Reminiscences

XIV

Eternal Youth

This is about the time when you, the young, the children had not arrived here. The few of us who were here had grown up, many had become aged, even old, that is to say, had passed the middle age. I often wondered, well, we were here, had been growing up and becoming old, what would be the nature of this institution long after, 20 or 30 years after? Would it not be the home of a band of old men, of monastic sannyasis, an immobile structure without growth or evolution? However wise or accomplished we might be inwardly, even remain young or green in consciousness, however far might our vision stretch towards the unseen future, yet externally, in the midst of surrounding society, should we not become like an isolated island? One day the proof came through an interesting event. After mid-day meal I was taking a little rest lying on the bed, suddenly a baby burst out weeping by the road-side window just near my head, and that went on for a pretty long time. I could not hold my patience any longer, I got up and saw through the window a man standing by the side of the baby, perhaps its guardian. I said to him, "Can't you silence the baby?" That gave him the chance and the man burst out, "What do you care? You do not keep children, neither will you have any, you are comfortably living in solitude—what does it matter to you?" At that time I did not conceive that not only children, but hordes of them would invade, there was no fear of the blank that I was apprehending before me.

In an unexpected manner, yet so smoothly the blank was filled up. In our institution or around it, there remained no room for a full stop, not even for a comma or a semicolon, a continuous unbroken line developed, beginning from the very old to the very young; an unbroken flow of age, way of life, consciousness—all that has been your contribution. How the young ones, the children, the parents of children,

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arrived here, an account has been given by the Mother. This has been especially a gift of the war; when the ill omen of the comet appeared in the sky of India, that is to say, when there was the panic of bombing by the Germans, and the Japanese, even their advent in this country seemed imminent, then many thought that the only safe place was at the feet of the Mother at Pondicherry. Therefore their solicitations reached the Mother. The Mother said that it was not possible for her to refuse them. So the doors of the achalāyatan were opened and you came in!

But all this is external. It was like this from the outside— but there was an internal necessity, an indispensable necessity.

The young brought in their youth, that is to say, a new vital force and that turned out to be an asset of the atmosphere here. For them the Mother had to open the school, the gymnasium; the playground had to be prepared. Under the influence of that green new life, dry branches flowered, as it were, in the external life also of us, who were the old. Almost after 20 or 25 years, at the age of 60,1 had to join the play ground and do gymnastic drill, and I am continuing doing that for these 12 years.... This is the fact of life not only of myself, this history of many old men is a speciality of this Ashram. Not only in respect of the body, even in mental make up, there came youth, newness, for in order to teach children we had to learn the elementary lessons newly, and that brought new fertility to the brain, there can be no doubt about it. Even from the side of education, by teaching young people, the elders do not get less benefit.

Besides you have made other contributions also. About this I have told you elsewhere already. The Mother's creation is not an isolated construction, that is, it is not a community self-satisfied, self-sufficient, separated from the common universal life. The Mother's work encompasses the whole world, it aims at a transcendence taking up the young and old, the men and women of the Ashram as well as the whole human race. We work for the emergence of a great human race out of this human race and as a consequence a new development

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of the whole creation—therefore we require a community which will be representative of the whole human race—that is to say, what is not here is nowhere else in the world—a complete sample of the whole earth, the whole human race. How various are the elements which constitute this earthly life, our institution will be a picture of that, a laboratory, as it were, for new creation, which element has to be purified, transformed in which way, which has to be rejected altogether—all this is being experimented. What has been accomplished here has created a possibility, a beginning in the whole earth, in the whole human race.

It is thus that the appearance and coming of the young is going on daily, that is to say, the future is coming to us with its possibility—still there is something more.

I have spoken about the indispensable necessity of youth —fresh life and living aspiration, that is the contribution of the young.... But what is lacking there, what has to be acquired is a peaceful and quiet mind and a wider consciousness. With strong vitality there must be pure luminosity, with motion there must be vision. It is this that is the contribution of old age. With long experience comes wisdom, with wisdom knowledge—consciousness progressing gradually becomes settled understanding. It goes without saying, that simply age does not mean wisdom, similarly simply youth does not mean progress—that is, not always or everywhere.

Bankim has said, "Are years only the measure of time?" So youth or old age cannot be judged merely by years. It is seen that old age has come in youth, that youth is retained in old age,—such instances are not rare. Certainly you will remember the picture drawn by the Mother—the picture of the supramental boat. There the Mother could not find the well-known old people—all there were tender or young, the old could come there only by becoming young. But one should remember that supramental youth is the youth of rich and ripe consciousness. May be that is something higher than both youth and old age.

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