Publishers' Note In this collection of essays only two were originally written in English ("The World War" and "The Situation of To-day"), the others are translations. The reminiscences of Nolini Kanta Gupta and those of Suresh Chandra Chak-ravarty were written in Bengali and those of Amrita (Old Long Since) in Tamil. All these essays, both in the original and in translation, were at the outset published in journals and some subsequently in book-form. The collection here is presented for the first time in book-form ; it may possess, we hope, more than an antiquarian interest. HOME

XIV ETERNAL YOUTH This is about the time when you, the young, the children had not arrived here. The few of us who were here had grown up, many had become aged, even old, that is to say, had passed the middle age. I often wondered, well, we were here, had been growing up and becoming old, what would be the nature of this institution long after, 20 or 30 years after? Would it not be the home of a band of old men, of monastic sannyasis, an immobile structure without growth or evolution? However wise or accomplished we might be inwardly, even remain young or green in consciousness, however far might our vision stretch towards the unseen future, yet externally,

II THE SITUATION OF TODAY 11-2-1965 It is not of today, nor of yesterday, but also of the day before yesterday and the day before and the day before. The story is as old as human consciousness itself. Whether it will be the same tomorrow remains to be seen. It is the fate of all spiritual endeavour to raise in its wake a contrary movement that declares and demands its negation. The Buddha says: surrounded as we are by enemies, let us not be inimical to them. The Christ, as we all know, when being led with a crown of thorns on his head and the cross on his back, heaved a sigh and prayed to the Lord to pardon all those who did not know wh

MURARIPUKUR — (1) At last I made up my mind finally to take the plunge, that I must now join the Manicktolla Gardens in Muraripukur. That meant goodbye to College, goodbye to the ordinary life. A little while ago, Prafulla Chakravarti had come and joined. Both of us belonged to Rungpore, both were of nearly the same age, and intimate friends. This too pushed me to my decision. I had already taken a vow about a year ago, in front of a picture of Kali at a secret ceremony at dead of night, a vow written out in blood drawn from the chest, that I should dedicate my life to the whole-hearted service of the Motherland. With me there was a companion, and also a local

X I BOW TO THE MOTHER Those of you who came to the Ashram as children recognised the Mother and called her by that name practically from your birth, that is, from the moment you began to recognise things. We the grown-ups did not have that privilege. It has taken us a long long time to open our eyes and know. We have lost valuable time, almost wasted it. But, as you know, it is never too late to mend and it is possible to recover and even to make amends for lost time; there lies an interesting secret. But as I was saying, you did not have to be told about the Mother, for you have almost been born and brought up in her lap. In our case somebody had t

IX TWO GREAT WARS We have been through two great World Wars in the course of our life in Pondicherry. This was quite an experience. The two Wars were identical in their inner nature and import. From our point of view, they were both of them a battle of the gods and the titans. On one side were the instruments of the gods, on the other of the titans. It is a curious thing, if not altogether strange, that Germany and, to some extent, Russia should have sided with the titans and England and France and America fought on the side of the gods. This is something that happens always in the history of man, this battle of the gods and the titans. Whenever there is a

XII SOVIET GYMNASTS (1) As you know, sometime back—quite a few years now—we had a group of Soviet Gymnasts in our midst. And what a pleasant, perfect performance they gave! Their hammer-and-sickle floating against the wind, the first time they stepped in unison on our sports ground, marching to the tune of the Russian national anthem, surely you must be still remembering that beautiful spectacle. Some of their tricks and techniques we have bodily taken over. A good many of you received training at the hands of these experts. They have been heavily filmed and photographed in action and these pictures you must have seen more than once. I draw you

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OLD LONG SINCE OLD LONG SINCE (1) 1905-1910 In our village and all around, four names of four great personages were being continually talked of. It was the time when Independence, Foreign Rule, Slavery were the cries that used to fill the sky. And the four great names that reached our ears in this connection were Tilak, Bipinchandra Pal, Lajpatrai (Lal-Bal-Pal) and Aurobindo. Of these only one name caught my heart and soul. Just to hear the name—Aurobindo—was enough. All the four persons were pioneers in the service of the country, great leaders of the front rank. Why then did one

XIII MY ATHLETICS There is in the Upanishad a description of the stage in man's life when he becomes so old and decrepit that he cannot walk except on a stick, tvam jīrno dandena vaācasi. At precisely that stage in our life, we in the Ashram received a call to plunge into the activities of our Playground. I was then perhaps the oldest among the inmates, and had long passed the fifty-year limit once set by the ancients for repairing to the forest, pañcāsordhe vanam vrajet; I was in fact in my early sixties. For at least twenty years previous to that, we had been taking it rather easy and were doing very little physical work or exercise. That had been what might b