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.
28.4.1958
My life is changing continuously - and my being almost from hour to hour. As She is the Most Holy who has descended here, I am just living and acting in a temple all the time. What was before as if, is now the beginning of reality. Before, I knew from Sri Aurobindo's books that each most common act has to assume the sublime character of a sacrifice in a temple - but now I really perform the sacrifice before Her Presence. It cannot be told what unspeakable felicity it brings to feel that She is present everywhere. Humility, adoration, gratefulness grow and grow and deepen. And there are really no other things that can drag me from Her, for I begin to feel Her in everything. It is no longer vague. I do not think; I do not try to imagine what will come next as I used to do before. Every time I did that, I landed in a corner. So She was teaching me. No, I have to let Her carry me in Her arms and feel the glorious joy of the unexpected. My trust in Her grows and grows and She becomes to me Something so close and so precious and dear that I just cannot describe it. Now I know that it will not be human beings I shall love but Her - and Her only - in everybody and everything. This morning I tried to express for you how thankful I am to Her, but I could not. Maybe it could be compared with the gratefulness of a most miserable leper towards one who would wash him and clean his wounds. Oh! She purifies me and delivers me from all evil.
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