Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

29

The Shooting Star

December 31, 1911.

A shooting star drew a line of light in the sky.

"It was New Year's Eve, and I decided, 'Within the coming year.'"

The image Mother had retained was "at the door of our studio. I had a large, almost square studio, a bit bigger than this room" —Mother was seated in her top-floor room —"with a door giving on to a courtyard. I opened the little door and looked at the sky; and there, just as I looked, was a shooting star.

"You know the tradition," she said to Satprem, "if you formulate an aspiration just as you see a shooting star —before the star disappears —it will be realized within the year. And there, just as I opened the door, was a shooting star —I was totally in my

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aspiration: 'Union with the inner Divine.'

"And before the end of December of the following year, I had the experience."

Quite obviously, it wasn't exactly the shooting star that made the realization possible! "Just as the shooting star was passing, there sprang up from my consciousness: 'To realize the divine union, for my body.'" It is amply evident that because Mirra's whole being was one-pointed in her aspiration the union with the inner Divine could be achieved within that short period of time. For in the normal course that would take at least thirty-five years.

Her whole consciousness was dominated by that magnificent obsession. She walked in the street, it was with her. She rode in a bus, it was with her. She took the metro, it was with her. And in that condition of hers, a 'Force' acted through her. It had the same effect as the 'Golden Robe' of her younger days: this Force went out to console, to heal . . .

Let us take the case of a man in a bus in which Mirra was riding. She saw in what a terrible state of nervous tension he was. Sobs wracked him. She did not stir. Nobody would have even guessed her part in what

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followed. She saw the 'Force' go out quietly through her, go towards this broken-down man. Then "little by little, the face relaxed, everything quietened, he calmed down. This happened several times. That's how I came to know about this Force," Mother said candidly. "Because at the time I wasn't yet very well informed."

But when Mother was recounting all these incidents to us in 1966, she was very well informed indeed! She knew the working of the 'Force' backward and forward. She who saw a considerable number of people daily, saw their reaction —of adults and children — when a drop of That or a ray of That fell on them. Most of the adults . . . trembled. Children were another matter altogether. The majority of them would press themselves against her knees.

"It reminded me of certain bygone experiences. Quite at the beginning, at least two years before coming here for the first time in 1914, I did not know Sri Aurobindo, but I knew the 'Cosmic,' and I was studying, was working earnestly at occultism; I was deep in the middle of my own experiences. It was in Paris. I used to go about by bus or the metro. And not once, but many times it happened: there were people —a

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woman for example, with her child. The child would abruptly leave its mother —children three or four years old, very young, just beginning to run —and come. It happened quite a few times. Me, I was simply in my meditation, I paid no attention to anything or anybody; all of a sudden, a child would separate itself from its mother, come, poff! and cling to me like this, clutching my knees. Then the mother would beg my pardon, thinking it was very ill-mannered!" Mother laughed.

"But I used to say, 'No! It's quite all right.' "Children are like that."

Yes, children were instinctively drawn by the love, the tenderness that emanated from Mirra.

Like the rose buds that opened when Mother caressed them.

"They are so innocent! There's this little Astha."

Astha was a lively six-year-old, with a mind of her own. Mind you, I don't blame her for what she did! Twenty years before her I did much the same thing. And I wasn't six, I was twenty if a day! When Mother would stand talking with Pavitra at the doorway of my laboratory, her back to me, her hands

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clasped behind her, I never could resist slipping my little finger into her fist. She would at once press it firmly, keep it until her conversation with Pavitra was over. Then only would she release it. And give me such a smile!

"There's this little Astha, who comes every morning —it's she who decided to come, I wasn't supposed to say no! She said, 'I come' —she comes every morning. In the beginning she used to do a 'pranam,' but a serious pranam: she would remain there rolling her head on my feet! But now she has found something else. She comes, doesn't say a word to anyone, looks at the people in the room, then when she sees everybody well occupied, she gets under my table, catches hold of my hand, and begins to play with it; she kisses it, turns it, pulls it. When she has finished this side, she comes to the other side! And with such pretty joy and trust, so pretty, so confident: 'Oh! How amusing this is!'

"It's pretty, that."

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