Read Pradyot Kumar Bhattacharya's correspondence with The Mother's correspondence with The Mother - from the period spanning 1963-1972
The Mother : correspondence
THEME/S
Born on 21 August 1905 in Chittagong, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), Pradyot Bhattacharya joined the Ashram on 11 August 1943 at the age of thirty-eight. He had been an electrical engineer by profession; the Mother appointed him as chairman of the newly-formed Technical Coordinating Committee (T. C. C.), which supervised the maintenance of the Ashram's buildings and properties. In 1970 he became chairman of Sri Aurobindo's Action and in 1972 the Mother appointed him as an Ashram trustee. He lived in the Ashram for forty-one years, until his passing on 22 November 1984 at the age of seventy-nine.
Pradyot's correspondence with the Mother covers the period from 1963 to 1972.
My dear child
This is simply mischief from somebody who wants to interfere with our work. But such a thing cannot be tolerated and must fly away in front of the Power from the Divine.
Love
5 April 1963
Mother,
Grant that
You get all the money you need.
I may be a good and truthful instrument and not a weak or broken one.
The child G may be happy and healthy and a truthful instrument.
All those who are around one will turn towards you.
Your constant Presence.
Granted.
April 1963
My dear child,
I need you as my instrument, and you will remain so. Be very quiet—endure with courage. I am with you, in love and in victory.
7 May 1967
Take this persistence in the trouble as a test for your faith, answer by a confident smile—and it will be all right.
With love and blessings
2 July 1967
As long as I am alive, I should like to be able to do your work, as a good instrument.
I have some little faith and I believe no serious trouble like ulcer will recur, but somehow I seem to allow a lesser trouble like colitis to interfere with me. May this interference go. My prayer for 1968 is:
"Grant that this body discards any tendency to oppose your will. Let it collaborate."
Granted with love.
22 December 1967
In a dream, I met someone whose business seems to be causing breakdowns in machines and plants. He and I came to an understanding, and he agreed to spare the works in which I am or may be interested.
I do not know how seriously I am to take it, but it suggests a prayer:
"Grant that this be true, so long as I work for ".
Very good. Blessings
6 June 1968
First, I pray for a boon:
A settled, calm courage in the heart assured by your constant Presence in and around me.
Secondly, I pray for your decision, whether or not to undergo an operation for the prostate. At present I am wearing a catheter which can only be removed if the flow is restored. Life with a catheter is not especially attractive.
I should like to serve you. Kindly grant this without an operation if possible, and with an operation, if necessary.
An unshakeable faith in the Divine's Grace and no disharmony can resist its action.
With my love and blessings
10 October 1968
The irritation is not there now, but there is fever, 101.8°F, probably because of infection caused by remnant urine in the bladder which has not been cleared as the flow is little.
Sri Aurobindo has written that you can be "hard and terrible". Not for me, now, I hope. I would rather be reassured that surrounded by your Grace and Protection, what have I to fear in this or in other worlds?
I ask this question because the prostate is a sex gland, I hear. At home and outside, I have to live and deal with many girls and their problems.
I thought I was reasonably free from sex; I consciously aspired for it to be able to do my work. Is it that the Sex-God did not like it and struck me on the victory day?
Surely the Sex-God is not stronger that the Divine's Love and you can be assured that the Divine's Love is with you and the Sex-God will have to behave properly!
Blessings
14 October 1968
As I informed you last Tuesday, I am going next Thursday, the 30th January, to Calcutta, and maybe to Delhi also, returning home on the 3rd or 4th February. The idea behind the trip is to be of some service.
Grant me, if you please, the energy to be able to serve you. This wish is the reason why I do not want any illness. Not that I am hankering to live for ever! I should live as long as you find it necessary and when die let it be without illness and of free will, since illness, I gather, is not the Divine Dispensation.
And faith, I believe, is the bulwark against illness. By faith, I understand faith in you, faith that you are the Divine. I have that faith. If I am right in my understanding of faith, I suppose I could rightly consider myself basically free from illness and live and move in that confidence.
Keep the unshaken faith that the Divine wants you in good health—and it will be all right.
26 January 1969
Grant that I may collaborate entirely with you so that only what you will happens to me and nothing else.
It is already granted and for ever.
17 June 1969
Regarding my health, I am no longer bothered about my enlarged prostate gland or the duodenal ulcer or the hernia. Because you said you would cure all, these have more or less disappeared from my consciousness.
Now there is a small growth just inside the rectum. I don't know if it was there before. It is not troublesome now, but I would not like it to grow larger and cause obstruction or turn cancerous.
Doctors cannot cure. Please, Mother, will you cure me?
We shall wait for a month—if it disappears or even diminishes it is all right. If not you will have to show it to a doctor.
Love and blessings
16 June 1970
The duodenal ulcer has come again. I did not think this would come. I do not know why it came.
Maybe, as usual, it is not serious and will soon go. There have been other troubles also, which, at the moment, do not bother me.
But always there have been battles. Now I would like to crystallise my attitude towards my body.
Will the Mother sanction that the body will remain in good health to do works till the highest aspiration are fulfilled?
I want your body in good health.
20 August 1971
Last night and two other nights this week, I had partial obstruction of the urine. Normally, relaxing myself restores the flow, but last night it was not fully successful. The total quantity was however all right. There was no urine retention.
You told me, for this prostate gland trouble, when the question of operation was raised by the doctor four years ago, that "an unshakeable faith in the Divine's Grace and no disharmony can resist its action." I pray that the symptoms disappear and no operation becomes necessary, to prove myself that I have some faith and the body responds to your will.
Have faith.
My love, force and blessings are with you.
18 July 1972
Let Peace and a quiet Confidence be with you all night.
Blessings and Presence
Undated
Nothing can ultimately oppose the Divine's Love. It is the Eternal Victor.
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