17 Your experience of being transported to another time or life seems to be a happy mixture of present and past, the reminiscence of a contact with the Mother in a bygone life mingling with the memories and hopes relating to her Ashram of today. Your red sari in the vision is symbolic of the living expression you are seeking of your inmost heart - that "crimson-throbbing glow" (your fellow-Catholic Coventry Patmore's words) in which dreams of the Ideal bum and beat. Your meeting your brother William in this vision is not surprising, for behind his physical and mental limitations in the present life is his evolving soul which must have grown not only in spite of but also bec

1       You are a very brave and generous woman. Few people would undergo so cheerfully the trouble to which you have been put - and in the thick of it feel concerned about other people's needs. I am proud to have you as my friend - and I am proud also of your life's partner, who is inseparable from you in my thoughts, and who would not be so, either in my thoughts or in real life, if he did not respond in every fibre to the same ideals of courage and generosity.   Courage and generosity - these have been my own guiding stars too, though I cannot say I have succeeded so well in living according to their light. Of course, when I use these words I mean much more than p

8       I am deeply touched by the agony of your whole being at the murder of one who was markedly a devotee of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The bewildered cry that has arisen from your heart and mind repeats a question that has been flung at the heavens century after century - a question all the more acute because we have had a living sense of the light and love with which the Divine has met us again and again.   I have been asked by many from Orissa: "Why has the Mother's Grace not saved this Oriya child of hers? Why was he not protected by her from those dacoits?" No perfect answer has ever been given to such perplexities. So you can't expect me to outshine the g

12 AN OLD CORRESPONDENCE ON SRI AUROBINDO BETWEEN K.M. MUNSHI AND K.D. SETHNA       Hamilton Villa, Nepean Sea Road, Bombay 7-9-51   Dear Mr. Munshi,   Thanks for sending me your speech on Sri Aurobindo. It is a good tribute, with genuine feeling and admiration behind it, and has some memorable phrases.   In one or two places there seems to have been a little hurry and therefore some carelessness. What you say about his poetry is perfectly true and well put, but by some mistake the quotations you have made are not from Sri Aurobindo's work but from mine! I feel very flattered by the unconscious compliment you have paid me.   I can't

29       As a certain theme has once again come up for discussion after a lapse of more than a dozen years and there is a degree of uncertainty in people's minds I am sending you a copy of a letter I wrote at the earlier time to a friend. Here it is, dated 7.3.1982:   You have declared yourself in full accord with the statement that the Ashram was for the Mother a mere scaffolding for bringing about the Supramental Manifestation of 29 February 1956 and that therefore it is now useless, especially as it has a fair number of faults like any non-Yogic institution.   I believe there are several reasons why the statement cannot be accepted.   (1)Sri Aurobind

22       Sri Aurobindo has said: "Where other Yogas end, my Yoga begins." Will you please tell me briefly what this statement means?   This has not been said with any sense of depreciating other Yogas but simply as a matter of fact pointing out the difference of aims. The aim of the other Yogas is, in one way or another, liberation - the freeing of one's self from the workings of physical, vital, mental nature. No doubt, a degree of purification of one's nature was considered essential but no radical change of it was demanded. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga seeks to go beyond liberation and achieve what he terms transformation. For this he calls, on the one hand, upon what he d

30       Evidently I have survived the celebration of my debut as a nonagenarian on 25 November 1994!"It was a bit of a hectic time, what with a large gathering in the spacious Dining Room of the Park Guest House and a wheelchaired Me being - as old-fashioned reporters would have put it - the cynosure of all eyes. My friends Nirodbaran and Deshpande had arranged the celebration. Nirod was asked to make an introductory speech and I had to follow up with one which might have gone on and on if I hadn't remembered that people might be waiting for nice things to fill their mouths as soon as I stopped wagging mine. There was a lot of cordiality and appreciation and I am

32       As to Christianity and your antipathy to it in general, I would advise you not to subject Jesus to any mud-slinging. You may criticise the historical religion which takes his name, and criticise its pretensions, persecutions and political manoeuvres. But you are mistaken in thinking that it started with a backing of force. St. Paul, whose epistles are our earliest Christian documents, was not the initiator of any "jihad". The backing of force came only with the arrival of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to be converted. Till then the Christians were at the wrong end of the stick, though the Roman persecution has been considerably exaggerated. This persecution

23       Apropos of the topic of people doing pranams to sadhaks and receiving their blessings, a number of points have been raised for consideration. The most significant of them is: "A sadhak may not desire pranams, but if somebody on his own wants to do them, the sadhak does not interfere: he allows them. There is no desire or wish involved. Is there anything here to find fault with?"   The situation presented in the question is not quite as simple as it looks. The person who allows pranams on the terms mentioned may be perfectly honest and unassuming and have a genuine consideration for the psychological needs of those who want to do pranams to him. But what may

36       Did I misquote Hopkins when I recalled his line on Oxford as Towery city and branchy between towers?   You have written "leafy between towers". I thought of "leafy" but somehow could not feel it to be as apt, visually no less than rhythmically, as "branchy". The largeness, the grandeur evoked by "towery" fails to get support enough from the former. Something soft and sweet and huddled together comes in, where the requirement is of something strong that springs out at the same time that it makes a crowd. I wish you or I could check the phrase.   Your picture of the new skyline of Oxford horrifies me. Not that I am wedded to the past in all i