... Pondicherry. Thus, from the very beginning, there was no question of the Ashram School mechanically adopting the norms of the outside schools. It was not a question of doing a little better what was being done elsewhere. "What we want," the Mother said, "is precisely to bring into the world something which is not there." The Ashram School developed a character of its own, and between 1943 and 1950 it grew... choice of teachers, in the organisation of studies, sports and community life, the School remembered its close Ashram affiliations - it was not merely a School located in the Ashram, it was the Ashram School - and the Mother was the effective Head of the School and Ashram both. Almost the first development after Sri Aurobindo's passing was the summoning of the Sri Aurobindo Memorial Convention... their personality or influence, their Yogic direction - should give creative unity to the University and the Ashram. Since there was already the nucleus of a University Centre in the Ashram School, which in the course of seven or eight years had gathered a band of dedicated teachers and gained valuable experience in dealing with Ashram children in an Ashram atmosphere, the Mother lost no ...
... put forth by people, namely, the small class size at the Ashram school (on an average, 15 students in one class), the low pupil-teacher ratio, the absence of a rigid curriculum and no examinations. It is true that all these features do contribute greatly to the practice of Integral Education, but if you question the teachers at the Ashram school, even they would say that they are quite far from achieving... review two educational experiments, aiming at an integral way of self-perfection: the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, and The Gnostic Centre, New Delhi. The Ashram school (SAICE) has taken up the integral training of mind, life and body. This is apparent in the way the student life is organised and the manner in which subject teaching is carried out. A daily programme... the student, it aims at integrating all that is of value in times ancient and modern, in various cultures and traditions - eastern as well as western. The living proof of this may be found in the Ashram school where the Ashramite teachers are fluent equally in Sanskrit and French (besides other languages such as Bengali, Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati, English) - in fact, every student studies both French and ...
... devoted much time to and showed great interest in this engaging and charismatic woman. Sunanda is the author of books and plays of fairy tales for children, and was a teacher in Auroville and the Ashram school. She worked with her husband, the late Balkrishna Poddar, at SABDA in the Ashram and in East Africa. Sunanda is a clairvoyant and pranic energy healer working with crystals and since 1989 she has... time…the General (Government) Hospital. So, Mother went to Nirodbaran and asked him to teach me medicine! The Mother told him to do this and he did it. Then she said that I was to go to the main Ashram school as well. Nirodbaran gave me a huge, monstrous book to read on anatomy (this was all such a humorous thing). He said, “Here, you read this” and I did it because Mother said to do it! I sat on the... gold. The Mother has all the subtle pastel colors. Can you share the story of your meeting with, marriage to and work with Balkrishna Poddar? I was around twenty and teaching English in the Ashram school in the mornings. I asked the Mother for some additional work for the afternoons after school. Simultaneously, Balkrishna had asked the Mother for a helper at SABDA. The Mother gave this work to ...
... with the inner one. There could no longer be a division of tasks – she had to bear the whole burden in the physical world. ‘Sometimes one life is charged with earth’s destiny.’ 8 The Ashram School and its Education Life must be faced as a whole, with all the ugliness, falsehood and cruelty it still contains, but care must be taken to discover in ourselves the source of all goodness... capable when it is well developed.’ 29 The development of the mind and the acquisition of knowledge is, of course, what is generally seen as the aim of study. In the curriculum of the Ashram school all the usual academic subjects were found – mathematics and science (for which Pavitra built a well-equipped laboratory) as well as what are called the ‘humanities’: modern languages and Sanskrit... becoming conscious of the psychic being – Sri Aurobindo’s ‘psychic individual or soul individuality’ in the text quoted above – was the cardinal aim of the education as worked out by the Mother in the Ashram school. Becoming a consciously incarnated soul (one is always an unconsciously incarnated one) is the meaning of human evolution, collectively and individually; it is also a realizable possibility at the ...
... belonged to the ideal of all teachers in the Ashram school, for they had chosen to dedicate their life in this Ashram to the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. But all of them had been inculcated with the prejudices of their own defective education, which in most cases were the prejudices of the obsolete Indian educational system. This is why the Ashram school had to provide a training at least as much... born against the past that seeks to endure, so that the new things may manifest and we may be ready to receive them. 3 (Prayer written by the Mother and printed in the notebooks of the Ashram school) The children had to be kept busy and educated, and therefore the Mother founded a school. This was of course no school like the other schools in India, where even today subdued children sit... ministry,’ 5 said the Mother. And Sri Aurobindo wrote: ‘The greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence.’ 6 This, quite briefly, was the spirit in which the Mother founded the Ashram school and made it prosper. ‘What is important here is that the principle of the education is a principle of liberty,’ 7 she said to the students themselves. ‘The progress you will make because you ...
... Mother, and started residing in the Ashram. For the education of these very young children the Mother established a school in the Ashram with the name Page 105 of "Sri Aurobindo Ashram School". Of course, there was no question of giving any "Certificates" to these tiny tots. As these children grew up in age and some of them decided to go away from the Ashram to lead an ordinary... indeed devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother but they lived the life of householders elsewhere in other parts of India. They had sent their children to the Ashram, only to be educated in the Ashram School, and there the matter ended. A number of these parents wanted to withdraw their children to their own places after their schooling was over; and most of these children too thought in the same way... securing a good job in a Government Department or even in the Private Sector, a good degree was considered essential. But according to the norm of SAICE, these students who were educated in the Ashram School could not have any degrees or certificates. In the job market outside they were considered ineligible. It could be said that their parents felt that their Ashram-educated children were Page ...
... India”, in the Ashram school. The Mother had taken a keen interest in the play and had given her directions for the smallest details. She was talking to the organizers and said, “And what shall we do next year?” That play had not yet taken place and the Mother was already planning ahead. This power of the Shakti was truly impressive to me. When did you begin classes in the Ashram school? What was your... October of that year I left boarding school and stayed with my Mother’s family for a time. Afterwards, I went to London to live with Norman Dowsett’s family. [Norman Dowsett was a teacher in the Ashram school for many years.] My father had made an acquaintance with Norman Dowsett who was, at that time, in the Royal Air Force. I lived with them for four months and went to school in London. Later, I travelled... prepare for the darshan within oneself to receive the blessing. Mother said, “Preparation in oneself is what makes darshan so special.” What did you do after you finished your courses in the Ashram school? I had asked Mother if I should take my higher courses in England. She wrote back: “I intended to let you go for your studies in England without telling you anything about it, because each ...
... Sri Aurobindo’s feet and stared up at him with a transfixed expression. Mother said, “That is the one Gauri should keep.” Mother named it “Beau”. Did you have other children to play with? The Ashram school had not been established when you were of school age. Where did you go to school and what was it like for you? When my father was sent to New Delhi by Sri Aurobindo in 1941 (from March to October)... me to be a genius and pushed me too hard. It killed my creativity. She did not have bad will, she just did not know how to handle small children. In fact, she later became a good teacher in the Ashram school when it started on December 2, 1943. When the school opened I was in a classroom with other children and it was so good to finally be with other children. The Mother, herself, would often read stories... Wealth of the world and Supramental Knowledge. Frankincense — Purification of the vital. Myrrh — Immortalization of the body] Gauri, who were your teachers in the upper grades in the Ashram school? What are your memories of those days and what can you explain of the Free Progress System? Sunil-da was my botany teacher and he was absolutely wonderful. He was so innovative and imaginative ...
... College in Bombay, he was an excellent football player, botanist and mathematician who taught in the Ashram school and he loved music. From 1945 he began composing musical pieces as accompaniments to dance performances. Eventually music became a means to his sadhana and he gave up teaching in the Ashram school after many years to devote himself full time to composing. From 1965 he was entrusted by the Mother... knew from within that he was the Absolute in human form. There was no talking, no words, only the offering of garlands to him. I know that you performed in many of Sri Aurobindo’s plays in the Ashram school and theatre. I saw you in many performances. How did this expression begin for you? By the time I was eight years old in 1947 I loved to recite. The Mother said, “I will teach you some lines... I gradually moved on to teaching Sri Aurobindo’s works. Savitri , Life Divine and Mother’s Entretiens . Tell me about what teaching is like for you in Knowledge, the higher course of the Ashram School. As a teacher in Knowledge, we are somewhat at the mercy of the students. They are free to learn whatever they want and that is what we must teach. It is a form of the Free Progress system. ...
... The reader may notice that the majority of passages in this book have been drawn from the works of the Mother because her works consist mostly of the talks she gave to the young folk of the Ashram school to whom she taught in practical terms the preliminary work of inner growth just mentioned above. Self-understanding is the first step. As the Mother remarks: "First learn to know yourself... self-understanding so as to be able to distinguish the different inner movements of their many selves without having first learnt to label them mentally. As the Mother once said to the children of the Ashram school: "... if nobody has ever taught you what the psychic or the vital is, you cannot have any notion of the thing. You may say, 'Today I feel good, yesterday I did not.' Till I was twenty-four ...
... His other kinsmen included General J.N. Chowdury, an ex-Chief of the Indian Army and Pramatha Chowdury, the famous writer. After joining the Ashram he taught Physics and General Science in the Ashram school as well as looking after a paddy field acquired by him for the Ashram. The tiger and leopard skins in Sri Aurobindo’s room were from Kalyan’s or his father’s collections. 2 . Surendranath... of America. She arranged for the publication of Sri Aurobindo’s books in America and Canada. 38 . Sunil Bhattacharya (1920-1988), came to the Ashram in the 1940’s and taught at the Ashram school. A good instrumentalist, he played the sitar remarkably well and had the charge of the Ashram Orchestra. 39 . Indira Devi. 40 . Roxy – a cinema-cum-Theatre Hall of Calcutta ...
... Aurobindo. It is safe to say that at the time no one knew that All India Radio was broadcasting what may be called Sri Aurobindo’s testament. Overman – the Transitional Being Meanwhile, the Ashram school and its Department of Physical Education had grown to such an extent that the Mother wanted to bring out a quarterly magazine, the Bulletin of Physical Education, the first issue of which was... in front.’ 30 For the rest of his life André became a regular visitor, dividing his time between France and Pondicherry. After Pavitra’s passing, he would even become de facto head of the Ashram School. Savitri He has crammed the whole universe into a single book. 31 – The Mother Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri consists of nearly 24,000 lines – 712 printed pages in ...
... Krishna", 549; significance of withdrawal, 549-50, 586; The Synthesis of Yoga, 550ff; on Yoga Siddhi, 567ff; the Ashram, 571ff, 580; coming of the disciples, 576ff; coming of the children, 581; Ashram School, 581; on sports in the Ashram, 581-2; on physical education and the Body Divine, 582; as Witness Spirit, 582; "minute-to-minute miracles", 587; on daman and pranam, 592ff; effect of darsan on... 757; Supramental descent, 757, 759; the Grace of her giving, 758; on the Ashram's growth, 759; message to Sri Aurobindo Centres, 760; message to Delhi Branch of Ashram, 760; on the aim of the Ashram School, 762; message to Sri Aurobindo Memorial Convention, 762; about the University Centre, 764ff; letter to Jauhar, 764; message to children, 766; on Supramental Education, 767; 90th birthday, 770; her ...
... occult divine action from the Ashram trying to counteract at crucial moments the ferocity of the Nazi onslaught in the European theatres of war; the coming of the children and the opening of the Ashram School; the publication of "The Symbol Dawn", the key-opening and announcement of Savitri; the hardly perceived descent of the Ananda power of the Mother - A deep of compassion, a hushed sanctuary... into the Future. Hence the paramount stress she laid on Education and Yoga. At first her field of experimentation was confined to the Ashram and the sadhaks, but when the children came, and the Ashram School duly became the Centre of Education, she embarked upon a bolder experiment. She advocated the four austerities (tapasyas) of the body, vital, mind and psyche leading to the four liberations (siddhis) ...
... Living in The Presence My Education Starts At The Ashram School In 1952, on 16 th December, the new session of the school began. Following the Mother's wishes, I joined the regular school but did not do all the subjects like the other students. My subjects of study were French, English, philosophy and a few of Sri Aurobindo's works. Nirod-da and Ravindra Khanna... few lines from Savitri every night. Tehmi-ben used to explain very beautifully the meaning of these lines after I joined her class. I started enjoying Savitri . And this is how my life at the Ashram school began. Page-41 ...
... families to the safety of the Ashram - and away from areas more directly exposed to the dangers and exigencies of the war. In course of time, this meant (as we saw earlier) the starting of an Ashram School for the children. Beginning with about 20 pupils on 2 December 1943, the enrolment steadily increased and a hostel had to Page 717 be established. The Ashram ideal of integral... education meant physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual education in harmonious flowering, but physical education was still the base or stem of the whole, and therefore from the outset the Ashram School gave special importance to sports, games and athletics. During his visit to the Ashram to hand over the national Prize in person to Sri Aurobindo, Dr. C.R. Reddy witnessed an exhibition of games... ancient spirit of strength and joy that pervades them. The Mother, the embodiment of grace, light and tenderness, ordered an exhibition of games and physical exercises by the boys and girls of the Ashram School. I said to myself, 'If all the schools were like this, won't India be unassailable by internal foes or external?' The parades were excellent. The exercises were gone through, not merely efficiently ...
... capacity to look at things from above. For the classes in the school she was not keen on the students learning Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. Much later it was Tanmaya [a French-Swiss teacher in the Ashram school for many years] who wanted to educate the children in a different way. Instead of having classes following the teacher, the teachers would follow the students. This was the beginning of the Free... Progress. One needs to have a willing and keen mind to acquire knowledge. One must be willing to work hard. When did you take up dance study formally? After finishing my education in the Ashram school I began formal dance study. My father saw that I was restless and fidgety. One day he said, “Uday Shankar [brother of the famed Sitarist, Ravi Shankar] is dancing in Madras.” He sent me to see the ...
... that when the Mother founded, in 1943, the University Centre, which afterwards would become the International Centre of Education, she had a much different, broader conception of it than what the Ashram School has turned out to be. M.P. Pandit remembers: ‘She said in sum: students from different countries, with their different civilizations and traditions, should be given opportunities to stay in independent... symbol.’ 44 Whatever the accuracy with which M.P. Pandit noted down the Mother’s sayings, it is clear that the ideas behind them resemble more closely the features of Auroville than of the Ashram school. Shortly after the Second World War the idea of the Ideal City seems to have come knocking again. This time it would have been near ‘the Lake,’ actually a big pond about ten kilometres to the ...
... A Centenary Tribute A Clear Ray of Sri Aurobindo I KNEW hardly anything about Amal Kiran in those days - in 1958. I had just joined the Ashram School and I was slowly getting into the rhythm of Ashram life. One such important rhythm was the Balcony Darshan. My room-mate and I used to wake up in the nick of time, brush our teeth quickly... can blow my own trumpet." (Some Talks at Pondicherry) Page 36 During my personal meetings he hardly ever bragged or blew his own trumpet! It was during his talks in the Ashram School, in 1970 and 1971, that we heard his melodious trumpeting. He hid himself constantly behind wit, humour, comic incidents, and laughing at himself, but, as peeps the sun from behind the radiant clouds ...
... be totally overcome—and then things will be clear and simple for you... if not for everybody. With love and blessings. 3 September 1967 ( The disciple wrote to the Mother about an Ashram school circular on the subject of homework. ) This has come up after receiving many letters from both parents and children complaining that because of homework the children go to bed late and are very... s , 23 October 1937 . × The Corner House kitchen (and dining hall), for the students of the Ashram school. × Against "special beings" the Mother wrote: "Not to my knowledge!" ...
... over his head, penury writ large on his emaciated figure. As we were talking he said: "Sir, you asked me to study but my father has no money for my studies. Why don't you enrol me in your Ashram school?" So I told him: "Let me see what I can do for you. I'll let you know." Page 61 On my return to the Ashram I asked Vishwanath-da: "What can I advise him?" Vishwanath-da... named him 'Prashant'. He used to wash bananas in the Dining-Room. Once Vishwajit asked him: "You're a graduate from Oxford washing bananas in the Dining-Room, why don't you teach at the Ashram school?" He said: "Well, it's far better work washing bananas than teaching." One day it was raining lightly. Prashant entered the Ashram his head covered with a folded English newspaper. ...
... On The Mother CHAPTER 34 Manifold Ministry I When the Mother found that the Ashram School was growing sinews of strength and its Department of Physical Education was serving school-children and sadhaks alike, she blessed the formation of the Sports Association of Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Jeunesse Sportive de l'Ashram de Sri Aurobindo), and she launched... agreeably mingle in this humanistic pot pourri; and the result is an utterly wholesome meal for children, young and old alike. The Mother's concern is obvious enough: How are the children of the Ashram School (and children generally) to be helped to hold in check (and to throw out altogether) their wrong impulses and perverse propensities, and also, how are they to be coaxed into bringing to the fore ...
... order to give a wider scope and meaning to the training given there. The Bulletin of Physical Education was likewise renamed the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. The Ashram School, established on 2 December 1943, had grown into the University on 6 January 1952, and was now the International Centre with 363 pupils and 160 teachers, most of them sadhaks. 3 Kireet Joshi, who... staged Page 679 with imagination doubled with industry the Mother's vision of "The City of Gold". 11 Likewise, towards the end of the year, at the time of the 16th anniversary of the Ashram School (now the Centre of Education), the children presented scenes from Sri Aurobindo's Ilion and received general acclamation. V The Mother's message for 1960 had a diamond-edged simplicity ...
... vast life around it." (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga , SABCL, Vol. 20, p. 172 ) × The Ashram School was originally named Sri Aurobindo International University Centre; later the name was changed to Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. ...
... objects to be attained must belong to what we have called the lower end of the being. Originally they have been introduced for the physical education and bodily development of the children of the Ashram School and these are too young for a strictly spiritual aim or practice to enter into their activities and it is not certain that any great number of them will enter the spiritual life when they are of ...
... and I could withdraw without disappointment. His humour is well known.... I have heard (it was before my time, of course) about how, when he was giving his talks on poetry in the Ashram school, the whole building was shaken by gales of laughter from his audience, so that other teachers 1. Missed in the Index. - Editors Page 393 complained of ...
... Pantulu with his wife and three younger children came over for good to Pondicherry in 1944. They went back to Guntur in 1945 for a few days and on their return trip I too was brought over. The Ashram school had just opened. There were a few departments like Dining Room, Building Service, Sanitary Service, Harpagon, Garden Service. I don’t know if Pantulu worked in any of these. In 1945 our Printing ...
... wheelchair; very high above my own chair. He appeared so stately and in command that this gave me the impression of sitting before a ruling monarch of empyrean stature. In fact he told me that when the Ashram school staged “Perseus the Deliverer”, one of Sri Aurobindo’s plays, he had played the role of King Cepheus. One day he went to the Mother in his costume. When she saw him she said, “Udar, I know where ...
... vital, also refers to this: “He was a-sexual, by which I mean that he was neither female nor male.” And those familiar with her work in the Ashram will no doubt remember how, in the youth of the Ashram School, she worked to create a mentality surpassing the common sexual attitudes in order to prepare them for the transition to an asexual species. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were one being, one ...
... family and we have been working together throughout the centuries for the victory of the Divine and his manifestation on the earth.’ 14 Deeply moving were her words to that wide-eyed youth of the Ashram school on one of the evenings she was supposedly teaching them French under the starry tropical sky: ‘There are great families of beings who work for the same cause, who have met each other in greater ...
... individualistic and rebellious nature. ‘[I was] a good rebellious Westerner and all ways of changing the world looked a priori excellent to me,’ he writes. 8 He was at times teaching in the Ashram school, and with his remarkable literary talent he looked after the French copy for the Bulletin of the Department of Physical Education which, in fact, was the Mother’s publication. This periodical ...
... in this physical universe, with the responsibility on her shoulders of making the impossible possible. The talks she gave at the Playground were actually French classes for the students of the Ashram School; interested adult Ashramites were allowed too. But she talked from the very beginning about all possible topics under the sun. Those talks as a whole form an impressive teaching in their own right ...
... apparent in works like John Horgan’s widely commented upon The End of Science (1996)? From 1950 till 1958, the Mother gave twice a week French evening classes to the youth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School, which had been founded by her during the Second World War. There the children could ask her any question that popped up in their head, and the Mother answered, drawing on her erudition, experience ...
... stride is taken that crosses the barrier. We see already that advance in its obscure beginnings.” 27 [written ca. 1920] Yes, there may be interesting times ahead. In 1958, a student of the Ashram school asked the Mother: “Mother, can physical science by its progress open to occultism?” The Mother answered: “It does not call it ‘occultism’, that is all. It’s only a matter of words. They are making ...
... e of the Mother’s words and of the contents of The Supramental Manifestation . The Mother gave her Entretiens in French, for those talks were actually French classes for the students of the Ashram School. What Sri Aurobindo had called “a new humanity,” the Mother called surhomme which literally means “overman,” not “superman,” and which is the being corresponding to the surmental , the “overmind ...
... religion.’ 25 It is also a key concept in the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. ‘In reply to a question (concerning Akhenaton) I had put her,’ recalls Tanmaya, a French teacher at the Ashram school, ‘Mother let it clearly be understood that she had been Queen Tiy, the mother of Akhenaton … She specified that Akhenaton’s revolution was intended to reveal to the people of that time the unity ...
... you should keep an unshakable faith. Of all things this is the most important.’ 4 Manoj Dasgupta, then one of the young pupils, now a trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and head of the Ashram School, asked: ‘Will it be a difficult year for the Ashram or also for India and the whole world?’ The Mother replied: ‘Generally – [for] the world, India, the Ashram and individuals. For everyone according ...
... × Pournaprema, Une drôle de petite fille , p. 5. This booklet is the record of a talk given by the Mother’s granddaughter to children of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School. × The first name of Mira Pinto is spelled with one r, while the first name of Mirra Alfassa has ...
... so that she would put her special Force and Light during the programme. On Friday, 25.2.72 Kireet Joshi, who is now the Chairman of the Auroville Foundation and was then the Registrar of the Ashram school, came to my house in the morning and asked me to pray to the Mother to give eight blessing packets for all those participating in showing the slides at 8.30 p.m. in the evening. He was in charge ...
... collaborated in the function by bringing soil from their own places and placing it in the urn. Soil from Sri Aurobindo's Samadhi was also brought and placed in the urn by young people from the Ashram school, also the soil of Auroville. After the ceremony Nolini Kanta Gupta, Secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, sealed the urn, after putting in a copy of the Auroville Charter written by the Mother ...
... up work, first on he construction of Golconde (an Ashram residential quarters) as a carpentry supervisor and then in the Granary and Dining Room. In 1945 he became a teacher in the newly-opened Ashram school and presently works in the Reception Service. The disciple started writing to the Mother at the age of fifteen. When I sleep at noon I am not conscious; if there is any noise I don't hear ...
... Undated (March) 1962 ( At the beginning of this conversation Mother has Pavitra called in to discuss certain letters and controversies concerning a teacher at the Ashram School. ) You know how children get together and play court or school or army... you know how serious they can be, don't you? (Pavitra:) Yes, Mother. And if someone makes a mistake, how he's ...
... path will become tremendously easier." (Questions and Answers 1954, Cent. Ed., p. 445) We recall in this connection the luminous words the Mother once addressed to the students of the Ashram School in course of one of her evening class talks of 1954. The gist of what she said is as follows: If you can enter into the depths of things, eliminate all your ego-sense, and surrender yourself ...
... Sisir Kumar Mitra was a professor of Bengali from Shantiniketan, who had left and joined the Ashram. He was a history professor by training and wrote several books. He was the headmaster of the Ashram School. 111 Apple, in French. Page 76 cannot compare any beautiful face with the beauty of the moon." We cannot say like Yeats, "The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of ...
... amongst us. The office-work is almost over. In fifteen minutes the office will close. This is usually the time for a little chat or for a discussion of some specific question. We can hear the Ashram School bell ringing. It marks the end of the morning classes. A little later a 12-year old boy walks into the office laughing heartily. Dada, laughing, asks him: "What's the matter? You look very happy ...
... a nascent stage into banyan trees spreading their branches far and wide, and are inspiring countries with a new vision. The two major activities that she took up during this period were the Ashram School and Physical Education which together form the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. Both of them, like the others, were born from tiny chromosomes and out of a compelling necessity, ...
... gave Terrace Darshan in the evening, and a great Peace descended upon the concourse below. She gave another Darshan on 24 November, the Siddhi Day, and a week later, the 21st anniversary of the Ashram School was celebrated on 1st, 2nd and 3rd December. The presentation of "The Hour of God" on the first day in recitation, music and dance was a memorable event. Its inspired text had been taped as the ...
... disciple 'affirming most strongly' that it was 'Mother's war' 'against the threatened reign of the Asura, the forces of Darkness represented by the Axis Powres. December 2: The Ashram School started. The threat of war coming closer over India, a number of disciples with their families wanted to be under Mother's direct protection. Mother allowed certain relaxations ...
... the Ashram. As these began to get expanded, my brothers and I were quickly roped in, and very soon he left the day-to-day running of the affairs in our hands. My two younger sisters taught at the Ashram School, and during a number of years I was his personal secretary. Among other things, his office was responsible for the correspondence of Sri Aurobindo and Mother with the overseas disciples. Then ...
... by Dada with that depth of voice acquires such a lot of feeling and meaning... Another visitor turned up with his little daughter. He has been trying to get his daughter admitted into the Ashram school for a few years but to no avail. Page 75 'If she gets admitted, it is the Mother's blessings. If she doesn't get admitted, then too know it to be the Mother's blessings,' Dada ...
... boldness of ideas and chivalry in action. It was that France which commanded the respect and admiration of all.... This is what the children of today must be made to know. 9 And in the Ashram School and in the University Centre, French has always been given an important place in the scheme of studies alongside of English, Sanskrit and the modern Indian languages. The Mother also contributed ...
... matters will get upset. There will be all-round bewilderment at first. But, as a result of the cyclone, the wall will break down and the true light break in. 1 From the very inception of the Ashram School in December 1943, and during the two decades following, the Mother refused to make any sharp distinction between study and relaxation. All study was to be undertaken without external pressure; in ...
... to achieve your purpose; you will profit fully by your stay in the Ashram and eventually become living examples for the world. 28 This was to become the manifesto - the prospectus - of the Ashram School. The great aim of the Ashram's educational endeavour was verily to advance the evolutionary movement, to manifest the new Consciousness, and to usher in the New Race. It was not surprising that ...
... Playground audiences, and she was content. II The proposed International University Centre was visualised from the very beginning as an extension, a heightening and a deepening, of the Ashram School itself; an organic growth, in fact, and the soul's progressive self-finding in the fullness of time. The athletics and sports of July-August were followed by the eighth anniversary of the School ...
... old benefited from them. On 21 December 1950, the Mother spoke to the children and the rest, as if sounding the keynote of the Talks, and at the same time underlining the distinctive mark of the Ashram School: Naturally, I speak to those who sincerely want to become conscious of their true truth and to express it in their life.... And 1 tell the teachers that they must teach more and more in ...
... The Mother's Music Sunil Bhattacharya joined the Ashram in 1942. He was proficient in music and particularly in playing the sitar. He composed music for the annual cultural programmes of the Ashram school held on the 1st December every year. In 1959, the Mother asked Sunil to orchestrate Her New Year Music. In 1965, She entrusted him with both the composition and the orchestration of the New Year ...
... evening. Subramania Bharati was a daily visitor. Most of the local people were before my time. However, I did meet one gentleman, Mr. Mouttayen. In the '40s he taught French to the top graders of the Ashram School, which included my two younger sisters. He was a stickler for good manners, was Mouttayen. Well, at any rate, he had the privilege of witnessing Sri Aurobindo walk in Shankar Chetty's compound. ...
... 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 ...
... objects to be attained must belong to what we have called the lower end of the being. Originally they have been introduced for the physical education and bodily development of the children of the Ashram School, and these are too young Page 525 for a strictly spiritual aim or practice to enter into their activities and it is not certain that any great number of them will enter the spiritual ...
... Pondicherry Pondicherry, 1945 — Pranabda came here a couple of months ahead of Birenda, i.e. in May 1945 and took up the just nascent Physical Education (Ashram School). He invited Birenda to come and help him in this work. Birenda came, looked, and liked what he saw. Awhile he wavered. Common and worldly sense urging him to go back to family, friends, business ...
... were exempted from attending classes) during those 3-4 days of harvesting. It is not that we bunked classes. Tinkori-da continued his old profession of teaching grammar and English here in the Ashram School. He also worked in the Granary and I think in the Dining Room too. We met, back in 1947 or 1948 as teacher and student across the classroom. He was one of the very rare persons who saw poetry in ...
... is in sharp contrast to the 'feeble brightness self-consumed in joy like the brief passions of earth', suggesting a glorious picture of supramental transformation. As students in the Ashram School, there were many ways • we learnt to relate to poets like Amal Kiran. From the time Tehmi-ben, our peerless professor of English, introduced us to "A.E." by reading out his "Babylon" to us, this ...
... Aurobindo International Centre of Education. She said that Sri Aurobindo was in our midst and with all the power of his creative genius was initiating this further growth of what had so far been the Ashram school. A whole program of Higher Courses was started, of a five-year duration, in subjects such as philosophy, integral psychology, math, literature. Highly qualified professors in these subjects were ...
... Mother Notes on the Texts Series Six—Debou . Debkumar Bhattacharya, known as Debou, joined the Ashram in 1943. After completing his studies in the Ashram school in 1951, he became a teacher there. Later, in the mid 1960s, he became a homeopath and practised for many years. Debou’s correspondence has been prepared from his manuscripts. Almost all the ...
... hinders the action of the divine forces. That is why disaster was very close although no human government consciously wanted it.” 977 In one of the Mother’s recorded talks to the children of the Ashram school, she said in 1951: “Hitler communicated with a being which he considered to be the Supreme. This being came and gave him advice, it told him everything he had to do. Hitler used to retire into solitude ...
... there in the cosmos – in a world which after all is fully and totally Brahman? To explain how the hostile forces had come about, the Mother told a story to the children of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School, insisting that it was no more than a parable to clarify realities which transcend human understanding. 2 The Supreme Being is sat-chit-ananda 3 , in other words Existence-Consciousness-Bliss ...
... Aurobindo, no human can grow into the Godhead. “Courage, energy and strength are among the very first principles of the divine nature in action.” And the Mother had the following prayer printed in the Ashram School notebooks: “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 ...
... of the school; there was Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, who would become the head of the Department of Physical Education and a very close assistant of the Mother. 93 We will see more about the Ashram school in a later chapter. Looking from a distance at how the Ashram developed, one might say it grew like a beautiful tree: at first planted, watered and protected with great care (the early years); ...
... ‘normal’ work. ‘My Blessings are Dangerous’ In the meantime she was still the head of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram with its thirteen hundred members and with the seven hundred students of the Ashram school, now including a kindergarten, sections of elementary and secondary education, and the first two years of higher studies (equivalent to the level of B.A. and B.Sc.). This alone was a task which ...
... to try this, then you can stay here.” I threw myself at his feet, and that was that.’ This is how Pavitra recounted how he had reached the destination of his pilgrimage to the children of the Ashram school forty years later, when already for many years he had been one of the closest collaborators of the Mother and the head of the very same school. And he concluded: ‘There was not yet an ashram then ...
... make you famous!’ And famous Henri Matisse became: he was the first and perhaps most refined painter of a new school called Fauvism. 19 Later, talking to the youth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School, the Mother would often look back on her years among the Parisian artists. She would explain the role of photography in the sudden transition from the mediocre art productions of the Second Empire ...
... unseen voice declaiming great poetry from behind the banana trees. At that time, Amal Kiran, as Sri Aurobindo named him, — it means ‘The Clear Ray' - was lecturing on Poetry at the Ashram School, the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. The substance of his talks was appearing in the monthly Ashram magazine Mother India of which he was, and is, the editor. As an Englishman ...
... Laughter , p. 60) Amal Kiran is full of wit and humour. In one of his talks to the students and teachers of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry - in short, of the Ashram School, - he said: Let me whisper into your ears at the top of my voice an unbelievable secret. It is this: twice in Savitri, which is a legend and a symbol, Sri Aurobindo has referred to the ...
... threw myself at his feet, and that was that.’ Sri Aurobindo would call him Pavitra, ‘the Pure,’ and he would become the totally dedicated secretary of the Mother and afterwards the Head of the Ashram School. Of his first meeting with the Mother he especially remembered her eyes, ‘her eyes of light.’ Cats An animal creature wonderfully human, A charm and miracle of fur-footed Brahman, ...
... considered the example of ‘the worker,’ of the model practitioner of the karmayoga as an aspect of the Integral Yoga. In February 1988 Dyuman had a conversation with a group of students of the Ashram school in front of his room, located in the central Ashram building a few steps away from the Samadhi. He talked to the youngsters about the history of the buildings they saw around them, about the cats ...
... across her bosom, said: Splendid! You see, nobody here in the Ashram has seriously and strictly taken up oil painting in a systematic and professional way. You are the first to do so. In the Ashram school the children paint only with water colours and they are amateurs. Our grown up artists also use water colours and pastel colours. So there you are! After a pause the Mother said: Oil painting ...
... objects to be attained must belong to what we have called the lower end of the being. Originally they have been introduced for the physical education and bodily development of the children of the Ashram School and these are too young for a strictly spiritual aim or practice to enter into their activities.... Yet what can be attained within the human boundaries can be something very considerable and sometimes ...
... and there—a dreadful disarray! Things were being put to uses they weren't made for, yet nothing needed for a particular purpose could be found. The whole section having to do with education [the Ashram School] was in almost total darkness: the lights were out with no way to switch them on, and people were wandering about and coming to me with incoherent, stupid proposals. I tried to find a comer where ...
... February 1956 In Delhi at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram branch they need very badly somebody qualified who could give lectures on Sri Aurobindo's teaching and organise the higher studies in the Ashram School. I am quite convinced that you are the best man to do that work. You have a very clear and deep understanding of Sri Page 203 Aurobindo's writings and at the same time your explanations ...
... intelligent young man, with a very fine handwriting, but of a querulous nature. Only a saint like Pavitrada could get along with him. After Abhay's arrival in 1940 and before the opening of the Ashram school in December 1943, Pavitrada took classes for mathematics and science in French. His students were, Mrityunjay, Vasudha—Chandulal's Page 40 sister, Shanti Doshi, Mangat Rai, Noren ...
... forms, I see Mother's face everywhere—all is the same Thing. It is an illusion to say that in Pondicherry there is more than elsewhere...." In fact, she wants to send her children [studying at the Ashram School] to Switzerland. Page 282 Yes, I know. So I told her, "But are the children happy about it?" "Oh," she said, "there it's all Mother's ideas, it's all the same thing." Then she asked ...
... alumnies as the best way to spread his spiritual message to the whole world. After the passing away of the Master, the Mother formally opened this centre with a few teachers and students of the Ashram school. In course only of a few years, it has grown into unimaginable dimensions and attracted teachers from all parts of India and abroad. And the number of students from the kindergarten stage to higher ...
... quite a long time in the permanent dwelling of Sri Aurobindo which exists in the subtle physical (what Sri Aurobindo used to 152Sisir Kumar Mitra, historian and headmaster of the Ashram school. 153Arindam Basu, eminent professor of philosophy. Page 101 call 'the true physical'). 154 All that happened there (much too long and complicated to be told) was ...
... But it would be interesting to know what happened to the scrotum of the vital being. ( laughter) [65] [4 April 1940] A little known fact: For some time Nishikanto had taught Bengali in the Ashram School; though he was extremely popular among the students for his wit he was never popular for his teaching. Prithwindranath Mukherjee recalls in his memoirs: “When Nishikanto came to teach us Meghnadbad ...
... Principles and Goals of Integral Education XII Two Potent Sources of Dilution More than sixty years have passed since the Mother established the Ashram School with a very high goal in view — the goal of building up a new type of humanity and preparing the children for a glorious future. At first, she herself held the reins. The students and the teachers ...
... profited during all these years that you have been teaching, well, it means you have wasted at least half of your time. Page 89 Q. What about the organisation of studies at the Ashram school ? If the students are given full freedom, as it is supposed you have given them, that is to say, if they are permitted to come to the classes or go away from them as they like or learn or not learn ...
... And if you have not profited during all these years that you have been teaching, well, it means you have wasted at least half of your time. What about the organisation of studies at the Ashram school? If the students are given full freedom, as it is supposed you have given them, that is to say, if they are permitted to come to the classes or go away from them as they like or learn or not learn ...
... Dowsett, was a professor of English here at the Ashram. He has written books of poems and English grammar." Once a director of some educational institution came to see the functioning of our Ashram school. Norman was then very young. We told this gentleman to talk to a little girl to judge how well English was taught here. The girl spoke impressive English. The man was quite astounded. ...
... Polytecbnique, France's most distinguished university. He was an engineer and a chemist but worked in the Ashram as Mother's General Secretary. It was mainly with his help that Mother opened the Ashram School. One day I went to have lunch with Mother. Mother was sitting in a chair in the north-side room on the second-floor. Pavitra-da, who had removed the carpet from the verandah in front of the ...
... it across the finishing line. And this is how he won the race. In this context I remember an incident about Babloo. He was a sort of half-demented whimsical chap. He was studying in the Ashram school but one fine day he disappeared. After quite a long time he wrote to me from Germany. He wrote how in spite of having no money he managed to reach Germany moving from one place to the next ...
... of Sir Stafford Cripps, emissary of the British government, which offered to India selfgovernment after the war and invited her assistance in the war effort. 1943 December 2 The Ashram school started. 1944 February 21 First issue of the Advent, "A Quarterly Dedicated to the Exposition of Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future". 1946 Hymns to the ...
... Pondicherry. There the Ashram had provided a house for him, his wife Leelavati (Mother named her Violette) and his daughter Meera (Mother named her Aster), who was one of the earliest students at the Ashram school. After her studies she married and left Pondicherry to join her husband. Indra Sen was the eldest son in a cultured Punjabi family. His original name was Yudhishthira, his remaining four brothers ...
... Proposals of Sir Stafford Cripps, emissary of the British government, which offered to India self-government after the war and invited her assistance in the war effort. 1943 — December 2 The Ashram school started. 1944 — February 21 First issue of the Advent, "A Quarterly dedicated to the Exposition of Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future". 1946 — Hymns to the Mystic Fire published ...
... Institut de Recherches Evolutives . × 79 Kireet Joshi, who had been the Director of the Ashram school for a long time, was then an advisor to the Government of India for Education and was working with Sir C.P.N. Singh. × ...
... wanted to go back to Pondicherry. Respectful of the Mother's instruction, Dada returned to Pondicherry with Arup and Boudi. From then, on the Mother's instruction, Arup started his studies at the Ashram School. When Arup was eleven, he went to Calcutta for his annual Page 113 school holiday. When he was returning ...
... way probably because I have been unlucky in committees. In the early fifties my young son Nirmal, who had come with me on a visit, chose to stay on at the Ashram. Mother admitted him to the Ashram school, but the boarding houses- there were just a few then- were all full. As the period of my stay at the Ashram was coming to an end, I went to Madhavji a bit concerned about the arrangement for the ...
... strength and joy that pervades them. The Mother, the embodiment of grace, light and tenderness, ordered an exhibition of games and physical exercises by Page 462 the boys and girls of the Ashram School. I said to myself, "If all the schools were like this, won't India be unassailable by internal foes or external?" The parades were excellent. The exercises were gone through not merely efficiently ...
... she taught would one day become teachers in their own right and start the intended and necessary revolution in teaching. When she was once asked, some years later, why the education given in the Ashram School was not very different from what was imparted in the outside schools, and why a true Aurobindonian orientation hadn't been given to the instruction, the Mother said: Yes, my child. And for years ...
... of Nava, the usual contact person of Nandini. Mother said, "She should do the best she can." Once an urgent message came from Tathagata, son of Nandini Satpaty and an ex-student of the Ashram school, just a day prior to the intended visit of Indira Gandhi to Calcutta. He had seen her in a dream being fatally attacked at Calcutta and prayed for Mother's intervention. This message also was taken ...
... the future will be something else entirely. What are the qualities of the future? It would be interesting to find out. She saw things clearly, She saw far into the future. She had founded the Ashram School in 1943 with twenty-five students; nine years later, there were nearly two hundred of them, and She launched the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre. Don't forget, all of you who are ...
... 1938 November 24, Sri Aurobindo fractures his right leg. 1939 Sri Aurobindo revises The Life Divine. September 1, declaration of war. 1943 December 2, beginning of the Ashram School. 1947 August 15, Independence of India. 1949 February 21, beginning of the Bulletin of Physical Education. 1950 November 10, end of Sri Aurobindo’s revision of Savitri. ...
... Learning with the Mother THE EARLY YEARS (1944—1950) 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 ...
... Chapter 2: Education Growing up with the Mother Student Admissions In January 1972, I spoke with the Mother about the admission policy of our Ashram school. Because the subject is very specific, I am putting the conversations here in this section, which deals with general questions about education. The first two conversations were recorded by me in my ...
... 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 ...
... The Bates system is a natural method of eyesight cure involving eye exercises and relaxation of the eyes. It was practised by Dr. Agarwal, who lived in the Ashram and founded the Ashram’s School for Perfect Eyesight. ...
... time to time he returned to Kolkata, but from 1926, when the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was formed, he settled permanently in Pondicherry. For more than sixty years he served as the general secretary of the Ashram. In 1955 he was appointed as a trustee of the newly-formed Ashram Trust. For many years he also taught in the Ashram's school, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. An eminent writer and ...
... Auroville. A very interesting talk: She said She was 157 SABCL,28:3. 158The Bulletin of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education is a quarterly that carries news of the Ashram, the School and other items. Page 108 giving Him all the information about Auroville. So why shouldn't you believe poor Nirod-da having a talk like this? [Reading from Bulletin of SAICE... nearby and they were talking with each other. Page 112 Some of the Ashram sadhaks, inmates, were passing that way, looking at them strangely, in a queer fashion, as if asking: "Who are these people? Where have they come from?" They could not recognise them. They had changed so much that even the Ashram sadhaks, the old ones, could not recognise them at all. Then Mother said, "Look... Tree. 156 As a result, a deep sleep came upon me. Then something happened, after how long I don't remember. I saw an old man, not very prepossessing, but not an ordinary old man that we see in the Ashram or anywhere else. This old man seemed rather unusual. I don't know how, but he did not seem to be an earthly old man: he was quite strong, quite dignified, very simple. He was talking to me, ...
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