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.
24.2.1958
It is now necessary that I drop my mental as completely as possible. So She wants it. But it is not easy and for a time I shall stop formulating what is going on with me. This will help me. I want just to live in self-giving only, just to close my eyes and plunge myself into Her. There are such wonderful articles in all three monthlies and quarterlies, Advent, Bulletin and Mother India, that I am sending you the last number of Mother India too. And from the Advent I am copying here a few sentences from the Mother that have for me a special value: Perfect surrender Three figures of total self-giving to the Divine: (1) To prostrate at His feet giving up all pride in perfect humility. (2) To lay down one's being before Him, to open out the whole body from head to foot, as one opens a book, spreading out the centres in order to make all their movements visible, with a full sincerity that permits nothing to remain hidden. (3) To nestle in His arms, melt in Him with a loving and absolute trust. These movements may be accompanied with three formulas or anyone of them, according to the case: (1) Let Thy Will be done, not mine. (2) As Thou wilt; as Thou wilt. (3) I am Thine for eternity. Generally, when these movements are done rightly, they are followed by complete identification, the dissolution of the ego, bringing the sublime Felicity.
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