On The Mother

-21_Karma Yoga.htm

CHAPTER 18

Karma Yoga

I

During the years immediately after she had taken full charge of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the Mother's resources - spiritual, human, material - had to be canalised simultaneously in multiple directions. With the steady increase in the number of sadhaks, there was the persistent need for renting more houses, reconditioning, fitting and furnishing them, and attending to their proper maintenance. From 25 inmates in 1926 the number rose to 150 in 1936, and was to reach 350 in 1942. There were, besides, the permitted visitors. There was also the special influx of visitors at the time of the Darshans of 21 February, 15 August and 24 November. The problem of accommodating and feeding them all admitted of no haphazard solution. Everything had to be done with a due sense of propriety, at once without extravagance and waste on the one hand, and without the imposition of needless constraints and denials on the other. While the Mother didn't believe in the extremes of austerity and asceticism, neither would she countenance conspicuous waste or enervating luxury.

All this meant the organisation of a number of services: the Building Service, under Chandulal the engineer; the Atelier (Workshop) under Pavitra; the Garden Service; the Bakery and the Dining Room; the Domestic Service, a sort of 'Home' department, to deal with the growing number of paid servants; the Prosperity, to arrange for the supply of everyday requirements of the sadhaks; the Furniture Service; and so on. Almost everything in the outside world had to be in the Ashram as well ­ but with a difference. The Ashram was verily a miniature world within the larger world that was Pondicherry, or India; it was also a world in a process of change and transformation. And it was the Mother's personal touch ­ her all-seeing eye - her unfailing Grace - that engineered the change.¹

II

The problem that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had to solve was something like trying to square the circle. For collective sadhana, the assembled aggregate had to be a miscellany of human types; and it had to be a growing and evolving community. Not many of the sadhaks, however, had been in a position to offer much to the Mother in material terms. Donations and offerings did come, but not yet on a scale sufficient to meet the mounting expenses. Writing on 2 June 1928 to a sadhak, Sri Aurobindo

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said that the monthly deficit at the time was Rs. 800, and any regular donation (like one of Rs. 500 per month offered by a well-wisher) was not to be rejected offhand as if in lofty disdain:

It is precisely help of this kind that we are feeling the most need of just now. For so long as this monthly deficit is not filled, we are obliged to spend on the monthly upkeep sums that ought to go for capital outlay and under such circumstances the very foundation of the Ashram from the pecuniary point of view remains insecure.²

Sri Aurobindo concluded by saying that the Mother didn't want to buy saris for herself; "in the present state of the finances" that was out of the question. "The income and the expenses must be balanced; money must be found for the work of building up the Ashram. All the rest comes after."

Accordingly, when the Mother organised the services and departments, she put sadhaks in charge of them with this double aim: to provide them opportunities of Karmayoga in the true spirit of consecration to the Divine, and also to initiate steps that would ultimately ensure the economic self-sufficiency of the Ashram. Even in 1914, the launching of the Arya was meant, certainly to broadcast the Supramental Manifesto in all its ramifications to the inquiring elite of global humanity, but incidentally to provide a modest surplus that would help to sustain the editors and those associated with them. Again, Sri Aurobindo had written on 2 September 1920 to Motilal Roy that any commune or Deva Sangha should be reared on twin foundations - spiritual and economic - and the highest idealism should be doubled with the most disciplined practicality. Now the Ashram was an attempt to translate the earlier visions of the Arya period into viable realities, and thus the emphasis was on self-sufficiency. It was rightly felt that no institution that needed to be propped up exclusively by outside charity could justify itself in the long run. After all, the true Yogin should be able to apply himself to any legitimate task whatsoever, and it should be possible for him to charge his work with an intensity of application allied with the spirit of worship. Far too long had people been divorcing work from spirituality, and grading different kinds of work in terms of respectability: hand-labour, clerical work, intellectual work, artistic work, and so on. The time had come to make a clean sweep of all this undesirable overgrowth of the past, and make all work equally an offering to the Divine. "The Mother was moulding our entire life for a God-oriented existence," says Sahana Devi, "a birth into a new consciousness, an inner life."³ And the best way this could be done was to entrust each sadhak with a piece of work - be it ever so seemingly insignificant or ever so crushingly responsible - that is relevant to the day­to-day life of the Ashram and that will at the same time bring out the best in him and ensure his progress in the Yoga.

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III

The secret of Karmayoga in the Ashram is that inevitably Karmayoga merges, in actual practice, with Jnanayoga and Bhaktiyoga, preparing the way for even higher possibilities. In Justice S. C. Mishra's words:

The disinterested and dedicated Ashram activities for meeting the material requirements of the inmates are the Karma Yoga, the calm inner movement towards spiritual illumination and wideness is Jnana Yoga, and the happy intense surrender to the Mother is Bhakti yoga .... The conquest of matter, the love of art and literature in their nobler aspects, all illustrate the additional element of Integral Yoga which does not seek an escape of any sort .... ⁴

The organisation and manning of the manifold services was facilitated also by the fact that, unlike the pre-1926 disciples who were in the main intellectuals, those that heard the call and were chosen after the Siddhi Day were more of a miscellany, rather approximating to a human microcosm. We have here the testimony of Dr. G. Monod-Herzen, a close observer of the Ashram and its inmates:

Almost all professions are represented there: cultivators, smiths, poets, mechanics, musicians and writers, artists and accountants ... and everyone, as in an ideal republic, pursues his activities with joy.

... everyone carries out an activity which corresponds to his true nature, to the law of his own being. It is not rare to see a newly arrived disciple change his calling .... These changes are never the result of tests, aptitude examinations, but always the fulfilment of an inner desire.⁵

The spiritual basis of the organisation of the services was that the Mother, not only assigned the work, but also put her force behind the sadhak, and in fact she was with him (or her) all the time. The sadhak who, yielding to false suggestions from an adverse force, doubted this only weakened himself and maimed the work assigned to him. When someone asked Sri Aurobindo what was meant by his or by the Mother sending a Force, he gave this reply:

The Mother or myself send a force. If there is no openness, the force may be thrown back or return ... as from an obstruction or resistance:. if there is some openness, the result may be partial or slow; if there is the full openness or receptivity, then the result may be immediate.⁶

This was written in the context of a sadhak combating an illness, but with regard to Karmayoga too the principle and the process are the same. Again, when he was asked by Nirod to spell out the significance of the exhortation: "Behave as if the Mother was looking at you, for indeed, she is always present," Sri Aurobindo wrote on 16 July 1935: "It is the

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emanation of the Mother that is with each sadhak all the time." Then, three days later, in response to a request for further elucidation:

The Emanation is not a deputy, but the Mother herself. She is not bound to her body, but can put herself out (emanate) in any way she likes. What emanates, suits itself to the nature of the personal relation she has with the sadhak which is different with each, but that does not prevent it from being herself. Its presence with the sadhak is not dependent on his consciousness of it.⁷

IV

The sadhaks, then, took to a form of work, not for egoistic or material gain, but as a means of self-expression, growth of consciousness and service to the Divine. The late twenties and the early thirties were the time when the sadhaks, being still comparatively few, were in a position daily to meet the Mother and to write to her about their problems. Whether one wrote to the Mother or to Sri Aurobindo, the answer usually came from the latter. There were exceptions, however, and sometimes the sadhaks' notebooks went up and down, with the queries from below and the answers from above in a continuum of instruction and illumination. The sadhaks would leave their letters or notebooks up to 11 o'clock at night in a tray that was kept near the top of the staircase in the meditation hall. Champaklal would take the tray to Sri Aurobindo's room, where Sri Aurobindo read and discussed with the Mother the replies to be given. Before morning the replies would be ready. The Mother would put the letters in artistically decorated envelopes and write on them the names of the respective sadhaks. Generally, it was Sri Aurobindo who wrote the replies, and occasionally the Mother might add a comment of her own or her blessings. It was understood that, whether Sri Aurobindo or the Mother wrote, the reply carried the sanction and Grace of both. In the morning, it was Nolini's responsibility to distribute the letters and notebooks to the sadhaks, and in Course of time he was to be known as the Divine's postman!

It is obvious that it must have taken Sri Aurobindo and the Mother a lot of time day after day and for years on end to read the masses of letters received in an unending stream, and to answer them individually. In the middle thirties, Sri Aurobindo had to devote daily several hours to his correspondence, his time-table being a fantasy almost:

4 to 6.30 p.m.: afternoon correspondence, meal, newspapers;

7 or 7.30-9 p.m.: evening correspondence;

9 to 10 p.m.: concentration;

10 to midnight: correspondence;

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midnight to 2.30 a.m.: bath, meal, rest;

2.30 to 5 or 6 a.m.: correspondence - "unless I am lucky".⁸

There were no dictaphones, no stenotypists; all was written down, either in the disciple's notebook itself or on the margin of his letters, and often on stray bits of paper. Eight to ten hours of the evening and night for these letters! This was commitment indeed to the Guru's vocation.

V

The question may be asked as to why Sri Aurobindo and the Mother permitted, if not encouraged, such unrestricted letter-writing by their disciples. After all, brief interviews might have claimed much less time than the scheduled eight or ten hours per day. Part of the answer is provided by one of Sri Aurobindo's own letters written in 1932:

It is an undoubted fact proved by hundreds of instances that for many the exact statement of their difficulties to us is the best and often, though not always, an immediate, even an instantaneous means of release .... Moreover, this method succeeds most when the writer can write as a witness of his own movements and state them with an exact and almost impartial precision, as a phenomenon of his nature or the movement of a force affecting him from which he seeks release.⁹

But a letter could also be the means of flogging up an incipient defect or discontent into feverish activity, like prodding a coiled snake to raise its hood. "If in writing," Sri Aurobindo adds, "the sadhak's vital gets seized by the thing he is writing of and takes up the pen for him, - expressing and often supporting doubt, revolt, depression, despair, it becomes a very different matter." Even then, the very writing may act "as a purge" and give some relief, but only to return later on with perhaps redoubled force, landing the sadhak "in the recurring decimal notation, an unending round of struggle".¹⁰ Unless the sadhak is really open to the Guru, and unless he writes in a proper frame of mind, that is, as a concerned witness rather than as a half-excited half-exultant engineer, writing to the Guru merely following the fashion wasn't likely to advance his yoga. Taking a total view, however, Sri Aurobindo felt that the writing of the letters and the answering guidance from the Guru had helped a large number of sadhaks "to awaken from lethargy and begin to tread the way of spiritual experience"; others had been enabled to move "from a small round of experience to a flood of realisations"; and some who had been hopeless for years to experience a sudden conversion and make the passage "from darkness into an opening of light". As a matter of fact, a majority of those, who had sought instruction, illumination or solace through writing letters

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had really benefited and made "a real progress". Sri .Aurobindo further revealed that, just as an electron or a molecule had Its indispensable place in the building up of a world that contained also "mountains and sunsets and streamings of the aurora borealis", so also even so-called "trivial" leters of his have a role to play in the sadhana, for "All depends on the force behind these things and the purpose in their action."¹¹

Thus, while the thousands of letters written by the sadhaks had certainly a part to play in the progress of the collective sadhana of the Ashram (and of the sadhana of the individual inmates), the personal contacts were perhaps even more important. On the Darshan days, the sadhaks could see and receive the blessings of both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. And throughout the year, the Mother was accessible to the sadhaks. Here is the grateful acknowledgement of Sahana Devi, who had been a sadhika for over six decades:

The Mother... usually kept apart about four hours every day for such meetings. If the need was urgent and a meeting was asked for it was granted. She herself would send for some. There were a few who met her once or twice a week; there were others whom she met once a fortnight or even once a month. There were also some who met her daily at a particular hour of the day for her directions on matters of sadhana or work relating to the running of the Ashram. Quite often she would explain just by her look without a word being spoken. It has also been seen that anyone approaching the Mother for directions got them just by her meditating with the person and placing her hand on the head. Remarkable as it may seem, after the meditation the problem was no longer there, instead the whole being was suffused by her influence. To some she gave a written reply. Again, the aspirant may get the directions all by himself in going into an inner silence.¹²

VI

With such a complex, delicate and on the whole smooth and efficient system of relationships between the Mother and the sadhaks, the Ashram departments were to grow both in number and amplitude, fully engaging the faculties and energies of the inmates. Things were now done quicker, better and at less cost than when only outsiders had been entrusted with the jobs. Out of old dealwood boxes pieces of pretty furniture were made, and they were light to handle, dainty and durable, and functionally satisfying. Soon after the starting of the Bakery, Jotindranath was put in charge of it. Between spells of bread-making, he spent his time copying the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and like many another sadhak heading a service department, he too was perfect in consecration, a man

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the Mother could absolutely rely on.

At all times, the Dining Room was a model of elegance, cleanliness and godliness. In the early years of the Ashram, the kitchen and the dining hall were in the Ashram compound. Not more than fifteen could sit together at all one time, and the Mother herself used to come at meal-times and Mother inaugurate the service. Although this had to be discontinued after some time, the sadhaks were nevertheless encouraged to cultivate the idea that food was not just eaten to. satisfy an animal hunger,. but was tobe prayerfully offered to the Divine within. In the early thirties, it became clear that the hall was too small to accommodate even in shifts the growing: numbers of sadhaks and visitors, and hence in September 1933 the spacious "Aroumé House" facing the Municipal Park was taken on rent, and after the necessary repairs and reconditioning, it was opened by the Mother for use on 4 January 1934. There was now seating arrangement for more than a hundred at a time in the halls, with the same type of small low tables and narrow mats used in the previous place in the Ashram compound. At Darshan time, several hundreds could take their meals in the course of less than two hours. Modern in their superlatively efficient organisation as well as intimately Oriental in its spiritual atmosphere, the Ashram kitchen and dining halls were a tribute to the Mother's imagination and eye for detail as also the sadhaks' unstinted sadhana of service. By and by, the Mother's Dairy, Bakery, farms and vegetable gardens - all managed efficiently by the sadhaks - were to make the Ashram fairly self-sufficient in milk, bread, rice and vegetables. The channels of the various departments were fed from the central reservoir and perennial tarn of the Mother's inspiration and resourcefulness, and hence there were hardly any hitches, and scarcity and wastage were alike carefully eschewed.

VII

In the months immediately after the Siddhi Day, the Mother had to impose on herself a very strict regimen of work. She was no doubt mistress of herself, and was never a slave to dull or dead routine, but she generally got up for the day well before dawn at four:

And Savitri too awoke among these tribes

That hastened to join the brilliant Summoner's chant ...

She had brought with her into the human form,

The calm delight that weds one soul to all,

The key to the flaming doors of ecstasy. ¹³

By six she would be ready for a stroll on the terrace, with a few sadhaks accompanying her. Then she would come down, announced by Anilbaran Roy's conch, to the meditation hall and meet and bless the sadhaks.

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This was the time for pranam and meditation, to be followed by interviews to individual sadhaks. The pranam and meditation seem to have had an intensity and character of their own. The sadhaks were not too many, and there was no need to be very selective. The Mother was the heart and soul of the proceedings, and the rest were the beneficiaries. Here is an impressionistic picture of the Mother at the time of those meditations:

The Mother, wearing a sari, would sit cross-legged, looking radiantly beautiful. She was the picture of supreme repose, but a repose in which there was a great deal of held-in power, as if she had come and sat there after having gone on a journey through the centuries and finished her job of finding what she had wanted to find. All journeys seemed to come to an end in her, and when we went and knelt down at her feet all journeys of ours also seemed to end there. All our difficulties vanished.¹⁴

It was then the custom for the senior sadhaks ("old bandicoots" * , as they called themselves) to sit by turns at the Mother's feet doing pranam, while the rest, old and new, sat at a distance and joined the meditation. Later, a little past noon, the Mother would come to the dining hall in the Ashram courtyard, and taste the dishes before the meal was served. In the afternoon, she paid visits to the sadhaks' rooms by turns.

Sometimes she used to go for drives, and sometimes she took some of the disciples with her. Pavitra drove the Mother's car, with Duraiswami Aiyar by his side at times, and the rest would follow in another car. They would select a secluded spot, spread a cloth on the ground, and sit and relax. Reminiscing about the time, Vasudha says:

... once we had palm-fruits .... A local man climbed up a palm-tree and brought down some fruits, clove them with a big knife and brought out the kernels which Pavitra peeled and gave to each one of us. That was our picnic. ¹⁵

Sahana Devi also remembers those quite long evening drives, the walks and the relaxed sittings enjoying the scenery around: "How pleasant it was with the Mother!" The Mother used to carry sweets with her and give one to each of the company. At times there were questions as well, and answers by the Mother, and a brief meditation.

VIII

What came to be known as the Soup distribution seems to have been instituted by the Mother early in 1927, probably on the analogy of the Japanese Tea Ceremony to which a reference has been made earlier.

*Big Rats. Originally, says K. D. Sethna, they seem to have come from Indo-China in the boats of the French colonisers.

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Although these present-day Tea Ceremony is important mainly for its aesthetic, social and cultural nuances, in its Zen Buddhist origins it was a form of spiritual sharing between the Master and his disciples. But the Mother didn't like people taking tea or coffee, and once when Surendra Nath Jauhar wanted to know which was better, she said that they were both slow poisons anyway and hence it was difficult to answer him. Actually, in the Ashram dining hall she gave the sadhaks a form of cocoa Phoscao - in lieu of tea or coffee. Nevertheless, she had appreciated the significance behind the Tea Ceremony and the charged atmosphere of the Tea Room, and may have felt that something akin to it, but suited to Indian conditions, could be introduced in the Ashram. Explaining the spiritual purpose behind the distribution, Sri Aurobindo once said:

The soup was instituted in order to establish a means by which the Sadhak might receive something from the Mother by an interchange in the material consciousness. ¹⁶

Long years afterwards, some of the privileged participants have tried to recapture the meaning, message and the whole mystique of the Soup ceremony which had meant so much to them. The scene was first a terrace, then the Prosperity veranda where the Mother sat facing the staircase,¹⁷ and finally, what used to be called the Divine Communion Room and is now the Reception Room at the entrance of the Ashram. The time was evening, usually eight. The sadhaks assembled and sat on the mats spread out for them; then the Mother arrived and sat in a chair with her feet resting upon a low stool. There was but subdued light from a shaded lamp, and the cylindrical vessel containing the hot soup was placed before her and Champaklal removed the cover. The Mother went into meditation for a while with her hands stretched out over the container, invoking the Divine's Force. Thereafter Champaklal set the container to the Mother's right. Then, one by one the sadhaks went up to her, each with his own enamel cup. With a long spoon she filled the cups and gave them back to the sadhaks, who received them after kneeling down at her feet.

How the Soup affected some of the sadhaks may be inferred from diary-entries like the following made at the time by T.V. Kapali Sastry:

31.3.1928: The Mother gave me 10 minutes at soup time. She gave me soup. Spoke to her, expressed desire to have a word.

"Sincere faith and constant aspiration, gets the answer," was the Mother's utterance. ...

15.6.1928: Received before soup from the Mother's hands, Book and Photos with signature. Mother serious at soup time. Good experience. ...

17.10.1928: Night soup: the Mother was half-smiling and kept the floral garland on her lap ....

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28.12.1928: Night at Soup: our eyes opened - joy - the Mother was looking at us ....

18.3.1929: Mother delayed to receive cup and flower from me at Soup time: I had a half-lit wideness over and about me; there was an attempt on my part to give myself up to her.

19.3.1929: The Mother kept the Tulsi in her hand till I received the soup. This day also there was something good about me.

I felt myself a vessel and in the whole movement with so many vessels was simply afloat in the wide and all-encompassing Mother backed by the Supreme. Others also were vessels like me.¹⁸

Trying to recapture the atmosphere of the Soup ceremony, Sahana Devi writes forty years later:

The distribution of the soup took about an hour, and was accomplished in perfect silence; all were merged in a deep inner feeling in that dim light, a feeling of a different world, an impressive far-off existence pressed upon the consciousness of all and slowly spread all around the room surcharging the atmosphere as if a tangible influence was at work consolidating all that was external and inner in a seeming vagueness of one's personal existence .... How enchanting the Mother appeared then to our eyes! Also, it was at that hour that diverse divine expressions used to manifest from her .... Her smile was beyond comparison. Often she entered into trance with the cup in her hand, motionless as a statue. But as soon as she returned to her bodily consciousness the distribution went on as before ... utterly simple and natural as ever. ¹⁹

Another sadhak, Mrityunjoy, who had also participated in the communion, sharing and exchange, recalls thus his reactions:

The Mother explained to someone that when She brought down Her palms She invoked Sri Aurobindo on the soup, and when the soup, so blessed, entered the body it acted on the cells to help transform them. That was the central truth of it, but individual experiences varied. After pranam at Her feet I would raise my head up and look at Her with my hands stretched forward to receive the soup cup. Often She was in trance and Her eyes would suddenly open and with a wonderful smile on Her lips She would communicate much more than by explaining to me in mere words. Not things philosophical or some deep spiritual experience, but things we call practical, of day-to-day life, solutions to problems of the past day or of the next, what I should or should not do, all these and in the most minute detail, were received from Her in those few seconds. The whole body felt as if it was filled ... with the sense of a purified and raised consciousness.²⁰

There was of course an understandable variability in the experience day by day, and what the different sadhaks received was proportionate to their

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receptivity, and for those who were utterly sincere and open, the gain was immense.

Amal Kiran's reminiscences are no less evocative of the place, time and the singular flavour of the ceremony itself:

It was a very important function every evening. It impressed one like snatch of the Ancient Mysteries. The atmosphere was as in some secret temple of Egyptian or Greek times.

With reference to the Mother's stretching out her hands and holding them over the soup-cauldron, Amal writes:

For a minute they would remain there as if she was pouring something of her subtle-physical spirituality into the liquid. The idea must have been to give her own luminous subtle-physical substance and energy - a most concrete transference of spirituality into the physical stuff.²¹

And, as Nirodbaran recalls it, the Mother would spread her hands over the soup "by way of channeling Sri Aurobindo's power into the liquid .... Some people used to see Sri Aurobindo's hands spread over hers in response to her call to him."²²

IX

The Soup ceremony in its early period seems to have coincided with the "brilliant period" of the Ashram, the months of "minute-to-minute" miracles, the incredible phoenix-hour when the overmental Gods descended into the sadhaks' human tenements; and to have overflowed into the months following. But it was too wonderful to retain its native purity and intensity for long. As earlier recorded, the startling experiences of the "brilliant period" had a rather upsetting effect on some of the sadhaks. The ādhāra or the supporting physical, vital and mental instruments were as yet too inadequate to stand the pressure of the Overmental descent, and it became therefore necessary to put brakes on the pace of the change.

The morning pranam and meditation, the individual interviews with the Mother, the spate of correspondence with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the conversations with the Mother, the Soup ceremony, the whole tight schedule put a terrible strain on the Mother and, perhaps in a different way, some strain on the sadhaks as well. Minor modifications or drastic alterations in the day's programme thus became inevitable.

Every arrangement involving participation by flawed human beings, however spiritual in its main inspiration and however pure in its initial motivation, is apt in course of time to invite a certain coarsening of the attitude, an invasion of scepticism, a drying up of the green freshness of life into dead routine. It is reported that on one occasion, a sadhak - a so-called

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medical man - told the Mother that the soup, being allowed to boil for hours, had no food value at all, thereby implying that the whole exercise was but much ado about nothing.²³ Thus was the daily adventure in the conquest of consciousness reduced to the evaluation of the calorie and vitamin content of the Soup! The sublime was pulled down and dashed upon the ground of the practical inane. Incredulous, the Mother could only whisper in reply: "Do you think so?"

Such a mystery as the Soup symbolising the 'élan vital' or the soma juice or the elixir of spiritual rebirth could succeed for long only if everybody brought to it the right attitude of reverence and faith, and if there was a real exchange between the divine giver and the human taker: a decisive transfer by the Mother, and a total surrender by the sadhak. A partial or one-sided or half-hearted transaction, far from promoting the desired transformation, could only disturb the present balance of forces, 'precarious as it might be. And it was precisely this that had begun to happen. As a participant later explained:

The Soup Ceremony was a very solemn one; but I am afraid the fundamental thing that was required of us was not fulfilled: there was no exchange of energy between the Mother and us. When the Mother gives and gives we should not just gobble up her gifts: on our part we should make an offering too, because unless we give ourselves or whatever is in us, we cannot make room for what she gives: otherwise what she gives is ,grabbed as it were by some sort of spiritual greed. Not an unresponsive vacuity - an animal emptiness - but a receptive vacancy made by a self­purifying consecrated inner gesture is the need. Such a gesture doesn't appear to have been sufficiently made by us. Owing to the one-way traffic of the spiritual process, there was an enormous drain on the Mother and after some months of the Soup Ceremony she fell terribly ill and it was stopped. I can't quite vouch for the words but I have the impression that Sri Aurobindo's comment ran somewhat like: "These fellows are brutes." We did not realise what the Mother was doing: she was as if playing with her own life for our sake.²⁴

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