Narad: Good Morning, today is the 11th day of January 2016 and we are most fortunate to have with us Madhusudan Patel. Madhusudan, namaskar and welcome.

Madhusudan: Thank you 

Narad: How did you first hear about the Mother and were your mother and father connected somehow?

Madhusudan: My mother and father were connected. The way I heard about the Mother was definitely before I was born, and perhaps that was the reason, what the Mother once told me I came. So my father had 11 children he was one of the wealthy Indians from Dar e Salaam Tanzania where he had properties and businesses and I was born in Dar e Salaam, Tanzania in 1938 on the 10th of March 1938 so I am almost 78 years old now. 

Narad: Yeah your four months older than me, my elder brother.

Madhusudan: I wish I had as much wisdom as you

Narad: Not at all. I am sure you have so much to share with us.

Madhusudan: And he brought his whole family when the world war the Second World War started, to India. And he settled, first he brought his family to Gujarat in Baroda. So I still remember as a child a little bit of Baroda, I was only a very small child. Then I do not remember exactly the age that he brought the whole family here, I was remember it was with the train at that time there were no panes and all that. From Baroda to Pondicherry and that's when I met the Mother. Now I can't remember which it was but I was very very small but that's where the romance started or that's where the awakening came. But I had feeling ever since I was born I knew what my mission was. And Mother told me that, I asked her if that is something wrong with me that I always felt or is it pretentious or something and she says "no my son" and she was laughing and she say "no my son, you know who you are, not now you will not understand and you know why you are here and you have your mission and don't worry you will understand everything with time" which made me always very impatient as a child that she would not explain me things straight away. I was a very impatient child, very impatient and I was also very rebellious child. But that's when I first experienced what are the pains of love, when two people love each other and they are separated. And I had tremendous suffering as a child when we went back to Baroda.

Narad: Oh, leaving the ashram you mean.

Madhusudan: Yes, and we were not living in the ashram we had come to visit the Mother and so.

Narad: And leaving the Mother's presence

Madhusudan: Yes

Narad: I see 

Madhusudan: And I was so sick I could not eat, I didn't want nothing I just wanted to come back. I was a little boy a little child. The only thing I ate was bread and cream, milk cream. When they boil milk there is cream on top. My Mother would take that. And I just wanted to come back here. And then fortunately my father decided that he wanted to bring his whole family here and the Mother told him too. He supported the ashram economically because he was a very wealthy man. So this is what I was told not by him, but by ashramites.

Narad: And this was in the 40's I take it 

Madhusudan: Yes, it must have been in the 40's for sure. As a matter of fact I can remember the war was on if I am not mistaken even when we were here. So it must have been, because he left Dar e Salaam when the war began and as a matter of fact the ship that brought the family to Bombay or wherever it landed. On its way back was bombarded and it sank.

Narad: Really, you were a baby then.

Madhusudan: Absolutely, I was a baby

Narad: A little baby

Madhusudan: Yes, but I can still remember certain scenes of the ship, remembering my brother playing the accordion and singing. They were brought up here too. And, we came back and for me I was in paradise and everything was fine because I used to see Mother. But I was a very impulsive child, a very impatient child even to a great degree a very violent child. In the sense that I just could take injustices. This is perhaps one of the reasons I don't agree with India and I don't like to come here because I see the injustices of the wealthy to the poor. And the poor to the animals or others. And it's a question of justice it's nothing to do with humanity it’s just a feeling of truth. And as a child you don't have the wisdom to know what's right or wrong and so on and you are impulsive and so if I thought that the other child was wrong or was unjust to another then I’d intervene and if I got angry I became physically violent I hit as child. And they would go complaining to the Mother and say to Mother look Madhusudan did this to our little son or daughter and the  Mother would call me and I start crying with rage saying why are you calling me, he deserved it and that's why I hit him. I use to rub my eyes as a child crying and she says "don't rub your eyes you'll destroy your beautiful eyes", you know. She says “don’t do that" She'll say "don't rub your eyes you'll destroy your beautiful eyes, don't cry". I said " but Mother that's not fair" and she says "look my child when you get angry or something wrong, come to me, don't hit, tell me" I said " I can't help it Mother I just can't help my hands go flying" so she told me " I have a secret a very nice idea, what you do is every time you get angry put your two hands in your pocket" and in those days you wore shorts with very big pockets those British shorts that went up to you knee, made in the ashram. "So put your two hands in your pocket leave them there and as long as they are there they can't hit, when you are calm then taken your hands out." The next week, sure again, somebody complains Mother calls me and she says, "did you put your hands in your pockets" I said "yes Mother,  but after I hit him" she said "no my child, non monfilsilfaut faire avant" any way  she was very patient she was Divine but this patience was not there in my father he could not accept my rebellious nature, he had lot of problems with me because if he told me to do something and I did not understand, I asked him "why must I do that” and one day it was very serious because a teacher has complained about me, she had written letter to my father, she was English, complaining about my behavior in school  because I was a gang leader all the children my friends everybody followed me so whenever there was problem Mother knew who was at the head of it, so she always called me. And she wrote this letter to my father complaining and so my father was very angry he told me something and I said "but why" he says "because I am telling you to do so" but I said" why are you telling me to do so explain me why" he said" because I am your father" and I as a child I remember I told him I was only five or six I said "but that's not my fault that you are my father" and he got so angry he wanted to hit me with a chair it was a cane chair, with cane you know. But my father was never violent he never hit his children he was a wonderful person, I never matter of fact, I never saw him yell at anybody excepting me. So my mother stopped him, my biological mother, and she sent that letter through Ravindra-ji, if you have heard about him?

Narad: Oh yes, I knew Ravindra

Madhusudan: And to the Mother. so Mother called my parents me and Ravindra-ji and I remember she was holding me so you can imagine how small I was that my head she was holding against her lower abdomen and I can still remember. Whenever she touched me whenever I put my head on her laps or on her abdomen or on her feet I had no prayers I had no thoughts, you are in seventh heaven. This is truly the definition of heaven. "The mind from thought released, the heart from grief, Nirvana", Sri Aurobindo I think has said that. You know all is abolished but the mute alone. "The mind from thought released, the heart from grief" So I was in, it is like universal existence, you have become one with the Brahman. This was the Divine thing about the Mother. You won't believe Alexis I wish you had been there. Because children like you deserve to have had her touch, her caress. Any way I am sorry that I talk about this during the interview. 

Narad: No, no, no 

Madhusudan: But this is where it began, the more intimate contact with the Mother where she said to my parents and I can still remember very clearly "that they don't know who I am and how to educate me" so she says "from now on he is no more your son, he is my son and she told me, you don't you take your things" and told Ravindra-ji to give me a bed in the newly opened boarding, in the playground there was a boarding, the first boarding school of the ashram. And so Ravindra-ji gave me a bed there and she said "take your things" and so my parents started crying and saying "let him come at least once a day home for meals" so she said to me "okay you go for lunch home with your bicycle, but if your father scolds you or you don't get along take the bicycle, go back to the boarding". So, I don't know how often my father threw me out of the house because I used to argue with him. But really it was not fighting, it was argument the desire to understand communicate and to make him understand what I personally felt because I don't think so I was ever injust and I don't have hatred I have never hated I had temper, anger. So I had asked the Mother why I, and so then I am used to, Mother said "for everything you come to me, no matter what you don't go to your parents and you come and sit. "So every day I used to go to her in the morning she gave me a gold pen which I still have and I have to do something with it give it to somebody or what.

Narad: Do you remember the year now? Get close to it. Would it be around late 40’s?

Madhusudan: Definitely late 40's or early 50's. I guess I don't know. Time is eternal, there is no beginning, there is no end to it and perhaps also irrelevant to me I think. Anyway she had given me a gold pen and she used to put a rose everyday there and she used to give me for health because I was very thin and she said " my son you should eat fresh tomatoes"  so she use to give me two fresh tomatoes everyday she'd given me a little bag, very special in which to put it so I used bring that and I used to bring, she'd given me a small basket which was very very beautifully made with cotton inside and she put a fresh egg in it. Everyday a fresh egg and she said "you eat a fresh everyday". And I used to see her two three times a day. I used to go whenever there was something, in the evening at the playground in the morning I would bring flowers to her she would give me flowers. And then I used, whenever I had question, she before going to play tennis she would hold audience with all the managers of the various departments of the ashram for administrative work. So there was Udar, Ravindra-ji, Nolini-da, Amrita-da all these important people were there who had certain responsibilities in the ashram all sitting in front of her. I used to go to Sri Aurobindo's room, not because I was spiritual I never was very spiritual in the sense that devotion and all that but I loved the peace and the beauty of the paintings there on the, there is an almirah with a painting on it, hand painted. So I used to marvel and his bed and I used to sit there and just, I was just there happy and then I would go away to play and if there was anything that Mother wanted from me because I had done something wrong, she'd see me passing through the corridor and say "fiston" she would do this with her finger "fiston" and whenever she said "fiston" come her I knew there was trouble. But I have never seen Mother angry, never, I can't remember Mother without a smile. I really can't.

Narad: Do you remember anything of any darshan with Sri Aurobindo. 

Madhusudan: Oh yes, absolutely.

Narad: Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Madhusudan: But let me finish this, this is very important, because this is very interesting, these are things 

Narad: When you might be in trouble because she is calling you

Madhusudan: Ya, and so I knew and she would ask me "don't you have something to confess" and I would always say "which one" and she would laugh you know, because she knew that there we so many things I didn't do that were right. Because I was always the gang leader so there anything wrong she would. So later I’ll tell you an episode about, did you know Medhananda who was the librarian?

Narad: Yes I did

Madhusudan: And he used to live on the top of the 

Narad: My daughter went to school with he and Ivon and equals one

Madhusudan: Oh, this is interesting. So I’ll tell you stories about the troubles I made and Mother caught me and asked me for confession and what she gave me as advice, you'd be surprised. So she would see me, she would call me and ask me correct things as they were and one example is perhaps, talking of Medhananda is that. During the music evenings, Saturday night there was music in the library. 

Narad: In the library yes,

Madhusudan: The Indian music and on Sunday night it was the western, European music which I enjoyed much more than the Indian music. So the Indian music we didn't like so I used to go in the back with all my friends all the little boys. And one day we decided we are going to steal some coconuts and drink them. So Subodh climbed up a tree, coconut tree, brought down a few coconuts, we had our coconut knives, so we went on the terrace of Medhananda which, on top of the toilets which are there in the library, I don't know if they are still the same. And there are stairs that go up and there is a terrace there and we, it was dark, and we ate the coconuts and we threw all the fibers and everything in the back alley. It is just behind the library. At that time it was not a road, it was just an alley. And in the commotion somebody knocked over a matka, it is a water pot in earth what we use here for keeping cool water and they put it in the sun now and then to dry it in the sun for disinfecting it and so on. And he had it drying there and somebody knocked it over and it fell and it broke. So next morning when he came, he went to the terrace and he saw this, he said. "My god, some kids have been here” and he saw some fibers, he looks in the back and he saw all the coconuts. So he knew. So he told the Mother and Mother who was behind it, so she called me and asked me to confess and I said "which" and says " for instance last night" I say "yes Mother" so she says "look son, all those coconuts, all these fruits are for you but for all the children so all you had to do was come to me and ask and I would have given it to you" I said "Mother but it’s more fun when you steal it" she said "yeah but it’s not fair, because it has to be distributed also to others" I said "yes Mother, okay I will not do so" and she said "you know my son you made one mistake and what was it? Is that you threw the evidence, you did not get rid of the evidence, in the back alley. Had you taken care of the evidence nobody would have found out" I said "okay next time I'll take care”; she says "no, no no, next time you don't do it come to me I'll give you". This is just to say how humorous Mother was, how tolerant she was, but how fair she was too. And whenever, I had questions I would go and ask. And there again to show you how tolerant she was. I would talk to her for hours and she has to work. This was told to me by Ravindra-ji shortly before, a few years before he passed away. He says "Madhusudan do you remember that you used to go to Sri Aurobindo's room and now and then you would come to ask questions to the Mother, while she was working with us for very important administrative work?" I said, "Yes". He says "you know I'll tell you something that you don't know? I said "what?" he says "one day I was there so long talking to her and all that, that they all got very annoyed because the work was not getting done, so when I left one of them said to the Mother. Mother what is this? This child needs to be told that you have important work here that you have to do and he comes and takes all your time and the work doesn't get done. And he said Mother looked at all of them and said "This little boy is more important than all of you, all the work that you have here"  Saying that she got up and she says "now let's go and play tennis" and then she went off for tennis. I had taken so much time that she didn't get time to finish her work so she got up and she said, now let's go play tennis. When Ravindra-ji told me this I had tears rolling down my eyes because of regret, saying "my god I took so much of her time".  But you can see why I am so dedicated to her. This is again the sense of justice, that if she has done so much for me then I cannot betray her and I never will. And I’d rather not be on this earth then betray the mission she asked me to do. So I work, I am seventy eight almost. I work seven days a week. I still counsel. I come from the medical field. I am a psycho-neuro Endocrinal immunologist and I work and help people and that's why asked Maurice to send you something I have written about the holistic approach, the integral approach in medicine. And it is in that particular document that he sent you by email.  And I cannot and I will stop doing my work because that is the only reason she brought me and she told me "my child every time I have come and I needed you I have brought you and you know what your mission is. And I used to ask her very often you know "why"  and she says you'll understand and there were questions asked about meditation and so on and she would laugh and she would say "don't worry". We used to meditate in the ashram playground after the sport activities. They would switch of the light, Mother would sit by the, there is

Narad: The map of India, yes. 

Madhusudan: She would sit on her chair we would all be sitting on the ground, and they would switch off the lights and out on the music, everybody would meditate and within five or ten seconds I would open my eyes because I found it very boring and so I would look at the stars because I loved the stars and in those days the sky was clean, there was no pollution so you could see every single star. And I use to admire the stars and I use to watch people observe their expression their faces while they are meditating. So I felt guilty, so one of those sessions that while she is working I went to her and I said "I have a confession" and she says "what my child" and she started smiling as if she knew what it is. And I said "Mother, every evening when everybody meditates and you meditate I don't". So she says smiling and she says “no, what do you do?" I said “well, I look at the stars and I look at all the people around me" and she says "that's fine she says my child, you just continue doing that as long as you don't you disturb anybody, that's wonderful". I was surprised I thought she would say that's not good and all that you know! So then I said to her "can I ask you a question now" she said "yes". "Why is it that when al these people are meditating, I see in their faces that they are all suffering? they are meditating but they all look as if they are all suffering" And she started laughing and she said to me "my child, magnifiquemonfilstresbien, regarde observe tu vas comprendretu le sais"  and I was again frustrated because she says "be patient my child you will understand you know what it is, you will understand why and what you are seeing, one day" and again I said "but I want to know now" she said "child, have patience, soi patient"  and today I know. And it is something very interesting that she told me later and that's what helped me do my work, because when people meditate, people go to, the same thing I feel when I see people in the Samadhi, I see everybody coming there with their problems and their prayers and asking Mother for something. I am amazed she didn't escape earlier!! Because everybody has something to ask from her the humanity. And she told me "that yes, you have the capacity to see things that the biological eyes do not have, the capacity, and so you can see through" and it has helped me in my work with my patients for diagnosis and prognostic. And it's a privilege to be able to have all these little things and she said “you were born with it, you have it". And she said “you know this because you are a born occultist, you have it in you and I have, develop all this and you will understand all this more. And talking about Mother's books and Sri Aurobindo's and this again as I said please don't take my example, and you can stone me because you think this is blasphemy but it is not. I have not read a single book of Mother and Sri Aurobindo not because they don't interest me, well perhaps they don't me interest me because somehow I feel, and this is not pretentious, but the Mother said this also. I don't read any of these books, I have not read them because I just have my own reasons but, that was again another confession because every birthday a few days before she would say "my child don't forget to make a list of all the books you want written by me and Sri Aurobindo" so by the way if you want those books I will give it to you because they are all signed but "blessings to Madhusudan" and they are there somehow I have to give it somewhere. And so one day felt guilty and I said to Mother "Mother, I have a confession” and she said laughing again, "Mother I have not read a single book that you have given me in the past, so this year I won' the make a list and after I have read all the books, then I’ll start making the list" and she laughed and she said "no my child, don't worry, you don't need to, you make your list you don't need to read them" and "tu le sais"  she says "and you know why" she says " don't worry don't read, you still make your list because perhaps now and then you might want to look something up" and it's true today now and then I do look up a few things when I am writing because I write. And but not spiritual stuff, that's not my specialty, you great yogis that you write spiritual things. I write more in my field of work, oh yes, I have a book in Italian on laws and principles of spirituality for self fulfillment but that has nothing to do with teaching spirituality I am only explaining as Mother had explained to me. What the various laws are, what's the law of Karma? What is Dharma? What is the difference between Karma, Dharma, and Destiny. That fourteen chapters in Italian so uninteresting for the Ashramites and is you read Mother and Sri Aurobindo you know everything. So you don't have to read my book. And you can see how unfanatical, the only person in this universe I know who is not by any means fanatical was the Mother. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are two people and you read their books, and I sure you people have read that you don't see fanaticism, he explains, Sri Aurobindo explains. From the little that I have referred to now and then I find it is so wonderful this tolerance, this understanding of various culture, religion people that Sri Aurobindo explains which I don't see in my own brothers and sisters in the ashram and so and in India. When I see the inequalities, when I see, when I hear and that's why I don't, I have never bought a newspaper. Mother told me don't even care to buy a newspaper I have never bought a newspaper in my life I am seventy eight and I have never bought a newspaper. I am not interested in reading past news because everything is already passed nothing can be changed. And most of the time it is nothing interesting but, when I see the injustices that women get beaten, children get killed because they are female, they don't accept them. I have difficulty in accepting India the way it is. Mother and Sri Aurobindo were great they could you people are wonderful that you have decided to live in India. I love India but I love Mother India. India as a Mother for humanity and I love the soul and spirit of India and the Indians don't make India, India should make Indians and we should be children of Indian, I feel. And so I am child of India, I am an Indian but I don't accept the way things are in India, the injustices, suffering that is there, the dirt, the noise. And your question as to my experience with Sri Aurobindo a darshan. I would, everybody would just go they would put there was this big container box in wood made in the ashram by Udar. On one side you put the money envelope and money and on the other side you put all the flowers and everything I don't know how it is now when you go. But now there is no darshan as that time. And Mother and Sri Aurobindo would be sitting in there and we would pass by and you put the flowers and you put the money, or you don't put anything and you do your Namaste and people moved on and I could not move on. I stood there until he gave me a smile believe it or not and this was no hallucination, I know and I had asked Mother "is it wrong that I stop and wait for him to smile" and she says "no my child it's your right". Now if I tell this to my colleagues in the ashram they say "no, no" at that time you know. So that was my experience with Sri Aurobindo and there was this unity between us that has grown over the years. And I am truly the least ashramite, person that I am. is you ask my colleagues and they'll say "oh Madhusudan" because I left so early and I was not a devotee and I don't do all these rituals and all that although I believe and understand and I explain in my book on spirituality what rituals mean because I specialize in the field Mother told me, "travail avec les energies quetu as en toi et dans le cosmos".  "Work with the energies that are within you and in the cosmos and with the Divine energies" She says. And you can help patients and you can help people. When I use to hit she told me "don't hit my child, you are hands are not made for hurting they are meant for healing" and I "what do you mean healing” she would not explain it me and she had a reason she says "my child just do that, don't use them for violence use them for healing". Healing, a child what does he understand of healing? Now I know what it is. When I touch you I, not only give you, not only, let my soul and my entire being flow through you, but I also am in union with the being that you are and therefore I can also feel and understand where these difficulties can be you know! But this comes and Mother told me, I have spoken to her when I used to come and I had not even finished my studies and so, because when I went initially I went to Germany because I was very close to Dada who was in charge of the physical education department and I loved and adored him and I still love and adore. Dada means elder brother, and for some reason or other I said "ok I’ll go and study physical education" and then Mother said yes, it's good that you go to Germany. Not to the United States, not to France, not to England go to Germany because you will profit from the discipline the German discipline. And I am a very disciple man, German friends tell me you are more German than us, you are more disciplined than Germans. But I say I am not rigid like the Germans. No offense, this was only a joke, the Germans are not rigid, they are people who are rigid all over the world but no nation as such can be said as rigid and so on. But, Mother said, "si, part monfils" and my eldest brother and they were not at all en accord, they were not, they did not agree.

Narad: They were in the ashram? In the school?

Madhusudan: Yes, yes they had all gone to ashram school and so on. And then at the age of 21 in 1961 it was 61 and I decided to go, but it was with talking with the Mother, Mother said "yeah, my child " and due because a professor had come from Cologne, university of Cologne department of physical education, Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln it's a very famous sports school in the world and he had come here for one or two or three months to train our Ashram boys and girls. So he inspired me and he said you come and I was a captain a group captain here, at that time green shorts. And that's what motivated me and Mother said, "yes my child, the time is come you must go" and she says "In Germany the disciple will do you good". So I went and believe it or not, I was very thin very weak and you say I am not a very muscular person. I am a graduate of the Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln it's a very famous school. And I wanted to come in, so when I came on vacation I used to train, but then when I finished and so on my rapport with Dada had broken for various reasons but nothing bad it was just as good Mother said "my child you have a mission which is not only for the ashram it is for the world, so you have to continue your studies because you are not finished, this is just the first part". So I never practiced the profession of a Diplome of physical education professor. And I wanted to do it for the ashram and since they did not want me or was not needed because they had their own program or whatever it was but it’s not important, it’s nothing negative that the way things are in life. Then I decided to go in the field of medicine and I specialized in neurology and in psycho-neuro Endocrinal immunology which is beyond neurology because you can either specialize in cardiology or you can specialize almost in any particular field of medicine but somehow it did not interest me, enthrall me so much. At first I was interested in cardiology but then I heard about the field of neurology I found it much more interesting because I deals with mind the brain and so I specialized in neurology and then I had the possibility to study psycho-neuro Endocrinal immunology which is a combination of the psychology but emotions, human emotions and endocrinology is human emotions, neurology is the brain and the nervous system. Endocrinology is the science of hormones and immunology is the science of the defensive system in the body, the immune system of the body which is the essential system for maintaining human health and all these four are intimately related. And for heaven’s sake read what Maurice sent to you because you will understand something more because it is important it is interestingit’s also good for your own personal health and that is the first area in medicine that brings science closer to Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga. 

Narad: Let's take a couple of minutes break and we'll pick up again.