LIGHT

AND

LAUGHTER

Some Talks at Pondicherry

AMAL KIRAN

AND

NIRODBARAN

Second revised Edition

February 1974

All rights reserved by the

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust,

Pondicherry-605002, India

Published, Filmset, and Printed by

All India Press,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry-605002, India.

      PUBLISHERS' NOTE

      The first edition of this book in May 1972 under the title Some Talks at Pondicherry proved a best-seller. It was so popular that it had soon to be translated into several Indian languages. The original English version was exhausted in a very short time. There has been a persistent demand for a re-issue.

      While the first edition was brought out by a follower of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who resided in Jaipur, the second comes from the Ashram itself with a new caption suggested by Amal Kiran. We are reproducing in it the introduction to the first — "A Few Words" by K.L. Gambhir — which provides in brief the background information needed by the reader as well as testifies to the happy spontaneous enthusiasm these Talks can evoke.

      The second edition has been revised in a few places by both Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran. Besides making minor corrections the former has added some necessary matter to his sixth talk. He has emended in the interests of exactitude his account of a relative's dream of the Mother and has given a further statement by the Mother which had slipped his memory at the time he had reported an interview with her.

      We are sure that Light and Laughter will receive a warm welcome not only in India but abroad for the sense it often gives of a deep sea sparkling with the noon-day sun.

      A FEW WORDS

      Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) and Nirodbaran (Dr.) are two veteran Sadhaks of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. They joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry more than four decades ago. They are associated intimately with the Ashram's activities and have had the privilege of close contact with their Gurus, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. During the years 1970 and 1971, they gave a few talks at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry. These talks appeared in Mother India, a monthly magazine published by the Ashram. They are nine in number and are replete with reminiscences told in their authors' inimitable ways, with abundant splashes of wit and humour of the highest order. Being a subscriber of Mother India, I enjoyed them all immensely and read and re-read them, every time deriving fresh light and delight.

      Some most abstruse aspects of the Integral Yoga have been explained by them in an astonishingly simple manner enabling even a novice like me in this subject to understand them to some extent. The essence of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother has been brought out in these talks in a homely and charming way. If Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are Modern Avatars and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram a Modern Ashram, then these two Sadhaks can surely qualify as Modern Yogis!

      I was seized by an urge to compile and publish their talks in the form of a book so that my friends and others interested could also read them and share my feelings of uplift and exhilaration. Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran have kindly allowed me to fulfil my urge. The result is in your hands. To derive benefit from the same is now left to the readers.

      The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, publishers of Mother India, has given its permission for the present publication.

      The Mother has been graciously pleased to bless it.

      My son, Kamal, readily accepted to see it through his press with a sense of dedication.

      K. L. G.