Memorable Contacts with The Mother

I: THE GREAT MOMENT

FIRST CONTACT

It was in the first week of January 1930.

At about 3 p.m., I reached Dilip K, Roy’s place. "Oh, you have come! Let us go," he said, and cutting a rose from his terrace-garden he added, "Offer this to the Mother." When we arrived at the Ashram he left me at the present Reading Room saying, "Wait here." My heart was beating nervously as if I were going to face an examination. A stately chair in the middle of the room attracted momentarily my attention. In a short while the Mother came accompanied by Nolini, Amrita and Dilip. She took her seat in the chair, the others stood by her side. I was dazzled by the sight. Was it a "visionary gleam" or a reality? Nothing like it had I seen before. Her fair complexion, set off by a finely coloured sari and a headband, gave me the impression of a goddess such as we see in pictures or in the idols during the Durga Puja festival. She was all smiles and redolent with grace. I suppose this was the Mahalakshmi smile Sri Aurobindo had spoken of in his book The Mother. She bathed me in the cascade of her smile and heart-melting look. I stood before her, shy and speechless, made more so by the presence of the others who were enjoying the silent sweet spectacle. Minutes passed. Then I offered into her hand my rose and did my pranam at her feet which had gold anklets on them. She stooped and blessed me. On standing up, I got again

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the same enchanting smile like moonbeams from a magic sky. After a time she said to the others, "He is very shy."

She had been informed that I had taken a degree in medicine.

"When are you going and where do you intend to practise?" she asked me softly. I found my voice and replied that I would settle down in my native town. It was an impromptu answer, for I had not made up my mind at all. She approved and said, "Yes, that would be good." Then I did a second pranam and we came away. All the way home, I was in a trance-like condition wrapped in that beatific vision. The Mother’s radiant look and smile, mingled probably with a tinge of amusement, had such an indefinable sweetness that I could not imagine how I, an utter stranger of a young man, could be the recipient of this rare boon. It was so divinely human!

We shall see, later on, how after a good deal of wandering I had to return to my native place, thus carrying out the plan that had obtained the Mother’s approval.

How did this extraordinary meeting take place? Well, many surprises overtake us in a manner strange to our outward eye, and "exceeding Nature’s groove", life voyages on an uncharted sea. This is particularly true for those who are meant to embrace a spiritual life. At least, it was so in my case. When I look back, I cannot rationally explain some decisive turns my life has taken without any pre-conceived plan. And yet, as I string together these disparate events, the culmination I reached seems inevitable and predestined.

To mention one or two such inexplicable events. My going abroad with my niece for medical studies and not, as

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I had desired, for Law was a sheer desperate venture. For, my education had been non-scientific by deliberate choice. I did not like cutting human bodies dead or alive, besides other unaesthetic adjuncts of Medical Science. Further, people dubbed my ambitious project a Don-Quixotic adventure because of my young age and inadequate financial resources to cope with a long six-year course. But that I should go abroad, was my adamantine resolve. And there in Europe our meeting with Dilip Roy sealed my fate for a final renunciation - another Quixotic dash.

Most unexpectedly my niece and I met him in Paris. He had come on a tour after his celebrated interview with Sri Aurobindo. He stayed a few days with us in Edinburgh and we came to know from him something about the Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Ashram. But it was my niece who, being some sort of an idealist, was attracted by the idyllic picture of life in the Ashram while the picture of human bones and human cells loomed before my eyes and made the quest of Matter dearer than that of the nebulous Spirit. My physical crust was impermeable - "too thick", to quote the Guru’s later words. A seed was sown in the fertile emotional soil of my niece and it sprouted so fast that on her way back to India she visited the Ashram. Dilip who had made the Ashram his home welcomed her with a warm heart. He had hoped that she would come one day for good. She had the exceptional privilege of meeting the Mother at Dilip’s place more than once and fell under the spell of her divine beauty. She wrote to me a glowing account of her unique experience and of her complete con- version to a new mode of life. At the same time she urged upon me to visit the Ashram when I returned to India.

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After taking my degree I arrived all on a sudden at Pondicherry and presented myself to Dilip, like a European with a stick in my hand, but no hat on the head. For an instant he gaped in wonder. When recognition dawned on him, he cried, "Oh, it’s you! I could never imagine.... Come, come, sit down." He was as affable as ever. He arranged an interview with the Mother, though she seemed to have remarked that I had not written to her anything about my visit. As I had no dhoti with me, he spared me one of his own and asked me to come to his house the next afternoon at the right hour. I felt quite embarrassed and did not know how to face the new test, even after passing so many tough medical examinations. My niece had given a very gracious picture of the Mother to allay my fears. Still, I felt extremely ill at ease, particularly because I had no idea of spirituality at all, nor had I much love for it. Suppose the Mother asked, "Do you want a spiritual life?" What answer would I give? Before starting, however, I thought I must take a bath. I felt even like praying a little. As soon as I sat down, my eyes closed and something startling happened of which my medical science had not dreamt even. I saw the upper pan of my body suspended in the air for a few seconds and the lower part non-existent. Frightened like a child, I opened my eyes and the thing vanished! In a dazed condition, I started for the Ashram, from my hotel. Dilip received me with his affectionate smile which helped me regain my composure. "Come, let us start," he said.

This is how the interview took place with its rapturous vision.

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"Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense
Even in earth-stuff, and their intense delight
Poured a supernal beauty on men’s lives...."

today I understand how I had that strange experience. The Mother must have put some Force on me in order to test my receptivity and when, at the meeting, she found that the ādhāra was not bad, she was happy. This is the explanation I offer to myself of the divine action. Perhaps there was more to it than I could sound. Probably it was also a form of initiation.

The next evening, I was to leave for Calcutta. Dilip came to see me off. As soon as he started me off in a "pousse-pousse" (archaic form of a rickshaw), another wonder, a surpassing delight! I began to see the Mother’s radiant face and smiling eyes whichever way I turned. I was thrilled. All through the ride to the station and until the train left, her face floated before me and would not leave me even for a second. So great was the burden of delight that I uttered, somewhat vexed: "Oh, when will it leave me?" And the ecstatic vision slowly receded and faded away. "Mortality bears ill the Eternal’s touch." The din and rumble of the train and the chattering of the passengers took its place and "there was the common light of earthly day." It was only after I had returned and settled in the Ashram that I realised how foolish I had been to drive away the divine Presence that had come to me as an act of Grace.

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