Mother's little fairy

An Interview of Maggi

I was born in Paris. When I was 17 I found a French translation of Sri Aurobindo’s: Essays on the Gita. I bought it not knowing why… something attracted me to it. I read the essays for two years. And I can say without undue modesty that I understood them not at all; but I was compelled to continue reading them. One day something opened and they became clear — they must have been absorbed somewhere. Something then happened which was so important for me that I didn’t immediately grasp that these essays had been written by a living person; at the time Sri Aurobindo was still alive, so technically I suppose I could have taken a plane and come to India…it never occurred to me to write to the publisher.

I did however go on looking for other books by Sri Aurobindo; I found The Synthesis of Yoga — only the first volume had come out. I read it to the exclusion of everything else for several years. Finally, when I found out the author had started an Ashram in India, I also found out he had just left the body.

This must have been in the early fifties.

Exactly. In any case, I wanted to come to the Ashram for I knew if there was a teaching for me anywhere this was it. It looked as if it would be difficult to get to India — I was married, living in South Africa. Someone urged me to write to the Mother: I explained I had long wished to come to the Ashram but it seemed impossible. A reply arrived a few weeks later — my first from India. I was excited but it just said when the time came I would certainly come to the Ashram. I thought: That’s nice and encouraging, but I couldn’t see much chance. Not long after, I had to leave Africa — I was living in Mozambique — to look after my dying mother. This made me realize that if I could leave for six months it was perhaps possible to also go to India. In 1959 it did happen; I had to go a round-about way and not startle my family too much: through Manila for a UNESCO Conference, then Japan, which was all right too, then India, which was my true destination.

You came straight to the Ashram?

Oh yes — it was a pilgrimage, although I wasn’t sure what would happen. I came to the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo, and something did happen…I knew I had done the right thing. But there were things in the Ashram — the Indian form of devotion — which I wasn’t prepared for; things which can be startling to the Western mind. I associated this with the Mother rather than Sri Aurobindo. I wasn’t too happy seeing photos of Mother’s feet stuck up everywhere. And when I was offered photos of Mother which had been blessed by her, something in me withdrew and I became upset. It seemed to me if the Ashram Sri Aurobindo had founded wasn’t working, where else in the world could one go?

Someone who knew about this turmoil going on in my mind suggested I ask Mother for an Interview, she being entirely responsible for running the Ashram. Well, when I saw her, all reservations fled; in fact, when I looked into Mother’s eyes, everything resolved and tears began pouring down my cheeks. Nothing else mattered — nothing mattered at all. Then I realized something I had read in Sri Aurobindo’s books but had never taken in: her consciousness was the same as his, though it manifested differently. When I understood that, I didn’t mind what was going on in the Ashram — it was irrelevant to the fundamental thing I had come for. That consciousness touched me, so I never again worried about the things that had first worried me. I went back home to put my things in order, then returned to stay for good.

Does that mean you had the approval of your family?

No. My husband realized once I came here it would be the end of our marriage. My mother had died, but I can’t say my father and brother regarded it favorably, yet when they saw I was happy here, after some years, as it were, they gave their blessings.

What did you have in mind once you decided to stay? Did you wish to meditate, do seva, or get into the crafts?

It was entirely yoga. When I was in Africa I was meditating for at least six hours a day and I read for another three hours. The moment I got here everything stopped: I didn’t want to meditate, and soon I stopped reading. There was a part of me that hadn’t settled down in India — to Ashram life — and found itself jammed-in and went on strike. It was difficult; obviously the major part of me — the soul — had chosen to be here, and it wasn’t going to be at peace anywhere else. But something else would say: No! — and block complete integration. I started thinking that is the end of my yoga for this life…I just have to sit it out.

This went on for two years, and my health was affected by the conflict…the heat didn’t make it any better, but I have since found one can live with the heat if all else goes well. I had such constant dysentry that I had to leave for a while — my father sent me an air ticket. But when I was out, and in spite of the lovely climate, I wanted to get back.

Did it take long for you to be able to return?

Only two months — I never meant to stay away. But suddenly everything became unblocked: then I suppose I had the decisive experience of my life by yoga.

It was an inner awakening?

Yes.

Can you speak about your relationship with Mother?

Well — it was rather close…that’s most difficult, rather personal, you see…

Did she give you any form of initiation?

People were touched by her and recognized her as their guru — yes — there was an outer form.

She gave a mantra?

Yes, in fact, but one can only speak personally. She gave me a mantra without my asking. But if people asked for one she would give one. It wasn’t like in other Ashrams where once they accept a disciple a form of initiation is automatically given. The mantra she gave me was in French; I haven’t seen it anywhere else…but it was given for a special reason.

Mother didn’t lay much stress on doing meditation?

In the years I was in contact with her, in speaking to her and through reading disciples’ letters to her in which they asked for meditation instructions, she didn’t encourage it much, no. She used to say: I never had time for meditation, and what I understand true meditation to be is when something takes you by the scruff of the neck and compels you to meditate; to sit down and expect the mind to be quiet is often fruitless and you would do better to read Sri Aurobindo.

You must have spent much time helping her with letters.

Yes, indeed. Everybody would write — there were hundreds of us, thousands! From little children to — well — everybody…You see, she wasn’t seeing people towards the end; most people only saw her once a year on her birthday. So people wrote to her, and that was the main form of contact other than inner contact. She was running the Ashram at a practical level also. I wasn’t the only person reading the letters to her, though. There was a time when she was available three times a day, but when I came she had stopped going out or playing tennis, which she loved.

Can you describe your life here now?

I teach at Knowledge — our center of education — what is called the higher course. This year it is on Creative Writing, although the first word is redundant to me.

Are these courses open to everyone?

No, just for our students. We believe in small classes; they are aged about 17 to 18 and are mostly Indian. For several years I did courses on mythology, legends and fairy tales. And I once taught the younger children science and English.

How long have you actually been resident in the Ashram?

It’s been twenty years now.

But how do you spend most of your day? Can you say?

I give this course at Knowledge in the mornings at 7.45. I have no set meditation times. Sometimes I go to the Ashram before I start the day’s activities. When I come back I write. Of course, when Mother was here I used to do other work for her…there were translations from French into English. Until recently I worked on the centenary edition of her work. But now apart from the teaching, the time is my own. I am involved to a certain extent with a home for little abandoned children.

This house you are living in, is it part of Ashram property?

It is. It used to be the stables of the house next door in French Colonial times — of course, we have built on to it. I love these walled-in gardens.

Could you share anything personal that Mother would tell her followers? You must have heard so much.

What can one say?… Something that she must have said to ten thousand others but every time I was with her — reading the letters, putting down the answers as she dictated them — her advice was the same: Surrender to the Divine! — Surrender! Perhaps through this constant contact with her one was able to give oneself up to the Divine will — to offer oneself to the Divine Will. It’s the only way to solve anything. I suppose this was her greatest gift; so what she said about surrender is what has stayed on with me. That decisive experience in my yoga is centred around this: One simply says yes to everything that happens to one.

I was touched the other day by a retarded child in Italy who for the first time has begun to realize she is different; her parents took her to a priest and he gave her a prayer-like mantra — very simple: Si, Signor, si, Signor. Acceptance. One always must say: Si. One never says: No — unless one is crazy. If the Divine has any interest in you He will see that you don’t say No…He will put enough pressure on you to make you understand.

Here’s something personal: one day Mother asked me if I prayed. In fact since that decisive day I don’t, because if you are saying: Si, Signor, you know everything is being looked after and you trust that, as you don’t know what the right thing is, it’s rather a waste of time praying for anything. So now, if I am hard-pressed, the only prayer is: Let whatever I do be according to Thy Will. This was the reply I gave mother. She said: That’s very good…there’s just one work lacking to make it perfect, add…spontaneously!

That was Mother’s message finally. There’s no longer any effort in anything one does once we don’t have to bend our will to it. Mother often said: For those offering to go through the transformation, they must be prepared to go through whatever they have to go through… then she would add: But be happy, be joyful!

This is how she spoke to her followers?

You know, she hardly ever spoke — she gave silent Darshans. One of the beautiful things in my memory of my time with Mother was watching people’s reactions to her. Quite often I would be asked to arrange an Interview for somebody…so many would come, it was difficult at times. I remember one person who spoke non-stop, often critically; you must know about intellectuals barging into Ashrams and what a pain they can be. For two days right until the moment she went up to see Mother this woman never stopped talking — quite amusing but snide remarks about devotees and aspects of Ashram life which to outsiders can be regarded as ridiculous. We went up at last, we saw Mother. Mother didn’t say anything. They just looked into each others’ eyes, and she was struck dumb. She left 36 hours later without saying anything, she just sent me a note: “I finally realized why I had to come to the Ashram…”

That often happened. One would take in a strutting, arrogant person and he would come out melted — weeping copiously not knowing where the door was. One had to edge them out gently by the elbow to prevent them going out through a window. They would then sometimes sit on the steps weeping helplessly, not being able to say why. It was as if the true being of the person swam up to the surface when they saw Mother. She was so kind… she would give people flowers whenever they came to see her.

What was Mother’s room like?

It was like walking into a different world; it was like being suspended half way between heaven and earth because of her presence. The room was always full of flowers and a sort of spiritual fragrance. The light was incredible. Then there were the French perfumes she wore…all this is not easy to describe: you must know what it’s like to be in your own guru’s presence.

When I left you the other day I commented on the marked physical resemblance you have to Mother. Did she ever mention this?

When I first came to the Ashram, Mother asked me where I was from. I told her I was born in Paris but I didn’t have any French blood as I was of Spanish Jewish descent, my father having been born in Turkey. She said: Oh, Maggi, just like me! Then I told her half my family were from Turkey, the other half from Egypt. She said again: Oh, Maggi, just like me! We went into whether we should speak together in English or French — she was also born in Paris. But when I told her I had learned my French from an English governess and that I spoke it with an English accent, she again burst out: Oh, Maggi, just like me! Well, I am telling you this, but it was one of those little things.

A final question. Could you say something about your writing? I was told your second novel is about to be published in London.

I write. Just novels… I’m working on the third now which Gollancz is interested in — they published the others. Obviously if you live in an Ashram for twenty years something of that life creeps into your writing. I enjoy writing enormously; I think it’s because the mind goes quiet. I’m lucky in that one is allowed to express this freely here. There are so many ways of enjoying spiritual life. The great thing is joy. We are not ascetics here, you see.

Maggi Lidchi
A House of Sweet Memories
Pondicherry, January 1981

Source: “New Lives: 54 Interviews with Westerners on their search for spiritual fulfilment in India” by Malcolm Tillis

The Turning Point

An experience of Maggi in her own words.

The experience started in the afternoon. It was a Mahakali experience, because some Force came down which Maggi had called for transformation. When it came there was resistance at one tiny point; almost a legal point on which she was arguing with the Force, and since she would not give in on this one point. It happened like this. Maggi was meditating a lot, not because of discipline, but because she was seized by meditation. The meditation was getting more and more strong. On that fateful day Maggi had finished writing a novel to which she was attached and which now she was revising. She started to meditate to get a higher consciousness to revise it and a great Force enveloped her. Then she heard a silent voice say, "This Force is not for the revision of the book, it is not for anything close but for the transformation of the being." This knowledge was so sure and wonderful that one had no wish to ignore it and Maggi tore up and threw away that novel welcoming the Force. Maggi asked, "What else should I do?"

Immediately Maggi knew the only thing she was attached to was the person whom she loved, for whom she had waited the whole of her life. Spontaneously she said to the Divine, "Yes, he does not belong to me. My surrender is complete. You may part us." After a time she added, "But you must do it, don’t ask me to give the blow. It is for you to do it."

There seemed to be a pause from the Force. Maggi said, "feel there is nothing else." Still the Force hovered as though to say, "Are you sure? Have you surrendered everything?" Maggi searched herself and there was something. She said, "The only thing is, do not ask me to leave him, do not ask me to wound him, for he is not ready" (he was not).

Maggi felt some uneasiness which she correctly interpreted as the pressure from the Force. She was somewhat shocked. She said to the Force whom she was treating as a person, as the Divine, "Can you imagine how ignoble it would be? He has helped me to open to you after a period of aridity. Do you expect me to use him as a step ladder to you then kick him away?"

There was a silence. Maggi began to get a very uneasy feeling that it was exactly what was expected of her. She said to the Force, "I told you I do not want anything from him, I do not even ask to see him. If you like, it is what you want, you make it happen; I cannot."

The uneasy feeling in the solar plexus now increased considerably and Maggi’s resistance grew proportionately. When the pressure turned into a dull pain, Maggi said to the Divine Force, "You can torture me but I will not give in, you can crush me, you can kill me, but on this point I stand."

The Divine seemed to take Maggi at her word, for she felt so bad that she had to lie down and she said to the Force, "Are you a torturer?"

She was still feeling very virtuous about her noble gesture. The Divine took Maggi at her word and began to crush her. It was as though the universe was crushing down at her solar plexus. There was no longer any question of resistance. The pain was so excruciating she knew she would not be able to bear it and finally agreement was wrenched from her. "Yes, yes, I agree. All right, all right."

But it was no true surrender and came too late. The guiding voice demanded, "Are you willing to have the dead parts of your heart removed?"

With eagerness, Maggi said, "Yes, yes, yes."

To cut the story short the "operation" was so painful Maggi was afraid that she would go mad or die. In her heart she reproached the Mother for not helping her. She thought, "I have put my life in the hands of someone who does not understand about Yoga." She wished heartily she had never heard of Yoga. Just then the Mother sent her a "Grace" flower

She knew that she should not move. For the whole of the night she lay paralysed, for about 12 hours. The next morning again the Mother sent her a Grace flower and wrote a message, "It is only in the silence that the Truth descends." And with that came immediately the understanding of the experience and the Truth began to descend and was able to break the resistance in 36 hours which might have otherwise taken decades or lifetimes. She understood, "Nothing belongs to us, not even the protection of those whom we love."

She learnt to love in a liberated way due to the above experience. She related the experience to the Mother. The Mother said, "I know when you are sincere and persist the Divine can save you through the chink in your armor. It is in fact the chink in your armor that can attract this Grace. But you have to be really sincere."

The Purpose

Maggi Lidchi-Grassi

This article was written by Maggi in the context of her book: 'The Great Golden Sacrifice of The Mahabharata', where she reinterprets Vyasa's epic from Arjuna's point of view.

At the age of seventeen, after having spent the World War II years in South Africa, I found myself in Paris, the city of my birth. At that time, revelations about the concentration camps were destroying all previously-held conceptions of the limits to which human evil could extend. The horror of that time and place was not an abstraction for me: a cousin with whom I used to play as a child had come out of Auschwitz with her identity number tattooed on her arm and a burden of dreams from which she would wake up screaming, night after night.

One day I came upon a French translation of Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita. In a world that had lost its bearings it was the only thing that made sense to me. In the Gita, there is a significant moment just before the battle between the powers of darkness and the powers of light when the destiny of the known world is about to be decided. The mighty warrior Arjuna, upon whom the outcome of the war depends, surveys the enemy's ranks in which stand his kinsmen and his guru. The code by which he lives declares it his duty to destroy the enemy. The same code regards the slaying of one’s kinsmen or teacher as the greatest of sins. Confronting this dilemma and foreseeing the destruction that must follow upon either choice, Arjuna is paralysed with horror. What finally releases him is something from another dimension, a vision in which the terrifying ambiguities of morality are somehow resolved. I cannot begin to describe the catharsis this produced in me. Suffice it to say that I became convinced that the answers I sought could only come from another plane.

In 1959 I left home, heading for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram of Pondicherry, India. It was at the Ashram that I first read (in twelve thick volumes!) the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad Gita comprises a single chapter.

My relation to the Mahabharata was a vividly lived experience, its events not the happenings of a distant age, but one with the epic events through which we had just lived. Over the years, greatly aided by Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita and other writings, as some quantum of the Mahabharata's spiritual wealth became accessible to me, I knew that I wanted to present it in a way that would make its wisdom and beauty more easily accessible to others. The more I studied the Mahabharata, the more striking were the parallels I discovered between its story of the conflict culminating in the battle of Kurukshetra, and the events culminating in World War II. In both cases there was a tremendous clash between the forces of darkness and the forces of light such as takes place in a time of changing Dharma. It is this clash—between Asura and Deva, to use Vedic terminology—with its result of humanity either taking a step forward or sliding back into barbarism, that is the theme of the Mahabharata. It seemed to me that this was also the central lesson learned from World War II.

Sometimes in my vision, the figures and events of the Mahabharata slid in and out of the drama the world had so recently witnessed in the rise and fall of Nazism. The parallels were uncanny.

Powerful and savage Jarasandha sought emperorship over Bharatavarsha, and in order to ensure his success, he was ready to offer Shiva the heads of a hundred captured kings as a sacrifice. At the war's end, Hitler sealed and flooded the Berlin underground—the city’s faithful residents offered as a last desperate sacrifice to the dark power he worshipped.

While in exile, the Pandavas were told by a sage that Drona, Ashwatthama, and Greatfather Bheeshma himself would be possessed by demonic powers. Writing to Nirodbaran—his disciple and later secretary —three years before the war, Sri Aurobindo said: 'Hitler and his chief lieutenants Goering and Goebbels are certainly possessed by Vital Beings.' For Sri Aurobindo, 'Vital Beings' were Asuras or forces adverse to the Light.

Dhritarashtra's message to the Pandavas in the face of war was, 'It is better for the sons of Pandu to be dependents, beggars, and exiles all their lives than to enjoy the earth by the slaughter of their brothers, kinsmen and spiritual guides: contemplation is purer and nobler than action and worldly desires.' 'Peace in our time' was the watchword of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister whose foreign policy sought infamously to appease Hitler.

The parallels continue. After the war, Arjuna voices his confusion about a critical point: 'In the forest you told us to wait out our exile for the full thirteen years, and then Dharma would be with us. But when Krishna came to the forest he said: “Fight now!”' Vyasa answers: 'I gave you of my knowledge… I walk within my Dharma. Krishna is free of Dharma. It will not work to act as though you are free of Dharma when you are not.'

Likewise Gandhiji wrote the following letter to the British members of the House of Parliament on the July 2, 1940 as he walked within his non-violent Dharma:

I appeal for cessation of all hostilities… because war is bad in essence… I want you to fight Nazism without arms or… with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity… Let them take possession of your beautiful islands with your many beautiful buildings… but not your souls or your minds.

Gandhiji was a great being, a statesman and perhaps a saint. But he was not a seer. There are times when we have to rise and fight and only those beyond Dharma like Krishna can spur us on to do so.

And yet, it is Krishna who when Ashwatthama releases the Narayan astra tells everyone to surrender. Surrendering is meant not just as a physical act but as a spiritual surrender as is made clear during the Ashwamedha when the sacrificial horse enables Arjuna to surrender his ego, his prejudices, in fact his own self for a higher cause. This version of the epic shows how at various stages the Pandavas and Draupadi make this surrender. On the fulcrum of surrender is balanced Karma and Dharma. It is in Krishna that this balance is found in the most pristine form.

Sri Aurobindo, who had fought so fiercely for independence from the British, alarmed and astonished the nation and even his disciples by championing the British war effort, declaring: 'Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine and against the threatened reign of the Asura.' In another letter, he said:

‘You should not think of it as a fight for certain nations against others or even for India; it is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully and against a darkness and falsehood that are trying to overwhelm the earth and mankind in the immediate future. It is the forces behind the battle that have to be seen and not this or that superficial circumstance.’

And to another disciple:

‘We made it plain in a letter which has been made public that we did not consider the war as a fight between nations and governments (still less between good people and bad people) but between two forces, the Divine and the Asuric. What we have to see is on which side men and nations put themselves; if they put themselves on the right side, they at once make themselves instruments of the Divine purpose…’

He is thus Krishna-like looking at a future of peace only through the resolution by carnage.

Perhaps something more needs to be said about the various entities I have referred to – the 'Asuras', 'vital' Beings', and their counterparts, the 'Devas'. We tend to use these terms only metaphorically today, but in Vedic times and to seers of all times, they were very real indeed.

What are vital Beings? They are the embodied forces which seek to obstruct (Asuras), or aid (Devas) the evolutionary advance of the Light. In crucial moments such as those marking humanity's attempt to make a transition to a new dharma, when the pressure of evolution threatens to dislodge the obsolete past, such Beings appear on either side to lead the battle.

In the Mahabharata we can easily recognize Jarasandha and Dhritarashtra as Asuric figures; Krishna as the embodiment of the Light and Arjuna, his instrument, as the champion of the Light.

During World War II, Hitler was clearly the Asura's agent. But who in that battle was the champion of the Light? And where did the Light come from?

I tend to think it was Winston Churchill, whose inspiring speeches roused his listeners to implacable defiance in the face of what for long seemed the inevitability of defeat. But Churchill was aware of being guided by something beyond, far beyond his own scope. In a statement to the House of Commons on 13 October 1942, he declared:

… I have a feeling, in fact I have it very strongly, a feeling of interference. I want to stress that I have a feeling sometimes that some guiding hand has interfered. I have the feeling that we have a guardian because we serve a great cause, and that we shall have that guardian so long as we serve that cause faithfully. And what a cause it is!

If Arjuna was the hero fighting with weapons against overwhelming odds in the war Sri Krishna conducted from another dimension with his light and inspiration, Churchill was the hero of an unarmed, unprepared Britain fighting against overwhelming odds, with the only weapons she had – his speeches.

Here is what Sri Aurobindo said of the action of his spiritual force during World War II:

‘Certainly, my force is not limited to the Ashram and its conditions. As you know, it is being largely used for helping the right development of the war and of change in the human world.’

Right from the beginning when the first air raid sirens sounded over Britain, Churchill's words to the House on 13 October 1942 were hardly those of a politician, and instead had the unmistakable ring of an inspired mystic:

I felt a serenity of mind and was conscious of a kind of uplifted detachment from human and personal affairs. The glory of Old England, peace-loving and ill-prepared as she was, but instant and fearless at the call of honour, thrilled my being and seemed to lift our fate to those spheres far removed from earthly facts and physical sensation. I tried to convey some of this mood to the House when I spoke, not without acceptance.

Churchill himself understood the evolutionary significance of the present age, which Sri Aurobindo emphasized in his writings, and in which Churchill himself played so critical a role:

The destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation. When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

And again:

A wonderful story is unfolding before our eyes. How it will end we are not allowed to know. But on both sides of the Atlantic we all feel, I repeat, all feel, that we are part of it, that our future and that of many generations is at stake. We are sure that the character of human society will be shaped by the resolves we take and the deeds we do. We need not bewail the fact that we have been called upon to face such solemn responsibilities. We may be proud, and even rejoice amid our tribulations, that we have been born at this cardinal time for so great an age and so splendid an opportunity of service here.

And yet again:

I have absolutely no doubt that we shall win a complete and decisive victory over the forces of evil, and that victory itself will be only a stimulus to further efforts to conquer ourselves.

It was in this historical and philosophical context that I began to understand the Vedic ideas of sacrifice and surrender, and the joy experienced at the moment of acceptance. There are numerous examples of this in the Vedic hymns and in the Vedic concept of sacrifice, with which the Mahabharata abounds.

It is through Arjuna, my protagonist, that I personify a changing Dharma after Kurukshetra. It is through him that Krishna has been able to reveal the mystery of the Cosmos, and it is now through him that one sees a new model of a man grown wise. In his post-war Ashwamedha campaign we find the Kshatriya hero discovering and developing his feminine, intuitive, and compassionate side in his encounters with those he must challenge.

The Kali Yuga that Krishna predicted is upon us and is accelerating the rate of evolution at a dizzying pace. Forms of resistance are inevitable, as are clashes with forms of resistance. The evils that led to Kurukshetra and World War II are still the evils that haunt us—insensitivity, rivalry, greed, violence, competitiveness and the denial of the love that created us. The pain and grief that these times have caused can only be healed by 'Harmony' and 'Samata', two virtues held dear by both Sri Aurobindo and Mother. Recent world events have left us living in a state of semi-paranoia. As Eckhart Tolle says in A New Earth:

If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived enemies, his own unconsciousness projected outwards. Criminally insane with a few brief, lucid intervals.

Nothing makes this more clear than the epic narratives of history. And yet they allow us to pause and take stock. For a moment we live in the aftermath and reflect. And we are somehow stilled and healed. The soul makes its way through the madness to come to the fore. In his introduction to Part II of an earlier edition of my work, Pradip Bhattacharya drew attention to a point made by Joseph Campbell in a televised series of his talks. Campbell said that science had created a gap between the modern world and mythological symbols. As the incidence of vice and crime, violence, murder and despair rises rapidly, it is the myths that offer 'the most solid supports of the moral order, of the cohesiveness and creativity of civilization'. Campbell concludes that it is in the body of creative literature focusing on the world's epics that he saw 'hope for our society in the twenty-first century'.

Yet the Kali Yuga, the precursor of a wondrous dawn, is pregnant with surprises. Science has recently taught us to harness the beneficent sun. A deeper science may yet harness us to the Greater Light. In any case though the resistances are fierce, the ultimate victory is certain. It will be for some future epic to tell the tale.

The sages say that much merit is acquired by listening to the story of the Mahabharata. May you, the reader, acquire merit, peace of soul, and serene joy.

Of Bliss these Beings are born,
In Bliss they are sustained
And to Bliss they go and merge again.
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

(Upanishad)

Dated: August 10, 2010

A Page from History

M. P. Pandit

If history is a process of the evolution of the human consciousness on its various levels, surely the Mother’s life is a continuum of concentrated history, and that too not on the earth-plane alone but also on several other orders of existence. For a close observer it was an intense education to watch how she made and unmade things, how weaklings were transformed into heroes, age-long impediments were dissolved with one smile. Her course of action was always first to set things moving on the subtle planes then to shape their results on the physical. Dimensions lost their meaning when it concerned the Mother: she could be at the same time high above and here below, concentrated on one point locally but at the same time aware of calls from all over the universe. She was supremely divine but equally intensely human. She held innumerable threads in her beautiful hands and knew which one to pull and when. She knew but would not appear to know, she could effect but did not want to. Some would say she was complex. But the way she operated was so natural. In her the divine and the human elements were delightfully fused. No instance would be happier to illustrate this side of her life than her meeting with a long lost friend who had returned to her from beyond the gates of death. We speak of Marguerite Lidchi, that little, blithe spirit who arrived at the Ashram early in 1960. I [Madhav Pandit] was one of the first persons to meet her and inform the Mother of her arrival.

Maggy — for that was how Marguerite was known to everybody then — happened to read Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita in France and was bowled over. Irresistibly she was held in the grip of Lord Krishna and she was, in spite of herself, drawn to Sri Aurobindo. She set out for Pondicherry forthwith. She knew nothing of the Mother at that time. And when she arrived she found herself quite at home. Everyone liked her, her petite form, her agile gait and above all her perpetual smile. Inquisitive minds found out that at her home in South Africa there were many servants working for the family. And here she was moving about without a care in the world—or so it looked.

All the while things were taking shape in another direction. When word was reached to the Mother about this visitor’s arrival, Mother made a cryptic comment: "It is someone I know." We looked for further elucidation, but none was forthcoming. We had learnt not to press for more than what she would say.

Well, Maggy was presented to the Mother on 1 February 1960. Champaklal remembers — as only he can — the full contour of Mother’s smile and Maggy’s tear-filled eyes. This was in the Pranam hall where Mother was giving blessing to all.

Very soon afterwards Maggy met the Mother alone upstairs. Her first words to the Mother were, "I know you already, I have known you before," and tears streamed down her face. Both meditated together for a long time.

How did she feel she had known Mother before? Obviously her inner being knew it though on the surface Maggy could not perhaps explain. But Mother explained it in detail to Champaklal. And here is the story, or rather facts which look like a story.

When Mirra [the Mother] was young, pursuing her studies in art in Paris, she had a friend of her own age, a dear friend— "and the only friend" as Mother took care to mention—and her name was Valentine. Their friendship was deep, so deep that when after her marriage Valentine had to leave for Egypt, she was so miserable to part from Mirra that she lost all taste for life. No wonder she left her body—soon afterwards (when only 19 years old)—at childbirth, a day before André was born to Mirra.

It is interesting to recall that Mother had painted a picture of this friend, a miniature which still retains its exquisite fresh pastel colors because it was painted on ivory. It is a portrait of a beautiful young woman dressed in the style of the times, just before the turn of the century, in a white gown with a white gardenia pinned to the shoulders. She wears a triple row of pearls. The face is sensitive but the eyes show the sadness at the impending parting. The Mother had brought the miniature with her to India and later gave it to Maggy, telling her, "I loved you very much then and I love you even more now. You came back very quickly." Of course to Maggy it seemed to have taken a long time. Once they met here, however, Mother showered her blessings and gifts, both inner and outer, so lavishly on her that all the longing of the past was forgotten.

This portrait of Mme Valentine is done on a small piece of ivory. The Mother presented it to Ms. Maggi Lidchi, one of her disciples, in whom she recognised a reincarnation of her friend. Mme Valentine, a close friend of the Mother's during her days in the art studio, died in childbirth just before the Mother's son, Andre, was born.

In the beginning, things were slow to develop, but very soon the old intimacies seem to have returned, though of course with some new dimensions added.

Writing on 3 November 1964, Mother turned Maggy into Maggi (Maggi—close to Mother); she writes:

Maggi, my dear child,

I am really happy with the manner in which your sadhana is developing and your growing receptivity."

Interesting developments followed. Mother became aware of a fairy who had attached herself to Maggi and was always present. Of her the Mother was to write:

"I have to tell you that my perceptions concerning you are becoming more and more precise—and that I am convinced that your vital is united to a charming little fairy, charming, smiling attractive, who likes to do pretty little miracles that give a special flavor to human life, quite dull in general.

Your presence is a joy and your collaboration is precious . . .

And I too love you.

That was not all. Maggi herself turned into Mother’s Fairy. For on her birthday, Mother wrote:

"To my sweet little fairy who brings a ray of sunshine to this earth."

Mother would address her as her sweet fairy, her good fairy, on the cards and letters addressed to her.

Maggi once asked Mother if the fairy had been with her since her birth and Mother said, "Probably," but that in any case she had arrived with her in the Ashram (in order to come into contact with Mother).

I hope I am breaking no confidences if I were to mention that Mother’s love for Maggi would flow at times in enveloping embraces, peals of laughter. Mother observed that when Maggi came into the room it was like being in a garden. The fairy used to weave gardens around them.

One day in a more solemn moment Mother asked Champaklal to bring a card. He brought once, she asked for a bigger card. Then she took Maggi’s hand with her forefinger drew four circles in the palm and joined them with lines. Then she took a deep breath and put her chin on her chest and closed her eyes in concentration. "I have just created an order," she spoke. Thereupon Champaklal gave her the card and she wrote:

"Maggi, Chevaliler de la Gentillesse," which can perhaps be put in English, "Knight of the Order of Nobility".

There was an interesting sequel. Much later, when Nata and Maggi started a home for children in Udavi where there is the Auroshikha Agarbatti factory and the school, and Maggi was asked to give a name, she heard the Mother’s voice saying: Gentillesse.

Speaking of Nata, Maggi considers that one of the biggest gifts she was to receive from Mother was her companionship with Nata. Nata, it will be recalled, was a splendid nobleman (Italian) who had settled in South America. On his very first visit to the Ashram, he had been taken to see the Lake Estate when the developmental program had yet to take shape. But what

he saw before him moved him so deeply that without a single thought, he took out all the money that was in his pockets— some thousands—and gave it as his contribution to the sadhaks who accompanied him there. He was responsible for initiating and developing the program of publishing Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s writings in Italian; he even started a journal. He was generosity personified. I may mention that though we hardly met once or twice, a deep inner relation had developed between us. He would occasionally write asking for certain clarifications. He would suddenly inundate me with boxes of high quality incense. The contact did not cease with his passing. He visits our place now and then, warming it with his soothing presence.

Mother’s last birthday card to Maggi reads: "Good secretary and excellent disciple."

Incidents bringing out the depth of the relations between Mother and Maggi could be multiplied. I will only cite a couple of interchanges. In one letter Mother writes:

"Maggi, my dear little fairy, you are adorable and it is a great joy to be served by you. With all my tenderness and my blessings."

Maggi writes: "Adored sweet Mother, I love you now and for ever. Your Maggi."

Mother replies: "Adorable little Maggi, I love you."

And the love continues. Mother’s physical withdrawal has not interrupted it. Maggi is never alone.

A couple of months after Mother had left, an Italian disciple, an artist by the name of Judi Cozzi, while visiting the Ashram, met with a serious accident, and while she was being operated on, left her body. She met Mother whom she asked if she must really go back to her body lying on the operation table. Mother directed her to return explaining to her what her work would be. She told her also to give Maggi the following message: Mother would send a little child to Maggi and that Maggi must not forget that the child came from her.

So Judi called Maggi and spoke of this. Maggi, however, did forget. When she took the child to visit Judi in Dr. Sen’s nursing home, Judi said to her, "There is the child that Mother sent you." You can imagine Maggi’s feelings.

There was once a period of financial crisis in the Ashram. Someone told Maggi of it. She immediately took out all the money that was with her at the moment and made it over to Mother. Mother was to narrate this to me much later, adding, "Maggi is a good girl." And beautiful too, beautiful of form and soul.

Weaving Miracles

By Larry Seidlitz (2013)

As explained in an article by Shyam Kumari that appeared previously in Collaboration (Winter/Spring 2005/2006), Maggi Lidchi-Grassi had a very special relationship with the Mother. The Mother had explained that when she was studying art in France, she had a close friend named Valentine about the same age as her. As Ms. Kumari put it:

Their friendship was deep, so deep that when after her marriage Valentine had to leave for Egypt, she was so miserable to part from Mirra that she lost all taste for life. No wonder she left her body—soon afterwards (when only 19 years old)—at childbirth, a day before André was born to Mirra.

When Maggi first came to the Ashram in 1960 and met the Mother, Maggi’s first words were, "I know you already." The Mother later explained that Valentine had returned in her next birth as Maggi. It is interesting that while in France the Mother had painted a portrait of her friend Valentine and later presented it to Maggi (a copy is shown in the earlier story), accompanied with the words, "I loved you very much then and I love you even more now. You came back very quickly."

There is another very interesting aspect to Maggi’s relation with the Mother which the Mother explained in a letter:

I have to tell you that my perceptions concerning you are becoming more and more precise—and that I am convinced that your vital is united to a charming little fairy, charming, smiling attractive, who likes to do pretty little miracles that give a special flavor to human life, quite dull in general. "Your presence is a joy and your collaboration is precious . . . And I too love you."

The Mother would perceive this fairy whenever Maggi would come into the room, and she used to call Maggi her "sweet fairy" or "good fairy" on cards and letters addressed to her. For many years, Maggi was a secretary for the Mother, and enjoyed a close and special personal relation with her.

Udavi

Maggi was married to the dynamic and capable Nata (Alberto Grassi), whose name was given to him by the Mother and means "He who has given himself to the Divine." Nata was an engineer and had been in put in charge of all construction in Auroville. Together they founded the Udavi project in the village of Edayanchavadi, which borders Auroville. Mother had named the project Udavi, which means "help," because she wanted to help the people of this village who were among the poorest in the whole area. In the first days of Auroville, the Mother had arranged for a borewell to be dug for the village. Afterwards a store and medical dispensary were established. Later, the Udavi school was started for the children, starting with a kindergarten, and then the addition of a new class each year. The children at the school were provided with three meals a day, a bath, freshly washed and ironed uniforms, and school supplies. The free progress teaching method advocated by the Mother was employed as far as possible. At first these projects were run on funds received from donors, but after some time it was decided to start a business to support these projects.

With Mother’s blessings, Nata started an incense making unit. Rolling the incense would provide the villagers with work, machines and electricity which were scarce or unavailable would not be needed, and with the help of friends in various countries, the incense could be exported. The profits from this successful business scheme were used to support the Udavi project and Auroville. Later Auroshikha Agarbathis became one of the biggest exporters of incense in India. Today the Udavi project and Auroshikha Agarbathis are under the auspices of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Quiet Healing Center

The Mother used to take walks along a strip of land along the beach near Auroville, and feeling the special energy there, had named it "Quiet." She told the owner of the plot, Gautam, a devotee, that she wanted that land to be reserved for a healing center. Separately, the Mother had told Maggi that she had seen in her vision a wonderful project in Auroville for which Maggi would be responsible for realizing, but did not reveal the details. It was only later that Maggi became involved in alternative healing.

Nata had been suffering from a long illness. In 1985, he had gone for a checkup to a hospital in Europe and was given a diuretic IV which landed him in the Intensive Care Unit, where he was treated coldly. Afterwards, returning to the Ashram, he was treated lovingly by Dr. Datta. Then, a few weeks before his passing that same year, he said to Maggi who was feeding him, "There ought to be a hospital of love like this." Maggi was inspired and kept repeating, "Yes, there will be such a place, there will be such a place, we will build it." Knowing he had only a short time remaining, he patted her hand reminding her of his condition. The next day when he got up he made a few rough drawings of what would become the Quiet Healing Center, but that was as much as he could do.

By this time, Maggi had already become interested in homeopathy which had proven to be helpful for Nata. She was invited to a conference on spirituality in the US where she gave a paper on "the spiritual implications of homeopathy." While there, she did further research on alternative therapies and visited various centers of healing. She followed this with further studies with Professor Masi in Italy and George Vithoulkas in Greece and other European countries. In January 1987, she arranged for the first alternative healing multi-disciplinary congress in Pondicherry and Auroville. It was on this occasion that the building of a new complementary healing center was announced.

Shortly after this, Gautam approached Maggi and said he had heard she was looking for a site on the seashore for "the hospital of love." He offered to sell his plot, which he explained that the Mother had asked him to designate for this purpose, for the small sum that Maggi had raised for the healing center. In the beginning of 1997, exactly 10 years after it had been announced, the Quiet Healing was inaugurated.

Situated on seven acres of beautiful beachfront property, the Quiet Healing Center offers a wide range of natural treatments, courses, workshops, and accommodations. It is based on the understanding that we are spiritual beings seeking to express ourselves through our mental, emotional, and physical instruments. Its therapies "address the client on a deeper energetic level within a safe space of care, love and touch." Here one can find treatments and courses in various types of massage, aquatic bodywork, shiatsu, acupuncture, physiotherapy, chiropractic therapy, homeopathy, bio-resonance therapy, sound healing, and other natural therapies. The accommodations provide for a restful, rejuvenating retreat from the stresses of life, with or without participations in the therapies, and the Quiet kitchen provides three natural, delicious vegetarian buffet style meals each day which are suited to both Western and Indian tastes.

The author

Maggi is also a prolific author who has written journal articles, short stories, poems, fables, children’s stories, two plays, and several novels. A collection of her short stories was published under the title Jitendra the Protector (1986). Her novels include Earthman (1967) and The First Wife (1981), which received favorable reviews. Her later novels The Battle of Kurukshetra (1987) and the The Legs of the Tortoise (1990), are volumes 1 and 2 of Maggi’s novel on the Mahabharata which was later published by Random House in one volume as Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata (2011). These books tell the story of the great battle of the Mahabharata, largely through the perspective of Arjuna, and help make accessible the story of the great epic to modern Western readers. Her novel Great Sir and the Heaven Lady (1993) tells the story of John Kelly, an American infantryman who had visions of and was guided through the second world war by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Her book The Light that Shone into the Dark Abyss (1994) tells more broadly about the role of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in World War II. Maggi’s fascination for both the wars of Kurukshetra and World War II are revealed vividly in an essay published recently in Mother India (June 2013), the Ashram’s primary literary journal. In the article, "Striking Parallels," she lays out a number of interesting parallels between the two great battles, of their protagonists and antagonists, and how they both represented decisive turning points in the spiritual evolution of the human race.

We must also mention Maggi’s contributions to the Italian journal Domani, first as founder and always with her articles. Domani is the only magazine of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram dedicated to a specific nation and exists only in the Italian language. Domani was started by Nata and Maggi in 1966 on cycle styled free sheets at request of the Mother, as no books in Italian existed at that time. In 1968 the Mother gave a message for the Italians: Sopravvivere e Rinnovarsi which was written in Italian by the Mother. The message is reproduced on the first page of each issue of Domani and it means "Survive and Renew." It is clear that the Mother attached much importance to the magazine and to the Italian people for the Integral Yoga. In 1972, Sri Aurobindo’s birth centenary year, Domani was printed as a magazine for the first time. In 1977, it received a prize in India for its beautiful, high quality graphics. Most Italians who are connected to the Integral Yoga came to know about it through Domani. Many translations of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s writings have been published in the magazine and each year the last issue is accompanied by a booklet of about 45 pages targeted on a particular theme based on translations of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s writings.

Harmony and Samata

In recent years, a project close to Maggi’s heart has been the widespread distribution of the homeopathic potentizations of Harmony and Samata, which are based on the relics of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, respectively, for the purpose of effecting positive change in the collective consciousness. The idea for this project was inspired in part by homeopathic colleagues Peter Cappell and Harry Van Der Zee. In the journal Homeopathic Links (2008), Chappell had suggested the idea of finding a homeopathic remedy for humanity’s negativities—such as greed, insensitivity, repressed anger, and hardhearted over-intellectuality—and that if given to a critical number of people, it might effect a change in the racial consciousness. At the same time as reading Chappell’s article, Maggi also stumbled upon an earlier article by Van der Zee (Homeopathic Links, 2004), who wrote that the success of one of Chappell’s remedies in treating AIDS suggested that "it is possible to include understanding and intention in a homeopathic remedy." Putting these ideas together, it occurred to her that where better to find that understanding and intention to relieve humanity’s negativities than in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? She wondered "whether the subtle/spiritual/supramental energy that had been fixed in the cells of their bodies might not be releasable by the homeopathic process of potentization; and to wonder further what the effect might be on someone taking a potentization derived from such startling material." (Homeopathic Links, summer 2010).

Maggi was in possession of some of Mother’s hairs, which the Mother had given her with the words, "All of me is potentially in this" Maggi "hoped that something of the Mother’s unutterable sweetness, compassion and love, as well as her indominable courage and yogic force would transpire in a potentization." So from these hairs, the remedy Harmony was prepared. Subsequently, some parings of Sri Aurobindo’s nails which had been lovingly preserved by his attendant were given for potentization to make the remedy which came to be called Samata (Sanskrit for equanimity), which was thought might actuate his Himalayan stillness and calm.

Over a period of several years, Maggi tested the remedies with several hundred people, primarily in Pondicherry and its surroundings, who took either one or the other or both the remedies. Maggi has collected the testimonies from many of them of their effects and published her findings in the Homeopathic Links journal (summer 2010). She admits that this was not done in a scientific way, for example, by using a control group, but said that the results were so consistently positive (and sometimes profound) that it appeared inescapable that something of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s energies were working through the remedies. Most of these people were in good health, and reported changes mainly in their state of consciousness, but some people had various health problems such as hypertension, cancer pain, migraine headaches, and chronic depression.

She explained that in some ways the results of the two remedies were similar, for example, in helping people "not to get upset by circumstances that would normally be very disturbing, but each had its individual character." She indicates that the keywords that kept coming up in the reported effects of "Harmony" were "calm, compassion, connectedness, and consciousness in dreams," and that there were reports of experiencing strong st ates of love and kindness. For Samata, the term "stillness" was most frequently reported, along with such descriptions as "calm," serenity," and "compassion." While there are few detailed reports that have been published on the effects of Samata, a number of impressive findings on the beneficial health effects of Harmony have been described.

One of the "provers" for the Harmony remedy had had chronic pain and many health problems over a period of several years that led her to go to many doctors and alternative treatment providers, none of whom provided lasting relief. Her experience with "Harmony" was different, however. She said that her pain went away and did not come back. Further, she says it has changed her completely, and her partner verified that "she is now a transformed person full of joy." She characterized this inner change by saying that "somewhere within myself there is no space for fear or dramas. All that is over. All that I have to do and live from now onwards will be from another perspective."

Many others also found profound pain relief. One man who had been experiencing severe cancer pains found instant relief: "For the first time in years, my symptoms seemed to disappear almost completely and it was almost unbelievable… I feel a lot better physically than I have in recent years. At the psychological level Harmony has done wonders for me. I feel a sense of general well-being and a definite difference in the level of my spiritual consciousness." Maggi added that this man continued to take Harmony daily for many months until his pain disappeared completely, and in fact, he became free of his cancer. Maggi stressed, however, that she was not claiming that Harmony was a cure for cancer. Another man who was in the terminal stages of cancer found an alleviation of his pain, symptoms and agitation, and he succumbed to his cancer after several weeks without the need for morphine. Another woman with cancer pains said that "Miraculously, the pain went away as if Mother took it into her own hand." Another woman suffering from Parkinson’s Disease found relief such that her sleep improved dramatically: "It is difficult for me to sleep and since taking Harmony I can sleep beautifully, four hours in one go, and this is like a miracle for me." Another person, who had been having migraine headaches for the past five years, reported that she immediately got a migraine when she first took the remedy, but it subsided after about an hour and she "has not had a migraine since."

The Stillness Retreat Center

The "Stillness Project" is a planned "residential retreat center based on the power of stillness, on the power of symbol, and on the inspirational power of art." Maggi and her companion Surekshita were drawn out of their home near the Ashram by the noise pollution, and obtained a six acre plot of land near Auroville in a very quiet area where they built a house and established a splendid garden. A friend had visited and suggested that what was needed is a retreat center with Mother’s atmosphere. Maggi agreed. She sometimes went to other meditation retreats centers, but she always had felt that the Mother’s atmosphere was missing. And while there is already the incomparable Matrimandir in Auroville, she explains that you can’t go there for 10 days or two weeks to stay and sleep and eat in that silent atmosphere. She feels such a place is needed "because we all talk too much and plan too much without stepping back into our ‘stillness,’ that area where all the creativity takes birth."

The stillness project will consist of a main building and several ancillary buildings. The main building will have a central space for collective meditation, and 12 rooms for individual meditations. Each of the 12 rooms will be an art installation for evoking one of the Universal Mother’s 12 powers of the advent of the new cycle of evolution. Also, these individual meditation rooms will have glass walls and ceilings which will create an expansive atmosphere in which each one will be in connection with others and the building as a whole, but will still allow silence and solitude. The ancillary buildings will include a reception, dining room, kitchen, laundry-ironing-wardrobe, staff room, watchman’s room, and a water tank.

A foundation has been established for collecting funds for the project—the Growing Towards Foundation—and there is a beautiful website with numerous artistic drawings and plans, as well as textual information about the proposed project (http://www. stillness-for-growingtowards.net). The foundation applied to the government of India for permission to receive funds for the project, and is awaiting a positive response.

Maggi is now in her 80s, but she is still weaving miracles with her writing and her various other projects designed to bring down the higher spiritual consciousness into the material world and her fellow human beings. While her consciousness is uplifted towards the Divine, her feet remain planted firmly on the ground, and her fingers tirelessly working to implant that higher consciousness here. We are sincerely appreciative of her remarkable accomplishments and life-long efforts.