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.
17.4.1958
Yes, She will do it. This morning during Darshan I got the assurance. I shall learn to love Her in everybody and everything and then equality will come by itself. When I think that all I am going through now is only the first, tiny little beginning of spiritual life, I realise how deep the ego hypnosis is. For seventeen years I have known - and felt too - the existence of the Truth and yet the crust is still so hard. I must tell you what kinds of flowers and fruits we have here. All the flowers we have in Europe and others too. There is a special garden with roses, many zinnias, gallardias, sunflowers and even violets. I did not see any wallflowers. We have verbena, but without fragrance, jasmine bushes and lovely creepers, like bougainvilleas in different colours and flowers I have not seen in Europe; I shall describe them when I know their names. Here we know them by names given to them by Mother. As for the fruits there are many bananas, lemons and papayas, oranges and of course coconuts from which we drink the liquid. In the morning and early afternoon I wear dresses, especially those with wide skirts for sitting cross-legged and which are not transparent, as I do not like to wear petticoats - they are too hot. In the evening, when I go to the playground I wear shorts and a shirt. There is such happiness in me.
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