WHEN NEHRU MET SHAW The history of our times is full of memorable meetings between the Modern East and the Modern West, Perhaps the meeting that took place in May 1949 was the most imaginatively significant — not only because two outstanding representatives met but also because of what the one gave to the other. Both the meeting and the gift were eminently in the fitness of things. Immediately after achieving what seemed like "squaring the circle" — the reconciliation of the concept of India the sovereign independent Republic with the concept of the British Commonwealth of Nations — Jawaharlal Nehru could not have acted more appropriately than by meeting that

TWO INDEPENDENT REMEMBRANCES     (These remembrances are independent not only in .the sense that both record individual impressions that arose spontaneously on the two occasions mentioned but also in the sense that neither author saw the writing of the other before putting down his own vision.)     1     SEHRA — LAST VIEW (25.4.1980)     by Ravindra Khanna   I entered the room a little trepidant — expecting to see a face with all the mental agonies and physical afflictions engraved on it. But a most marvellous sight met my gaze. Such beauty of a blissful calm enveloped it that its ripples could be felt all ov

THE PAST RELIGIONS, THE OLD YOGAS AND SRI AUROBINDO'S IDEAL     1   Time and again the question has cropped up: Can Sri Aurobindo's ideal be realised by means of the past religions and the old Yogas? An answer in the negative, insisting on the newness of the ideal and the consequent need of a new spiritual praxis, is usually given. But a very positive criticism is couched in the following terms which call for our notice by the striking quotations they incorporate from Sri Aurobindo himself and the sweeping conclusions drawn on the strength of them: "Many people are of the opinion that for the Supramental Yoga we requ

THE FIRST AMERICANS IN THE SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM     RECOLLECTIONS OF THEM AND NOTES ON SOME PERSONAL TOPICS RELATED TO AMERICA     1   The first American name to fly about in the Ashram's air was one that significantly had a plural ring: McPheeters. It was two Americans who jointly started the flow of the New World to the Newer World which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had begun to build in the Old. They were husband and wife: Vaun and Janet McPheeters. They were here already before I stepped into Pondicherry on December 16, 1927. The Mother had given them the upper floor of a two-s

A DREAM AND AN ATTEMPT AT ITS READING     "I had a dream some days back. I am in a shop to buy an umbrella. I ask for the colours. I pick up an emer- ald-green umbrella from those set before me. It is very fine but somehow has marks of birds' droppings on it! Still, I decide to take it. Then suddenly I am by the Pondicherry sea. Many Ashramites are there. Some are sitting on rocks in the water. All of them are children — except Lalubhai. I ask why all are there and am told that the Mother is coming and it is best to be in or near the water. I wonder why then people are not in th

PUNCTUATING OUR WORLD-VIEW     AN EXERCISE WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME     What punctuation-mark could better express our state of mind face to face with the modern world and its enigmatic as well as ominous movement from day to day than the sign of interrogation? Some might be stirred to use the exclamation-sign because every day an unpleasant surprise is in store for us making us sit up straight and evoking from our hearts a desperate "Oh!" Others might vote for the colon: they would do so on the following ground: each sunrise reveals more glaringly the import of unpleasantness suggested by the previous sunset. Stil

-034_Her Changing Eyes (Poem).htm HER CHANGING EYES Brims there a fathomless blue? Then love's deep surge has made her ocean-souled! Shed they a fiery hue? Then truth has lit her mind to pure sun-gold! Are they like purple wine? O she is drunk with the Ineffable! Outbeams a dark dew-shine? With pity of your gloom her lustres fill. ] But when that varied glance Is fading to a quiet none can see Behind snow-lids of trance, She's waking in you all eternity!     20.9.33 Page-166

A DREAM-VISION OF THE MOTHER       Outside Sri Aurobindo's room I was waiting for the Mother to come from the room in the eastern wing where she used to stand and receive people in the course of every morning. Some people were in that room. The Mother entered it, spoke with them and then turned and saw me. Smiling, she put both her arms forward as if to draw me towards her. I went and held her hands and told her "Mother, I am depressed because I've to see you only in my dreams — and that also not every night." She then took me near Sri Aurobindo's room and said a little angrily: "Why can't you open your eyes and see me whenever you want t

A POET IN THE MAKING   A LYRIC WITH SRI AUROBINDO'S CORRECTIONS  AND COMMENTS     In the early days of my stay in the Ashram, I wrote as follows to Sri Aurobindo about a poem by my sister Minnie, now Mrs. NF. Canteenwalla, who was eighteen years old at the time and had come with my mother and brother on a visit: "My sister has off and on been writing poetry. Here is her most recent effort, the first poem she has written in Pondicherry. In a few places I have made some corrections. Substantially the poem stands as she wrote it. Perhaps my most important change was to substitute 'phantom' for 'seductive' in stanza 5. Will you kindly

    THE SUN AND THE RAINBOW   THE SUN AND THE RAINBOW     APPROACHES TO LIFE THROUGH SRI AUROBINDO'S LIGHT Essays, Letters, Poems, Short Stories AMAL KIRAN (K.D. SETHNA)     Clear Ray Trust Puducherry - 605 012, India First Published: 1981 Second Edition: June 2008 (Typeset in 10.5/13 Palatino)       Price: Rs. 150/- ISBN: 978-81-87916-08-6       © Clear Ray Trust Published by Clear Ray Trust, Puducherry - 605 012 Printed at: All India Pres