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.
27.5.1958
Our patient left and I have again more time. We have finished the big cleaning of the house with streams of water, which in this heat was quite pleasant. Tomorrow X will give me a mango from Bombay. They are the best mangoes in the world, introduced there some centuries ago by Portuguese from Goa. She gets parcels from her husband. What a pity that I do not have a husband! Oh, my felicity grows and grows. I had a few weeks of difficulty, gray days with inertia trying to get hold of me. But now it is so different. Whether there is inertia or not, I am all the time in Her arms. I never knew before that trust and confidence have such an uplifting power in them. When I am very conscious of the immense trust I have in Her, in the tiniest and biggest things, there comes always such a warm wave of love that surrounds me and I feel Her so very near to me. I have stopped thinking about my yoga, my progress, etc. I only aspire that I might be conscious of Her working in me, that I may not forget the sacrifice of every little thing to Her and that I might become Herself. And I surrender. That is my life. If I am to become more and more like Her, I must lose the ego and become one with all people, all the world. Everything is included in becoming more and more as She is - She contains all. She is the Creatrix of all the Universe. So why should I concentrate on anything else? There is nothing else. And She is for me not the person I see. She together with Sri Aurobindo is the Highest. And I try to feel Her always together with Him - Ishwara-Shakti (The Lord and his creative power). This helps me so much. And in the Synthesis it is plainly said that "the seeker of the integral Truth feels in the duality of Ishwara-Shakti his closeness to a more intimate and ultimate secret of the divine Transcendence and the Manifestation than that offered to him by any other experience." Just a week ago we were translating it with Her in Her class. This is always an inexpressible experience to know that the Highest about whom we read is sitting there in front of us at the desk, reading aloud about Himself (Herself). It happens that sometimes She stops or even puts her head on the desk for a while. Then we know that from somewhere in the world a call has come to the Mother and that She concentrates and acts. Then She quietly goes on reading and translating. And somewhere a soul was helped. I received your letter of the 21st. It is so wonderful that being so much concentrated on Her and "turning round" Her, I do not feel at all far from all the friends you write about. Just the opposite. The knowledge and feeling is growing that She is in each of them.
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