Memorable Contacts with The Mother

III: PLUNGE INTO DARKNESS

As soon as we reached Chittagong, I received a telegram from my relatives in Rangoon that a Government post had fallen vacant and I was sure to get it, if I applied for it. I was in a fix, for I had told the Mother that I would practise in my home town. Fate now decided otherwise and I sailed for Burma. That post was, however, not available, but in its stead another job offered itself almost unasked for and unexpectedly. I had gone to pay a courtesy-call to a Professor in the Rangoon Medical College, an I.M.S. who was an Edinburgh graduate. He spoke to me of a job that was going to be vacant and he wanted me to apply for it. Not only so, he made me see the proper authorities with his letters of recommendation and himself came to look for me at my address. The upshot of it all was that the job came "walking into my parlour", and I was comfortably settled. Though the Burma National Ministry tried to unsettle me, my patron defended his choice saying that he was fortunate in getting a foreign-qualified man for the post. I could not but be struck by the swift turn of events as if some force had been driving me. But, my crass physical nature realised much later that it was the Mother’s Force that had achieved that miracle. "A Force worked, but none knew from where it came."

A fixed income and some private practice made life smooth and promising, if not affluent. Gradually I drifted into the hybrid Rangoon atmosphere which was, in one word, philistine. People knew only position and money. I

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fell into step with them and forgot that I had visited Pondicherry. Karmayoga was a far cry and bhoga became more insistent. I kept no connection with the Ashram. But my niece had kept it up. So it was that as I was swept along in the tide, all on a sudden I received a copy of Conversations with the Mother with my name, the Mother’s "blessings" and her signature written on it. I could not but be surprised and extremely moved at the same time: the fact that the Mother had remembered me though I had forgotten her shed a new light and made a dent somewhere in me. But "the roots were not deep enough". Life in the old rut continued. After a year or so, my house was suddenly searched by the Police. Nothing incriminating was found except that "suspicious" letter by Sri Aurobindo which the Police grabbed, and so was lost for ever. From this point, the weather began to be rough. Fortune seemed to have turned her face away from me. I was served with a notice by the Government that my services would terminate in six months though the contract had been signed for three years. It came like a bolt, but was truly a blessing and probably the Divine Hand was the thrower. Otherwise the perilous direction I had taken would have drifted me into an abyss. Dizzy was the rise and equally vertiginous the apparent fall.

The secure job lost as suddenly as it had come, I had to make a hot retreat and go to Calcutta. It was like leaving an enchanted island of Circe and buffetted and bruised, reaching one’s native shore. After knocking about for six months or so for a job, finally I was driven back to find my anchor at Chittagong as I had told the Mother at our first meeting.

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I was within an ace of getting a Government post at Calcutta, but on the eve of the selection my lodging was again searched by the Police, very probably getting a clue from the Rangoon Police. The Police report must have saved me from becoming a life-long Government servant and paved my way to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I cannot then be wrong in claiming for me a predestination. The Police had been pursuing me since I had left college because of my participation in the Non-Co-operation movement.

The atmosphere at Chittagong happened to be more congenial. I found some friends who were connected with the Ashram. Through my niece, who had already become an Ashram member, my contact with the Mother was also renewed. I used to receive her letters and the Mother’s blessings and send some modest offering whenever I could. Thus a very definite change had come over me after a short but stormy career. Though materially I had to face hardships, spiritually I seemed to have rediscovered my soul. But since the soul was still an infant and the vital nature clamorous for its "flesh-pots", I came more than once to the brink of a yawning pit and was drawn back somehow. One instance is even now fresh in my mind. I got myself so entangled in a sordid affair that I found no way of escape from it. I was completely under the grip of a vile Force and there was no strength or even inclination to resist. At that critical moment, a rose given by the Mother came from my niece without my asking. I did not know what was in that rose, for I did not feel anything, but I found myself full of strength and determination and at "one single blow and no more" knocked down the

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monster of Evil. This was the first concrete example of the miraculous power of the Mother’s blessing-flower which even a sceptic like me could not brush aside. Now, a new and more subtle danger was laying its trap in the guise of spirituality. My old friend Chand who belonged to the same town brought to me a middle-aged woman, first as a patient, then as some sort of a spiritual seeker. She had abandoned her family life and was looking for a shelter where she could pursue her "sadhana without any hindrance". Candid as I was, I was almost ready to help her when something very strange intervened. I received a letter from my niece to the following effect: "You are wasting your precious time. How long will the Mother and Sri Aurobindo wait for you? Should you not think of joining the Ashram and taking up the yogic life?" It seems she had her letters read by Sri Aurobindo before posting them or at least summarised the contents to him. From the day I received the letter my mind began to be haunted by it. Gradually the effect increased and the world began to lose all its charm and appear insipid. The salt had lost its savour. I could not but write for permission for Darshan and, if granted, I resolved not to come back. The permission came and one day, very secretly, without telling even my poor mother, I started for the Ashram. It was in February 1935, three years to the day after my last Darshan in 1930.1 came to know later that, with regard to the woman brought by Chand, I had been saved from a snare I was unwittingly falling into in the name of spirituality. The woman’s later life confirmed the suspicion.

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