Learning with the Mother

STORIES

The children gathered around The Mother listening to a story

In the early months of 1951, during these classes, the Mother also started telling stories from her own books Tales of all Times and Words of Long Ago. From November 1951, She started taking up all kinds of different stories on Fridays-Her story-telling days. She also took up legends from different countries, such as India, Persia, Japan, China etc. and about her own experiences in Japan while taking up the legends of Japan; this continued for several weeks. She was very fond of that country. She also spent many Friday classes telling stories and legends from China.

When the Mother told stories about Africa, She narrated many of Her personal experiences in Algeria. Besides these, She also took up stories that were well known in France like those of Joan of Arc , Masakokarie, Pic et Pic et Cologram and even some children’s stories like Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, Babar—the elephant etc. Most often Mother read the stories Herself but sometimes She made the children read by turns and once in a while She even asked a child to narrate a story. She marked out the difficult words and explained them, and would also encourage the children to find these words in a dictionary and write out their meanings. At the end of the story-telling, She would always explain the moral of the story and deeper meaning behind them.

The Mother narrating an interesting story to the children

In those days there were no bookshops in Pondicherry; so whenever somebody found a children’s story book in French, he or she got it for the Mother. She would read the book in the class and show the pictures to the children. The Friday classes continued for eight years; in the beginning there were children from 4 to 12 years old and the stories were of various levels. She gradually upgraded the level of Her stories as the children grew older. Towards the later years, She took up more serious texts such as the Wu Wei, a text of Henry Borel based on the philosophy of Lao-Tse and towards the end, She took up the ‘Dhammapada’. She took this up because it was a simple method of teaching meditation to the children. Since after 1956, these classes were held in the Playground and were all recorded and subsequently printed as The Mother’s Commentaries On The Dhammapada and since they are already available as a book, I am not adding in the present volume.

The last Friday class in the Guest-house as per our records was held on 30th April, 1954, after which, I have not been able to trace any class till 19th October, 1956. Since even Mrityunjaya Da’s notebooks don’t have anything for this period, I presume that for some reason, the classes had been discontinued. My memory has gone blank about this period and strangely even the few students who used to attend these classes and whom I asked, also didn’t remember anything.

The Friday classes were resumed on 19th October, 1956, and they were held in the Playground instead of at the Guest-house. They were also recorded, but somehow they have not been transcribed and are not to be found in the Complete Works of the Mother which contain Her talks up to 9th July, 1957.

From 12th September, in Friday classes, the Mother took twelve lessons on Thoughts And Aphorisms, after which the classes stopped, because She stopped coming to the Playground after 5th December 1958 and all her evening activities were discontinued.

Later, around 1960-61, the Mother took up the Thoughts And Aphorisms (questions and answers) at my request and gave Her elucidations in writing. I would write out the aphorism and the relevant question in my notebook, and the Mother would send the answer. This continued up to 27th July, 1961.

The Mother was indisposed after that for a while, and when the work on the Thoughts and Aphorisms was taken up again, it was with Satprem, from 1962 to 1966. Following this, there was again a long gap due to some reason or the other, mostly because the Mother’s work had increased considerably and She could find no time.

On 1st August 1969, I asked The Mother if I could continue with the work on the Thoughts and Aphorisms by sending my notebook as before. Mother readily agreed and encouraged me to continue. The questions were completed 0n 8th June 1970 and subsequently were printed in a book entitled On Thoughts and Aphorisms.

Although these were primarily started in the Friday classes for Group A, we are not reproducing them here as they are already available separately in book form.

There is no proper record of all the stories that Mother read on Fridays in the Green Group classes. We have however made a list of the titles of the stories with help of some children’s memories and from Mrityunjaya Da’s notes but as it is not interesting to publish only the titles, we are therefore not including them in this book.