A Look Behind

Mrityunjoy—A Look Behind: (Some Early Recollections of the Ashram)

When I reached Pondicherry, the Ashram was already two and a half years old, and a new disciplined life had come into being under the Mother's direct control and guidance. I heard about it before coming, from friends who had been temporary visitors at the Ashram, and also from a few old associates of Sri Aurobindo who could not adjust themselves to the new conditions in the Ashram. They found it too difficult to change their old ways all at once and turn a new leaf by surrendering themselves to the Mother in a strictly disciplined external life. It would have proved easy enough for them if it had been an accustomed formal surrender, leaving the old ego-self as it was. But to surrender each and every movement of the mind and life, especially of the vital being in its daily activity, was not only very difficult but was felt as suppression of their free development. So these few returned one by one, some confessing their weakness, some critical of the new order. However, when I sought the Mother's permission to come and join the Ashram permanently, I received a reply written by Srijut Nolini Kanta Gupta, the secretary, on behalf of the Mother, that for the present a temporary stay was permitted, as the time for consideration of a permanent stay had not yet come. When I arrived, it was at a very critical moment in my life. A long, difficult and adventurous journey was ahead – to be completed only by the Grace of the Mother.

As a rule, in those days, the Mother saw people the very day they arrived. So at ten in the morning I followed Nolini-da, who led me up to the small Darshan-room in the Meditation House, where the Mother was waiting. Her first question to me, after a short meditation at Her feet, was: "When did you take up the yoga?" She seemed pleased with my answer, and after a few more minutes She graciously blessed me and by nodding Her head indicated that I could go. Later on I came to know the Mother's remark about me, "He has good receptivity but the vital is weak."

I returned to my room, naturally full of happiness. In the afternoon, quite unexpectedly a young sadhak, who had joined the Ashram two years earlier and who was staying in the room next to mine, came to me. He looked at me somewhat inquisitively and asked which province I hailed from. Upon hearing my reply, a spontaneous but mild remark slipped off his tongue: "You see, the people of your province are good for nothing. Their sadhana is to read the Arya and other big books, to do painting, to sing, to compose music, to go for regular walks on the beach and to meditate. Whereas we do work in the Ashram. So they call us 'Das' (labour class). But I tell you, if you really want to know what the Mother is, you must work. Only then will you physically feel Her shakti. Otherwise you will miss the chance however much you read and meditate." Evidently, refinement was not his strong point, but his words left a strong impression on me. Maybe I wanted to verify the truth behind his unasked-for observation, which was undoubtedly for me a big grace from the Mother, and all that on the very day of my arrival!

I at once decided to work. I approached another neighbour whom I had known before, and proposed to meet Nolinida so that I could ask for some work. He agreed to take me the next morning. But, to my surprise, he told me that very night, on his return from the "Soup", that Nolinida had spoken to the Mother after the soup ceremony and that She had been rather amused and surprised at my request. She instructed him to give some light work in the Library, because I was sickly at that time. Thus on the second day of my stay I joined work in the Ashram. Later still, I began to realise what was behind the first caution of my friend, behind the surprise of the Mother at my having asked for work, the attitude of some of the old associates of Sri Aurobindo who had left the place, and of the new batch of devoted workers who had recently joined the Ashram, most of whom were not intellectuals.

It was not until the third day that the Mother permitted me to attend the morning Pranam, which in those days took place in the present room of Bula, and the evening Soup, which was then being distributed by Her from the Soup Hall, now the Reception Room of the Ashram. Many, I heard, had to wait quite a long time for permission for these two opportunities. Some have already described this Soup ceremony, so I need not go into the details except for some personal experiences. It was in the evening that this function was held and there was a dim light burning near the place where the Mother sat with Her feet resting upon a low stool. She would first meditate and as she opened her eyes, Champaklal would bring the soup vessel, a big cylindrical container with handles, and place it before Her. After putting it on a stool he removed the lid; then over the steaming vapour the Mother stretched forth and brought down Her hands and held them there for half a minute or so. Then each one went to Her with his cup in which she would pour the soup. During this time they made pranam at Her feet, then got up to receive the cup from Her hand.

She explained to someone that when She brought down Her palms She invoked Sri Aurobindo on the soup, and when the soup, so blessed, entered the body it acted on the cells to help transform them. That was the central truth of it, but individual experiences varied. After pranam at Her feet I would raise my head up and look at Her with my hands stretched forward to receive the soup cup. Often She was in trance and Her eyes would suddenly open and with a wonderful smile on Her lips She would communicate much more than by explaining to me in mere words. Not things philosophical or some deep spiritual experience, but things we call practical, of day-to-day life, solutions to problems of the past day or of the next, what I should or should not do, all these and in the most minute detail, were received from Her in those few seconds. The whole body felt as if it was filled with something, with the sense of a purified and raised consciousness. There were days when She did not open Her eyes at all, not even to give the cup to me. I almost had to pull it out of Her hand in order to allow the next person's turn to come. This meant to me that perhaps I was not open to Her that day. Often, on the succeeding day when I did not follow Her indication from the previous evening Soup-time, things did not go well in peace and harmony. This was a constant factor in my life. But the Mother always gives precious things too easily, so my human nature failed to appreciate properly and to realise the purpose behind – to help me change my nature. It quickly turned them into mechanical routine. Thus when it became a habitual movement for the majority of the Ashramites, it was a foregone conclusion that in the inner world the decision was already there to stop it.

Throughout my life in the Ashram it has been a constant experience that the Mother always gives the chance to approach Her and receive from Her things divine in so many forms, but after some time we turn it into something mechanical, valuable only in the earthly way: to have the right, the privilege to approach Her and receive things that others cannot have. Then it stops after some time. She does not stop the movement by giving a notice or explanation. She has infinite patience, She allows it to continue for quite a long time, giving the utmost chance to ignorant people to be conscious and take the right attitude and receive things in the true spiritual way for the transformation of their being. But when the old way persists sometimes for years together, She falls sick, because of our lack of receptivity, and thus inevitably the movement stops. It begins after sometime in a new form, suitable to the new conditions. In the case of the Soup this was so.

One day, I heard later, some sadhak, a so-called medical man, made some critical remarks on the Soup in front of the Mother, saying it had no food value at all, being left to boil for hours. The Mother, seemingly surprised, made a soft remark, "Do you think so?" Perhaps that was enough indication that the time had come to stop the Soup, and not long after the day came.

The Mother was indisposed due to over-exertion in visiting various departments of workmen, who were celebrating the Ayudha Puja. The Soup was stopped automatically and along with it the morning Pranam. It was 19th October, 1931; one whole month She was indoors. Just a few days before the 24th November Darshan, She was able to come down for the morning Pranam, in the hall below in the Meditation House. The spiritual record of it is there in Her diary, on the last page of Her Prières et Méditations, dated the 24th November 1931.

To return to the Soup ceremony, which was so mystical and profound. One night the Mother looked smilingly at me and held my eyes while giving the soup cup in my hand. Later that night Nolinida communicated Her message to me that She had seen a star at the centre of my heart emanating four rays, which had something to do with the four powers of the Mother. The same thing was repeated the next day. Nolinida called me and told it to me again adding that the Mother had said I should be careful. "Careful about what?" I asked him. He said the Mother had meant that I should be careful in my daily movements, so as not to disturb something that was growing in me.

During those days, generally in the afternoons, I would go for a long walk with some of my elderly friends, whom I had known before and who were now for me very respectable and advanced yogis, specially since I was a novice newly arrived. However, their conduct fully justified the caustic remarks made by my friend on my first day in the Ashram. The whole walking hour was devoted to gossip about everything under the sun, and in the most ordinary way. New lamb that I was, I swallowed everything with relish and argued with myself when the conscience pricked, saying that it was the spiritually enlightened way of seeing things. Within a week's time I began to feel dull when I approached the Mother at Pranam time or at Soup. I felt quite empty. I then realised the meaning of the Mother's message to me, 'to be careful'!

After three days I was allowed by the Mother to join the group for the Morning Pranam. I found it quite different from my arrival day's Pranam at Her feet. Now Her look penetrated my eyes as if She read through them my secret thoughts, feelings and actions, of which I had not yet become aware. I gradually began to discover, by her constant silent communications, that much of my ignorance was really a pretension. It was a great chance given by Her to all, to convey silently to Her their individual needs, questions or aspirations and to receive Her directions for what they should or should not do. She transmitted Her message through flowers, separate for each person. She had given each flower a significance, and through that we had to decipher Her spiritual message.

Amal was my senior by one year in the Ashram. I lived for some time in the Guest House with him, so I used to visit him, as he was ever generous to allow it, and I saw him painting some of the flowers for the Mother with the messages, that those flowers carried, written below. I got the impulse to do the same with the flowers that I was getting from Her every day. So I began, and sent some of the drawings with Nolinida to the Mother, along with Her messages as I had received them through the flowers of the day. She remarked about my paintings, "He has the capacity but needs practice." As for the messages, I heard from Nolinida that on some days, 'they were exact'. On some occasions the remark was, 'almost correct', on others 'he is now writing with the mind.' A puzzle to me! What is writing with the mind? Man always writes with the mind! Nolinida was kind enough to explain to me that, instead of quietly receiving the Mother's hints spontaneously from within, I was trying by the external mind to construct a sentence by combining meanings of the flowers; this defeated Her purpose. A new revelation to me. But gradually this opportunity was also lost, like many others. Instead of trying to concentrate on one's self-discovery, we began to look at each other's flowers and complained that some got better flowers than others. Thus along with the stopping of the Soup the morning Pranam was also stopped, in October 1931. A month later, just before the 24th November Darshan, when hardly recovered from serious illness, She was gracious enough to come down again to accept the Pranam in the morning, so as to prepare the disciples for the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo. But this time the form of the Pranam was completely changed. It was no longer in the room where one could approach Her in privacy, but in the open verandah in the Meditation House, downstairs in front of Amrita's room, where we all sat together and looked at each person approaching the Mother, instead of concentrating on how to stand in Her Presence. No longer different flowers to every person this time; She gave the same flower and only one to each.

The dining room in those days was inside the Ashram compound, not even a room but a small tiled shed only, where not more than fifteen people could sit together and eat. No visitor was allowed there, only the sadhaks went there for food, and that also in two batches, due to shortage of space. Servants carried food to the guests in their rooms. There were only enamelled pots, not even tiffin carriers. After sometime I was given the opportunity to go there for some light work, evidently with the approval of the Mother, to spread the carpets (actually narrow mats) and arrange the Japanese-style small tables on the floor, but not to take my own food there. After three months someone left and there was a vacant seat, so I was given permission to take my food there. This was the first time since I came to the Ashram that I had a chance to eat in the dining room. The experience was no less solemn than going for meditation. We would all go in and take our seats as the bell was rung; the same bell perhaps that is rung today in the palatial building that is now our Dining Room. An incense stick was lit to add to the sacred atmosphere, and each one would turn to his dish prayerfully, in an attitude of offering the food to the Divine within. I do not say that this atmosphere was maintained at all the three meals of the day. I was told that it had been far more intense before, when the Mother used to come to the dining room Herself every day and tasted each item which was then taken by all as prasad. But after some time that opportunity was also lost, apparently due to the Mother's lack of time, but actually because of a general failure in maintaining the attitude pure enough. Later Sri Aurobindo wrote that people's attitude towards food was responsible.

Gradually I became accustomed to the work in the dining room, but unfortunately also to the old egoistic attitude towards my fellow workers, I fell a prey to the lower vital's impure reactions that seemed to spring spontaneously from within me. I also copied others thinking that to be the real way of progress in sadhana. The process of opening myself to the influence of the Mother and obeying Her will, always looking at my own defects and drawbacks, was replaced by reports and complaints to Her against the others, always presenting myself to be guiltless or less guilty. It was this that later on was surely responsible for my change of work, although the Mother was extremely patient and compassionate and allowed me to grow in that wild way for a long time.

An incident comes to mind that happened during my first days of stay in the Ashram. Dara in those days became interested in taking photographs of many of the Ashram inmate. I took a fancy to collect some of them and seek autographs of the sadhaks on the pictures, just for my own collection. It certainly was a newcomer's enthusiasm to come in contact with some of the veteran sadhaks. Some readily agreed and autographed also. I approached Nolinida, but he declined. To him it appeared a wrong movement, because in the Ashram only Sri Aurobindo and the Mother gave autographs. This naturally hurt me but did not fail to make an impression on me. Then, after some others with whom I had succeeded, I approached Pavitra, about whom I had heard very interesting stories even before I came to the Ashram, and who since then has been to me a true child of the Mother. So as soon as I came here I took the earliest opportunity to meet him, even though people told me that he was one of the three persons in those days, with whom nobody was to talk without the Mother's permission. He kept the photo with him and told me to see him the next day. What a shock and surprise was in store for me, when he told me the day after that he had asked the Mother about it and that She had not approved. Embarrassed and sorry, I asked him whether the Mother was displeased. He assured me very sweetly that She was not displeased. What She meant was that to give autographs was to communicate some power and She did not see any necessity for that in this case. After Nolinida, this was again a lesson to me; more so, because the attitude of Pavitra to refer everything to the Mother, even things which appeared small to the common point of view, was an unforgettable pointer to me, even though I often forgot it.

December 25, 1929 is a date I particularly remember for two reasons. It was perhaps the first Christmas day celebration of that period. In the evening after returning from the Soup Hall and before going up to Her room the Mother distributed some small green leaves from the stairs, in the Meditation House. Just before She began the distribution, She said, "These leaves are called New Birth; not a new birth in the body but a birth in the new consciousness. These will be given to all, and according to each one's receptivity will be the realisation." Then She started giving a bunch of those leaves to each one in turn. The appearance of Her face was remarkable, the embodied Divine was present before all.

As the distribution was coming to a close, Nolinida discovered that Barinda had not yet arrived and asked me to fetch him immediately. What a strange situation to find that Barinda was not in his room. By the time I returned to inform about it the Mother had gone up. Next morning both Nolinida and Amrita visited Barinda's room and found a letter addressed to Sri Aurobindo on a table. Later I learned that he had written to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother saying that he was leaving the Ashram. Later still there were some communications of Sri Aurobindo, which were published, explaining the difficulty of a strong self-centred egoistic man to surrender to the Mother.

I felt sorry for Barinda having left the Ashram. As one of the pioneers of Sri Aurobindo's historic Bengal Revolutionary movement, and later, after his return from the Andamans life-imprisonment cell, he became a staunch follower and organiser of Sri Aurobindo's new line of spiritual development. It was unthinkable that he had left. But by then I had come to realise that many of the old-timers could not bring themselves to surrender their outer life to the Mother. In fact complete surrender even today is never an easy thing. Yet today's Ashram has an advantage, as people with a slight opening can fit in as workers in any of the hundreds of activities, provided they accept the Mother's decision as final. Question of surrender, even incomplete, does not come up, unless the person behaves in a hostile way. This opportunity which the Mother is giving now was unthinkable then, and unthinkable anywhere in the world today where a spiritual discipline for the development of the consciousness is the first object. But in the case of people like Barinda, and specially in those days of intense sadhana, as the Mother was bringing down the higher Truth and Light in a sweeping succession, the slightest delay in accepting Her ways and directions was a positive hindrance. And the more advanced the sadhak the more difficult it was for him to accept the principle of complete surrender, because it meant the complete rejection of all he had done and achieved in the past and to become a perfect zero and begin anew. This was possible for none except the Mother when She came to Sri Aurobindo the first time in 1914. In Her diary She has kept that history for posterity, the experiences of Her first few days' contact with Sri Aurobindo.

And a still more interesting thing is what Sri Aurobindo once said to Barinda in answer to his question regarding his first impressions of the Mother, vis-à-vis Hers of Him. Sri Aurobindo told Barinda that even before coming to Pondicherry he had realised that the descent of the Supermind was inevitable and for that the one indispensable condition on the part of the human being was a complete surrender to the Divine, down to the physical. There had been attempts of this before, but none had succeeded. He had never seen an example of complete surrender until he had seen the Mother. In Her he saw the complete surrender down to the very cells of the body, and thus he was convinced that now the time had come for the Supramental to manifest.

I could clearly see that one of the rare old inmates was Nolinida, who found no difficulty in adjusting himself to the situation. Once a newcomer, a person of importance and at the same time admirer of Nolinida, asked him point blank, "Didn't you have any difficulty, like many others, in accepting the Mother?" His spontaneous reply was, "No, I had no difficulty whatsoever; when Sri Aurobindo accepted Her there was no question of my not doing so."

A year later circumstances led me to volunteer work in another department with the Mother's approval. There was a paid workman also to help along with a small boy. The man was a technician, but an indifferent fellow, and I a novice just learning the work. Once it happened that the small boy, who carried the ladder from place to place, did not turn up for several days and the paid man would not touch the ladder. He was too proud of his dignity for such a petty job! So I prayed to the Mother to appoint another boy to carry the ladder. The Mother exclaimed with surprise, "What! two people cannot carry a ladder? I do not understand!" I felt shocked at first that She wanted me to do a coolie's job for this paid man who refused to touch the ladder! But I realised that in any case I had to obey Her and pass through the ordeal. First my own superiority complex had to be thrown aside if I wanted to work for the Divine. So I did the job the next day. Seeing me lifting the ladder the workman grumbled and after a while very unwillingly lent his hand. Later the Mother obliged me to do all such work myself, and pointed out to me that it was the only way to be a successful leader of co-workers, otherwise they would have no true feeling and respect for me and would find every opportunity to cheat me and sink into a demoralised condition.

I had been in the Ashram about two years when an elderly friend of mine came for a visit. I was indebted to him very much because in my earlier days he had helped make it possible for me to come here. So naturally it was a great pleasure for me to meet him again. But during the two months he remained here, I could not visit him as often as both of us would have liked, because by then I was fully engrossed in quite a number of different works; and the greatest attraction of it was that I had more opportunities than many others to see the Mother and talk to Her and get Her instructions.

One day he remarked, "Why do you busy yourself all the time with so much work? Did the Mother give you so many jobs or do you do them of your own accord?" I explained to him, "The Mother does not impose work on anybody; I feel pleasure in working so I ask Her and She approves of my doing all these jobs." He said, "You had literary talent in you and there is a good library here, why not take advantage of that and try to be a literary man, doing a half day's work and a half day's study?" His advice appealed to me, it sounded reasonable; yet I was not quite convinced inwardly. So I talked about it to Pavitra. The next day he surprised me by saying that he had spoken to the Mother about my conversation with my friend, and very spontaneously She had said, "Yes, yes, otherwise how to become useless?" The next day, on our first meeting, the Mother said jokingly, "So, you are going to be a literary genius?" I felt very much ashamed and said, "No, Mother." It was indeed funny that I should have forgotten the warning given to me on my first day by my friend!

What the Mother said does not mean that She discourages literary activity. Here was a purely individual case in a certain set of circumstances where the spiritual development depended on following a certain line of discipline.

I used to meet some reputed sadhaks on the sly and indulge in taking tea with them, joining in their gossips which included reading fresh letters from Sri Aurobindo and finding faults with other sadhaks. I did not inform the Mother about it, as I knew She would not approve. However, the mental justification to stop the prick of conscience was never lacking: "After all, what's wrong in it? Where else would I have the opportunity to read such wonderful letters of Sri Aurobindo?" Gradually I sensed a certain reserve in the Mother's dealing with me. Unable to bear the tension, I asked Her a few days after, what was wrong expressing my sorrow for displeasing Her and bringing about Her indifference to me. Very kindly but jokingly the Mother asked me why I hid things from Her. Thus things got settled down in a way, but for a short time only. The vital attraction to gossip was too strong to be thrown off at once. I had no difficulty in walking away from my family to enter the Ashram, but these apparently innocent movements would not leave me. I continued my old ways but justified them with similar arguments: "Now that the Mother knows about it, there is nothing so very serious in it, and didn't She tell me, 'Do whatever you like, but do not hide it from me'? Moreover, when I told Her that I would never go anywhere again, She told me it would be good if I could do so, but She did not think I could. Didn't it mean that She did not believe me?" After full three years of struggle, the topic came up again in one of my interviews with the Mother. She said, "You are playing about in this matter (visiting people at tea parties, etc.). But if you do not throw it away completely now that it has taken a more complex turn, this greed in what appears to you a very minor form will later be a major obstacle in your sadhana." I asked Her quite impertinently why She did not remove this desire from me, if it was something so serious. The Mother replied with all her tenderness, "But you are not allowing me to do it. You are not opening this part at all to my influence. Each time that I put a strong pressure on you to help you out of this disease, you very cleverly avoid it. If you had very simply come to me and frankly told me about your difficulty, your desire for this or that thing, I would have seen what really was needed, and how much to allow and for how long. By now you would have been completely out of it and gone a step further. But instead of that you go on hiding it from me, and satisfy your greed by frequenting other people's places. Naturally you miss the direct help."

It was the first time in my life that I had heard such a thing, and that from the Mother! Is it believable that such silly bits could be put before Her, asking for their satisfaction? All I had learned from childhood had taught me the contrary, not to ask anything from the Divine. Sri Ramakrishna had sent Vivekananda to Mother Kali to ask her redress of his family difficulties so that he could devote himself entirely to his guru; but Vivekananda tried three times and yet could not ask. Instead, he prayed for desirelessness and renunciation. In one of Rabindranath Tagore's lines we read, "He who could give you a crown for the head, you just ask for a shoelace from him!"

It took me years to recognise my false logic in it. If not to bother the Mother for insignificant things of human desire is to be my abiding virtue, I must be capable of removing desires completely from myself. But with many like me, this is not easy. It is only the highly developed souls that can do it all at one stroke. Sri Aurobindo did it; from the moment he decided not to allow the mind to think but to remain vacant and act according to the inner voice, from then on his whole life was guided by that principle. But for a common man who has taken up the line of spiritual development the guidance of the guru is necessary. Opening oneself to the Mother, not only for things higher and nobler, but for things small and ordinary, and to wait for Her decision and guidance – this not only helps one to progress without stumbling, but is essential for the development of the inner consciousness which eventually leads to the discovery of the Mother inside who guides unmistakably. I wish I had understood this before; then I would not have wasted so much of the Mother's outer grace and compassion. I should have understood that even when the Mother made some concessions for my desire to have its own way, it was just to help cure it and not go on exploiting it. When She did not sanction, in certain cases, strict discipline should have been maintained at any cost, and as I had experienced in some cases where I succeeded, the feeling of the Grace helping to cure the malady was physically palpable, and the difficulty was over earlier than imagined. But the question was of holding on.

When my parents came to know that I had settled in the Ashram permanently, my mother began to write frantic letters asking me to return. I stopped replying to her after some time, being tired and disgusted. Months later, while I was feeling at spiritual ease without being disturbed by my people at home, and for that matter was pondering whether I should not express my gratitude to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for this little piece of miracle, Nolinida brought to me a postcard from Sri Aurobindo, with the marginal comments written in his own hand, the first communication from him in my life! Overjoyed I began to read, then with a sudden shock from what I had read, I went back to the beginning and started reading again: "What is the meaning of all this I do not understand. I hope you have not given her any understanding that it is I who have kept you here. Your temporary stay was changed into a permanent one by your prayer. And once you have decided, you should have the courage to make your people understand that clearly. Otherwise, one is free to remain here or to go as he chooses."

It was not difficult to guess the contents of the postcard. It was a letter addressed directly to Sri Aurobindo by my mother, throwing blame on him. I felt very sorry; but I felt quite uneasy as I had never given any such impression to my mother; and how was it that Sri Aurobindo did not understand that? I at once wrote a strong letter to my mother, and sent it up to Sri Aurobindo for approval, with an inner feeling of satisfaction that he would be convinced that I had enough courage to deal with my parents! Next day I got the letter back through Nolinida, the same spiritual postman; I opened the fresh envelope with my name written on it by Sri Aurobindo, and found his comments on the body of my letter to my mother: "This letter won't do. There is no use threatening your mother with all that will happen to her which has no meaning. After Darshan I shall give you the hints of what to write. For the present you can simply write to her that you are in good health and she need not worry." Another surprise indeed, but one of unthinkable joy to me. This time I really expressed my gratitude to Them!

In those days the departments of service were few. There was the Building Service under the devoted engineer Chandulal, the Garden Service and Pavitra's Atelier (Workshop) for mechanical and technical activities. Of course there were the domestic service to deal with the servants, the Prosperity for the requirements of the Ashramites, the Bakery and the Dining Room, the same as today but now increased many times over. Every detail of all the services was presented to the Mother for Her scrutiny and approval, especially Pavitra's department. The heads of the other departments were responsible to the Mother, of course, but to some extent they had the freedom to deal with the workmen and organise the works as they felt justified. But in Pavitra's case it was the Mother who was the One and the All. She conducted everything, Pavitra only carried out Her orders. At the same time all technical details or engineering matters were worked out by him, but even for the most insignificant item it was She who would say "Yes or No" and only then did he carry it out.

In the workshop repairs to the Mother's car and its maintenance were the main job; but along with that all other electrical works, including house installations and repair jobs, water works, in the form of water canalisations from the municipal supply and repairs to taps etc. on one side, and all the domestic service requirements like repairs to metal pots and tinning of cooking-vessels, as well as smithy jobs etc., on the other were all being done. In each of these Pavitra, engineer of the École Polytechnique, gave a helping hand, and all the details were presented to the Mother. It was She who decided what to do and in which order. The relation between paid workmen and the one sadhak worker, who was also Pavitra's assistant was very sweet and friendly due to Pavitra's being the intermediary between them. Even if there was some confusion at times with the workmen and his assistant Pavitra would never give his opinion or order, but refer to the Mother and later communicate to them what had been decided by Her. In any workshop or factory outside, this at times would appear to lower his dignity, at least from the standpoint of a high-class engineer and his fellow assistant or workmen. But for him all that was of no importance. Only what the Mother wanted was all.

Once it happened that a paid workman was permitted by the Mother to come to her for Pranam every morning, not along with the sadhaks but after She had finished with them. She would come out by Pavitra's door upstairs and stand there, and the man would go up and offer his Pranam. He was perhaps the first workman to whom She gave this grace. Amrita said the man had originally been a mason, working in the Building Service with Chandulal. But he was a devotee and a poet. He had written some poems in Tamil on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which Amrita had translated into English and shown to Her. The Mother was evidently pleased and instructed Chandulal to send the man from his building department to Pavitra's department, where he would work as a mechanical helper. Thus he got the promotion from mason to mechanic; but unfortunately within a short time he proved himself hopelessly unfit for the work, a lazy fellow. Pavitra realised this from the facts of daily work, but he did not react in the way I did, because he knew the Mother was kind to the man and was giving him an opportunity and he accepted him for that. When the fellow came late for work, and gradually turned it into a regular habit, the Mother would say, "His house is very far, so one should be a little kind." I said he was good for nothing, but She would defend him by saying, "You people are really lacking in sympathy!" In this way every possible concession was being given to him, which was unthinkable for any other paid workman in any other department in the Ashram. At first he brought a few flowers; but gradually the more his inefficiency in the departmental work was being overlooked by the Mother, he began to bring quite a few packets of flowers for Her, and untied them one by one and offered them at the Mother's feet, thus taking a lot of time. This delayed his joining the work still more, and also it was late for the Mother. So once, when it was later than usual and he was even slower to open the packets, I felt impatient and told him to finish his Pranam first, as the Mother was standing, and the rest of the packets would be untied for him by me. The man did so, and the Mother went in comparatively early. I felt flattered at having done a good service to Her.

Later in the evening Pavitra told me that the Mother had been very displeased because of my interrupting the man. She said that when the man was before Her and making Pranam, he was not a workman at that time, and moreover She came at that hour for him only, so I did not need to come with him again: did I not already have my Pranam earlier? A good lesson for me! Naturally I did not accompany the man after that to the Mother.

Another small incident gave me an unforgettable lesson from the Mother. One day I reported to Her about a workman, a very good and honest mechanic, who was always concentrated in his work, but on that day somehow he did not follow my words and got irritated. I tried several times to explain to him but he would not listen and became insolent in front of a dozen workmen. So I shouted at him, with the result that he at once wanted to leave the job and go away. The Mother was quite distressed with my behaviour. In part what She told me was: "What are you here for? You are here for Yoga, aren't you? And what is that man here for, to earn his livelihood, isn't he? You say the man is honest and an expert mechanic and very gentle by nature, and that it was the first time he behaved with you like that. So if you had used a little ordinary common sense, I don't speak of the yogic sense here, you would have understood that something unusually upsetting must have happened to him either in his family or out somewhere, which made him lose his balance of mind. Thus he did not understand you properly.

"Now, you who are doing yoga should not have gone down in consciousness, and at last you even went below the person with whom you lost your temper. It will help in no way to argue and explain and counter-argue, always posing yourself to be right and the other wrong, and moreover you said that the man speaks very little English, and the most deplorable of all things was that your vanity of being the superior boss took the lead."

When I told Her that I had not actually lost myself in anger, but the man's insolent behaviour in front of so many workmen had set a bad example and so…, She stopped me in the middle of my sentence and said, "All that justification belongs to a lower level of consciousness; so long as you remain there, there is no hope. If you want to serve the Divine you must always be at the top of your consciousness."

"What should I have done in that embarrassing situation?" I asked. The Mother said, "Instead of making the drama of a superior person dealing with a paid workman, you should have behaved like a loving friend and comrade, you should have done this" – here the Mother patted my shoulder – "and laughed and told him with a kind and affectionate gesture, 'What has happened to you today? You must not be well; go and take some rest. Surely you are very tired today.' You would have seen that it would have eased the situation and brought back harmony. Whatever be the situation and whosoever the person, lack of harmony means lack of consciousness, and the one who is stronger yields. I do not mean stronger physically, but stronger in consciousness. And by one's affection and love, not by the dictionary meaning of the word, one yields to get back peace and harmony. Instead of that, you went down below the person and rubbed the animal in him in the wrong way. You are doing yoga, so this much he can expect from you?"

"Now, what shall I do, shall I go back and do as you said?" I asked. The Mother laughed and said, "No, it is too late now, it would be a rehearsed artificial drama and won't serve the purpose. It must be spontaneous, and that means from a different consciousness. Now the only thing that you can do is to concentrate on the best part of the man and pray for him, that he may get peace and balance, and when you meet him tomorrow behave as if nothing had happened. Be as natural and affectionate as can be expected of a really strong man."

I did not have to wait for the next morning. Towards the end of the day he came himself to me, and with eyes full of tears asked pardon of me. I was struck dumb. I felt that I had lost the game and he had won it. The same night when I told this to the Mother, she said in a tone of good humour "So you see, he is more receptive than you. Remember and offer."

One of my stumbling-blocks was that I reacted violently when people blamed me without proper grounds. At times I would even ask the Mother why she paid heed to such and such false rumours, why I should be the victim of such charges, even though I had done nothing of the kind! Her answer to me was that it did not matter whether I did or did not do some such things in that particular instance; what mattered was that previously I had proved myself capable of them, and there were reports about that. My past conduct and the present complaints were enough to show that I was still living in the same old consciousness of reactions and repeated lower movements. It was not enough to have stopped indulging in some of the movements. So long as I had not raised myself to a higher level of consciousness and lived there constantly, such occasions would continue to be there. Only by a complete change of consciousness, and thus living above ordinary human reactions, could the atmosphere around me vibrate differently, and people would then be convinced and not try to find fault with me. And that is a task of long, long years of arduous tapasya. Until then people would be justified to complain and my business was not to react but to be indifferent outwardly, while trying to find inwardly how certain apparently refined movements in me were really out of tune with my changed consciousness. And thus people's complaints would be more a help than a hindrance.

However, one who makes a complaint has to be very careful about what he says. Thus I may quote a comparatively recent message of the Mother to me when impulsively I hurled a strong criticism at somebody, whose conduct, according to me, had caused an irreparable loss to us:

"When, in ignorance, one speaks ill of others, he debases his consciousness and degrades his soul.

"A respectful and modest Silence is the only attitude befitting a disciple. Blessings."

Another point about which the Mother was particular in my case was unnecessary contact with women. It was something the Mother would never tolerate. In fact there was not to be any contact with men either, which was not precisely in connection with some work for the Mother. And it was one of my diseases to be friendly with all, inwardly justifying myself that it was the sign of purity and strength. There were innumerable cases when the Mother was severe with me. At times I asked her whether she believed I would enter into some immoral contact. Her reply was revealing, though I was too arrogant in the beginning to be convinced. The gist of what she told me on a number of occasions was like this: "Your idea of morality and immorality is ridiculous. You are here for yoga, to be in union with the Divine, to be all the time above all human so-called natural contacts, however high and refined you may imagine them to be. Any contact with women in your case, will bring you down to subtle vital exchanges to which you are always open. Your consciousness will begin to get dulled, forces of the vital world will take advantage, and quite unawares you will be carried far into wrong tracks, even when you are quite sure of your morality remaining sound!" At times she told me, "Don't be boastful of your strength. None has been able to keep his promise to me as yet!"

There are many who lament remembering the past days of the Ashram life, that were so calm and intense with the spirit of sadhana. When I look back on my past days, I realise how very unprepared I was, and how little of the Mother's expectations I fulfilled. Certainly there were more opportunities, but in another form they are not lacking now. Sincere prayer to Her and constant aspiration for Her help to change the consciousness is miraculously responded to, as quickly as it was before. Only, I must be unceasingly vigilant that my acts do not take the form of some show or self-satisfaction even in doing service to the Divine.

My first day's advice from the friend, when I reached the Ashram, 'that it is only through work that you shall realise what the Mother really is,' remains ever true for me. Although the Ashram has expanded a hundredfold, and all works are being done for the Mother, yet Her true workers, sincere and reliable, are not many. Without trying to appear humble I may record that I am only one of the many.