Moments Eternal

Our Mother of Mystery

Chitra, Suprabha, Tapati and I used to study German with Medhananda-da. We translated the Mother’s book, La Découverte Suprême with him. In fact, the final German version that came out was our translation with Medhananda-da’s corrections and modifications. Obviously the effort was ours. One evening the four of us along with Medhananda-da went to the Playground and surrounded the Mother. We told Her with a lot of enthusiasm:

“We must publish La Découverte Suprême, Mother. We need one of your photographs.”

The Mother simply smiled. We were a little taken aback. The Mother then said:

“It’s a good idea to have a photo of me in this book — but which one?”

“That’s exactly why we’ve come to you. Tell us, which photograph shall we use?”

The Mother kept smiling. After some time She said:

“Why don’t you use a photo of me which shows how I

would look at a hundred?”

And She burst out laughing. We somehow could not fathom this mysterious utterance of the Mother.

Before our eyes emerged the picture of an extraordinarily young and beautiful woman. We were firmly convinced that the Mother’s body would indeed be transformed when She was a hundred. Her body would be integrally transformed with the light of the Supermind. Our hearts filled up with an unearthly joy at that thought.

On seeing our reaction the Mother once again broke into laughter.

But Her exquisitely beautiful face kept swimming before my eyes. What a face, unforgettable!

One day, just as the Mother was entering the Tennis Ground, an Ashram photographer came forward to take a picture. The Mother looked at him and said with a laugh:

“Don’t take a photo now. Take one when I am a hundred years old!”

And She broke into the limpid laughter of a young girl. I was standing next to the Mother and we were all taken aback. What was this mystery coming from the Mother? How could we humans get a clue to understand Her utterances and Her acts? She kept everything about Her cloaked behind a veil of mystery.

Many years later, (the Mother had left her physical body by then), I was coming out of the Ashram when one of the elderly sadhaks offered me a flower called ‘Psychological Perfection’ by the Mother. At once it flashed on my mind that almost every evening when the Mother used to come down to the Meditation Hall, She blessed everyone by giving this flower. I do not know why but I just could not help exclaiming:

“When the Mother comes back, we will once again receive this flower from Her hand.”

I realised what I had said and felt a little embarrassed.

“Do not mind what I just said,” I quickly added, “I always feel that the Mother is coming back.”

The sadhak replied removing my discomfort:

“Of course, She will return. You are absolutely right.” I could feel his profound conviction in what he said.

“Let me tell you something. Many years ago, I once went to the Mother for some work. After telling me various things the Mother suddenly remarked:

“‘I am going to leave this body.’

“I just stood there in stunned disbelief. I had never imagined that I would hear this.

“‘I shall give up this body, no doubt, but I shall return. And you will be able to recognise me because my new body will look exactly like the present one.’”

I was thrilled on hearing this from an old sadhak. An unearthly joy filled my whole being in silence.

“I hope when the Mother comes back, we will still be there to see Her.”

The sadhak looked at me slightly dismayed and said: “This thought has never crossed my mind.”

And saying this he went on his way to wherever he was going. I just stood there speechless. The Mother shall surely return, this thought kept going round and round in my head.

The Mother has said many things about this new body to Satprem. She even described Her form. This description was so vibrant that we all felt that it was this body of the Mother that would take on that new form. But Satprem understood at once with his sharp intelligence and asked the Mother:

“Hasn’t this new form entered your subtle body already?”

The Mother changed the topic and started speaking about something else. If this is not the sweet maya of the Mother then what is? In Notes on the Way, the Mother has given such detailed descriptions of the transformation of each envelope of the body, but it is beyond our capacity to understand that She is describing the transformation of Her subtle body. How we used to impatiently wait for each coming issue of the Bulletin! Who knew that the Mother would leave this present body? She had covered our understanding with Her sweet maya.

Sri Aurobindo has written in The Mother:

All the scenes of the earth play have been like a drama arranged and planned and staged by her with the cosmic Gods for her assistants and herself as a veiled actor.

The Mother had determined all the events from before but we could not grasp that with our intelligence, we did not have a clue. Champaklal-ji told Sri Aurobindo one day:

“I cannot understand how Mother could give different explanations to different people, different answers to different persons, for the same person, for the same question.”

Sri Aurobindo replied gravely: “She has her reason for saying it.”

When the Samadhi was prepared for Sri Aurobindo, the Mother had already made arrangements at that time to make a second chamber above Sri Aurobindo’s. However, we could not understand anything. Why, we could not even imagine it in our dreams. The Mother after all is “a veiled actor”.

Sri Aurobindo has written in his Bases of Yoga:

The ways of the Divine are not like those of the human mind or according to our patterns and it is impossible to judge them or to lay down for Him what He shall or shall not do, for the Divine knows better than we can know. If we admit the Divine at all, both true reason and bhakti seem to me to be at one in demanding implicit faith and surrender.