Memorable Contacts with The Mother

II: INITIATION

All this happened in the first week of January 1930. In February my niece and I visited the Ashram for the Darshan and stayed about a month. The inspiration came from her and I believe she enjoyed the stay much more than I did. I was still uncommitted. It was an altogether new mode of living, an esoteric life of the initiates into which I had stumbled without the least preparation. We took part in all the functions and observed the discipline of the Ashram: we never went out to the bazaar to have any refreshment, though we were often hungry during the day or at night. I had not yet become a tea-addict. The simple beauty, purity and quietness of the atmosphere and the dedication of the sadhaks were emblematic of the soul’s aspiration for the Highest, and impressed me deeply. For them, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo were the Highest incarnate upon earth.

There were two occasions in the course of the day when the sadhaks could meet the Mother collectively: one for Pranam in the morning, the other during the soup distribution¹ in the evening. Both of them were silent communions. Of these two, the soup distribution was something unique of its kind. As Amal Kiran has given a memorable account of it in the book of talks. Light and

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Laughter and Narayan Prasad in his Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, I shall content myself with what concerned me for the most part. The soup distribution used to take place at 8 p.m. in the present Reception Room and lasted two hours. The inmates were about hundred in number and they sat inside the hall while we visitors had to sit in the verandah outside from where it was difficult to see the Mother - one had to peep over the shoulders of the people in front. Still, I preferred to remain outside, for from what I saw I could not bear sitting for two hours in a room surcharged with dimness, incense fume and an atmosphere mystic but sleep-inducing to my unaccustomed nature. Later on, we were given a chance to sit inside and then we had a good view of the Mother in her various moods, sometimes in trance, sometimes awake, smiling or grave, and very often pouring the soup in an in-drawn state, the hands shaking a little as she poured it. Each one had to wait for his turn and it was a long waiting for me. As I was not used to meditate, I had to struggle hard against losing my chance by falling asleep, and thus being marked "missing". If that happened, my niece was there, wide awake, to stir me into consciousness.

We felt as if we had entered into some "prophet cavern" or some ancient Greek temple where Eleusinian mysteries were being performed, the Mother being the presiding Priestess. Amal said, "This is exactly the impression I had. I told it to the Mother and I used the word ’ancient’ for the presiding Priestess. Unfortunately this word means ’old’ in French and the Mother was a little taken aback." After taking her seat, she would close her eyes; then her arms would stretch out and her hands spread over the soup-

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vessel by way of channelling Sri Aurobindo’s power into the liquid. Then her eyes would open and she would start the distribution. Some people used to see Sri Aurobindo’s hands spread over hers in response to her call to him. As I had to wait quite an hour before my turn came, I spent my time partly in sleep-meditation, partly in looking at the quick-changing moods of the Mother. I could not vouch for any concrete experience. Neither could I say that she took any cognisance of my presence when I went before her, but she was invariably an impersonal sweetness. Once only, and that makes me remember it, she cast an inquiring look when I approached her for the soup, I could not make out what it meant. I knew that at the time I had a boil - the "blessed boil!" and it was causing me pain. Could the pain have been reflected on my face? But that would be too trivial a matter to draw her attention. Now I know that nothing that concerned our well-being, physical or otherwise was too trivial for her.

After the ceremony was over, a grand spectacle used to greet our eyes. The Mother would return to her room across the courtyard, which had an altogether different appearance. Two sadhaks held a lamp and a censer in front of her and some sadhaks followed her from behind. The rest of us would stand on the side watching her pass with a solemn gait, almost in semi-trance. Her resplendent face, with an enchanting half-smile, would fill the whole hushed atmosphere with a supraphysical ambience. "Eternal beauty wandering on its way" - one could repeat with Yeats.

The next ceremony of importance was the morning Pranam. Spiritually as significant, the atmosphere was

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quite different. Here the Mother appeared nearer to our earth - "Near to earth’s wideness, intimate with Heaven." The Pranam was held at 7.30 a.m. in the room now occupied by Bula. A few of the sadhaks who had been in the Ashram for many years would sit inside the room and the rest would come, do their pranam and go away. Some would stand outside waiting to have the parting darshan when the Mother returned to her room. We found her sitting upon a cushion on a low seat in a simple manner, clad in a sari, the head bare, strikingly different from her orbed majesty at night. Here she was quite awake, "Smiling sweetly, smiling meetly" and giving flowers and blessings. Here too I remember the one and only occasion when she spoke to me during our month’s stay. We had asked her permission for sea-bathing - it was the rule to take permission for all movements beyond the prescribed Ashram life, so that her protection might accompany us. As she was going back, she saw us waiting outside and said in a sweet French tone, "You want to take a bath in the sea? Be careful; there are plenty of jelly-fish here."

These were the two "spiritual occasions" for us. Apart from them we passed the rest of the day in doing almost nothing. Dilip and Sahana used to visit us now and then; Sahana especially would talk about the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and the life in the Ashram. Another inmate, John Chadwick, alias Arjava, a name given by Sri Aurobindo, struck a friendship with us, invited us to tea and even offered us some butter when he learned that we took nothing except what was given from the Ashram. I must confess that though the Ashram food was tasty, the quantity was not adequate for us. In consequence we went

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half hungry. Our appeals for more went somehow unheeded. "Ask and thou shalt be given" did not seem applicable to material needs. We, being new-comers, were not allowed to join the common Dining Room. Our meals were sent to our rooms.

Sometimes we went to the Ashram to have the darshan of the Mother when she would go for a drive in the afternoon. Once we saw her attending a flower-show in the Colonial Garden, (now Botanical Garden) in which our Ashram also took part, and she along with another French lady was supervising the Ashram stall. This, in short, was all about our initial, or shall I say "initiate", period during the one month’s sojourn.

Let me mention here an indiscretion that we committed inadvertently at the very first summons to the spiritual life and for which the person involved had to suffer a lot. A friend of ours accompanied us for the Darshan without obtaining previous permission. He insisted so much on coming with us that we could not forbid him. Besides, we took this business of "permission" as no more than a formality. But when the Mother came to know about it, she seemed much displeased and was supposed to have said that his coming was very premature and he would have to suffer a good deal. He was not allowed to stay in any Ashram house nor to enter the main Ashram building. He would have to go back soon after the Darshan. We felt embarrassed and very sad indeed at this unfortunate turn, but he did not seem to be much affected. He did suffer a lot, it is true, later in life, and yet at the same time, he received Sri Aurobindo’s Grace and has been immortalised by him in our correspondence as the unique and unparallelled

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Chand. His pet name was Chandu. Sri Aurobindo baptised him Chand. He was a Muslim by birth, but in every other way, a Hindu. He studied Sanskrit in school, could recite the Gita and other scriptures, worshipped Hindu deities, etc., etc. - a strange specimen of humanity. When we came to know him better, we found to our surprise what a queer mélange he was of the most contradictory elements in nature and we realised why the Mother had disapproved of his premature visit. This is why our Shastras speak of adhikāra and proper time. Now that death has drawn a veil over his mortal existence, I should not dissect his shade. Only, I am happy to say that he loved Sri Aurobindo genuinely and the Master also loved him, in spite of his many failings. There were several instances to illustrate Sri Aurobindo’s solicitude for this "most loose and unpractical and disorderly fellow that ever was..." In another Shakespearian outburst, he described him thus, "He blunders through life, stumbling over every possible or impossible stone of offence with a conscientious thoroughness that is unimaginable and inimitable." For him too the Lord cared.

To come back to our story:

It was time to return. Some friends wished that we should stay on for good; for the Mother seemed to have been pleased with us and would accept us if we wanted to remain. But I, at any rate, did not, and on the advice of our friends wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo expressing my future plan of life. I said frankly that I was not at all ready for a spiritual life, I preferred to do Karmayoga outside. Strange that I used that word without knowing sufficiently

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what it meant. The very next day an answer came explaining at some length that I was quite right in my decision, that Karmayoga could be practised outside and it would be a good preparation for my future spiritual life, if I turned to it afterwards. My friends saw the letter and were not a little surprised to see that a newcomer had received such a nice long letter from Sri Aurobindo. The tone was indeed very affable, though I did not perceive it at that time. Unfortunately, I lost the letter during the Police search of my house. Perhaps the Police thought that it was one of those "sweet letters" the Government much-adoed about in Sri Aurobindo’s trial!²

It was curious that I had no spiritual experience to speak of during my long stay, while my previous short visit had been so strikingly different. Still a month’s quiet sojourn in the spiritual atmosphere, with the daily touch of the Mother, could not have gone in vain. At least, it was a very welcome interlude after a life of bhoga in the West and before a plunge into darkness in my native land. On our way back we halted in Madras for a week at Dorai-swamy’s spacious house. My niece’s idea was to get a job there in order to be as near the Ashram as possible. But nothing came of it in spite of Doraiswamy’s personal influence. Our destiny led us far away.

During our stay in his house, Doraiswamy paid a visit to the Ashram at the week end. My niece requested him to

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get some blessing-flower from the Mother. When he returned I asked him, "Is there none for me?" He replied, "You didn’t ask." I felt humbled: the first cognizance of the Mother’s way of action.

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