On The Mother

PART THREE

ADITI

Aditi for protection:

the builder of Karma Yogins;

the ageless, the Consort of Truth;

manifold her strength;

she our sure refuge

encompasses the Vast:

perfect is her ministry.

(Yajur Veda, 21.5.)

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The Mother

CHAPTER 36

Her Lonely Strength

I

The long period of visible collaboration between the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had ended in the early hours of the morning of 5 December 1950, and a new era instinct with ambiguities and also uncertainties had begun. But what had at first seemed to us an immitigable disaster or reversal assumed a slightly different shape and hue when Nature was, as it were, mocked and Sri Aurobindo's body was found, for four days running, mysteriously charged with a new glory of freshness of complexion - which the Mother declared to be the supramental light. Clearly this was not the end of the grand adventure of consciousness on which the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had set out and for which they had established their Yogashram. On the 9th evening, when the precious casket was brought down from Sri Aurobindo's room and interred in the vault at the foot of the Service Tree, the Mother, in her great silent strength of suffering and acceptance and transcendence, watched the solemn proceedings from the first floor of the Meditation House in the Ashram main building, looking through a window overlooking the courtyard. Now that her spiritual comrade and Divine co-worker of over thirty-five years had chosen to withdraw from his body, who could measure the Atlas weight of responsibility that now lay upon her shoulders? But, then, didn't Sri Aurobindo anticipate it all - and utter his grave forewarning - when he dictated, less than a month before his passing, the seminal words spoken by Rishi Narad in Savitri:

A vast intention has brought two souls close

And love and death conspire towards one great end.¹

Death, so-called death, could be the beginning of a "greater life" or of a resurrection charged with power and glory. Who would be so bold as to lay violent hands and try to decipher "God's secret plan"? Alone, alone, seemingly all alone in her mighty immaculate mission, alone in earth's breaking and transforming hour, alone when "the soul of the world that is Satyavan" was held to ransom by the Asuric hordes of the tartarean dark or the murderous spectres of a possible nuclear holocaust, what was to be the Mother's role in the grim context of December 1950?

A counter-question: what was the last, the very last passage dictated by Sri Aurobindo as a poet, the very last prophetic Ray that he brought down from the supramental spheres and clothed in language of fervid intensity and finality? This, again, was part of Rishi Narad's looking at Fate and Pain, and hinting at a possible transcendence:

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In this enormous world standing apart

In the mightiness of her silent spirit's will,

In the passion of her soul of sacrifice

Her lonely strength facing the universe,

Affronting fate, asks not roan's help nor god's: ...

Alone she is equal to her mighty task. ...

As a star, uncompanioned, moves in heaven

Unastonished by the immensities of Space,

Traveling infinity by its own light,

The great are strongest when they stand alone. ...

A day may come when she must stand unhelped

On a dangerous brink of the world's doom and hers,

Carrying the world's future on her lonely breast,

Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole

To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge,

Alone with death and close to extinction's edge.

Her single greatness in that last dire scene

Must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time

And reach an apex of world-destiny

Where all is won or all is lost for man. ...

Cry not to heaven, for she alone can save.

For this the silent Force came missioned down;

In her the conscious Will took human shape:

She only can save herself and save the world.²

No doubt, in the epic, this passage has an immediate and excruciating relevance to Savitri in the context of the edict of predestination that just a year hence she would lose her husband Satyavan. But in the larger symbolistic scheme of the poem, Satyavan is verily "the soul of the world" seized by the powers of Darkness, and Savitri is the Supramental Light that annihilates the Evil, redeems Satyavan and inaugurates the new Age of the Life Divine on the earth. By sleight of symbolistic suggestion, the Mother's inner history is often equated with Savitri's: "The great are strongest when they stand alone"... "A day may come when she must stand unhelped"... "She must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time"... "For this the silent Force came missioned down"... "She only can save herself and save the world." It is impossible not to mark the parallelisms, the correlations, between Savitri's predicament in the poem and the Mother's in December 1950. In both, the personal problem is gathered into the terrestrial, the cosmic; in both, the transcendence of Death is to mean the reign of New Life, the establishment of the supramental mode. But the issue is open yet, the climactic battle is yet to be fought, the final victory is yet to be won.

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II

When the casket bearing the outer vestiges of Sri Aurobindo, having been brought down from his room, was lowered into the prepared vault, that must have been the destined moment of the Mother's reawakening into her true role and the time for a new determination and dedication. And she gave the world the mantra of renewal, the Mother's mantric hymn of gratitude to the Master in the name and on behalf of the earth and of humanity:

To Thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee.³

This solemn affirmation of "infinite gratitude" on 9 December followed close upon the Mother's sad acknowledgement the previous day that "the lack of receptivity of the earth and men" had been mainly responsible for Sri Aurobindo's decision to leave his body. Since coming to Pondicherry, the whole aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga had been to bring the Supermind here into our world and make it the cardinal force of the earth-consciousness. "Is your real work this invocation of the supramental?" Dilip had asked him on 4 February 1943, and Sri Aurobindo had answered, "Yes, I have come for that."⁴ If that was the acknowledged purpose of Sri Aurobindo's avatarhood and spiritual ministry on the earth, anything he did - including his withdrawal from his body - must have had a close connection with that fundamental objective. Even in 1938, the Mother used to see the Supermind descending into the outer physical being of Sri Aurobindo, but it couldn't be fixed here for good. In the series of articles that he contributed to the Bulletin during 1949-50, he spoke of the Mind of Light, a limited or delegated power of the Supermind, and we have the Mother's word that there was a transference of this power and the Mind of Light got realised in her. Besides, the Mother said that in the days preceding, every time she had entered Sri Aurobindo's room, with her occult vision she had seen him "pulling down the supramental light". Was it, perhaps, necessary for Sri Aurobindo to receive the full force of the Supermind in the physical, retain it for a few days, thereby clearing the way for the ultimate supramentalisation of the earth and man? If only he could himself invite and absorb - even at the cost of surrendering the material envelope that was his body - the first full impact of the supramental descent (as Shiva is said to have received the impact of Ganga cascading in a furious downpour on the earth), both to make sure of the descent and to contain and consolidate the gains for the world!

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Why, if that was necessary, he would do it indeed. If the victory could be won somewhere somewhen by somebody, it would become possible ultimately for everybody and everywhere. To open the possibility was the main thing, and the sacrifice of the body, as the first physical base for the demonstration of the supramental possibility - if that could advance the date of the total descent of the Supramental Light, or ensure the near descent and diffusion - well, the sacrifice was worth making. Since, after all, even without his physical presence he would be integrally one with the Mother's consciousness and power, he could certainly accelerate, witness and participate in the decreed new manifestation upon the earth.

III

"A meditative silence reigned in the Ashram for twelve days after the passing of the beloved Master," writes Rishabhchand; "then the normal activities began, but with a striking difference. One felt a pervading Presence in the Ashram atmosphere."⁵ On 17 December, the Mother personally distributed to the sadhaks, with her blessings, a photograph of Sri Aurobindo taken soon after his passing. Looking at the distraught Amal Kiran, she had assured him with an angelic smile: "Nothing has changed. Call for inspiration and help.... You will get everything from Sri Aurobindo as before."⁶ On the 14th, when the climate of grief persisted still, the Mother had admonished the sadhaks: "To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive." And the next day she asked the sadhaks not to be "bewildered by appearances", for Sri Aurobindo had not left them; he was "as living and as present as ever and it is left to us to realise his work with all the sincerity, eagerness and concentration necessary."

When in spite of this call to rise into one's highest consciousness in order to glimpse the truth of the event, there were some who persisted in mental interpretations of what beyonded the mind, she was forced to write on the 26th:

I was painfully shocked when I heard the translation of the leaflet you are distributing here in the Ashram. I never imagined you could have such a complete lack of understanding, respect and devotion for our Lord who has sacrificed himself totally for us. Sri Aurobindo was not crippled; a few hours before he left his body he rose from his bed and sat for a long time in his armchair, speaking freely to all those around him. Sri Aurobindo was not compelled to leave his body, he chose to do so for reasons so sublime that they are beyond the reach of human mentality.

And when one cannot understand, the only thing to do is to keep a respectful silence.

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Then, with a ring of finality, on 18 January 1951:

We stand in the Presence of Him who has sacrificed his physical life in order to help more fully his work of transformation.

He is always with us, aware of what we are doing, of all our thoughts, of all our feelings and all our actions.⁷

The Samadhi itself, visited daily by hundreds — by thousands in a mood of prayer and consecration, reinforced the disciples' faith in the reality of Sri Aurobindo's continued presence bathed in the life-giving rays of the Everlasting Day. And these words of Nirodbaran give vivid expression, not to his personal faith and experience alone, but to those of countless others as well:

Out of His Samadhi a thousand flames seem to be mounting up and, lodged in our soul, burning in an ever rejuvenating fire, while His Presence enveloping and merging with and radiating from the Mother's being and body is pervading the whole atmosphere. One can see His Presence, hear His foot-falls, His rhythmic voice, ever vigilant, devoid of the encumbrance of the physical body.⁸

With Nirod's heart of adoration, his eyes and ears of faith, others have also seen and heard Sri Aurobindo, not in the Ashram's sanctified precincts alone, but wherever the need may have arisen, wherever the aspirant soul may have made the insistent call compelling the Grace of the Lord to respond in adequate measure.

IV

When, after twelve days' meditative silence, the pulse-beats of life in the Ashram recovered their normalcy, the Mother too resumed her visits to the Playground and her classes there. The classes in the Guest House had begun on 19 November 1950, and were meant for children of the Green Group. On Tuesdays, there were recitations; on Fridays, story-telling; and on Sundays, dictation. On Fridays she took up her Belles Histoires (Tales of All Time), Paroles d'Autrefois (Words of Long Ago), legends from India, Persia, Japan and China and also anecdotes from her own life.⁹ There were then her classes for the older children: since 1943, when the School had begun, these children had grown, and more and more had joined. And many could now easily understand French and converse in it as well. The Mother began taking classes for these advanced pupils, and others also, including quite a few sadhaks attended. There were readings, questions and answers. These classes were to become a wonderful instrument for the communication of information, knowledge, occult wisdom and spiritual illumination, all in an atmosphere of peace, informality and

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motherly love divine. The range of these talks covered many of the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother,¹⁰ and (in her Friday classes in 1957-58) even the world-renowned spiritual classic, the Dhammapada. The classes aimed at an integral education, but the method was simple:

What I read at the beginning ought to serve to canalise the thought, to direct and focus it on a particular problem or a set of ideas or a new possibility of understanding which comes from the passage read; and in fact it is almost like a subject of meditation suggested for the silence which follows the reading.¹¹

With a power of consciousness so resilient as the Mother's, so all-embracing, so uncanny, it would be beside the mark to try to reduce her numberless Talks to a mere formula. Their law was the inner law of the Spirit, not that of formal logic; and yet they made their points infallibly, and young and old benefited from them. On 21 December 1950, the Mother spoke to the children and the rest, as if sounding the keynote of the Talks, and at the same time underlining the distinctive mark of the Ashram School:

Naturally, I speak to those who sincerely want to become conscious of their true truth and to express it in their life....

And 1 tell the teachers that they must teach more and more in accordance with the Truth; for if we have a school here, it is in order that it be different from the millions of schools in the world; it is to give the children a chance to distinguish between ordinary life and the divine life, the life of truth to see things in a different way. It is useless to want to repeat here the ordinary Life. The teacher's mission is to open the eyes of the children to something which they will not find anywhere else.¹²

There were no doubt the earlier Conversations of 1929, but these latter-day Talks had a different impulsion altogether and flowered in a very different milieu. The earlier Conversations were attended by a few sadhaks, comparatively mature people all of them, and hence the tone was rather more serious, more on a uniform level, than the Talks of 1950 and after. Now the Mother was speaking primarily to the children - children who had basked in the warmth of her sunlight for several years, and had had their psychic opened petal by petal to achieve a wholesome blossoming of consciousness. She was now speaking in French too, not in English, and as always she spoke as the Spirit dictated, not according to any mental rule. A far-ranging variety and a sparkling versatility thus marked these Talks, while the give and take of the question-and-answer sessions -the children freely participating in this adventure of knowledge and science of integral living, the teachers readily acknowledging that they were not too old to learn again and the sadhaks realising that they were listening and

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doing sadhana at the same time gave these Talks almost a central place in the Ashram.

V

But although there was this welcome swinging back to normalcy, the recent past wasn't to be blotted out, and even in the resumption of the old rhythm there was a subtle change of pace that discerning eyes couldn't miss. What occurred on 5 December 1950, and the developments that followed: the initial shock, the sudden unexpected surge of hope, the chastened final acceptance, the abrupt halt to the rhythm of Ashram life, the sorrow and suspense of the next five days, the slow resumption of Time's steady beats - these seem to have had divers parallel repercussions. It is said that, on 5 December, there was practically no stock of rice in the Ashram granary; and there was a terrific run of visitors during the next few days; but, on the 9th, a ship from Rangoon brought ten tons of rice for the Ashram! This sort of alternation between shock and reconciliation, loss and rescue, want and abundance, despair and hope, defeat and victory, was almost the law of that uncertain and agonising hour, that Phoenix Hour in the Ashram's history. Some said in their anxiety and apprehension, "Well, Sri Aurobindo is no more; and the Mother too might go away, or decide to return to France!" Dr. Sanyal, for example, was worried because the Mother was putting too great a strain upon her fragile body. But she told him with a smile:

Do you think I get all this energy from my frugal meals? Of course not, one can draw infinite energy from the universe when needed!... No, I have no intention of leaving my body for the present. I have yet a lot of things to do. So far as I am concerned, it is nothing to me. I am in constant contact with Sri Aurobindo.¹³

And when Surendra Nath Jauhar expressed a similar anxiety, the Mother answered firmly: "I intend to stay with you all." And on another occasion she told him half-humorously:

You see, now my work has become easy. Formerly I used to go to Sri Aurobindo and discuss matters with him. Now he is in me, and whenever you ask any question, I just ask Sri Aurobindo and tell you his reply.

And so with redoubled vigour the Mother threw herself into the Ashram and School activities from 17 December onwards. The children, the darling children: they were the great hope, they were the destined pioneers, they were the insurance for the future. Hence the increasing interest that the Mother took in the children, even finding time for taking regular classes for them, and setting an example to the other teachers. She had said again

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and again that she didn't want to run a school that was no different from other schools in the world. She wanted rather a new kind of school, and an education that reared the beneficiaries for the New Life in the Spirit. The Mother soon realised, however, that she needs must first spell out the cardinal principles of Integral Education as they ought to be practised. Thus started her series of essays and talks, the first of which appeared in the Bulletin in November 1950, and the sixth and last in February 1952. The essays were collected as On Education and came out as a little book the same year. Like Sri Aurobindo's series in the Karmayogin during 1909-10, - "The Brain of India", "A System of National Education" and "The National Value of Art", - the Mother's essays on education too are packed with rare insights and illuminations that light up, for young and old alike, the long and tortuous path of self-improvement and self-perfection.

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