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.
I remember, the very day Janina died (she died at about six in the morning, I think), around four in the morning, suddenly something made me take interest in this question: What will the new form be like? What will it be like? And I looked at man and at the animal. Then I saw that there would be a much greater difference between man and the new form than between man and the animal. I started to see things, and it happened that Janina was there (in her thought, but a quite material and very concrete thought). And it was very interesting (it lasted a long time, about two hours), because I saw the whole timidity of human conceptions, whereas she had made contact with something: it wasn't an idea but a sort of contact. I had the impression of a Matter that was more plastic and full of light, responding much more directly to the Will (the higher Will), and with such a plasticity that it could respond to the Will by taking variable and changing forms. And I saw some of these forms of hers, which she had conceived - a little like these beings who don't have a body like us, but who have hands and feet when they want, and a head when they want, and luminous clothes when they want - things like that. I saw that and I remember I congratulated her. I told her, "You have had a partial, but partially very clear perception of one of the forms the new Manifestation will take." And she was very happy. I told her, "You see, you have worked fully for the future." Then all at once I saw a sapphire-blue light, pale, very luminous, shaped like a flame (with a rather broad base), and it made a kind of flash, pfft! and then it was gone... And she was no longer there. I thought: "Well, that's odd!" An hour later (I saw this around six in the morning; all the rest had lasted about two hours), they told me she was dead. That is, she spent the last moments of her life with me and then, from me, pfft! went off towards... a life elsewhere. It was very sudden. She was so happy, you know; I told her, "How well you have worked for the future!" And all at once, like a flash (a sapphire-blue light, pale, very luminous, with the shape of a flame and a rather broad base), pfft! she was gone. And that was just the moment when she died. It is one of the most interesting departures I have seen - fully conscious. And so happy to have participated!... I myself didn't know why I was telling her, "Yes, you have truly participated in the work for the future, you have put the earth in contact with one of the forms of the new Manifestation."
Mother's Agenda, 11 August 1964 (translated from recorded conversations with Satprem in French)
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