Recollections of the Mother’s work from 1950 to 1954 with the youngest children, the genesis of her French classes, the beginning of the physical education ...
The Mother : Contact On Education
THEME/S
By Tara Jauhar
Tara with the Mother
This book, Learning with The Mother should have come out before my other book, Growing up with The Mother. In the year 1971, I had made a compilation in French of most of these texts, which also included a short introduction of the Green Group classes. When I offered that French compilation for publication as a book, the Mother herself gave the title for it, as La Mere travaille avec les enfants (The Mother works with the Children). The compilation was corrected by Andre Da1 1: Incidentally, Andre Da needs no introduction to Mother’s devotees—he was the Mother’s son and only child and himself, in his own right, a man of great refinement, culture & accomplishments. and given to the Ashram press for printing by the Mother Herself. Unfortunately, it was published only after the Mother had left Her body.
When I joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram—Delhi Branch, many of the young sadhaks and teachers wanted me to get both my French books translated into English so that they could follow the Mother’s method of teaching.
It was easier to put together my correspondence with the Mother which had been partly printed in French for which the Mother had given the title, Reponses de la Mere a une monitrice. For the English version, the book1 1: Incidentally, Andre Da needs no introduction to Mother’s devotees—he was the Mother’s son and only child and himself, in his own right, a man of great refinement, culture & accomplishments. was largely expanded and I gave it the title Growing up with The Mother. This book was published in the new millennium 2000 which heralded a new light and force.
Learning with The Mother is the title which I have given to this book. This was long overdue and something on which I had started working more than 25 years ago. Taking decisions on certain issues was most difficult for me. “Should we put only Mother’s handwritten dictations or should I research from the other children’s notebooks and make a complete compilation?” was one big question. However, this is what I finally managed to do.
The same question arose with the collection of recitations that the Mother had assigned. Several years passed and I could not make a complete collection of them inspite of my best efforts and research. Although the chapter on recitations probably has all the items, I am not sure which ones the Mother used for the class and which She did not.
The next difficulty came with the compilation of stories that the Mother took up for the Friday classes. I got quite a list of the stories from Mrityunjaya Da’s notes, but his taking of notes also started almost two years after the Mother’s class. I then started hunting for the original books from which the Mother had read the stories. My brother Promesse (Kake) also helped me and we found some books but the collection was so incomplete that I could not make up my mind whether to forget about it or to continue with my efforts. Hence more delay. Finally we have the titles of most of the stories which have been preserved for archival work, but we are not placing them in the book.
Due to all these reasons, it has taken me a long time, with short and long intervals of no work on the project owing to other work pressures. I am still not very happy with the final outcome and I feel that I could have done better if I had recorded everything myself during the Mother’s classes. It could have been a wonderful compilation. She was an ideal teacher and even while teaching simple subjects, She would touch every level of the child’s inner growth.
The first part of this book contains the guidance of the Mother to a young child on leadership, character building and helping to arouse an aspiration for constant progress with simultaneous development of the inner life. The ideal and the goal She always put before us was progress, progress, progress and perfection in all that we did. Although I did not understand it then but I now realise that through her detailed day to day guidance and continuous showering of her blessings, holding my hand and guiding every step of mine, She was preparing me for my future work and the heavy responsibilities I was to shoulder later in life at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram—Delhi Branch.
Over the years at every difficult moment I have felt Her boundless love and affection carrying me in Her arms and leading me towards the eternal light, urging me to aspire towards a clear perception of my mission and protecting me from all adverse forces, difficulties and internal and external ups and downs of life so that I may move unhindered towards the goals She set before me.
I offer this incomplete and imperfect work at Her Lotus Feet, praying that She will forgive me for my lapses and shortcomings.
I would also like to thank all those who helped at every stage, patiently & enthusiastically, with the successful realisation of this project.
In gratitude,
Tara Jauhar
New Delhi, 5th July, 2016
I salute you, my brave little soldiers, I give you my call to the rendezvous with Victory.
The Mother
Tara leading the morning prayer
I came to Pondicherry with my parents and siblings at the tender age of eight on August 1, 1944. The Ashram school had started only nine months earlier and there were barely 20 to 25 students of all ages, ranging right from four to young adults of sixteen. Sisir Da was our headmaster and the school started every morning when he lined us up in the Playground which was then situated in the middle of the school. He invited a different child everyday to lead the daily prayer. Although I was younger than most, he would often call me out to lead the prayer. The leader would recite a line, and the rest would repeat it after him/her. We recited the same four-line prayer every day, after which our regular classes began:
“Sweet mother,
Grant that we may be
From now and forever more
Simply thy little children”
“Douce Mere,
Permets que nous soyons
Des maintenant et pour toujours
Simplement tes petits enfants.”
The minute the four-line prayer ended we would break our formation and run to the classrooms.
The classes were loosely formed of different age groups. The kindergarten had three classes, with Manu Bhai taking the youngest, Pran Bhai the next batch, and Pavitra, the children of seven to ten years old. These classes were held in the classrooms where now we have the body building gymnasium.
The older children were divided into three Groups, and their classes were held in rooms where the Playground storeroom stands today. The older students, mostly sixteen years and above, had their classes with Pavitra Da either in the Ashram building or in one of the classrooms upstairs in the school2 2: Present day Playground was referred to as ‘school’ in those days. which is now converted into the Playground.
In the beginning, classes were held only in the mornings, probably from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. We would all then go home for lunch and return in the evening to the school to play. There was quite a lot of free play in those days and all age Groups made their own batches and played in different corners of the Playground. Sometime, I believe in late 1944 or early 1945, the Mother wanted to keep the children occupied in the late afternoons as well so Nirmal Da started engaging us, the little children, in some minor games which we enjoyed thoroughly in one corner of the Playground while the rest of the ground was occupied by the young ashramites who played Volleyball.
Also in the beginning of 1945, Biren Da came and joined the Ashram. He had been running a club for young boys in Kolkata and knew many games and exercises which he then started teaching the young boys in the school Playground.
Mid May 1945, Pranab Da came and joined the Ashram. He had been a member of Biren Da’s Gym club and had learnt Boxing, body building and games from him. Biren Da put him in charge of teaching us, the younger children. He taught us some games and exercises. Things were just growing spontaneously and there was tremendous enthusiasm for sports on the part of the teachers as well as the children. In addition, sometime, probably in 1946, Purani Ji and Vishnu Ji joined the physical education activities and started teaching grown up girls and boys, skills like Lathi, Lakadi patta, Lezium, and other Indian sports in which they were experts. They had started many youth clubs (akhadas) in Gujarat. In fact, our Ambubhai Purani Ji and his elder brother, Chhotu Bhai Purani, are still recognised as the pioneers of physical education in Gujarat of the 20th century. Everyone enjoyed themselves, no matter what kind of physical activity was being taught, whether it was games, drills, Boxing, Lathi or free play.
Gradually things started taking an organised shape and we were divided into different age Groups. The youngest, Group A consisted of children up to ten years of age; then we had Group B, for boys and girls probably between ten to twelve years of age; then there was Group C, for boys between thirteen and sixteen years of age. The older boys were in Group D and finally the older girls were in Group E. This nomenclature changed in 1958 to the present system.
In the early years, Group A and Group B were totally supervised by Pranab Da. I was placed in Group B. Every month, Pranab Da would appoint one girl and one boy as monitors for Group B, who would be responsible for marking the attendance of the Group and maintaining discipline. They would also be responsible for the apparatus: to fetch whatever apparatus was required for that day and at the end of the physical education lesson, put everything back exactly where it belonged. This leadership training was part of our physical education activity right from the beginning. By 1948, we were probably about 20 to 25 children in Group B, and a slightly lesser number in Group A.
Pranab Da himself would take Group A (Green Group) from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.; and then from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., he would take Group B, simultaneously training the young monitors.
Sometime in 1947, Pranab Da did not come on time at 4:30 p.m. to take the Group A sports classes. My friend from the boarding house, Usha and I were a bit bewildered because punctuality for all activities in the Ashram was a very important part of our lives. So when Pranab Da did not turn up on time, we ran to Pranab Da’s house to find out the reason. As soon as we opened the gate of his house he asked us to stop there and not to enter. He had Conjunctivitis and was not allowed by the doctor to come anywhere near the children for at least one week.
“So who will conduct our Group?” we asked him.
“You have two monitors in Group B and they will conduct your Group.”
“And what about Group A?” we asked.
“The two of you will conduct Group A until I come back.”
We ran back to the Playground and described to everybody what had happened, then very seriously Usha and I started taking Group A classes. After a week Pranab Da came back and sat on the parapet near the gate to see how we were faring. He reported to the Mother about the activities in his absence and also informed Her that Usha and I were taking the Group very efficiently. Mother then asked him to make us permanent captains and train us accordingly. I was barely ten and a half then, and Usha was two years older than me.
Tara leading the Green Group march past
Thereafter, Pranab Da would write out the lessons in a notebook everyday and Usha and I would teach the Group. He would stand near by to watch and correct us when necessary.
Around 1947, when we were all pursuing physical education activities very enthusiastically, Pranab Da wanted us to learn to march smartly. The Mother contacted the governor of Pondicherry who then sent us a French Military officer to teach us marching. Naturally all the orders were in French since we were in French India. The Mother wanted that we should also give the orders in French. French was then the compulsory medium of instruction in all the schools of the French colony.
Consequently, She started taking the lessons that Pranab Da wrote for us and translated them into French in our notebooks. My notebook was taken up by Her on 27th August 1948. Usha and I, both being captains of Group A, our notebooks would go to her alternately every week, and we would receive our lessons in French in Her own handwriting. We would learn these by heart and then teach the members of our Group. This did not continue for long because Mother soon grew very busy and could not continue the translation work, but it got us started.
A sample facsimile from my notebook figuring below gives an example of how the Mother took keen interest in the minutest of details. She even translated the simple physical education lessons in our notebooks neatly, thereby teaching us to be organised and meticulous. The remarkable point to note is the interest and pains She took in every minute and apparently insignificant detail of the children’s welfare and nurturing.
A sample facsimile from the physical education notebook in Mother’s handwriting in French
It may not be out of place to recount an incident that happened a few years later of how Mother instilled into us a sense of duty. We had a small programme in the Playground after which the Mother got up to leave and so did most of the people who were sitting and watching it. I then saw that several mats were lying around and had not been put back in place. Without thinking much I started to roll the mats to put them back to where they belonged. In the meantime, Mother had gone just a little further when a visitor stopped her and started talking to Her. While talking to him She must have been observing my actions. After putting everything in place I came back and like many others waited beside the Mother’s route. This was a daily routine for many of us as we would stand and have the last darshan of the day as She walked towards the main gate of the Playground where Her car would be waiting to take her to the Ashram. As She walked towards the gate, She suddenly stopped in front of me and gave me the most tender and divine hug. She praised me for my conscious dedication to duty and said this is what She expected from an ideal captain. This small gesture of recognition has remained with me for the rest of my life and I am always alert when things are not taken care of or when they are out of place.
Activities were getting more organised in the physical education department and facilities were being expanded. The body building Gym had already started in a small way. The Tennis Courts, the Basketball and Volleyball Courts, the Boxing Ring and the Wrestling Pit were all under construction. Udar and Manoranjan Ganguly were planning, supervising and executing the different plans in the Tennis Ground along the beach.
It was during this time, in 1947, that Udar got made a Ping Pong table in his workshop -‘Harpagon’. This table was placed in a hall in Udar’s house, called Fenetres, and Mother was invited to inaugurate it.
When Mother came to inaugurate the table, naturally all the senior boys and girls, as well as Pranab Da, were present for the occasion. The Mother carried out the inauguration by playing with some of the youngsters present there. She enjoyed it so much that from that day she started coming three days a week at first and soon after almost every evening to play that game. Since I was busy taking Group A’s physical education classes, I never actually saw the Mother playing Table Tennis. Pranab Da attended on her throughout, from the very first day. As a result, Usha and I were completely on our own, teaching children who were often barely one or two years younger than us.
Soon after this, the Tennis Courts were ready and Mother started going to the Tennis Ground for playing Tennis. Pranab Da was always Mother’s partner during the Mother’s game of Tennis. Since She played from 4:30 p.m. which was also the physical education time of Group A, Usha and I were again left completely to ourselves for conducting the activities of the youngest Group.
Our training as captains comprised mostly of selfdiscipline. We had to come punctually ten or fifteen minutes before the students; check on what the children were to be taught; bring out the equipment and arrange it. If any markings had to be made on the ground, we had to make them ourselves. Then exactly on the dot we would blow our whistles for the members to assemble in front of us in a line and we would mark their attendance. All these little things gradually became more and more ingrained in us and taught us to value discipline, punctuality, dedication, hard work and the effort to always give our best. We also learnt time management from an early age. After the lessons, we were expected to put all the equipment back in place and count them to make sure nothing was lost or missing. Everything had a place and everything had to be put back in place.
In those days there were hardly any clocks around and no family gave a wrist watch to a child until the age of eighteen. Since Mother laid so much stress on punctuality, one day I asked my father to give me a wrist watch so that I could be on time for all my physical education activities. As I was still young he probably did not want to encourage me to have a wrist watch so he asked me to get permission from the Mother. When I asked Mother, She promptly wrote a note for my father which I gave to him and he said he would go to Delhi and bring me a watch next time. The next day when I went to the Mother, She asked me whether my father had agreed to give me the watch and I told her that he will get one for me when he comes next time from Delhi. She looked surprised and said that watches are much cheaper in French Pondicherry as they were duty free. She probably realised that my father had no intention of giving me the watch. She immediately went inside and brought me a small lady’s gold plated wrist watch which She said She had used extensively in Japan. Thus I got a wrist watch. Mother gave a lot of importance to the fact that I was serious in my punctuality as a captain and therefore rewarded me.
The Mother’s handwritten note
By then the Mother started coming to the Playground after her game of Tennis. Her daily presence in the Playground gave great impetus to the growth of physical education in the Ashram and it also inspired us to do our best.
Once the activities in the physical education department took a more organised form, Mother decided to introduce Group uniforms since children often appeared for sports in clothes unsuited for physical activities. The Group uniforms were of different colours for different Groups. Khaki shirt and shorts were assigned to all the captains. The colour of the uniform for Group A was green.
It was in 1949, sometime before 24th April that Mother distributed the uniforms to the Groups. Each Group, on an appointed day, lined up in front of the Mother headed by their respective Group captains and recited the specific prayer of the Group. To each Group Mother gave her separate reply as an answer to its prayer.
Since I was the captain for Group A, I took the lead in the prayer with the children repeating after me:
“Sweet Mother, for us you have kept the road free of all dangers and all difficulties, the road that leads surely towards the goal and when the final victory will be won, it will stretch till infinity.
Mother, keep us always green so that we can move forward without stopping on the way that you have prepared so laboriously for us.”
The Mother answered:
“You are the hope, you are the future. Keep always this youth which is the faculty to progress, and for you the phrase ‘it is impossible’ will not have any meaning.”
On 24th April, 1949, all the Groups marched in front of Sri Aurobindo in their new uniforms. As soon as the march past was over, we rushed home to change and return for another Darshan. Hence, we had a second Darshan on 24th April, 1949 and the same programme was repeated in 1950.
A page from the attendance notebook
A sample of Discipline badges
The Mother encouraged us to maintain the attendance register. From 1950 onwards, She would see the register at the end of every month. In the beginning she would Herself write the names of all those children who had been punctual and present throughout the month and sign the notebook and give them a hand embroidered badge with Mother’s symbol.
These hand embroidered badges came to be known as Discipline badges and were made in Mother’s embroidery department. A small badge for a month of discipline which had to be returned at the end of the month and a special bigger discipline badge at the end of three months which could be retained by the child. Finally if a child maintained discipline for one year, he was awarded a discipline vest with one star along with the Mother’s symbol. The following year, if they maintained the regularity they would get another star added. At the end of the third year, one would get a vest with three stars. For every point lost for lack of discipline, the child would have to start all over again, right from the beginning.
These were very coveted prizes as they came from the Mother. Almost all the children made a keen effort to acquire the discipline badges from her hands, thus instilling into themselves the value of self-discipline which helped them also in their studies and other activities. This continued for quite some time.
For deciding upon the awards, along with the attendance we were also encouraged to award daily marks out of 10 for discipline, for which a table of merits and demerits was made with Pranab Da’s help.
I then typed out the list and several copies were sent to the Mother for distributing to the captains of all the Groups. I have two sheets of Merits and Demerits with the Mother’s added handwritten instructions at the end of two of my copies. I do not know what She wrote on the copies of the other captains.
At the end of one sheet She wrote,
A facsimile with the mother’s message from the Table of Demerits
“Each child will be provided with a copy of ‘What a child should always remember’.”
“Any successful attempt to act according to the ideal therein expressed will be reported to me and I shall grant the deserved points. These will be additional to the daily 10 points.”
At the end of the other sheet She wrote,
A facsimile of Table of Demerits with the Mother’s message in French
“Organisation and discipline are the necessary foundation for all realisation. To know how to command well, you must first know how to obey well.”
A copy of the booklet, What a Child should always remember, was distributed to young and old in the Playground by the Mother.
In retrospect, some of these rules may seem amusing today for their language or their content. The point to remember is that we put these together when we were barely fourteen or fifteen years old and Mother always encouraged us in our efforts.
Every day 10 points will be given to those who observe the following regulations.
Those who get full marks in a month, will get a special badge and they will be allowed to keep it as long as they continue to get full marks every month. If they are able to keep the badge for 12 months, they will get a special vest (banyan) as a token of perfect discipline in conduct.
The rules are as follows:
If one loses more than 50 points in a month, the extra points will be deducted from the next month.
All are expected to show a spirit of co-operation and friendliness. This will enable the whole program to be carried out smoothly and thus be of benefit to all.
10 points
3 points
2—5 points
1 point
Late after 6 pm.
5 points
1—5 points
1—3 points
4 points
2 points
Sometime during the year 1950 when I was learning typewriting, Mother gave me a sheet with the following suggestions for the instructors to be typed out without making a mistake. The first time she gave me something for typing, there were some minor mistakes. She returned it to me and asked me to retype it without mistakes. When I typed it again I still made minor mistakes which I rubbed off with an eraser and typed over them correctly. Even this was not acceptable and She made me retype it without any mistake. This way She taught us to be perfect in all the work that we did. I made several copies using carbon paper, and once the copies were distributed among all the captains, the original in French remained with me. I think these have as much relevance today as they had more than sixty years ago.
A sample page of the suggestions given in the Mother’s handwriting in French
Many years later, I asked the Mother:
Sweet Mother,
We have a minute of concentration before and after group every day. What should we try to do during this concentration?
The Mother said,
“Before, make an offering to the Divine of what you are going to do, so that it may be done in a spirit of consecration.
Afterwards, ask the Divine to increase the will for progress in us, so that we may become instruments that are more and more capable of serving Him.
You may also, before starting offer yourselves to the Divine in silence.
And at the end, give thanks to the Divine in silence. I mean a movement of the heart without any words in the head.”
One day all the captains of all the groups were handed out a typed sheet of advice. These were to be followed by those who participated in physical exercises. At the end of the sheet, Mother’s comments were also typed. A few bits of advice to be followed by those who participate in physical exercises:
On account of certain reactions which are rampant among some of you, I feel the necessity of giving you an advice which I hope will be useful.
In any case whatever happens and whatever you do, do not allow FEAR to invade you. At the slightest touch of it react and call for help.
You must learn not to identify with your body and treat it as a young child that needs to be convinced that it must not fear.
Fear is the greatest of all enemies and we must overcome it here once for all.
All this only goes to show how minutely Mother took interest in the smallest of things and allotted time for guiding us in every aspect.
Sweet Mother, during our tournaments there are many who play in a very bad spirit. They try to hurt others in order to win. And we have noticed that even the little ones are learning to do this. How could it be avoided?
With children it is above all ignorance and bad example which cause the harm. So it would be good if, before they begin their games, all the group-leaders, the captains,
call together all those they are in charge of and tell them, explain to them exactly what Sri Aurobindo says here, with detailed explanations like those we have given in the two little books The Code of Sportsmanship and The Ideal Child [or What a Child Should Always Remember].
These things must be repeated often to the children. And then, you must warn them against bad company, bad friends, as I told you in another class.
Given below are the contents of the two booklets.
The code of Sportsmanship7 7: Code of Sportsmanship’ is partly reproduced from Introduction to Physical Education by Jackson R. Sherman.
Keep the rules.
Keep faith with your comrade.
Keep your temper.
Keep yourself fit.
Keep a stout heart in defeat.
Keep your pride under control or in check in victory.
Keep a sound soul, a clean mind, and a healthy body.
Play the game.
A Good Sportsman
Is Courteous
ON THE FIELD he does not jeer at errors; he does not cheer at the opponent’s defeat; he treats them as guests, not enemies.
IN SCHOOL he is considerate to the authorities, the fellow students and the teachers.
IN LIFE he is respectful to others; he treats them as he would be treated.
Is Modest
ON THE FIELD he works for the good of the team rather than for individual honour; he will even sacrifice his own prestige for his team; he is a gracious winner.
IN SCHOOL he does not become conceited over his success, neither does he feel himself superior to his class-mates.
IN LIFE he does not “blow” about what he is going to do; he does not boast about what he has done.
Is Generous
ON THE FIELD he applauds the good play of his opponents.
IN SCHOOL he appreciates another’s merit.
IN LIFE he does not ridicule the man who is “down” but encourages him. He is not afraid to voice his opinions straightforwardly and clearly.
Is Game
ON THE FIELD he plays hard; he fights though he may be already defeated; he accepts adverse decisions; he is a good loser.
IN SCHOOL he does his work, he keeps on working in the face of almost certain failure. He has the vim to think straight, the pluck to act straight.
IN LIFE he does his part however hard it may be; he accepts reverses with a smile and tries again.
Is Obedient
ON THE FIELD he observes the rules of the games.
IN SCHOOL he observes all the regulations.
IN LIFE he respects the rules which help to promote harmony.
Is Fair
ON THE FIELD he competes in a clean, hard- fought but friendly way; he helps an injured opponent.
IN SCHOOL he does not waste his time nor that of the teachers. He is always honest.
IN LIFE he sees impartially both sides of a question
In 1952, the Ideal Child was distributed as a booklet to all the ashramites and children. In spite of the children having the booklet, the Mother wrote the whole thing in my notebook herself and used some of these sentences for dictation and for recitation.
What a child should always remember
The necessity of an absolute sincerity.
The certitude of Truth’s final victory.
The possibility of constant progress with the will to achieve.
AN IDEAL CHILD
Is good—tempered
He does not become angry when things seem to go against him or decisions are not in his favour.
Whatever he does, he does to the best of his capacity and keeps on doing in the face of almost certain failure. He always thinks straight and acts straight.
Is truthful
He never fears to tell the truth whatever may be the consequences.
Is patient
He does not get disheartened if he has to wait a long time to see the results of his efforts.
Is enduring
He faces the inevitable difficulties and sufferings without grumbling.
Is persevering
He never slackens his effort however long it has to last.
Is poised
He keeps equanimity in success as well as in failure.
Is courageous
He always goes on fighting for the final victory though he may meet with many defeats.
Is cheerful
He knows how to smile and keep a happy heart in all circumstances.
Is modest
He does not become conceited over his success, neither does he feel himself superior to his comrades.
Is generous
He appreciates the merits of others and is always ready to help another to succeed.
Is fair and obedient
He observes the discipline and is always honest.
The Ideal Child was already published but during the Green Group class, Mother once added this phrase in a lighter mood:
The Ideal Child
Is intelligent
The facsimile in Mother’s handwriting in French of the dictation below
The ideal child is intelligent. He understands everything he is told, he knows his lesson before he has learnt it and answers every question he is asked.
… likes to study when he is in school,
... he likes to play when he is in the playground,
… he likes to eat at meal-time,
… he likes to sleep at bed-time,
… and always he is full of love for all those around him,
… full of confidence in the divine Grace, full of deep respect for the Divine.
Much later, when we were recording Mother’s reading of The Ideal Child,
She added another phrase:
Childhood is the symbol of the future and the hope of all the victories to come.
At another time, She wrote on a piece of paper the following in continuation:
A facsimile in Mother’s handwriting in French of the phrase given below
He has faith in the future which is rich with all the realisations that are to come, full of beauty and light.
On 6th February 1952, the new building for the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education was inaugurated by the Mother. On behalf of all the children the Mother gave a prayer and her answer to the prayer.
Student’s prayer
Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born against the past that seeks to endure; so that the new things may manifest and we be ready to receive them.
Mother’s answer
Call to Victory
6th January 1952
If we all brought here an ardent aspiration for more knowledge and greater wisdom, we would create an atmosphere of contemplation that would be highly favourable to our perfection.
The Mother distributing groundnuts in the children’s courtyard
This part of the book covers the Mother’s work, from 1950 to 1954, with the youngest children of the Ashram. During these years, She met them to teach French. It is interesting how these classes started.
We, the captains of Group A who supervised the physical education activities of the children, of ages four to twelve, usually spoke to the children in English or ‘Ashram Hindi’. But sometimes we spoke in French, for that was not only the Mother’s native language but also the official language of French Pondicherry. It was at the time the medium of instruction in all Pondicherry schools, including the Ashram school. Among the locals of Pondicherry, hardly anyone spoke or understood English.
Towards the end of 1950, we the captains of Group A, discussed the idea of speaking only in French with the children, so that they as well as ourselves, would learn the language faster and become more fluent. Consequently, we approached Mother when She came to the children’s courtyard for the daily distribution of groundnuts and told her of our plans.
She was very happy to hear this. Spontaneously She decided that She too would give a few moments every evening to speak in French with the children. On 17th November, 1950, the classes finally started.
The next day (17th November 1950), we told the children quite excitedly that Mother would also speak to them in French and that she might ask them their names and ages. So the children learnt to answer a few basic questions from us. When the Mother came to the children’s courtyard, She started a conversation with the children. The first conversation was quite humorous:
Mother : “What is your age?”
Child : “My name is Kokila.”
Mother : “And what is your name?”
Child : “I am eight years old.”
The Mother laughed, for the child had answered mechanically in the order in which she had learnt to say her name and age. The following day, the Mother announced that she would conduct regular French classes for the children.
On 19th November, she brought the first lesson, a typed sheet with the picture of a bee drawn at the top. She sat in her chair in the children’s courtyard, with the children all around her, and gave the first lesson on the bee. She explained about the life of the bee and the meaning of related words. When the class was over She handed over the sheet with the lesson of the bee to me since I was the captain of the group. Thus she made me the monitor of the class under her personal guidance. From that day on, I sat on the floor next to her chair, and helped with calling out the names of the children and maintaining the record for successful recitations and dictations on a little chit pad. The record was used for giving prizes and awards to the children.
In due course, as monitor of the class I was given a wooden Almirah, which was kept in the verandah of the Guest House. The Mother also gave me a small chit pad on which she had written the names of the children, one on each page. Besides the notebooks and stationary for the class, I kept in the almirah a lot of little toys, photographs, framed pictures, pencils, erasers and other gifts that Mother handed me from time to time. Whenever she got something interesting for children, she would just pass it on to me and I would put it in the wooden almirah. She used these little gifts as prizes in the class. Each time a child would note down a dictation correctly or recite a passage without a mistake, she would mark a tick against the child’s name. When 10 such ticks were marked, she would give him or her a prize. She would ask me what was available, and then would select something from the collection. The Mother would not only select the prize for the child, but most often She would also write the name of the child, write Her blessing and sign the prize before She gave it.
Mother in a light moment with the Green Group children
Many of the prizes were created by Suren Da, an elderly ashramite who could not go to any department for work because of his health. He used to collect extra prints of photographs from the bulletins in the Press and cut them out to make interesting combinations with pictures from other magazines. For example, he once made a card of Mother standing among the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Mother particularly enjoyed a card of herself feeding a Lion. He would frame these pictures with glass from broken panes and fix cardboard stands at the back. I still have some of these from the collections of my sisters & brothers, Chitra, Purnima, Promesse and Victor who won them as prizes.
A painting of the Ashram courtyard with a cut out of the Mother
Thus she trained me not only to organise things but also to take care of all material objects without wasting anything and to remain always conscious of the need to progress at all levels and at all times. Remaining close to Her physical presence for long periods daily, brought out spontaneously the best in our inner and outer beings.
By the time She had finished four of these lessons in the children’s French class, the Mother got busy preparing for the Darshan on 24th November. Then came the annual day of the School on 2nd December. Even after that She could not resume the classes because Sri Aurobindo’s health was deteriorating. On 5th December, 1950, Sri Aurobindo took Mahasamadhi. The Mother did not emerge from her room for 12 days after that.
The Mother distributing prize to the deserving children
From 17th December, 1950, Mother resumed Her daily routine. She also restarted the French classes and at this point She took up her book “Tales of all Times” in the class. She would first read out a story to the children and then explain the moral of the story and how to assimilate the lesson in their lives. She would also explain the meaning of the difficult words in detail. In time, She reduced the classes to four days a week, and finally by May 1951, to three days a week—Sundays for dictation, Tuesdays for recitation and Fridays for stories. Thrice a week Mother was taking a translation class with the senior students and sadhaks, and on Wednesdays She would take a class ’Prayers and Meditations’ for our Group B. Thus She took classes everyday in the Playground of some group or the other.
In 1954, the Mother discontinued the dictation classes on Sundays. Later the recitation classes on Tuesdays were also stopped. But She continued with the Friday classes right up to 5th December 1958, after which She stopped coming to the Playground.
This then is a brief survey of the Mother’s work with the Group A children. I have tried to put in this section as much material as seemed practical, in order to give a comprehensive picture of how meticulously she worked with the children.
We see the Mother working with the children, trying to instil into them the right values and attitudes and always aiming towards progress and a higher aim of life. She has time and again shown us that by regularity and discipline one can achieve everything without disturbing the routine activities of the day.
*It is quite interesting to note the date on which the Mother started classes for the Green group and the last date of the class. She started on 17th November 1950 (17th November was her Mahasamadhi day in 1973). She took the last class on 5th December 1958 ( 5th December was Sri Aurobindo’s Mahasamadhi day in 1950).
The Bee
19.11.1950
The bee-lesson with French text along with a drawing of the bee copied from Mother’s original
The bee flies, flutters and gathers nectar and pollen. She swarms and colonizes. The bee is diligent and hard working and her home is called a hive. She makes honeycombs in which she produces honey. The one who raises bees is called an apiculturist. He devotes himself to apiculture. The bees in a colony are called a swarm. They are also called a colony.
***
Shelter
20.11.1950
To hide, to stand, to take refuge, to shut oneself in, to huddle up, to hide away, to go to ground in a shelter. To search, to find, to find a shelter.
Qualifiers:
Safe, sure, inviolable, impregnable, unassailable, invulnerable, precarious.
Synonyms:
The den or lair (wolf), the burrow (fox), the wallow (wild boar), the hutch or a warren, lair or den (wild beasts).
Cat
21.11.1950
The cat meows, purrs, scratches, hunts, gives birth, sheathes its claws. The tomcat (male), she-cat, the kitten.
Invasion
To suffer an invasion, to repel an invasion. To be delivered over to an invasion. Invasion devastates.
Fast, slow, formidable, merciless.
Invention
To carry out an invention
Sensational, marvellous, pure, recent, wonderful.
Tree
22.11.1950
To plant, to uproot, to transplant, to cut down, topping, pruning, to trim, to cut off, to prune, to uproot, to denude a tree of its leaves, to bark a tree, to graft, to pollard, to shake.
To climb a tree. The tree stands, grows (to grow). The tree bears leaves and sheds leaves. The tree top, the trunk, the base of the tree.
The sapwood (new wood), the sap, the tree fiber. The thicket, the brushwood, the bush, the shrub, the cluster of trees, the copse.
Vigorous, puny, stunted, native/indigenous (of the country), exotic (foreign), hoary, leafy, bushy, gnarled.
I have been able to trace all the dictations from my notebook, in which the Mother wrote Herself and also some missing ones from the notebooks of the children who took the dictations in the Mother’s class. Some of these have not been recorded in the Mother’s own handwriting as She would sometimes give a dictation spontaneously. But to keep the record complete we reproduce here the entire collection.
In the beginning, when the children were few in number, the Mother would correct each child’s notebook Herself and give points according to the number of correct words written by the child. If there were twenty words in the dictation and the child got eighteen words right, he would get eighteen points which She would put down in her own handwriting in the child’s little notebook.
The Mother’s correction of a child’s notebook
The Mother correcting a child’s notebook
Interestingly, the notebooks were all made out of the cuttings and scrap from the Ashram Printing Press. After the 2nd World War, due to shortage of paper, Mother had little notebooks made out of discarded or cut paper from the Ashram Press. These were distributed to the children for their dictations and a few extra notebooks were always in my wooden almirah to be given to the new children or to children who sometimes lost or had filled up their notebooks. The Mother would often write each child’s name on these little notebooks.
Baba needs a notebook to write his dictation
The Mother also frequently helped the children to improve their handwriting work when it was too bad. For this, She gave them cursive writing books to take back home and practice or She would give a lesson in cursive writing in the child’s notebook itself.
The Mother’s lesson to a child in cursive writing
As the number of students increased, She stopped correcting all the notebooks but continued to correct only four of the senior and most serious children’s notebooks (Chitra, Ranganath, Namita, and Bharati). The rest of the notebooks were corrected by some of us captains who attended the class and also others, like Nirod Da, Amiyo, Debu, Prithvin etc. But She would still see every child’s notebook to give the final points based on the number of correctly written words in her own hand. thus showing us how to maintain the enthusiasm and interest of every child. By these methods, She also taught us how to bring perfection into every little detail of any work without taking shortcuts.
These dictations started in 1951 for children of four to ten years of age but as new children of four years kept joining in, the age gap kept increasing. By the end of 1952, there were children of four to twelve years in the same class. In November 1952, the Mother then divided the class into two sections which she called “Grand” (big) and “Petit” (small). For the little ones she gave short dictations of a few words only, which they would prepare in advance. But for the older children, She started giving the dictations without their prior preparation.
Many of these dictations are quotations from famous saints and authors. While writing these, the Mother never consulted any book. She knew so many by heart!
The dates below the quotations are the dates on which the dictations were given. The dates on which the
Mother wrote the quotations are different but we are not giving those dates here.
Given below are the dictations given by the Mother from 8th April 1951 to 28th February 1954 after which She discontinued the dictation classes.
Brave children of the world, what are the bad things that you must learn to fight? What should man learn to overcome or destroy?
They are those that threaten his life and hinder his progress. All that weakens, degrades or makes him unhappy.
08.04.1951
Without the Divine, life is a painful illusion, with Him all is bliss.
29.04.1951
The Mother giving dictations to the Green Group children
There is a great beauty in simplicity. Persevere and all obstacles shall be overcome.
13.05.1951
There is greater joy in overcoming a desire than in satisfying it.
20.05.1951
Peace and silence are the greatest remedies of all illnesses.
29.05.1951
The Divine Grace alone has the power to intervene and change the course of universal justice.
03.06.1951
In truth he is happy who loves the Divine for the Divine is indeed always with him.
10.06.1951
Peace of mind and Equanimity — here is the first step.
01.07.1951
Peace and calm are there — ready for you to welcome them.
09.07.1951
Be open to the consciousness which is working on you and within you, and always remain as calm and peaceful as you can.
15.07.1951
Openness to the Divine light cannot be accomplished by force.
23.07.1951
I only ask for the sacrifice of ignorance, of inconscience and of the limitations of ego.
29.07.1951
All depends on the intensity of the faith and the steadfastness of the right attitude.
06.08.1951
Persevere in your aspiration and you will succeed.
12.08.1951
Fear nothing, your sincerity is your protection.
19.08.1951
Work done in the right spirit is meditation.
26.08.1951
Keep a firm aspiration, be patient in your effort, and your success is assured.
02.9.1951
All your prayers will be answered if you have patience and determination.
10.09.1951
In a spirit of strong and joyous equanimity the greatest progress is achieved.
16.09.1951
The hours wasted in doing nothing useful or good are the most tiring.
23.09.1951
The path of later on and the road of tomorrow lead only to the castle of nothing-at-all.
30.09.1951
Never put off till tomorrow that which you can do today.
(Benjamin Franklin)
07.10.1951
Violence is never a good means to make a cause triumph. How can one hope to win justice by injustice, harmony by hatred?
14.10.1951
The English translation of the above facsimile is given in the dictation dated 14.10.1951
Always be good and you will always be happy.
21.10.1951
Make a sincere effort for progress, and know to wait with patience for the result of your effort.
28.10.1951
In Truth, in truth, in humility lies the cradle of glory!
04.11.1951
An atmosphere of spirituality helps much more at times than an exchange of words.
25.11.1951
The Divine Universal Mother has turned her gaze towards the earth and blessed it.
09.12.1951
You who are full of hatred, all rancour will be erased from your heart like the sea erases the impression on the sand.
Never mistake rashness for courage, or indifference for patience.
11.11.1951
16.12.1951
The sea grew suddenly calm, and the stars flashed a thousand lights.
18.11.1951
In the silence I saw Thy infinite and eternal beatitude.
23.12.1951
O my sweet Master, Thou art the conqueror and the conquest, the victor and the victory !
30.12.1957
Speech is silver but silence is golden.
06.01.1952
Try to do with joy all that you do.
When you are interested in what you do, you enjoy doing it.
To be interested in what you do, you must try to do it better and better.
20.01.1952
In progress lies true joy.
27.01.1952
The perfect spirit pervades everything.
03.02.1952
The divine fire burns indivisibly and fills all the abysses of the world. (Lamblicus)
10.02.1952
The present is the most important moment in life.
24.02.1952
Leaving the past far behind us, let us run towards a luminous future.
16.03.1952
Lord, grant that nothing in us may be an obstacle to thy work.
06.04.1952
During the dictation class
It is by a still and immutable peace that the real victories can be won.
13.04.1952
It is in peace that knowledge and power are truly effective.
27.04.1952
In an inward peace and silence you will grow more and more conscious of the constant Presence.
18.05.1952
In the quiet you will feel that the Divine protection, help and strength are always with you.
25.05.1952
May the immense peace of the Divine permeate your whole being and be the origin of all your actions.
15.06.1952
May the Peace manifest in you more and more constantly and integrally.
22.06.1952
Sincerity is the key to the gates of the Divine.
29.06.1952
Every sincere call is indeed heard and answered.
06.07.1952
Everything depends on each one’s attitude and the sincerity of his aspiration.
13.07.1952
It is good to have an unshakable faith; this makes the path easier and shorter.
20.07.1952
The conviction of victory brings infinite patience with maximum energy.
18.08.1952
Keep the inner fire burning steadily within you and wait quietly for the sure result.
24.08.1952
Always be conscious of my constant loving presence and all will be well.
31.08.1952
In all human beings is not falsehood always mixed with truth?
07.09.1952
Do not pay attention to the stupidity of others, pay attention to your own.
14.09.1952
To aspire and to call for the help are indispensable.
If one remains perfectly quiet and without fear, nothing harmful can happen.
28.09.1952
Fear is always a very bad advisor.
05.10.1952
When falsehood is overcome all difficulties will vanish.
19.10.1952
Mother announced, “From today, we will take for dictation, What A Child Should always Remember”
A child must always remember the necessity of an absolute sincerity.
26.10.1952
A child must have the certitude that truth will finally triumph.
02.11.1952
A child must know the possibility of constant progress and must have the will to achieve it.
09.11.1952
Nothing is impossible for one who is attentive.
16.11.1952
From 23rd November 1952 the Mother divided the children into two groups ‘BIG’ and ‘SMALL’.
The ideal child has a good character. (SMALL)
23.11.1952
The ideal child has a good character.
He does not become angry when things seem to go against him or decisions are not in his favour. (BIG)
07.12.1952
The ideal child is truthful. (SMALL)
14.12.1952
The ideal child is truthful.
He is not afraid of telling the truth whatever the consequences. (BIG)
21.12.1952
The ideal child is a good player. (SMALL)
04.01.1953
The ideal child is patient.
He is not disheartened when he has to wait very long to perceive the results of his efforts. (BIG)
11.01.1953
The ideal child is patient. (SMALL)
18.01.1953
The ideal child is enduring.
He faces the inevitable difficulties and sufferings without complaining. (BIG)
25.01.1953
The ideal child is enduring. (SMALL)
01.02.1953
The ideal child is persevering.
He never slackens his effort, however long it may have to last. (BIG)
08.02.1953
The Mother surrounded by children for getting their notebooks corrected
The ideal child is persevering. (SMALL)
15.02.1953
The ideal child is poised.
He keeps his equanimity in success as well as in defeat. (BIG)
22.02.1953
The ideal child is poised. (SMALL)
01.03.1953
The ideal child is courageous.
He fights continuously for the final victory, regardless of the number of defeats he suffers. (BIG)
08.03.1953
The ideal child is courageous. (SMALL)
15.03.1953
The ideal child is cheerful.
He knows how to smile and keep a happy heart in all circumstances. (BIG)
22.03.1953
The ideal child is cheerful. (SMALL)
05.04.1953
The ideal child is modest.
He does not boast about his success, nor does he feel superior to his comrades. (BIG)
19.04.1953
The ideal child is modest. (SMALL)
26.04.1953
The ideal child is generous.
He appreciates the merits of others and is always ready to help others succeed. (BIG)
10.05.1953
The ideal child is generous. (SMALL)
24.05.1953
The ideal child is loyal and obedient.
He observes the discipline and is always honest. (BIG)
07.06.1953
The ideal child is loyal and obedient. (SMALL)
14.06.1953
In true courage there is no impatience and no rashness.
21.06.1953
Glory to Thee O Lord, victor over all obstacles.
28.06.1953
How I would love to go out in such beautiful weather! cried Poupette.
06.09.1953
Only the divine grace will be our support. (SMALL)
13.09.1953
The noblest courage is to recognise one’s faults.
20.09.1953
Forward, forever forward !
27.09.1953
He is truly great who is above insult and offence.
04.10.1953
At the end of the tunnel there is light. (SMALL)
11.10.1953
Good taste is the aristocracy of art.
25.10.1953
In order to be filled anew the vessel must sometimes be emptied. (BIG)
06.12.1953
At the end of the battle is the victory. (SMALL)
13.12.1953
Take delight in questioning, and hearken in silence to the words of the wise.
(Thomas Kempis)
20.12.1953
Only a wise man can recognise the wise. (SMALL)
27.12.1953
Question attentively and then meditate at leisure over what you have heard.
(Confucius)
03.01.1954
He who likes to question increases his knowledge.
31.01.1954
He who loves to question, expands his knowledge; but he who considers only his personal opinion becomes more and more narrow.
(Tsu-Ching)
28.02.1954
For the dictation and recitation classes, the Mother gave the children short passages to write or recite. Most were passages from her own writings but sometimes She also wrote from memory sayings from other saints, She knew so many beautiful quotations of famous people by heart. The Mother would write these short passages in my notebook for dictation as well as recitation. Sometimes she would write just one quotation at a time and sometimes she would write many quotations and use only one or two out of these. Passages for recitation and dictation were not written separately. At the end of each class she would select the passage for the following week, whether it was for dictation or for recitation.
I would then type out the selected quotation neatly and put it up on a notice board at the department of physical education. The children would come and copy it down in their notebooks for memorising or would learn the spellings for dictation. I would ask the younger ones to come during the school recess and make them repeat and memorise the quotations.
When a child recited without mistake, the Mother noted it down in a little chit pad. When he got ten recitation points, he was awarded a special prize by the Mother. These prizes were from the little things that the Mother gave me to keep in my almirah so that She could distribute as required. These prizes were pencils, erasers, photographs, picture postcards, little toys etc.
During the recitation classes, the children would be seated in a big semicircle around the Mother. One child at a time would come to the centre, sit in front of Her and recite a selected passage.
Tara is teaching the children to learn the phrases by heart during the school recess
On one such occasion, Tarini sat in front of the Mother and forgot her lines. She kept sitting while trying to remember. In those few minutes the Mother sketched her portrait in my notebook.
Tarini—A sketch by the Mother
In the early years, each child came and recited individually in front of the Mother, later when the quotations or poems became longer and the number of children increased, the Mother started calling two children together to recite.
The first section here consists of these recitation lessons by the Mother. They are not complete because we could not trace all the recitations. But I have included as many as I could find in my notebooks and those of other children and Mrityunjaya Da’s diary. Since there is no proper date wise record of all the recitations and the dates on which the Mother wrote in my notebook are different from the actual recitation dates, we decided to reproduce here all the quotations of this section without the dates. We are also not sure if all of them were actually used for the recitation classes.
Never put off till tomorrow what can be done the same day.
Each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant, and if none in the whole universe is as weak as man, none is as divine as he.
A good deed is sweeter to the heart than a sweet is in the mouth.
A day spent without doing a good deed is a day without a soul.
At the beginning of the meditation:
“Away! Advance no further, thoughts of lust!
“Away! Advance no further, thoughts of bad will!
“Away! Advance no further, thoughts of hate!”
He who walks in truth is not disturbed by any error, for he knows that error is the first effort of life towards the truth.
The individual self and the universal self are one; in every world, in every being, in everything, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man’s mission is to manifest it.
Even the most beautiful thoughts will not make us progress unless we have a steadfast desire that they be transformed in us into nobler feelings, more exact sensations and better actions.
Thy heart is the supreme haven in which every care is soothed. Oh! Let this heart be wide open, so that all who are in distress may find therein the sovereign refuge.
Pierce this darkness, let the light flow;
Appease this tumult, establish peace,
Calm this violence, let love reign,
Become the warrior triumphant over obstacles;
Be victorious.
Always do what you say, but it is not always wise to say all that one does.
When you speak, speak always the truth; but it is better sometimes not to speak.
Grant, O Lord, that the consciousness and peace may constantly grow in us so that, more and more, we may become the faithful mediators of Thy divine and unique law.
When you take interest in what you do, then you enjoy doing it.
Do good for the love of good and not in the hope of a reward. Be good for the joy of being good and not for the gratitude of others.
The translation of the above facsimile is given below
The ordinary man says in his ignorance: “My religion is the only one, my religion is the best.” But when his heart is illumined by the true knowledge, he knows that beyond all the battles of sects presides the one, indivisible, eternal and omniscient Grace.
It is something indiscernible that existed before heaven and earth. O how peaceful it is! Alone it persists and does not change; it penetrates everything and does not perish. It may be regarded as the Mother of the universe.
(Lao Tse)
What is the most important moment in life? The present moment. For the past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist.
We surrender to Thee this evening all that is artificial and false, all that pretends and imitates. May only that which is perfectly true, sincere and pure persist.
Who is worthy or unworthy in front of the Divine Grace?
All are children of the one and the same Mother.
Her love extends equally over all (of them).
But to each She gives according to his nature and his receptivity.
There is a stain, the worst of all stains, the stain of ignorance. Purify yourselves of that stain, O disciples, and be free of the mud. (Dhammapada)
Men and women live in the world without yet having the least idea of either the invisible or the visible world. (Farid-uddin-Attar)
A view of the recitation class
Peace, Peace, a calm and intense strength, so calm that nothing can shake it; this is the indispensable basis for the integral realisation.
Increase the inner peace; it should always be present even at the heart of the most intense activity, so firm that nothing has the power to shake it: it is then that you will become a perfect instrument for the manifestation.
Be very careful to remain always calm and peaceful and let an integral equanimity establish itself more and more completely in your being. Do not allow your mind to be over active and turbulent; do not draw hasty conclusions from a superficial view of things; always take your time, concentrate and decide only in quietness.
Never forget that you are not alone. The Divine is with you to help and to guide you. He is the companion who never fails, the friend whose love comforts and strengthens. If you have confidence, He shall do everything for you.
The truth-consciousness must penetrate the entire being, command all the movements and pacify the agitated physical mind. These are the preliminary conditions of the manifestation.
It is only when we are not troubled that we can always do the right thing, at the right moment and in the right manner.
Truly, peace is indispensable; for without peace, even the smallest thing becomes an enormous tangle.
The mental silence one obtains during meditation is truly of short duration; for as soon as one comes out of meditation, one comes out of the mental silence.
A real and lasting peace in the vital and the physical as well as the mind comes from a complete consecration to the Divine.
When one can no longer call anything one’s own, not even oneself, when everything, including the body, the sensations, the emotions and the thoughts belong to the Divine, then the Divine takes the entire responsibility of everything and one need be troubled by nothing.
Everybody is given a chance, and the help is there for all; but each benefits in proportion to his sincerity.
The greatest enemies of perfect sincerity are the mental, vital and physical predilections and preconceived ideas.
These are the obstacles to be surmounted.
Surely, when dishonesty prevails everywhere, that is the time to be truly faithful and stay firm and undisturbed in the face of the storm.
I can help those who are sincere and turn them easily towards the Divine. But when insincerity is present, there is not much I can do.
As I have already told you, we need to be patient while waiting for things to improve. But really I don’t see why you should be worried, nor how your worries can help make things better.
You know from experience that there is only one way to overcome confusion and darkness: it is to remain very quiet and calm, very firm in the equanimity of the soul, and to let the storm dissipate.
Rise above these difficulties and these petty quarrels, and wake up once more into the light and the power of my love that is always with you.
One must have complete confidence in the victory of the Divine; and this general victory will imply the personal victory of all those who have remained faithful and confident.
To do at every moment the best one can and leave the result in the hands of the Divine, such is the surest way to peace, happiness, force, progress and the final perfection.
Humility and sincerity are our surest guards. Without them each step is dangerous. With them the victory is certain.
A true and sincere humility is our safeguard — it is the surest way to the indispensable dissolution of the ego.
Ifthe mind remains quiet in all circumstances and in spite of all that happens, patience will more easily increase.
It is not in a day that one can overcome one’s own nature. But with patience and a persistent will the victory is certain.
Be quiet. We have only to work patiently without being troubled by anything and keep unshaken the faith in the inevitable Victory.
The true Agni always burns in profound peacefulness; it is the fire of an all-conquering will. Let it grow in you alongside a perfect equanimity.
Only he who loves can recognise love. Those who are incapable of offering themselves in a sincere love, will never recognise love anywhere; and the more divine the love, that is to say devoid of egoism, the less they can recognise it.
Concentration upon oneself leads to decay and death. Solely a concentration on the Divine brings life, progress and realisation.
It is for the Divine Grace that one must pray; if the divine justice were to manifest, they will be few who would be able to stand up in front of Her.
Love alone can understand and enter into the secrets of divine action, the mind, especially the physical mind is incapable of seeing correctly, and yet it always wants to judge.
Only a true and sincere humility in the mind which allows the psychic to govern the being, can save human beings from ignorance and obscurity.
There is a true and profound consciousness where everyone can meet in love and harmony.
Intimacy with the Divine will always grow with the growth of the consciousness, equanimity and love.
Jealousy comes from a narrowness of the mind and a weakness of the heart. It is a great pity that so many people should be a victim of this disease.
Vital relations are always dangerous. The only solution is a complete and absolute consecration of the vital to the Divine.
The centre of the human being is the psychic, the dwelling of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all the parts of the being, mental, vital and physical, around this centre, so that all activities become the right expression of the will of the Divine Presence.
The Mother giving prizes in the recitation class
Certainly we must always want peace and harmony and work for it as much as we can — but the best field of action for this work is always within ourselves.
Do not worry about the reactions of people however unpleasant they be. Everywhere and in all the vital is full of impurities and the physical full of inconscience.
These two imperfections have to be cured, even though it takes a very long time and we have only to work at it patiently and courageously.
Don’t worry and don’t be impatient, all discords will disappear; but it has to be on the true basis of a well established luminous consciousness free from the play of the ego.
It is only when people really want to change their consciousness that their actions can also be changed.
I know that people create difficulties and are unreasonable. But unless their consciousness changes, what else can we expect from them?
Yes, we must keep the seat of our consciousness in the higher being, and do from there everything we do without allowing the lower, blind and selfish movements and reactions to spoil our work.
To feel hurt by what others do, think or say is always a sign of weakness and a proof that the entire being is not exclusively turned towards the Divine, that it is not under the sole influence of the Divine.
If people could stop talking about the work as their work, it would put an end to a lot of worries.
I want the peace to enter your mind, as well as the calm and patient wisdom that prevents you from hastily making thoughtless judgments.
The more ignorant a person is the more easily he judges everything he knows nothing about and is incapable of understanding.
A mind that is very very calm is indispensable for seeing and understanding clearly and for acting correctly.
My heart is at peace, my mind free from impatience, and for everything I entrust myself to Thy will with the smiling confidence of a child.
Oh, to look past these ever-changing appearances; to observe nothing but Your eternal Unity in everything and everywhere.
Thou art the Unique Reality, Lord, the all Powerful and the Eternal. And he who unites with Thee in the depth of his being becomes Thy Reality in its eternal and immutable Power.
No man has the right to force another to think like himself: each must bear with patience and indulgence the beliefs of others.
(Giordano Bruno)
There is no better way to make friends than to laugh together.
O Divine Force, Supreme illuminator, who can resist your Divine Power? You are the unique and supreme Reality. Listen to our prayers, do not distance yourself, or withdraw from us. Help us to fight the good fight, strengthen our resolve for the battle; grant us the force to win.
May your glory be proclaimed.
May your life be sanctified.
May the hearts be transformed.
And may Your peace reign upon earth.
The power of human intelligence is boundless; it increases by concentration; such is the secret.
(Vivekananda)
Let us watch over our thoughts.
(Fo-shu-ching-san-ching)
A bad thought is the most dangerous of thieves. (Chinese Buddhist Scripture)
The mind is a clear and polished mirror and our constant duty is to keep it pure and never allow dust to accumulate upon it.
(Hindu Saying)
Man is often preoccupied with human rules and forgets the inner law.
(Antoine the Healer )
Let not the talk of the vulgar make any impression on you. (Cicero)
The sage is never alone: he bears within himself the Lord of all things.
Do not believe all that men say; but blush not to submit to the sage who knows more than you.
(Democritus)
Happy is he who nourishes himself with the words of a sage and seals them in his heart.
(Ecclesiasticus)
It is impossible to arrive at the summit of the mountain without passing through rough and difficult tracks.
Seek for a guide who can lead you to the gates of knowledge where shines the light free of all darkness.
(Dhammapada)
Mother also gave the children poems by French poets for the recitation classes. She would copy the poems in my notebook every week. Except for the first two poems, all the poems were drawn from a collection for children offered to the Mother by Padma, a disciple from Switzerland. They have been printed in French in my earlier book, La Mere Travaille avec les Enfants.
We publish here under a separate section, the poems from the French authors that the Mother gave to the children. The dates mentioned below the poems are the dates on which the children recited them.
The children reciting in front of the Mother in pairs
The poem ‘The Ocean and the Spring’ in Mother’s handwriting in French
1. The Ocean and the Spring
*The spring fell from a lofty bluff
Drop by drop to the ocean’s trough,
Thundering thus, spake the vast sea
“Little weeper, what do you want of me?”
“I am the dreaded tempest and fear
My limits nudge the wide azure
What need have I of thee
I who am immensity?”
Thus spoke the spring to the gulf profound
“I offer to you, without glory or sound
What most you lack, O huge, great sea
A drop of my water to sweeten thee”*
1. La source et I’ocean
*La source tombait du rocher
Goutte a goutte a la mer affreuse,
L’ocean, fatal au nocher,
Lui dit : “Que me veux-tu, pleureuse?”
“Je suis la tempete et l’efffroi;
Je finis ou le ciel commence.
Est-ce que j’ai besoin de toi
Petite, moi qui suis l’immense?”
La source dit au gouffre amer ;
“Je te donne, sans bruit ni gloire,
Ce qui te manque, o vaste mer!
Une goutte d’eau qu’on peut boire.”*
*03/03/195
Victor Hugo*
2. The Sleepy One
*If he sleeps the child will see
A very busy bumblebee
Flit between is’land and sky
Once her honey was laid by.
If the child doth quietly rest
An angel with a rosy crest
Seen only in dark of night
Will come to say, “good even-tide
If the child is very docile
Over his face for a while
Mother will bend o tenderly
And whisper long and gently
If my child doth truly love
God himself who sits above
Will declare, “I like this child,
Let his dreams be full of light”*
2. La Dormeuse
*Si l’enfant sommeille
Il verra l’abeille,
Quand elle aura fait son miel,
Danser entre terre et ciel.
Si l’enfant repose,
Un ange tout rose
Que la nuit seule on peut voir
Viendra lui dire : “Bonsoir !”
Si l’enfant est sage,
Sur son doux visage
La Mere se penchera
Et longtemps lui parlera.
Si mon enfant m’aime,
Dieu dira lui-meme:
“J’aime cet enfant qui dort,
Qu’on lui donne un reve d’or.”*
*31/03/1953
Marceline Desbordes Valmore*
3. The Morning Prayer
*I thank thee, Lord, for our daily bread,
For the sunshine and the rain!
I thank thee for my lovely school,
And our home so full of joy!
For all the children, I do pray...
Ease their hunger and their pain
And may your light fill their days!*
3. Priere du matin
*Merci, mon Dieu, pour le bon pain,
Pour le soleil et pour la pluie !
Merci pour I’ecole jolie,
Pour la maison ou l’on est bien !
Pour tous les enfants, je te prie.
Prends pitie de ceux qui ont faim
Et mets du soleil dans leur vie !*
*07/04/1953
Marcelle Porchet*
4. Spring
*You sow young flowers, blithesome
Spring A hectic crowd of them you fling-
In the green wide they fall.
Silver snow-drops, pensive violets,
Evening primrose and easter-flowerets,
You have remembered them all.*
4. Printemps
*Printemps, tu semes des fleurettes,
Et te plais a les melanger Dans les pres.
Perce-neige d’argent et douces violettes,
Primeveres etpaquerettes,
Printemps, tu nas rien oublie!*
*21/04/1953
Isabelle Jaccard*
5. The Ravens
*Two ravens all black
With great beaks, alack
Three vespers they cried
And then stopped at last.
The first cries:”Coua”
“Couec” the second caws
O how unpleasant
The cry of those crows!*
5. Les Corbeaux
*Deux corbeaux tout noirs
Aux gros becs pointus
Ont crie trois soirs
Puis ils se sont tus.
Le premier disait: “cuua !”
Le second disait : “couec !”
Oh ! le vilain bec
De ces corbeaux-la!*
*28/04/1953
Lucie Delarue Mardrus*
6. A Little Joy is lost
*The blackbird announces to the land at large
“Three primroses blow on the thicket’s marge!”
All the world ran there to see
Only the crow did not agree,
Unseen the flowers bloom and dance,
A little joy is lost perchance.*
6. Il se perd un peu de joie
*Le merle a dit par le pays :
“Troisprimeveres au taillis!”
Et tout le monde y a couru;
Seul le corbeau ne l’a pas cru,
Les fleurs poussent sans qu’il les voie,
Et il se perd un peu de joie.*
*05/05/1953
Albert Rudhardt*
7. The Blackbird
*The sunset sky is rosy now
The blackbird is in song.
His happy notes do sound so fresh!
Fragrant lilacs throng
Winter’s past! Spring is here
The blackbird’s chant is everywhere.*
7. Le Merle
*Le cielest tout rose au couchant...
Le merle chante.
Qu’il est joyeux, ce nouveau chant !
J’ai respire le lilas blanc...
Fini l’hiver ! C’est le printemps,
Le merle chante.*
*12.05.1953
8. The Heron
*On his long legs, for somewhere bound,
The long-necked heron one day I found
Long beak poised, along a river walk.
The waves were limpid like the morn
Old gossip carp there did turn
With the pike, in busy talk.*
8. Le Heron
*Un jour, sur ses longs pieds, allait je ne sais ou
Le heron au long bec emmanche d’un long cou :
Il cotoyait une riviere.
L’onde etait transparente ainsi qu’aux plus beaux jours
Ma commere la carpe y faisait mille tours
Avec le brochet son compere.*
*19.05.1953
La Fontaine*
9. Lady Mouse
*Lady mouse scampers away
Sable in the even’s grey
Lady mouse scampers so light
Grey in the sooty night.*
9. Dame Souris
*Dame souris trotte,
Noire dans le gris du soir,
Dame souris trotte,
Grise dans le noir.*
*26.05.1953
Paul Verlaine*
10. The Butterflies
*Away into the blue you fly
Fiery-winged butterfly
‘Gainst the silver sky you dance
Dainty white wings lightly prance.
And you, rosy butterfly,
You flit about at last to rest
Upon a rose’s lovely crest.*
10. Les Papillons
*Tu t’envoles dans le ciel bleu,
Beau papillon couleur de feu !
Tu danses dans le ciel d’argent,
Papillon blanc !
Et toi, leger papillon rose,
Tu vas, tu viens et tu te poses
Sur les roses !*
*02.06.1953
11. The Pretty Bird
*On the branch of a Peach tree
A pretty little bird
Is singing away.
Three spotted eggs
She has laid in the nest
Hidden right in
Oh the grey little bird, so pretty.*
11. L’oiseau Joli
*L’oiseau joli chante
Sur la branche du pecher.
Il a pondu trois aufs taches
Tout au fond du nid,
L’oiseau gris joli.
Elle se montre toute, et puis
voila tout a coup quelle rit.*
*09.06.1953
Madeleine Ley*
12. The Moon Rise
*Thus at night the moon doth rise
At first we see two bright eyes
They stop, they scan
They rise behind a wooded span.
We glimpse then her tiny nose
She seems just a little morose.*
*She rises then to show her mouth
We’d say her lips were in a pout.
When she reveals herself at last
Her sudden laughter a spell doth cast.*
12. La Lune Qui Sort
*C’est ainsi : quand la lune sort
on ne voit que deux yeux d’abord.
Elle s’arrete, elle regarde,
elle monte derriere l’arbre.
On voit alors un peu son nez ;
elle a l’air de vouloir pleurer.
Elle monte et on voit sa bouche
et on dirait une qui boude.
voila tout a coup qu’elle rit.*
*16.06.1953
C. F. Ramuz*
13. The Crow
*The big crow black
So very black,
Cried, “Good tiding”
To me this evening —
From the base of my bed
I said
“You cry too loud,
My sleep you crowd!”*
13. Le Corbeau
*Le gros corbeau noir,
Tout noir,
M’a crie ce soir:
Du fond de mon lit,
J’ai dit :
“Ne crie pas si fort,
Je dors!”*
*23.06.1953
Therese Baudet*
14. Courtesies
*Here in the garden today,
O, how the wind flies, how the wind rocks,
There in the garden today,
Thirteen peonies bobbing on their stalks
How the wind doth lightly play,
The flowers nod and curtsy all day,
In great reverence they spread their frocks.*
14. Les Reverences
*Il y a dans le jardin,
Le vent rit, le vent s’elance,
Il y a dans le jardin
Treize pivoines qui dansent.
Le vent joue, il va, il vient.
Elles se font des reverences,
De grands saluts, puis recommencent.*
*30.06.1953
Emilia Cuchet Albaret*
15. The Baby Sleeps
*Like a hammock’s gentle shake
To and fro your cradle swings;
In the silence softly sings
The aged clock’s tuneful rings;
Listen, how soundly slumbers the lake.*
15. Bebe S’endort
*Ton berceau comme un hamac
Tout doucement se balance.
Faiblement, dans le silence,
La pendule fait tic-tac.
On entend dormir le lac.*
*22.09.1953
Henry Spiess*
16. The Night
*In the misty dark of night,
Atop a steeple soaring high,
The moon within her circle bright,
Like the dot on an ‘i’.*
16. La Nuit
*C’etait dans la nuit brune,
Sur le clocher jauni, La lune,
Comme un point sur un i.*
*08.09.1953
Alfred de Musset*
17. The Tower
*If we climbed, up the tower
One, two, three,
If we climbed up the tower
You and me.
We would see our country,
Four, five, six.
Red roofs, walls all new and fine
Seven, eight, nine
Like tiny ants the people
From high up the steeple.*
17. La Tour
*Si nous montions a la tour,
Un, deux, trois,
Si nous montions a la tour,
Toi et moi.
Nous verrions notre pays,
Quatr’, cinq, six,
Ses toits rouges, ses murs neufs,
Sept, huit, neuf,
Et tous les gens si petits
Que l’on dirait des fourmis !*
*29.09.1953
18. The Rain
*A strong breeze blew today at dusk
The pouring rain was so brusque.
All along the pavements running
On shining streets and roofs were drumming!*
18. La Pluie
*Un tres gros vent soufflait ce soir!
Brusquement, la pluie est venue :
Elle a couru sur le trottoir,
Elle a fait briller notre rue !*
*06.10.1953
19. The Lizard
*Between two stones
A lizard is seen
A tiny little lizard,
All blue, all green.
At my gesture
His heart beats fast!
With great fear
His mien is cast.
But as I softly hum a song
Gingerly he comes along
Slowly he approaches near
Sits on the soft moss here.*
19. Le Lezard
*Le petit lezard curieux,
Le petit lezard vert,
Le petit lezard bleu
Apparait entre deux pierres.
Au moindre geste, il a grand peur
Et son caur bat.
Mais quand je chantonne tout bas
Une chanson douce,
Il s’approche sur la mousse.*
*13.10.1953
20. The Little Fish
*The little fish glides
Smoothly slides
Along the tides;
Not a ripple is seen
In the water serene.*
20. Petit Poisson
*Petit poisson glisse,
Il glisse
Le long du torrent
Sans que l’eau se plisse
Au fil du courant.*
*20.10.1953
A. Chavannes*
21. The Naughty Cat
*Tis a naughty cat from Paris,
To her all meat a mouse is —
She eats from the dish
Leaving only bits,
She says, “I took, it’s mine!”
That naughty cat parisienne!*
21. Le Mechant Chat
*C’est un mechant chat de Paris.
Toute viande est pour lui souris.
Il prend dans les assiettes,
Ne laissant que les miettes,
Et dit: “C’est a moi, je l’aipris!”
Oh ! le mechant chat de Paris !*
*08.12.1953
Lucie Delarue — Mardrus*
22. The Caterpillar
*Wrapped up in her velvet gown
All russet brown
Lady caterpillar sways
Poised a moment,
And then lays
Her length upon a tender bed
Of cabbage head.
In her velvet gown
All russet brown.*
22. La Chenille
*Dans sa robe en velours brun roux,
Dame chenille se balance
Sur la tendre feuille de chou.
Elle ondule, puis elle avance.
Dans sa robe en velours si doux.*
*15.12.1953
23. The Chimney Sweep
*When I see the chimney-sweep
I never weep.
He scrubs the oven to a sheen,
The pipe’s and all the chimney’s clean;
When he’s done, the fire leaps
Merrily from the charcoal heaps.*
23. Le Ramoneur
*Lorsque je vois le ramoneur,
Je n’ai pas peur.
C’est lui qui nettoie les fourneaux,
Les cheminees et les tuyaux,
Pour que chez nous flambe un beau feu
Tout rouge et bleu !*
*22.12.1953
24. The Water’s Chant
*Listen, under the old bridge
The water’s sound
The gurgle profound.
Listen, on the pebbled bed
The water’s dance
The water’s chants.*
24. Le chant de l’eau
*Entendez-vous sous le vieux pont?
C’est l’eau profonde,
L’eau qui gronde !
Entendez-vous sur les cailloux?
C’est l’eau fuyante,
L’eau qui chante...*
*29.12.1953
25. The Green bird
*There, in the garden, standing apart
A peony has opened her fresh heart
Do not pluck that dainty bloom
And send a poor bird to doom—
For every morning he comes to sip
Fresh dew from that flower’s lip.*
25. L’oiseau Vert
*Ne la cueille pas, la pivoine rose,
Fraiche eclose
La-bas, dans le jardin.
Car I’oiseau vert a tete noire
Qui vient y boire
De la rosee au matin
En aurait trop de chagrin.*
*26.01.1954
26. The Snails
*When the lawn is wet with rain
The shy snails venture out again
Their little horns are poised to scout
And feel the path and edges out.*
26. Les Limacons
*Quand il a plu sur le gazon
On voit sortir les limacons
Qui levent leurs petites cornes
Pour tater la route et la borne.*
*02.02.1954
27. The Wind
*It blows, it chants,
‘N in the boughs the wind doth dance.
He chased the leaves in a wild mood
And cried a long time in the wood.
Did you hear him under ‘r door
Keenly whistle on the floor?
It chants, it blows
Through the trees as it goes.*
27. Le vent
*Il vente, il vente,
Et dans les arbres le vent chante.
Il a chasse les feuilles mortes
Et longtemps crie dans les bois.
Avez-vous entendu sa voix
Quand il sifflait sous notre porte?
Il vente, il vente,
Et dans les arbres le vent chante.*
*09.02.1954
28. The Spider
*Dainty spider,
Argent spider,
Your delicate net
The wind doth fret.*
28. L’Araignee
*Araignee grise,
Araignee d’argent,
Ton toile exquise
Tremble dans le vent.*
*16.02.1954
29. The Baker’s Cat
*White spots on his sable coat...
A point to note
Is that every day at night
He drowses in the purest white
Flour dust ;
He must
Be the baker’s cat.*
29. Le chat du boulanger
*Puisque le bout de ses poils noirs
est tout blanc,
c’est que le soir,
il dort certainement dans la farine
(dans la plus fine,
celle du ble)
le chat du boulanger...*
*23.02.1954
Vio Martier*
30. The Cock
*At sun up see the cock cry,
“Night has fled from the sky,
Look, the day and life are here
Awake you, people everywhere!*
30. Le coq
*Le soleil se leve et le coq s’ecrie:
“Voici le jour, voice la vie !
Gens d’ici, gens de partout, Debout !”*
*16.03.1954
31. The Child Saying His Prayer
*“Nothing is as beautiful
As a child, saying his prayers,
As he goes to bed.”
God said, Indeed,
There’s nothing so beautiful.*
31. L’enfant dit sapriere
*Rien n’est beau comme un enfant qui s’endort
en faisant sa priere, dit Dieu.
Je vous le dis, rien n’est aussi beau dans
le monde.*
*09.03.1954
Charles Peguy*
32.. Leaves of Autumn
*I watched as the red leaves fell
I watched as the yellow ones flew
I watched the brown ones scud
Pushed by the windy flood
Yellow, brown, and red
They all danced and fled.*
32. Feuilles D’Automne
*J’ai regarde les feuilles rouges,
elles tombaient.*
*J’ai regarde les feuilles jaunes,
elles volaient.
J’ai regarde les feuilles brunes
que le vent poussait.
Rouges, jaunes, brunes,
chacune dansait.*
*30.03.1954
33. The Whistle
*If I had a whistle now
Finely trimmed from a willow
To the woods I’d nimbly trip
The moment that the moon would show.
Into my whistle I would breathe
To make the trees sway in a wreathe
To left and right they’d lightly bound
The trees would dance to that sound.
I would whistle into my flute
And all the flowers we thought were mute
They’d press round me in eager thrill
Their voices raised in a dainty trill.
In the great sky’s silky expanse
The stars would gleefully twirl ‘n dance;
My lively flute would call them close
Holding hands they’d dance in rows.
If I had a whistle now
Carved from a willow bough
I would go into the copse
As the moon rose o’er the tree tops.*
33. Le sifflet
*Si j’avais un petit sifflet
Taille dans le saule des haies,
Je m’en irais dedans le bois
Des que la lune serait la.
Je sifflerais dans mon sifflet
Et tous les arbres bondiraient
Sauteraient ci, sauteraient la,
Les arbres bondiraient de joie.
Et toutes les fleurs chanteraient,
Chanteraient de leur douce voix,
En se pressant autour de moi.
Et les etoiles danseraient,
Se tenant par le petit doigt,
Dans le grand ciel tendu de soie.
Si j’avais un petit sifflet
Des que la lune serait la.*
13.04.1954
34. The Flake of Snow
*Who are you, little mote
White and round and purest white
A fleecy lamb wafted afloat
Maybe dropping from the height?
If I were a little lamb
Wi’little paws, paws so soft
Through the fields I would tramp
And play all day at leap frog.
Who are you, who indeed
All round and white and light?
A butterfly who has agreed
To come down from the sky?
If I were a butterfly
I’d have wings, wings fragile
That would waft me in the sky
And with the wind I’d play awhile.
Who are you, who are you then?
Light, white and all round
Maybe a strand of white cotton
From nother continent bound?
Were I now a cotton strand
Warm and tender I would be
In the nest a snug, soft band
For the little chickadee.
A fleck of cloud I am born
I come to rest on your hand
Melted away as soon as I land
One, two, three, look I’m gone*
34. Le flocon de neige
*Qui es-tu, petit flocon,
Tout rond, tout leger, tout blanc,
Peut-etre un petit mouton
Descendu du firmament?
Si j’etais petit mouton,
J’aurais des pattes, des pattes,
Pour courir a travers champs
Et jouer a saute-mouton.
Qui es-tu, qui es-tu donc,
Peut-etre un beau papillon
Venu du ciel en volant?
Si j’etais un papillon,
J’aurais des ailes, des ailes,
Pour aller en voltigeant
M’amuser avec le vent.
Peut-etre un brin de coton
Venu d’autres continents?
Si j’etais brin de coton,
Je serais bien chaud, bien tendre,
Pour doubler moelleusement
Le doux nid des oisillons.
Je suis un petit morceau
Du nuage tout la-haut.
Je viens fondre sur ta main,
Regarde...un, deux, trois, plus rien.*
22.06.1954
The Moon
*The moon this evening is all broken
A large piece of it is missing
Into the water it must’ve fallen
For the iridescent ripples are sparkling.*
*The pike, the trout, and the grayling
Must have had a great fright:
On the dark stream-bed trailing
We can see a strange light.*
La lune — Henry Spiess
Ce soir, la lune est cassee;
*Il en manque un grand morceau,
Car il est tombe dans l’eau
Parmi la vague irisee.*
*Le brochet, la truite et l’ombre
Ont du tous avoir grand’ peur;*
Et l’on voit une lueur
Qui tremble au fond de l’eau sombre.
January
*Cold moon, white moon
And you frosty stars
High above the earth bestrewn
Who is it that lights your arcs?*
Janvier — Madeleine Ley
*Blanche et froide lune,
Etoiles de gel,
Qui donc vous allume
Si haut dans le ciel?*
My heart is at peace, my thought free from impatience, and for everything I entrust myself to thy will with the smiling confidence of a child.
Mon Coeur est paix, ma pensee sans impatience, et pour toute chose, je m’en remets a Ta volonte avec la confidence souriante d’un enfant.
The children gathered around The Mother listening to a story
In the early months of 1951, during these classes, the Mother also started telling stories from her own books Tales of all Times and Words of Long Ago. From November 1951, She started taking up all kinds of different stories on Fridays-Her story-telling days. She also took up legends from different countries, such as India, Persia, Japan, China etc. and about her own experiences in Japan while taking up the legends of Japan; this continued for several weeks. She was very fond of that country. She also spent many Friday classes telling stories and legends from China.
When the Mother told stories about Africa, She narrated many of Her personal experiences in Algeria. Besides these, She also took up stories that were well known in France like those of Joan of Arc , Masakokarie, Pic et Pic et Cologram and even some children’s stories like Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, Babar—the elephant etc. Most often Mother read the stories Herself but sometimes She made the children read by turns and once in a while She even asked a child to narrate a story. She marked out the difficult words and explained them, and would also encourage the children to find these words in a dictionary and write out their meanings. At the end of the story-telling, She would always explain the moral of the story and deeper meaning behind them.
The Mother narrating an interesting story to the children
In those days there were no bookshops in Pondicherry; so whenever somebody found a children’s story book in French, he or she got it for the Mother. She would read the book in the class and show the pictures to the children. The Friday classes continued for eight years; in the beginning there were children from 4 to 12 years old and the stories were of various levels. She gradually upgraded the level of Her stories as the children grew older. Towards the later years, She took up more serious texts such as the Wu Wei, a text of Henry Borel based on the philosophy of Lao-Tse and towards the end, She took up the ‘Dhammapada’. She took this up because it was a simple method of teaching meditation to the children. Since after 1956, these classes were held in the Playground and were all recorded and subsequently printed as The Mother’s Commentaries On The Dhammapada and since they are already available as a book, I am not adding in the present volume.
The last Friday class in the Guest-house as per our records was held on 30th April, 1954, after which, I have not been able to trace any class till 19th October, 1956. Since even Mrityunjaya Da’s notebooks don’t have anything for this period, I presume that for some reason, the classes had been discontinued. My memory has gone blank about this period and strangely even the few students who used to attend these classes and whom I asked, also didn’t remember anything.
The Friday classes were resumed on 19th October, 1956, and they were held in the Playground instead of at the Guest-house. They were also recorded, but somehow they have not been transcribed and are not to be found in the Complete Works of the Mother which contain Her talks up to 9th July, 1957.
From 12th September, in Friday classes, the Mother took twelve lessons on Thoughts And Aphorisms, after which the classes stopped, because She stopped coming to the Playground after 5th December 1958 and all her evening activities were discontinued.
Later, around 1960-61, the Mother took up the Thoughts And Aphorisms (questions and answers) at my request and gave Her elucidations in writing. I would write out the aphorism and the relevant question in my notebook, and the Mother would send the answer. This continued up to 27th July, 1961.
The Mother was indisposed after that for a while, and when the work on the Thoughts and Aphorisms was taken up again, it was with Satprem, from 1962 to 1966. Following this, there was again a long gap due to some reason or the other, mostly because the Mother’s work had increased considerably and She could find no time.
On 1st August 1969, I asked The Mother if I could continue with the work on the Thoughts and Aphorisms by sending my notebook as before. Mother readily agreed and encouraged me to continue. The questions were completed 0n 8th June 1970 and subsequently were printed in a book entitled On Thoughts and Aphorisms.
Although these were primarily started in the Friday classes for Group A, we are not reproducing them here as they are already available separately in book form.
There is no proper record of all the stories that Mother read on Fridays in the Green Group classes. We have however made a list of the titles of the stories with help of some children’s memories and from Mrityunjaya Da’s notes but as it is not interesting to publish only the titles, we are therefore not including them in this book.
One day in Oct 1951, when the six of us (Chum, Jhumur, Bubu, Gauri, Parul and myself) went to Mother’s room upstairs, The Mother asked us to write stories to improve our French. All the six girls were between the ages of thirteen and fifteen at that time. She said that She would bring out a book of stories entitled For the Children, By the Children (Pour les Enfants, Par les Enfants).
The Mother telling a story in the Green group class
The Mother during this period also sanctioned from the library a set of books which were folk tales and legends of different countries. These collected volumes were in the reference section of the Ashram library and were not issued to anyone but Mother asked me to take one book at a time and directed the librarian to issue them to me as a special case. These books were in English.
When we started writing the stories, I took some ideas from these books. I wrote four stories in French, while the other friends wrote one each. These were extensively corrected by The Mother. The Mother then read out these stories in the Friday classes.
When I gave my fifth story to The Mother, She corrected a part of it only and it remained in Her room for a long time as She did not get any time for correction.
Facsimile of a page of a story written by Tara and corrected by the Mother
Finally, She asked me to take it to Yatanti di, an elderly French teacher in the Ashram school, who then corrected the rest of the fifth story. In all these stories, as you will see, the Mother has left intact the childlike spirit. In spite of the heavy corrections, we have translated and reproduced them here.
Early one morning I went out for a walk in the garden. What a beautiful morning it was! I sat on a bench and looked up at the bright blue sky. The first rays of sunlight touched and woke everyone up. Numerous flowers bloomed all over the place and the air filled with their sweet fragrance. The grass was still wet with dewdrops. It was a happy and beautiful moment. Suddenly I saw a big cockroach in front of me. It was dead and lay still on the grass.
A few minutes later an ant came by. It stopped near the cockroach and watched it. Then it took a few rounds around the insect surveying it, probably trying to figure out how to eat such a tasty morsel. It tried biting it, pulling it, but alas! The cockroach was too big and heavy for the small ant. After a few more minutes of struggling with it, the ant suddenly went away as if it had a treasure and went away quickly to get it. Its destination was a small hole nearby.
A minute or two later big ants emerged from the hole and marched towards the cockroach. Twelve young, strong ants going for a battle. I was curious, so I watched them intently. Without wasting a single moment, they gathered around the cockroach and started biting into the dead insect, breaking it into very small pieces. After sometime I realized there was nothing left of the cockroach, only a large mound of cockroach powder. Feeling victorious after completion of their battle, they marched right back into their hole.
Next I saw thousands of ants coming out of the hole walking in a line towards the cockroach mound. These ants were not as big as the earlier ones nor were they as small as the first one that I saw. They were somewhat medium in size. Extremely aware of their responsibility, they immediately got busy in doing their work. Each one picked up one tiny cockroach granule and walked back to their hole. This process continued for sometime till the entire mound had been transferred into their hole. Next a few of them together caught hold of one wing and carried it inside. Another group of ants carried the other wing. So in about half an hour the ant family together had managed to take the entire cockroach to their home. I was engrossed in watching this entire incident and it made me think.
We human beings consider ourselves to be learned and knowledgeable but an insect as small as an ant can teach us so many things... it teaches us to follow rules, be disciplined and work together as a single unit. For them there is no substitute to hard work. They do not fight with each other, or rebel or strike against the authority. They believe in unity, and work as one unified group. I have heard that they do not have a brain, they are not enlightened creatures. In the process of evolution, ants occupy a much lower level than human beings. We are intelligent beings and science and technology have ensured that we remain supreme. Unfortunately, we lack these certain qualities that those tiny ants have. If only we could imbibe these qualities then we would be a much happier group, the world would be a happier place to live in.
Before reading my story ‘Japanese Folklore’ in the class, The Mother spoke about Japan where She had spent several years.
The Mother:
Suppose today someone asks you “What do you mean by Japan?” what would your reaction be? Wouldn’t you be surprised? Wouldn’t you be thinking, “How ignorant is this person? What kind of a question is this? Do you ever ask what is the meaning of India, England, France, America? Everyone knows that they are large land masses, countries, continents etc. You are absolutely right, but Japan is still different from the others. It is not a single land mass like America or India. Japan is an island;
actually it is a group of small islands formed very close to each other in the middle of the sea. If you see the World map, in comparison to Japan, both India and America are large countries. Naturally Japan has a much smaller population than either India or America, but in terms of chivalry, bravery, efficiency and perfection, this country has acquired a position equal to and comparable to any of the larger countries.
Geographically, Japan has very little of flat land, mostly it is covered with big and small mountains of which a large number are volcanic in nature. Anytime without any warning these volcanoes erupt, spewing hot molten lava which flows all over the mountain sides, burning and destroying all that comes in its way... small villages, houses, farmlands, everything. When such an eruption is going to occur no one knows but the Japanese are always prepared to face such natural calamities. On one hand they have learned to quietly accept this fiery nature of God and on the other hand they have equipped themselves to rebuild all that gets destroyed with a smiling face. No other country or its people can boast of such an undaunted spirit and enthusiasm.
Before I proceed further with today’s story I suddenly remembered to tell you some more things about the Japanese. It will help you to know a little more of the Japanese uniqueness. I have heard this from Pavitra. He was in Japan in the year 1923 and had personally witnessed this. Once all the volcanoes erupted together. Japan had not known so much destruction and devastation earlier. The tremors of the earthquakes were felt world wide and Japan had lost more than 50% of its people. In a period of quietness between the volcanic eruptions Pavitra asked his group of students to go to their chemical laboratory situated a few miles away and study these volcanoes. They started in the evening and had to walk the six miles to the laboratory as there were no vehicles on the road and power transmission was severely damaged. While walking down the streets they realised that all parks and other open spaces were gradually filling up with people. Fathers — mothers — brothers — sisters — friends, everyone was leaving their homes and gathering outside. Some had lost everything, while some had partially damaged houses. Some houses were still crumbling down. There was destruction everywhere. But, the amazing thing according to Pavitra was, no one was crying or screaming or expressing his grief. Everyone was silent, even children were not crying. The Japanese know from the time they are born that these things happen. It is expected to happen and they have accepted this as a way of life. With renewed vigour and energy, they would rebuild all that had been damaged and lost.
Walking further down the road, they saw a huge store which sold clothes, had caught fire. People — the owners and the workers together were struggling to save the store. When they realised that it was beyond control, they started calling everyone to take away whatever they wanted to from the shop. Fearing a law and order problem the police stepped in and stopped this activity.
Finally, Pavitra and his students reached their laboratory. Wooden stairs led to their 2nd floor laboratory. Opening the door all of them were relieved. Unexpectedly but surprisingly there was not much damage. Only from time to time the house was shaking terribly. They removed all potentially dangerous acids and other chemicals to a safer place and walked back to their homes. While returning they witnessed further destruction... wooden houses burning furiously; broken doors, windows, stairs littered all over; people stuck in the upper floors of apartment buildings calling the police for help; and the policemen and fire fighters fighting and struggling to help and save as many people as they can. Pavitra and his students also joined in helping the others. They threw thick ropes and rope ladders to windows on higher floors so that people could scramble down to safety. What was unique was that amidst all this drama no one created any unnecessary chaos. Just think, here in our daily life even if there is a small problem or issue we scream, complain and fight with each other, while the Japanese, even in a life and death situation like this quietly go about doing their duty. Of course the government helps the people as much as it can, but the Japanese people quietly go about doing their work.
Now let’s listen to today’s story. It’s a small story, I hope all of you like it and there are lots of things that you can learn from this story written by Tara:
Long ago there was a village along the coast of the ocean. On the other two sides of the village two huge mountains stood majestically looking towards the sky. On one peak stood a Shinto temple while on the other mountain peak lived Hama-Guchi-Goh, the head and the senior most person of that village. The village had only 500 people. They were simple people and farming or fishing was the only source of income. Everyone loved and respected Hama-Guchi-Goh, because he was a very loving and caring person. He was very wise and helpful too. He loved to help anyone who needed his help and he did it with all his heart. He was like a father and a mother to all the villagers. They used to share both their troubles and happiness with him. He had his own fields, and farming was his means of living. He was old now, more than 100 years; so he could not work in the fields any more. His son took care of the farming.
Once the whole village was being brightly decorated for celebrating a Shinto festival. They hung beautifully coloured paper lanterns on bamboo poles on all the lanes in the village. It looked as if the whole village was adorned with lovely ornaments...
As Hama-Guchi-Goh was now an old man, he could not climb up and down the mountain. He was watching the proceedings from his balcony along with his youngest grandson Choshiro. All his other family members had gone to the village to celebrate. Gradually the present faded into his past and Hama-Guchi was transported back to his childhood when he was very young and enjoyed this festival with his parents.
Suddenly he woke up from his dream and looked straight ahead at the ocean. The entire ocean was fast receding towards the horizon. The other villagers too noticed this. They were surprised and since they did not know what was happening they ran to the shore to watch. Within minutes the whole village was empty. Why was everyone running towards the ocean? No one knew. It was as if the ocean too was getting wild with the festivities and was pulling everyone towards itself. By now it had moved about three kms away from the base of the mountains.
With a shock Hama-Guchi recalled a similar incident which had occurred when he was a child, when he was his grandson’s age or maybe even younger, his grandfather had narrated this story to him...... He knew exactly what was happening, there was not much time and he started thinking of what he could do now. If he sent Choshiro to the coast to tell the people what was happening and ask them to return it would take a lot of time. Again Choshiro could run down this mountain, climb up the other mountain, and ring the temple bell. Hearing the bell ringing, people would definitely come over..but where was the time? Time was very crucial now. A brilliant idea flashed through his mind. The old man sent Choshiro to bring him a torch. The Japanese people always kept torches in their homes because when the ocean becomes wild and there are hurricanes and tornadoes creating havoc then electricity is always affected and torches are the only source of light. Choshiro ran inside and got a big torch for his grandfather. Hama-Guchi lit the torch and went to his fields behind the house. His paddy fields were green and stocks of rice and grain were neatly arranged on one side. This was his ration for the whole year. Hama-Guchi went and lit fire to all the stocked rice and hay bundles. A scared Choshiro started crying. He thought that his dear grandfather had gone mad. Hama-Guchi did not pay attention to Choshiro’s crying. He went about quietly lighting each bundle, one by one. Only after the last one had caught fire did he let the torch go and turned to look at the ocean and the shore. He saw exactly what he had anticipated
On this side, fire was having fun with nature. Sending huge tongues of fire towards the sky it was creating havoc in the fields. Down below the villagers saw the huge fire and started running up the mountain. They realised that the fire was coming from Hama-Guchi’s house. Saving their dear leader’s house became their first priority; so everybody ran towards the mountain. Again the temple priests seeing the fire started ringing the bell so all the other people started running towards the mountain.
First came the youth of the village. Since they were the strongest and fittest they reached first. Out of breath and panting they started dousing the fire but Hama-Guchi stopped them and asked them to wait. Everyone was surprised by this instruction but since they respected and trusted their leader completely, they kept quiet and waited. Choshiro was uncontrollable,
seeing so many people around him he cried even more loudly and in between his sobs he narrated to everyone how his grandfather lit the fire. Screaming at the top of his voice he was telling everyone that his grandfather had gone mad.
Now they could see younger children climbing up the mountain. Behind them came the ladies and the elderly people of the village. Finally everyone from the village had come and sat in front of their dear leader. All had only one question in their minds...how did the fields catch fire and why is it not being doused but allowed to burn? It was difficult for them to believe all that Choshiro was saying but there was no reason to disbelieve him either. Finally Hama-Guchi asked if everyone had come and no one else was left behind in the village. The villagers replied in unison that all had come, no one was left below.
Hama-Guchi then pointed his finger towards the ocean and asked everyone to watch what was happening. All eyes now turned towards the ocean and they were spellbound at what they saw. From the horizon, to where the ocean had receded, it was now coming back as one huge mass of water at great speed, thundering and growling fiercely running towards the shore like a mad woman. The first wave itself washed away the whole village. The villagers realised how powerful each wave was when hit the base of the mountain and sprays of water drenched the villagers. The waves came in continuously, breaking at the foot of the two mountains, and bringing along with them ruin of the village.
After a few hours when the ocean had calmed down, then everyone realised that there was no sign of the village. In its place remained a devastated flat land but all the 500 people of the village were saved only because of the sharp presence of mind of Hama-Guchi. It was only then that the villagers realised why the old man had lit the fire and thanked him over and over again for saving their lives. Hama-Guchi in the process had become a pauper again. He had willingly burnt all his wealth in the fire to save his people but he was a happy man as all his near and dear ones were sitting around him now. Everyone was eager to help him but how would they? They themselves had lost every thing to the ocean, unwillingly.
After many days, the Japanese government gave monetary compensation and helped in rebuilding the village. The Japanese people have never forgotten Hama-Guchi, and how he destroyed all he had to save his people. The story of Hama-Guchi has become a folklore which all grandfathers tell their grandchildren, generation after generation.
So you see becoming a leader is not easy. A genuine leader is a person who thinks about his people first and then about himself. He always thinks of what will benefit his people, how to save and protect them from all calamities even at the expense of his own happiness. He takes responsibility of all their problems, issues and troubles, spends his own wealth for his people’s development. A person who helps all who are dependent on him happily, is always ready to give up his own life to save all others just like Hama- Guchi- Goh did for his 500 neighbours.
A poor man lived with his wife and children in a small hut. He worked with a business man in his shop for a very meagre salary. It was difficult to live a decent life with his small earnings but he somehow managed. As time passed it was becoming more and more difficult to survive on such a meagre earning as the cost of living was increasing day by day.
The season of festivals, starting with Durga Puja was around the corner. It was in the air, the cool autumn breeze, the falling leaves and the white fluffy clouds sailing across the clear blue sky, everyone was waiting for the mother goddess to come for these four days and be a part of their lives. From young children to their grandparents, all were discussing how to welcome “Maa Durga”. Everyone waits for a whole year for this festival. The mothers and grand-mothers get busy in preparing for the rituals while children are happy because they get lots of new clothes and new shoes to wear, good food to eat, and new toys to play with.
Our protagonist as well as the poor man’s children were also happy that ‘Durga puja’ was coming. His son wanted a soldier’s attire while his daughter wanted a light blue coloured frock. They also wished and expected that their father would buy some new toys for them.
But the father was very sad. He loved his children very much but he did not have the extra money required to buy these things. He did not want to hurt his children so he tried to borrow some money but no one gave him. What was he to do? Pujas were only ten days away!
That day was his pay day. He went to work as usual in the shop but he could not concentrate in his work. Often his mind drifted towards his eagerly waiting children’s faces and he felt miserable because he would not be able to get anything for them.
At the end of the day, the cashier handed over his salary in an envelope. The man took the envelope and walked home. At home, as he was counting his money, he realised that he had a one hundred rupee note extra.
“This note must have come by mistake in my envelope,” he thought.
“Good, because of this mistake I’ll be able to bring a smile on my children’s faces. Its ages since I bought a new saree for my wife. My shoes are torn and I’ll be able to buy another pair of shoes.”
“But this is not your money. It does not belong to you”, said someone from within, his conscience was telling him.
“You cannot spend this money. Tomorrow when you go to the shop to work, return it to the cashier.”
“No one knows that I have this money, so even if I spend it no one will think that it is not my money which I’m spending”. He started arguing with his inner voice.
“Yes, that is true, and all the more necessary that you return the money. People think that you are a good man and you cannot do anything wrong. So when you get an opportunity to do something wrong, then you will do it just like you want to do now, taking advantage of the trust that others have in you. In this way you can trick others but you cannot trick me. So do not hesitate, the first thing you do tomorrow is return the money”.
“My wife and children will be very happy when they get this money.”
“Do you think that you can make your family happy with clothes, food and other things? You practise honesty in your life first and then you teach your family to be always honest and truthful. Only then will they really be rich and wealthy from within and there will be true happiness in your family. But, if you do what you said just now, do you know how much trouble you will land yourself in? Your family depends completely on you, then how will you make them happy when you yourself have landed in trouble?”
“I need money very badly right now.”
“Why are you feeling upset? If you really need money it will surely come to you. If you think you need something which you do not have then it means that you actually do not require it.”
The whole night our poor man spent fighting with his conscience and his devil’s spirit. In the end his conscience won, he decided to return the money to the shop.
The next morning when he reached the shop he went to the cashier and returned the hundred rupee note telling him that he found this extra note in his envelope.
“I am very pleased to see your honesty. The money was not a mistake. This year business has been good and we have made a lot of profit, so we decided to share the extra money amongst all our employees. We know that all of us need more money before the Pujas so this amount of hundred rupees is your share of the profit”, replied the cashier.
When a country is attacked then her soldiers fight with all their strength and valour to save the motherland from the enemies. We praise our soldiers. We show our respect. But what about those men who believe in truth and fight against all the injustices and wrong doings that happen in today’s life? They are as courageous as our soldiers. True fighters will always take truth’s side. They will always fight against all that is not true. To do this they have to face a lot of danger and troubles but they still do it. In the end victory is guaranteed for these people just like our man who was very happy in the end as he finally did get to spend the money on his family. His wife and children too were very happy and proud of him.
The sun was setting on this small village in France. Darkness of the night was fast setting in and along with it came a heavy shower of snow. A young boy around fourteen years of age was walking alone on the deserted street. He was walking towards the monastery which he could see far away. He wanted a place to stay for the night. He had been walking the whole day and had knocked on a few doors trying to find a place for the night but had been unsuccessful.
It was not like this always. Once he was a performer in a circus. His father owned the circus. He had taught his son many acrobatics and disciplines. He could walk on a tight rope fixed high up on the tent. He rode a single wheel cycle and showed many acrobatics. Twenty chairs were stacked one on top of the other and he would perform on top of this stack. He could slip his entire body through a tyre so small that only a person’s head could pass through. Such a skilful boy he was.
One day while performing on the trapeze swing, his father slipped and fell and hurt himself. Two days later he died and the boy was orphaned. His mother had died earlier when he was only two years old. He did not remember his mother’s face anymore. After his father’s death the other members of the circus did not allow this boy to stay with them any longer. Poor child was completely alone in this world now. He walked on the streets hungry and tired. He performed acrobatics on the streets and earned a few pennies. With that he used to buy a little bit of food whenever he was hungry. He was trying to live on his own. The whole day he used to perform on the streets and earn some money and during the night would sleep wherever he found some space, be it under a tree or on the pavement or on some bench in some park.
The Mother narrating a story
For the past few days it had been snowing very heavily. No one was venturing out, every one stayed inside. So the boy did not have an audience to perform, therefore he could not earn and had nothing to eat. And where would he sleep? Thick snow had covered everything so he had no place to sleep. No one was ready to give him shelter in their house either. Suddenly he remembered the monastery. So he crossed the road and walked towards it. He knocked at the door of the monastery a few times. A priest opened the door and asked what he wanted. The boy said that he wanted a shelter for the night. The priest let him in, first gave him some food to eat and then showed him a corner to sleep for the night. Next morning the boy, before leaving went to say thank you and pay his regards to the head priest.
The head priest felt sympathetic towards the boy and asked him about his life. The boy sat down and narrated his life story ending it with the fact that he had no one to take care of or to love. The head priest thought for a moment and then told the boy that if he worked at the monastery then they could allow him to stay there. The boy was happy and extremely grateful and thanked the head priest over and over again.
The boy started working from that day on. He happily and sincerely did whatever he was asked to do. He never complained. In the evenings he would go and sit near the head priest and listen to all the stories that he used to tell. Sometimes he would narrate stories from his life at the circus. Days passed in this manner and both the boy and the head priest started loving each other and were gradually getting closer and closer to each other.
After a few months the head priest realised that there was a change in the boy’s behaviour. He remained quiet and lonely, all by himself, not talking too much, as if he was enjoying being alone. He would sit under the Banyan tree or in a corner of his room and looked towards the sky and think. Finally the head priest asked him what was wrong but he refused to tell him anything.
One day the head priest heard the boy sitting under a tree talking to himself,
“I have been living in this monastery for quite some time now but what am I actually doing? The learned monks here all read the scriptures but I cannot because I do not know how to read. Every morning they say their prayers but I cannot because I have not learned the prayers. How can I talk to my mother?»
A few days later the head priest noticed that the boy was smiling and happy. There was an aura around the boy.
He thought, “There must be a reason for this change. I must keep a watch on him and see what he does the whole day.»
Every afternoon when the meditation hall was empty and no one was around then the boy used to quietly go into the room and lock the door. The head priest watched through the key hole.
Inside the boy stood in front of the Mother’s idol and said, “All these wise and learned men read the scriptures and pray to you but neither do I know how to read nor do I know how to pray. But I will show you what I can do, perform for you the acrobatics that I had learnt in the circus. Today I will show you a new game. Tell me if you like it or not”.
He threw the ball that he was carrying high then turned, stood on his hands and caught the ball with his feet. He did this with 25 balls, juggling them and then catching them with his feet. In the end he took two somersaults and then stood on his feet.
He went and stood in front of the idol and said, “How was the performance, Mother? It was not so good, was it?”
Then a divine light emerged from the idol gradually and stood before the boy. The boy knelt down and bowed his head. The divine light covered his body and tears were flowing uncontrollably.
The Mother came closer, blessed him and said, “My dear child, you have performed very well and have made me very happy. Please show me such games, newer games every day and they will all be as good or even better. I am very pleased with you.”
With that the divine light was absorbed back into the idol.
The head priest was stunned at what he saw.
Then he told himself, “Now I understand that only a child’s innocent simplicity can please God.”
This time we are going to see how goodwill can be instrumental in making everybody your friend; how animals themselves feel and appreciate it and how eager they are to reciprocate the love that they receive.
During the first part of the British rule there existed a small state in western India. The state was small but very prosperous. Its aging king had employed Puran Bhagat as minister.
Puran Bhagat was well educated. He was good natured and his face mirrored great intelligence. Everybody used to love him and respect him for his noble character and great personality.
He used to work a lot and very fast too. The state prospered even more, thanks to his deft organisation. Everybody was content in this country.
Suddenly people heard that Puran Bhagat had resigned, nobody knew the reason. Sadness and an atmosphere of gloom descended on the country.
Large crowds of people walked to the residence of the minister. They saw Puran Bhagat leave his home all alone and walk towards them barefoot.
On seeing him, the people stood on either side of the road with great respect and let him pass. They all understood that Puran Bhagat was leaving in search of a new light and they would not stop him but instead they started to follow him.
Puran Bhagat left the capital and started walking towards the north. After sometime, he turned towards his subjects and gently addressed them: “Go, return home, there is no point in accompanying me. I have been beckoned by a voice very powerful and I must move on. As for you, my friends, return to your homes.” Saying this, he continued on his way. His followers remained there and watched him go with tears.... they watched till they could see him no more.
Puran Bhagat moved on. He did not bother about food or shelter. He spent the night at times under the trees and at times in temples. He used to eat whatever he got.
Puran Bhagat’s mother was from the mountains, therefore he had an innate attraction for the mountains, it ran in his blood. He crossed through many fields and cities, finally he found himself at the foot of the Himalayas.
He crossed several mountains and valleys and at last took shelter in a temple situated on a high peak of the Himalayas. He found this place very beautiful. He gazed in front of him and saw the Himalayas crowned with white snow. Seated quietly, he resembled the King of Yogis. He was constantly bathed with the golden rays of the sun. Below, there was a dense forest of fir and deodars which draped his body like a green shawl. The clouds passed over them. Sometimes, they led him towards the top along the mountains and then disappeared in the sky. The place was beautiful like a painting!
Puran Bhagat was very happy and decided to stay on there from then on. There was a thick forest and almost 500 feet below there was a village.
Puran Bhagat cleaned the temple with small branches of trees. He lit a fire with some wood and sat down on a deer skin.
On seeing smoke rising from the temple, the people from the village came to see who inhabited the temple. The village priest bowed down in front of Puran Bhagat and said, “We are overjoyed to see you here. It will be an honour for us to look after you and feed you everyday.” A man from the village asked, “Do you have a blanket? Do you require anything to light a fire?”
Puran Bhagat looked at them and smiled quietly. The people were overjoyed with the calm look and while leaving, they said to themselves, “It is indeed a joy for us to have a real sadhak live in our temple after such a long time.”
Thus began Puran Bhagat’s journey. Now, he delved deep within himself in search of his soul. The village people used to come everyday with his food: bread, milk and fruits. They used to come and receive his blessings and asked him to pray for their happiness. The sadhak was deeply immersed in his sadhana. He was mounting higher and delving deeper. In the external world, days, months and years passed by but time had completely stopped for him.
Behind the temple, in the forest, on the trees used to live several monkeys. They used to observe the sadhak. One day, a very courageous monkey, full of curiosity, entered the temple. He dropped the bowl on the ground. He approached the deer skin and made all kinds of grimaces showing his teeth. Slowly, he developed more courage and sat down next to the sadhak and put out his paw for some food. The sadhak gave him some almonds which the monkey ate at once.
A few days later, he came back with some more monkeys, they sat around the fire as if they were the sadhak’s kith and kin. One of the monkeys remained with him all the time. During the day, he used to sit near the sadhak and quietly look at the Himalayas with its snow peaks, he looked like a wise man! At night, he used to sleep with the sadhak, under his blanket. During spring time, several monkeys came with their little ones and when the young ones were too naughty they were chided by the monkeys.
Then, there was a deer with big horns who came to rub himself against the wall. As soon as he smelt a human, he ran away into the forest. The next day he came back slowly and on observing that the sadhak was as silent as a statue, slowly started approaching him. Now, since the scent of the sadhak was pleasant to him, the deer came very near him. The sadhak put his hand around the deer’s neck. Two days later, the deer came back with his female and the little one. His blue eyes used to light up like fireflies in the night.
Then, the last one to approach the sadhak was the deer Kasturi. He was very shy, he had a magnificent appearance. The sadhak used to love these deer and always kept aside some food for them. He used to call them his “brothers”. Even during the day, if he called them, they came to him in the temple.
Pretty birds with coloured wings, a peacock and a bear with a white band on the neck, used to also come from time to time. Earlier, whenever the bear saw the sadhak pass by every morning in the forest, he used to rise with a ferocious air, ready to attack him. But the sadhak, never even threw a glance at him. Now, he too, like the others came to receive his share of affection from the sadhak.
Down below in the village, the people on seeing the wild animals coming regularly to the temple believed that it was the power of the sadhak which attracted them.
Years passed by, children who used to bring food grew up and sent their children with food for the sadhak. If someone asked, “Since when is the sadhak here?” The answer was, “Oh, he is here since eternity.”
One winter, many clouds gathered around the mountain, it started raining heavily and for three months it rained continuously Through the open door, the sadhak used to see the clouds rolling over the mountains like waves in the sea. They would then fall heavily in the form of rain below on the village. The village was covered with a humid mist. The people could not climb the mountain. The sadhak could not even meet any of his brothers from the forest. He thought to himself, “Nobody knows what has become of my brothers.”
Finally the rain stopped. Golden sunlight shone once again in the sky, on the mountain tops and on the leaves of the trees. The soft scent of wet earth wafted in the air. The sadhak thought that his wild friends would surely now come. He called them by their names but he got no reply. After seven radiant days, the rain started with renewed vigour. The rain flowed down the mountain forming hundreds of strong torrents. Their frightening sound reverberated in the air of these mountain regions.
One night, around midnight, the sadhak felt as if somebody was pulling him by his hand. He felt a furry hand and realised that it was one of his monkey friends. He held open his blanket and said, “Oh, there you are! Come sleep near me. The weather is very bad!” But the monkey kept pulling his hand.
The sadhak got up and asked him: “Are you hungry? I will go and see if I have something for you. But the monkey ran to the door of the temple, came towards him and forcefully pulled his hand again. His eyes were trying to say a lot of things that he could not express in words.
The sadhak asked him, “Why are you worked up? Has one of you been tricked? So you want me to leave this place? But why?”
At that moment, the deer with big horns entered the temple. So the sadhak said, “You see today ‘big horns’ has also come!” The deer entered the temple and with his big horns started to push the sadhak towards the door of the temple. The sadhak said, “But what is it? Is this how you express your friendship by pushing your friend out of the temple in this terrible rain?” But the deer kept pushing him all the while making a funny sound with its nose.
Suddenly there was a whistling sound in the temple ground and two stones pulled apart. The sadhak went to the door and saw a huge crevice along the mountain, next to the stairway of the temple and a fierce torrent which was gushing down the mountain. He said, “I understand now. The mountain is going to crumble and that is why you have come to look for me! But why should I go with you?”
Suddenly the sadhak’s eyes fell on his empty bowl. His face shone and brightened, full of compassion.
He remembered the brave people from the village who had fed him during all these years with so much devotion. He got an idea and he said, “Wait a while my brothers, I must go with you.” He lit a piece of wood and held it in his left hand and said to “Big horns”: “My brother, I have only two legs and you must help me.” Saying these words, he caught the deer by the neck and started to come down the mountain.
The night was dark and it was still raining. The monkey showed the way to the sadhak who was on his way to save the people of the village from certain death. After having come down the mountain, he found after some time, all his wild friends gathered together in a clearing and they were waiting for him: the monkeys, the deer family and the bear with his parents. The sadhak smiled and said to them, “Oh, you are waiting for me here and you sent your representatives to give me the news! Good! Let’s go!”
The sadhak walked ahead followed by the regiment of wild animals. He arrived in the village and knocked at the first door that he came across. Smelling the scent of human beings, the wild animals got very agitated. The bear was in a bad temper.
The sadhak knocked on the door and said in a loud voice, “Brave people who sleep, wake up! Call everybody and gather together, the mountain is going to crumble. There is not a minute to lose. Run and cross the plains that you see before you and climb on to the hill. We will follow you.”
The entire village woke up at once. Everyone ran towards the plains and following the instructions of the sadhak they reached the hill after crossing a not so deep stream. The sadhak followed them with his wild animals.
They walked for a long time and finally the deer stopped under the shade of Deodar trees on the hill. The sadhak understood that it was a safe spot as wild animals sense these things. He called the village people and said to them, “Count and see if all of you are present and remain here.” A head count was done by calling each one by his name and they found everybody was there.
Suddenly they heard a loud noise, which increased more and more and became deafening. The entire mountain was coming down. The Deodars and the pine trees were uprooted by the violent jerks. The noise lasted around five minutes and then everything was quiet.
In the morning, there stood no mountain, nor the pine and Deodar trees, nor the village. Everything had completely disappeared. Instead there was a big basin of water and slush. A mountain which measured nearly 2000 meters in height and one and half kilometre in length had been completely transformed into a plain surface. It was a terrible sight!
At the first light of the sun, the thankful people of the village came to thank the sadhak who had saved their lives, but they could not find him. After having saved the village people, he had left with his wild pack....
(Inspired from a story by Rudyard Kipling)
In March 1952, the Mother started to translate Her work, ‘Words of the Mother (fourth Series)’ into French. By then I had left the school but Mother wanted me to continue my study of French. So She started a translation class for six of us: Chum, Jhumur, Bubu, Gauri, Parul and myself. We used to go daily to the Mother together. The class was held outside Pavitra Da’s room, in the corridor. Mother would sit on a stool with the six of us around Her. She gave each of us a notebook for taking down dictations. She started with the translation of Words of the Mother—IVseries, which were short answers to questions of disciples in English and had appeared in the form of a booklet in the year 1952. She would first read the original sentence in English and then, while verbally translating it into French, would simultaneously also write the French version of the text on a rough pad. She would also revise the text and make corrections. She would then take our notebooks and correct each one of them.
While correcting the notebooks, She would count the total number of words and give marks according to the number of words correctly written. For example, if there were 50 words in a dictation and we made 2 mistakes, She would give 48 marks. This is how She graded our exercise.
A facsimile showing how Mother gave us marks
After correction, Mother would rewrite Her own translation in fair and give the rough copy to me for the evening Green Group class, dictation or recitation, which I would paste in my notebook. She used many of the passages of the 4th Series for recitations but nothing from the 3rd Series was used.
The translation class gradually expanded and seniors like Pavitra Da, Nirod Da, Mrityunjoya Da and Debu soon joined it. Since there were so many people, the Mother stopped correcting notebooks individually. But She continued correcting mine till She completed the translation of the book in January 1953. When She completed the fourth series of The Words of the Mother, She translated the third series, the original of which also was in English.
She would often explain the meaning of words and sometimes discuss the mistakes that we had made while taking down the dictation. She would also explain the grammatical errors we made. Sometimes She would go deeper into the significance of the passage. These things were not recorded. In one of Her classes, Mother mentioned that The Words of the Mother was compiled by Amal Kiran and shown to Her and since She liked the compilation, it was printed as a booklet. But now while translating with us in the class, She was taking the liberty of rewriting some of the passages.
It is by a quiet, strong and persistent peace that the true victories can be won.
*
Quietness, quietness, a calm and concentrated strength, so quiet that nothing can shake it — this is the indispensable basis for the integral realisation.
In peace and inner silence you will more and more become conscious of the constant Presence.
In quietness you will feel that the divine force, help and protection are always with you.
Let the vast peace of the Divine penetrate you entirely and initiate all your movements.
Increase the inner rest, it must become a rest always present even in the midst of the greatest activity and so steady that nothing has the power to shake it — and then you will become a perfect instrument for the Manifestation.
Be very careful to remain always calm and peaceful and let an integral equanimity establish itself more and more completely in your being. Do not allow your mind to be too active and to live in a turmoil, do not jump to conclusions from a superficial view of things; always take your time, concentrate and decide only in quietness.
The Truth-Consciousness must pervade all the being, dominate all the movements and quiet the restless physical mind. These are the preliminary conditions for the manifestation.
The quite mind one gets through meditation is indeed of short duration, for as soon asyou come out from meditation you come out at the same time from the quietness of mind. The true, lasting quietness in the vital and the physical as well as in the mind, comes from a complete consecration to the Divine; for when you can no more call anything, not even yourself, yours, when everything, including your body, sensations, feelings and thoughts belong to the Divine, the Divine takes the entire responsibility of all and you have nothing more to worry about.
It is only when we are not disturbed that we can always do the right thing at the right time and in the right way.
Truly peace is badly needed — for — without peace the simplest thing makes at once a big fuss.
Let the Peace be manifested in you more and more constantly and integrally.
SINCERITY is the key of the divine doors.
Everyone is given his chance and the help is there for all — but for each the benefit is proportionate to his sincerity.
Sincere calls surely reach and receive an answer.
All depends on the attitude ofeach one and on the sincerity of his approach.
The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity are preferences either mental, vital or physical, and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome.
Those who are sincere, I can help and turn easily towards the Divine. But where there is insincerity I can do very little. And as I have told you already, we have only to be patient and wait for things to become better. But surely I do not see why you should get disturbed and in what way your disturbance would help things to be better. You know by experience that there is only one way of getting out of confusion and obscurity; it is to remain very quiet and peaceful, firm in equanimity and to let the storm pass away. Rise above these petty quarrels and difficulties and wake up once more in the light and the power of my love which never leaves you.
It is good to have this unshakable faith — it makes your path easier and shorter.
Surely when unfaithfulness prevails all around it is time to be truly faithful and to stand untouched and unmoved in the storm.
One must have entire confidence in the Victory of the Divine — and this general Victory will include in itself the personal victory of all who will have remained faithful and confident.
To do at each moment the best we can and leave the result to the Divine’s decision, is the surest way to peace, happiness, strength, progress and final perfection.
HUMILITY and sincerity are the best safeguards. Without them each step is a danger, with them the victory is certain.
In a true and sincere humility is our safeguard — it is the surest way to the indispensable dissolution of the ego.
If the mind remains quiet in all circumstances and happenings, patience will be more easily increased.
It is not in a day that one can overcome one’s own nature. But with patience and enduring will the Victory is sure to come.
The certitude of the Victory gives an infinite patience with the maximum of energy.
Be quiet. We have only to work patiently without being disturbed by anything and keep unshaken the faith in the inevitable Victory.
Keep the fire inside burning steadily and wait quietly for the sure result.
The true Agni always burns in deep Peace; it is the fire of an all-conquering will. Let it grow in you in deep equanimity.
ONLY he who loves can recognise love. Those who are incapable of giving themselves in a sincere love, will never recognise love anywhere, and the more the love is divine, that is to say unselfish, the less they can recognise it.
Concentration upon oneself means decay and death — Concentration on the Divine alone brings life and growth and realisation.
It is only love that can understand and get at the secrets of the Divine Working. The mind, the physical mind especially, is incapable of seeing correctly and yet it always wants to judge... It is only a true, sincere humility in the mind allowing the psychic to rule the being that can save human beings from ignorance and obscurity.
It is the Divine Grace that must be prayed for — if justice were to manifest, very few would be those who could stand in front of it.
There is a deep and True Consciousness in which all can meet in love and harmony.
Closeness to the Divine will always grow with the growth of consciousness, equanimity and love.
Keep always this awareness of my constant loving presence and all will be all right.
The centre of the human being is the psychic which is the dwelling place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation ofall the parts of the being (mental, vital and physical) around this centre, so that all the activities of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presence.
Jealousy comes from a narrowness of the mind and a weakness of the heart. It is a great pity that so many are attacked by it.
Vital relations are always dangerous.
A complete, absolute consecration of the vital to the Divine is the only solution.
SURELY we must always want peace and harmony and work for it as much as we can — but for that the best field of action is always within ourselves.
Do not worry about the reactions of people however unpleasant they may be—the vital is everywhere and in everybody full of impurities and the physical full of unconsciousness. These two imperfections have to be cured, however long it may take, and we have only to work at it patiently and courageously.
To feel hurt by what others do or think or say is always a sign of weakness and proof that the whole being is not exclusively turned towards the Divine, not under the divine influence alone. And then instead of bringing with oneself the divine atmosphere made of love, tolerance, understanding, patience, it is one’s ego that throws itself in response to another’s with stiffness and hurt feelings and the disharmony is aggravated. The ego never understands that the Divine has different workings in different people and that to judge things from one’s own (ego) point of view is a great mistake bound to increase the confusion. What we do with passion and intolerance cannot be divine, because the Divine works only in Peace and Harmony.
Do not worry or be impatient — all the disharmonies will disappear, but it must be on the true basis of a settled luminous consciousness leaving no room for the play of the ego.
It is only when people truly want their consciousness to be changed that their actions also can be changed.
I know that people are fussy and unreasonable. But unless their consciousness changes, what else can we expect from them?
In all human beings is not falsehood always mixed with Truth?
Yes, we must keep the seat of our consciousness in the higher being and do whatever we are doing from there, not allowing the lower, blind and selfish movements and reactions to spoil our work.
If anyone were capable of seeing the welfare of the work quite independently of his preferences and without turning everything into a personal question, then most of the difficulties would be solved.
If people could stop speaking of the work as their work it would put an end to a lot of trouble.
I want the peace to come into your mind and also the quiet, patient wisdom which prevents one from jumping to hasty conclusions and judgments.
The more a mind is ignorant the more easily it judges everything it does not know or is incapable of understanding.
A very very quiet head is indispensable for a clear understanding and vision and a right action.
We must always keep in mind the big ideal and work that is to be achieved so that we should not give too much importance to small details, trifles that must not draw our attention; let them come, let them go like small clouds in the sky, which do not affect the fine weather.
Yes, all these quarrels are a very sad thing — they interfere terribly in the work and make everything more difficult.
Do not mind the stupidity of others, mind yours.
Be careful always to keep the living Presence and Protection around you when you speak to people, and speak as little as possible.
The difficulties are always due to a resistance, some part or several parts of the being refusing to receive the force, the consciousness and the light put upon them and revolting against the divine influence. It is rare that somebody can surrender entirely to the Divine’s Will without having to face one or other of these difficulties. But to keep steady one’s aspiration and to look at oneself with an absolute sincerity are the sure means to overcome all obstacles.
Surely all these troubles come from a resistance somewhere, something that opposes the work of transformation.
For nobody sadhana would be possible without the Divine’s help. But the help is always there.
The Grace is always there ready to act but you must let it work and not resist its action. The one condition required is faith. When you feel attacked call for help to Sri Aurobindo and myself. If your call is sincere that is to say, if you sincerely want to be cured your call will be answered and the Grace will cure you.
It is absurd to ask for help and yet to have no trust; on the contrary with confidence everything becomes so easy.
Indeed I believe that when the Inconscient is conquered no more conditions will be required, it will be a free decision of the Divine Grace.
To aspire and to call for help are quite indispensable.
There is certainly a great difference between calling and pulling — you can and must always call for help and the rest — the answer will be proportionate to your capacity of reception and assimilation. Pulling is a selfish movement that may bring down forces quite disproportionate to your capacities and thus are harmful.
Openness is the will to receive and to utilise for progress the force and influence, a constant aspiration to remain in touch with the Consciousness; the faith that force and consciousness are always with you, around you, inside you and that you have only to let nothing stand in the way of your receiving them.
It is true that the Divine Protection is always around us, but it fully works only when we are faced by dangers which were unavoidable; that is to say, when doing some work for the Divine, if dangers suddenly rise on the way, then the protection works at its best. But to take up some work which is, after all, not at all indispensable and not even surely useful, and which is extremely dangerous, counting on the Divine protection to save us from all possible consequences, this is a movement which is like a challenge to the Divine, and the Divine will never accept.
When one remains perfectly quiet and without fear, nothing serious can happen.
Fear is always a very bad adviser.
Once falsehood is conquered, all difficulties will go.
It is a great ignorance that makes a being answer to the suggestions of the forces of darkness and destruction. With a true sense of gratitude for the Divine’s infinite mercy one would be saved from such dangers.
The Victory is certain and with this certitude we can face patiently any amount of wrong suggestions and hostile attacks.
We must never give a chance to the adverse forces to do their mischief— they take advantage of the slightest unconsciousness.
It is a sincere self-giving that saves one from all difficulties and dangers.
Yes, my child, it is quite true that the Divine is the sole refuge — with Him is absolute safety.
HOROSCOPES have no importance for those who take up yoga, because the influence that works through yoga is much more powerful than the influence of the stars.
The manifestation will overcome all difficulties, for manifestation means the overcoming of all difficulties.
The ordinary life is a round of various desires and greeds. As long as one is preoccupied with them there can be no lasting progress. A way out of the round must be discovered. Take, as an instance, that commonest preoccupation of ordinary life — the constant thinking by people of what they will eat and when they will eat and whether they are eating enough. To conquer the greed for food, an equanimity in the being must be developed such that you are perfectly indifferent towards food. If food is given, you eat it; if not, it does not worry you in the least; above all, you do not keep thinking about food. And the thinking must not be negative, either. To be absorbed in devising methods and means of abstinence as the sannyasis do is to be almost as preoccupied with food as to be absorbed in dreaming of it greedily. Have an attitude of indifference towards it: that is the main thing. Get the idea of food out of your consciousness, do not attach the slightest importance to it.
This will be very easy to do once you get into contact with your psychic being, the true soul deep within you. Then you will feel immediately how very unimportant these things are and that the sole thing that matters is the Divine. To dwell in the psychic is to be lifted above all greed. You will have no hankering, no worry, no feverish desire. And you will feel also that whatever happens, happens for the best. Do not misunderstand me to imply that you must always think that everything is for the best. Everything is not for the best so long as you are in the ordinary consciousness. You may be misled into utterly wrong channels when you are not in the right state of consciousness. But once you are poised in the psychic and have made your self-offering to the Divine, all that happens will happen for the best, for everything, however disguised, will be a definite divine response to you.
Indeed the very act of genuine self-giving is its own immediate reward — it brings with it such happiness, such confidence, such security as nothing else can give. But till the self-giving is firmly psychic there will be disturbances, the interval of dark moments between bright ones. It is only the psychic that keeps on progressing in an unbroken line, its movement a continuous ascension. All other movements are broken and discontinuous. And it is not till the psychic is felt as yourself that you can be an individual even; for it is the true self in you. Before the true self is known, you are a public place, not a being. There are so many clashing forces working in you : hence, if you wish to make real progress, know your own being which is in constant union with the Divine and then alone will transformation be possible. All the other parts of your nature are ignorant : the mind, for instance, often commits the mistake of thinking that every brilliant idea is also a luminous idea. It can with equal vigour trump up arguments for and against God: it has not infallible sense of the truth. The vital is generally impressed by any show of power and is willing to see in it the Godlike. It is only the psychic which has just discrimination : it is directly aware of the supreme Presence, it infallibly distinguishes between the divine and the undivine. If you have even for a moment contacted it, you will carry with you a conviction about the Divine which nothing will shake.
How, you ask me, are we to know our true being? Ask for it, aspire after it, want it as you want nothing else. Most of you here are influenced by it, but it should be more than an influence, you would be able to feel identified with it. All urge for perfection comes from it, but you are unaware of the source, you are not collaborating with it knowingly, you are not in identification with its light. Do not think I refer to the emotional part of you when I speak of the psychic. Emotion belongs to the higher vital, not the pure psychic. The psychic is a steady flame that burns in you, soaring towards the Divine and carrying with it a sense of strength which breaks down all oppositions. When you are identified with it you have the feeling of the divine truth — then you cannot help feeling also that the whole world is ignorantly walking on its head with its feet in the air!
You must learn to unite what you call your individual self with your true psychic individuality. Your present individuality is a very mixed thing, a series of changes which yet preserves a certain continuity, a certain sameness or identity of vibration in the midst of all flux. It is almost like a river which is never the same and yet has a certain definiteness and persistence of its own. Your normal self is merely a shadow of your true individuality which you will realise only when this normal individual which is differently poised at different times, now in the mental, then in the vital and at another time in the physical. Get into contact with the psychic and feel it as the real being. Then you will be one, nothing will shake or disturb you, you will make steady and lasting progress and be above such petty things as greed for food.
Surrender is the decision taken to handover the responsibility of your life to the Divine. Without this decision nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender. You can surrender either through knowledge or through devotion. You may have a strong intuition that the Divine alone is the truth and a luminous conviction that without the Divine you cannot manage. Or you may have a spontaneous feeling that this line is the only way of being happy, a strong psychic desire to belong exclusively to the Divine: “I do not belong to myself,” you say, and give up the responsibility of your being to the Truth. Then comes self-offering : “Here I am, a creature of various qualities, good and bad, dark and enlightened. I offer myself as I am to you, take me up with all my ups and downs, conflicting impulses and tendencies — do whatever you like with me.” In the course of your self-offering, you start unifying your being around what has taken the first decision—the central psychic will. All the jarring elements of your nature have to be harmonised, they have to be taken up one after another and unified with the central being. You may offer yourself to the Divine with a spontaneous movement, but it is not possible to give yourself effectively without this unification. The more you are unified, the more you are able to realise self-giving. And once the self-giving is complete, consecration follows : it is the crown of the whole process of realisation, the last step of the gradation, after which there is no more trouble and everything runs smoothly. But you must not forget that you cannot become integrally consecrated at once. You are often deluded into such a belief when, for a day or two you have a strong movement of a particular kind. You are led to hope that everything else will automatically follow in its wake; but in fact if you become the least bit self-complacent you retard your own advance. For your being is full of innumerable tendencies at war with one another—almost different personalities, we may say. When one of them gives itself to the Divine, the others come up and refuse their allegiance. “We have not given ourselves,” they cry, and start clamouring for their independence and expression. Then you bid them be quiet and show them the Truth. Patiently you have to go round your whole being, exploring each nook and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which are waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards transformation, for you no longer go from darkness to knowledge but from knowledge to knowledge, light to light, happiness to happiness.... The complete consecration is undoubtedly not an easy matter, and it might take an almost indefinitely long time if you had to do it all by yourself, by your own independent effort.
But when the Divine’s Grace is with you it is not exactly like that. With a little push from the Divine now and then, a little push in this direction and in that, the work becomes comparatively quite easy. Of course the length of time depends on each individual, but it can be very much shortened if you make a really firm resolve. Resolution is the one thing required — resolution is the master-key.
Of all the renunciations, the most difficult is to renounce one’s good habits. There is in books a lot of talk about renunciation, that you must renounce possessions, renounce attachments, renounce desires. But I have come to the conclusion that so long as you have to renounce anything you are not on this path; for, so long as you are not thoroughly disgusted with things as they are, and have to make an effort to reject them, you are not ready for the supramental realisation. If the constructions of the Over mind — the world which it has built and the existing order which it supports — still satisfy you, you cannot hope to partake of that realisation. Only when you find such a world disgusting, unbearable and unacceptable, are you fit for the change of consciousness. That is why I do not give any importance to the idea of renunciation. To renounce means that you are to give up what you value, that you have to discard what you think is worth keeping. What, on the contrary, you must feel is that this world is ugly, stupid, brutal and full of intolerable suffering; and once you feel in this way, all the physical, all the material consciousness which does not want it to be that, will want it to change, crying, “I will have something else — something that is true, beautiful, full of delight and knowledge and consciousness!” All here is floating on a sea of dark unconsciousness. But when you want the Divine with all your will, all your resolution, all your aspiration and intensity, it will surely come. But it is not merely a matter of ameliorating the world. There are people who clamour for change of government, social reform and philanthropic work, believing that they can thereby make the world better: We want a new world,
a true world, and expression of the Truth-Consciousness. And it will be, it must be,—and the sooner the better! It should not, however, be just a subjective change. The whole physical life must be transformed. The material world does not want a mere change of consciousness in us. It says in effect: “You retire into bliss, become luminous,
have the divine knowledge; but that does not alter me. I still remain the hell I practically am! The true change of consciousness is one that will change the physical condition of the world and make it an entirely new creation.
The Mother interacting with the children of the Green Group class
During the classes, the Mother took up several other topics to make it interesting for the children. She was a rare teacher. One day She asked the children what they did with pleasure, and why. Another day She saw the palm of each child and told them their future. One day She talked about the human body, and yet another day She talked about animals and their little babies and so on and so forth. I remember only a few of them which had some kind of a note. The rest are forgotten. Below are some of the topics that the Mother took in hand to show how the teacher can creatively, with patience and perseverance make any subject a beautiful learning experience for the children.
During one of the classes, the Mother explained to the children in some context, the importance of the Ashram life. To emphasise on this and to make it more clear She wrote an article, To the Children of the Ashram and brought cyclostyled copies which were distributed to every child in the class. She then took this up as a topic of discussion with the children on that day.
Why are we here in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram?
There is an ascending evolution in nature which goes from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man. Because man is, for the moment, the last rung at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; she endeavours to bring out a being who will be to man what man is to the animal, a being who will remain a man in external form, and yet whose consciousness will rise far above the mental and its slavery to ignorance.
The facsimile ‘To the children’ in Mother’s handwriting
Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to teach this truth to men. He told them that man is only a transitional being living in a mental consciousness, but with the possibility of acquiring a new consciousness, the Truth-consciousness, and capable of living a life perfectly harmonious, good and beautiful, happy and fully conscious. During the whole of his life upon earth, Sri Aurobindo gave all his time to establish in himself this consciousness he called supramental and to help those gathered around him to realise it. You have the immense privilege of having come quite young to the Ashram; that is to say, still plastic and capable of being moulded according to this new ideal and thus become the representatives of the new race. Here, in the Ashram, you are in the most favourable condition with regard to the environment, the influence, the teaching and the example, to awaken in you this supramental consciousness and to grow according to its law.
Now, all depends on your will and your sincerity. If you have the will no more to belong to ordinary humanity, no more to be merely evolved animals; if your will is to become men of the new race realizing Sri Aurobindo’s supramental ideal, living a new and higher life upon a new earth, you will find here all the necessary help to achieve your purpose; you will profit fully by your stay in the Ashram and eventually become living examples for the world.
One day, Mother introduced the children to roman numbers. This shows in how many different ways the Mother created an interest in children to learn a variety of things.
The facsimile—on Roman Numbers in Mother’s handwriting
One day, the Mother talked to the children about improving their lives and what they should try to achieve in themselves. It was a long session with the children. At the end, She took a piece of paper and wrote the following on it. It happened to be on a Kali puja day.
1. Hatred into harmony
2. Jealousy into generosity
3. Ignorance into knowledge
4. Darkness into light
5. Falsehood into truth
6. Wickedness into goodness
7. War into peace
8. Fear into fearlessness
9. Uncertainty into certainty
10. Doubt into faith
11. Confusion into order
12. Defeat into victory
9.10.51 (Kali puja day)
The facsimile of ‘To change’ in Mother’s handwriting
Sometimes during the classes, Mother would bring up some other topic and move away from the usual recitation, dictation or storytelling. What is worth noting is that She always came prepared for the change of subject. On one such occasion She took up the Human body. She had all the points jotted down on a paper which She left with me after the class. She explained to the children all about the human body and how and why one needs to take care of it.
1) The Human Body
The chief of the body is the head which has the brain and which is connected to the body by the nerves.
Up going nerves that lead the sensations to the brain (sensitive nerves).
Descending nerves that carry the orders to the muscles (motor nerves).
The brain receives the sensations and answers by the orders.
A sample facsimile of ’The Human body’ In Mother’s handwriting in French
2) Circulatory System
The heart, the arteries, the veins.
The heart is divided in two parts.
The left side sends the blood in the whole body.
The right side sends the blood in the lungs.
The blood moves away from the heart in the arteries and comes back to the heart in the veins.
The fresh blood is red, the used blood is bluish.
3) Respiratory System
Lungs : purification of the blood by the rejection of carbonic acid and infusion of oxygen.
4) Digestive System
Muscles
Organs producing all the movements of the body.
Skeleton
The framework of the body composed of many bones.
On another day during the class, the Mother decided to ask each child what they did with pleasure and why. I recorded the proceedings in my notebook. I later made a fair copy of them and showed it to Her. She made some minor corrections. This would be interesting for the readers as well as for the children who are now grownups but still have contact with the Ashram.
Mother: Tell me what do you do with pleasure and why?
Madhusudan: I box with pleasure, because one has force in the hand, and when someone hits me, I can defend myself. And I can hit back good blows.
Bharati: I come to this class with pleasure because I learn a great deal here.
Namita: I hear stories with pleasure.
Mother: Who tells you these stories that you hear with pleasure?
Namita: Charu Dutt.
Mukul: Playing cricket, because its very interesting.
Mother: In two years, I will ask you if you play well.
Mukul: Yes I will play well.
Norman: Playing football.
Mother: In two years you will let me know if you are a good player.
Kalyani: I like reading.
Mother: What kind of books?
Badol: I want to be a good boy.
Mother: Why?
Badol: Because you would like (that).
Mother: What kind of things would you like to do?
Badol: I will do many things that you will like.
Mother: One must be conscious of what one wants to do.
Every evening you must aspire to become a good boy. Every morning when you wake up, again you must think of it.
Usha: I like your class.
Mother: Do you understand what I say?
Usha: Sometimes I can’t.
Mother: You must concentrate well then you will understand.
Bhai: I like playing Cricket.
Ranganath: I like Science.
Mother: Which Science?
Ranganath: Botany.
Mother: When you study well you will get beautiful books of Botany, and a herbarium too if Sunil says you are working well.
Indravadan: I like Mathematics and Botany.
Mother: Then you will get a herbarium if you work well.
Laxman: I like basketball.
Mother: But you are too short to score a basket.
Ashamanju: I like very much Meccano.
Mother: Do you have a set?
Ahsa: No.
Mother: (turning to Tara) Write a Meccano for him.
Subodh: I like Tennis.
Mother: Here we have a new champion! Nobody mentioned Tennis...If you want to play well, you must learn well, with a lot of care. When you have learned to play well, I will make you play.
Anup: I like Table-tennis.
Mother: Have you learnt to play well?
Anup: Yes.
Mother: Would you like to play better still? (Anup says nothing) Well then, go along and play Tabletennis.
Ibha: I like drawing.
Mother: That is good. You will get lovely notebooks once you have learnt to draw well. Who is your teacher?
Ibha: Krishanalalji.
Mother: I will tell him to give you a notebook when you have learnt to draw well.
Anil: I like toffees because they are sweet.
Mother: You will get them shortly.
Subhash: I like football.
Chitra: I like stories.
Mother: Those that you read, or those that you hear?
Chitra: Both.
Mother: What kind of stories?
Chitra: The Adventure stories.
Mother: Who recounts these stories?
Chitra: You.
Mother: I do not tell you many stories.
Priti: I like dolls because they are interesting.
Mother: How do you play with your dolls?
Ajji: I read with pleasure story-books in English.
Mother: Which is the last book you have read?
Ajji: “The King and His Parrot”.
Hema: I like stories.
Madhu: I’d like to come to you every morning.
Mother: Then do come every morning.
Offering a gift to the Mother during the birthday celebration
Since I was the captain of the Green Group for sports as well as monitor for the Mother’s class, my group children decided to give me a surprise in front of the Mother for my birthday on the 5th of July, 1952.
Tara opening the newspaper wrapping with the children as onlookers
They placed a huge ball made of newspapers in front of the Mother and asked her to gift it to me and tell me to open it in front of everybody. I kept opening the newspapers and little gifts kept coming out from here and there and each time a gift came out, the children would clap in glee and I would go and offer it to the Mother. All this took more than half an hour and Mother sat patiently showering her love and blessings on all with her charming and charismatic smile.
One day, just for fun, Mother said that let us see how old we are all together. She then wrote the ages of all the children together and made a total of all the ages which came to 535. She then added my age ‘sixteen’ to the total and declared that we were all together ‘551’ years old. She then elaborated and took the class further on the subject of age but I have no recollection of the exact details.
The Sheet on which Mother made the calculation
Every Saturday a movie was shown in the Playground for all the Ashramites and the children. Since as children we had no entertainment we, all looked forward to the Saturday movies with great excitement. The Mother would always screen the movies herself in advance and get the unwanted portions edited before they were shown on Saturday.
The Wizard of Oz was a children’s award winning movie and to the surprise of all of us, the Mother completely rejected the movie from being screened in the Playground for the children.
Since I was sitting beside her when She was seeing the movie I too was disappointed and when I went to see Her upstairs the next day, I asked Her why She had rejected such a beautiful movie for children. She explained to me that She found it disappointing that when this little girl in the film got an opportunity to go over the rainbow and see the beautiful worlds beyond, She kept asking to go back home.
When the Mother realised that so many children of the Ashram were disappointed at not being able to see the film, She wrote out an explanation for it which She read out in the Green Group class and gave a detailed explanation of how to see the film and understand its deeper significance.
We give here the Mother’s written explanation.
A short note by the Mother on the movie
Wizard of Oz
A short explanation will surely increase the interest of the picture shown to you tonight.
This picture is in three sections, two black and one, the most extensive in colour. The two black sections (first and last) show how things appear in the physical world; the coloured one expresses a similar sequence of events and similar characters in the vital world, the world where one can go when the body is in deep sleep, when one gets out of the body. So long as you have a physical body, no true harm can happen to you in the vital world, for the physical body acts as a protection, and you can always return into it at will. This is shown in the picture in a classical way. The little girl wears on her feet some magic ruby-red slippers, and so long as she keeps the slippers on her feet, nothing wrong can truly happen to her. The ruby-red slippers are the sign and the symbol of the connection with the physical body, and as long as the slippers are on her feet, she can, at will, return to her body and take shelter therein.
Two other details can be noted with interest. One is the snow shower that saves the party from the influence of the wicked witch who by her black magic has stopped their advance towards the emerald castle of beneficent vitality. In the vital world, snow is the symbol of purity. It is the purity of their feelings and intentions that saves them from the great danger. Note also that to go to the castle of the good wizard they must follow the golden bricks, the path of luminous confidence and joy.
The second is when Dorothy throws water on the straw man to save him from burning, some water falls on the face of the wicked witch who lit the fire and at once she gets dissolved and dies. The water is the symbol of the power of purification and no hostile being or force can resist this power handled with good will and sincerity.
Finally, when the good fairy teaches the little girl how to go back home by knocking her two red slippers one against the other, she says that nothing is better than home; by “home” she means the physical world which is the place of protection and realisation. As you see, the subject of this picture is interesting and not altogether devoid of knowledge. Unhappily the rendering is not as beautiful and harmonious as it could have been. In the setup there are some serious faults of taste and many regrettable vulgarities.
Mother’s drawing of Raspberry and Strawberry
One day, the Mother took up the topic of fruits, in the process She explained about ‘Framboise’—Raspberry and ‘Fraise’—Strawberry, for which She then drew the picture of a Raspberry and a Strawberry to show the difference to the children.
On another occasion, the Mother took up the names of animals in French introducing the male, the female and the baby. Actually She made this topic very interesting by discussing with the children the habits of the animals.
The Animals
the lion
the wolf
the fox
the lioness
the she-wolf
the vixen
the lion cub
the wolf cub
the fox-cub
the ass
the hare (buck)
the rabbit
the she ass
the doe (hare)
the doe
the baby ass
the leveret
the bunny
A sample facsimile of ‘The animals’—in Mother’s handwriting in French
the goat
the nanny goat
the kid
the stallion or the horse
the mare
the foal
the stag
the fawn
the bull or the cock
the duck
the ox
the cow
the hen
the female duck
the calf or the heifer
the chick
the duckling
the sheep
the dog
the cat
the ram
the bitch
the she cat
the ewe or the lamb
the puppy
the kitten
The Mother would often make the children meditate at the end of the class. Many times She would explain to the children the importance of meditation. On one occasion, She explained to the children—the twelve centres of concentration, which was noted down by one of the children. We give below whatever the child had recorded in her notebook.
1. Above the head (Supermind)
2. On the head (Overmind)
3. Between the eyes (Mental mind)
4. On the throat (Connection between the mind and psychic)
5. On the heart (psychic)
6. On the navel (Vital)
7. At the base of the vertebrae (the base of the psychic)
8. Between the legs (lower vital)
9. On the knees (subconscient)
10. Between the knees and the ankle
11. On the feet
12.Below the feet (inconscient)
One day when the Mother sat surrounded by the children, She suddenly asked a child to show her palm. She commented something on the child’s future. Immediately another child put out his palm and then the third and fourth child followed and so on, the Mother saw the palms of all the children. Unfortunately, nothing of what She said to the children has been recorded. But I remember, She told one child that your hand is very artistic and you may become an artist someday. To another child, She said that you are very intelligent and whatever profession you take up you will do well. She also told another child that he would become a good engineer and so on.
After seeing the last child’s hand the Mother stood up to leave. I thrust my palm in front of Her too. She held my hand and suddenly became very serious. Without saying a word, She dropped my hand and left the class.
I was also not one to leave Her at that. I followed her to Her room in the Playground and asked Her that why did She not comment anything after seeing my palm.
She quietly went and sat on her divan and took my hand in Hers and started to study my palm again. I knelt before Her with my hand outstretched. She then went into a trance for a few minutes. When She opened Her eyes She explained to me that my line of fate and destiny was straight and strong but my life-line was very short, I therefore needed to aspire for a longer life so as to be able to fulfill my strong destiny. There was a gap between my life-line and the destiny-line and the destiny-line was going only partly over my life-line. She told me that the life-line had to join the line of destiny and I would have to aspire for it strongly. She also explained that for people on the spiritual path it was much easier to change their destiny if they sincerely aspired towards the change.
Since I was only fifteen years old then, I started folding and pressing my thumb on to the palm and placing my palm under my head every night before sleeping.
That was my childlike way of aspiring. But of course the Mother worked on me and in due course the lifeline extended to join my line of destiny.
During one of the classes, Mother was probably telling a story to the children. Her chair was always placed in front of the verandah pillar. That day, there were two big fat lizards fighting on the pillar. While Mother was telling the story, suddenly both the lizards fell on Her back. She flinched for a second at the contact and then sat straight calmly while Amiyo Da tried to remove them from her back. It must have taken fifteen seconds before he succeeded but the Mother remained unruffled and immobile.
The children however got agitated. When the lizards were down on the ground and were running helter and skelter, the children started shouting and screaming and running here and there. It took the lizards a few minutes to move out of the children’s space. Finally when the lizards were out of the way, the children got back to their places and settled down.
All through this, the Mother remained calm and composed. As soon as the children had settled down, She admonished them. She asked them why they were afraid of these tiny creatures who would do no harm to them. She explained at length to them why it was necessary to have equanimity and self -control in all circumstances.
It may be interesting to note here that there was a lizard on the first floor of the ashram in the Mother’s room. Every day when the Mother would have her dinner late at night, this lizard would come to the Mother and feed out of Her hand. I don’t know how long this lasted.
There were two very special incidents that happened during these years which I want to share. Although this did not happen during the Tuesday, Friday or Sunday classes, the incidents involved the Green Group class children, hence are worth mentioning.
In 1951 there was no rain for a long time. One day the Mother announced to the children of our group that they should pray for rain. She gave them a short prayer to learn and also sketched a symbol for rain. This symbol was drawn on the ground. The children then marched around the symbol with Usha in the lead twelve times, repeating the prayer:
The Rain prayer written by the Mother
Rain, Rain, Rain, we want the Rain
Rain, Rain, Rain, we ask for Rain
Rain, Rain, Rain, we need the Rain
Rain, Rain, Rain, we pray for Rain
The very next day, we had heavy showers with blessings from above.
Each year for the birthday of Pranab Da, Director of the Ashram Physical Education Department, we the captains and group members secretly prepared an informal demonstration of physical culture which would be put up before the Mother on the 18th of October every year. The Mother took a keen interest in this particular programme.
In 1958, we had very early monsoon rains which poured down heavily and unexpectedly for several days before the 18th of October, soaking the Playground completely. On the morning of the 17th October, two of us captains, Mona and I, went to the Mother and informed Her that unless the sun came out on the 18th of October, the ground would be too wet to hold the demonstration.
The Mother went into a trance for a while, then taking a paper and pen She wrote down a prayer for the Sun:
The prayer for the Sun written by the Mother
*O Sun! Our friend.
Dispel the clouds
Absorb the rain
We want Thy rays
We want Thy light
O Sun! Our friend.*
The Mother then asked us, the captains and other interested Group members, to be at the Playground at 5 o’clock next morning, stand facing the east and repeat the prayer 36 times.
According to the Mother’s instructions, we assembled at the Playground at the appointed hour. We stood facing the east and shivering in the heavy rain, recited the prayer 36 times; the rain, however, continued to pour.
Miraculously an hour later, the rain stopped and the sky began to clear up and the Sun shone bright for the rest of the day. That evening our Physical Demonstration went off brilliantly but the rain returned with a vengeance within minutes of our demonstration being completed.
To Tara,
These star—like flowers, so that her life may be governed by a true greatness of soul to enable her to face her responsibilities with a noble and generous heart.
In peace and joy, light and love.
5 July 1961
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