Moments Eternal

Ah, if only I could recreate those moments!

After the Mother’s physical passing, evening meditations were started in the Ashram main building. So I started going to the Ashram in the evenings. The lights would be turned off and everybody became absorbed in meditation. I would sit at the entrance of the Meditation Hall. The moonlight suffused the night all around and everything looked simply entrancing. The soft gentle breeze stilled our minds and then proceeded to offer its obeisance at the Feet of the Mother, like a friend.

After the meditation, one evening, as I was returning home with Jyoti, I remembered a childhood prank of mine. In fact I cannot help thinking about this whenever it is the fortnight of the waxing moon. And as we walked on that deserted moonlit street, I recounted that incident to Jyoti.

I had just settled here permanently. The year was 1944. I used to go in the evenings for a walk along the seafront all alone and I enjoyed this immensely. The walk naturally would become even lovelier during the fortnight when the moon was in its waxing phase. I used to enjoy sitting and watching the sea for a long time as I was greatly attracted by the sea.

It was a full moon night. The sea looked so enchanting that I could not bring myself away. So I just kept sitting there. When I finally got back home I realised that it was half-past nine.

I noticed that the Mother gave me flowers in a somewhat serious mood. I just could not figure out what the matter was. Neither did I have the courage to ask Her. I could not sleep at night and kept sitting in front of the sea longer and longer overcome with sadness, almost depressed. Only when I felt a little lighter would I return home. One day when I went to the Mother I found Her very serious indeed and I just blurted out:

“But what have I done, Mother? Why do You give me flowers with that stern expression? You know I have come here only for You.”

And as I said this my throat choked with grief. The Mother answered:

“You spend a long time on the seafront. You wander about all alone till very late at night.”

I was quite surprised and I told the Mother with great earnestness:

“Yes, Mother, I sit by the sea for a long time. I really enjoy it. Especially now when the moon is waxing. The sea looks so enchanting. I’ll take you tomorrow for a walk on the seafront. You’ll see how much You really love it! Will You come?”

The Mother held me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. Her eyes were smiling. I was slightly taken aback.

“Listen,” the Mother said, “the war is on at this moment. There is a blackout in the town. It is not right for you to go at such a time to the sea all alone. Moreover, you know how rickshaw pullers get drunk in the evenings and move around. Make sure that you are home by nine.”

I fell from the sky. Why hadn’t She told me this much earlier? All these days I had spent feeling downcast!

When the Japanese were bombing Cox-Bazaar we were in Feni. On Sri Aurobindo’s directions our family was the only one that had stayed on in that deserted town for quite some time. And we never felt the slightest fear at any time. Then when we went to Calcutta, the curfew was on there too. The Japanese went on bombing but I did not feel frightened at all. Tapati and I continued to study in the room on the terrace and as soon as the siren was sounded we would go under the staircase and quietly stand behind the sandbags like everyone else. And when the all-clear signal was given, we would return to the terrace to study. At that time the young did not pay much attention to the war and the soldiers. At Feni our school, college and the three or four hostels for boys were situated just beyond the open field in front of our house. During the war the soldiers had occupied all these places. We did not know anything called fear. As soon as the Mother mentioned the war, all those memories of our life overtook me. A girl who had lived her childhood through wars and blackouts—how could such a girl be scared of the blackouts in Pondicherry?

I gratefully bowed before the Mother, extremely surprised to see Her concern for a girl who had newly come to the Ashram. How She thought about each and every child of Hers. And that day’s incident was quite inconceivable for a young girl who had just arrived in the Ashram. After a long time, I slept peacefully once again.

*

That day the Mother was not to meet anyone after the balcony darshan. I was leaning against the gate of the ‘Mother’s kitchen’ opposite the balcony and thinking that I would not be able to meet the Mother. In the meantime, the Mother appeared at the balcony. I stood there, my eyes fixed on Her as I filled myself with Her presence knowing that She would not meet anyone later that day. As the Mother was re-entering Her room She stopped on the threshold, turned and signalled to me to come up. Everybody had left and the balcony street was empty then. I stood a while leaning against the gate of the ‘Mother’s kitchen’ on the same spot where I would always stand and wait for the Mother for the balcony darshan. And even today whenever I take that street my eyes automatically look up at the balcony. Who knows when She might suddenly appear and bless me with Her darshan! Anyway, after a lot of hesitation I finally entered the Ashram and nervously went up the stairs to go to the Mother’s room. As I entered I saw Her arranging flowers. On seeing me She at once remarked:

“Ah! So you understood that I was calling you?”

I stood there, a little shy. The Mother gave me a handful of flowers and blessed me. I swam in a sea of bliss all through the day. Isn’t it puzzling how the slightest prayer somehow reaches the Mother?

*

Tapati and I went to work in the morning. I noticed that everyone, Baudi (Rajsena Nahar), Sujata, Sumitra, Suprabha, Shivani-di and a host of others were busy tidying up things at the Press. Such enthusiasm filled everyone! The Mother had told Chitra that She would come to visit the Press in the afternoon. Chitra was running about everywhere doing a lot of work. Come afternoon we all stood up and waited for the Mother. The Mother entered but did not look at anyone. She went into every room, stood near the machines and asked a number of questions. We followed Her everywhere close behind.

In one of the rooms a chair was arranged for the Mother to sit. She came into this room, inspected everything and sat down in this chair. A bag of toffees was kept near Her chair. We all stood in a line and received a toffee from Her one after another. Then we went back to our spots and continued looking at Her. Now it was Chitra’s turn. She looked rather glum and I wondered what was wrong with her. Then the Mother returned to the Ashram.

When I went to the Mother in the evening, the Mother asked me with some concern:

“Do you know what was wrong with Chitra? I found her very glum while I was distributing toffees at the Press.”

“Mother, it was Chitra whom You informed about going to the Press. She did everything with a lot of eagerness, tidying and arranging everything. She really put in a lot of hard work. We all worked very hard, Mother. But You came to the Press and did not look at us even once. Poor Chitra is the youngest amongst us and so she must have felt a little hurt.”

The Mother heard me and went into a trance. After a while She gave me a flower-blessing and I went down. A little girl had come to Her looking slightly sad and even that received the Mother’s attention. Nothing escaped Her eye, however small!

In this way how many such little frailties and shortcomings in us were picked up by the Mother! And She always tried to help us get over these human weaknesses. Truly we learnt so much from Her.

To wipe out sorrow in this life, we cannot hope.

But strength to bear that sorrow, O grant us in our heart.

*

The Mother came down to distribute flower-blessings to everyone after ten. We watched Her sitting in the hall and giving to each one a flower according to his or her need. And each person bowed gratefully before Her before leaving. After awhile I noticed that She was looking towards Bula-da’s room. In fact that is where people were lining up to come to the Mother in the Meditation Hall. Malavika-di was also standing there in the line and I realised that the Mother was actually looking in Her direction. Malavika-di used to suffer terribly from sciatica. I noticed that she was dragging herself with great pain towards the Meditation Hall in order to get the flower-blessing from the Mother’s hand. Malavika-di’s pain did not escape the Mother’s eye as She kept focussing on her painful leg. Even after she had taken the flower from Her hand, the Mother continued watching her leg as she limped away. One day, I told Malavika-di about this incident and she was deeply moved and her eyes welled up with tears of joyous gratitude. Thus she got from the Mother’s infinite Grace, the strength to battle against pain and disease.

*

I went to see the Mother in the morning. Everyone was standing in line on the staircase. In front of me stood little Lucy, Baudi’s daughter, who was also waiting to go to the Mother. She had in her right hand a beautiful, small bottle of perfume. It must have been French. Lucy was very fond of this perfume. And she had brought her favourite thing to offer to the Mother.

“Bonjour, Lucy,” the Mother greeted her as soon as she entered Her room.

“Bonjour, Douce Mère,” Lucy replied and handed Her the perfume.

The Mother looked delighted as She inspected the bottle from different angles. Then She showered Lucy with all Her caresses and gave her many different flowers. A little girl had given away her most-loved thing: that is the real value of ‘offering’.

*

An incident comes to my mind. Father had planted a pumpkin plant at home. The plant began yielding huge pumpkins. Father kept the biggest of the lot aside. One day he announced: “I will give this pumpkin to the Mother. I’ll take it to the

Playground and offer it to Her.” I was taken aback and said:

“You’re certainly not going to the Playground with that pumpkin!”

Father did not say anything.

I went happily to the Playground that evening as usual. The Mother was distributing toffees to the group after the Gymnastic Marching. What did I see at the end of the line? Father! Advancing towards the Mother with that pumpkin in his arms! The Mother inspected the pumpkin for quite a while. I was dying of shame in the meantime and furious with father as everybody was giggling away.

We ran and waited near the Garage in the Ashram for the Mother’s car to arrive, for one more darshan. The car came and stopped but the Mother did not come out. She called for Dyuman-da who came running. The Mother showed him the pumpkin and asked him to take it to Her room on the firstfloor. Only after Dyuman-da had taken the pumpkin away, did the Mother come out of the car. I cannot tell you how very embarrassed I felt. The Mother went directly upstairs. She had brought back with Her a commonplace pumpkin in the car! Father’s dream of offering the pumpkin to the Mother was fulfilled.

It was only later that I understood that more than the thing being offered, however ordinary that might be, it was the earnestness that was more precious in the Mother’s eyes. What was important to the Mother was not what was given but how it was given.

The story of Bhakta Sudama naturally comes to mind. He went to Sri Krishna’s royal court carefully carrying in his chaddar a fistful of humble nadus (a rural sweet of Bengal) for his childhood friend. But then on seeing Sri Krishna in his royal robes he felt a little embarrassed and hesitant about giving his simple offering to his friend. So Sri Krishna himself asked for the nadus. He sat on his royal seat and joyfully began relishing those rice nadus.

*

One day the Mother said:

You know I have prepared a straight path, a path by which the soul can go directly to the psychic world. It does not have to go through, after death, the suffering of the vital world. If someone leaves even with a little bit of desire then the vital beings will follow. And they cause a lot of suffering. Just imagine the state of the soul then. It is in that terrible state that one can understand how much the body protects the soul. Haven’t you ever had a nightmare? As if someone is pursuing you. You want to be safe from them and you cannot stop running…and then you wake up with a start. You were convinced that you were fine in your bed but in reality you had gone out of your body. Some vital being was pursuing you. As soon as you reentered your body and the soul found its shelter you were safe from this vital being. You woke up. So you understand how man has to suffer after death. The soul then has left the body. It is in a terrible state then.

This path that I have created, it is just a quick passage after death directly into the psychic world. You must remember me just at the time of death. From wherever the call comes, in whatever condition, I will be present there. I will take the soul safely straight to the psychic world. You have to call me.

So I asked Her:

“But does everyone know You? Then? Very few people know that You are here.”

The Mother listened to me, then laughed.

“Am I present only in this particular body? Whenever anyone calls the Divine in any form from anywhere, I am present. I am after all the Mother.”

Here I remember those famous lines from Nishikanto.

Here in human forms you tread

On golden path by silence led.

How many are they who know you are

On this earth immense in wordless tread?

*

31st December 1954

New Year’s Eve. It was a Wednesday. The Mother distributed the New Year’s message in the class and everybody waited eagerly to hear what the Mother would say. The class started with the Mother’s announcement:

This message was written because it is foreseen that next year will be a difficult year and there will be many inner struggles and even outer ones perhaps. So I tell all of you what attitude you should take in these circumstances. These difficulties may perhaps last not only twelve months, that is, one full year, but perhaps fourteen months; and during these fourteen months you must make an effort never to lose the attitude about which I am going to speak to you just now.

In fact, I insist that the more difficult things are, the more you must remain quiet, and the more should you have an unshakable faith. Of all things this is the most important.

Usually, as soon as things become difficult, human beings get agitated, become irritated, get terribly excited and they make the difficulties ten times more difficult. So I am warning you right away that this is not to be done, that you must do the opposite; and what I am going to read to you is precisely what you must repeat to yourself as soon as you feel some anxiety or worry within you; you must remember what I am telling you today and remember it throughout the year. You can repeat it morning and evening profitably.

First She read the message in French and then in English:

No human will can finally prevail against the Divine’s Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain.

But She did not give us any further hint. She just kept repeating that tremendous obstacles and difficulties lay ahead. We would need to battle for fourteen months.

The path of sadhana, especially Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s chosen path is full of hardships, a path on which one needs to wage huge battles at every step. And now the whole of 1955 lay ahead.

Man’s life moves forward only through suffering and hardship. He learns to progressively recognise himself only through painful blows.

I recognised myself in blow after blow, in pain after pain. And so when the Mother kept repeating that the coming fourteen months were going to be testing times, we were all naturally a little crestfallen.

But the Mother also uttered a few words of hope. After telling us at length about the tremendous hardships and obstacles that lay in store for 1955, the Mother read out the following poem by Sri Aurobindo:

One Day

The little More

One day, and all the half-dead is done,

One day, and all the unborn begun;

A little path and the great goal,

A touch that brings the divine whole.

Hill after hill was climbed and now,

Behold, the last tremendous brow

And the great rock that none has trod:

A step, and all is sky and God.

Then She read four lines of another poem by Sri Aurobindo:

Even in rags I am a god;

Fallen, I am divine;

High I triumph when down-trod,

Long I live when slain.

I understood that tough times were ahead. We had to get ready for fourteen months of great disturbance and difficulty.

Not the awful echo of rustling forest is this,

But the ocean swelling with python’s hiss.

The class ended with a lot of questions and answers.

We began resolutely preparing ourselves for the hardships and difficulties of the new year. In just a few hours the new year — 1955 — would be upon us. Carrying high hopes and enthusiasm we vowed to overcome all obstacles.

O Bird of my Heart, O dear Bird mine,

Flutter not in darkness, cease not from forward flight!

The Mother had packed into Her message all the power and energy needed to battle against the tremendous obstacles in the coming year. We had understood from the Mother’s words that in fourteen months some new, extraordinary event was to take place. Everyone eagerly waited as the seconds ticked away. Days and months rolled by.

With bated breath the universe waits, Still, solitary, mute witness of Time.

Fourteen months were now almost over. The final moment was near. What was going to happen? On 1st January 1956 we received from the Mother Her New Year Message:

The greatest victories are the least noisy.

The manifestation of a new world is not proclaimed by beat of drum.

And so we all waited with bated breath. And finally breaking through all the obstacles and resistances, the victorious, irresistible Supramental Light came down onto the earth. Our waiting had come to an end, although we could not actually see the event.

On one Wednesday evening, in the Playground, during the meditation after the class, the Supramental Light came down with full force in the most unimaginable way. There was an uncontrollable, irresistible power in the descent. It was the

29th of February 1956. Just as the Mother had announced, the descent of this new Light took place exactly fourteen months later.

The grown-ups had been talking about the manifestation of the Supramental Light for quite a few years. “You will see that the Supramental Light will descend in our Playground itself.” The astonishing thing is that it did happen there. How a thought enters the human consciousness is truly amazing! It might be more apt to call it an intuition rather than a thought.

It was later that we came to know from the Mother something about the Supramental Light. On 29th February 1960 during the special blessing, the Mother revealed what had happened in 1956:

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine.

As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that “the time has come,” and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow, one single blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.

Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

She explained later:

What happened on February 29, 1956, is not so much a vision or an experience as something done. During the Evening Meditation in the Playground, I went up into the Supermind, and saw that something needed to be done, and I did it.

It is interesting to note that the words “The time has come” which express what I simultaneously knew and willed when I found myself in front of the massive door on whose other side was the world, were heard by me in English and not in French. It was as if Sri Aurobindo had spoken them.

When I came down from the Supermind after that flood of light had swept all over the universe, I thought that since the outpour was so stupendous everybody who had been sitting before me in the Playground would be lying flat! But on opening my eyes I saw everyone still sitting up quietly: they seemed perfectly unconscious of what had happened!

After the descent of the Supramental Light, the Mother modified the last four lines of Her prayer of 25th September 1914 in Prayers and Meditations from:

The Lord hast willed and thou dost execute;

A new Light shall break upon the earth.

A new world shall be born,

And the things that were promised shall be fulfilled.

to:

Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute

A new light breaks upon the earth.

A new world is born,

The things that were promised are fulfilled.

We used to recite this prayer of the Mother every morning and we still do. At the very beginning of the prayer She addresses the Divine Mother:

O Divine and adorable Mother, with thy help what is there that is impossible?

After the manifestation of the Supramental Light, the Mother finally revealed Herself to the earth. Thou dost execute was changed to I execute as the universe heard in hushed wonder the Mother’s proclamation.

In 1956 on 24th April, the Mother said:

The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.

It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.

On 10 July 1957, during the class in the Playground, the Mother emphasised that a new world is born, born, born. It is not the old one transforming itself, it is a new world which is born.

And this was the message She distributed on the first ‘anniversary’:

29.2.60

The Golden Day

Henceforth the 29th February will be the day of the Lord.

The Mother