On The Mother

CHAPTER 15

Descent of Krishna

I

Since her shifting on the night of the cyclone to Sri Aurobindo's residence, Mirra began gradually taking the reins of the management of the house­hold in her own hands, and with a mixture of gentleness and firmness, of patience and sweet reasonableness, of sustained hard work and infinite generosity of understanding, she brought order, tidiness and a measure of functional adequacy to the community life of the inmates. Still it was Sri Aurobindo who remained the Master of the Yoga; he presided over the collective meditation in the evenings; he received the important visitors, he conducted the essential correspondence, and he sent out the feelers for eliciting support to his scheme for training select aspirants in the Sadhana as a preparation for eventual practical work on a large scale.

Actually, some of the young men - Nolini, Moni, Bejoy - had lived with Sri Aurobindo for over a decade through all weathers, and Amrita's association too had begun in his boyhood days in Pondicherry. All of them instinctively loved and revered the Master, but also held him in some awe. But Mirra was on a different footing altogether. She had come from France to see Sri Aurobindo, and had recognised in him her Krishna, the Lord of her being and her God. Five years later she had returned, this time from Japan and bringing her friend Dorothy with her, and her feeling for Sri Aurobindo had only deepened if that was possible; and he was now more than ever the Divine Master of her Yoga. Thus the most significant result of her second coming, and of her joining Sri Aurobindo's household, was a change in the atmosphere, the spiritual dawn of the true Guru-shishya relationship between Sri Aurobindo and the people around him. In this regard we have Nolini's own testimony:

.. our mode of living, our life itself took a different turn with the arrival of the Mother. How and in what direction? It was like this. The Mother came andinstalled Sri Aurobindo on his high pedestal of Master and Lord of Yoga. We had hitherto known him as a dear friend and close companion, and although in our mind and heart he had the position of a Guru, in our outward relations we seemed to behave as if he were just like one of ourselves. He too had been averse to the use of the words "Guru" and "Ashram" in relation to himself.. .. Nevertheless, the Mother taught by her manner and speech, and showed us in actual practice, what was the meaning of disciple and master.... It was the Mother who opened our eyes ....¹

If this was the cardinal lesson in spiritual discipleship that Mirra taught

Page 217

the inmates (though more by personal example than by precept), there were other lessons in deportment too, which were of consequence in the daily art of living, in "elevating our life to a cleaner level". To quote Nolini again:

... the first and most important need is to put each thing in its place .... We do not always notice how very disorderly we are: our belongings and our household effects are in a mess, our actions are haphazard, and in our inner life we are as disorderly as in our outer life, or even more .... One of the things the Mother has been trying to teach us both by her word and example is this, namely, that to keep our outer life and its materials in proper order and neat and tidy is a very necessary element in our life upon earth .... The Mother taught us to use our things with care, but there was more to it than this. She uses things not merely with care but with love and affection. For, to her, material things are endowed with a life of their own, even a consciousness of their own ²

II

If material things - a mat, a chair, a door, a vase, a cooking utensil- have their own life, their own consciousness and their own personality and character, how about the world of trees, plants and flowers, and of animals such as cows and cats and the rest? It was part of Mirra's mystic apprehension of omnipresent Reality that spirit, mind, life and matter were involved in one another in the cosmic drama, and the way of wisdom would be to infer or actually see the One behind the multiplicity of the phenomenal world. Hence the capital interest Mirra took in trees, plants and flowers, and in the rest of the infinite and infinitely variegated forms of life.

There was, for example, her interest in cats. When a new visitor, Kanailal Ganguly, then 22, came in July 1923 to see Sri Aurobindo, at the time of his second interview he saw Mirra too:

It was the first time that I saw the Mother. She looked at me for a second. She was very beautiful, looked much younger than her age. There were two cats on her shoulders; I looked round and saw there were two or three more about her. One of the cats from her shoulder jumped on Sri Aurobindo's throne-chair. ³

And when Mirra called it back, it obeyed at once. And thereby hangs a tale.

When they were all still in the Rue François Martin house, once a wild-looking cat had come suddenly as if from nowhere, and stayed on, and kittened in due course. Sri Aurobindo named the first of the series Sundari

Page 218

on account of her beauty. One of Sundari's kittens was named Bushy, because of her luxuriant tail. Bushy in her turn kittened, and "She used to pick up with her teeth all her kittens one by one and drop them at the Mother's feet as soon as they were old enough to use their eyes - as if she offered them to the Mother and craved her blessings.⁴ Two of these third generation kittens were the belligerent brothers, Big Boy and Kiki, both great favourites with Mina, and Kiki is said to have joined the collective evening meditation, "and his body would shake and tremble while the eyes remained closed". In later years, the Mother was to speak feelingly of Kiki before the Ashram children - "a very sweet little cat, absolutely civilised, a marvellous cat". Once a huge scorpion stung Kiki when he was playing, and immediately he rushed to Mina and showed his swollen paw. She put him on a table and called Sri Aurobindo to tell him what had happened. Kiki stretched his neck and looked at Sri Aurobindo, who returned the look. Then gradually the cat recovered, and an hour later went away completely healed. The Mother also said that Kiki used to sit in a particular chair and go regularly into a trance; and sometimes it had visions; and this could go on for hours.⁵ Such was Mirra's special feeling for cats and understanding of them. Indeed, she seems to have once claimed that the King of Cats - the Super-Cat - who ruled the occult world of cats had established a special relationship with her. This partly explains why Mirra had a cover made for a well to prevent her cats from falling into it, and also made special arrangements for feeding them. It was Champaklal who made the cover, and besides he helped Mina to prepare food for the cats:

During those early days, Mother herself used to prepare a pudding. Of that pudding she would put aside a small quantity in a small dish; she would add a little milk to it and stir it with a spoon till it became liquid and consistent ....

And do you know for whom this part of the pudding was meant? For cats. Later on I learnt that they were not really cats but something more.⁶

Many years later, in the course of a conversation, the Mother spoke with greater feeling about the beauty of the instinctive behaviour of the animals, especially the cats:

In animals there is sometimes a very intense psychic truth ... in human beings I have rarely come across some of the virtues which I have seen in animals, very simple, unpretentious virtues. As in cats, for example: I have studied cats a lot; if one knows them well they are marvellous creatures .... People speak of maternal love with such admiration, as though it were purely a human privilege, but I have seen this love manifested by mother­cats to a degree far surpassing ordinary humanity. I have seen a mother-cat which would never touch her food until her babies had taken all they

Page 219

needed... and a cat which repeated more than fifty times the same movement to teach her young one how to Jump from a wall on to a window and I may add, with a care, an intelligence, a skill which many uneducated women do not have. And why is it thus? - because there was no mental intervention. It was altogether spontaneous instinct. But what is instinct? - it is the presence of the Divine in the genus of the species, and that, that is the psychic of animals; a collective, not an individual psychic.⁷

With all this background, it was hardly surprising that the worlds of plant and animal creation were not alienated from human beings in Mirra's scheme of things. And Sri Aurobindo too fed cats with fish with much solicitude, and once he was even inspired to write "Despair on the Staircase", a piece of poetry on Bushy with her majestic tail:

Mute stands she, lonely on the topmost stair, .. ,

Her tail is up like an unconquered flag,

Its dignity knows not the right to wag.

An animal creature wonderfully human,

A charm and miracle of fur-footed Brahman,

Whether she is spirit, woman or a cat,

Is now the problem I am wondering at^{. 8}

III

One important development during 1923 was the regular coming together of some of the inmates and other disciples in Sri Aurobindo's presence facilitating a free exchange of views on almost all matters, from the most trivial to the most profound. Even earlier, ever since his coming to Pondicherry, many an evening, friends like Subramania Bharati and Mandayam Srinivasachariar used to meet Sri Aurobindo and have talks with him. Such evening talks had continued in the upstairs veranda of the Guest House, and the Richards too had participated in them. After September 1922, the venue of the talks shifted to the upstairs veranda of the Library House. The mornings, usually between 9 and 11, after breakfast, were reserved for special interviews with the visitors, including intending disciples or old friends from the political period; but in evenings there was meditation at 4, and after 4.30 or 5, there was relaxation, some more joined, and in the talks that ensued the whole world "from China to Peru", from village uplift to Dattatreya Yoga, and from Einstein's Relativity Theory to the painstaking intelligence of the spider, was surveyed with easy freedom and assurance. .

At this period of his life (1920-26), Sri Aurobindo's place of residence wasn't known as an 'ashram'; actually he didn't like the word, for it seemed to convey (however erroneously) the idea of asceticism and flight from life.

Page 220

Mirra too was but a sadhika, a practitioner of the Yoga. The inmates were never a fixed number, but there was a continuing (as also growing) nucleus. There were in all about 12 in 1922-23, which rose to 15 or more next year. The morning interviews, the evening meditation followed by the talks, the nearness of the disciples to one another and also to Sri Aurobindo, all inducted the practice of gurukulavasa, living with the Teacher, and generated its distinctive atmosphere. In an attempt to recapture the moment, the mood and movement of the Evening Talks, Purani writes:

There was no doubt that the flower of Divinity had blossomed in him; and disciples, like bees seeking honey, came to him. It is no exaggeration to say that these Evening-Talks were to the small company of disciples what the Aranyakas were to the ancient seekers. Seeking the Light, they came to the dwelling place of their Guru ... and found it their spiritual home - the home of their parents, for the Mother, his companion in the great mission, had come. And these spiritual parents bestowed upon the disciples freely of their Light, their consciousness, their power and their grace.⁹

The disciples would be gathered first, and the minutes would pass in tense expectancy. Then Sri Aurobindo's soft footsteps would be heard, and he would be there:

He came dressed as usual in Dhoti, part of which was used by him to cover the upper part of his body .... At times for minutes he would be gazing at the sky from a small opening at the top of the grass-curtains that covered the verandah .... How much were these sittings dependent on him may be gathered from the fact that there were days when more than three-fourths of the time passed in complete silence without any outer suggestion from him or there was only an abrupt "Yes" or "No" to all attempts at drawing him out in conversation.¹⁰

Mirra herself seems to have participated in the talks but seldom, and indeed only on sundry occasions to have been present; but her unpredictable entrances and exits had their impact too. And here invisible Presence had also a significance of its own. Once Sri Aurobindo referred to the cures effected through the still sitting meditation by Dr. Kobayashi whom Mirra had known in Kyoto. On another occasion Sri Aurobindo said that one of Mirra's lady friends had been cured by the psychic power concentrated in a place like the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Or there was a reference to Mirra asking a workman why he drank, and being told that drinking gave him thoughts that he could never get when sober! And once Sri Aurobindo cited a conversation in which Mirra had corroborated his view - which is also the view of our palmists, sāmudriks - that the rekhās or lines on the palm do change.¹¹ Sri Aurobindo also once mentioned the experiment in which Mirra willed that a certain thing should

Page 221

make a particular sound half an hour later, and it happened exactly as she had willed. She hadn't created the force, for it was there already; she had but concentrated and engineered the necessary atmosphere which then became the conductor of that force.¹² Thus, although not physically present, there was her presence there all the same.

IV

It was in October 1923 that the Andhra publicist, G. V. Subbarao, had an interview with Sri Aurobindo in the Library House; and what he saw and heard evidently left an indelible impression upon him. Recalling the scene early in 1951, Subbarao said:

There was a small time-piece to indicate the progress of time, because everything here must be done according to precision and order. Sri Aurobindo was dazzling bright in colour - it was said that, in his earlier years, he was more dark than brown and had a long, rather thin beard ....

His voice was low, but quite audible, quick and musical to a point. He was fast in his flow of speech, clear like a crystal and analytical to a degree.... He was simple and courteous, outspoken and free in his interrogations. It seemed as though he could know a man by a sweep of his eyes .... He was kind throughout as to a child, but I could discern enough in his demeanour to conclude that he could be stern and imperious when required.

Talking about Mirra, Subbarao stated that she seemed "to be an extraordinary lady; and even in 1923, she was said to be the best of his disciples and was consulted by Sri Aurobindo on many affairs, including Yoga".¹³ Within less than two years of her moving into Sri Aurobindo's house, Mirra had brought about a sufficient transformation in the arrangements that things were now moving with an unhurried ease and commendable orderliness. The little time-piece in the room, for example, was Mirra's touch to remind the interviewer and Sri Aurobindo alike about the completion of the time allotted for the meeting.

It was also in 1923 that young Champaklal came for good, and was asked to work with Mirra. A bit of their conversation at the time throws light on the nature of the relationship between them. When Mirra asked whether she was very severe with him, Champaklal answered, "No, no, I feel it is my own home"; and she said: "Ah! then it is all right." ¹⁴ He did odd jobs, like helping with the water-filters, piecing together the fragments of a broken kettle, taking a hand in carpentry and masonry, and so on. Mirra's interests were manifold, and everywhere she brought a closeness of attention that bordered on identification; and people like Champaklal who

Page 222

were ready and eager to help in every way also learnt a good deal from her, as if it was a part of the sadhana - and so indeed it was!

V

During the first years of her stay in the Library House, as earlier in the Guest House, for all her quietly sustained energy of activity that made its mark on every aspect of the small community's life, Mirra nevertheless studiously kept herself in the background. Her advice was frequently sought by Sri Aurobindo, and they constantly compared notes; she had her points of contact with the several inmates whose work she had to coordinate for the smooth efficiency of organisational working; and of course she joined the daily evening meditation. Aside from her own private session of prayer and meditation, she found time to read the French paper Le Matin, to tend the banana garden at the back, and to resolve the one hundred and one minor problems that kept cropping up in the course of the day. In short, her very presence and her inner poise of strength helped her to make the household, not only run smoothly on a more or less shoe-string budget, but also make good and march valiantly forward.

Thus, what had earlier been for Sri Aurobindo's wards an instinctive or unconscious but unqualified admiration for him, now came to be channelised into a more conscious commitment to the Yoga and adoration of the Master of the Yoga. His birthdays came to be invested with a special spiritual significance; they became signposts, milestones, or inns for spiritual replenishment facilitating the disciples' progress towards the desired siddhi. Questions relating to the sadhana and the goal often came up for discussion in the Evening Talks, but Sri Aurobindo's pronouncements on 15 August, his birthday, were looked forward to with a heightened air of anticipation. What he said on his birthday in 1923, for example, was rather out of the common:

The Truth that is coming down is not mental, it is Supramental. In order that it may be able to work properly, all the lower instruments must be Supramentalised.

In the evening, in answer to a question on the current state of his sadhana, he explained:

I am at present engaged in bringing the Supermind into the physical consciousness, down even to the sub-material. The physical is by nature inert and does not want to be rendered conscient. It offers much greater resistance as it is unwilling to change.

One feels as if "digging the earth", as the Veda says. It is literally

Page 223

digging from Supermind above to Supermind below. The being has become conscious and there is constant movement up and down. The Veda calls it "the two ends" - the head and the tail of the dragon completing and compassing the consciousness. I find that so long as Matter is not Supramentalised the mental and the vital also cannot be fully Supramentalised.¹⁵

Sri Aurobindo also spoke of the three layers of the Supermind - the interpretative, the representative and the imperative. The first opens up divers lines of possibility, the second initiates a movement towards the desired change, and the third makes it effective.

VI

In the succeeding weeks and months, and as 1923 overflowed into 1924, although the number of inmates was hardly twenty, the power of the concentration was such that 'criticality' was in process. Mirra was imperceptibly getting drawn towards the centre of affairs, not of course formally or openly, but certainly in spirit. The new disciples, often awed by the Master, instinctively approached Mirra to gain her support and her confidence. When young Kanailal Ganguly asked Mirra what his relation with her would be, she said simply:

My dear child, it will be a relationship of a child with its mother. It will be a very sweet relation, constant.

Both Sri Aurobindo and Mirra took charge of Kanailal, but whenever he approached the Master for help or for counsel or for the removal of difficulties, the answer came that he would do it "through Mirra". Later, when in one of his moments of perplexity Kanailal approached Mirra and asked about the best way of doing Yoga, she said disarmingly:

You have to aspire, you have to reject; but the best is if you can keep me in your heart, if you love me, then you will have to do nothing. I shall do all for you.¹⁶

There was also Dr. Rajangam who, immediately on passing from the Medical College in Madras, had come and settled in Sri Aurobindo's house and was put in charge of purchases from the market and paying the house rent. Besides, he used to come in contact with the Mother in connection with "my work of fetching things from the Post Office, French Treasury etc." and her smile made him always happy. Once she seems to have told him that in a previous life he had been Marat, one of the characters in the French Revolution; and she it was who brought into Rajangam the godhead of Adoration. ¹⁷

Page 224

The fact is that at one and the same time the inmates found Mirra entrancingly youthful and beautiful belying her years, a Mahalakshmi come down to the earth, as also a Mother marvellously understanding and compassionate, a Mother whom they could implicitly trust and who would safely see them through the difficulties and perplexities of the sadhana. Her very presence, the mere knowledge of her presence in the house, seemed to give them a sense of security, and the inmates moved with assurance in the several orbits assigned to them, and together contributed to the total symphony of the collective or communal life.

VII

As Sri Aurobindo's 53rd birthday approached, there was the usual stir of expectancy and more than the usual exhilaration. It was the day of days in the year for the inmates now numbering about twenty, and every face was beaming with an accession of joy. There were decorations, flowers, garlands; there was in everyone a feeling of freshness, and an eager anticipation, for it was the day of special Darshan, the day of confronting the descended God, the visible Divine. As he appeared at 9 in the morning and sat in the royal chair in the veranda, the disciples felt a sudden rush of happiness and the elation of fulfilment. In the vivid description of Ambalal Purani:

He sits there - with pink and white lotus garlands. It is the small flower­ token of the offerings by the disciples. Hearts throb, prayers, requests, emotions pour forth - and a flood of blessings pours down carrying all of them away .... The look! - the enrapturing and captivating eyes! Who can "ever forget? .. If some transcendent Divinity is not here where else can he be?¹⁸

In the evening there is a repetition - a repetition with a difference - of the divine efflorescence. The inmates and permitted visitors assemble again in the veranda, and there is the same silence, the same surge of hope incommensurable. At 4.15 the door opens, and first Sri Aurobindo, then Mirra, come forward. He sits in his usual broad Japanese chair, and Mirra sits on his right side on a small stool. There follows supernal silence for about five minutes.

It had by now become customary for Sri Aurobindo to make a special speech on the occasion, besides participating in the Evening Talks. They were all in the Yoga together, he said, and hence they could mutually help or retard the progress. If the desired transformation of the being was to come about, they should all open themselves to the Higher Light and make a total surrender to it.

In the course of the discussion that followed the speech, Sri Aurobindo

Page 225

said that only one of three things could encompass his death: 1. Violent surprise and accident. 2. Action of age. 3. My own choice, finding it not possible to do it this time, or by some thing shown to me which would, prove it is not possible this time.¹⁹ He added that the previous year had been a very hard year for his sadhana; he had had to counter an attack from the darkest physical forces; but now at last they were overcome.

The inmates being not too many, the household was a reasonably compact human aggregate in 1924, providing for sufficient variety as well as a background unity of aim and effort. During this year the stream of casual visitors continued, but notable among those who met Sri Aurobindo was Dilip Kumar Roy, who was finally told by the Master: "Yours is still a mental seeking: for my Yoga something more is needed."²⁰

VIII

With the coming of 1925, there were two important visitors, Lala Lajpat Rai and Purushottamdas Tandon, and they discussed the political situation in India with Sri Aurobindo in private.²¹

On 4 January Mirra suffered a knee-joint inflammation which caused more than a fortnight's anxiety to Sri Aurobindo and the inmates. An expert's diagnosis on the 16th was reassuring, and improvement was steadily maintained. On account of Mirra's ailment, Sri Aurobindo could not attend the evening sittings for a time, but from the 26th onwards there was a welcome restoration of the old rhythm of life. The Evening Talks moved as always in vast circles of comprehension.

Then came Sri Aurobindo's 54th birthday on 15 August. The Madras lawyer, S. Duraiswami Aiyar, a patriot and an ardent sadhaka, was there; and so were T.V. Kapali Sastry and Veluri Chandrasekharam, both seasoned sadhaks. Sri Aurobindo appeared in the morning as well as in the afternoon, and there were offerings, blessings, speeches, and the usual evening discussion. In the speech made in the afternoon, Sri Aurobindo referred to certain misconceptions about the Supramental Yoga, and added that the time had not come to say what would be the nature of the ultimate transformation of Man and the Earth. In the course of the discussion that followed, he made a few significant admissions and affirmations:

I have been feeling this very strongly for the last two days .... It is not a personal question, I am speaking of the general atmosphere. I find that the more the Light and Power are coming down the greater is the resistance. You yourself can see that there is something pressing down. You can also see that there is the tremendous resistance.²²

The question was asked how the universal conditions were more favourable

Page 226

now to the descent of the Supermind than they were before. After a pause, Sri Aurobindo answered:

Firstly, the knowledge of the physical world has increased so much that it is on the verge of breaking its own bounds.

Secondly, there is an attempt all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and even the inner vital even the outer and the inner physical. Men are becoming more 'psychic".

Thirdly, the vital is trying to lay its hold on the physical as it never did before. It is always the sign that whenever the higher Truth is coming down, it throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as increase in the number of visions persons who go mad, earth-quakes etc. Also, the world is becoming more united on account of the discoveries of modern science .... Such a union is the condition for the highest Truth coming down .... Fourthly, the rise of persons who wield tremendous vital influence over large numbers of men.

These are some of the signs to show that the universal condition may be more ready now. ²³

And he concluded by warning that, if one were serious about doing the Yoga, one shouldn't tamely surrender to the hostile forces that were always insinuating the notion of inevitable failure.

IX

On 17 December 1925, Philippe Barbier St.-Hilaire, a 31 year old French engineer of high intelligence and ardent aspiration arrived at Pondicherry. He was coming from a Mongolian lamasery where his spiritual search had driven him after a four-year stay in Japan.²⁴ He met Sri Aurobindo and narrated the story of his five-year-long quest. In the evening he met Mirra and retold the same story "perhaps a little more briefly". "I remember particularly Her eyes, Her eyes of light," he said many years later.²⁵ Sometimes after this first meeting, Mirra remarked to Champaklal: "I have told Aurobindo that he will do my work of foreign correspondence."²⁶ The next day, Sri Aurobindo told the young seeker:

For you to return to France just now would be a defeat .... You bring to your search a sincere heart and a mental capacity to learn (by reserving judgment) ....

A new consciousness is seeking expression in you ....

.. here it is a matter of remaining perfectly conscious.

This perfecting of the human being is difficult - very, very difficult; and it is the Work of a whole lifetime. One may fail, and waste his life. In fact it

Page 227

is so hard that I do not advise anyone to take this path. However, in you there is a powerful aspiration, and something that seeks to descend. SoI place this ideal before you. If you choose it, remain here among us and see what I can give you and what you can take from me before you go further.²⁷

St.-Hilaire never left Pondicherry; he lived for forty-four years in the service of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. "From that day on, for a full year, he had the privilege of going to Sri Aurobindo every day, talking to him and listening to his answers."²⁸ When he asked for a spiritual name Sri Aurobindo gave him the name "Pavitra" (Pure), and the bud of his aspiration was to open out gradually into a noble efflorescence, and he was to become one of the utterly and uncompromisingly faithful and genuine of the Aurobindonian apostles.

When Pavitra felt at an early stage some difficulties with his sadhana Sri Aurobindo asked Mirra to give a helping hand. Pavitra meditated with her for about thirty minutes on the evening of 14 September 1926. Later, after having heard what he had felt during the meditation, she told him:

At the beginning you had a very strong aspiration. Then something must have disturbed you .... You have a power of aspiration but it has been almost completely strangled by the mind.

The force which descended at first is a force of wisdom, of pure knowledge which descended to the level of the solar plexus ....

A force of calm, a silence, descended afterwards .... .. .

in that, in this calm, there was Ananda.

There was some response in the lower centre, but the response was feeble and mostly recorded by the subconscient.²⁹

Again, a fortnight later, on 3 October, Mirra told Pavitra:

Do not seek the truth with your mind!. .. All that you have done so far, all that you have learnt ought to be put aside. What holds you back is your education and your mental habits.

... Your inner being opened, put itself in a receptive attitude which allowed the descent. Instead of trying to reason, plunge into the experience itself. ³⁰

They had a meditation together on 12 October, and Mirra found Pavitra's receptivity good, and gave a close reading of the inner situation:

As soon as you are seated, the force descends and you receive it. What is missing is something in the consciousness. You do not get sufficiently absorbed in the inner experience. If that were so you would return with the full knowledge of what happened.

Between your head and chest a line of light is set up ....

... this white light comes from Maheshwari, it is a light of knowledge and purity. It is she who is the great preparer of the yoga. When that is ready

Page 228

generally an aspect of power (Mahakali) descends.... But the work of preparation was long .... At the same time a third ring separated you as though to cut you off from the world where you lived externally and also from your past. This force comes from Mahalakshmi.

The force of purification is always there now, preparing, regulating. I am always following you though I do not see you physically.³¹

It must be clear from the above that already Mirra had taken, on Sri Aurobindo's behalf, full responsibility for Pavitra's sadhana. She was always following him! Thus, on 16 October, Pavitra told Sri Aurobindo that what he got in his meditations with the Mother was "invaluable", and he realised that much more had been received than his surface consciousness was prepared to admit. Next day Pavitra had another session with the Mother:

Mother: I felt you very close all the day.

Pavitra: But this puts me to sleep.

Mother: There is nothing against that. During sleep, in you as in many others, there is no resistance left. Everything opens and the working is perfect. If you feel inclined to sleep don't resist it. ³²

There was a meditation again after two days:

Pavitra: Something deep must have happened ....

Mother: The force which descended is a force of transformation. It will act from the centre now .... ³³

Then, when he had an interview on 31 October, Mirra gave him this heartening assurance:

Something is being prepared for you .... It is as though the divine will had traced the goal, and the road; it is as though it had told you: "You will be like that." It was very clear. The Goal is known to us, but it is reserved for us two. To you it is rather the road that this indicated. And this road is very different from what you expected in your outer consciousness .... ³⁴

Here she speaks of "us two", of Sri Aurobindo and herself, as if it is a two­ in-one identity notwithstanding the seeming difference: they were a single consciousness participating in the play of difference!

Then about a fortnight later, she told Pavitra:

When you have overcome the difficulties of your outer being, you will pass through a progressive initiation. I shall show you, through the eyes, all that is there in the universe.. .. You will then see the exact place of all these things. ³⁵

Wasn't this the promise of the viśvarūpa, of the apocalyptic vision of -One-in-the-All and the All-in-the-One? Pavitra was to prove one of the

Page 229

finest sadhaks of the Yoga, and throughout the rest of his life (which he spent in Pondicherry) he was to be among those closest to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. A long corridor connected his room with the Mother's quarters, and she would visit him at any hour of the day. He also drove the Mother's car, and she would trust nobody else. The poet Nishikanta, another sadhak, once saw in an occult vision that, "the car was being pulled by several pairs of spirited horses... with a sovereign galloping speed". "All of which means," remarks Nirodbaran, "that, to adapt a verse from Savitri, the Mother could move in Pavitra as in her natural home.³⁶

X

As with Pavitra, with others too and their sadhana, Sri Aurobindo often preferred to work through Mirra, and gradually it came to be realised that theirs was really one Consciousness, one Power. There was, for example, Daulatram Sharma who wrote about his problems to Sri Aurobindo. On 26 March 1926, Sri Aurobindo asked Amrita to reply as follows:

Your intuition that in your case the effective impulse can best come from Mina is perfectly correct.... All that is needed to receive a direct touch from her is to take the right relation to her, to be open and to enter her atmosphere. The most ordinary meeting or talk with her on the physical plane is quite enough for the purpose. Only the sadhak must be ready ....

Also it will be a mistake if you make too rigid a separation between A.G. (Aurobindo Ghose] and Mirra. Both influences are necessary for the complete development of the Sadhana. The work of the two together alone brings down the supramental Truth into the physical plane. A.G. acts directly on the mental and on the vital being through the illumined mind; he represents the Purusha element whose strength is predominantly in illumined knowledge and the power that acts in this knowledge, while the psychic being supports this action and helps to transform the physical and the vital plane. Mina acts directly on the psychic being and on the emotional vital and physical being through the illumined psychic consciousness, while the illumined intuitions of the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force representing the Shakti element is directly psychic, vital, physical and her spiritual knowledge is predominantly practical in its nature.³⁷

Since the beginning of 1926 at any rate, if not indeed even earlier, there had been thus an increasingly direct action of spiritual guidance radiating from Mirra. She no doubt still kept herself rather in the background, but that didn't affect her magnetic power. Once a sadhika reported to Sri Aurobindo:

Page 230

Mirra once took me above the mind, but I did not know where I stood, I could only feel that I rose very high .... It required an effort to come down to the normal consciousness and in the coming down I saw a vision above the head, the form of a cup. Mina has a wonderful capacity of contacting another's consciousness and she accurately described my experience and vision.³⁸

There was, then, Veluri Chidanandam who, as a college student, had his darshan of Sri Aurobindo in 1920, and returned for a longer stay in 1926 with his elder brother, Chandrasekharam. When Chidanandam first saw Mirra, he was "struck by her frail but super-earthly and radiant form, her eyes that seemed to be like endless Ocean expanses, fathomless. "³⁹ This experience out of the ordinary was to inspire poetic recordation as well:

When first I saw Thee, Mother, so struck was I

And so dumbfounded, I only gazed and gazed

Into Thine eyes of inexpressible vasts

Fathomless, calm, one with the Vast beyond -

Beyond all oceans, the earth and the skies around.

Howw far I gazed, entering new heights and deeps!

How long, transfixed, I stood before Thee! Then

I saw Thy Form of Mystery turned to Grace,

Divine Dignity, from the Creator's Self

Plunged into blinded and expectant clay,

An Angel from afar descended here

To light the earth, the dim aspiring earth.⁴⁰

When, after a stay of about six months, he went to take leave of her and seek her guidance for the future, she said:

Concentrate in the heart. Aspire for force and peace in the heart, open yourself to us here .... There is no obstacle. Don't be anxious. Go ahead. Everything will be all right.⁴¹

And of Course, there was young Champaklal, who thought of Mirra from the very beginning as "Mother". Since his final coming in 1923, his relationship steadily grew closer to her, and he would rush to her, as to his mother, whenever in difficulty. Thus on 6 September 1926:

I made Pranam to Mother and wept and wept, placing my head on her lap.

Mother said: ... I have told you that after coming here you have to begin every thing anew. And all the past shall be dead. You are not to hear anyone except us. Have patience, have patience. You will get what you want.⁴²

Page 231

XI

Two developments during 1926 were, firstly, the perceptibly progressive role Mirra was required to play in the matter of advancing the inmates in their sadhana and, secondly, the sense of heightened urgency in the atmosphere, as could be inferred from Sri Aurobindo's speeches and interventions during the Evening Talks. On 15 August, his birthday, there was the usual elation, and the usual consecration. Speaking to those assembled, Sri Aurobindo said:

It is a day which ought to be a day of consecration, of self-examination and a preparation for future advance, if possible, for the reception of a special Power which would carry on the work of advance ....

First, remember that what are the objects of other yogas are for us only the first stages, or first conditions ....

The second thing we have to know and remember is that nothing is perfectly done unless all is perfectly done. It is not sufficient to open the mind and the vital being and leave the physical being to its obscurity.

... The third thing to remember is that if all is to be changed and done then there must be complete surrender. ...

... on one side no lack of resolution and zeal for the victory to be won, on the other no hasty impatience or depression, but the calm certainty for the Divine Will, the calm will that "it shall be done in us" and the aspiration that "it may be done for us so that it may be done for the world".⁴³

During the discussion that followed, in answer to a question about the condition to be fulfilled for the resistance of Matter to end, Sri Aurobindo said:

Well, the condition is that if man could open a direct connection with the world of the Gods, then only it would be possible ....

... as yet there is no decisive sign of any change; but as more and more Power is descending into the physical, I may say that I am morally sure that the material will yield.⁴⁴

The world of the Gods is the Overmind world just below the supermind, and Sri Aurobindo seemed to say that if the link could first be established with this overmental world of the Gods, the supramental descent would become a near certainty. As he said on 6 November 1926:

I spoke about the world of the Gods because not to speak of it would be dangerous. I spoke of it so that the mind may understand the thing if it comes down. I am trying to bring it down into the physical as it can no longer be delayed and then things may happen⁴⁵

This is quite explicit. At the time he spoke these words, Sri Aurobindo was

Page 232

trying to bring "the world of the Gods" - in other words, the Overmental principle and power of Cosmic Truth - into the physical because it could "no longer be delayed". Clearly the descent, as Sri Aurobindo saw it, was imminent; and when it did take place, then things did happen ....

XII

From various indications in the course of the preceding pages it should be clear that, between the night of the cyclone (24 November 1920) when Mirra moved into Sri Aurobindo's house and 1925-26, there was a gradual movement, first of acceptance of her and admiration for her as a fellow­sadhak,, then of recognition of her as an adept who could herself give spiritual guidance in the name and as a delegate of the Master. From the beginning of 1926, several of the women disciples started having their meditation with Mirra, as much by preference as for the sake of convenience. After August, some of the other disciples also joined these sessions with her permission. In those days, Mirra seldom went out of the compound of the Library House, and she used to sit for meditation in upper-storey room. About a dozen - including Bejoy Nag, Rani Nag, Rajani, Upen and Jaya Devi - used to sit with Mirra during those meditative sessions of aspiration and inner awakening. In Purani's words, "It was as if Sri Aurobindo was slowly withdrawing himself and the Mother was spontaneously coming out and taking up the great work of directing the sadhaks' inner sadhana and of the organisation of the outer life of the Ashram.^{" 46}

But, for the time being, she was still Mirra, even as Sri Aurobindo was A.G. However, with her increasing involvement in the management of the steadily growing household and even in the spiritual direction of several of the inmates, her role assumed new dimensions of responsibility and power, and more and more of the inmates began to look up to her as to a spiritual Mother, and sometimes called her so. Nolini Kanta Gupta himself writes how on the eve of his last annual trip to Bengal he wished to see her and take leave of her. A meeting was arranged through Sri Aurobindo, for she had not come out of her seclusion then:

I entered and waited in the Prosperity room .... The Mother came in from her room and stood near the door. I approached her and said, "I am going," and then Purely prostrate at her feet. That was my first Pranam to the Mother. She said, "Come back soon." This "come back soon" meant in the end, "come back for good." ⁴⁷

As yet she was not addressed as "Mother" or so addressed by most of the inmates. Sri Aurobindo himself usually referred to her as Mirra. When did

Page 233

the transcendence from "Mirra" to "Mother" take place? Again there is Nolini's evidence:

In the beginning, Sri Aurobindo would refer to the Mother quite distinctly as Mirra. For some time afterwards (this may have extended Over a period of years) we could notice that he stopped at the sound of M and uttered the full name as if after a slight hesitation. To us it looked rather queer at the time, but later we came to know the reason. Sri Aurobindo's lips were on the verge of saying "Mother"; but we had to get ready, so he ended with Mirra instead of saying Mother. No one knows for certain on which particular date at what auspicious moment, the word "Mother" was uttered by the lips of Sri Aurobindo. But that was a divine moment in unrecorded time, a moment of destiny in the history of man and earth; for it was at this supreme moment that the Mother was established on this material earth, in the external consciousness of man.⁴⁸

XIII

From the beginning of 1926, Mirra had assumed more and more of Sri Aurobindo's responsibility for the yogic guidance of the sadhaks, as if giving him the relief he needed to be able to concentrate on his work of making a further ascent in the ladder of Consciousness and coaxing a descent of the higher Lights into the lower levels and moulds, the lowest ­ the material, the inconscient - not excluded. An air of intensity began building up slowly, an air of unbelievable expectancy; and the sadhaks had the feeling that they were on the threshold of vast new developments. After Sri Aurobindo's birthday, the Evening Talks took on a new edge and a new flavour, and it was as though the light of a tremendous new Realisation was enhancing and transfiguring Sri Aurobindo's person into that of the Golden Purusha. In the evenings, the group sittings started later and later, not at 4.30 as before, but at 6 or 7 or 8, and once well past midnight! But the sadhaks, far from being put out, took it all as participation in a stupendous drama of change and transformation; and, in fact, many of them felt as though they were themselves being invaded by a prepotent new force - as though they were unbelievably caught in the throes of a spiritual rebirth. Some idea of the charged atmosphere may be formed from Jaya Devi's reminiscences of those days, as translated from the original Bengali by Sisir Kumar Ghose:

November came along. A strange feeling of joy took possession of all the sadhaks present. The whole of Pondicherry was fragrant with incense, a great delight seemed to be at play.... At the time of Sri Aurobindo's darshan I said, "Lord, for the last few days I have been filled with such a sense of peace and delight .... Why is it like this, Lord?"

Page 234

Smiling, he said, "You are able to feel this?"

"Not only I but all the sadhaks are able to feel this great wave of peace and delight. We are dancing with an inner joy. Why, O Lord?"

"Wait and see, there will be more delight to come," he said.⁴⁹

XIV

Then came the great day, 24 November 1926 - exactly six years after the day of the cyclone that had made Mirra move into Sri Aurobindo's house. But this time Nature smiled sweetly. As Mirra saw Sri Aurobindo emerge from his room in the evening, she knew that a momentous event, a vast descent of Light, had taken place, and she immediately sent word that all the sadhaks should assemble in the upper veranda of the Library House, the usual place of meditation. By six all were there, twenty-four in all, including Nolini, Amrita, Pavitra, Barin, Purani, Datta, Pujalal, Champaklal, Rajangam and Chandrasekharam. What next happened had best be described in Purani's words:

There was a deep silence in the atmosphere after the disciples had gathered there. Many saw an oceanic flood of Light rushing down from above. Everyone present felt a kind of pressure above his head. The whole atmosphere was surcharged with some electrical energy. In that silence ... the usual, yet on this day quite unusual, tick was heard behind the door of the entrance. Expectation rose in a flood. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother could be seen through the half-opened door. The Mother with a gesture of her eyes requested Sri Aurobindo to step out first. Sri Aurobindo with a similar gesture suggested to her to do the same. With a slow dignified step the Mother came out first, followed by Sri Aurobindo with his majestic gait .. The Mother sat on a small stool to his right.

Silence absolute, living silence - not merely living but overflowing with divinity. The meditation lasted about forty-five minutes. After that one by one the disciples bowed to the Mother.

She and Sri Aurobindo gave blessings to them. Whenever a disciple bowed to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo's right hand came forward behind the Mother's as if blessing him through the Mother. After the blessings, in the same silence there was a short meditation.

In. the interval of silent meditation and blessings many had distinct experiences .... It was certain that a Higher Consciousness had descended on earth ....

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother went inside. Immediately Datta was inspired. In that silence she spoke: ''The Lord has descended into the physical today."⁵⁰

Datta evidently spoke in a mood of ecstasy. But what she said has been

Page 235

recorded in different ways by some of those present. Thus Champaklal:

Krishna the Lord has come.

He has ended the hell of suffering.

He has conquered pain.

He has conquered death.

He has conquered all.

He has descended tonight

Bringing Immortality and Bliss.⁵¹

Rajangam's is a briefer version:

He has conquered Life.

He has conquered Death.

He has conquered All.

Krishna the Lord has descended!⁵²

And Jaya Devi records:

I was told: "Mahashakti, the Supreme Consciousness-Force, has descended into Sri Aurobindo." I could myself see light and glory bursting out of his body.

Next day when I was carrying with me two garlands of tulasi leaves, I heard that Sri Aurobindo would not come out again but stay in his room .... One chapter of our life was over .⁵³

But another chapter had begun!

Page 236