Memorable Contacts with The Mother

XIX: OUR DEBT AND HOMAGE

Thus more than forty long years of my contact came to a sudden end just when that contact was blossoming into a closer union "through a long dim preparation". As I have shown in my account, there had always been unhappy but seemingly unnecessary interruptions since 1950, severing the physical tie and throwing me for a time on reliance upon the inner support. But my personal loss counted for nothing before the tremendous void felt by the entire Ashram. The Mother had made us forget Sri Aurobindo’s most painful absence by her all-encompassing divine love and solicitude. But who is there to console us now? Who shall guide and protect us? We have to seek for that consolation within our hearts.

As Nolini says,

"The Mother’s physical body was our protection; we did not suffer the full consequences of our Karma because her body acted as a buffer.... Her body bore our burden and relieved us of the misery otherwise due to Us. Mankind, the world even, does not know the saving Grace that her material frame brought to them.

"Since we have no longer the support of her body on which we depended most exclusively, we are compelled to seek the true support, the support of her consciousness, the inner reality-her inner presence, her living Person within....

"It is there, living and glorious in its beauty and power and is still at work within us and around us in the world

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incessantly towards the final consummation of its material embodiment.

"What is expected of us is to see this golden Mother within us and try to become as she always wanted, her golden children, within and without."

Thus, though she has left her physical body, we have Still her golden body. Not that alone, even materially she has seen to it that we do not suffer from indigence in her absence. Our material prosperity has not been affected by her physical withdrawal. God has fully paid his debt to man. Her bounty is flowing abundantly.

"Affiliated to cosmic Space and Time
And paying here God’s debt to earth and man
A greater sonship was his divine right."

It is now our part of the bargain that we have to fulfil. We can "requite the debt we owe to her Grace, we can show our love to her by admitting her Presence into our physical being and allowing her to do the work she has undertaken to do."

"A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme:
His nature we must put on as he put ours;
We are sons of God and must be even as he:
His human portion, we must grow divine.
Our life is a paradox with God for key."

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What is this work mentioned above? Work for humanity? Or any other high ideal — social or religious? The Mother herself said in her "Reminiscences", "I came to India to meet Sri Aurobindo. I remained in India to live with Sri Aurobindo. When he left his body I continued to live here in order to do his work which is, by serving the Truth and enlightening mankind, to hasten the rule of the Divine’s Love upon earth." And it was at the express command of Sri Aurobindo when he left his body that she remained behind and carried on for more than twenty years this work unflinchingly, a fractional glimpse of which has been given in this book. Sri Aurobindo himself has in a letter summarised the Mother’s role in his yoga and work. Here are extracts from that letter sent by him to Arindam Basu on 17th August, 1941, dictated to me. Sri Aurobindo saw and approved of the written version. It runs thus:

"The Mother is not a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. She has had the same realisation and experience as myself.

"The Mother’s sadhana started when she was very young. When she was twelve or thirteen, every evening many teachers came to her and taught her various spiritual disciplines. Among them was a dark Asiatic figure. When we first met, she immediately recognised me as the dark Asiatic figure whom she used to see a long time ago. That she should come here and work with me for a common goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation.

"The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to my yoga. This would not

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have been possible without her co-operation.

"One of the two great steps in this yoga is to take refuge in the Mother."

In answer to Arindam Basu’s inquiry, apropos of this observation of Sri Aurobindo’s, as to what was the other great step, Sri Aurobindo said, "Aspiration of the sadhak for the divine life." Sri Aurobindo’s voice appeared to stress the phrase "divine life".

The work goes on, whether we allow her or not. The Mother said in one context, "... I may be there or not, but these children of mine will be there to carry out my work." Her Birth Centenary is a great landmark towards the consummation of her divinely appointed mission.

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