By The Way - Part III

It was the period of the monsoon and Darjeeling is not so pleasant then. It remains always overcast and foggy with continuous rain. One cannot go out anywhere or see anything.

Nevertheless, he accepted his daughter's offer and went to Darjeeling. In the evening he was wandering about when he suddenly noticed that the diamond from his ring had fallen off somewhere. It was an expensive diamond and it was now lost! The gentleman went on looking worriedly here and there. All of a sudden he noticed on one side of the path under a tree the diamond lying on a rivulet of rainwater. It was glistening in the dark. He thanked his fortune as he picked up the diamond thinking: "I have been very lucky indeed in finding the diamond. God has heard my prayer!"

Another day, he was wandering in the vicinity of that very tree. Darkness had already fallen and the streetlights were lit. The place was deserted. During the rainy season the Darjeeling streets are quite deserted in the evening.

In the course of his walking he reached the tree. All at once the lights went off, probably due to load shedding.

There was total darkness as he stood under the tree all alone.

All of a sudden in that darkness a goonda grabbed him threatening:

"Hand me everything you have! Don't shout or make any noise!"

"Oh, God! What will happen to me now?" the gentleman began wondering.

Suddenly all the streetlights came on again. A couple of people seemed to be coming that way. Seeing this the goonda took to his heels.

"This place seems to be blessed," the gentleman wondered. "Some spirit or divinity certainly dwells here. It was at the same place that I recovered the diamond the other day and today I have been saved from this goonda."

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"Tomorrow morning I should come and meditate under this tree. My prayers will certainly be answered. I will pray for my hugely bald head to be cured of its baldness."

Now as he was thinking this he began imagining that his bald head was covered with thick black hair. He started stroking his head and waiting impatiently for the morning to come.

That night there was continuous, heavy rain. As soon as morning broke he headed for that tree. On arriving he found that the soil under the tree had collapsed because of the night's rain and the tree had got uprooted. He could not pray for his bald head. It glistened as brightly as ever before.' Upon hearing Dada's story someone remarked:

'Baldness is a problem that perhaps even the gods cannot solve. Probably that's why the gods uprooted the tree and slipped away!'

*

Chandranath asked Dada for a packet of the Mother's 'Blessings' for his friend's wife's illness.

Dada handed him one.

Just then another person approached Dada and stretched out his hand:

'Dada, please give me one "Blessing" too.'

'For whom? For what?' Dada enquired.

He did not quite answer but merely said:

'Please give me one. It's for something.'

'What is that "something"?' Dada asked a little surprised.

All those sitting in the office were also slightly astonished. What's this? You need a 'Blessing' from the Divine and you won't tell the Divine what it is for! Hiding from heaven! It's like telling the doctor: 'Doctor, please give me some medicine.'

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'What's wrong with you?' That I cannot say. There's something wrong. Give me some medicine.'

Dada did not get angry but told us an amusing story instead.

'Listen to this story then,' he said.

'A man was walking along a path. He was going to the house of one of his friends but he did not know where it was. On the way he crossed two boys who were playing.

The man asked:

"Young boy, can you tell me where Nakulbabu's house is?"

The two boys knew the house.

"There it is, that way" they said, continuing to play.

"My dear, be a good boy and show me the house. I'll give you something then," the man pleaded.

One of the boys volunteered:

"Come with me."

He led him to the house, not very far away.

The man happily took out some money to give to the boy.

"I won't accept any money," the boy said. "You told me you would give me something. Give me that something and I'll accept."

So the man decided to buy him some toffees.

"I won't accept any toffees. You promised to give me something. Give me that something and I'll accept that."

The man was a little puzzled.

"Then come with me and let me buy you some sweets," the man replied, "or a top or some marbles or whatever you wish."

"No, no, no, I don't want any sweets or tops or marbles. You yourself told me you'd give me something. Why don't you give me that. I'm ready to accept that," the boy repeated.

I The man was in a real fix and began wondering what to do. Just then Nakulbabu, whose house he was looking for and , who had been listening to all this, came out and said:

"All right, young lad, why don't you come back to my house tomorrow evening? I'll give you that something."

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The boy, obstinate as he was, turned up the next evening as

asked. He absolutely wanted to have that something. The man then told the boy:

"Okay, then, I'll give you something. But before that go

and get a bowl of milk that is on the table in the next room." The boy went into the next room. The room was semilit

and you could not see anything clearly. The boy picked up the

bowl of milk from the table and hollered:

"Ugh, there's something in the milk." The man shouted from the other room:

"Take that 'something' and get me the milk here." When the boy came into this other room he saw in the light

a dead cockroach floating on the milk. The boy picked up the cockroach with two fingers. "So now you've got your 'something'?" the man asked. "Yes, sir, I've got 'something', I've got 'something' indeed,"

the boy kept repeating.'

*

Dada was speaking to us the other day about his childhood:

'When I was young, I used to occasionally get very angry. And whenever I got angry, I would give away everything I could lay my hands on, my pictures, books, notebooks, pens, pencils, toys, etc. to people around me.

We had a manservant then whose name was Panchanan. A most clever man he was. He had a flute which he would often play. Whenever he went to the Gariahat market he would take his flute with him and play on it merrily as he walked. And he would continue to play on his flute on his way back home. As soon as I would hear the sound of the flute I knew Panchanan was returning from the market.

I too had a flute of my own and it was much better and much more beautiful than Panchanan's. It was a flute with some brass inlay work on it. Panchanan naturally had an eye on my flute.

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One day Panchanan told me:

"Dada-babu, this time when you get angry, give that flute of yours to me. You will, won't you?" I did not answer. So he asked again:

"Dada-babu, when will you get angry again?" When the Mother heard about this incident she remarked:

"So, when you got angry, Pranab, you would give away your things? The European nature is just the opposite. When they get angry they take away other people's things!" And the Mother started laughing.'

'We had two dogs,' Dada told us one day. 'One of them was a small Tibetan chow, black and thick-haired. My brothers and I used to play with her. The dog would play and run about with us. She understood us perfectly when we spoke to her. She was called Rita. The other dog was an alsatian and her name was Rani. At around 10 -10:30 in the morning I would call out:

"Rita, time for your bath. Come on, I'll give you a wash."

Rita would run to me from wherever she was and sit under the tubewell tap, her head raised. I gave her a nice scrub after which she would go away shaking vigorously to dry herself.

One day a relative of ours came home with a huge suitcase he had bought which he left outside before entering the house.

I opened that empty suitcase and asked Rita to get inside and lie there which she did at once. I shut the suitcase tight.

When my relative tried to lift the suitcase to take it home he realised that it was quite heavy. Why was the empty suitcase so heavy? He had hardly opened the suitcase that Rita jumped out and scurried away. We all had a good laugh.

One afternoon all my brothers and I were moving about in a procession inside a room, each one playing on a canister

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or a bowl or a plate and shouting "Bande Mataram" and making a big racket. This was how we played. Rita also was part of our procession.

My mother was taking a nap in an adjoining room. Unable to bear our boisterous play she came out holding her hand-fan. Every time we were naughty, mother would thrash us with the handle of her fan. We did not, however, realise that she was coming to thrash us. Suddenly I noticed that Rita had disappeared from behind us. She had coweringly slipped away to hide under a bed. A dog's sensitivity is extremely sharp. Before we could even realise Rita had understood and sneaked away. Previously she too had had a taste of the fan-handle and so she knew what was coming.'

Someone asked:

'Dada, did the beating with the fan-handle hurt you?'

At once Dada's eyes and face softened and he replied a little lost in his own thoughts:

'No, it did not hurt. A mother's beating does not hurt.

I used to take Rita for a walk in the evening.

One day I was walking along a path and Rita was following me. It was summer and naturally very hot.

I was walking along the path by a pond. Suddenly there was a splashing sound. I turned back and saw that Rita had jumped into the pond. After swimming a little she came out of the pond shaking herself vigorously and began following me again.

During the war when bombs were falling over Calcutta our Berhampore house was full of relatives and friends from Calcutta. The house was bursting at the seams. There was no free space left in the house.

Not wanting to discomfort the guests, father left the two dogs in the house of a friend who also had dogs of his own.

Unfortunately our dogs Rita and Rani would not eat anything in that house, however much you tried to feed them. They did not move around or bark but would just doze about quietly. Perhaps it was their hurt pride.

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One day I heard that both Rita and Rani had starved themselves to death. And my child's heart suffered a lot.

A dog can never forget his master. He loves his master with all his heart. One day father brought a golden retriever belonging to an Englishman to the house. His name was Jack. The Englishman was in the army. At that time there was a war going on in the North-West Frontier. The dog used to stay with his master and one day his master died in the war. That is why someone had given the dog to us.

It was quite a good dog and lived and moved and played with us. Not far from our house was a police camp.

In the evening the police bugle would be sounded. In our house and the surrounding ones the conch would be blown. When both the bugle and the conches were blown, poor Jack was bewildered and would start whining pitiably. And the whining would go on and on. Perhaps he remembered his master then. Nothing could stop his whining then.

And so every evening with the sounding of the bugle and the conches he would start crying miserably.

Everyone in the house remarked that a dog's howling early in the evening was not auspicious, it brought bad-luck and so it would be better to send him away. And so the dog was returned.

I have told you about Rita, the Tibetan chow. An Italian spaniel also came with her to our house. He was a male and his name was Rin. If any of the children annoyed Rita then Rin would get furious. He would angrily bark in retaliation. Rita was like his sister and he was always her elder brother.

Finally Rin was sent to one of my uncles where he was quite happy.

One day in the morning they discovered Rin lying dead outside my uncle's bedroom near the closed door. Perhaps he had died of snake-bite or he could also have been poisoned. But even in death he did not forget his master.'

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Prafullamayee - Pranab's mother

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Dada played for us many of his songs on his clarinet. It is beautiful to watch him play as he gets totally absorb- ed in himself. A marvellous expression lights up his face.

After he had finished playing Dada asked with a smile:

The last two pieces were tunes of Bengali songs. Does any of you know these two songs?

When I was a child, maybe aged five or six, my mother taught me these two songs. I would sing along with her at that time. I still remember the lyrics clearly.'

Dada then recited the lyrics of both the songs:

'Hark! The veena's music, hark!

As it fills the azure sky.

O you traveller new on the path,

Tune your ears to this music high.

The heart cleansed of dirt and dust,

Sterling pure your soul must be,

As a flower washed in morning dew

Your life renew for eternity.

Now listen to the second song:

Hail! O Lord of the world!

O Life of the world, we hail. '

As it rises in the sky, ,

The new Sun, we hail!

Behold! Thy glorious Rays '

Pervade the earth, we hail!

Nature sings with me,

Thy songs we sing, O, hail!

O'er pure waters of Delight,

Glimmers Thy name, O, hail!'

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'The day after Dyuman-bhai left his body,' Dada told us, 'I was sitting in my room and playing the clarinet in the morning.

As I was playing, all of a sudden I felt clearly the presence of Dyuman-bhai. As if he had come to my room. I began feeling his close, intense presence very clearly. He remained there for quite a long time.

Just then someone came to tell me about his leaving the body. He probably felt very bad seeing me playing the clarinet at that time. But he did not know that I was playing the clarinet to Dyuman-bhai.

After Dyuman-bhai's departure, after 1992,1 did not go to the Ashram main building anymore, nor to the Mother's Room.'

*

Dada was 'telling us about those who were no longer amidst us, how their presence, their touch, their experiences, why even their voices, are still with us:

'Once after sitting for the matriculation examination I went to Shantipur. In Shantipur there is a mango-grove called "Babla". At one time Sri Chaitanya used to sing here the name of Hari late into the night along with his fellow- devotees. Those who were with me told me that even today one can hear the sound of the khol and the cymbals in this area deep into the night.

A local Muslim used to look after this mango-grove. Hearing us talk he came forward all by himself. He was a Muslim and was not supposed to believe in all this, but he said; ,

"Yes, Babu, it's true, even today we can hear the sound of the khol and the cymbals and the kirtans late at night."'

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Pranab playing the clarinet in his room

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Dada was telling us the other day:

'When Sri Aurobindo used to give Darshan during the period prior to 1938, a list was prepared of all those coming for the Darshan. Also marked was the amount of time each one would spend before Sri Aurobindo. And all respected these timings as they filed past Sri Aurobindo.

On Sri Aurobindo's left a list would be kept of the people coming for Darshan. From time to time Sri Aurobindo used to consult this list to check who was coming.

The Darshan-seekers would first kneel and bow in front of the Mother. The Mother would place Her hand on their heads to bless each one of them. Then they would bow to Sri Aurobindo who would also bless the person by placing His hand on their heads. Then the persons would bow their heads between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and both would bless the person with Their hands.

And in this way, one after the other, the Darshan-seekers would come and go. This is how the Darshan was formerly organised.

My father, when he used to come to the Ashram for Darshan, stayed in the beginning in Dilip kumar Roy's house.

An amusing incident took place on Darshan day.

Dilip-da left first after getting ready. My father was to go later. Dilip-da was a forgetful, absent-minded person. So, mistakenly, he locked the house as he left.

My father, on wanting to go out, discovered that the door was locked. He called out several times for help but nobody was there. Dilip-da was already at the Ashram for the Darshan while here my father was locked in.

What was to be done? God! If the time assigned to him for Darshan were over what would he do then?

So he began shouting loudly and people from the adjoining French Institute building came rushing.

Finally they helped my father out through a window with the help of a ladder.

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Father made a dash for the Darshan. He was fortunate and he managed to reach in time for Sri Aurobindo's Darshan.'

*

While talking Dada observed one day:

'Our country, India, is known as "Devabhumi" or the land of the Gods. This is the sacred land where the Divine's Dream will find its truth and fulfilment. To evolve life in its integral truth is the real karma or purpose of the sadhana. That is why India is also called "karmabhumi".

From time immemorial the people of this country, be they kings or saints, why, even the ordinary people of this country, have all striven to find how best to incarnate the integral Truth in this life and to transform it according to the divine Dharma.

This sadhana and endeavour have been going on both at the inner and the outer levels of life, right from the Vedic times or even earlier. The Rishis used to call this "loksiddhi" or "spiritual realisation". The gods' heaven and the human earth will one day be like two sisters born of the same Mother, amartyah martyena sayonih. It is this goal of life that I have called Spiritual Height and Material Perfection. If there is any purpose in human life, any goal, then this is the purpose and goal.

In this "yagna of transformation" the gods too come down to help man. They are born in human form. So that they can guide man from his ignorant, human life to the divine god-life. I remember reading about this during my childhood school days. I still remember something of that:

Even if Heaven be empty of Gods,

On this earth, indeed, they need come.

I have forgotten a few lines after that, then it continues:

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Even as Gods in human form take birth

Today to dispel darkness from the earth

And raise it up towards the Light.'

Upon hearing Dada's words, someone remarked:

'Your words remind me of Vishnupurana. It is said there that those who take birth in this Bharatavarsha, they are even greater than the gods as far as heaven and liberation are concerned. Even the gods bow to them and sing their praise.'

Dada continued:

'That is why the Puranas say that all the other parts of the earth are bhogabhumi, where the fruits of action are merely enjoyed. It is only India that is the karmabhumi, the country of karma or action. It is through the karmayoga or the yoga of work that the progress of the soul is achieved. That is why even the gods take birth in this country to make some progress. The work we have to do here is as I have said. Dedicated Service and Self-Culture.

If you look at history, then you will see how life has been experimented here in so many different ways, on such strange, diverse paths, how work and sadhana have evolved here. All the experiments that have taken place in this country with life, all the different ways to train and perfect it, all the different ways of approaching it.

Some wear ochre, some white, some only a loin-cloth, some nothing at all. Some have clean-shaven heads, others matted locks. Some survive on alms, some on nothing but air. Some are householders, some ascetics. Some wander in the forests, some live in inaccessible mountain-caves.

Every facet of life has been tried and experimented with, how to be victorious over this life and the suffering and pain and disease and death of this life, how to suffuse this life with ananda and beauty.

How many unknown anonymous great beings, yogis, mahatmas have come, experimented with life and disappeared. They have performed tapasya and the fruits of their

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tapasya have been left with the collectivity. We hardly know anything about these people.

In the historical period we had the Buddha, Confucius who showed us the path and exhorted us to follow a certain discipline and live in a certain way in order to attain perfection.

All this, even if it has enlightened our life a little bit, has not really changed it fundamentally. Man is still under the same yoke of sorrow and pain and misery.

Then Jesus Christ came with his message of love but that too did not solve the situation much. Man ended up putting him on the cross. Somehow Jesus managed to escape alive and came to India. It is said that he spent his final days in a cave in Latah.

Shankar brought the message of renunciation and detachment. But human life remained in the same darkness.

Chaitanyadev brought the message of love and devotion but cruelty, violence, greed and pettiness remained.'

The past history of the whole of India, the flow of the Time- Spirit with its great Life, unfolded before Dada's eyes. Over- whelmed with emotion he kept seeing all this and talking to us:

'How many great sages and saints have come and gone! In the same way emperors, kings and rulers have also tried to strongly unite the life and society of this country and thus lift man upward.

First, King Chandragupta managed to bring almost the entire country under a single rule. That period of the country is known as its golden age. But then this very Chandragupta was disheartened and baffled. People began to die in hordes as a result of famine and plague. Despite being the king of a vast kingdom he looked on helplessly at this procession of death. His subjects were starving to death, his subjects that he loved more than his life, like his own children, but he was powerless.

If I cannot give a fistful of food to the hungry, if even after seeing people die of starvation I cannot do anything to help,

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then of what use is all this kingship and kingdom, with what right can I continue to be king?

Unable to bear this inner turmoil he gave up his kingdom into the hands of his son, Bindusar, and following a Jain saint, Bhadrabahu, he sought initiation to become an ascetic and live like an ordinary bhikshu. He ruled over India but finally became a bhikshu and an ascetic. He spent his last days along with his guru in the holy Jain spot of Sravanabelagola in south India.

The same thing happened with the third king of the Maurya dynasty. King Ashok. He too tried to mould India into a strong, united country and infuse love and beauty and compassion into life. "With the help of rock-inscriptions on every mountain and hill he wished to make man great.

But in the end he too was disheartened and unsuccessful. He too renounced his throne and became a poor priest in a Buddhist temple in the wilderness. He could do nothing worthwhile with his life. And in the end, overcome with sorrow, Ashok refused to take any medicine to revive his broken health and in a way brought about his own death.

This is our country's history.

Life is not for simple enjoyment. Life is for progressing in the divine Truth. That is the aim of life.

Then, during the mediaeval times, in our Bengal, Ballal Sen began his sadhana to try and build society and make it progress. He tried to organise the collectivity and improve it qualitatively. For this he finally took up sadhana with Aniruddha Bhatt, a Shaiva Tantrik guru on the bank of the Ganga living in a hut in a forest. He left his kingdom in the hands of his son Lakshman Sen.

If you observe you will see that one after the other, be it in the spiritual field of sadhana or in the social or national field of administration, man has always sought the path of progress and liberation in all the ways possible.

The force of knowledge, the force of philosophy, the force of thought and intellect in man can no doubt help him guide

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his practical life but they can also, on the contrary, cause imperfection by creating all kinds of problems in an unstable life. And so in trying to do good it succeeds in just the opposite.

No political ideology, religious discipline, philosophical vision, intellectual analysis, moral code or scientific discovery can bring about that perfect fulfilment in man. Man will continue to be the same half-human, half-animal being he is.

The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have told us that if man wants to get out of the present condition and consciousness he has to transform his nature and his consciousness. Over the human nature, the human consciousness, there is the Divine Nature, the Divine Consciousness. It is only in the light of this Divine Consciousness that life can be changed and transformed.

But for that man has to consciously will it. He has to call into him that Divine Consciousness. From below man has to invoke, to aspire for that Divine Consciousness and from above this Divine Consciousness will respond in answer to that aspiration, will consent to come down into human life. The transformation of human life depends on this conjunction of the aspiration from below and the consent from above.

But then until the transformation of human nature takes place, are we to just sit and twirl our thumbs? No, how can that be? Man has to first believe in this Truth with his mind and life. Then keeping this Truth in front he has to educate himself in an integral way. He has to keep the flame of aspiration steadily burning within him along with his reliance on the Divine Grace.

The work has to be done both from within and without. Within, the awakening of the psychic and psychic and spiritual sadhana.

Without, the sadhana of the mind, life and body. As a man comes to life with the conjunction of body and soul, so too

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the sadhana of man can be complete only with both the physical and the psychic effort.

Work is the support of this sadhana, a work that corresponds to one's nature and liking, what the Gita calls sahajakarma. Our aim is to raise oneself in integral Harmony through work and to make our work perfect with the help of the soul, to realise one's soul through karma and to realise one's karma through the soul.

And we should always endeavour to keep ourselves open to the Divine Consciousness. Then will the Divine Grace and Force descend in our being and body and make the total transformation possible.

The Mother has assured us that this Divine Force and Consciousness, this Supramental Consciousness has come down onto the earth. It is at work in man. The Supramental itself will descend into man and the Supramental Consciousness will by itself work out the transformation of human life as and when it wishes.

The whole earth is the instrument of the Mother's Divine Force of Action. Each human being is a centre of the Mother's Consciousness. When this Divine Consciousness will awaken in human life, when this Force will act, then the whole world will get transformed too.

Man has been doing what is within his own means so far. He is not capable of more than this. If he wants to find the key to his problems then he must take recourse to the Divine Consciousness and Force. The Divine Man shall emerge with the joint endeavour, the joint yagna (askesis) of Man and the Divine. This then is what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother called the "Sunlit Path" of human life.

So in brief this is what we must do now. We must try to:

1. Do our work as properly and as perfectly as we can.

2. Develop our mind, life and body, with proper culture and study, to the maximum of their possibilities.

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3. Keep a constant contact with our psychic being by Japa, prayer, meditation or simply by remembering.

4. Keep ourselves open upward so that when the higher forces come down, they can enter into us and do their work.

5. Remain quietly happy all the time.'

*

Dada was telling us that there are chakras in different parts of our body that interact with the cosmos and the Infinite:

'The ancient Rishis and sages have spoken to us about the six chakras: muladhara, swadhisthana, manipura, anahata, vishuddha, ajna and above these the sahasrara chakra.

Muladhara is right at the base of the spine, coiled like a serpent, what Sri Aurobindo has called "Coiled Energy" or the kundalini power.

Swadhistana is below the abdomen, the chakra of the

lower vital.

Manipura is at the navel-centre where the lower vital ends. Anahata is our heart-centre which is the seat of the psychic

and the higher vital.

Vishuddha is at the throat-centre, the centre of speech. Ajna chakra is located between the eyebrows. This is the

seat of the will-power, the seat of the will and psychic vision. Sahasrara is at the crown of the head, the centre of the

Overmind.

Besides these chakras the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have spoken of two other chakras, one at the knee and the other at the soles. The knee-chakra is the seat of the subconscious. There is a visible connection with the subconscious here.

And the sole of the foot is the seat of the Inconscient. Those who call this body the seat or altar of sadhana do it because truly with the body we can interact with the whole

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world and the Infinite Consciousness. With the help of each chakra we come into contact with a different plane.

It is like the doors and windows in a house. By opening a door or a window you get into touch with a particular part of the outer world. These chakras too are all subtle centres of being, the centroids of consciousness as it were.

Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is the sadhana of Integral Transformation whereby this body will become the Divine Body and the Divine or Supramental Consciousness will illuminate and take root in this very physical consciousness.

The mind of man acts today only within the confines of the unconscious, ignorant world. But as this mind becomes increasingly purified, illuminated and wide so will the cosmic and the Infinite Consciousness infuse his being. The flame of a lamp diffuses its light all around. The flame and-the circle of light it diffuses is what we can call the whole lamp. This body too is then a centre of an all-pervasive, infinite Force of Consciousness. This mind will be a fort of Light, dense with knowledge, what Sri Aurobindo has called the "Mind of Light".

I have felt that this Mind of Light must certainly also have a corresponding point or chakra in this body.

And so I checked all the chakras that are there in the different parts of our body. These are all the centroids of consciousness under whose pressure the various glands in the human body function. It is under the signals of the consciousness that they obey and create the different kinds of hormones. These are called chemical messengers and it is they who carry the information from the consciousness throughout the body. And thus arise in the body all kinds of feelings and sensations, and actions and reactions are regulated.

I feel that there is a new centre or chakra behind the head, just on top of the spinal column where the pituitary gland is located. This pituitary gland. is connected to the hypothalamus and the pineal gland. The hypothalamus controls

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and regulates the hormones of the pituitary gland. And so if we can control the chakra that surrounds the pituitary gland and make it work in a disciplined manner then our body will be able to develop a certain equanimity and balance. The different voluntary and involuntary muscles will be able to work in greater harmony. If someone can exert perfect control over this chakra, perfect control over the proper functioning of the glands in accordance with the body's needs, then he can gain total mastery over the body. Because all the movements of physical energy expressed in different actions and moods are controlled by its band-master and his signals. That is why if we can exert control over this then we will have conquered the decay of the body. We could stop the onset of this decay. If we can bring this chakra under our total control then we could attain even physical immortality.

What Sri Aurobindo has called the "Mind of Light" will be able to work out with the intervention of this chakra the conjunction of the Supramental and the physical being.

This chakra that surrounds the pituitary gland is the centroid of the "Mind of Light" in our body, the point where the mind and the body meet and become one.'

Dada wrote a brief note about this discovery in a diary given to him by the Mother. Here is that note:

17.1.55

It seems there is a new centre at the base of the hind brain. The pituitary gland is also situated here. As its proper functioning brings harmony and balance in the physical being and gives perfect co-ordination of the different muscles of the body (both voluntary and involuntary) so if one has got perfect control over this centre and can make the gland work according to the physical need at each moment then one will have perfect control over one's body. It will then function properly, the decay will be stopped, and the

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movements that bring the decay can be prevented. Thus perfect control and mastery over this centre may bring physical immortality.

Sri Aurobindo has spoken of 'Mind of Light' that will serve as the liaison between the supermind and the physical being. Perhaps this centre is the seat of the 'Mind of Light' in the body.

*

Dada was sitting that day as if lost in thought. Very quiet. Then Chandranath asked very gently:

'Dada, you surely have to fight against all sorts of things in the subtle world?'

'Yes, it does happen,' Dada replied. 'All kinds of adverse forces, evil formations. Once I saw that someone had grabbed me from behind and was trying to stab me with a dagger through my chest. I was unable to see his face but I seized his wrist holding the dagger and began resisting it away from my chest. After quite some time that hand and the dagger vanished.

On another occasion, not very long ago, I saw in front of me a terrifying face like a pot. Horrible and ugly and leaning over my face. So I screamed out in order to scare it away. Hearing my scream that horrible face disappeared. I made such a sound with my scream that even Savitri and Shanti woke up and came running towards me.'

'Dada, you dwell very high in the overmind and the supermind, don't you?' Chandranath asked again.

'Almost everyone has some sort of contact or the other with the overmind or the supermind and goes there but they do not know this. They also meet the gods. Almost everyone has seen God and keeps seeing Him. But they do not realise this, that is the difference. The main thing is to be able to see the Divine, to be able to get the Darshan of the gods in a fully conscious way.'

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