A compilation of various writings on Amrita by Nirodbaran, Amal, Udar, Huta, Nolini. Includes a translation of his memoirs originally written in Tamil.
AMRITA
BIRTH CENTENARY - 1995
***************************************************
Amrita
A Sketch by the Mother
*****************************************************
Amrita with the Mother
This book commemorates the life and work of K. Amrita, one of the earliest disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Originally named Aravamudachari, Amrita was born in 1895 into a Brahmin family in a village near Pondicherry in South India. As a boy in his teens he heard the name of Sri Aurobindo as one of the leaders of the freedom struggle going on in the country. When he learned in 1910 that Sri Aurobindo had come to live in Pondicherry, his joy knew no bounds. Three years later he realised his long-cherished wish to meet Sri Aurobindo. It was the beginning of a life-long association with the Master. After completing his studies in 1919, Amrita joined Sri Aurobindo and remained with him for the rest of his life. He passed away in 1969, after fifty years of total dedication to the service of the Master and the Mother.
Part One of this book contains Amrita's own writings, including "Old Long Since" in which he tells the story of his early experiences with Sri Aurobindo. Part Two contains the writings of others who knew Amrita. These recollections have been gathered on the occasion of his birth centenary—19 September 1995.
17 May 1969
... for Amrita [who left his body on 31 January, following a heart attack], it was something else again. Amrita used to come in spite of his illness, he came to see me every day; he came up in the morning and sat there, and he came up once again in the evening (you saw what labour it was for him to climb stairs). Then when he left—the doctor had told him: "You can't go upstairs for a month"; and afterwards, he came during the daytime: he didn't accept it, he left his body and came—he came right straight to me. But then, with him, it was in his form, but more subtle, but it was very definite [Mother draws a contour outlining Amrita's form], it was his form, resembling him; and he stayed here, and sometime he's active, sometime he rests (he rests more than he's active, but occasionally he's active again). He's like ... like a shadow, you know, very much in my atmosphere. And he has remained there—he remains there, he rests there.
PART - ONE
WHEN people ask me to narrate my experiences of Sri Aurobindo, I have only one answer to give. What can be said about this Mahapurusha? And who can say that? However we might praise him and whatever the superlatives we might employ for the purpose, all that appears to be utterly inadequate to describe him.
So, when I am asked to narrate my experience, I am bewildered. I will set down just one experience during all the years that I spent under the shadow of Sri Aurobindo.
During the period when I had free access to the Master, I had often found him reaching down to my level and becoming one with me. Yet I used to have a feeling as though I was standing before a shoreless ocean, before the limitless stretch of space and to have the experience of a sense of the touch of the Infinite, the source and support of all that is and is not.
Yet another thing. Though he was like us before us, we could see and feel the shadow of our self falling off little by little, all through his grace and our being flooded with light, strength and joy. I have experienced this clearly and without doubt.
HYMN TO THE MOTHER OF RADIANCES
This 'Hymn just before the Mother of Radiances' was written by Amrita in January 1927. Later, Amrita's drafts were revised by Sri Aurobindo and arranged to make a three-part hymn. The revised version was also copied out in Sri Aurobindo's own hand.
AN inner fullness has come in like the coming in of light in dark caves. It fills, it illumines, it vibrates the multiple strings of life; it has found the contact with the forgotten achievements of the past to enable me to start the new ones of the future on the basis of the changing formations of the present. The currents of life well up to meet the descending rays of light from the upper heavens for transmutation base and the dark into the luminous and the true, for transmutation of the ugly and the wrong into the beautiful and the right.
O Mother of Radiances, you have dawned in the narrow horizons of my mind. Out of its depthless rigidities, in the midst of its walled-up spaces you have created a heart-like something that will live its eternal life. You have revealed to me a chamber alive and warm within the mind's substanceless polar regions and there I can safely retire and find in you my refuge.
The lower network of moving forces remains, but I feel your presence in its midst. The higher network of moving forces remains, and here you have stepped in also shedding a warmth of life that was not there before, you have turned the dull grey luminosity into a brilliance of living waters. Your active and living presence is everywhere; you have heeded my words of aspiration, the fire of my demand for your omnipresence. More than what I ignorantly sought for, you have revealed to me. You are intimate and one with me when in truth and in law and yet away and far off from one me when in error and in falsehood.
When there are no more darkening shadows about me; when you see me bared of all shams and shows in every part of the being; when you see in every cell of my body an eternal home for you and an eternal temple; when you see me one with you in identity and still .worshipping you; when you melt the compact gold of knowledge in
Page 4
the living and running waters of devotion; when you break my earth and release the energies; when you turn my pride into power in your hands and my ignorance into light, my narrowness into wideness, my selfishness into a true gathering together of forces in one centre, my greed into a capacity of untiring search after the truth for the attainment of its substances, my egoism into the true and conscious instrumental centre, my mind into a channel for you to descend, my heart into your heart of pure fire and flame, my life into a pure and translucent substance for your handling, my body into a conscious vessel for holding what of you is meant for me; then, O Mother of Radiances, my aim in life now and hereafter will be fulfilled in the true and right and vast way. Aspiration wakes in me! Achieve in me all that I flame for!
2
Create in me a state of consciousness in which whatever I hear from you may at once turn into an intimate knowledge, a self-revelation, an expression of identity, an awareness at once of the within and the without. O Mother, whatever I gather from you, let it be of the deep vasts of the within which is omnipresent. May I be one with you in every way to have the supreme Delight, yet separate from you to stream forth devotion to you, one and yet separate like- life and its movements, like heat and light, like power and its expression, like true knowledge and its effecting force. Let what you give me be not a treasure to me but as if a thing of my own self-discovered.
Wipe out the division in my consciousness that I may see and listen to you as part of yourself. The life-energies in me aspire for the knowledge that comes from identity, for the vision that is born of identity, for the listening that takes its orientation in identity, — the identity that is yourself.
May I be the manifestation of a portion of you in your limitless and shining spaces.
3
Increase my fires and aspiration, make the surrender in me possible at once and in every way; widen my openness and receptivity; remove the coverings that delay the workings of psyche deep within; take away, O Mother, from me what I have and what I have not....
Page 5
The cells of my body, the filaments of my nervous coat, the five streams of my mind,— all make their unconditioned surrender to you, O Mother of Radiances, that there may not be falsehood in existence, division in consciousness, death in the living waters, want of harmony and misery in the nervecoils, disease in the body....
Thy voice replies to me:
"By the fivefold powers of surrender in the physical, by the quiet intensity of the psychic urge that is behind you, centrally, increase ever and ever the inherent Ananda and the hidden opulences of your consciousness. First of all, become conscious of what I have willed in you; be, next, that of which you have become conscious. Know at once and for ever, 'In me is your all.' "
Page 6
AN INFORMAL TALK
Between Chandulal* and Amrita
Which of the two.....
C: I like to obey sweet Mother in an absolute way, to have a very simple and total devotion, to scrupulously and faithfully execute what Mother wants. This is my aim. I do not worry at all about light or knowledge or even the widening of my consciousness. I am not a philosopher.
A: I too have fixed these riches as my aim: absolute obedience, total devotion and to be the instrument of an effective realisation of sweet Mother's will. All this in as ample a measure as you. But something in me aspires for a little more light, a little more knowledge, a little more consciousness. In this way obedience in me will grow more and more firm, devotion more and more intense and clear, my action will be based less and less on chaos and confusion. In fact, I have no fear of light or of knowledge or of consciousness whereas darkness, ignorance and unconsciousness frighten me.
C: I do not understand everything that you have said. I will do everything that sweet Mother will ask me to. One aim, that's all.
A: To imagine you can do what sweet Mother wants you to do, to imagine you can act according to the will of sweet Mother is quite different from being able to realise what sweet Mother wills. It is true that we can progress only through ignorance and inconscience, these are the very basis of our being at present. For instance, look at our friend X. He too is devoted to Mother and wants to do whatever Mother wills, just like us. But since his devotion lacks sufficient light it demands things that it has no right to; his obedience, since it lacks sufficient knowledge, weighs on Mother as a tiresome and unhappy burden and his action aims only at the satisfaction of the self since it is deprived of a clear and one-pointed vision.
C: I say this once again: I shall always do as far as possible what sweet Mother wills and I will act to the best of my capacity according to sweet Mother's will without ever withdrawing from a progressive light, knowledge and consciousness.
17th March 1947
* Chandulal was the civil engineer of the Ashram. Amrita and Chandulal were great friends and used to go to the Mother together.
Page 7
(By Amrita)
(1)
In our village and all around, four names of four great personages were being continually talked of. It was the time when Independence, Foreign Rule, Slavery were the cries that used to fill the sky. And the four great names that reached our, ears in this connection were Tilak, Bipinchandra Pal, Lajpatrai (Lal-Bal-Pal) and Aurobindo.
Of these only one name caught my heart and soul. Just to hear the name — Aurobindo — was enough.
All the four persons were pioneers in the service of the country, great leaders of the front rank. Why then did one name only out of the four touch me exclusively? For many days to come the mystery remained to me a mystery.
In 1905 I came to Pondicherry for study. In 1910 Sri Aurobindo also arrived here. What a coincidence! He came to the very town where I had come! I was full of joy, thrilled with delight.
A strong desire arose in me that I must see Sri Aurobindo. He had been there in our town for six months, very few knew of his arrival, but I knew of it on the third day itself. My uncle was engaged in politics arid was in contact with the national workers and leaders. He came to know of the incident on the very day. In fact the number of those who knew could be counted on one's fingers. The idea gained on me that somehow I must see Aurobindo. Hearing must be translated into vision.
Day after day, night after night, this was my sole thought. Two years passed by. Finally one day, at about six in the evening, my friend Krishnaswami Chettiar and I started from Muthialpet, a suburb of Pondicherry,— near about our present Sports Ground and proceeded towards the beach where Sri Aurobindo's house stood. We walked the whole distance. I was a boy of about fourteen years. Chettiar had his cycle, but he was wheeling it by him as he walked along. As it had become somewhat dark, Chettiar proposed to leave the cycle in Sri Aurobindo's house before going to the beach. He thought it would be burdensome to carry a cycle with us and we would not be free to walk about as we liked. That was the only reason why we went to Sri Aurobindo's house.
Page 8
A word about Krishnaswami — who is no longer in the land of the living — would not be out of place. He was a well-to-do man of Muthialpet and a great devotee of Bharati — the great poet and national worker. He used to give all possible help to Bharati and attend to his needs. He knew neither English nor French, his only medium of communication was his motherongue, Tamil. He had a kind of instinctive respect for Sri Aurobindo because of Bharati's association. He would now and then go and stand a little afar and have his Darshan, but naturally had no talk with him.
In the Mission Street (Rue des Missions Etrangeres) close to the Dupleix Street there was a house with its front facing west. It extended from the Mission Street backward down to the Rue de la Cantine on the East. It consisted of three courtyards. Each courtyard had four verandas around it; Sri Aurobindo's room was in the third block. The front block was occupied by Nolini, Sourin, Bejoy; Moni was in the second block. I heard it said that Sri Aurobindo would daily walk round and round the courtyard from about five in the afternoon till the other inmates returned from their playground at about eight or eight-thirty in the evening.
When Chettiar and I approached Sri Aurobindo's house, we found the door bolted. We both knocked at it with some hesitation. All on a sudden the door opened and was left ajar. Sri Aurobindo had come quietly and turned back immediately as the door opened — it looked as if he did not want us to let us have a glimpse of his face.
In that fading twilight only his long hair hanging gracefully upon his back and his indescribably beautiful small feet caught my eyesight! My heart throbbed within me as though I had been lifted up into the region of the gods! It took me long to come back to normal composure.
I did not know what were the feelings and thoughts of Chettiar and I did not care to know!
(2)
The five years, 1910 -1914, served the need of my preparation. It should be called a pilgrimage to Sri Aurobindo.
Each act of mine, each event of my life had become, as it were, offerings in the sacrifice done unknowingly by me. Prior to my surrender to Sri Aurobindo, Bharati helped me a great deal to attain wideness in the heart, to loosen the ties of old samskaras and the like,
Page 9
to impart purity and newness to my thoughts, by means of his words, his deeds and his way of living.
Because of Bharati's association with Sri Aurobindo and his immense respect and devotion for him, I felt in me a great inexplicable attraction to Bharati.
Every evening, a little after dark, Bharati would go to Sri Aurobindo's house. He chose that time not with the purpose of avoiding people who would want to make a note of his visit. It was because Sri Aurobindo used to come out of his room and receive his friends only after seven in the evening. An exception, however, was made for close friends like Bharati and Srinivasachari, who, at a very urgent need, could see him at any time of the day. Their visits to Sri Aurobindo's house after seven had become a regular affair. Bharati would visit without fail; it was not so with Srinivasachari, however.
There was hardly any subject which they did not talk about in their meetings at night. They discussed literature, society, politics, the various arts; they exchanged stories, even cracked jokes, and had a lot of fun. In the absence of Srinivasachari their talks would no doubt disregard all limits of sect or cult. In Bharati's absence, Sri Aurobindo's talks with the inmates of the house at dinnertime would reach the height of the humorous. That apart, I heard people say that Bharati and others would return home by eight-thirty or nine at night and carry in their hearts lovingly whatever share of the divine riches they had the capacity to receive. In consequence of their inner and outer change they would find the exterior world also changed the next morning. A long time after, I too had a little of this mystic experience. But now as I cast a retrospective look, I perceive that the past was in a way a period of tapasya before reaching the Gurudeva.
As I said, not a single evening would pass without Bharati's calling on Sri Aurobindo. Bharati delighted in pouring out to Sri Aurobindo all that he had read in the dailies, all about local affairs and happenings in the suburbs. And if, however, Sri Aurobindo made comments on one or two of the points raised, his joy would know no bounds.
On his way to Sri Aurobindo's house, Bharati would first call at Srinivasachari's, go with him to the beach, stay there till 7 p.m., and then make for Sri Aurobindo's house. The three together would jocularly discuss a variety of subjects. Bharati, on his way back, would often halt for a while at Srinivasachari's and then go home. As soon as they reached home from Sri Aurobindo's, the people assembled there would put the identical question: "What did Sri Aurobindo say
Page 10
today?" It was as though the Jivatman wanted to know the Will of the Paramatman.
Two years passed in this way. At home we had a strict observance of orthodox rites and rituals. But the moment Bharati arrived, these began to crumble away; in his presence all rules and ceremonies, habits and customs slipped off from me and disappeared in no time. Why so? Because it was Sri Aurobindo's wish that expressed itself through him.
My neighbour was no more a stranger to me, whether a shudra or a pariah; he was as I was, a man; little by little my heart got soaked in the feeling that he was my brother. This feeling began to translate itself into due practice. Today it might appear as nothing uncommon. But even to imagine today what difficulties it might have created some fifty years ago can make one shudder with fear. The village life was orthodox in its ways; the town life was somewhat different to the same extent as green leaf and green fruit might appear to differ. Later on, Bharati did away with these customs and threw them off like chaff, as things without substance. It would be interesting to follow the whole development and examine it through all its stages. That was the time when the removal of the mere tuft of hair from the head would mean the loss of the very truth of Brahminhood. But now the white people are not only not looked upon as Miechchas as before, but, in addition, they as well as the Chinese and the Negroes and other races are all felt as pertaining to humankind. Afterwards I realised that the disappearance of the sense of division from within me had been the effect of a continuous shedding of light upon my heart imperceptibly by Sri Aurobindo.
Whether in Bharati's house or by the tanks or beside the big lake, at the time of collective dining the so-called Pariahs, Shudras, Brahmins would all sit together comfortably without any distinction of caste or creed and take their meals. Today it may appear quite common. But in those days many of us would not dare to disclose such a conduct at home. We would be alarmed if some family member chanced to see us taking part in a collective dinner. Along with Bharati we would make fun of caste distinction. The feeling that all were men had taken deep root in the heart of each of us. Now as we look back upon the past we come to realise how far we have progressed in our endless pilgrimage to Sri Aurobindo. Looked at from another standpoint it would appear clearly as but one step in the path leading to Aurobindo's ideal.
Page 11
The truth must manifest itself in the heart; the manifested truth must grow up step by step. An unending, ever-growing aspiration hailing from afar in the bourneless space of my being fell upon me like a golden light.
In the matter of ritual observance a change within me was going on without my knowledge during two or three years; the truth had dawned upon me that the outer was nothing else than the inner. Old habits and customs had lost all meaning and looked like worm-eaten things to me.
I had to pass through a period when my inner being would say one thing and my outer life would express something else. Gurudeva, whom I had not yet seen with naked eyes, caught hold of my heart and brought about its radical change. Bharati was very helpful in effectuating my inner nearness to Sri Aurobindo. Often it would occur to me: "Why did I not have, like Bharati, courage enough to act according to the inner voice?" As I grew more and more familiar with Bharati, the rites and ceremonies, rules and regulations dropped off from me as withered leaves from a tree. During that time my old orthodox friends and relatives took upon themselves the task of explaining to me what amount of truth lay in religious rules and regulations, in what way they were true. But they failed to strike my mind as true. Was it because of an attraction for the new? Or was it that I could find no relation ever existing between the eternal and the old?
At times Bharati made us hear what Sri Aurobindo had told him on the Shakti cult. But I put no question on its details.
I made repeated requests to Bharati to take me to Sri Aurobindo. He, however, kept silent each time I made this request. Several times I requested my late uncle also. But no definite reply from him either. I used to hear that a very limited number of persons had permission to see Sri Aurobindo; that only Bharati and Srinivasachari could see him daily; that my uncle had his Darshan only once a month.
It had been made evident to me after those numerous attempts that Sri Aurobindo's Darshan was a rarity and to obtain it with the help of Bharati or Srinivasachari or my uncle was well-nigh impossible-Then how was I to have Sri Aurobindo's Darshan? In the core of my heart burnt a living faith incessant and unwavering, that somehow some day I would have his Darshan.
During that period, one day at about five-thirty or six in the evening, I happened to meet on the beach Ramaswami lyengar, who, a few
Page 12
years later, became well renowned as Va Ra. He had been living theft in Sri Aurobindo's house. As intimacy with him grew, I felt a singular attraction for conversation with him. His remarks were always trench' ant and scintillating. Never would he speak of anyone with respect. His face had charm. His eyes beamed. While returning home from the beach I would always feel sad to break off conversation with him. And the hope to meet Sri Aurobindo through him drew me all the more to his company.
(3)
As a result of my stay at Madras, the tuft of hair on my head got shortened and shrunken. In my Pondicherry days this tuft (shikha) had drawn its strength from three-fourths of my head. Such a beautiful shikha Bharati would always insist upon being removed whenever be would happen to see it. My mother, however, cherished for my shikha the same affection as she did for myself. Somehow a fear had crept into my mother's mind that I might one day reduce the shikha to nil. She would often tell me, "Keep the shikha as it is. Do nothing with it in play." She would mutter to her companions that if someday her child's shikha came to an end, it could only be through Bharati.
Destiny, however, did away with this stately tuft! How, I shall narrate.
During my two years' stay at Madras, my shikha's form shrank to a lean twine. That was the price I had to pay for my life in Madras!
In the year 1917—I do not quite remember the day and the month — probably during May I put up as usual in the house of Sri Aurobindo when I came to Pondicherry. This time I had decided to stay for two days instead of one.
The inmates of Sri Aurobindo's house would sometimes begin a conversation at about 9.30 p.m. and continue it till after midnight. And when I was in their midst the conversation would prolong itself much later than midnight. This discussion would embrace diverge subjects such as philosophy, social reforms, the changes that ought to take place in the manners and customs of Indian life, various yogic practices, the characteristic difference between Sri Aurobindo's yoga and the traditional ones, etc. Amidst such talks Sri Aurobindo would shine as the light of Truth laying bare the central significance of everything.
Page 13
As luck would have it, on the second day of my stay, when the talk was about to terminate, it suddenly turned towards my shikha. The talk was indeed carried on in a spirit of jest and fun. But I had the apprehension that night that the shikha would no more be on my head. The importance of the shikha for such ceremonies as the upanayana (investiture with the sacred thread), marriage, sraddha (annual ritual for the deceased), etc., is of course not unknown to anyone.
Next morning having got up, as I felt for the shikha I found it non-existent.
I got struck with fear. How should I dare look straight in the faces of my parents and relatives? A Brahmin youth without a shikha was no better than a pariah! Thoughts like these troubled my mind.
I put off my decision to start for Madras to the third day. There was none to sympathise with my mental agony, the bewildered state of my heart. All inmates of Sri Aurobindo's house appreciated the extinction of my shikha and scoffed at such senseless customs.
I then went to Bharati thinking that he alone would show sympathy with my condition then. He listened to all that I said and exclaimed, "Do you have the courage to leave your family completely and come out of it? If so, from this very moment stay on with me". Emphatically he pronounced the sentence and made no attempt to pacify my perplexed feelings.
As my heart was attached to my parents, specially to my mother, I hesitated a little before replying to the words of Bharati and said, "Now the shikha is no longer with me. It is in somebody else's grasp! How am I then to stay with you?" It was in this strain that the reply came. I found at last a consolation in the thought and feeling that on going to Madras I would stay there in hiding, out of my parents' and relatives' ken.
I started for Madras two or three days later. I heard afterwards that in accordance with Sri Aurobindo's decision and order the shikha had been cut off. There is a custom still prevalent in South India to go to a temple and offer prayers there in order to remove the tuft of hair. The temple of Tirupati is held to be the foremost among the places for this purpose. Why does God ask for the shikha, what mystery lies behind it? I cannot explain. Nor can I say why Sri Aurobindo demanded my shikha.
Not even ten days had passed since my arrival in Madras when my father who had found out my lodging came to my room. Astounded at my appearance he stood fixed like a statue. It took him about ten minutes to come to his own self and then he sat down on the floor.. Tears streamed
Page 14
down his cheeks. Some more time passed for the words to come out of his mouth. His words when uttered simply stupefied me.
"You have broken our religious traditions and set at naught all religious rites and customs." Why did he speak so? There was no religious mark on my forehead — a blank brow! No tuft of hair on my head! No sacred thread across my chest! What else was needed? This was the ghost my father saw of me!
I spoke not a word.
About an hour elapsed before my father, without turning to me, said, "A girl has been chosen for you at Bangalore. She belongs to a rich family. Her parents have of themselves offered to bear all the expenses for your studies up to B.A. They are likely to give as dowry fifty thousand rupees in cash. I have just seen the girl. Yes, she is quite dark in complexion with pock marks on the face. Her family is extremely orthodox. But of what use now to think about all this? You have pulled down the whole edifice that I had built." So saying he got up all of a sudden and left.
The sacred thread can be bought and put on; the religious mark can also be painted on the forehead; but where to go for the shikha?
The shikha was offered as first fruit to Lord Sri Aurobindo. Was this not a scrupulously orthodox Brahmacharya? The shikha was scissored off clean by Nolini Kanta Gupta in obedience to Sri Aurobindo's order at about 2 a.m. on the altar of the temple at sacred Pondicherry in which Sri Aurobindo is the murti (deity). He performed this service when I was asleep.
(4)
In the days when the French were in considerable number in Pondicherry, there was a bakery called Boulangerie in French at the crossing of the Ananda Rangapillai and the Mission streets. Bread used to be supplied daily from here to Sri Aurobindo's house. A young man of about twenty-five would carry from house to house a basket full of bread and biscuits, deliver them as per arrangement, take the signatures of the residents and go back.
The story I am going to narrate took place about fifty years ago. Sri Aurobindo lived then in the Francois Martin street. I remember only the name of one person out of the several who stayed with him; the other names are lost to my memory.
Page 15
The lunch in Sri Aurobindo's house would generally finish by 12 noon. The main gate and the room doors of the house were not shut or bolted in those days. Even so, no outsiders or thieves would get in.
After the midday meal the inmates of the house, all except Sri Aurobindo, were in the habit of going to sleep after closing their windows to keep off the heat of the sun. They would sleep from 12.30 to 2.30 or 3. The boy carrying bread used to put it in the proper place between 2 and 2.30 and go out. He would enter by the main gate, climb the stairs and approaching the table in the middle of the verandah, which would be dark owing to the shutting of windows, put the bread and account book on it and leave the house. After 3 the bread was removed to its place and the signature put in the book. The boy returned before 5 or 5.30 to collect the book for bringing it again next day with the bread.
The verandah table had but one drawer. It had no locking arrangement. Some ten one-rupee notes and five rupees' worth in small coins would generally be inside the drawer. The inmates were not in the habit of counting the money while keeping it in. The amount would sometimes be more, sometimes less.
One day when Bejoy Nag opened the drawer to take some money out, he by chance detected an appreciable shortage. He was a bit startled. He kept observing for 2 or 3 consecutive days. All the notes vanished mysteriously. Only the small coins remained. Bejoy Nag one day kept a five-rupee note and two or three one-rupee notes together with the small coins to observe the result. The very next day a one-rupee note was missing. The next day to that, another one-rupee note disappeared. He was convinced by this that it was during their sleep that the money was being stolen. He resolved to catch the thief anyhow; he called me, asked for my help to catch the thief red-handed by keeping an eye on him from a hiding place between 12.30 and 2.30 p.m. Being young, I was over-enthusiastic to catch the culprit.
At the appointed time three of us (besides Bejoy Nag there was someone else whose name I forget) concealed ourselves behind the doors and kept a watch from three directions. It was about 2 p.m. My heart was beating fast with impatience. The bakery boy climbed up the stairs and then walked up to the upper verandah without the least sound as if he did not intend to disturb our sleep. He took down the bread basket from his head, put the fixed number of loaves and the account book on the table (a bit of pencil would always be attached
Page 16
to the book), silently opened the drawer of that rickety table, picked a five-rupee note out of it and thrusting it inside his turban retraced his steps. I could no longer contain myself. All three of us leaped lightning-like upon the boy and catching him dealt resounding blows to him. The sound of beating in that silent hour fell as that of thunder upon my ear. At the first two or three blows the boy uttered no word. As the fourth blow came upon him he could not bear it and started to cry out. He confessed that he had been stealing for some time past and promised that he would do it no more. Either on hearing the cry of the boy or for some other reason Sri Aurobindo came out of his room straight to the verandah and appeared before us. For a little while he stood without a word. On the face of the boy who had received blows there shone the solace of having seen his Saviour. Our raised fists dropped down of themselves and we stood still as though we had been the culprits. Sri Aurobindo forebade us to take the five-rupee note away from him and when we heard the order we felt as if a sentence had been passed upon us.
(5)
It became a habit with me to meet Ramaswami lyengar on the beach every evening at about 5.30 just after leaving school. It was natural for my school friends also to accompany me.
How did Ramaswami lyengar come to Pondicherry? How did he meet Sri Aurobindo? I did not know well then. I heard that it was he, Ramaswami lyengar, who had secretly invited K. V. Rangaswami lyengar, of whom more presently, and arranged a meeting between him and Sri Aurobindo.
The story is this. A Siddhapurusha — a Yogi — called Nagai Japta was the Kulaguru (family preceptor) of K. Rangaswami lyengar and a close friend of his. My uncle used to tell me of many a miracle which the Yogi had done. It was rumoured that when paddy fields went dry for want of water, Japta's power would bring down the needed rain and make the withering paddy plants shoot forth again.
This great man had also said to the family members of Rangaswami lyengar to this effect: "A great saint will come to the South from the North; he is a great Yogi and will show the way not only to our country but to the whole human race; he will be indeed your Kulaguru after me, you should accept him as such." This he said and after a few days disappeared, one did not know where.
Page 17
On learning of Sri Aurobindo's arrival at Pondicherry, Rangaswami came here secretly with the help of Ramaswami, to see Sri Aurobindo and talk to him. Secrecy was necessary at that time to avoid suspicion of the British Police.
Rangaswami came several times afterwards to meet Sri Aurobindo openly. But it was during the earlier secret visits Sri Aurobindo wrote — apparently — the book Yogic Sadhan for him and gave it to him.
In the company of some close friends like Srinivasachari, Ramaswami and Rangaswami, there used to be now and then what is called "automatic writing", that is to say, writing by spirits, as they are named. I am not sure whether the persons mentioned were the only ones present, there might have been a few others too. I gathered different versions from different people on the matter. It is said that Bharati also used to be in those meetings.
Now, what does automatic writing mean? It is usually done at night only. In the dim light of a lamp sits a man — the right sort of man, it goes without saying — in deep quietude in a chair beside a table, with pencil and paper in front. He invites or awaits the coming of a spirit, most often the spirit of a dead person. The spirit enters into the quietly expectant medium and taking hold of his hand writes down answers to questions put by the people assembled or sets down whatever it pleases the spirit to say for the amusement or enlightenment of the assembly. I myself witnessed such a phenomenon when Sri Aurobindo did the writing and I was full of wonder. Of course it is truly interesting when the medium is a qualified person; everyone is not a Sri Aurobindo.
The book Yogic Sadhan had its origin in this way. It is said that it was written through the medium of Sri Aurobindo by some great spirit, probably Rammohan Roy; for it seems Sri Aurobindo said that he saw the figure of Rammohan as he was doing the writing. The spirit entered into him, that is to say, into his hands and wrote down the book. That is why the book, printed at Srirangam Vani Vilas Press, at the instance of Rangaswami lyengar, was ascribed to an Uttara Yogi as author or editor: that is to say, a Yogi who had come from the North gave form to the book.
As I already mentioned I used to go to the beach after my school hours and stay there till seven or seven-thirty in the evening. Among the persons I met there the most important one was, of course, Ramaswami lyengar. There I met also Subburattinam, who became famous later on as the writer Bharatidasan. The young Swaminathan, whose traces I have now lost, was also there and a few school-mates.
Page 18
All of us used to sit on the sands and, as is the way with youngsters, left no subject undiscussed.
At that time naturally I did not realise what was the new and precious thing which Sri Aurobindo's active presence was shaping in me. Not that even now I have the full knowledge of it. It was, however, Sri Aurobindo's dynamic presence that accounted for the indescribable joy experienced by me. And it was through Ramaswami that the great riches of Sri Aurobindo came down to me as Grace from the Divine, and also spread in a somewhat formless or informal way among all. My thought remained absorbed in whatever Ramaswami would say about Sri Aurobindo, his message, his talk, his jokes, everything.
One day all of a sudden a thought arose in me; I told Ramaswami while on the beach, "I would like very much to dine with you once." I could make out from his face that this proposal of mine came to him like a thunderbolt. The proposal was not made in the presence of others, I whispered it into his ears, when I found myself alone with him; very clearly there was but one motive behind it. I hoped that if I dined with him, Sri Aurobindo also would be there. Ramaswami, evidently bewildered, thought for a moment and then questioned me, "But it is no vegetarian meal in Sri Aurobindo's house; how do you propose to dine there?" He said this somewhat hesitatingly and hoped it would put an end to the matter. But I was not to be baulked so easily. A little perplexed, I too retorted, "What if there be no vegetarian meal? I am ready to dine with you all." He must have been terribly vexed to get such an unexpected reply and in such a categorical manner, without a moment's hesitation. He however gave no expression to his surprise, but asked me to come next day straight from the school at 12 noon and join him. I was beside myself with joy.
Next day the closing bell at the Calve School went ding-dong at 11.30 sharp. Along with the other students, I too walked out of the school. I went straight home to Muthialpet, took my bath — rather hurriedly—and reached Sri Aurobindo's house at 12 noon precisely. Plunged in the thought that in a little while I would be seeing Sri Aurobindo, I became forgetful of everything else.
The main door in Sri Aurobindo's house in Mission Street was left open. As soon as I entered, Ramaswami came and received me. There was none else. The house lay dead silent in the intense heat of broad daylight. My heart too was motionless.
Ramaswami made a move and said, "Let us go to the hotel." On hearing these words I felt as if I had suddenly been thrown down
Page 19
from a height to which I had been lifted up. I could not understand anything. I was then almost dying with hunger. The citadel built by me was cast down by one breath as it were. Well, I started trudging, in that excessive heat, with Ramaswami towards a hotel more than a mile away; I walked the distance with bare feet, without sandals. The meal was served for me alone. Silently, without uttering a single word, I swallowed the food and then proceeded towards my school, Ramaswami accompanying me. I entered the Reading Room of the School, the classes were to start at 3 p.m. And I tried my best to attend to my lessons. In the same street, just a little to the south, lay Sri Aurobindo's house and Ramaswami moved towards it.
So far as I remember this happened in the first week of July in the year 1913.
(6)
In the Matakoil Street, called Mission Street, Sri Aurobindo lived for six months in a house with a tiled roof. That house has at present undergone a radical change; the very spot is unrecognisable. It was in this house that I had Sri Aurobindo's Darshan. There I had the first opportunity of seeing him but from a distance.
During his stay in this house I had the habit of meeting Ramaswami lyengar every evening on the beach, as I have already said. His heart started melting in my favour little by little even as ants slowly and persistently leave a trail on granite. The result was: he began to welcome me to his room. The school remained closed two days in the week, Sundays and Thursdays. Those days I could meet lyengar in Sri Aurobindo's house at about 4 p.m. From 4 to 5 p.m. we would be alone conversing with each other. Our relation thus began to ripen. After 5 we would go straight to the beach and join other friends.
Because of my friendship with lyengar, Sri Aurobindo's house appeared to me as my own. That is why I felt no timidity or shyness to go to lyengar's room; whether he was at home or not, I would go there. But I never took courage to go farther than his room; to do so seemed improper.
As I got more and more familiar with lyengar, the names of the inmates of Sri Aurobindo's house came to be known to me. Only one of them is still here. His name is Nolini Kanta Gupta.
Of those who are no more, Bejoy Kumar Nag was one — his name became Vijayakantan in Tamil. In order to escape from the clutches
Page 20
of the British Government he had assumed the pseudonym Bankim Chandra Basik. Likewise, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti was known to the people of Pondicherry by one name alone: "Sakra". Sourindranath Bose went by his own name. Nagendranath Nag and Biren Roy came later to stay in Sri Aurobindo's house.
Among the inmates Nagendranath was laid up with tuberculosis. Some evenings when engaged in conversation with lyengar on the verandah outside his room I would see Sri Aurobindo come out from the back portion of the house to the hall in front, take his seat on the same mat with the sick man, put to him some questions and return to his room. I was lucky to have Sri Aurobindo's Darshan in this manner several times without going near him. At that time I could not speak English well. On his way to the front part of the house and back from there, Sri Aurobindo's preoccupation seemed to be wholly with what he had come for. He would pay little attention, as it were, to any other thing around him. And yet, I was told, nothing could escape his notice.
During this period I requested lyengar once or twice to introduce me to Sri Aurobindo. But my requests seemed to carry no weight with him.
Sri Aurobindo's birthday was drawing near — August 15, 1913. I requested lyengar once more. I appealed to him to take me to Sri Aurobindo on his birthday. He replied, wonderful to say, in a consenting tone. I felt an immense joy.
On the 15th August lyengar asked me to come at about 4.30 p.m. I reached there slightly earlier. All the invitees started coming one by one from all sides. By about 5 or 5.15 all of them had arrived. It was probably one hour before sunset. This I surmised by the dimness of the light inside the house.
In the hall of the front portion of the house some twenty or twenty-five banana leaves were laid out on three sides just as it is done during a marriage feast.
As far as I can remember, no sooner was the main gate bolted from within than Sri Aurobindo came into the hall and stood on one side;
some one garlanded him with a rose garland; all present clapped their hands and Sri Aurobindo spoke something in English. All this I can recollect but vaguely. This vagueness of memory is due, I suppose, to an overwhelming joy and palpitation in me on that occasion.
All of us sat down before the banana leaves as we do at a collective dinner. I was one of the guests; with eyes full of delight I saw
Page 21
Sri Aurobindo as he stood before each banana leaf, looked at the person seated there, gently passed on to the next and thus to the last person — meanwhile someone walking by his side served various kinds of sweets and other preparations.
In the courtyard a big jar full of water was kept and by its side a small tumbler. We took some refreshments and after washing our hands we gathered together and kept chatting for a short while. In the meantime Sri Aurobindo had gone to the verandah of the middle portion of the house and sat there in a chair kept for him before a table covered with a cloth. Evidently he was waiting for some other item in the programme. By then it had become dark. In each section of the house one or two lighted hurricane-lamps were put up. The guests took leave one by one or by twos and threes and went home.
I kept on waiting, not knowing what to do. As soon as the guests left, lyengar came and told me that three big persons, namely, Bharati, Srinivasachari, V.V.S. Aiyer, would see Sri Aurobindo to pay their respects to him. If I could wait till they left, there would only be the inmates of the house, five or six, alone with Sri Aurobindo. He had a mind to take me then to Sri Aurobindo. But for that Sri Aurobindo's permission was required, he said finally. I nodded assent immediately. It might have already struck seven or gone on to seven-fifteen. A fear lurked in me that I would be questioned at home, "Why this delay?" But still I ventured to give my consent.
lyengar once again asked me, "Do you intend to see Sri Aurobindo with Bharati and others? Or with the inmates?" I could not make out what answer to give. Whether in the midst of Bharati and others or in the midst of the inmates of the house Sri Aurobindo would be the same Sri Aurobindo. I began to revolve in my mind how there could be any difference. A little while, it might be less than a minute, I wavered in mind and replied, "When the inmates are there." "If so, you must wait for some time," said lyengar and left.
I had to wait till 8 p.m. Bharati, Srinivasachari and Aiyer, at the time of going out of Sri Aurobindo's house, looked closely at me with a view to recognise me. They did not expect me there so late. They at once doubted and wondered if I had become an inmate of Sri Aurobindo's house. Their faces betrayed this mixed feeling.
At about 8.15 p.m. lyengar came to me and said: "You may get Sri Aurobindo's Darshan as you pass before his table. Go with folded hands. But no permission to speak with him. While passing by his right just stand in front, stop awhile, join your hands, silently take
Page 22
leave of him and go home." lyengar's words were imprinted upon my mind.
I was soon called in. I got up and approached Sri Aurobindo's table. From the ceiling hung a hurricane-lamp that served to dispel the darkness only partially. Going round Sri Aurobindo by way of pradakshina I stood in his presence with joined palms and made my obeisance to him. Sri Aurobindo's eyes, it seemed, burned brighter than the lamp-light for me; as he looked at me, in a trice all gloom vanished from within me, and his image was as it were installed in the sanctum sanctorum of my being. Nothing was very clear to me. I went behind him, stood again in front, offered my homage to him and not knowing whether to stay or go I staggered perplexed. Sri Aurobindo made a gesture with his heavenly hands to one of those who stood there. A sweet was given me once again. I felt within that he had accepted me though I did not quite know it. I left Sri Aurobindo's house and proceeded towards my own.
When I reached home, it was 9.30 p.m. What happened at home? What trouble befell me? All this is of little importance. Students of my age of that time can easily imagine all the hubbub that took place in my house!
For long my heart had been in a state of suspense thinking that I might or might not attain the goal; my life drifting in distress on the shoreless ocean had somehow come to perceive the light-house. In the midst of gathering despair my being had found a new life and I allowed it full freedom.
On one hand trouble at home; on the other trouble in studies. All this did not touch me to the extent of upsetting me. At times it appeared to me as if no relation existed between anything and me. There was a screen within; all desires known to me and others unknown were outside the screen. Behind the screen there existed incalculable possibilities, innumerable things happened not within the range of my vision. Something non-human, something strange and bodiless had been shaping my being and consciousness. That is how I think now.
I had been familiar with Bharati since 1910 or 1911; I had imbibed from him, without understanding, a distaste for the old and a boundless attraction for the new. When I look at it now even this revaluation—this mere rejection of the past and acceptance of the new — seems to have had its origin not deep within but meant simply a surface attraction. For the real reality was quite different. It was not
Page 23
the old or the new, it was not the snare of the old or the temptation of the new but the opening of something else behind or within or above that gave form to everything and touched me profoundly without my knowing it.
I started now frequenting Sri Aurobindo's house. My family members knew nothing of it. I became acquainted with one or two of the inmates — mainly Bejoy Kumar. He used to send letters twice or thrice per month by registered post — called Poste Recommandee in French — to Chandernagore. As intimacy with him grew, he began to send letters through me. There was no fixed hour for this work. He used to send me at any time between 12 and 3 p.m. He ordered me not to disclose this posting of letters to anyone.
In Pondicherry there were two types of post-offices in those days: one was French, the other British. The bundle from the French post-office would be carried in a small hand-cart with a French policeman escorting it. The bundle would be secured under a seal. It would then be entrusted to the British head post-office. Nobody was authorised to handle it until it was delivered to the French post-office at Chandernagore. That was why all correspondence of Sri Aurobindo's house would pass through the French post-office. The duty of posting letters of Sri Aurobindo's house luckily fell upon me. Now and then, however, the British Secret Police would persuade the French postal authorities or their subordinates, and procure letters addressed to Sri Aurobindo or those coming to V.V.S. Aiyer from Europe, open them and after scrutiny seal them back before handing them over to the postal authorities. At least a strong rumour was current then to this effect.
(7)
Sri Aurobindo's household moved from Mission Street to Francois Martin Street. There arose a difference of opinion among those called "swadeshis" as to the necessity of this change of residence. A strong dispute started in their midst on this account. The disputation, I was told, reached Sri Aurobindo's ears.
Why this controversy over Sri Aurobindo's change of residence? The city of Pondicherry was divided into two by a canal running north-south. The eastern side of the city was called by the people "European Quarter" whereas the western side, comprising more than three-fourths of the
Page 24
population, was known as "Indian Quarter". The "European Quarter" was mostly, we may even say totally, inhabited by the white or mixed white people. As a rule, the houses in this part of the city had in front a footpath for pedestrians and, further away, the road for vehicles. Standing on the footpath one would open the gate of a house and then get in. The houses in the "Indian Quarter" had commonly covered platforms in front to sit upon, but no footpath. In the "white town", pedestrians would find no shelter from rain and storm. The gates remained always closed. The streets were nearly always silent. People were hardly seen walking there. Sometimes with the arrival of French steamers the shores of Pondicherry were a little busy and, in the interior either the next day or the day after, one might come across one or two pedlars carrying, on the head in baskets or big wooden boxes, perfumes, special biscuits, children's playthings, stitching threads of many kinds and colours, and other French products. These pedlars would cry out in French, "Marchandises, marchandises" (i.e., "Goods for sale"), with a view to attract the attention of customers. This business was run by one or two of the French families which had settled down at Pondicherry for supplying the needs of the local French people.
Every house had two gates — one for the inmates and the other for the "Push-push" carriages. The latter had a wide opening, a big one-leaf door or, in some places, folding doors.
Sri Aurobindo's house in Mission Street was rented at Rs.15/- per month whereas the rent of the house now taken was settled at Rs.35/-. Now the great question arose: Why did Sri Aurobindo change his residence when the rent was so high? A perplexing question! Why this extravagance? The difference in rent would be sufficient to meet the needs of a whole family. All this was brought to Bharati's notice. But he did not utter a word about it to Sri Aurobindo, because there was no point in discussing about it when Sri Aurobindo had already taken the decision. It was Bharati's. firm belief that Sri Aurobindo would not do anything without a definite purpose behind it.
Description of the new house: it was a big self-sufficient house in-Francois Martin St., No. 37. It had two entrances — one on the north and the other on the west. This well-built structure stood at the' junction of two streets. Rue Francois Martin ran from north to south whereas Rue Law de Lauriston from east to west. The western gate faced Rue Francois Martin. This was evidently the postern gate, the northern indeed was the main entrance; but as it remained always locked, the western became the main gate. Entering by this gate one
Page 25
would come across an open space which could be termed a courtyard. The northern gate led straight to the staircase; it was later on closed up and the entrance converted into a room, as you see at present. The house being tenantless so long, grass had grown thick at certain places along its walls. There was only one tap for the whole house and that too in the open courtyard, against a wall near the back staircase. The tap still exists and is used by our Green Group boys. Under this water tap — it was fitted up almost to a man's height — lay a big round stone resembling the lower part of a grind-stone.
In the interior of the house, at one end of the verandah there was a wide staircase leading to the first floor. Each of the steps had its rim strengthened, almost decorated, by a wooden plank. The back staircase had no protection from sun and rain. It was constructed for the passage of cooks, servants, the menials. I have said before that the house was big but it looked desolate.
The upper storey held spacious rooms and a spacious verandah. The east and the west ends had both an open terrace facing south. On the west, at the corner there was a wide room, adjoining which was another room and then the open terrace. Both the terraces had seats under the parapets. I mention this because we used to sit there, including Sri Aurobindo, and chat for long hours at night. The big room, the front room and the terrace — the three together being considered the best part of the house — were set apart for Sri Aurobindo. Such a big house but without electric lights!
The events that took place since Sri Aurobindo's birth anniversary in August 1913 to his shifting to the Francois Martin Street, i.e., from August 1913 to December 1913, left no clear impression upon my mind. My memory is dim now about this period.
To go a little back in our story, Sri Aurobindo reached the shores of Pondicherry on board the Dupleix at 4 p.m. on April 4, 1910, got down with Bejoykanta and made straight for Shankar Chetty's house in Comoutty Street.
The persons who escorted Sri Aurobindo to Shankar Chetty's house were Srinivasachari, C. Subramania Bharati, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti and Shankar Chetty. Of them only Srinivasachari is still alive (1962).
Sri Aurobindo lived incognito for six months in Shankar Chetty's house. Later on, his stay in Pondicherry came to be known more and more by others. It was during his stay at Shankar Chetty's that he observed a fast for 21 days. Though he lost weight, as he said, due to this fast, his energy increased many times.
Page 26
It was again in Shankar Chetty's house that a distinguished scholar and savant from France met Sri Aurobindo in secret. His name was Paul Richard. He was sent from France by Mira — she whom we now know as the Mother. She handed over to him the sketch of a yogachakra, saying that its interpreter was to be found in India; and he who could interpret it would alone be her helper and master on the path of yoga. Paul Richard received the meaning of the symbol from Sri Aurobindo, and then left for his country with the message. While returning to France he said to Sri Aurobindo that Mira and he could come in the year 1914. Accordingly, they sailed from France, disembarked at Dhanushkoti, took the train and reached Pondicherry on March 29, 1914 without a halt on the way.
Now, what accounted for that change of residence to No. 37, in the Francois Martin Street, many thought, was the impending arrival of these two persons from France. So far as I remember it was the middle of December 1913 that the new house was first occupied.
The "revolutionaries" who had settled at Pondicherry whispered to one another that two Europeans had accepted Sri Aurobindo as Guru and would stay here. This news spread abroad and reached my ears also. One day in December 1913, as was my habit, I went to see Ramaswami lyengar in the evening. He was downstairs on the verandah in front of his room and said that two persons from the top-most cultural circle of France were coming to Sri Aurobindo for practising yoga. They would be coming very soon. "It was a secret till now; I have disclosed it to you today," he concluded.
I felt very happy: European savants! they have approached a countryman of ours with reverence. My heart rejoiced to hear of it.
The upper storey — its verandah, to be exact — was somewhat beautified. One old cracked table, two arm-chairs, four or five folding armless chairs with back-rest — these were borrowed and arranged there, luckily with no binding to return them.
Moreover, four electric lights were put up, one in Sri Aurobindo's room, another in the centre of the upper verandah, the third in the verandah downstairs, the fourth I do not remember where. There was no electric meter in the house. For each point the charge was one rupee and four annas per month. Whether the lights were kept burning or not, five rupees had to be paid and the charge would be the same even if they were kept on through all the twenty-four hours. Less than four points were not given as a rule.
Page 27
The weeds in the courtyard were pulled out. Daily sweeping of the house was now attended to. The house put on almost a gay appearance because of these much-needed changes.
I do not distinctly recollect what took place after Ramaswami lyengar had shifted from Mission Street and before he finally left Pondicherry. The succession of events and their chronology have become hazy in my remembrance. Naturally I could not know everything, since I was not an inmate of Sri Aurobindo's house.
After Sri Aurobindo had moved to the new house, not a day passed without my paying a visit to the place. Ramaswami was put up in a room downstairs adjacent to the staircase. I used to call on him every evening without fail and accompany him to the beach. As I said, I was much attached to Ramaswami and identified myself with him without being quite conscious of it. In the Mission Street house I used to have Sri Aurobindo's Darshan once a day. Here it was not so. I had no occasion to go upstairs. Sometimes he would come down and if I happened to be there — well, my good luck!
One event. The year 1914 was born. It was towards the end of March. Time: evening, about 6 p.m. Ramaswami lyengar was sitting all alone in the open court. There was no other soul. The sense of solitariness was somewhat awesome. Not a fly, not a crow near about. I entered the house. He made a sign and calling me near said: "The two persons from France have arrived. They will just now come and see Sri Aurobindo. The order is that none other than the inmates should remain in the house. You go alone to the sea-side."
There was a reaction of sorrow and confusion in my heart. I not an inmate! a stranger! Yes, that must be the cause. I said once that there was a kind of screen in my consciousness. The "I" behind that screen was not a stranger; the "I" outside the screen was one.
lyengar did not stay long in this new house. So far as I remember, he left for his village in May 1914. Whenever I called at the new house I found Ramaswami with a big copy of the Ramayana printed in Devanagari script. He had started reading Sanskrit. Nolini Kanta Gupta was his tutor. Whenever Ramaswami spoke about his tutor, he spoke with love and respect.
Nolini Kanta Gupta gave him lessons in the Bengali language also. In the new house Ramaswami rendered into Tamil Bankim Chandra Chatterji's short story "Jugal Anguria" and got it published in some periodical — I have forgotten the name, it might be "Swadeshimitran". lyengar's handwriting looked like a string of tiny pearls. Bharati used
Page 28
to write each letter separately, juxtapose one letter to another and so his handwriting would look like an arrangement of jewels.
lyengar would send his translations to the press only when they had been shown to Bharati.
Ramaswami cherished an immeasurable affection for his mother. A year had passed since he had left his mother's house. He must see his mother now, he decided. He spoke about this to Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo was reluctant to permit him. He tried to dissuade him from going back to his place and the old life. But Ramaswami stuck to his decision stubbornly and set out for. home. It was some time in May 1914. When I went to the house the day after Ramaswami had left Sri Aurobindo and gone home, I found the downstairs as if all-forsaken. Sorrow invaded my heart. My eyes swam in tears. I felt as if I had been deprived of help or support. With what affection and what love lyengar talked with me even on the day previous to his departure! Did all that now become an illusion! Seeing me thus, and realising my piteous condition, Bejoykanta, who was on the spot, approached and comforted me with words of kindness.
lyengar's departure was but an excuse for me to be in that condition. There was created a vacuum in me. The parental affection could not fill it. The one chosen by my inner being only could make this emptiness disappear. Bejoykanta was a help in reaching the Guru's Feet.
(8)
I began now to pass more time in Sri Aurobindo's house and less in mine. I would go home for food and sleep only. And for this I had a good excuse to give to my family. I was then studying in the Matriculation class of the Calve College, Pondicherry. My classmate was Krishnamachari, the son of M. Srinivasachari's elder brother; he was perhaps two years younger than I. As Krishnamachari and I (I was then known as Aravamudachari) had been very intimate and as there were greater facilities for study in his house, such as space, books, etc., I began preparing for the Matriculation in his company. My family was under the impression that my time was all devoted to study. The time left after studies I would spend mostly in Sri Aurobindo's house. Sometimes I would take my bath there and sometimes meals too. But I would not eat with the inmates. Bejoykanta would
Page 29
bring for me a slice or two of bread with butter. As my heart was full, the need for food was not much felt. Even some light refreshment would be a feast to me. My association with Bejoykanta grew into intimacy. Once a month or once in two months, seven or eight of us together would go out picnicking to the suburbs of Pondicherry such as Villenour, Oosteri, Pakkamadayanapathu, etc. We would set out early in the morning to return as it grew dark.
Before my friendship with Bejoykanta, I used to go with Ramaswami lyengar to Villenour or some other villages around Pondicherry. Several times Bharati joined us. When he was in the party, the expenses would be borne by the late Krishnaswami Chetty of Muthialpet. With Bharati we could not remain out at night. If Bejoykanta accompanied us, we had to come back by all means before 10 p.m. because Sri Aurobindo used to take his meal between 9-30 and 10 p.m.
Thus those who led an orthodox life were felt by me as strangers whereas others I felt as my kin. I developed a dislike for the family rites and ceremonies and lost all faith in them.
As I record my reminiscences here, I follow all along in the .background the ineffaceable footprints visible anew on the path of my life's pilgrimage. In this interminable flaming journey the chronological order and the successive arrangement of things are sacrificed. What I consider important is the series of small changes brought about in me by the action of light. To return to the subject. My heart realised that all attachment to the orthodox way of life had definitely fallen off from me as do the withered leaves from trees. Something else more important had begun to take shape in me imperceptibly. It was not visible to my surface consciousness. Because it was working behind the scenes my wrong conduct, mithyācāra — the false way of life —continued yet for a few years. I should live firmly in the truth, express the truth in each movement of life, be a fit instrument of true realities — such were the sweet notes that kept vibrating ceaselessly and noiselessly in my dream-state and that I heard now and again as a soft music in my waking state also. Although all attachment to the Vaishnava way of life had left me radically, my attachment to my parents, specially to my mother — should I call it desire? love? bondage? — still continued its hold on me. My mother had the feeling that she would some day in some way lose her eldest child. But as she could not give expression to this feeling, she kept silent. She knew nothing in her outer consciousness about it. "My child spends his time
Page 30
with his friend in the house of Srinivasachari, preparing for the Matriculation examination. After the examination, before he joins the F.A. in Madras, he will come to stay with me for two or three months"— these thoughts my mother cherished in herself and these she expressed as they were clear to her outer mind.
During the one year of my preparation for the Matriculation I was reducing the number of my visits to Bharati's house and increasing the time of my stay in Sri Aurobindo's, with the result that an intimate relation was formed with Bejoykanta and Saurindranath Bose who too was living there. Bharati once or twice asked me, "Why, my boy, have you stopped coming to my house?" I could not forget this. In this respect, in my mother's heart and in the heart of Bharati I seem to perceive the same thing, an echo of the play of the World Mother in her fragmented nature of the three gunas.
One day it was noon. I proceeded as usual to Sri Aurobindo's house. No human voice was heard as I walked down the street. The sun was at the meridian; it was all lustre. So extraordinary was its light that nothing could keep hiding in the places lit up wide by it; all must come to light. Not a speck of dust in that broad daylight; it was as though the presence of Lord Krishna behind the sun, pervading the whole sky, was there to enhance a hundredfold with its dark blue the light of the sun shining therein. Nothing could conceal itself in that great light. As I note down my experience of this time, it comes to my memory clothed in that significance. What was then only an impression left on my consciousness seems now to have been an unforgettable experience, an unearthly sunlight.
I do not know what account I gave to my family, specially to my mother, for my absence from the midday meal. The real reason, of course, was that it was the time for me to go to Sri Aurobindo's house, after taking my bath in Srinivasachari's house.
Unaccountably joyful, I entered Sri Aurobindo's house. I found Bejoykanta waiting in the verandah downstairs and, on seeing me, he called me to him, his face smiling. I too approached him with a heart full of delight, not knowing why. He then said, "I told Sri Aurobindo about you and also told him about your strong desire to see him." (Nowadays we say "to have darshan".) Bejoykanta added, "I was just thinking how and through whom to send for you. Come up, let's go." It was twelve or twelve-fifteen at noon. As I think now of my climbing the stairs, it seems to me as if I was truly going up towards the sun out of the dark state of my consciousness!
Page 31
The Scene I Saw
It was for the first time I got up to the first floor of Sri Aurobindo's house. In the long verandah overlooking the wide courtyard below, there were big windows giving a wide view southwards... all the doors of all the rooms were open... Everywhere and on everything there fell an all-revealing light, nothing but light... nothing was seen covered or screened, nothing was unrevealed... no spot hidden from light... My heart too, unwittingly, with no doors to close or conceal anything, free of confusion or perplexity, wide-open, soared up in sheer delight! I was in this state and Sri Aurobindo stood there, his eyes gazing southwards... His small feet appeared to my eyes as two red lotuses. His hair partly hung on his chest, partly on his back. It was still wet from his bath; water dripped from its ends. His bare broad chest shone in great beauty... His divine gaze did not yet turn towards me...
Bejoykanta got up first, I followed him, reached the head of the long corridor and, as I just stood there, Sri Aurobindo, who was about twenty feet away, turned his eyes upon me. Whether I walked to him or took a leap to him, I do not know. What I remember is that a lamp was lit everywhere in me and I saw in a spontaneous and automatic movement in front of me an intense celestial beauty. My being unknowingly swam, as it were, in a sea of silence, it fell prostrate at the lotus-feet of the Master, it did not utter "My Refuge, my Refuge", but lay there body, life and mind all together a single block. Sri Aurobindo touched me with his flower-like hands and made me stand up. I drank the drink he gave me. That eternal sight still lives in my memory in the same form. I do not know why I burst into sobs as I clasped him. Tears streamed down from my eyes. Were they tears of delight now that I had attained the celestial joy of Indra-loka, or were they the regrets of my ego watching the imminent end of its life? I cannot say. Bhakti is a divine acquisition, a thing of wonder; it cannot have its birth without divine grace. When the heart is aroused from sleep by the all-ruling grace, one sees that greatness; it is so delightful to the sight; then only one's life, possessed of the knowledge of the Lord's universal state and His transcendent state, will know how to live at once in all the three states.
The sight seen by me at that young age, as I lay at Sri Aurobindo's feet, comes vividly into my memory. Immeasurable wonder drowned me. What I saw was the repetition of a marvel of many years before.
Page 32
Our village. A huge sand-hill far away from the village. On the sand-hill stood rows of thick-set palm trees almost striking the sky. On the north of the hill in the lowland was a wide and deep reservoir of water. It was the village-tank. The tank was full of lotuses and there were lilies too in a little corner of it. On its eastern bank was a banyan tree; at a distance from that a peepal tree.
In the evenings the Brahmins of our village in order to perform their evening rites (sandhya-vandanam) would start from the village, cross the mango-grove, amalaki-grove, tamarind-grove, date-palm forest, etc., wade through the small stream flowing with a soft murmur, climb the sand-hill with its palm forest, get down to the bank of the tank and sit by its edge. After having performed the evening rites, Japa and Tapa, they would get up and, all of them reciting together the Vishnusahasranama (the thousand names of Vishnu), come back to the village.
On the eastern bank of the tank was a small temple of Ganesh, the holy image of Eyenar at the border of the village.
One evening. Darkness had just crept over the place. I was sitting on the sand-hill by the tank. I was then about 8 or 9 years old. Four or five Brahmins were still on the bank occupied with the performance of rites.
In that dim darkness of the evening, just two or three stars twinkled in the western sky.
And then, in front of me at a short distance and gradually drawing nearer and rising above as it came close to my head, there appeared a shining ball, a big ball of the size of a palm fruit. Its lustre was dark blue. My eyes fixed on it, I kept looking at it. That ball shone soothing my eyes, comforting my body, seizing my heart and, as it slowly swam up, proceeded far to the south; my sight followed its course till it disappeared.
I must have been immersed deep within me at that time because I was oblivious of the earth and voyaging in the sky. Someone in the darkness, his face I could not see, called me to go home and so I came back to the waking state. Ten miles away from our village to the south-east was Pondicherry!
Sri Aurobindo had not yet come to Pondicherry. The beings of the upper worlds were as if making ready the blessed town of Pondicherry to receive Him!
While I lay at Sri Aurobindo's lotus-feet for the first time I saw once again that glowing ball, familiar to me and quite close, appearing
Page 33
in the dark blue sky within me and leading me towards the south. It seemed as if the star had accomplished its ordained work.
(9)
I do not quite remember after how many days I next saw Sri Aurobindo. I think it was after ten or fifteen days. The second time also it was Bejoykanta whom I asked as to when I could see Sri Aurobindo. He said he could give a reply only after asking Sri Aurobindo. On the fourth or fifth day, he told me one morning that I could see Sri Aurobindo the same evening. When I requested him to take me to Sri Aurobindo that very evening he thought for a little while and said rather hesitatingly, "All right." The hesitation was natural because he could not readily consent to my request without having asked Sri Aurobindo first. But, as he had a firm belief that Sri Aurobindo would not say "No", he replied, "All right."
That evening as soon as the school was over I hastened to Sri Aurobindo's house like an arrow flying from the bow. It might be five-fifteen. Bejoykanta was waiting for me. He was in uniform ready to go out for football at Odeon-sale. As I reached there he took me up straight to Sri Aurobindo's room and without a moment's delay started for Odeon-sale.
I saw Sri Aurobindo the second time thus:
He was in his room seated in a wooden chair beside a table, writing something in a book, facing west. He moved his book a little, faced south and welcomed us both with a gleam of kindness in his eyes. I looked at him and when after a minute I turned I found Bejoykanta was no longer by my side. He and I alone! None else! Solitude! Seated he kept on looking at me and I too drowned myself in his sacred look.
In those days I could not speak English well. With Bejoykanta I had to talk in English. He struggled to speak Tamil. His knowledge of Tamil was, however, confined to a few words like rice, salt, tamarind, pulse, some names of vegetables. A few verbs in addition such as "come, go, take" he had picked up for his purpose. He employed these for all purposes while instructing the cook to make purchases. I saw him manage other needful things by gestures.
I endeavoured to speak in English with Sri Aurobindo as I used to do with Bejoykanta. At that time even one or two English words that
Page 34
I knew well would get stuck in my throat. With an herculean effort I could just say:
"I want come daily see you!"
This I struggled to finish with bated breath. I was able at that time to read and understand short stories written in easy English. But I had no habit of speaking English. I could follow others when they spoke simple sentences in it. This reminds me of a small experience at school. A teacher named Mariat was appointed to teach us History and Geography. He was in charge of giving lessons in these two subjects in the Fifth and Sixth Forms. He made it binding on his students to speak only English and with this end in view he gave one of us a small wooden block, about 2" thick, with the following order: "One who holds this block of wood should be alert to pass it on to the student who starts speaking Tamil, and he in his turn should pass it to another student indulging in the same habit."
In this way the habit of speaking some English grew in us. The habit of using English, even if imperfectly, acquired in this way stood me in good stead when I had to express myself to Sri Aurobindo.
He complied with that request of mine for seeing him daily and asked me to come after five in the evening. His compliance filled my heart with joy and I did not know then if I were on earth or in heaven.
From the very next day, I began going straight from school at 5 p.m. to Sri Aurobindo's house to see him. Before I reached there – a little later than five-fifteen – Sri Aurobindo would come out of his room and sit on the west side of the southern terrace. I used to stand before him and go on talking. I would forget then that I knew little English. Day after day I would tell him fluently and unwaveringly my home-story, etc., trying to make the details as vivid and elaborate as possible. I knew no halt. In his presence my heart would flow out like an undammed flood either out of deep love for him or inspired by his supreme grace. It cast aside all human measures of what ought to be said and what ought not to be said. Today I may venture to call it bhakti. At that time I did not know its name. My heart was full to the brim with the rasa of sweetness.
Everyday I talked with Sri Aurobindo from five-thirty to six-thirty and returned home.
I played the role of the speaker. I poured out to him everything without exception. He would hardly ever put in more than a word or two. In this way days passed into weeks, weeks into months. The feeling that, because of this intimacy, his unfailing grace would hasten
Page 35
the change that had already been taking place in me cheered me up. Does ego possess any sight? It is indeed blind. I realised afterwards that his grace was equal, impartial, pure, as constant as an eternal truth.
In a month or two, without my noticing the fact, it became easy for me to speak English. I acquired also a confidence in myself. I got into the habit of speaking English, right or wrong. As its proof, I had only a very few occasions to get the wooden block in the school.
One day almost in playfulness I asked Sri Aurobindo if I could stay with him. It was probably during November or December, 1914.1 had practically prepared myself for the Matriculation examination. It was to take place in March 1915. The day of submitting my name and depositing the examination-fee drew near.
Instead of giving a direct answer to the above question Sri Aurobindo simply said he expected it of me to pass the examination and make arrangements for further studies.
I was at my wit's end. History I had not read attentively. Chemistry seemed to me difficult. Mathematics was quite interesting: I had attained a proficiency in it. In English, though I was fairly strong, I had not reached a high standard. So a doubt that I might not come out successful pinched my heart.
All this apart, I had an opportunity to observe the lives led by the inmates of Sri Aurobindo's house. I saw no trace of care and worry on anyone's face. This was a matter of surprise to me. I had worries due to poverty, due to the coming examination, etc. nibbling at my heart. The inmates led a care-free life. What it was I cannot say but a small thought had taken birth in my heart. This thought had an infinite power—I realised this fact much later. A tree out of a seed!
One day I told Sri Aurobindo in passing that I wanted to practise Yoga and I asked him to show me the way to its practice. He put me a counter-question, "Do you know what is meant by Yoga?"
I replied, "I don't know."
That much only. No further talk about it for a long time.
But whenever I approached Bejoykanta he would without fail raise the subject of Yoga. By Yoga, he would say, one could fly in the air, walk over water, remain free from death, be immune to disease, conquer old age, etc., etc. In addition, he said finally, one could drive away all English "Feringhees" from India.
Mention of these miracles, however, gave rise in me to other thoughts, other hopes. By Yoga my family's poverty would disappear;
Page 36
we would no more feel the pinch of hunger; I could score high marks in the examination; I might procure a good job, etc.
At the close of the year 1914 the question came up of my going to Madras and of my lodging there. It was decided that I should be put in M. Srinivasachari's house. His house was a big one and quite near the temple of Parthasarathi at Triplicane.
February, 1915.
A crucial stage arrived in my life. Along with this came a quietude of mind, a constant memory of something which was fundamental.
I had not yet developed the capacity to comprehend what I might achieve by tapasya or that for a while I had come to prepare myself here for things. Even the desire to understand them had not been born in me. The Matriculation examination solely occupied my mind. The thought of it, burdened with the heavy feeling of my family's poverty, did not allow me to stand erect, depressed my spirit and created a struggle, made me live a half-alive and half-dead life, a life beset with hardships. The time then was like this.
The whole of our village had experienced failure of rains for two or three years in succession, resulting in a drying up of its fields and then followed ceaseless rains for ten or fifteen days inundating the village, bringing down and tearing to shreds a number of houses, rendering the villagers homeless and throwing them in utter distress. It was a time when our stored paddy and other grains in the granary had been consumed even before the interminable rains broke out. It was a time when even the cash-crop like groundnut could not be cultivated. It was a time of dryness and barrenness for us and other villagers without any way out of it. And it was time I should have to go to Madras. I was short of Rs.91- for the deposit. I found no way to make up this deficit. A month of the year 1915 had already passed.
On some occasions, when I sought for Sri Aurobindo's advice for deciding whether I should appear in the examination or not, he always exhorted me to do so. His purpose behind this advice and his jokes at such examinations which I heard four or five years later when I finally joined him, I could not for long comprehend. I may cite the case of an Andhra friend of mine to illustrate my point. It was Chandrasekhara, and he had passed creditably the B.A. examination. Sri Aurobindo made him the butt of such a volley of jests for this success in the examination that he all but wept for it.
I was at a loss to know how to procure the amount needed. Once I broached the subject to Sri Aurobindo. I also informed him of the
Page 37
approaching time-limit. The day after this talk, when I went to him, he handed over to me the sum of Rs.9/- and ordered me to deposit the fee. Astounded and forgetful I stood statue-like in his presence.
In 1915 I went to Madras to sit for the examination. Back to Pondicherry from there, I first met Sri Aurobindo and then Bharati. There being no longer any place here to stay at, I went back home.
One part of my being was given to endearing play and prattle with my mother; another and greater part of it felt all bonds with my parents and relatives loosened. I felt them as strangers only. This major part unknowingly and imperceptibly was captured by Sri Aurobindo. The small part enjoying my mother's caresses and fondlings stood in my way.
A letter from my friend Krishnamachari apprised me of having passed the Matriculation examination. That I had passed, even if not very creditably, gave me satisfaction. I immediately started from home for Pondicherry to convey this news to Sri Aurobindo. I put up in Bharati's house. In Pondicherry I stayed only for a day or two. At the time when I informed Sri Aurobindo of the result, he encouraged me in a way for further studies. But I felt perplexed. If I went on studying like this, when should I join Sri Aurobindo? This apprehension, partly perceptible to my heart and partly imperceptible, evoked a struggle in me. On coming back to my village, I set myself to collect all that was necessary for higher studies — money, books, clothes, etc., etc, I had to find also a lodging at Madras.
(10)
In the year 1914 I had the darshan of the Mother. I could not perceive then that the Mother's was not an ordinary human birth. In 1914 the Mother came for the first time to the land of India, the decreed repository of spiritual riches.
As directed by Sri Aurobindo in 1910, the Mother reached Pondy on March 29, 1914. A few days after her arrival, Bejoykanta introduced me to her. How did he do it? He introduced me as one of the students of the Calve College and as one keen on practising Yoga.
The Mother lived in the house No. 3 facing the North, in Dupleix Street. She had so much work to attend to that she met people only at an appointed time. Steps were taken even then to start the monthly review Arya both in English and in French.
Page 38
Students from our school, in small groups, would come at their leisure hours to see the Mother. We did not know then who the Mother was.
At that time the book Yogic Sadhan could be seen in the hands of many of those persons who frequented Sri Aurobindo's house, This book Bejoykanta taught me. I did not consider him a teacher. The terms Guru, Acharya, teacher, instructor, preceptor were not current amongst us those days. All that we had been taught was social etiquette and hospitality; no one had given us any idea of modesty or humility or devotion.
Amidst all these superficialities I approached the Mother with the help of Bejoykanta. My dumb heart at once came to feel the magic power of the Mother. Over my poor heart lay loads of dirt. If one load dropped down, another would roll in to occupy the empty space.
In my first approaches to the Mother I thought her to be one like others. My mind's way led me in one direction, my heart's voiceless feeling led in another. I had not learnt at that time either to listen attentively to the still voice of the heart, or forgetting all outer hankerings, to feel the inner urge. The tapasya perhaps that I had failed to do in my previous births I began doing now in this short span of life.
Had someone seen the Mother and myself seated on chairs, facing each other, almost as equals, with the book Yogic Sadhan in hand, he would have been in a fix to know who was teaching whom. In truth, however, I approached the Mother in the spirit of a seeker of knowledge..
The school remained closed two days per week — Sundays and Thursdays. On these two days, at 10 a.m., I would go to the Mother study with her for half an hour one or two pages of the Yogic Sadhan, proceed to Sri Aurobindo's house for his darshan and return home.
An image of immeasurable power — that was how I felt the Mother to be whenever I approached her. She, however, held that power herself without allowing the least display of it. On some occasions the great power would shine forth irresistibly. Our inner sense would Perceive this radiation if it was awake.
Not only myself but some of my friends of those days had felt certain necessary changes taking place, whether we had wanted them or and without our being conscious of them, changes not only in our basic consciousness but in some of our external parts too. We would approach the Mother with our contradictory ideas and doubts
Page 39
and after a talk with her each one of us would be filled with an unaccountable purity and joy, and self-oblivious we would come back home talking merrily like people living in a happy world.
In this year 1914 Ramaswami lyengar left Sri Aurobindo's house and started from Pondicherry for his native place. In this year 1914 again, during April and May, efforts were made, as I said, to bring out the monthly magazine Arya. On July 28 of this very year the First World War broke out. On August 15 the first issue of the Arya saw the light of day in English and French versions. In this 1914 indeed the foundation was laid of my close contact with Sri Aurobindo. And in this same year 1914 I began feeling like a simple child the Mother's continuous affection.
On August 15, 1914, Sri Aurobindo's birthday was celebrated more openly. In the spacious hall upstairs two or three big tables, taken on hire, were placed side by side; on them were spread thick washed sheets, white as jasmines; and above these sheets were heaped, mountain-like, milk-white rice. Finally, rose-petals were strewn over the rice. At about 11.30 a.m. Sri Aurobindo came and stood in the long verandah, south of the hall, at the western end and, looking at us eastwards, spoke something in English for two or three minutes.
Ten or fifteen persons only out of those who had assembled that day stayed behind for sometime and I was one of these few. I do not remember now where the Mother was, where she sat and took her food.
In October 1914, I suppose, Abdul Karim, a chief C.I.D. Inspector of the Madras Presidency sought Sri Aurobindo's permission for an interview. I do not remember the date. He was asked to come on a particular day at 10 a.m. for the interview. Abdul Karim came on that day in time and met Sri Aurobindo. The talk must have lasted for more than half an hour in private. While going to Sri Aurobindo Abdul Karim had carried a big rose-garland and two or three plates full of fruits, etc. Not being an inmate of Sri Aurobindo's house, I had no means of knowing what transpired between them. Even if I had been an inmate, Sri Aurobindo would have said only what could be disclosed. It was rumoured in Pondicherry that the talk must have been mainly about the World War and Abdul Karim sought to know Sri Aurobindo's views about it.
One or two months passed after the outbreak of the World War. Nolini Kanta Gupta and Saurindranath Bose who had gone to Bengal came back hurriedly to Pondicherry. Now Bejoykanta also grew
Page 40
impatient to go to Bengal like them for a short visit. He persisted in it. Sri Aurobindo gave no consent to it. Bejoykanta's friends in Pondicherry and some others, including Abdul Karim, had come to know that he was about to leave for Bengal.
Either the very next day after Abdul Karinfs interview with Sri Aurobindo or one or two days later, Bejoykanta started for Bengal. The news circulated in the town that, as Bejoykanta was suspected to be a revolutionary, a warrant of arrest was in Abdul Karim's pocket the very day of his interview with Sri Aurobindo.
Bejoykanta started from Sri Aurobindo's house and caught the train to Madras. Directly he crossed the French border he was arrested and taken into police custody at Cuddalore; he was then transferred a few days later to his native place in Bengal and interned there till the end of the War, that is to say, five long years. As soon as he got released he came back to Pondicherry.
Before the publication of the Arya, it was widely talked about — and most amongst the Tamil poet Bharati and his friends—that a Review of the kind was soon going to be published. The idea also spread, along with the talk, that a new age was about to dawn, this new age was for the whole human race and Sri Aurobindo was the Rishi of this new age. Poet Bharati was chiefly instrumental in spreading the idea.
I was fortunate enough to hear many say several times that the Arya would elucidate the secrets of the Veda and, as a corollary, unravel many a knot, till now unloosened, in the Upanishads, Itihasas, Puranas, etc. I heard many also declare that Sri Aurobindo had found a new method of Yoga for the sake of mankind and would divulge in the Arya the characteristic process of sadhana for following this method.
Hardly a month had passed since the declaration of the great War when I heard elderly people, rich in knowledge, affirm that the World War was but the unhealed sore in the human consciousness and the appearance of the Arya was destined to heal the sore. I could not grasp all that clearly then.
One day at the beginning of September I tool up a copy of the first issue of the Arya from the table on the long verandah upstairs in Sri Aurobindo's house and started reading the first article of the series, "The Life Divine", written by Sri Aurobindo, just loudly enough for myself to hear. I read it over and over again. Great thoughts clothed in great words — I could not at all comprehend! However, it was sweet to read and re-read it. It was as if someone else in me was comprehending all that was read!
Page 41
As I was reading, Sri Aurobindo came, stood in front of the table and kept listening to my reading. When I put down the copy of the Arya and lifted my head I saw Sri Aurobindo standing there. I told him that the reading was delightful but nothing could be grasped.
Sri Aurobindo heard all that I said and replied, "It is not necessary to understand it all at once. Go on reading. If you find a joy in reading, you need not stop it."
Anyone may perceive in Sri Aurobindo's writings a wealth of experiences, a mantric power and an extraordinary superhuman attraction. That first sublime article in the Arya begins with one or two Riks from the Rig Veda.
Hear:
"She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming,—Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead.... What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their Light; projecting forward her illumination, she enters into communion with the rest that are to come."
Kutsa Angirasa—Rig Veda 1.113.8.
Without being conscious of my relation with the Mother before and after my birth on this earth, I felt a child's love for her at the very outset.
The Mother left for France in February 1915.1 too went to Madras for the Matriculation examination that very year.
(11)
I arrived finally at Madras and was, therefore, cut off from my family. When now I look back on this event, I seem to realise how far away was the action of my own will from that of the divine Will. If I had been acting according to my own inclination, I could never have come near the divine Presence. We are for the most part subject to petty desires and feelings. My life's course was settled without my knowing it, as soon as the Master's glance embraced me. When I reached the crucial stage of my life, and felt pulled to and fro by the force of attachments on one side, and that of the divine Light on the other, and stood swaying in the thick of the conflict, what was it that
Page 42
made me give up the life of the world and turn towards that of the Spirit? Who brought about this turning? Each time that I think over it, I have the feeling that I was not an agent but a mere tool, an instrument only, nimitta matram.
I stayed at Madras till the 3rd April, 1919. Even though I lived there, it was the Master's presence that guided me; in my heart there was ever the remembrance of Pondicherry. The word "Pondicherry" meant to my soul Sri Aurobindo — there was room for nothing else there. I studied for a year in the Intermediate Class at Madras. I used to come back to Pondicherry once a month. Sometimes, due to unforeseen circumstances, it would be once in two months.
At Madras I was fortunate to have one or two intimate friends. One of them was V.P. Karunakaran Nambiar. He was a student of the Law College. He had a boundless love for Sri Aurobindo. He believed that it was Sri Aurobindo who had given a new life to the Indian political movement. He felt, moreover, immensely attracted to Sri Aurobindo's writings. He made friends with me when he came to know of my association with Sri Aurobindo. He began accompanying me to Pondicherry without fail once a month. He used to put up at some hotel there. We would start from Madras on Friday by the night-train, get down at Pondicherry on Saturday morning, and return by the Sunday night-train. Nambiar had the good fortune to see Sri Aurobindo and speak with him on Saturday night. Sometimes, on the Sunday night also, he would have a talk with Sri Aurobindo for half an hour, solely or mostly on English literature. It was Nambiar who, for the first time, made arrangements to borrow books in his own name from the Madras University Library and Connemera Library for Sri Aurobindo! He is no more — he died a few years ago.
In Madras I passed four years in George Town, in the house No. 14 at the corner of Baker Street, opposite to the Law College. Madras was not so crowded between 1915 and 1919 as it is at present. I would go after 5 p.m. to the vast maidan of the High Court and be there all alone till 7 p.m. I would read at that time over and over again Sri Aurobindo's magazine Arya or his book of poems Ahana, and take immense delight in them. Did I understand them or not? What was it that delighted me? How did I enjoy them? All this my soul alone knows, I know nothing.
Wherever I happened to be — on the sea-beach, in the High Court grounds, in Pachchiappa College, in Baker Street or at Triplicane — no matter where, the memory of Sri Aurobindo burnt bright in my heart.
Page 43
The single thought in me was, "When will the next opportunity come for me to go to Pondicherry?"
Once on my way to Pondicherry, I met an Andhra young man, Chandrasekhar Ayya by name. He enquired of me, "How can I meet Sri Aurobindo?" I told him, "You may come with me and take your chance."
When I broached the matter to Sri Aurobindo, he put me several questions relating to Chandrasekhar—"Where does he come from?" "Why has he come to Pondicherry?" "Is it on account of some business?" etc., and then, at last he consented to meet him. The interview between Sri Aurobindo and Chandrasekhar lasted not more than five minutes.
Later on, I remember to have met Chandrasekhar Ayya once or twice in Madras. Whenever he came to Pondicherry, I would be with him. He never failed to have Sri Aurobindo's darshan. His first interview with Sri Aurobindo for only five minutes laid the foundation of the priceless things he gleaned in future from Sri Aurobindo. Unlike the late V. P. Karunakaran Nambiar, Chandrasekhar plunged heart and soul into Sri Aurobindo for a few years.
A man of intellectual attainments, he was a scholar in Sanskrit and knew English very well. He could intently open his heart without reserve to whatever he would see as the best. Sri Aurobindo kindled the fire in him.
Chandrasekhar Ayya came ten or twelve times after I had left Madras finally and taken refuge in Sri Aurobindo. He used to put up at a hotel. At times he would stay four or five days at a stretch. He gave himself entirely to Sri Aurobindo. There grew up steadily an intimacy between them. As a consequence, he started reserving a room for himself on rent in a hotel here. Can the fire so kindled ever forsake him?
Subramania Bharati learnt the Rig Veda from Sri Aurobindo. Chandrasekhar also studied the Rig Veda with Sri Aurobindo methodically at a particular hour. He studied in this way for two or three years, not by the old traditional commentaries, nor in the old style, but in the light of Sri Aurobindo's own revealing interpretation. I listened to the interpretation with great delight, whenever I could be present.
In Madras I had the opportunity of contacting a number of big persons, some of whom were really great, and had talks with them. I met and talked with Annie Besant several times. I approached Mahatma Gandhi through Va Ra on Bharati's behalf. But none of them
Page 44
could appeal to my heart, which the Master had captured, whole and entire. I felt it had become indissolubly one with him. My Master — how great he was! An Avatar! He mixed with me as if he was one of us, and had taken hold of my soul. How could I then be drawn to others?
My friends urged me to join the Theosophical Society and, later on, some of them pressed me passionately and untiringly to join the Non-cooperation Movement of Mahatma Gandhi. My mind gave no response to such talks. How could it respond, when the Master's command had been otherwise, even if he had expressly told me nothing?
Many great movements were, of course, going on, but they did not seem to me to reflect in any way the truth of man's inner being. They were conceived and carried on in the rush-light of the human mind.
Sri Aurobindo had somehow put away from us all outer attractions, turned our gaze inwards and made it centre in him. Politics, patriotism and social welfare had no attraction for me. What can the outer activities express but only our inner imperfections so long as we do not change our consciousness and nature? What use then being wholly absorbed in them?
Ten or twelve days before I left for Madras, Sri Aurobindo, in response to my repeated requests, consented to say a few words about the practice of Yoga. I would go to him daily between 3 and 3.30 p.m. He would speak to me in a simple way about the practice of Yoga. I noted down the major portions of his sayings.
Many years before his passing, Sri Aurobindo took away the notebooks from me. He probably did not intend that those secrets of Yoga should be disclosed to others.
His sayings had been written down by me in two small pocket-books. They would be with me constantly as a guide throughout the four or five years of my stay at Madras. At night, during my sleep, they would remain under my pillow. Throughout the day they would be in my pocket. I would read them time and again.
In Madras my association with the members of the Theosophical Society began to grow by degrees. The "Home Rule" movement was in full swing. On the first floor of the house No. 2 at Broadway, almost facing the Law College, the "Home Rule" library was opened by Annie Besant with great eclat. Dailies, weeklies, monthlies in English and a small section of them in Tamil were displayed there. The Reading Room remained open from 7 or 7-30 in the morning to
Page 45
9 at night. Many people would come to read the magazines. The hall was quite spacious and a number of electric lights kept burning from 6 to 9 p.m. There were about half a dozen cupboards which got filled up within a month of the inauguration of the Reading Room.
By 9 p.m. the library-gate would close. I was left in charge of the vast library with its Reading Room. From 9 at night to 7 next morning it would be, as it were, my own home.
At night my friends, relatives and school-mates used to come and see me whenever they liked. In addition to the hall, there were a small room and, to the East, a bathroom. It was like a palace for me. I arranged for my meals at a Brahmin hotel in Tambu Chetty Street. I had not given up my room in the house No. 14 in Baker Street. I have written all this in detail because when I moved from the house in Baker Street, I made the house at Broadway my residence for nearly four years.
It is not necessary to write how I was in Madras and in what way I lived. But how, through certain circumstances, through association with some genuine and sincere persons, my soul took its course in this life, and how my life developed under their shadow by the grace of the Master — all this becomes a source of disinterested joy as I remember and describe it.
Some four or five months before I left for Madras, Sri Aurobindo would sometimes say in a casual way, "Whatever happens, detach yourself from the happenings and learn to watch them as a Witness. Do not get involved in them." Although I could not grasp the full implications of this mantra of initiation, it left a deep imprint upon my heart.
This single mantra acted as an unfailing sustenance of my life during my stay at Madras for four or five years. How it became by stages effective in my sadhana is, however, another story into which I do not wish to enter here.
I have already mentioned that many persons used to come and read magazines in the Home Rule Library when I was there. One of them was a student of the Law College. He became intimate with me and kept a close watch over my way of life.
When I was with the members of my family I had to observe the usual religious rites and ceremonies. But in Pondicherry, out of their sight and reach, I could afford to be free. In Madras I was quite free to move about and act as I wished. No rule was binding on me. But in the heart of this freedom something within me would go on uttering
Page 46
in a low tone, during sleep or at odd moments during the day, something like a voice from afar, "You are in bondage. The chains are holding you tight." I could not clearly catch the sense of it—I was drowned in the surface noise and whirlpool. I lost all discrimination of the true and the false. But in whatever condition I was, and into whatever hell thrown, the Master, the Lord of my soul, would be with me and within me, and never abandon me.
The person who was clearly observing my movements in the Home Rule Library had come to Madras from Kumbakonam to study in the Law College, as I have said above. He lived in a small rented house with his wife in Mannadi. He was a Vaishnava, and, having somehow come to know that I too was a Vaishnava Brahmin, he tried to correct my nature and my life in what he thought was the right way. He would bring to the Library books of short stories in English, written in a simple style. Each story contained moral lessons to help one live religiously. Handing over one such book to me, he would say, "Keep it as long as you need it, and return when you have finished it. I shall then give you another book." He was probably older than I by three or four years.
As he had a doubt that I was not reading the books he gave me, he proposed one day that we should read the books together. This, after a few days, I found rather boring. So far as I remember, his name was Krishnaswami lyengar.
Once a week he would invite me to his house for meals. He found out in a few months that all his efforts to change my ways of life and make me follow religious observances had been in vain. He had failed to perceive that in my heart was ever burning the light of Sri Aurobindo.
I have referred briefly to my initiation. It did not, however, follow the traditional way. And what I have called the mantra of initiation — the often repeated command of Sri Aurobindo to detach myself from all happenings and practise to be only the Witness Purusha — this mantra was not given as such. The traditional method consists in the Guru's choosing an auspicious day and moment, and softly uttering the mantra in the sishya's ear. But Sri Aurobindo's way was quite different. One may intensely seek for the Guru, and seeking thus, one may, by rare luck, find him. But the Guru, so found, may keep one waiting for years to be accepted as his disciple. This is the traditional Way. But Sri Aurobindo's way, I repeat,— was different. As we grew intimate with him, we felt within us that he had already accepted us.
Page 47
In silence the sadhana had begun in us. The Guru's Grace and the sishya's receiving it were a spontaneous development, without even the need of a single spoken word. According to their capacity and fitness— adhikāra — some disciples would make steady progress in Yoga, while others would have a sudden and, sometimes even a marvellous, out-flowering of literary and artistic talent. Each one would receive the Master's silent inspiration in his own distinctive way, and according to the fitness and aptitude of his nature.
Page 48
EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY
I
Beauty standing motionless in meditation is beauty of form,
Beauty moving and shining in meditation is beauty of life,
Beauty thinking in meditation is beauty of thought—
The Spirit of beauty is thus standing, moving and thinking
from the far off beyonds.
II
Man first sought for the beautiful in the body of creation draped in all forms.
She was too unmoving for him and was standing wondrous and elusive.
Then defeated in his quest he sought for her in the quick life of all creation.
There too she was too quick for him and was moving wondrous and elusive.
Then again he sought for her in the animated thoughts of all creation.
There too she thought before him and was thinking wondrous and elusive.
Finally he found her shining wonderful at the giddy heights of the within of man harmonised of body, life and mind.
DUTY, SACRIFICE, TRUTH
Duty is of the mental stuff; it is of the lower order. And truth is the outcome of the Supramental. The former is the coercive force of a lower order, a force of the mind which attempts to solve the perpetual conflict of variously moving forces found in the kshetra of man. The truth is of a superior origin and is the outcome of harmoniously moving forces whose home is where the gods take birth.
Duty is the will of the mental twilight trying to bring under its sway the several impulses of the vital or animal world. It has until now at the most partially succeeded in its object.
Page 49
In the effort to fulfil a duty — which is only a dry abstraction of the intellect, a way of conduct found by intellect in order to achieve a harmony — man willingly or unwillingly conjoins to his dry intellectual abstraction called duty another of his negative efforts known as sacrifice
In the world of truth there is no sacrifice. At his best a self-sacrificing man is only a self-pleased bankrupt trying to do charity by an entirely unsuccessful borrowing.
The multiple truths of the Supramental flow spontaneously as though in an infinite current of various channels moving in different directions, never colliding but enriching, embracing and kissing when met. They have the joy the self-fulfilment—altogether a new order yet to be discovered but already envisaged.
The joy of self-fulfilment is positive, harmonious and above-man; and the joy of self-sacrifice is troubled, uneven and is of the man.
Duty is the finely knotted and knuckled walking-staff of man groping and stumbling in the dimly lit vast forests of forces whose movements perpetually collide, clash, appear, disappear, rise. fall, and whose destiny and end are still unintelligible to hunch-backed, groping and ancient Man.
THE DEMANDS OF THE TRUTH-SOUL AND THE
LOWER NATURE
The title of this article consists of a contradiction in terms. There are demands of the lower nature and they are observed now and again by the Sadhakas; but to speak of the demands of the Truth-Soul is altogether untrue. For the Truth-Soul is a container of all things and there is not even the slightest chance for it to make any demand at any time. The Truth-Soul, to speak in the known simile of the lower
Page 50
nature, is a shell-covered seed which under proper climate and favourable weather breaks, comes out of the shell, grows, awakens out of the earth as a plant, buds, blossoms and finally falls as seed on the same earth out of which it came, as though getting involved again into inconscience only to come out again on a newer round and in newer forms. The Truth-Soul obeys its own law, its own rhythm and its own course, and its movements are dictated only by itself. There is a why for everything of the lower nature — movements and all — because there is a nature above the lower. But there is no such why for the Truth-Soul, and itself and its movements are its own joy, truth and power.
The lower nature is incomplete and finite. This very incompleteness and the stamp of finiteness form of themselves all the demands, not silent and peaceful but clamorous demands, that we face time and again surging in our lower nature. Almost at all times we identify ourselves in our ignorance with the demands of the lower nature, and consequently pain, misery, grief and all their accompaniments affect us willy-nilly. But for our identification with the demands, we could have safely steered through.
The demands of the lower nature are infinite in number and kind; and one cannot give a final satisfaction to any one of them in any way. Their satisfaction is not in the things they seek for. Not only a satisfaction but an innate joy will be attained only by the cessation of the demands, which is an impossibility under this cover of ignorance — the lower nature.
"Desire desiring defeats its own end" is a truth. The demands of the lower nature are a heap of chaotically moving desires. They do not cease to move even when they get the thing desired. Hence they are also an endless and aimless movement.
Now the only question is how to deal with them. The grace from above and a faith in its power of transformation and a complete śraddhā in us will take us a long way. Then a conscious yielding to
Page 51
the pressure of the Truth-Soul which is above us will slowly tend to break the cover of ignorance allowing the rays. of the Sun of Truth to enter into us. Under the transforming heat of the Sun of Truth, the demands of the lower nature will be transmuted into self-impelled movements of delight, and the lower nature itself will be transformed into that of which it is a mutilated and incomplete reflection.
WORK, FAITH, AND KNOWLEDGE
Work, faith and knowledge are interdependent principles of life. Work is the hammering that makes man, if not now, at least after a time, self-luminous. It is a necessary principle for perfection. If man had not-to work, he would not be what he is today. Work is nothing but an output of energy by the expense of which he profits more than he gives. The entire cosmos is a tremendous travail for the birth of something divine. That tremendous travail of the cosmos reflects itself as work in individuals. We are unconscious of that which is to be born; also we are unconscious of the divine meaning of what we do. From the spiritual height alone the things that are obscure grow clear. Even what are called works of no importance contribute to man's growth to perfection.
When man works, he works by faith. Faith is the unilluminated will in man. What is will in the spiritual consciousness is faith in the lower heights of mind, life and body. Will is the materialising power of consciousness. When consciousness vibrates, it vibrates to action. Vibration is the will that achieves the thing that is in the consciousness. What we see is the process which we call work. The will, the consciousness and what the will achieves, i.e. work, are one and the same thing in different aspects. That is Truth. The will brings down something from the consciousness of the Consciousness. This will is enmeshed in Matter. It rises above, i.e. it evolves from matter, accomplishing what is inherent in it. That inherent something is the real-idea of the consciousness. This real-idea is driven by its own force. It attains a partial awareness in its ascent into the mental-sheath. Then it is faith. The real-idea, the secret inherent something, in its ascent into the supermind becomes self-luminous. Then it is no more a secret something; for it stands self-revealed. There in the supramental plane, it is one of the multifarious groupings of the consciousness as real-ideas, aware of its own destined end, achieving its own end by the force that is itself. There consciousness and force are not two
Page 52
different things. There force is consciousness and consciousness is force. Hence particular groupings of consciousness that are real-ideas are will. That means a will that knows and a real-idea that is will. Now faith is the driving force of action which is soul going through several experiences for its own delight. When faith blossoms into knowledge then it is a case of I know and I act; until then it is a question of mental knowing, I try to act for what I want. Here faith disappears. In case of faith, in the first place, I do not try to act but I am simply driven to act for what is wanted of me. It is in this sense that faith moves mountains. In the supramental knowing also faith disappears. There the individual knows what is to be done. The individual is knowingly moved to action; but it may be — while he is yet at the lower heights of the supermind — at the expense of the individual's joy or grief. But it will be ultimately a self-luminous action moving in self-delight.
To start with, the faith; faith transformed into a self-aware will resulting in the divine action must be the object of sadhana, and that is the synthesis.
A VISION AND A VOICE
The Vision
A bright circular disc of water surging with something that it does not know, filled with ripples that break the thousand images of the Sun of Truth, appeared suspended in mid-air. And it looked too like a vast moon. Over this vast but finite disc a shower of rays, resembling the rays of the sun, and each and every ray carried in it a truth. The rays were brilliant near their source, the Sun; but they diminished gradually in their brilliancy as they descended down into the bright and rayless disc. All this was seen above the disc. Below from the fathomless depth arose a huge and thick surge of darkness, a darkness of various and many streams. The denseness of their shadows diminished gradually as they rose up higher and still higher. They, the several streams of the darkness of the fathomless night, seemed to carry along with them a mysterious something that they must needs deliver up to the angels of the Sun of Truth, who appeared to be awaiting that great but secret burden. Night below pregnant with the truth she hides, a mediating light between subdued to its mission, the
Page 53
perfect day of Truth above that is to be here and is there forever, Truth in her imperial and immortal beauty, Truth in her delightful and imperishable splendour.
The Voice
The ranges of the mind
The growing powers of the mind are covered by the lids of two infinities — one, a series of darknesses growing gradually in intensity below the mind; another, a series of light also growing gradually in intensity above the mind. The first blind the mind by the dark power of their ignorance; the others blind it too, but by the dazzling puissance of their luminous knowledge. The mind of a man may be likened to a buffer state, now enveloped by the beseiging powers of the darknessses and now overpowered by the strength of the luminous forces. It is a field where sometimes Dasyus, sometimes Devas, sometimes both wage their battles and play out their amusements according to their likes and their dislikes.
The field of mind is a field of finiteness — one side of this finite terminating in impenetrable ignorance, the other terminating in a knowledge as powerfully impenetrable. The powers of the mind — the power of perceiving and judging, the power of guessing and imagination, the power of reasoning and arranging and the power of remembering and piecing together — are all powers of the finite, of a partial ignorance, which are not sure of what they see, guess, arrange or remember. There is an amount of certainty because there is the play of light in the mind, and there is also an equal amount of uncertainty because there is the play of the darkness in it. The mind is a field where forces of various kinds that have their sources in opposite poles play their doubtful game and cause the powers of the mind to see, guess, arrange and remember doubtful issues. The mind is a vast but finite region where uncertain possibilities of many sorts, varying in kind and degree, float chaotically and pass and return for ever.
The mind perceives a portion of a truth whose head and feet are made invisible to it by the lids of the two opposing infinities. That little portion of the truth which the mind is able to see is imagined in a grotesque and fanciful form by one of its powers, and again it is
Page 54
cut into a thousand pieces and arranged in a series by another of its powers, and finally the missing link is supplied by its power of memory. At the end it generally happens that the partial truth which was caught by the mind is cut and arranged altogether out of shape — it is given a shape which it originally had not. At their best the powers of the mind know very well how to misrepresent the portions of the truth they perceive.
The self-effort of the powers of the mind leads them into a vague perception of the infinities that contain nothing if not the nothingness itself. But when they allow themselves to rest in the hands of the luminous truth beyond, they outgrow themselves and are transformed into powers of the truth-consciousness. In the hands of the forces of the lower darknesses, the powers of the mind grow either completely blind with the little light in them put out or grow animal in nature. When the powers of the mind find the upward urge that is within them and coalesce with it, then the power of perception of the mind will appear in its true nature stripped of its darkness as self-revelation; the power of imagination as inspiration; the power of reasoning as the rhythms and standards of the truth or truth in its various harmonies and orders; and the power of memory as the continued knowledge of the immortal truth in its eternity comprising in itself the past, the present and the future in an ordered and rhythmic succession without the break that blinds the mind and cuts up into sections the unity of the divine progression.
THE SEVERAL RHYTHMS
The Supreme God in His utter sleep — in one of His profoundest meditations — the Supreme Consciousness involved in its own substance — is the rhythm of the apparently dead matter that we see around us. The vast oceans roar over Him, the high mountains shoot up upon Him, but still that utter calmness continues undisturbed. For that supremely rhythmic equipoise is the main support of this entire ordered universe. God's complete withdrawal into Himself — a cessation of all His activities — an entire and thorough forgetfulness of His outer self seems to be a necessary price which He has willingly paid to bring out of Himself this vast manifestation — these many universes. And so too this great and grand dumbness of matter is the basic Principle by which the universe in which we live became possible.
Page 55
A divine ignorance is the divine earth out of which grow infinite things. Ignorance that is matter is but an involved sense.
When the supreme ignorance that is matter meets with the consciousness in its first tremor of waking, then the rhythm of the vital sense originates with all its beautiful and infinite ranges of plants, Shrubs and trees. The tremor of the God at his first waking from his stupendous trance is felt and seen in the pulsations of erectly growing trees with their outstretched upward arms, of crawling creepers, and of outspreading shrubs. This rhythm of 'the sense-world' is often, rather always overpowered by the all-absorbing and oppositely 'not-moving force' of the ignorance, the involved sense. Already here is seen the struggle between the two kinds of rhythms — a rhythm of perfect stillness and a rhythm of faintly pulsating dim wakefulness. This sense again is but an involved 'sense-mind'. The struggle is the cause of the deaths that occur in the plant world — the fading of flowers, the withering leaves, and the blasting away of fields of corn; a general death reigns behind this life. The law of the God in His all-absorbing meditation is too powerful for the individual plant to persist in the life-course. Still a collective rhythm of the sense-world continues in its course and is the parent of the rhythm of the sense-mind.
The sense delivers out of itself the sense-mind and a new rhythm bursts open in the animal world. All from the crawling insect to the full-fledged bird and the quadruped comes under this new world — a world where the rhythm is in a straight line. This straight and linear rhythm makes possible for the animal a constant prying into the well-covered store-house of memory:— it is a straight onward rhythm which admits of a straight backward glance. Animals succeed in remembering the place where they get their food; and the act of remembering turns with them into an unconscious habit. But theirs is the instinctive process of memory in the world of sense-mind; whether the movements are backward or forward,— the former represents the instinctive process of memory and the latter the instinctive process of living from moment to moment,— they are always in a straight line. Everything goes by instinct. The movements are not cyclic as in the mental process.
Plants, creepers, shrubs and trees are rooted to the mother Earth; animals have succeeded in wrenching themselves away from the bosom of the earth and have a freer movement. The grip of ignorance that is matter is perforce a little slackened. Yet the all-pervasive and
Page 56
basic principle of ignorance pursues relentlessly the beings of the world of sense-mind and causes sleep, fatigue, disease and death. As in the plant, so in the animal world also, the individual animal dies, but the collective life-force, the total rhythm of the sense-mind continues. The plant world is more in consonance with the laws of its parent, the matter-world, and therefore the royal representatives of the plant-world, the huge trees in their forests of majestic symphonies enjoy a longer life than the animals which are the direct manifestation of a pronounced rebellion against the laws of the world of matter.
Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted and a new world, a world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter were a plane figure, then the numberless beings of the sense-world are so many fixed points on that plane, and the animals of the world of sense-mind are so many moving points, and the human beings of the world of mind are so many points which revolve each on itself as they move or stand. Man comprises in himself all these, the standing, the moving and the self-revolving — these are represented in him by the four rhythms of matter, .sense, sense-mind and thinking mind. He is a field, broadly speaking, of these four great rhythms, of these four great movements, and each comprises many and various smaller movements giving rise to a complexity, a richness and variety that engenders a future of still greater possibility.
The greater the distance between ignorance and man, the more subtle are the ways invented by ignorance to prevent him from hastening onward. Fatigue, sleep, disease and death are partially circumvented by man. The world of mind would have given birth to that for which it is waiting so long,— but for the most subtle of all the weapons of the mother of the present manifestation, the ignorance of the physical consciousness, a power that binds man to the earth and makes him persistently stagnate in the same place, neither allowing him to go onward nor to retrograde. This mind of man is but the involved supermind. And the mind must perforce one day yield to the supermind under the supreme pressure of the upward urge in the secret will-in-things.
Out of the several rhythms and movements that are found in man the mental being,— the richest and the most complex of beings,— has
Page 57
yet to rise a harmony higher and greater than all those that went before. And that rhythm will be a key to all the others.
ON THE EVE OF THE COMING RHYTHM
A night burdened with many secret treasures, but covered with many layers of dreadful darknesses, was the beginning. Then layer after layer of the darkness began to feel, to answer to a touch of burning inward light and it revealed, it turned into something that it was apparently not. A series of darknesses, different in shade and colour, emerged out of this burning travail. First was the rhythmic dumb mighty material trance, a tenebrous womb of complete night. Then came another rhythm, a darkness of grey clouds, and that obscure vigil took form in the plant world. Thirdly, a dim emergence, a rhythm of starlit shadow, the animal world. And then there came a moon movement in the darkness, there came the epicycloidal movement of mind revolving as on a pivot around the involved supermind, a lesser circle turning on an arc of that greater hidden circle-,. And now what we see is the last whirlings of the mind moon, pale and languourous in a vast and bewildering sky because she has seen, silently announced by a ray of the star of hope, Hesperus, the approach of her Lord, because she has heard a far-off hint of the footfalls of His coming. Though she knows it is her Lord who approaches, yet is she shy of meeting Him in her borrowed garments of light, and therefore she resists and recedes from what she wishes, falls back on her own deficiencies and by her trepidations and sinkings seems to labour to put off the birth it was always her mission to precede and prepare. Already the East is reddening with the Dawn,— Dawn, the eternal handmaid of the pink and rosy blushes, who at every moment of her life, at every step of her constant journey, goes ahead of truth, clearing and rending the darknesses — her advent a sure sign of the approaching Lord, the rising Sun of Truth. The Sun of Truth shall burst open into the vast sky and the entire manifestation beginning; from now-dead matter pulsate with a luminosity that is at once power and joy.
The immediate rhythm that is waiting to appear here on this earth will make of man a passive channel for its vibrant and luminous play. And when it has fully descended, his illumined body and physical consciousness will be a source of puissant calm on which various other and supraphysical harmonies will be sounded. His body will not as before be a cause of fatigue, sleep, hunger, disease and death. At
Page 58
every moment it will be felt releasing out of its calmness that is strength, a series of impulsions strong with light and capable of carrying out that towards which they started. Now all his efforts and movements are perverted by ignorance, brought up by a check before they are completed and return baffled upon themselves, but then they will be unimpeded and luminous with knowledge. The self-revolving movements of the tired and exhausted mind and the mind itself will be entirely swallowed up by the thousand rays of the Sun of Truth, and there will be left only a bright disc with a power to pass on the rays of the Sun as they come without any diminution or distortion either of their power or of their light. This all from body up to mind with all their infinite intricacies and complications will be transmuted into the best possible channels and instruments of the supreme Truth and Beauty and stripped of their ignorance, egoism, incoherence, isolation. Different men will be conscious channels for different intents and purposes. This is but a small indication of that coming larger harmony — a key also to the present various and conflicting rhythms.
DANGERS IN SADHANA
Two kinds of movements only are left open to the sadhakas of the yoga — one towards the higher and another towards the lower being and nature. To remain in one place and to stagnate there is an impossibility for any sadhaka. Even when he seems to stagnate, it is only either to rest in the hands of the higher and gather strength for a further step in the beyond or to rest in the hands of the lower for a further step downwards, losing some more of his already gained strength and light.
The nature of the objects of desire of a sadhaka will explain more clearly the dangers to which he is liable. When one desires an object,— particularly if it is the desire for union with another soul,— it isn vegetate at one point neither widening nor moving high or low. To be drawn towards such individuals is a clear indication of tendency or tendencies that act or make an attempt to act in the sadhaka.
Page 59
The lower forces when they move towards forces that are higher than themselves, march always calmly with folded hands and with genuine reverence. But when an imperfect sadhaka feels tendencies towards the lower forces, he always goes towards them blindfolded and very often makes a rash, unhesitating and helpless surrender. It is supposed and truly that the sadhaka's fall is most often sudden, precipitate and tremendous and the collapse causes grievous hurt which takes time to become again whole. Forces are awake and at work around him gifted with powers and a strength which is difficult for him to detect and counter. He is a bold and seeing, an ascending sadhaka, who with the help of higher powers, is able to rightly manage these variously moving forces of overwhelming strength.
The sadhaka must take the necessary care and caution to see clearly the several directions of the variously moving, clamorous and complex lower forces to be able to be steady, unfailing, and fixed to the higher aims that are found in him. Dark clouds of lower forces that move downwards in several streams, will come and stand in between his half-seeing eyes and the object of his sight and make him feel confused for a while or longer, as though lost in a trackless wide ocean covered by a dark sky. Sadhakas must be able to generate in their being heat and light and luminous flames to disperse those thundering dark clouds.
The greater the height on which the sadhaka happens to be, the greater and more hurtful would be the fall if he continues still to depend on his own strength as he did when he began the sadhana. The more he ascends, the more must be the willing surrender to the Highest towards which he is destined and less and less the dependence on himself and his powers, if he wishes to avoid dangers and pitfalls, which are innumerable on the way.
THE SECRET OF THE PHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Behind the higher mind, the mind,—manas, chitta—prana and body, there is the strength of the physical consciousness. The womb of physical consciousness is always in travail to bring out the Something that is behind all these things — to bring it out in its various true forms and types which are immortal, luminous and eternal.
The pranic force delivered out of matter fails in its creation and mutilates the types; then the physical consciousness confers upon the
Page 60
pranic force the release of death and gives a new birth to it, opens to it a fresh trial in another manner. The anxiety of this consciousness to preserve the types with which the pranic force is endowed is actively visible in the instinctive force of self-preservation. Its preying upon others in order that it may continue to live and its effort to defend itself against other contrary forces are the principal forms that are taken by this instinctive process of self-preservation. Here is the place of the theory of "the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest". Both these ideas express a partial truth, but their true truth lies in the spiritual fact behind the physical manifestation. It is this that the true and right type-seed which came out of the womb of physical consciousness, will alone survive among the many possibles, and it endures till the fragrant flower of the truth within it blossoms in a perfect form of the physical existence.
The several truth-seeds are several distinct type-seeds. They are the concentrated, gathered and involved knowledge-will of an infinite and vast consciousness. They have therefore in them a law and a power of growing into their original states of being. The process of involution presupposes a process of evolution. Each truth-seed grows constantly in power and extension by a distinct instinct of self-reproduction which is seen in one form or another in all living things from plant to man.
In the world of mind, the physical consciousness preserves the type-seeds chiefly by the strong instinct of conservation. Even when the mind makes an attempt at a forward step, there comes clouding around it a thick vapoury smoke of doubt. That doubt springs from the dim partiality of the mind's envisaging of the truth beyond. There is then a battle between the forces that preserve already existing types and the forces that discover new types. The latter are very often. overbalanced by the former. But the tender new truth, the type-seed. grows in strength and extension outside the pale of the old established order of things, in the end either to devour it and be stronger or to transform it and grow richer.
The physical consciousness everywhere acts as the force that holds together. Out of it originates an instinct for order, law, rhythm, the dharma. The multiple truths will finally be revealed by the physical consciousness in their multiple order and rhythm which will be a free, vast and integral dharma, a non-clashing, harmonious, spontaneous, inalienable interplay of movements of beauty, truth and light ever vibrant with power and joy.
Page 61
The physical consciousness in its psychic movement is very near to the images of truth. The dark and concealed sense in plants, the covert and accurate instinct in animals and the stray flashing intuitions that come to man, are all psychic aspects of physical consciousness in its various grades and phases. If man is to discover any new and enduring truth-order, it must be only by the many concrete powers of the psychic consciousness in its most highly developed and transformed order and degree of status and action. The ever-enduring forms of the truth-seeds are seen by the psychic vision, not of a dark and lower, but of a higher and more illumined nature; they are established by the pure and lucent powers of the higher psychic consciousness, and they are set in motion by the energies of an ever-moving higher Life.
THE BIRTH OF THE SUN-LORD
The happy luminous tremors of the sky of this dark night which is passing away proclaim the birth of the Sun-Lord that is to be. The earth, at the thought of his immediate birth, is astir with a fresh and vigorous life like a young and swift horse ready to gallop and the heavens are aglow with the soft and radiant blush of the dawn. The two shining firmaments are fostering the Sun-Lord with the wine of their swift-moving waters of being. Every calmly hastening minute that quietly passes away is a throb, a sting of delight, a thrill of agonisingly poignant joy, the throes of travail that the firmaments endure before they bring out the Sun-Lord from their infinite and cavernous womb of dreadful night and darkness.
This infinite, cavernous and dark womb of night is vast and has seven portals, each one leading and opening into the other, and between runs a long and sinuous network of labyrinthine ways. The Sun-Lord takes seven births before he comes to the last of the portals. Each portal supported by beams and pillars of gold opens into a vast and infinite world balanced and held between two supporting and fostering firmaments. Thus these seven interpenetrating and intertwining worlds of different substances — the frames of the rhythmic dance of God's lila — have fourteen firmaments of various colours and shades creating the lines of their ordered existence. The Sun-Lord takes his birth in each and every one of the seven worlds, rends asunder their darknesses and diffuses through them the seven lights of his seven aspects. Enriching the firmaments he himself gets enriched in substance
Page 62
and power; and he establishes by his fiery roamings from firmament to firmament a unity in their diverse existence. The Sun-Lord is the suffused calm light of shanti — the profound peace of the world of matter and its fathomless silence; he is the vibrant light of movement and growth in the world of prana, he is the twilight of animated thought in the world of mind. And now he is moving away to climb the outskirts of the firmaments of supermind, the first and foremost of his many true homes. Thus ascends the Sun-Lord through the firmaments — every new ascent into a new firmament, a new birth and enrichment of the wide and opulent ranges of his being.
THE GREAT TITAN
God is substance-delight whose nature is consciousness that is force. The innateness of force is vibration. That is its inherent character in activity, vibration of consciousness, vibration of delight, vibration of substance. Matter in the present manifestation is the lowest vibration of the one densely packed consciousness — Spirit, the highest, the most intense vibration of the same densely packed consciousness — radiating the longest luminous waves. Between matter and spirit there intervenes a long series of waves of different lengths which radiate lights of different colours with infinite shades. Among them one can easily distinguish four broad major divisions—the vital, emotional, mental and supramental koshas, resultants of four great and distinct vibrations of the one densely packed consciousness.
Man has four principal centres in him through which he can put himself in connection with all these koshas. The higher vibrations are received by the brain-centre and the successively lower and lower vibrations by the centres that descend in a series below the brain. The more he is responsive to any one of them, the more he comes in touch with the kosha with which that centre connects him.
The Purushottama, the inmost of all that is and all that is not, is the Supreme being of that transcendent and universal substance-delight whose nature is consciousness that is force. He is the divine Archer who is seated high in his own immensities far, far away from those koshas, above them in the mystic beyonds whence he shoots his arrows of light and power; and infinite in length are each of the shafts of the Eternal. These arrows of the divine Archer create by their contact various grades of vibrations in the consciousness, and
Page 63
each of them is a grand cosmic movement. Hence have these ordered universes come into being.
The present manifestation is governed by a deity and he has under him a legion. The deity and his legion are ensouled dark substances. He is capable of an enormous strength, but it is Titanic or Asuric in its Nature. He is ever-greedy in his strength, ever-absorbing, ever-devouring, mightily, fiercely, cunningly, forcefully, whatever he gets from whatsoever source. That which he annexes to his kingdom turns into the law and nature of this presiding deity — this great Titan. He is the Lord of the three kingdoms. He sets in motion mixed and disordered rhythms. He is a leader of many forces and does equally good, bad and indifferent things.
The brightest of his three kingdoms — the world of mind — is his indeed, but still not completely under his sway. Now he is victorious, now he is defeated, and always thus he goes on his way amid the paths of mind, advancing and flung backward, conquering and insecure, amid doubtful victories and momentary lordships. His laws are partially obeyed and sometimes disobeyed by the inhabitants of his half-lit, half-murky kingdom—this conflict-ridden world of mind. Its inhabitants are never sure of a peaceful existence even for one short moment. Their opulent riches are taken away from them as spoils by the Great Titan and they look on helpless, not masters of themselves and therefore not masters of their gains and possessions.
The mind is an empire of rich peoples who possess a dull and grey-coloured wealth — but an empire without an emperor. The Lord of the vital world is an aggressive ruler who rules his own peculiar kingdom mostly without a challenge. He goes a-hunting for more riches into other kingdoms also. The docile and peace-loving inhabitants of the mind gather wealth only to be forcefully deprived of them in the end by the Titan below who has always a purpose, an object, an aim in him and most often successfully carries it out by a relentless pressure. And if he sometimes yields to enemy forces, it is with an obstinate intention finally to circumvent them and be their lord or victor.
Behind this lower greyer mentality there is a greater and more luminous country—the higher mind. The beings of this region possess sufficient power to unsettle and overrule the workings of the Titan in part if not wholly, at times if not always; for a season hut not for ever. Here is found the more splendid wealth of ideas and ideals. And these are undying by-products cast up from the high and tense vibrations
Page 64
of the arrow-lights that are shot by the divine Archer seated far away in the mystic beyonds. The present state of human societies, whether in Europe or Asia, is based upon the inspirations of the vital world, but they are not given freedom for their full play because they are crossed, crippled, mutilated and maimed of their fullness in their movement by the disturbing and powerful vibrations of the arrow-lights shot by that great Archer. The cause of discontent, disharmony, failure and all their brood is to be sought for in the struggle between the Titan and his legion on one side and the descent of the higher vibrations into the lower world on the other.
The higher mind is peopled by a few leading beings, powers or forces—beings who are splendours of light, forces that are like sword-like flames. Or rather they are less self-existent forces than the principal aspects of the mother-force. One flames high, cool to the eye, wide and dense blue, like the starless and cloudless sky; it nourishes and protects whatever comes to it; it has an enormous strength; its foundation is the quiet calmness of the Eternal. There is another that flames up high. This force is bright white in colour. It has the mighty power to rend asunder the cavernous halls of the darknesses, and ever and anon it brings out of the secrecy of the inner caves and mountains the broods of creation. This too is wide; it is concentrated and bright in its immaculate whiteness. The third flame is lurid-red in colour, broad and mighty in strength and is based on a stupendous calmness like the other two flames; and this flame lives by destruction. There is an amity among the three and they work one at a time in the field of consciousness or, when one is in motion on one side, the other two play and work on the other two sides of this manifestation.
The three luminous flames or high gods descend at long intervals on this earth that is in possession of the great Titan, wage successful battles with him and establish their rule, but it is never permanent, it lasts only for a less or longer but always limited time. Each one of these gods has around him a thousand cohorts selected and chosen from the worlds below, where they have been endowed by their divine head and leader with great powers and heightened capacities. These are his cohorts, ganas, souls to the last moment of their life faithful to their resplendent lords.
These three great and bright flames of force of the blue, white and red hues have their different seats of power, the blue in his heart, the white in his head and the red in his shoulder-blades. The blue-tinged
Page 65
flame is ornate with bright gold and shining diamonds, the white flame is rich with wisdom; and the red-hued flame soars high with its thousand blazing tongues, each a force, a power of majestic destruction.
The goddess of opulence has chosen the heart of her lover as her permanent abode; the goddess of learning and wisdom finds a peaceful dwelling in the head of her lover; and the goddess of sustaining power and calmness has chosen to pervade and enshrine half the body of her lord. These gods and goddesses are inseparable either at work or at rest; together they sleep, together they labour.
Above and beyond these flames lies burning in splendour the region of the fourth kosha, the sheath of the supramental, the incandescent light, matrix and mother of three flames, of the world of the Titan and of all that is below him. Here are many pure fires and lucent flames, a magnificent multitude that evolve and involve, work and play and rest, each moving in its own and true way, delighted, unhindered and harmonious. When at rest, they are in luminous peace, unlike the lower forces who lapse into dull inertia when they have no work. And their work when they are in motion is ordered and harmonious, evolving of many truths in their own sufficient delight of tightness, in the kartavyam manner, quite unlike the forces below that grope and stumble, collide and clash in their half-lit or gloomy seekings. When the luminous knowledge comes, it comes from within the pure fires and lucent flames of truth, and they have no fear of losing it at any time like the powers of the nether regions, whose dimmer lustre of indirect and derived illuminations is a gleaning from outside their range and they have in them a continual fear of losing the earned treasure that is light and lapsing back into impotence and darkness.
Now there is one who has loosened himself from the tight and oppressive grip, the narrowing and perverting rule of the Titan, and long before, he threw himself entirely into the hands of the three principal flames or deities of the higher mind—Vishnu, Brahma, Siva—the three flames and forces of blue, white and red colours of the higher mind. They too like the Titan wanted only to utilise him instead of delivering him to their mother—Mahakali-Krishna, the Supramental. From this restraint and limitation too he has loosened himself away, he has proceeded even beyond the large precincts of the higher mind. And now he has gone into the true land of the Mother. He is the first chosen of the Mother; he is the emperor of the many
Page 66
kingdoms that are in him; such only are admitted by the Mother into the land of the Truth-Consciousness. He becomes the emperor of those that come to him. He is the centre of a small nucleus consisting of a few which is the beginning of the future, the seed of the coming race of Supermen. All the forces that are reigning in the present world will be out to combat it, to destroy the new creation if possible; but that is not to be.
At present he is working in dumb, profound and rich silences away from the immediate and near presence of the great Titan and his rulings. A series of circular rows of fences enring him; and these fences are made of sharp and shining swords of the Light pointing in all possible directions and ready to cut down and destroy any amount of enemy forces of whatever might and insolence. No danger, not even the Titan himself, can pierce the fences of Light that enring him.
To be accepted by him is to be accepted by the double personality of Mahakali-Krishna. The secret of acceptance by him — the guhyatamam or uttamam rahasyam is the secret of the old text, sarvakarmāni parityajya māmekam śaranam vraja. The secret is known but it is not easy of achievement; the land of the Truth-Conciousness is not near but still far away, and we are not far removed from the temptations of the present deity that is ruling us — the Great and Grand Titan.
Page 67
PART TWO
The Creator in His dreaming has created
this immortal thing in creation,
Figuring as a common creature,
forgetful of his Self:
A mystic reason makes Him hide
His own form and nature,
Ever at labour in working out
the Impossible:
To transfigure Nature, to establish the
Transcendent here on the bosom of material Earth,
To feed the divine sacrificial Fire
with this human body,
With this bounded frame.
Lo, the timeless hero worker
with his flaming faith,
Indifferent to the rude impacts of Reality,
Dreaming of the victorious Mother's
wonder dreams,
Shaping in his heart of hearts
the golden garden of Paradise —
A faultless, sleepless, pure
self-dedication
Has built this life into a piece of
IMMORTALITY.
Translated from the Bengali
by NOLINI.
September 19, 1962
IN MEMORY OF AMRITA
SPEAKING about Amrita, the first picture that comes to one's mind is his sense of humour, even at the age of 70 years, his wisdom, experience and the intense responsibility of yoga, instead of blunting his sense of humour only enhanced it as time passed. Here I could not draw a similarity between him and Sri Aurobindo. I once asked Sri Aurobindo about the source of his tremendous humour to which he replied in a mysterious manner 'Raso vai Sa' (He is indeed the Rasa). It looks as though Amrita had found an access to that secret. In the beginning, as I didn't know him closely, I was not aware of his deep sense of humour. Later his 'divine levity' totally charmed me. I used to wonder at the source of his eternal fountain of Rasa. At all times, in all activities, in everybody's company and even in the company of the Mother, his humour would burst forth. Not just jokes, nor fun but pun and wit sprang out of him as if Godess Saraswati herself supplied him with that. In front of the Mother when everyone was serious, silent and self-controlled, only Amrita was full of rasa always looking for a chance for humour. Mother responded to him sometimes with a smile, other times with a mock serious look and yet other times with an objection. And of course with other sadhaks around he used to be full of humour which brought smiles to depressed people and simple solutions to serious problems. Everyone always looked forward to his joyous company.
Does it simply mean that he had less work or less responsibility? Enter his room at any time and you'll see him seated working at his table in a white banian, slightly bent in his back with a serious bright forehead, a radiant face featured like a Deccan Brahmin. He had on his table many pens and pencils, bunch of keys and flowers adorning Mother's photos—all kept immediately arranged. Waking up early in the morning he would carefully make his bed, then go out to wash his dhoti and after his bath he would come out of the bathroom wearing a fresh dhoti in Tamil style. I've noticed a few washing their own dhotis regularly—Nolini, Amrita and Bala. Amrita started his work early at 6 a.m. in the morning and continued till 9 or 10 p.m. in the night. Bank work, M.O. work, letters from the sadhaks, responsibility of the domestic servants, taking houses on rent for the Ashramites, listening to innumerable complaints of the sadhaks, placing those
Page 72
before the Mother and bringing her answers orally or through letters were his works. If ever you had seen him at work, you would have had a lot of fun. One after another, persons would enter his room and come out of it. His room was rather a small one filled with almirahs and tables. Added to these was the constant flow of people some of whom would sit here and some would stand there while he sat on his small chair speaking to someone or signing a cheque or instructing some fellow sadhak. Someone worked on the typewriter beside him while on another table M.O. account was being done. It was as if he worked with hundred hands and mouths at a time. In all this he, however, kept up his inimitable humour with all those whom he received or bade farewell to. Everyone was happy and contented. "Amritada, Amritada, my letter Amritada." "Not as yet, tomorrow." "What again a servant problem?" "Not happy with your room?" "Not yet fully cured?" "Do you need to consult a doctor or not?" "Okay I shall ask the Mother." In all matters big or small we used to often hear him say, "I shall ask the Mother." We were reminded of Sri Ramakrishna who always said, "I shall ask the Mother." If you want to know about Karmayoga, sit for a while in Amrita's room. I am talking not of Karma, but Karmayoga. Without any fatigue or strain and without any relaxation he would untiringly maintain a warm friendliness with all, listening patiently to their innumerable demands and complaints and giving them simple solutions. It was his large- heartedness and kindliness that attracted all sadhaks and sadhikas towards him. Once when he was unwell, I heard a female voice in his room around 6 a.m. Incredible! Can't they spare him even at such times! I thought.
Then it was time to go to the Mother. Satinath carried various flower vases, plates, trays, etc. Then followed the tray of important documents to be given to the Mother. Finishing all the work Amrita came down about an hour later from the Mother. Few waited downstairs for the reply; to some others replies had to be sent. To take their letters, to bring information about the sick, to get permissions for interviews, to give blessing packets—this was his daily routine. In all this sometimes a letter regarding illness or some other matter got misplaced in the great pile of letters and there followed a desperate search for the missing letter.
The most fascinating aspect, however, was his relation with the Mother. How and when this relationship began can be known from
Page 73
his records in 'Smritikatha'. One thing that hasn't been mentioned but of which I heard was that when Sri Aurobindo asked the sadhaks when he had gone into seclusion to address her as 'Mother', Amrita was among the first few sadhaks to do so full-heartedly. His intimacy with the Mother ensued since then. His surrender to the Mother was like a child's. He accepted her instructions without a question or doubt. I've heard that the Mother very often reprimanded him but there was never any sign of gloom on his face. Just as much was her unending love and care for Amrita which was visible in all her words. How else could he radiate such an amount of sweetness to everyone around? He was childlike, always desirous of the Mother's touch. He would not do any work without asking the Mother, big or small. When sick he would depend totally on the Mother. Calling the doctor, giving medicine was all the Mother's responsibility. Long before, around 1930, I saw him offering his Pranam to the Mother. Chandulal and he were like brothers. Both used to do pranam at the Mother's feet, sharing her feet. It was an interesting scene—Amrita like a child. Likewise, I saw him in the later years, not offering pranams but discussing with the Mother details about property documents etc. He spoke French slowly, halting in between and often repeated 'Oui douce Mere' and added a few humorous touches here and there.
X used to ask a lot of money for his expenses. Mother used to grant it grudgingly. One day she expressed her dissatisfaction to Amrita. Next time when X came to Amrita's office for collecting the money, he saw Amrita leaving the office. X asked him, "When will you return?" Amrita answered, "When you would have left."
One day Mother told Amrita, "Whomever you see first in the morning, send him to call Dr. X." "All right Mother", replied Amrita. A little later he returned to the Mother who asked, "What's the matter?" "Mother, if it so happens that you are the first one I meet in the morning?" Mother laughed.
In his personal life he wouldn't take a single step without asking the Mother. What is to be done when he was sick, whether he should accept gifts from others etc.—even such small details he would ask
the Mother.
He seems to have had little knowledge about his body unlike Nolinida. 'He didn't know or may be he was indifferent about what to eat when he was sick or how not to tax his body when he was ill. Sometimes when I used to enquire about his health when unwell, his
Page 74
replies confirmed that he wasn't much bothered about his body. When he was suffering from heart-trouble, he once climbed up a three-storeyed building in order to attend a house-warming ceremony. I was flabbergasted!
It was hard to control one's laughter when he did his exercise. I remember, after the passing away of Sri Aurobindo, there was an awakening among the sadhaks that physical perfection has to be achieved. Thus Nolini, Amrita, Dilip, etc. took a firm decision to succeed in this unsurmountable yogic discipline. I heard that when Amrita first asked the Mother regarding this, she replied, 'stupid'.
A few days later when he asked the Mother a second time, he got the same answer. Attracted by others' example, he approached the Mother a third time, when she agreed. But before long his enthusiasm waned away. Mother had known about it obviously, hence she refused to permit him. However, the sight of Dilip and Amrita doing their exercise in the playground was so enjoyable that people used to gather specially to see them. In their shorts they did marching following neither any beat nor the line and hence were left behind. Instructed to turn right they would invariably turn to left.
Especially, it was quite an ordeal for them to get up quickly when squatting on the ground, leave alone the question of running along with others. Very soon they had to give up their well-intended plans. They were ready to forget their hopes of gaining the Supermind.
Towards the end his ponch protruded a little. He once asked me, "Is my ponch protruding? What is to be done?" His hesitant Bengali was very sweet to hear. It seems in the early years, Sri Aurobindo not only inspired him to learn Bengali but he even insisted that he must learn it. Likewise he had forced Amrita to cut off his tuft. There is an interesting anecdote regarding his tuft. Sri Aurobindo had deputed a couple of boys to cut off his tuft. Coming from a traditional Brahmin family, Amrita considered it a sin to cut it off. So, he managed to maintain its honour by escaping here and there. One day while he was fast asleep, it was cut off by Nolinida. Along with it the boundaries of his staunch orthodoxy too were destroyed. But the real benefit of this sacrifice was his liberation from marriage. It seems that Amrita's father was so depressed by this incident that he had to cancel his confirmed marriage proposal. Therefore it has to be concluded that having foreseen the possibility of a terrible tragedy, Sri Aurobindo did his best to get rid of Amrita's tuft.
Page 75
This humourous yet deeply insightful incident throws enough light on the sweet relationship between the Guru and the sadhak. Actually Amrita was then just a kid. It is simply amazing to think of his secret attraction for Sri Aurobindo even at that age! Just the very utterance of Sri Aurobindo's name gave him inexplicable joy. Disregarding the famous National leaders like Lal, Bal and Pal, he was enchanted by the very name of Sri Aurobindo. He longed to see him, to touch him, to be close to him—this inexplicable restlessness right at that tender age only goes to show that it was the result of his intimacy with Sri Aurobindo for several lives together. We cannot but believe this. This feeling gets confirmed when we read his 'Smritikatha'. His wonderful vision, standing beside the pond at dusk—reminds us of the Magis of the Bible. I had occasion to see him a couple of times with Sri Aurobindo. I remember once he had come with all his papers to Sri Aurobindo for his signature. He waited at the door for permission. Without it he wouldn't enter. He entered. Sri Aurobindo sat up. He squatted on the ground beside his bed just like a child, forwarding the papers. He said, "You have to sign here." "What should I write?" "Full name." Then showing several other places on different papers he said, "Only initials have to be given, A.G." Finally, after it was over, Sri Aurobindo asked him smilingly, "Is there anything else?" "No", he answered in a grave tone. He had controlled his eternal humour. I didn't understand why he did so. But I felt that as many times as he was pointing with his fingers at the places to be signed, his fingers were eager to have a little touch of Sri Aurobindo's finger. I've heard that in the early days of Ashram life, he used to pour water for Sri Aurobindo to wash his hands. Once, for some reason, when he got late, Sri Aurobindo kept waiting for him. A few months ago, I saw a dream: Amrita entered Sri Aurobindo's room; quite a healthy body, with his usual kurta on him. Sri Aurobindo was seated on his bed. Amrita said, "I want to do pranam." "All right." "No, not just pranam, I want to embrace you." Then Sri Aurobindo stood up and held him so tightly in an embrace that I was reminded of the embrace of Bheema.
This was our Amrita, so generous and kind-hearted, always eager for God's love and a devotee. His hunger for love got somewhat fulfilled when two of his nieces came to live here close to him. Whoever has seen this weakness of his heart, hridaya daurbalyam, I'm not using it in the sense of Gita—has realised how deep a love could be hidden in the cave of a Yogi's heart! One day when I entered
Page 76
his room all on a sudden, I saw him holding the hands of his niece who was upset for some reason. Seeing me he took off his hand. A bit embarrassed, I came out quickly, a little surprised.
His niece used to learn English from me. Very often he would enquire about her. One day he said, "You please teach her to write correct English so that she could assist me in my work." I don't know how much he was helped in his work but she had served him most faithfully during his illness. Talking about illness, when I first heard about his heart-trouble, I was worried, I knew that he had blood pressure and prostate problem but now there were signs of both. Towards the end, seeing his pale face, we used to discuss about him. Second time when I heard about his heart-attack, I felt very uneasy. That too passed. One day seeing him seated in his room early in the morning, I enquired about his health. "Quite well, but at times my sweet heart gives me some trouble." I laughed. That was his last humour. I didn't feel he was well at all. He looked very weak, pale, diminished. About two or three days later, around dusk, when I was studying, Bula suddenly came in and said, "Doctor, quick, quick. Amrita has fainted." I went and saw that everything was over. The bird had flown out of the cage.
Within moments the news reached everywhere. One and all started coming to visit him. Finally, the crowd of people had become so heavy that we had to close for the night and reopen in the morning. His last darshan went on for the whole morning—all the people of the Ashram, youngsters, children, important people from outside the Ashram and more importantly all the servants and the workers of the Ashram too. Everyone expressed their sadness through tears and flowers so much so that his deathbed had turned into a flowerbed.
Likewise, I remember his birthday. It was so memorable. Flowers, garlands and various gifts used to fill his room and he sat amidst all like the King of Spring with a smiling face, humorous speech and sweets in hand—as if it was a festive time of Ananda all around.
Mother said that when Amrita was 50 years of age, his soul wanted to leave his body and go back to its own kingdom. Mother arrested his departure for 20 more years and kept him engaged in Her work. Could he finish his assignment or owing to lack of strength in his old age his soul left the body? Whatever the reason, it seems he is always with the Mother and he feels satisfied to see his two nieces in close association with the Mother. His soul must be very happy with Mother but having lost him physically Ashram is sad and depressed. His office
Page 77
no more radiates as before. Tearfully eyes turn away from there. No more do we hear his warm salutation "Bonjour" inside the Ashram courtyard nor see him clad in a Bengali-styled dhoti and a clean banian. His sacred uncovered body in summer is not there any more. Ashram is now serious and solemn. Incessantly at work, yet ever- smiling, ever-greeting and fun-loving, Amrita's place will perhaps never be filled.
Nirodbaran
(Translated from Bengali original)
ON AMRITA*
ONE of Amrita's nieces informed me that 1995 would mark his birth-centenary. This piece of news has prodded my memory. Here are some reminiscences of him, a little rambling, I am afraid, but as true to fact as I can make them. They are not selective with an eye to presenting him solely in a rosy light. He was a frank unpretentious friend and what I am writing is faithful to his own temper. Most of this sketch is based on his own report of things. Here and there that report has entailed some digressive but relevant passages on others.
I am starting with the day I reached Pondicherry: December 16, 1927—in my twenty-third year. When the metre-gauge train from Egmore touched its destination in the early morning, I and my wife Daulat (later renamed by Sri Aurobindo "Lalita", signifying, in his words, "beauty of harmony and refinement" and also pointing to "the name of one of Radha's companions") were not quite ready to get down from it. She was still in her night-gown. As we did not wish to keep waiting the member of the Ashram (named Pujalal, as I learnt later) who had come to receive us, we alighted just as we were attired. The news of my wife's informal dress reached Amrita's ears and he said to the Mother in a somewhat ironical vein: "The Parsi lady who has come to do Yoga here is in a European dress." The Mother replied:
"What has any dress got to do with Yoga?" There was never any other superficial remark by Amrita to reach me. He always kept himself in tune with the Mother's judgments.
After Lalita and I had voluntarily separated in the interests of Yoga, and I had been shifted, from the house where now the Embroidery Department functions, to the rooms in the then-called "Guest House"—rooms which Sri Aurobindo had once occupied for nearly six years and were later Purani's for about two and a half and went on being mine for over fourteen (1928-1942)—Amrita was a frequent visitor to them. It was on my typewriter that, day after day, he tried to master the touch-system with the help of Pitman's exercise-manual. He arrived with a silent smile but left with a stock-formula, seeming to be a translation from the Tamil: "And then I go."
* Reproduced from Mother India, Vol. 48, No., 1, January 1995.
Page 79
Amrita was one of those with whom I came into close contact right from my early days in the Ashram. Once, when he was typing, a funeral passed in the street. In a low voice he said: "I feel that such a thing won't happen to me." These words did not strike me as either vacuous or vainglorious. For, in the whole period of the allotment of those rooms to me, the general conviction in the Ashram was that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother would completely transform and divinise their bodies with their "Integral Yoga" and that those who had joined them whole-heartedly would do the same. Even after the fracture Sri Aurobindo sustained of his right thigh because of a fall in late 1938 the conviction did not seem to change, for his comment was reported to have been simply: "It's one more problem to be solved." Only at the beginning of 1950 is Sri Aurobindo said to have remarked to the Mother: "Our work may demand that one of us should leave and act from behind the scene." The Mother's response was: "I will leave." Sri Aurobindo decided: "No, you have to fulfil our Yoga of Supra- mental Descent and Transformation."
Only during Amrita's later days did I once hear him say apropos of some sadhak dying: "We all have to do the same one day." When his own death took place, the Mother remarked that in the ordinary course of things he would have died fairly earlier but she had prolonged his life-span. Some time after the departure of Pavitra (Philippe Barbier St.-Hilaire) the Mother said to a sadhak: "Amrita and Pavitra are both within me, but time and again Amrita comes out in his subtle body and sits in front of me along with whoever is having an interview with me whereas Pavitra remains inside and keeps looking out half- amusedly."
Right up to the time of his death, Amrita was a close companion of Nolini and they always had their meals together in Nolini's room. However, the comrades differed much in temperament. Nolini, unlike Amrita, was far from being a good mixer, though quite genial with his few chosen associates. There was also an element of shyness in his nature plus the scholar's distant air. I have heard the Mother say of him that he never spoke ill of anybody. At a certain period he appeared to be not close enough even to Amrita. Once I quoted to the latter my designation of Nolini after a phrase of Yeats' with a punning play on the first half of his name: "A green knoll apart." Amrita said: "Yes, and it is partly because of some aloofness by him even from me that I am pressing closer to you. Nolini has a psychic knack to get over his problems and doesn't need much company." I
Page 80
told Amrita that he was always welcome to be my friend. I had observed that he had considerable reliance on my judgment in several matters. He valued especially my so-called artistic sense. Thus, in rearranging his office-room's furniture, he made it a point to consult me. He also trusted me to pluck out grey hairs skilfully from his moustache with a tweezer.
I was frequently in his room, often exchanging jokes. He was a witty chap. I recollect a quip of his when a woman, who often came to the Ashram in the company of a man, arrived accompanied by a child as well. Amrita said: "Formerly there were two of you. Now the two have become three!" He had a half joke about the word "nectar": "Is it a drink that tars the neck?" He was witty with the Mother too. I have heard that once the Mother gave him a small slap. He smiled and said: "Luckily I shaved before coming to you. Other- wise your palm might have got hurt by my bristles!"
On one of his visits to me we talked of subtle bodies. He said: "The Mother has a huge vital body. Anything even distantly approaching it is the vital body of Purani." Purani was another sadhak with whom I was in close touch. Indeed, with the exception of Pujalal, he was the first Ashramite I met. Pujalal had taken us to his room which, as I have said, had been Sri Aurobindo's earlier. Purani was out. He was in the main Ashram-complex where—as I soon learned—his job at the time was to prepare hot water for the Mother's early bath as well as to massage one of her legs which was not functioning in a fully normal way. I may mention in passing that for a long time Purani was to my wife and me the most impressive figure among the Ashram-members. In comparison to his energetic personality, both physically and psychologically, all the other Ashramites we met seemed rather colourless. I remember Nolini remarking after Purani's death many years later that his personality had such force that he could have caught hold of anybody on the road and turned him to carry out what he willed. Nolini also used at that time the term "mahapurusha" ("great being") for him. Purani had some occult powers and could go out in his super-forceful subtle body and act effectively. Once Vaun McPheeters, who with his wife Janet (renamed "Shantimayi" by the Mother) was the first American to settle in the Ashram, spoke a trifle lightly of India during a somewhat heated discussion with Purani. Purani, an arch-nationalist, could not stomach it. He told me that during the ensuing night he had found Vaun's subtle form worrying him during sleep and he had gone out in his
Page 81
own subtle form and given Vaun a thrashing. Almost immediately there was a notable change in Vaun's outer life. He went into retirement and was spiritually in a disturbed state. The Mother found her inner work on him getting difficult and did not know why until Purani narrated to her his encounter.
I may note here that though Purani's relationship with Sri Aurobindo was very deep and intimate it was not always steady and secure with the Mother. After Sri Aurobindo's departure he was often uneasy in the Ashram and once, when I happened to be in Bombay, wrote to me about feeling like leaving it. I earnestly advised him not to decide anything before having an interview with the Mother. He asked for an interview. During it, amidst other matters, the Mother said: "I am here only to do Sri Aurobindo's work. Won't you help me in it?" Purani burst into tears and pledged unfailing co-operation.
In the early days there was a good deal of talk about past births. The being who had been behind Jesus, Chaitanya and, most recently, Ramakrishna was said to be behind Pavitra now. St. Paul and Vivekananda were seen in the background of Anilbaran. In connection with Nolini we heard of Roman Virgil and the late-renaissance French poet Ronsard as well as the French-revolution poet Andre Chenier. As for Amrita himself, the forces in his past were Moses, Michelangelo and Victor Hugo, powerful personalities quite in contrast to his gentle, amiable present disposition. To help me in my historical researches I made sure from Amrita that the Egyptian princess mentioned in the Old Testament as getting her attendants to pick up baby Moses who had been left in a basket on the bank of the Nile was Hatshepsut before she became queen—Hatshepsut who was believed to be a past incarnation of the Mother. The only certainty announced about myself by both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was that I had been an ancient Athenian. It is curious that I never inquired who the fellow had been. If, as reported, Sri Aurobindo had been Pericles and a little later Socrates (as declared by Nolini), I guess I must have belonged to the period of the one or the other. The two certainties about Sri Aurobindo's past, as deducible from his correspondence with me, were Augustus Caesar and Leonardo da Vinci. To Amrita he said he still felt the edge of the guillotine on his neck. This would indicate that his birth immediately before the present one was associated with the French Revolution. If he was a guillotined front-liner, we can think only of Danton and Robespierre. But the Mother has
Page 82
seen Debu, Pranab's brother, as having been the latter. So Danton has to be our choice. To me Sri Aurobindo wrote that he had "a psychic memory" of Dilip Kumar Roy as Horace, evidently a carry-over from the time he had been Augustus. The Mother, on one Pranam-occasion, saw two figures behind Dilip. When she described them to Sri Aurobindo he identified them as Horace and Hector. In the age of the siege of Troy Sri Aurobindo is taken to have been Paris, the Mother Helen and Nolini the husband of Helen, King Menelaus of Sparta from whom Trojan Paris seduced away Helen. On one occasion when I remarked to the Mother that the way she had poised her arm and hand a moment earlier reminded me of the depiction of Mona Lisa's in Leonardo's famous painting, she said that at times even physical characteristics were carried over from one life to another. I think Amrita told me that Doraiswamy, the well-known Madras advocate who was a staunch devotee of the Mother in those days, had been Francis I of France in whose arms Leonardo is said to have died.
Doraiswamy was as humorous and witty as Amrita. Once, soon after he had arrived from Madras in early morning, Amrita visited him in his room, saying he had hurried there before his own bath. Doraiswamy struck an attitude of awe and exclaimed: "What a privilege for us to see you in your unbathed grandeur!"
In the early days Amrita and Nolini served as emissaries from Sri Aurobindo to a prominent Indian political leader in the town, named David, who often asked for Sri Aurobindo's advice. At 7.30 or 8 p.m. they would cycle to his house with the message and had the pleasure of a non-vegetarian dinner with him. It was to this person that in the first years of Sri Aurobindo's stay in Pondicherry when British political agents were still at work against him, the manuscript of his English translation of Kalidasa's Meghaduta ("The Cloud-Messenger") was given for safe-keeping. The work was kept at the bottom of a trunk. Unfortunately, white ants got interested in it and finished it off before any human could start relishing it. It was Amrita who first told me that Sri Aurobindo had a private pamphlet prepared on simplified Sanskrit-learning but nobody has been able to trace it. Amrita told me also of Sri Aurobindo reading out to him portions of his play Eric which its author felt to be not at all badly created.
Referring to his earliest contact with Sri Aurobindo, Amrita mentioned how he used to come from school to Sri Aurobindo and at times lie on a mat, with Sri Aurobindo sitting by him and gently
Page 83
caressing his body with his hand. Amrita recollected a special odour coming from Sri Aurobindo's body. In later years the Mother has mentioned a faint lotus-like scent emanating from it.
More serious lessons too were taught. Once Amrita was watching a spider's web in which some insects had been caught. He started amusing himself by throwing some ants into the web. Sri Aurobindo saw him and very forcefully forbade him to go on with the game. It was a warning against thoughtlessness and wanton cruelty towards lower creatures that Amrita never forgot. From him as well as other early Ashramites I have heard of Sri Aurobindo's fast for about three weeks, during which he continued his daily routine of literary work and of walking across his rooms for six or seven hours. At the end of the fast he took a full normal meal instead of the usual orange juice and liquid food. Connected with Amrita is a special eating experiment by Sri Aurobindo—one with opium. Sri Aurobindo asked him to fetch from the bazaar a substantial lump of this stuff. Opium is usually eaten in small quantities as either a stimulant, intoxicant or narcotic. Sri Aurobindo ate the whole lump brought to him—with no perceptible harmful effect. I am reminded of a story by de Quincy, the author of the famous Confessions of an Opium-eater. He tells of a Malay who suddenly appeared at his quarters. As an act of hospitality de Quincy put before the Oriental a quantity of opium. The visitor ate up at one stroke the entire big piece and took his leave. De Quincy was horrified. Day after day he looked into the local newspapers to see if any foreigner had been found lying dead anywhere in the country. No trace of a laudanum-poisoned Malay was reported. Amrita saw Sri Aurobindo going merrily on in spite of the abnormal amount of the poppy-product consumed. No wonder the Mother, knowing of such feats, told me during an interview soon after Sri Aurobindo had passed away in the early hours of 5 December 1950: "Sri Aurobindo did not leave his body because of physical causes. He was not compelled to do it. He had complete control over his body." On my asking her what had made him go, she said: "It is quite clear to me, but I won't tell you anything. You have to find out the reason yourself." I requested: "Please give me the power to do it." She put her hand on my head to bless it. What lingered most in my memory was that, while countering the possible general impression that Sri Aurobindo had departed because of an illness, she had made the clear-cut assertion: "There was nothing mortal about Sri Aurobindo"—words uttered when I had read out the short note for
Page 84
the next issue of Mother India, in which I had employed the conventionally turned phrase: "the mortal remains of Sri Aurobindo." In this mind-boggling denial, which would apply just as well to Sri Aurobindo's partner in spiritual world-work—the Mother herself—lies the ultimate Avataric secret of the birth no less than the death of both of them.
In spite of the little romance Sri Aurobindo had jocularly encouraged in Amrita's early days, Amrita was not considered by the Mother to have an experienced and seasoned "vital being" where sensual matters were concerned. Thus, while admiring Jules Romain's psychological acumen along with his style in his famous series of novels, Les Hommes de la bonne volonté, she asked Udar to go through the books but did not advise Amrita to read them. Evidently he was considered as being still a bit of an "innocent".
Once he proved to be an "innocent" in social contacts too. He sent a letter to Madame Vigie in a folded form without an envelope. She expressed her surprise to the Mother about this impoliteness on his part. The Mother put him wise about social niceties.
During several years of the Ashram's early career the Mother put together as chums Amrita and the chief engineer of the Ashram at that time—Chandulal. Chandulal was quite a character both in physical appearance, which was a little deformed, and in working capacity:
he could give himself to non-stop work almost the whole of the working day. He often called Amrita his brother and sometimes hugged him. Amrita always took the relationship with a twinkle of humour.
What on the whole struck everybody about Amrita was not only his extreme devotion to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo but also his sweet nature. He was ever ready with sympathy for whoever brought him a tale of woe. And he would be glad to convey to the Mother her children's needs or grievances.
When he died, all of us felt the loss. I believe his niece Kumuda, of whom he was very fond, felt it most acutely. I was told she had fainted on hearing the news. He had spent a good amount of time with her, part of it in tutoring her in French. It is fitting that she should be prominent, together with her sister Saroja, in celebrating the centenary of his entry into this world to serve Sri Aurobindo and the Mother faithfully.
The Mother's own words are: "He was a good servant of the Divine." She has revealed that his "natural" life was only 50 years long. The rest of his span of 73 was due to the Divine's intervention.
Page 85
Connected with his death is tribute paid him by the Ashram's employed workers. Along with Padmasini, he had been in charge of the department dealing with them. On hearing that he was to be cremated, they made the plea to the Trustees that they would like him to be buried so that they might be able to visit his grave and offer flowers to it. Hence his body lies in'the Ashram's cemetery. His nearest neighbour there is Nolini who, before he passed away, expressed his wish to be laid to rest near his old-time friend.
Amal Kiran (K. D. Sethna)
Page 86
AMRITA—THE EVER LIVING ONE
WE JOINED the Ashram in 1937 and we were then living at the end of Rue Dumas, opposite our present Park Guest house. We knew only a few Ashramites like Amal, Purani, Ambu etc. I did not meet Amrita then. In 1940 the Mother sent us to Delhi to work with the Civil Aviation Department of the Government to help in the war effort. The Mother brought us back in 1941 and we were given a house near the Ashram, opposite the Library, the Red House. She also gave me the work that had to be done for Golconde. Then I really came in contact with Amrita and I liked him at once. He took me to the place where I had to work, a place with only a tiled shed and some crumbling rooms which was called Harpagon. I was intrigued by the name and I asked Amrita why this name had been given to this place. He told me that this place belonged to a Chettiar, whom Amrita knew quite well. He was a very rich man but very greedy for money and he asked for double the going price. Mother wanted this place as it was just next to Golconde, across the street but the Chettiar would not reduce his price at all. Finally the Mother said that She would pay him his price and name it after him, calling it Harpagon. Amrita asked me if I knew this name which I did as it was the name of the Miser in the play by Moliere "L'Avar" which I had read in English many years back. But the great paradox is that the Mother put to work in this place called 'The Miser' a man by the name "Udar" given by Sri Aurobindo which means, "Generous".
The work I had to do there was to make the furniture and the large number of brass fittings for Golconde. There was a good quantity of very good teak wood for the furniture but for the brass things, Amrita gave me, from the Mother a room full of old brass vessels which had to be broken down and melted. (In this, Amrita and I had a good laugh.)
I then asked Amrita why Mother had given the name of Golconde to the building that now has that name. He told me that this building was designed by a great architect, Antonin Raymond, a friend of Pavitra's, whom he had met in Japan. It was a very fine design but money was a problem to build it. Sir Akbar Hydari, the Diwan of Hyderabad, had a great admiration for Sri Aurobindo and used to come here sometimes. Mother asked him to help get Her the money
Page 87
to build Golconde and it was he who arranged for the Nizem to give the money and so the Mother wanted the building to have a name connected with the Hyderabad State. The round hill which dominates both the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad is called Golconda. Hence this name was given by the Mother to this building.
Amrita was a very lovable person. He was always in good humour and joked and laughed with us and yet he did his work very well. He was very much loved by all the servants and they were happy to work under his charge. In fact, when he died the servants of the Ashram sent a petition to the Mother pleading that Amrita should not be cremated, as is the custom here with those that die, but that he should be buried. Great Rishis and other great souls are, by tradition buried and not cremated. So, he was buried at our Cazanove Cemetery, where is also buried Satyakarma, Pavitra, Nolini and Dyuman. Besides being a very good worker, he was a very learned person. He was quite a scholar in Sanskrit and in Tamil and he agreed to try and teach both these languages to me. I say he tried because we did not get very far. We would mostly laugh and have jokes and only a little of learning. But they were happy days for me. Amrita had a very precious gift which I envied much. It was the gift of "Repartee". He would answer or say fine things at once, when this was called for and not like myself and others who would only think of fine things which we could have said but did not, as these words came to us too late. For example, one day when we were doing our class together, I asked Amrita why the letters in Sanskrit are called "Devanagri", letters of the Gods, and he explained that Sanskrit was not invented by man but by the Gods. It was They who worked out the letters, which are supposed to be among the most perfect in the world, and so it is called the letters of the Gods. Now I knew how much Amrita loved and praised his own mother tongue, Tamil and so I asked him, "What about Tamil?" And he replied, "Oh! The Gods invented Sanskrit for the world to use but among Themselves They spoke in Tamil." We had such a great laugh but, he said this at once and not as an afterthought.
There are some more examples about his gift of repartee, but this I have come to know of from others and is not first hand; but they are very fine. In the early days of the Ashram the Mother used to meet the Sadhaks and Sadhikas and hold talks with them, or Mother's Classes as they were called. Of course, Amrita never missed going to these but, due to his work, he was, at times a bit late in arriving and he would try to slip in quietly so as not to be noticed. But the Mother
Page 88
who could see all around Her even when fully involved with Her talks would notice his sly arrival. Once, when the Class was discussing the relation between the Overmind and the Supermind and Amrita had just slipped in, the Mother said: "Ah, here is Amrita; we will ask him about it." And She called out to him as he was just trying to be unnoticed, "Amrita, what is the relation between Overmind and Supermind?" and Amrita replied at once, waving his hands about. He said, "Veeery good relations, Mere, veeery good relations" and sat down. The whole class, with the Mother, were in roars of laughter.
On another such occasion Amrita showed the depths of his under- standing. Again when he was trying to slip into Mother's Class the Mother asked him to comment on the subject they were discussing which was "The difference between Art and Yoga" and again Amrita replied: "Art can be Yoga but Yoga is Art." A truly profound reply.
Well, these are some of the very fine things I remember about this very fine person, Amrita. What was his original name I do not know but the name Amrita, given to him by Sri Aurobindo is very, very apt. He is truly immortal and without death and will live for ever in our minds and hearts and, if our souls have a memory, in our souls also.
Udar
(Born: 19.9.1895, Died: 31.1.1969)
IN A VILLAGE about 15 km north-west of Pondicherry, a boy called Aravamudachari heard the name Aurobindo along with other great names like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bepin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpatrai. It was the time when Independence, Foreign Rule, Slavery were the cries that filled the skies and those names reached the ears of the village-boy too, being continually talked of in that village and all around. But strangely enough, and probably not all that strange after all, since decreed by the Divine, Aravamudachari's heart and soul were caught by only one name...just to hear that name—Aurobindo—was enough.
It remained a mystery to the boy for many days to come as to why that one name alone out of the four touched him so deeply.
Then, a few years later, he came to Pondicherry for his studies. Sri Aurobindo also arrived here in 1910. What a coincidence! The teen-ager was full of joy, thrilled with delight.
Then a strong desire arose in him that he had to see Sri Aurobindo. Day after day, night after night, that was his one thought à la Paul Eluard:
"Sur mes cahiers d'écolier...sur toutes les pages lues...sur les images dorées...sur la jungle et le désert...sur les merveilles des nuits...sur tous mes chiffons d'azur...sur les champs, sur l'horizon...sur chaque bouffée d'aurore...sur la mousse des nuages...sur les formes scintillantes...sur les sentiers eveillés...sur la lampe qui s'allume...sur le fruit coupé en deux... sur mon chien gourmand et tendre...sur le tremplin de ma porte...sur toute chair accordée...sur la vitre des surprises... sur mes refuges détruits...sur l'absence sans désir...
Sur la santé revenue
Sur le risque disparu
Sur l'espoir sans souvenir
J'écris ton nom
Et par le pouvoir d'un mot
Page 90
Je recommence ma vie
Je suis népour te connaître
Pour te nommer
Liberté ."
(Upon the note-books of my school... upon the pages already read...upon the golden pictures... upon the jungle and the desert...upon the marvels of the night...upon the bits of the sky...upon the field and the horizon... upon each blast of the dawn... upon the moss of the clouds... upon the scintillating forms... upon the awakened track... upon the lighted lamp... upon the fruit cut into two... upon my gentle greedy dog... upon my door-mat... upon the assembly of bodies in affection... upon the window of surprise... upon my shelter shattered ... upon the absence detached...
Upon the health regained
Upon the risk overcome
Upon the unremembered hope
I write your name
And by the power of word
I begin a new life
I am born to know you,
To name you
Liberty.)
Only "Liberty" was replaced or rather surpassed by "Aurobindo".
Finally one day, at about six in the evening, he along with his friend Krishnaswami Chettiar* proceeded towards Sri Aurobindo's house on Mission Street close to the Dupleix Street extending backward down to the Rue de la Canteen on the East. When they reached the house, they found the door bolted. They hesitatingly knocked at the door.
* Krishnaswamy Chettiar "was a well-to-do man of Muthialpet and a great devotee of Bharati—the great poet and national worker.... He knew neither English nor French, His only medium of communication was his mother-tongue, Tamil. He had a kind of instinctive respect for Sri Aurobindo because of Bharati's association. He would now and then go and stand a little away and have his Darshan..."
Page 91
All on a sudden the door opened and was left ajar. Sri Aurobindo had come quietly and turned back immediately as the door opened. They did not have a glimpse of his face. But in that fading twilight only his long hair hanging gracefully down his back and his indescribably beautiful small feet caught the boy's eye! His heart throbbed within as though he had been lifted up into the region of the gods!
Then followed some years of preparation—"a pilgrimage to Sri Aurobindo" when each of his acts, each event of his life "had become, as it were, offerings in the sacrifice done unknowingly" by him; and in the core of his heart burnt a living faith incessant and unwavering, that somehow some day he would have his Darshan.
He had Sri Aurobindo's Darshan at last on the 15th of August 1913 and felt within that Sri Aurobindo had accepted him—and he went home with the image of Sri Aurobindo installed in the sanctum sanctorum of his being. This boy, Aravamudachari, was none but our beloved Amrita-da**!!
What is amrita? It is nectar—the divine potion. When you take a sip of it you transcend death, that is to say, become immortal:
"There is a brighter ether than this blue...
There we can walk and the gods go by
And sip from Hebe's cup nectar enough
To make for us heavenly limbs and deathless face."
But when Maitreyee poses that famous reply to Yajñyavalkya: yena nāham amrta syām kimaham tena kuryām (What shall I do with those things which will not make me immortal?) Here amrta means immortal.
In Amrita-da's case it is true both ways. He was so sweet to one and all—whether an Ashramite or a visitor—that one felt like saying:
"Oh! he is really sweetness personified, the nectar-sweetness, justifying his name."
And who can ever forget such a sweet personality as his? To all those who had any occasion to come in personal contact with him, his face, beaming with a smile, remains ever fresh in their memory—and he remains Amrita, the immortal, even in death, even without a physical body.
** The late K. Amrita, Manager-Trustee, Sri Aurobindo Ashram whose centenary falls this year i.e. 1995.
Page 92
When I came to the Ashram for the first time, in 1963 as a visitor, I was moved to the core at this unique creation of the Mother i.e. the Ashram and fell in love at first sight with the giant twins of the Mother—Nolini-Amrita—knowledge and devotion condensed respectively so to say in two human forms. If one is august and aloof, the other is so pleasantly near.
With me Amrita-da repeated only one joke many a times: "Satadal, I wonder when will you become Sahasradal!" And he would be all smiles. Should I call it a joke? Who knows, it might have some deeper significance.
In fact his whole life was an example of becoming more and more conscious, guided at each step by the dual incarnation i.e. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In his reminiscences ("Old Long Since"), he speaks of his "life's pilgrimage" as an "interminable flaming journey" where "the series of small changes" were brought about in him by the action of light. When Himansu-da (Himansu Neogi) requested Nolini-da to write a preface for these reminiscences translated into Bengali by Amalesh (Bhattacharya) to be published in book-form, Nolini-da's reply was so deeply sweet and full of rasa at the same time—
Himansu—
What preface can I give for Amrita's writings? Let me better remain silent. Only this much I can say: This is Amrita.
—Nolini-da
The book titled "Sei Kabe" was published on his 75th birthday, the 19th September 1969 (the very same year in which he passed away on the 31st of January) with these words of Nolini-da followed by one of his talks on Amrita-da, "Amrita-Kathā", as a sort of introduction. There Nolini-da before reading out a poem by Amrita-da, speaks about the other book by Amrita-da, namely, Visions and Voices thus:
"I am going to read out a small poem by Amrita. This is the last bit of his writings written on the occasion of my birthday (probably the 13th January, 1969, the very same month in which Amrita-da passed away). But that is an occasion only for expressing some pinches of the secret mystery of his soul's pilgrimage. In fact that is more or less the picture of pilgrimage of all souls towards the Divine.
"Amrita named them as Visions and Voices and I am going to take this opportunity to tell you how they were written. Indeed these are literally visions and voices and not just poetics or allegory.
Page 93
"Nearly half a century ago, when we were more or less young—and Amrita at least was fresh green—we used to have an evening-stroll on the beach. We used to go up to the end of the jetty to sit as if on the sea for a talk or individual meditation. One day, i.e. one evening, when Amrita was sitting still—he told me all this afterwards—he felt that he was hearing a voice coming from beyond the sea, from the distant horizon...coming nearer and nearer...at first faint and soft but as it drew near, it became more clear and loud. As if a sonorous message was coming to him on the wings of the wind—sweet and rhythmic. As if someone recited to him a whole poem. After hearing the whole of it, he hurried home to write it down. This was the first poem with which started his book Visions and Voices. Another day, when we were on the same table around Sri Aurobindo (in the Guest House)—suddenly Amrita said that he was hearing a message. He went downstairs and closeted himself in his room. After some time he returned with a complete poem written by him. And about the poem he said that many words in it were completely new to him—he did not know their meanings. His brain turned into an instrument so to say for the external manifestation of something.
"Besides hearing voices, he got the eyes to see visions of things and happenings as if on a celluloid screen. He had put these down later in black and white as vividly as possible. Some of these were included in his book, the only book written by him in English. The poem of his which I am going to read out now is suffused with that dual mystery of visions and voices."
So saying, Nolini-da read out the poem "Pilgrim Way" by Amrita-da which starts with "A pilgrim in search of his destined companion..." and culminates in finding and complete self-giving thus:
"My little vanishing 'I' trudges
Still on, on. The moving mansion
glides on the wide, wide track
towards 'the Dawn' proclaimed
under the pale grey sky, the faint
few stars disappearing
under the broad everlasting day.
Voices are heard singing in chorus:
Of the Mother's substance we are
In Her Light we see, we live,
In Her Strength we act,
In Her we become........"
Page 94
Then Nolini-da said:
"Now I am going to read out my translation into Bengali of the same. When I had read out his original and my translation to him, you know what he commented? He said, it was difficult to differentiate between the original and the translation! Such was his charming modesty and unique sense of humour."
The year 1914 comes to Amrita's memory thus: "On July 28 of this very year the First World War broke out. On August 15 the first issue of the Arya saw the light of day in English and French versions. In this 1914 indeed the foundation was laid of my close contact with Sri Aurobindo. And in this same year I began feeling like a simple child the Mother's continuous affection." This "simple child", when prostrated at the lotus feet of the Master for the first time, "lay there body, life and mind all together a single block." Sri Aurobindo touched him with his flower-like hands and made him stand up. And he burst into sobs as he clasped the sole lord of his being.
Thus consecrated, this "being"—a very special being in- deed—continued his pilgrimage throughout his life as "Amrita" and continues to move on and on towards the Infinite and the Eternal and probably now reflects:
"I have drunk deep of God's own liberty...
Abolishing death and time my nature lives
In the deep heart of immortality."
Satadal
ON REMEMBERING AMRITA-DA
WHENEVER we try to relive the memories of these great men—or should I say great souls—the memories that they have left behind for us, we must always remember that with one's mind or outer mental perspective one cannot understand or perceive the real soul. When we meet these great beings, we look at them each with our own limited individual ignorant consciousness, that is, through our own unconsciousness. Then again, these great souls, when they come on earth they take up a human form representing an aspect of human consciousness or terrestrial consciousness. And naturally this outer form is an aspect of that ignorance.
All souls, big or small, come on the earth for the same purpose: to accept and illumine this ignorance or self-forgetfulness and thereby to dissolve it and regain the original state of Divine consciousness. Naturally big souls have a big responsibility—the greater the soul, the greater its share of work here.
And we who are not yet conscious of and established in our own soul, cannot perceive other souls. We simply assess each other by the measure of our own ignorance, that means each by his own measure of ignorant ideas and perceptions.
So we can admire and feel a greatness, but we cannot really claim to have known or understood a great soul. Because we love them we love to retain the little touches and impressions on our consciousness. In fact, each of us has a personal perception or impression of the contacts we had with them.
And we must also remember that no individual soul, big or small, is complete in his own individual evolution—all souls are parts of the same One, the Unique Divine. As in their human outer being they are aspects of ignorance, so are they in their inmost being the many aspects of the One in this multiplicity of the creation.
The great ones, like Amritada, Pavitrada, Nolinida and many others, they form a solar system around the Supreme Divine who descends in this ignorance to lead the evolution. So they play each a special role, each one has a special mission and all together they form the totality of perfection in evolution. And we too, little souls, have our tiny roles—and if each one of us tries, following the example of the great ones, to fulfil each his own mission, maybe we will be able one
Page 96
day to meet and understand them in the true consciousness, being all one with the One and also with the Many.
So what is really our true token of love and gratitude to them is to try to be honest and sincere in our love and self-giving to the Divine just as they were.
And Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who agreed to meet us, the tiny souls in human form—making themselves as tiny as possible to be perceptible to our tiny consciousness—surely they deserve this effort from us. If we want to remember Amritada, let us love and trust and serve the Mother as he did.
Anima Mukherji
Page 97
AMRITA—THE WONDERFUL MESSENGER OF
THE MOTHER
ON 24TH September 1955 in the morning, to my astonishment, the Mother for the first time sent me tiny, cute, pink rose buds— signifying "Tenderness for the Divine. It is sweet with charming shade and delicate form, a smile that blossoms"—through Amrita, the General Manager of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He received my thanks with a smile. This was how I had his first contact. Afterwards we met and talked several times. His subtle sense of humour was something to be relished and remembered.
Mostly he read out to the Mother my letters regarding Savitri-work. and other matters.
In the sixties the white roses sent by the Mother came through Amrita. Chinmaya, his assistant, used to bring them to me.
The Mother wrote the following letter to Amrita on 13.10.67 when she opened my bank-account.
"Amrita,
This morning (Saturday) you must go to the Bank (United Commercial) to open an account in the name of Huta (Miss Huta Hindocha). For that purpose you will take Rs.500—Five hundred rupees
from my account at the Bank. She will operate this account and she must be given a cheque book.
If it is necessary you will take her (Huta) to the Bank. I attach a note which you will give to her if you have to take her to the Bank. If there is something you do not understand you can come up at 9 o'clock to ask me."
He did the needful exactly according to the Mother's wish.
Time passed by.
Now I was busy arranging the exhibition of Savitri-paintings along with the Mother's sketches.
I suggested to the Mother that it would be nice if Amrita declared open the Exhibition. She answered on 1.2.1967:
"My very dear little child Huta,
Amrita will go at 10.30 a.m. on 10th to open the exhibition and Nolini will go with him,
All my love."
Page 98
Since I was not allowed by the Mother to attend, I came to know from others that the exhibition of 5'avi'm-paintings was highly appreciated by people. Amrita and Nolini congratulated me and praised the work profusely. They also expressed their feelings to the Mother. She informed me of it.
Much later, to my amazement, I came to know from some Ashramites that Amrita had been in a previous life Michelangelo!
When I went to Europe in 1952 I saw the magnificent work of Michelangelo. I was fascinated by his masterpieces both in sculpture and paintings.
Let me quote from a sonnet by Michelangelo:
"With chiselled touch
The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould.
The more the marble wastes,
The more the statue grows."
He has also written:
"The true work of art is but a shadow of
the divine perfection."
One day the Mother could not write in answer to my letter owing to her ill health. So she conveyed her message through Amrita. He wrote to me:
"The Mother said: 'The Divine is always in you.
One must become conscious of its Presence and gain the contact with it.'
"This is what I understood from what the Mother said."
He was a wonderful messenger full of understanding, goodwill, consideration and kindness.
I am extremely sad to miss people like Amrita, Nolini, Pavitra, Andre, Vasudha, Champaklal, Dyuman, Parichand and so many others who dedicated their lives exclusively to the cause of the Supreme Lord. These people will never be forgotten. By the Grace of the Divine Mother, they may have taken a new birth in order to fulfil yet other brilliant and higher aspirations of their souls.
I read the book. Reminiscences by Nolini Kanta Gupta and K. Amrita. It is a very interesting book. It gives us the idea how these
Page 99
people worked together in perfect harmony and understanding fulfilling selflessly the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in building the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
Amrita stated in Reminiscences:
"....An image of immeasurable power—that was how I felt the Mother to be whenever I approached her. She, however, held that power in herself without allowing the least display of it. On some occasions the great power would shine forth irresistibly. Our inner sense would perceive this radiation if it was awake...."
Copyright © Huta D. Hindocha
Page 100
AMRITA: A HOMAGE*
K AMRITA, Manager, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, passed away on . Friday the 31st January at 8.40 p.m. He was born on 19th September 1895. His original name was Aravamuda lyengar. His father, Rajagopalachari, was a respected village Munsiff of Kazhipervembakam.
An insatiable desire to serve the country brought Amrita to Pondicherry. Here he met a galaxy of refugees from British India, like poet Bharathi, V. Ramaswamy lyengar and others. From that time onward, he used to visit Sri Aurobindo. Finally in the year 1919 he was accepted by the Master as his disciple. Since then up to the last day of his earthly life he was a dedicated servitor of the Master, the Mother and their Ashram.
For fifty years he filled the role of the Ashram's Manager. Lord Acton wrote: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Had he seen our Amrita, he would have changed his view. For here was a Yogi who was serving the Divine egolessly and without any earthly ambition—offering his work as an oblation to the Supreme.
Never have I seen him spending time uselessly; nor was he ever weighed down by work. Warrior-like he faced all trials and troubles. The burden of responsibility that he carried on his shoulders would have crushed a lesser being. With a joyful heart and a constant twinkle in his eyes he would address himself even to the toughest of jobs.
In the very midst of work he would gladly listen to anybody who approached him. He was friend to all, philosopher to many, enemy to none. Not once did I catch him in a temper. His spontaneous amiability disarmed even the most hardened heart.
He was simplicity incarnate; it was a delight to see him bare-tor- soed, going about his daily business without any show. In Kipling's words, he could "walk with kings and never lose the common touch".
Looking at his unassuming behaviour, one would not guess he was quite a learned man. Master of Tamil and fluent in English, he was also admirably conversant with Bengali and French. In all these languages the range of his reading was pretty wide. His early English book. Visions and Voices, is full of a lyrical quality. But what distinguishes
* Reproduced from Mother India, Feb. 1969
Page 101
it is not only lyricism: there is, throughout, an intuitive turn, a subtle insight born of a Yogi's inspiration. Latterly he wrote his reminiscences for Mother India: they brought his Yogic life nearer to a larger circle of people.
And, of course, it is as a Yogi that we essentially know him. It is as a Yogi full of "sweetness and light" that his presence still pervades the Ashram, a constant reminder to us of what whole-hearted surrender to the Divine Mother could be like.
In closing, we may note a trait which endeared him all the more to his friends. He had a lively wit, a fondness for the sunny "wisecrack". Whoever met him, at any time of the day, came back with some joke ringing in his ears. Perhaps the last one was when somebody asked him how he was. Amrita had been having heart-trouble. He replied:
"Everything right, but I am having some trouble with my sweetheart." Even with the Mother he could indulge in humour—and the Mother always appreciated this leap of happy spray on the surface of the sea of Ananda in which her love and grace kept him. Not for nothing did he come to bear the name "Amrita"—"the Immortals' nectar".
Kamalakanto
Page 102
"COME"—THE LOVING CALL
"COME"—his loving and tender call still rings in my ears. With Grecian profile and a cultured voice—soft and amiable, that was our Amrita-da. The moment you stepped on the door step of his office, he would look up at you and call "come". Of course he knew why we "come" to him! Our day-to-day problems, our anguish, our demands, our anger, our quarrels—those were the things we came to pour on to him. Knowing fully well that he had to hear only the problems and the troubles, his first words never be "What do you want?" He spoke only one word "come" and with that single utterance we knew we could confide in him—tell him of our problems, entreat him or even threaten him—he would listen to all our outbursts calmly and give advice or act accordingly, whichever he felt right. There never was any distinction between his room and his office. He was available at any odd hour—we could just walk in and he would be there, not disturbed in the least that his rest was interrupted—ready to listen and to help. He personified the word "AMRITA" the name given by Sri Aurobindo.
Born on 19th September 1895 in a Tamil orthodox Brahmin family, he was named Aravamudha. He was a school-going boy when on his repeated requests he was introduced to Sri Aurobindo in 1913 on August 15th, Sri Aurobindo's Birthday. As Amrita-da himself wrote in "Old Long Since": "As he looked at me, in a trice all gloom vanished from within me, and his image was as it were installed in the sanctum sanctorum of my being". Once his soul chose the Guru, it wavered not. Then onwards he started frequenting Sri Aurobindo's house and the work of posting letters was given to him by Bejoy Nag. He writes "Feb. 1915, a crucial stage arrived in my life. Along with this came a quietude of mind, a constant memory of something which was fundamental". He was barely twenty years old at that time.
He joined the Ashram permanently in 1919. Dedicated his service to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother till the end which came on 31st January 1969.
He was the bridge between the Mother and us. With her he was her child—when he came down he was our supporter, elder brother. How unassumingly he mingled the two roles he played.
Yes, sometimes he was sad and hurt. After all he was also human like us. But his aristocratic nature would never permit any angry
Page 103
outbursts or revenge or abuse from him. That was the sweetest part of him—soft and tender and full of forgiveness.
One cannot think of Amrita-da without his sense of humour. Suffering from severe heart ailment, he used to joke about it and say "My sweet Heart is giving me trouble". He would go for his hair-cut, with a bald head and hardly any hair. If asked "What was the necessity?", he would give a naughty smile and say "I go for after-hair cut". We wondered what that could be—Well! It was the massage of his neck and back given by our Manodhar-da, every time Amrita-da went for his hair cut. That was his only recreation.
If a day could have more than twenty-four hours, he would have worked all through those hours also. An unassuming, detached worker, fully engrossed in work alone. No other activity or other recreation! So unassuming was he that when a visitor asked him about his work, he replied: "I look after the needs of the Ashramites". Much later the visitor came to know that he was a Trustee and the Manager of the Ashram on whom the Mother relied for her day-to-day work. How humble indeed! His dedication—his sadhana can best be understood in the words of the Mother when she wrote on his birthday in 1958.
"1914-1958 To Amrita
After 44 years of faithful service, I greet you at the threshold of Realisation, with love and confidence".
He used to get late very often for the translation class which the Mother used to take in the play-ground. One day when he was late and stood at the door-step of the class, the Mother asked "Amrita, how far is the Divine from you?" He did not reply immediately, but counted the steps till he reached the Mother and said "so many steps Mother". Like Ganesha taking the Pradakshina of Parvati and saying that He has gone round the world and winning the race against Kartikeya—for Amrita-da too, the Divine was very near—just a few steps to reach Her!
Krishna Chakraborty
Page 104
K. AMRITA—A VISITOR'S VIEWPOINT*
SHRI K. Amrita, lovingly referred to as Amritada, was a man to whom visitors came for help to be put into contact with the Mother, and they were never disappointed. He never viewed visitors in the light of their capacity of making offerings. The only thing that mattered to him was the visitor's devotion for the Mother—no matter how poor or powerless was the supplicant. He loved all who loved the Mother; he would take the visitor's troubles to his heart and allow nothing to stand between the Mother and the devotee. He would faithfully present the case or the communication to the Mother and receive the responses from her for the devotees. This communication was sacred to him and he held it in trust for the Mother and the devotee. He was indeed the true trustee of the Mother.
When a devotee asked for permission to go to her he never decided beforehand, on the excuse of Mother being busy, whether the devotee should go or not. If refusal had to be there, it had to be only from the Mother. Because of this simplicity of his he received every visitor—rich and poor, powerful and weak—with equal feelings of love. He slighted no one. That was his character. His speciality was that he knew how to say "No" to a visitor with all affection and love. If he was approached by visitors when he was busy or at an odd time, he was never impolite; he was aware how difficult life was in the outside world. He would call them at another time, hear their story of plight with love and kindness, and present the facts to the Mother in the proper perspective. That was the mark of Amritada's humility and compassion, which were unique. He was a rarity.
Jagat Kapadia
* Reproduced from Mother India, Vol. 48, No. 4, Apr. 1995
Page 105
AMRITA'S HUMOUR
Often there used to be a mistake in calling the wrong Kailas by our Divine's messenger Suresh Joshi. When Amrita wanted to see me, he used to go and call the lady named Kailas and vice versa. So to avoid this confusion Amrita told me that he was naming me Purusha Kailas and she would be Prakriti Kailas. This shows his humorous way of dealing with us.
The Mother used to take French Translation classes in the play-ground in the evenings. Once our ever busy Amrita was late to the class. The Mother asked him what was the distance between the human and the Divine and told him "Unless you answer this question you should not enter the class". Our witty Amrita, instead of answering the question, went straight to the Mother with long strides, to the astonishment of the others in the class for violating the orders, and he told the Mother, 'Only three steps. Mother, Thou art Divine and I am human.' Mother was much pleased with this apt answer and allowed him to attend the class. The entire class admired his intuitive, apt answer told in a humorous way.
There used to be a big cupboard with a little projection near the entrance of the Mother's room. Often people used to knock against it and get hurt. When they suggested to the Mother that it be shifted to some other place. She didn't agree, saying, "It makes the people conscious." So it remained there like a sentinel. Once our busy overloaded Amrita carrying a big trayfull of things,—letters, prayers, plans, things for the Mother's touch and Prasad, innumerable things, to the Mother's Room, inadvertently knocked his head against the cupboard and got a bump on his forehead. On seeing this bump on the forehead of Amrita who was unloading the things in front of the Mother, the Mother affectionately asked him what was the matter, referring to the bump. "Making me conscious. Mother," was the humorous answer of our Amrita while continuing the work without caring for the pain. Our Amrita cared only for service at all times, keeping the brain calm and cool and witty in all circumstances.
Page 106
Amrita-da was one person who was long associated with the Mother even from Her first arrival in Pondicherry in 1914 till the end of his life-journey, on 31-1-1969. Mother seems to have said that he was to die at the age of 50 but She had extended his life-span for another 20 years. He did not like to suffer, he did not suffer,—he was never bed-ridden. Even on the final day of his departure, while he was relaxing at noon in his arm-chair, K approached him, asked him how he was feeling. He answered in a humorous way, that everything with him was alright except his sweet-heart! He was ailing from heart trouble. On 31st January night he went and washed his face and feet and returned to his room and left his body at 8-40 p.m.
When some people were trying to fill up that gap, the Mother told them, that Amrita was the first and the last Manager of the Ashram.
Nolini: Amrita, I have been to Pranab's place for a medical check-up. Dr. Vyas says that I have improved in every way. Even
my chest has increased!
Amrita: That is fine. Wonderful, wonderful!
Nolini: But you know, for a long time I have not been able to increase one thing.
Amrita: What is that?
Nolini: My height. No improvement.
Amrita: I know a good cure for it.
Nolini: A cure to increase my height?
Amrita: Yes. Just raise your heels slowly and secretly, but more secretly than slowly.
Every day Chinmoy fetched water for Amrita at four o'clock. One day Chinmoy was late.
Amrita: Chinmoy, I am dying of thirst. You know my name is Amrita, which means nectar. Since I am not fortunate enough to
drink amrita, I have to depend on your water.
Chinmoy: I am sure, Amrita-da, you have drunk amrita quite a few times during your meditation.
Amrita: You are mistaken. Amrita is meant for the Cosmic Gods, and not for this mortal.
Kailas
Page 107
Amrita around 1930
Home
Disciples
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.