Moments Eternal

The Body and Integral Yoga

How can one ever forget those days, Anju, Paroma? You too have grown up right from childhood sheltered in the Mother’s Love. The Mother’s laughter, the Mother’s words are still glowing in the treasure-house of your memory. Once you have known and received the Divine Mother Herself as your mother and as your friend, the very tenor of your life changes. The heart’s lyre is always heard in the strain:

Ey sansarey dori karey raja jaar ma maheshwari.

(Whom need I fear in this world, O king, when my mother is Mother Maheshwari herself?)

As a human being rests in happy confidence under a tree, we too began gradually growing up trustingly under the Mother’s Love. Without a thought, without a worry but with one single aim: to keep moving towards the Mother. There was no rest in this movement nor an end. From time immemorial we human beings have been moving towards Her, carrying the glowing torch of aspiration in our hand. A hundred Nachiketas have been born within us or rather the Mother awakened them with Her golden wand. What endless questions, endless curiosity in those hundred Nachiketas about this new life! And so on every Wednesday and Friday the Mother would sit in front of the map of India in the Playground and answer those endless questions in easy French in a simple way. The Mother wanted to light in Her children an ardent longing for the Divine, for Light, for Ananda, for Freedom, for Immortality. And year after year, those inexhaustible question-answer sessions carried us human beings forward in that conscious yearning for the Divine.

Like the sunflower, we were always turned to the Mother and our new life unfolded. A sense of total trust and openness was instilled in us in every cell by the Mother, our universal Mother. Let me give you some instances of this total openness and trust. Whatever the little ones do is extraordinary, isn’t it? You have a fever? Go and tell Mother. The Mother looks at the little boy for a few seconds. A smile dawns on the boy’s face. As soon as he wakes up from sleep, his fever has disappeared! What? Did I ever have fever?

I am reminded here of Kaké, Tara and Lata’s brother. After finishing all Her work in the Playground, the Mother used to sit and attentively watch the captains’ exercises. With limitless patience Pranab would teach each captain vaulting, parallel bars, freehand exercises and all kinds of other things. During this time, I would sit with Gauri and several others near the Mother. One day, suddenly, Kaké who must have been about four then, came out of Dortoir (a children’s boarding in the Playground) and went straight in front of the Mother. Very quietly he took the Mother’s footstool from under Her Feet and sat down near Her without the slightest fear or hesitation. He looked at the Mother, smiled a little and then became absorbed in watching the captains exercising. The Mother too smiled tenderly at Kaké. And from then Kaké would regularly come and sit on the Mother’s footstool near Her. Like a sweet little puppy.

Hema and Prema too did something similar. The Mother was sitting, watching the tug-of-war at the Sportsground with tremendous interest. All of a sudden two bright pretty little girls appeared from nowhere and came and sat down near the Mother’s Feet as if that spot had been kept for them. They sat there and started watching the game attentively. We were quite astounded to see that the two little girls had not the slightest fear or hesitation in doing this. Like two puppies they sat near the Mother’s Feet in total openness and trust. The Mother kept looking at them from time to time. The little ones had this kind of relationship. They looked upon the Mother as their best friend. And on the strength of this intimacy and openness they began to progress. The Mother’s Grace and the children’s boundless trust began working even in the atoms of the body. The Mother has asked for this work to be done? That was it! Everyone ran excitedly to accomplish that work, however difficult or strenuous it might be. A flood of ananda flowed over the Ashram then.

From 1950, the activities in the Playground were in full swing. Before the sporting activities started, the captain of each respective group would assemble his boys and girls in a line. The children were all quiet and disciplined. It started with ‘concentration’. The body was first consecrated at the Mother’s Feet before starting the activities. And there was another ‘concentration’ at the end of these activities. During the second ‘concentration’ even as they offered all the activities they had done that day, a silent prayer went up from each of us that we may be blessed with a healthy body. Such a great way of doing karmayoga and sadhana simultaneously (in the guise of sports!). This was taking place for the first time, not just in the Ashram, but on the whole earth! To have children doing the sadhana! And the Integral Yoga on top of it! And this agni-tapasya started with work on the body. The Playground became the field for life’s sadhana. Unknown to the children the great work was initiated to enable the Mother’s Force and Light to work even in the gross human body.

That is why I said sadhana in the guise of sports! How difficult this sadhana is! You cannot ignore the body. Annam Brahman, Matter also is Brahman! Until now the body had been rejected from the path of sadhana but now the Mother radically changed the course of such thinking. So great is the weight of this change that we might be able to understand its full import only in the future. The Divine Light shall break upon this earthly body itself.

The elderly watched the younger ones with great affection and stupefied wonder as the Mother’s new unimaginable mode of action unfolded! The seriousness and sobriety of speech and action brought about by centuries of hard and severe tapasya began melting under the glow of the children’s cheerful energy. The elderly also began participating in the Mother’s new way of action. They seemed as if rejuvenated in body, mind and spirit.

As soon as we entered the Playground we all felt a new atmosphere, as if we were in fairyland. As if a festival of ananda was on. The solemn seriousness of the elderly was removed by the Mother. And the elderly with new-found eagerness also joined joyfully in the Mother’s karmayoga, this sadhana of the transformation of the body. They began mixing with the children as friends. Nolini-da, Pavitra-da, Amrita-da, Dyuman-bhai, Purani-ji, Nirod-da and many others became our best friends. We could speak with them most freely. In the beginning we used to say about them (of course, behind their backs!) that these were people who were forbidden to laugh! When the elderly got into their group uniforms they started feeling young! What enthusiasm they put into their marching and exercise! Enjoying themselves just like kids! The Mother had wiped out the notion of age from all of us. All began breathing the air of the New World in the Playground. I feel like saying:

Meditation forget, leave flowers aside!

Let clothes tear, on dust-clouds let’s

ride! In Her karmayoga let us join all,

What if from our bodies sweat does fall!

Nolini-da’s eightieth birthday was wonderful proof of this notion of age having been wiped out from the grown-ups’ mind. The devotees from Calcutta, the children of the Mother all decided to celebrate Nolini-da’s eightieth birthday with great festivity.

They asked for the Mother’s permission but She refused. Nolini-da says:

I may narrate here a little incident concerning me personally. It was with regard to the question of age. When someone informed Mother that they wanted to celebrate, perhaps it was my eightieth birthday, in a magnificent manner, a gala celebration, Mother roared out: “No, no, you are spoiling my work. All the while I was trying to make him forget his age and you are trying to insist on his age.’’

Age also is a thing to be forgotten.

The elderly understood that the sadhana for the transformation of the body had now begun. A great change had come about in the life of the Ashram.

I remember 1941. I had come with Tapati and our father for the first time. It was for the Darshan of 15th August, Sri Aurobindo’s birthday. It is impossible to forget that tranquil, pure atmosphere. One automatically became indrawn on entering the Ashram. Such a massive peace reigned over the Ashram! Every sadhak and sadhika was in a meditative state. They spoke very little. Every moment of their life was a conscious endeavour to consecrate themselves at the Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s feet. It is thanks to them that we have received clear directions and guidance in dealing with the various problems and difficulties on the path of sadhana, in the ways of preparing oneself for this path. They used to write innumerable letters to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo about their difficulties. Every volume of Letters of Sri Aurobindo was such a help to all of us.

These were the same people who on the Mother’s guidance began participating in the Playground activities. They resolved to try and harmonise the inward and the outward life with the aim of following this new path of sadhana: All life is Yoga. They took to it with great ease and simplicity. Nolini-da has described beautifully how these people felt on entering the Playground:

…As soon as we stepped into the Playground, a new atmosphere enveloped us, a new life full of joy, happiness and delight and freedom. When we put on our group uniform, we felt quite different from what we were normally. Old people with their blue shorts in our group, really old people—felt very young, youthful and trotting about as if they had left their age behind with all their cares.

Let me now tell you something about the elderly women. They too began participating in daily marching and other sports. They did not feel any hesitation or difficulty in adapting to shorts. They had all gone through the grind of worldly life from a very young age. Their lives had been lived within very narrow confines and constraints. They broke the confines of that rigid life and society in order to take up the path of Integral Yoga. And they deserve all our respect. On the Mother’s instruction these grown-up women let go instantaneously of all of their social habits and traditions. These grown-up women were proof of how easily the Mother’s Force works with women. In a second the Mother broke the age-old shackles that had bound women so inextricably. Sahana-di, Amiyadi, Aruna-di (Sahana-di’s elder sisters), Rani-di, Swarna-di (Minu’s mother), Usha-di (Tejen-da’s wife), Mota Kakima (Pranab’s aunt), Prafullamayi-di (Pranab’s mother), Vimla-di, Abha-di and many other elderly women took to shorts quite easily and joined the marching. In the general marching everyone, old, young, men, women, boys, girls participated with a lot of gusto. You cannot imagine how difficult it was for the elderly women to do this marching.

Shorts! And on elderly women besides! There was a flutter all around. The Mother wanted to show through them that there was no difference between men and women. It was difficult even for the disciples of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to accept easily that girls should wear shorts, not to mention people from outside. How many letters full of criticism, anger and spiteful slander were sent to the Mother.

For Her, the marching was a challenge. Be it society, be it the world, be it age, nothing could dissuade Her. The most amazing thing was that these women had been wearing saris right from the age of ten or so. And their saris were worn in a very traditional style. Always under the strict eye of the elderly in the family. Even the young girls were not spared. Thus it is easy to understand what a huge challenge it was for these women to suddenly get into shorts. The elderly men did not have this feeling, though. They did not have to go through any revolution as far as their dress was concerned.