look at me, to give me anything, to fill me. I just prostrated myself in my inner being at Her feet and I was giving and giving all I could and I never knew before that I can give so much to God. Or it probably seems to be much... oh, you mind, go away-you do not belong to me.....
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