Jugal Kishore Mukherjee

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee (9 July 1925, village in Bengal — 15 December 2009), sadhak and scholar, he studied the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and also lived in them. His father passed away when he was only an infant. After completing his post-graduation studies in Science (his special paper was Nuclear Physics) from Calcutta University, he joined the Ashram in August 1949. In the initial days of his arrival, Jugal-da was assigned work in the Publication Department of the Ashram which was then headed by Prithwi Singh Nahar. Jugal-da was later shifted to the Ashram School where he taught Physics to his students. When the Ashram Laboratory was inaugurated by the Mother in 1956, he became, along with Pavitra, Mrityunjoy Mukherjee, Sunil Bhattacharya and Joshi-bhai, a teacher of science. Later he was given the charge of organizing the Higher Course in the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education by the Mother herself. He was the head of the Higher Course section which is located at "Knowledge", a beautiful sea-facing building situated next to the main office of Sri Aurobindo Society.

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee was born in a remote village in Bengal. His father passed away when he was only an infant in his mother's arms. His mother, reduced to very difficult circumstances, somehow managed to raise Jugalda to boyhood with often one sparse meal a day. Jugal da's brilliant intellect was noticed by the village school teacher and he was helped and referred to a better school some distance away from his own village. His mother, ever willing to sacrifice her all for the sake of her son, somehow managed to support him in order to enable him to pursue his studies. He landed in Calcutta for his college education and came in contact with the Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir in College Street, an important centre for the dissemination of Sri Aurobindo's teachings. Studying often under street lights, he managed to complete college. He was lucky enough to have the great Meghnath Saha as his professor.

'He never forgot his mother's advice, dinned into his ears from infancy: "Remember, my son, for those who have no one in this harsh world, there is always God, the Universal ever-present Friend, who never fails." Guided by his mother and beaten into tough mettle by the vicissitudes of a life of extreme poverty, he developed an irreversible inner life, and it was only natural that when only 24 years old, without pursuing further studies, Jugalda came and settled in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1949. Hence he was blessed with the Grace of having had Sri Aurobindo's Darshan for two years.'

Not only was Jugal-da a remarkable scholar but he was an author whose books compelled the reader to ponder on the subject on which he dealt. His books—though based mainly on the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother—were unique in nature and in a way they made the theory of Integral Yoga and its various aspects understandable to even the non-intellectuals. We could find in his books the answers to several queries which were capable of changing one's outlook towards life. His first book The Destiny of the body was published after twenty-five years of his study of the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. From the scientific point of view he has discussed about the possibility of transforming a human body into a supramentalized one. His scholarly analysis and interpretation was praised by K.D. Sethna who contributed a Foreword to this book in which he remarked: 'Reading the series of studies contributed by Jugal Kishore Mukherjee I could not help being exhilarated not only by the scholarly thoroughness of its knowledge but also by the wide-ranging vitality of its insight…