Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

54

Mirra's Prayers

Mirra continued to confide her thoughts to her diary, which we know as the Prayers and Meditations of The Mother. Shall we have a look at some of those pages between her arrival at Pondicherry and Sri Aurobindo's birthday?

"Pondicherry, March 29, 1914." It was a Sunday.

"O Thou whom we must know, understand, realise, absolute Consciousness, eternal Law, Thou who guides and enlightens us, who determinest and inspirest, grant that these weak souls may be strengthened and those who are fearful may be reassured. To Thee I confide them, in the same way as I confide to Thee the destinies of all of us."

Then Mirra met Sri Aurobindo. On March 30 she wrote:

"How in the presence of those who are integrally Thy servitors, of those who have arrived at the perfect consciousness of Thy presence, I perceive that I am still far, very far, from that which I would realise; and I know that what I conceive to be highest, noblest and purest is still dark and ignorant in comparison with that which I have to conceive. But this perception, far from being depressing, stimulates and strengthens my aspiration, my energy, my will to triumph over all obstacles so

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as to be at last identified with Thy law and Thy work.

"Little by little the horizon becomes precise, the path becomes clear. And we advance to an ever greater certitude.

"It matters not if there are hundreds of beings plunged in the densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, when Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.

"O Lord, Divine Builder of this marvel, my heart overflows with joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope is boundless.

"My adoration surpasses all words and my reverence is silent."

After her second meeting with Sri Aurobindo, when her mental constructions so carefully built up over the years had crumbled and she had hugged the gift of silence, Mirra wrote on April 1:

"It seems to me that we have entered into the heart of Thy sanctuary and become aware of Thy will itself. A great joy, a deep peace reign in me, and yet all my inner constructions have vanished like a vain dream, and I find myself now before Thy immensity, without any frame or system, like a being not yet individualised. All that past, in its external form, appears to me ridiculous and arbitrary, and yet I know that it was useful in its time.

"But at present all is changed: a new stage has begun."

Mirra continued on April 3. "It seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that

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what was once a result is now only a preparation. I feel as if I had done nothing yet, as if I had not lived the spiritual life, as if I was only entering upon the way which leads to it; it seems to me that I know nothing, that I am incapable of formulating anything, that all experience is yet to commence. It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new-born whose whole existence has yet to take shape, who has no Karma, no experience it can profit by, but no error either which it must repair. My head is empty of all knowledge and all certitude, but also of all vain thought. I feel that if I can surrender without any resistance to this state, if I do not strive to know or understand, if I consent to be completely like a child, ignorant and candid, some new possibility will open before me. I know that I must now definitely give myself up and be like a page absolutely blank on which Thy thought, Thy will, O Lord, will be able to inscribe themselves freely, secure against all deformation.

"An immense gratitude rises from my heart, I seem to have at last arrived at the threshold which I have sought so long.

"Grant, O Lord, that I may be pure enough, impersonal enough, animated enough with Thy divine love, to be able to cross it definitively.

"O to belong to Thee, without any darkness or restriction."

On April 4 Mirra wrote: "This body is Thy instrument; this will is Thy servant; this intelligence is Thy tool, and the whole is only Thyself."

Remember Sri Aurobindo telling the boys that "he had never seen anywhere a self-surrender so absolute and unreserved" ?

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In its deep lotus home her being sat As if on concentration's marble seat

Savitri, WI.V.166

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That very day Sri Aurobindo noted in his Yoga diary: "... It has also been fixed in the thought for the beginning of a new period in the siddhi, when the Yoga is to be applied fully to life; for it is the fourth anniversary of my arrival in Pondicherry."

Oh, how I wish I could go on quoting from Mirra's diary! But I refrain myself. At any rate her prayer rose more and more ardent. "Suddenly the veil was rent, the horizon was disclosed." When she was in Karikal, on April 13, Mirra wrote: "All conspires to prevent me from remaining a being of habits, and in this new state, in the midst of these complex and unstable circumstances, I have never so completely lived Thy immutable peace, or the T has never so completely disappeared leaving Thy divine peace to live alone. All is beautiful, harmonious and calm, all is full of Thee. Thou shiniest in the dazzling sun, Thou makest Thyself felt in the sweet breeze that blows, Thou makest Thyself manifest in our hearts and livest in all beings. There is no animal, no plant that does not speak to me of Thee and Thy name is written on all I look at____

"O Love, divine Love, spread in the world, regenerate life, enlighten the intelligence, break down the dams of egoism, dispel the obstacle of ignorance and be the resplendent Master of the earth."

Back in Pondicherry, she wrote on April 17: "O Lord, O my sweet Master, sole Reality, dispel this feeling of the T. I have now understood that so long as there will be a manifested universe, the T will remain necessary for Thy manifestation; to dissolve, or even to diminish or weaken the T, is to deprive Thee of the means of manifestation, in whole or part. But what must be radically and definitively suppressed, is the illusory

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thought, the illusory feeling, the illusory sensation of the separate T. At no moment, in no circumstances must we forget that our T has no reality outside Thee."

On May 2 Mirra penned: "Free from all trammels, I shall be Thyself; it will be Thou seeing the world through this body; it will be Thou acting in the world through this instrument."

On May 4 she prayed to the Lord to "dissolve all the darkness of this aggregate which Thou hast formed for Thy service, Thy manifestation in the world. Realise in it that supreme consciousness which will generate an identical consciousness everywhere.... O Lord, all my being cries to Thee in an irresistible appeal; wouldst Thou not grant that I may become Thyself in my integral consciousness, since in fact I am Thou and Thou art I?"

On May 8 Sri Aurobindo noted that "Madame Richard was ill."

On May 9 Mirra penned: "Just at the moment when I felt the imperious need for the regular resumption of these notes to come out of this invading mental inertia, my physical organism sustained a defeat such as it had not known for several years, and for a few days all the forces of my body failed me; I saw in it a sign that I had made a mistake, that my spiritual energy had given way, that my vision of the all-powerful oneness had been obscured, that an evil suggestion had succeeded in troubling me in some way, and I bowed down before Thee, O Lord, my sweet Master, with humility, conscious that I was not yet ripe for the perfect identification with Thee....

"Let me be Thy living Love in the world and nothing but that.... Let me be like an immense mantle of love enveloping

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the whole earth, penetrating all hearts, murmuring to every ear Thy divine message of hope and peace...."

It was May 12. "This morning passing by a rapid experience from depth to depth, I was able, once again, as always, to identify my consciousness with Thine and to live no longer in aught but Thee;—indeed, it was Thou alone that wast living, but immediately Thy will pulled my consciousness towards the exterior, towards the work to be done, and Thou saidst to me, 'Be the instrument of which I have need.' And is not this the last renunciation, to renounce identification with Thee ..."

How rapid her experiences were! On 17 May Mirra wrote:

"O Thou, Universal Being, Supreme Unity in perceptible form, by an irresistible aspiration I nestled in Thy heart, then I was Thy heart itself, and I knew then that Thy heart—is no other than the Child that plays and creates the worlds. Thou saidst to me, 'One day thou wilt be my head, but for the moment turn thy look towards the earth.' And on the earth now I am the joyful child at play."

A child is first of all a body. On May 20 Mirra wrote: "From the height of that summit which is identification with Thy divine, infinite love, Thou hast turned my look towards this complicated body which has to serve Thee as an instrument. And Thou hast said to me: 'It is myself; seest thou not that my light shines in it?' And in fact I saw Thy divine Love, clad in intelligence, and then in force, constitute this body in its smallest cells and radiate in it to such a point that it became nothing else than a mass of millions of radiant sparks, which made it manifest that they were Thou."

Oh, how Mirra supplicated the Lord! "May this body,

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becoming a burning brazier, radiate Thy divine, impersonal, sublime and calm love through all its pores," she wrote on May 23.

Her look turned towards the world, what did Mirra see ? "On the surface is the storm, the sea is in turmoil, waves clash and leap one on another and break with a mighty uproar. But all the time, under this water in fury, are vast smiling expanses, peaceful and motionless. They look upon the surface agitation as an indispensable act; for matter has to be vigorously churned if it is to become capable of manifesting entirely the divine light. Behind the troubled appearance, behind the struggle and anguish of the conflict, the consciousness remains firm at its post; observing all the movements of the outer being, it intervenes only to rectify direction and position, so as not to allow the play to become too dramatic. This intervention is now firm and a little severe, now ironical, a call to order or a mockery, full always of a strong, gentle, peaceful and smiling benevolence." That was on May 26.

On May 28 she wrote. "Thou settest in motion, Thou stirrest, Thou churnest the innumerable elements of this world, so that, from their primal chaos, they may be awakened to consciousness and to the full light of knowledge. And it is Thy supreme love that Thou usest for thus churning all these elements."

With the Arya, Mirra's whole being was "plunged more and more into a material activity and physical realisation which carries with it such a multitude of details" she had to think over and to put in order. The more she worked the more the fire of aspiration blazed in her.

June 9. "O Lord, I am before Thee as an offering ablaze

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with the burning fire of divine union....

"And that which is thus before Thee, is all the stones of this house and all that it contains, all those who cross its threshold and all those who see it, all those who are connected with it in one way or another, and by close degrees, the whole earth."

Her union with the Divine was becoming more intimate. Her aspiration more ardent. And her experiences of inner and outer worlds were taking on wings.

Time was passing on the wings of wind.

It was August 4, 1914.

"Lord, eternal Master!

"Men, pushed by the conflict of forces, are making a sublime sacrifice, they are offering their lives in a sanguinary holocaust.... My being is before Thee in an integral holocaust so that it may make their unconscious holocaust effective.

"Accept this offering, reply to our call: Come !"

There is no diary entry dated 15 August 1914.

At least none that I found in my book. Prayers are but a small part that Mother preserved of her diary.

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