The Touch of the Grace
He who would bring the heavens here,
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way.
SRI AUROBINDO
1
The Touch of Grace in the Thick of Life
Heaven's touch fulfils but cancels not our earth
—Savitri
With the establishment of the Ashram in 1926, a message of hope spread throughout India and abroad that a lighthouse has been erected at Pondicherry to guide the spiritual seekers, to help them to their destination—to realize the Divine, and in addition something new and unprecedented, to help divinize the human consciousness by a special Yoga of self-perfection, a stream of spiritual seekers from all sides, especially from Gujarat and Bengal, began to flow towards the beacon light of the Ashram, for guidance and help in their strivings to break the bondage of animal-human nature and to find a way to change the present ignorant, self-centred, imperfect human life into a higher life. But in those days, as the general masses were quite ignorant about the new ideal and teachings of Sri Aurobindo, many sadhakas were persuaded by their friends and relatives to return to their old unhappy ordinary life. In spite of all these cross currents, the number of such spiritual freedom-fighters went on increasing in the Ashram and by 1935 it rose up to nearly 150.
My parents too came to the Ashram in 1933 to take their son back from the Ashram, to save him from what they regarded as a vain effort to change human nature. They stopped almost a year in a rented house opposite to the present 'Cosy House'. They tried their best to understand the new ideal of Sri Aurobindo. When they found it difficult, almost impossible, they returned without success in their mission.
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In my school days, Sri Ramkrishna and Vivekanand were a great source of inspiration and help to me in my spiritual quest. I had started to meditate and had many experiences, but I did not like the idea of renouncing the world for the realization of the Divine. It was for this main reason, that I was in search of a Guru who can help me to realize the Divine in the midst of the world — without renouncing the world. It was for this reason that I turned and selected Sri Aurobindo as my Guide and Guru.
Sri Aurobindo's sadhana consisted of a double process — ascent and descent. One is to rise to the Truth-consciousness and from there bring down the light and power of that consciousness and apply it for the transformation of the animal-human nature, and divinize the ignorant and self-centred human life. This double process of sadhana was a journey to be performed with a return-ticket, in a most natural and normal way. This sadhana was not for personal gain, not for personal moksha, but for establishing the Divine life upon earth, by transforming the triple human nature of mind, life and body. In short it is a sadhana of self-perfection, which is to be practised in the conditions laid down by the Divine Grace: opening yourself to the divine and allowing the Grace to do whatever is necessary.
After striving in a most sincere way for eight years, I found that the transformation of the human nature was a long process to be effected with a slow and natural pace, and may take several lives to complete it. However, a time came by the pressure of my sadhana, after wandering on the unknown tracks and the intermediary planes above, when I realized that the path was difficult and too long and only the Divine Grace could lead me to the destination at the right hour. I had to give up my impatience and wait for a change to be effected at the right time. I decided to return to Gujarat to practise this Yoga in the midst of the world and to lead
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a life based on the same principles inviting the help of the Divine Mother and with a feeling that "All can be done if the God-touch is there."
Eight years of my stay at the Ashram had taught me very clearly that without the Divine Grace, no human strivings, however powerful they may be, could lead one to successful transformation of nature and to divinization of life. Consequently, I resolved to continue my contact with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo inwardly as well as externally by correspondence. I knew that nothing could be successful without their continuous help and guidance. I made it a rule to begin my day with meditation and prayer, invoking her Presence in my activities and allowing her Grace to guide me in my effort to learn to work for the Divine. I tried to remember the Mother almost all the time in my activities. My difficulties and my failures made me alert to open myself more and more to the Divine Grace and allow it to work out the difficulties. At the end of the day I thanked the Divine Mother most gratefully and prayed. I should record here most gratefully that all my prayers and calls were generously responded to. My difficulties were transformed into opportunities. Here I offer the reader a story of the Divine Grace, how it helped, guided, enriched and developed my life in such a way as to enable me to live with the Divine as the centre of my existence.
I left Pondicherry for Gujarat. Till I reached Madras where I halted with my old friend who was a doctor, my mind was perfectly blank. In the ordinary course, I ought to have been thinking of the ways and means of re-arranging my life. That idea did not occur. Perhaps it was left for somebody else to think over! After I reached my friend's house, the first thing he told me was that he was waiting for me. Surprised, I asked him who told him that I was coming. He said that he had a dream that I was due. He took me to visit one of his patients. The patient's son was an astrologer and he told many things of which I did not know anything at that
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time, but ninety-nine per cent of what he said turned out to be true. The astrologer said that I was coming from Sri Aurobindo but now proceeding towards north and might maintain the contact but would not be able to come to Pondicherry for another ten years. Thus my friend came to know about my return to Gujarat. The next day (as predicted by the astrologer) an offer came to me from a Bank to become an Agent in one of its branches to be opened in Bombay. I was immediately deputed for training for six months. After completion of training I was sent to Bombay to find a suitable office and residential accommodation. I was offered a good salary, city allowance, residence, a car and car allowance. I was instructed to create a circle and to open a branch and to develop the business. When I reached Bombay, my friends told me that South Indian Banks had no creditworthiness in the Bombay market and that I had undertaken a responsibility which was almost impossible to discharge successfully. I promised them that nothing wrong would be allowed as long as I was there and they agreed to co-operate. They even co-operated with me in bringing up the Bank successfully within six months. We were able to add one more branch in the Fort area. When we succeeded in getting very good business, the Managing Director came to Bombay and asked me to transfer some amount of the fixed deposits to Madras. I bluntly refused and explained how we had taken the risk of opening the branch, when there was no credit in the Bombay market. When I felt [that the intention of the Managing Director was to send me away and put a South Indian in my place, I informed my friends and resigned from the Bank.
While going to Bombay from Madras to open the branch of the Bank, I was travelling in a third-class compartment and four of my co-passengers were going to-Bangalore. Somehow the train left Madras one hour later than the scheduled time. They were very anxious to-catch the connecting train as otherwise they would have
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to pass the whole night at the railway station. They were very uneasy and perturbed. I assured them that they would get their connecting train by the Grace of the Divine Mother. Since they were Christians they placed faith in what I said. When they became quiet, I told them not to forget to thank God if they were able to catch the train. I then closed my eyes and tried to work out the circumstances by the Grace of the Divine Mother. I was in deep concentration and felt as if I entered the engine and was driving the train with much greater speed. I was awakened by the noise of the passengers getting down from the train and to my great amazement the Bangalore passengers were very happy to find their train waiting for them. They thanked me while going and promised me to thank God after occupying their seats in the Bangalore train.
After I resigned from the Bank, I went straight to my village. I was anxious to find out a suitable work which could support me financially and help me to maintain my contact with the Divine Mother. When I had joined the national movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi, I was a medical student. Though I left the medical school to take part in the movement for the freedom of the country, I could not give up the comparative study of all the branches of medicine—allopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy, Ayurveda, etc. Having genuine interest in the subject, I continued to study them at home by myself. I tried to go deep into the subject, and prepared exhaustive and detailed notes which became very useful to many students and medical practitioners afterwards. While preparing the notes, I had already selected some harmless effective medicines from all systems for general practice. Also I learnt to prepare some important and useful Ayurvedic medicines. With this preparation already there, I thought of starting a dispensary in my village where medical facilities were not available to the public in those days. But before I expressed my plan to anybody, some friends came to me with a request to arrange for medical aid
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for our village, because influenza was rampant in our village at that time and every house had two or three bed-ridden patients. When they came to know that I was thinking of starting a dispensary, not only were they very happy but they arranged for the necessary premises for the dispensary and promised me full co-operation and support in my work. A scheme was prepared, according to which I was to visit seven villages of the surroundings. Every village was to be visited once a week by turns and given the necessary medical aid, as all those villages were under the epidemic. A horse was purchased to enable me to visit the villages on calls. The dispensary was opened with a prayer to the Mother to guide and help us to learn to do this work for the Divine and I decided to send some offering to the Divine Mother every month regularly.
I gave two hours everyday in visiting one village in the surroundings and gave the rest of the time to my village. I earned a good name as an honest adviser and helper to the suffering patients. Some social workers and friends requested me to shift my dispensary to a central and bigger village named Haldharwas of Ghodasar State in Kaira district. I accepted the offer of the social workers and shifted to Haldharwas where they had made good arrangements to open a dispensary at a central place in the market. The dispensary was opened and from the very first day it received a marvellous response.
This was a transitional period of movements external as well as internal in all spheres of life, especially social and political. There was a call among the people to break the existing social and political structure and to build up a new pattern of social customs which could effect an integration in the society. At this juncture there was a move to start a movement of reformist marriages to break all existing customs in our society, and I was requested to be the pioneer of reformist widow-marriage since a political freedom-fighter and Congress
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worker from a high Patel family of Kaira district came forward to offer herself in marriage on condition that I was to train her in nursing and make her useful in my practice. I accepted the offer and the marriage was performed under the auspices of Reformists' Association of Gujarat on Ramanavami Day in 1940. Thus a political freedom-fighter working for the freedom of the country joined a spiritual freedom-fighter who was trying to break the bondage of human nature and to win the freedom of the spirit—two soldiers, each having an independent nature and ideal, were put together by fate to build up a new destiny for themselves. It was a test to maintain harmony between two sharp-edged swords. We launched our boat and commenced our voyage to meet the Divine in every act of our life. She started her practical training under my supervision. The British Government passed a Bill for the medical profession prescribing that the intending practitioners in medicine had to get themselves registered and prohibiting their practice without registration. In 1941 both of us got ourselves registered as R. M. P. S. Though our practice was progressing well, there was not sufficient work for both of us. So we thought of shifting to Ahmedabad where we have-an old house purchased by my father but rented out. The house is on the main road and has some shops on the ground floor and residential accommodation on the upper floor. One of the shops was rented to a doctor for his dispensary. We had to request the doctor to vacate the shop and we got the upper floor vacated for our residential use.
Ahmedabad was smouldering with communal tension and riots in 1941. We shifted to our house. We arranged our furniture in the shop and wanted to begin and put up our sign-board the next day. But look at the mercy of the Mother's Grace! I received a call for visiting a patient suffering from chronic fever. I went to the patient, noted down his history, examined his lungs, abdomen and tongue. There was nothing wrong with his lungs but his tongue
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indicated that his was a chronic case of constipation, gastric complaint and weak digestion and that he was not a patient of tuberculosis. I gave him a medicine to move his bowels and gave one injection and the next day he was much better and four days later he was almost cured. This case gave us a great boost as doctors, because he had been under the treatment of a foreign-returned physician for over six months for T. B. He had taken one hundred injections and had spent a great deal for the treatment. As we cured him in three weeks, he brought us many chronic cases and all were cured. The dispensary began to remain over-crowded with patients, because the city doctors were not able to attend to their dispensaries in suburbs only out of fear of the communal riots in Ahmedabad. This was how the Divine Mother gave us an unexpected miraculous start, and we had a very good response and goodwill from the patients. Slowly and steadily we developed our field of work and opened two more dispensaries in the surroundings, keeping our house and the main dispensary in the centre. We earned the goodwill and trust of the middle-class patients as honest advisers and successful practitioners. We began to get all night calls to visit the patients from the surroundings and as it was almost impossible to attend to the work by a cycle, I was compelled to buy a military motor-cycle first and a car after some months. This establishment and development took ten full years (1936-1946).
I was in close inner contact with the Mother. In spite of my keen desire, I could not proceed to Pondicherry for darshan of the Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The work that we wanted to do for the Divine required this long period of ten years by way of preparation and establishment of a sound foundation.
In our daily practice, we used to have difficult and chronic cases and we attended them with care and with very quiet concentration on the Mother. There were a few cases which required to be treated for more than a week. We never
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exploited our patients for money. There were many who came to us after .taking a year's treatment without results from expensive consultants. Such cases were examined more than once if necessary and we used to diagnose the disease and detect the mistake in the treatment. After finding out the cause, we used to relieve them of their complaints within ten to fifteen days or at the most within a month. Here I narrate two acute cases to show how the Mother gave us the light to find out the patient's trouble and how she helped us in treating difficult cases.
A patient, aged 35 years, was under the treatment of the President of the Medical Association for more than a year without any relief or a cure. He was treated as a T. B. patient. The temperature continued without the least change. He was given sixty injections of a strong drug with some tablets and other medicines without any improvement. When this case came to me with all the papers of the prescribed medicines and injections, I asked him to narrate his history. I was absolutely quiet with closed eyes and while hearing the story I asked the patient to tell me the details of the fever he had had on the first day. The patient said that he had had fever accompanied by shivering cold and had to cover himself with heavy blankets; immediately I found the clue that the patient was suffering from malaria and not from T. B. He had bronchitis, which was because the patient was a chain smoker. I examined his lungs and abdomen and found out that the lungs were sound, but he experienced pain in the abdomen, when I pressed it for examination. I gave him one dose of purgative and one injection of quinine with an expectorant mixture. The next day the patient came and fell at my feet. With tears in his eyes, he told me that he was saved as the fever had left him after thirteen months and there was less trouble of bronchitis. I told the patient that if he wanted to save himself he had to give up smoking. He accepted my advice and gave up smoking. Within a fortnight he was cured by the Grace of the Mother.
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A child of two years had an attack of fits and was lying in the bed exhausted and senseless for hours. The parents thought that the child was dead. I was called to confirm if he was dead. When I reached there, I saw that the relatives were on the point of carrying the child to the cremation ground. I examined the heart, it was about to stop. I gave him some exercise to stimulate the heart and gave one injection of musk in ether . I went on giving exercise for half an hour to move the lungs. After half an hour, by the Grace of the Mother, the child opened his eyes and tried to move. I was assured of the cure and I repeated the injection a n d the child was cured.
One day, 26 years after the above incident, an income-tax officer came to my house on an official visit. He wanted to scrutinize my income. I gave him all the necessary papers he asked for and the details of my bank accounts. He took down the details and after half an hour when he was satisfied, he asked me whether I knew him. I fumbled with my memory but could not recognize. He bowed to me and said, "Papaji, I am your child who was brought back from death by you twenty-six years ago. My name is Sharen Gupta."
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The Touch of Grace in Family and Social Life
I am a deputy of the Aspiring World, My Spirit's liberty I ask for all.
—Savitri
When I joined the Ashram in 1927 I had the good fortune to accept two reformists—Sri Aurobindo and the Mother—as my Gurus. Both of them have revolutionized and reformed human life into Divine life and transformed the old face and outlook of Indian spirituality. They are the pioneers of a new ideal, namely that of transformation of human nature and divinization of human life.
This was the first time in the spiritual history of the whole universe that two mighty spiritual giants joined to become one spiritually though maintaining two separate envelopes. This divine union of two mighty powers of the Divine created a great force and attracted both men and women who joined them with trust and confidence, because they had the fortune of getting love along with guidance on the path from the Mother who was Divine. Theirs was such a living unity that Sri Aurobindo said that the Mother was his consciousness and the Mother said that Sri Aurobindo remained unmanifest without her. Also She said that without Sri Aurobindo She had no existence.
Sri Aurobindo had intensified the fire of aspiration which was burning within me during my childhood. I was imbued with the breath of his Grace and his revolutionary spirit. And when I went out from the Ashram in 1955, whether I wanted it or not, I was made to start my life as an Agent of a Bank and then as a medical practitioner.
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Marriage is said to be a. step towards the Divine. That marriage also I had to accept in order to revolutionize and to reform the rigid customs of dowry and the like in society. A freedom-fighter (who has been awarded a pension by the Government of India) joined in 1940, by the sheer and irresistible weight of her destiny another freedom-fighter who was preoccupied with the work of winning the freedom of his spirit from his nature.
The fusion of the two freedom-fighters gave birth to a girl named Arvinda in 1943, when our medical practice was in full swing in three dispensaries in the surroundings of Gomtipur, a suburb of Ahmedabad. It was difficult to go and attend the distant calls of the patients on a cycle. So a motor-cycle and a motor-car had entered our life to help the work. The work was being poured upon me and I had learnt to work in a quiet and prayerful mood and developed my consciousness which had transformed my work into a constant meditation and that continuous meditation was the only work that was naturally flowing out from me to meet the Divine at every moment.
Both of us desired no further children, if only we had one son. We prayed to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo for that and our prayer was granted and a boy named Prakash was born in 1946. He is now in the State Government service as an electrical engineer in Ahmedabad. It was after the birth of this child that I thought of proceeding to the Ashram after a period of eleven years to breathe in the bounty of the Grace of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo which led us to success. As I was learning to live for the Divine and to do every little work for the Divine, our whole life had become a process of Yoga leading us towards the union of the Divine with the result that our nature and life were undergoing a process of great change. In this way of life it was absolutely normal and natural for us to put all our problems, big or small, with trust and
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confidence before the Divine Guides—the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and they never failed us.
My sleep was full of significant experiences and dreams. It appeared as if sleep was my via media to develop one side of my sadhana as work was the means to develop another side of my sadhana. As the Mother says in About Savitri:
For those who are more developed in the inner being than in the body, those who come down upon earth fully conscious and had their consciousness veiled and dulled by the contact of Matter, sleep is often a revelation. Because the body is asleep, inactive, the inner consciousness is more free, and in contact with what it knows more directly. ... So all those who have come down upon earth fully developed and fully conscious at night when the body rests, remember what they were and what they can do. In fact, they actually continue to do their work at night when their body is immobile, they continue their activity and they do what they came to do upon earth, even before the body knows and can help in the work.
Lighting a pathway through strange symbol dreams Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep.
—Savitri
In 1950 the preparations for the celebrations of the 80th birthday of Sri Aurobindo was getting on with great enthusiasm all over India. K. M. Munshi, the veteran man of letters and a disciple of Sri Aurobindo had taken much interest and committees were appointed in all cities of India for the celebration of Sri Aurobindo's birthday. Sri Jauhar from Delhi had written to me to take interest in the celebration, but somehow I was not finding my way clear to join the celebration in spite of myself. Whenever I set out to plan, some obstacle or other came in my way. My friends were astonished to find me in this condition, for I was considered to be the life and the soul of all activities of Sri Aurobindo centre in Ahmedabad. They asked me what the
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matter was with me. I could not express anything with certainty but I said: "I don't know, but we shall not be able to celebrate the 80th birthday. I had a vision of sunrise followed by a sunset and that was followed by unfathomable darkness. I felt we had to face the great sunset."
We had arranged a programme of our great musician of the Ashram, Sri Dilipkumar Roy in the town hall of Ahmedabad and collected a sum of Rs. 10,000 which was offered to the Mother Divine. After the programme was over and Dilipkumar's party had left for Patna, I received a telegram that Sri Aurobindo was not well. This news was a blow to me and at once made me uneasy. Hearing this news Dilipkumar postponed all his programmes and ran down to Pondicherry to our beloved Master.
The night that he left his body (December 5, 1950) I saw a dream. I was waiting in a beautiful garden full of wonderful flowers. There was a track in front of me and I was waiting for somebody who was to come by that track, and there appeared a burning sun rushing towards me. When it came nearer, I could recognize the face in the midst of the burning sun. It was the face of Sri Aurobindo. The rest of the body was not visible, but when it came nearer and nearer I could see a naked body in the burning sun and the three others who followed him. When they were quite near, the Master made a gesture to me to follow him, and within a few moments we were in his room. The Master took me on one side and asked me if I wanted any siddhi. I was rather astonished. When I kept quiet, he embraced me and kept his hand on my head and poured down whatever he had to give me. I was so much struck by this manner of his distributing his powers to his disciples that a feeling came to me that this distribution was the last award. These feelings moved me and in sleep I began to weep spontaneously. When my wife woke me up, she was surprised
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to see me in this condition. My pillow was completely wet with tears. She asked me what had happened. I told her that our Master Sri Aurobindo had left us physically. She could not believe me and then she also began to weep. She tuned in the radio in the morning, and we heard the news that Sri Aurobindo had left his body.
In 1956 I went with the members of my family to the Ashram with the idea of settling down in the Ashram if the Mother permitted. The children were of 13 and 10 years of age respectively. We stayed there for six weeks. The Mother was informed of our idea through my friend Dyuman and the reply that Dyuman brought was: "There is no objection to your staying here, but if you stay with the members of your family, they will not allow you to stay peacefully". No financial arrangements had been made for the family and I had to go back and wait for the hour of God to arrange everything in a way that either all or anyone who wanted to join the Ashram could do so without being a burden to it.
In our social life I was a revolutionary and a reformer. Those who have to do the pioneering work have to face the worst of difficulties and gain strength and energy and experience which are useful in fighting the battle of life. I was to face such difficulties, being a father of a girl for whom I had to find a suitable boy for marriage. The Patel community is the most rigid in these matters. When Arvinda passed the S. S. C. examination and when she expressed her desire not to study further but to take up some work, I asked her to select any work which she liked. At that time there was a strong movement to separate Gujarat from the Bombay State and many young students had sacrificed their lives in that movement. Finally, it was decided to make a separate State of Gujarat and applications were invited from those who wanted to join the State service. Arvinda got employed in the Secretariat in Ahmedabad. I had written to the Mother to
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solve the problem of her marriage and I was waiting quietly for the solution. One day a friend came and informed me that there was a boy who was a science graduate serving as a chemist in Alembic Chemicals at Baroda. Generally, I am not in the habit of attending social functions like marriages, for I am against the present structure of customs of our society. So I had very little chance of knowing many people in the society and I was rather in a bad fix while making an attempt to know the family of the boy who was in the service of Alembic Chemicals. One day a relative who was married in the village of that boy came to see me and I requested him to inquire and get detailed information regarding the boy and his family. He went to his house and asked his wife if she knew anything about the boy. She said she would get the details from her father. That evening her father accompanied the boy's grandfather who had missed the last bus to their village and came to pass that night in her house. She enquired and got the necessary information regarding the boy and told them all about Arvindabehn and her service. After a few days I went to Baroda and saw the boy in Alembic Chemicals and directly proposed to the boy to accompany me and have an exchange of ideas and to decide whether they could marry and be happy. This direct approach (instead of an approach through the boy's father) was not possible in that society but the boy agreed and my difficulty was solved. Now it was necessary to bring both of them together so that they could see each other, exchange their ideas and decide for themselves whether they should join to be happy or not. Their meeting was arranged, they had a talk and they decided to marry. The boy came forward to say that the marriage ceremony should be performed in a simple way and that it should be over by the evening. The Divine Mother so arranged that this was the first and the only boy I saw for Arvinda. I thanked the Mother Divine with gratitude for solving this problem. An invitation for the marriage was sent to the Divine Mother, I
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invoked her Presence in the marriage ceremony to bless the couple who had decided to proceed towards the Divine through marriage. We received the blessings from the Mother on the day of the marriage. The ceremony was kept at the bungalow of Sri Gatubhai Dhru, President of the Association of Reformist Marriages of Gujarat, Ahmedabad, in 1963.
By this time Prakash had passed his S. S. C. examination with first class and had joined St. Xavier's College of Science. After some years he joined L. D. Engineering College and at the end of three years he passed the last course of B.E. (Elec.) in 1968 and joined the State Government service at Baroda in the beginning, but subsequently he was transferred to Ahmedabad.
When he was in Baroda some relatives of his maternal side belonging to that orthodox society who had revolted against our reformist marriage in 1940 made a move to push one girl of that society into our house. I opposed. Later Prakash married the -same girl of his own choice from Nadiad.
All this time I was thinking to make some arrangements by which I could stay at the Ashram on my own. On the other hand the house where we lived was rather too small to accommodate the enlarged family and the visitors. Whatever we saved was being spent in the establishment of business and for the education of the children. We were accommodating our family with difficulty, while the other half of the house was in possession of my younger brother. After the death of my father and mother, we had to divide our ancestral property in our village. We had a house and two shops in the village. My brother wanted to have that house independently for himself. He was allowed to have the village house on condition that he gave us his portion of the house where we lived in Gomtipur. The brother tried his best to dispose of his portion of the city house to outsiders. I had
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written the whole story to the Mother and was waiting for the Divine Grace to change the circumstances in our favour. When he was in need of money and when he could not sell it to anybody else, he sold his portion of the house to me for Rs. 7,000 and I had to reconstruct the second floor and build a third floor which cost me Rs. 20,000. Though I had spent Rs. 35,000 for repairing the whole house the house remained old in appearance. But while spending this amount I had to keep in mind to get the return of amount I had invested at the minimum rate of 10%. The portion that was purchased was in the possession of old tenant paying very little rent. But it was against my feeling to ask them to increase the rent. I maintained very good relations with them and that paid me at the end—slowly I had prepared five shops on the road side of my house and excepting five shopkeepers there was no residential tenant.
Another matter I had to surrender to the working of the Grace of the Divine Mother was of one of the shopkeepers who was trying to sell away his shop with goodwill and wanted to make money. It was extremely difficult and complicated to prevent him from doing it. The law also could not prevent it. I permitted him to sell the shop with goodwill on condition that he should arrange to fix up new rent for the shop. He agreed but could not get any buyer. I wanted to go to the Ashram for darshan but I was detained by his movement which was creating complications for me. The shopkeeper got into difficulties and one day I came to know that he was dead. His son was more clever and was more difficult to deal with. He also tried to sell the shop with goodwill but when he could not do so he came to me to give the possession of the shop. I asked him to pay the amount of the rent and taxes that were due. Finally, I had to let go the amount and somehow I got the possession by the Grace of the Mother. The whole village was astonished to hear that I was given the possession by the shopkeeper. This shop was very big and had been in the
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possession of this shopkeeper for twenty-five years and fetched a rent of 25 rupees only. I made some changes and divided the shop into two equal parts and prepared two shops by spending a good amount of money and gave away both the shops on rent for 75 rupees each a month. So the shop which made me struggle for three years got me a rent of Rs. 150 per month. Who else could transform and raise the income from Rs. 25 to Rs. 150 excepting the Grace of the Divine Mother?
There was another case of the Divine Mother's help and protection. There are two houses in our khirki both having their ownership rights of the open land of that khirki. My neighbour insisted that open land of the khirki was solely his. I inquired in the city survey department but found that the land of khirki was going on in the name of the person who had sold his house to us and there was no trace of my neighobur's name nor of his father's. I applied for transferring the rights of the old owner who had sold the house to my father. After making necessary enquiry my name was entered as the owner of the open land of the khirki in which my house was situated. When my neighbour came to know about it, there was a great quarrel and I had to drag him to the criminal court three times. He tried to bribe the city surveyor and got his name entered but I took objection and I took the matter to the Chief Minister of Gujarat State. The struggle and the quarrel lasted for three full years with no result and with the death of my neighbour the matter stopped there.
It was by the Grace of the Divine Mother that I could get my brother's portion of the house in Gomtipur where I have been living since then. While repairing that portion of the house I had to spend a good amount. Anyway slowly I was able to arrange six shops and the Mother's Grace had changed most of the old tenants to fetch the best possible return for the money that had been spent in rearranging the house and in constructing
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six shops on the ground floor. This was a great solace and a gift from the Divine Grace to get a regular income of Rs. 300 out of shops which had fetched only Rs. 50 when we came to live in that house. It was by the Divine arrangement that in the last years of my life when I was eagerly waiting to dedicate the rest of my life to the Divine that I was awarded by the Divine Mother a providential pension of Rs. 300 per month and a house to live in. This was also an arrangement made by the Divine Grace that I might not have to look to my son or anybody else for living in the last days of my life. It was an arrangement made by the Divine Grace for our independent living.
It so happened that one of the shopkeepers in our house, a radio repairer who was regular in paying the rent, was not able to pay the rent for a long time. I had made it a rule not to go to collect the rent, unless they did not pay in time. We had developed good relations almost like members of one family and a tie of goodwill had developed day by day. As the radio repairer was too late in paying his rent, I went to him to inquire if he was in difficulty. He was not present, and somebody else was there. I asked him whether the shopkeeper was sick and inquired the cause of his absence. He was not able to give a satisfactory reply. By the time I was about to return, the radio repairer came and I asked him the cause of his absence and why he was late in paying the rent. In reply to my query he said he had been to the police station to get his brother-in-law released from the custody of the police as he was arrested for committing a theft in the studio of the Governor's photographer. I had read the news about the theft in the papers that the studio of the Governor's photographer was opened very skilfully with a duplicate key and articles worth thirty thousand were stolen along with a film on Bangla Desh which had been taken recently and was to be shown to Mrs. Indira Gandhi. While reading it I had felt that the theft was committed by the radio repairer's brother-in-law. My
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feeling was so strong that I warned the radio repairer to keep away from his brother-in-law because he was the man who had committed the theft. Also I warned him that if he continued to try to get him released from the custody of the police he would be entangled in the case and have to suffer the consequences. He tried to tell me that his brother-in-law was with him in his house that night up to 10-30 p.m. and then he went to his house. I told him that he had not gone to his house but had gone to commit this theft after leaving his house that night. So I advised him not to keep contact with him.
After four days my wife brought the news that four jeep cars full of police had cordoned off the shop of the radio repairer and were making some investigations. They were beating the radio repairer and asking questions. The police had also brought one man well-tied with ropes. Hearing this my doubts were confirmed and my warning to the radio repairer proved absolutely correct. When I read the news about the theft in the studio of the Governor's photographer, I had actually a vision of the radio repairer's brother-in-law opening the door of the studio with a duplicate key in the night and entering the studio. The expression of his face and his movement told me that he was there to commit a crime. When the police were searching the shop of the radio repairer, the whole of Gomtipur area rushed to the scene. When they came to know that I had warned the radio repairer, to his own astonishment, that his brother-in-law had committed that theft and that he should keep away from the man to save himself they were quite astonished to hear that and had come to ask me what power enabled me to have fore-knowledge about the theft. I told them that I knew many such things and I would not normally reveal those things to others. I had told this time to the radio repairer only to save him from the coming consequences.
After the search the radio repairer was also arrested and put in the police custody. The father of the radio repairer
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was informed by telegram. He came down immediately and got his son released on bail. This incident reflected upon the business of the radio repairer. Though he was an expert in his work people lost faith in him. It became difficult for him to get sufficient work and therefore he began to make attempts to sell his shop with goodwill. I had to make a great effort to prevent him from doing that. But one day he himself vacated the shop and gave possession of the shop to me by the Grace of the Divine Mother.
Six decades of my life in this body were over and when the seventh decade was running fast and was nearing its completion, I gave away the rights of publication of the third edition of my Gujarati book on Preservation of Health and Sight to Mahatma Gandhi's Navajivan Trust, Ahmedabad, as I was seriously planning to go to the Ashram and settle there for the rest of my life to complete my ascent to the spirit. The stream of my life was flowing so naturally that I learnt to do every little work for the Divine and to establish a constant union with Him and my existence was thus gradually getting transformed into a pilgrimage to the Spirit.
My pilgrimage to the Spirit had become a dedication pilgrimage for the rest of my life. I was pondering over the following conditions of the Divine's help mentioned by Sri Aurobindo:
A fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a Supreme Grace that answers from above. , . . But the Supreme Grace can act only in the conditions of Light and the Truth. ... A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.
It was my sincere effort that had spontaneously led and transmuted my life into an ever flowing river that absorbs
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all ills wherever it flows, and sanctifies and suggests by its own movements that it is moving towards the Divine. Life is a voyage towards the Divine and I was trying to prove it through my dedication pilgrimage. I did not attribute these successes to my individual capacity. All positive, inspiring and miraculous results were brought about by the Grace of the Divine Mother and not by that little T' of mine. I am ever grateful to my beloved Master and the Mother for their help to me to walk safely on the muddy and thorny path of life and to lead it to its fulfilment by transmuting it into a pure stream of Dedication Pilgrimage.
When I looked into the messages given in my blessing-card for my birthday on 28th October, 1973 I realized that I had been always praying to my Master to be with me throughout day and night and to make me feel his Presence in sleep as well as in waking. I was always praying for growth in me at all times, of the Truth, the Consciousness and the Bliss constantly.
I had indeed been keeping in my mind the direction given by him to live within and not to be shaken by outward happenings, to aspire intensely but without impatience, to remember that all shall be done if the God-touch is there, and his promise of hope that all things shall change in God's transfiguring hour.
There was the simple but most important message by the sweet Divine Mother asking us to be simple, to be happy, to remain quiet and do our work as well as we can—to keep ourselves always open towards her.
Shall we be able to do this?
He who wants the Divine, is
wanted by the Divine. . . .
The Mother
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The Touch of Grace in the Activities of Sri Aurobindo Centre
To know is Good, To do is Better, To become is the Best.
The Mother
I went to the Ashram for darshan in 1946 after a long period of ten years. Purani had then gone to Ahmedabad to attend the All-India Dharma Parishad. During his stay there he was the guest of my friend Sri Narendra L. Sheth. Purani gave a series of lectures on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri which created much interest in many people. Those who attended the lectures wanted some arrangements to continue their interest in the literature and teachings of Sri Aurobindo. When they approached Purani, and requested him to make some arrangement so that all of them could read together and maintain their interest in Sri Aurobindo, Purani suggested that they might form a group and write a letter to the Divine Mother to permit them to start a study circle. All those who were interested in reading Sri Aurobindo's books signed a letter addressed to the Mother and gave it to Purani to obtain the Divine Mother's sanction. They had not mentioned in the letter the name of the person who was to be responsible to look after the activities of the study circle to be started in Ahmedabad.
During my stay at the Ashram, some of my old friends suggested to me to start a study circle at Ahmedabad. I asked one of my friends who was the secretary of the Ashram to explain to me the conditions for starting such study circles and getting the Mother's permission to.
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start it. Nolini made me understand that "the Mother gives permission to a person, only if he is fit to take up that responsibility."
I stayed at the Ashram for three weeks and on my return some of my friends informed me that they had sent a letter with Purani to get the Mother's permission to start a study circle in Ahmedabad. I asked them as to who had taken up the responsibility to look after the activities of the circle. They said it was an important point but it had not been mentioned in the letter to the Mother. They sent repeated reminders to the Mother as well as to Purani but could get no permission. They asked me if I would move in the matter, take up the responsibility and get the Mother's permission. When I felt I was ready to take up the responsibility, I took a decision and wired "I think the time is ripe enough to start a study circle in Ahmedabad. If you permit I can start." I sent another telegram on the same day praying for the blessings of the Divine Mother on the occasion of the opening of an eye clinic to be operated along the lines of Dr. Bates' methods, in Ahmedabad. I received blessings in reply to both of my telegrams and we held our first meeting of Sri Aurobindo Centre at Prof. Sethna's house on 4-10-1947 (Vijayadashami). The centre in Ahmedabad was known as Sri Arvind Mandal. It was started on the same day with the blessings of the Divine Mother. After getting the Mother's blessings, I started the eye clinic in the name of "Arogyamandir" also on the same day.
The field of our activity was enlarged and we had a chance of inviting the Mother's Grace in our activities. Now we shall have a look at the action of the Divine Grace in three different streams of life lived for a single destination, which taught me to do all activities for the Divine and realize the Divine at every moment in waking as well as in sleep.
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I was trying to invoke the Mother's Grace in all my activities and wished to make my whole life an ascent towards the Divine and have all the time genuine contact with the Divine as naturally as a stream flows towards the ocean. I had taken up the centre's activity as a part of my sadhana and learnt to dedicate every work to the Divine alone. This had purified the ways and means of doing work and had naturally brought about the experience of facing and meeting the Divine almost all the time.
We used to meet every Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at a place where we were invited by one of the members of Sri Aravind Mandal. In the meeting we had meditation for fifteen minutes, readings from Sri Aurobindo's or the Mother's writings for fifteen minutes. I was establishing a contact and trying to identify myself with the Mother and was praying to her to be present and allow her Grace to act upon our nature. The atmosphere of meditation was becoming powerful, full of peace and silence and we felt as if we were in the Ashram. We felt the Presence of the Mother full of dynamic peace and we allowed our hearts to be filled with it.
We celebrated the Master's birthday on 15th August, Siddhi day on 24th November and the Mother's birthday on 21stFebruary, and the final arrival day of the Mother on the 24th April. We used to celebrate all these Darshan Days with some special programme of a talk on Sri Aurobindo's philosophy by an invited speaker. Occasionally there was a talk by someone who had gone to the Ashram for darshan on his experiences during his visit. Slowly the atmosphere had developed and most of us looked forward to the Saturday meetings. The number of members of Sri Aravind Mandal reached sixty in 1950.
There was another bigger group consisting of the general public which was ignorant of the ideal and the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and was not able to attend the meetings of Sri Aravind Mandal, but was eager to know
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about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Some friends approached and requested me to arrange programmes for placing Sri Aurobindo's ideal before the general public. In response to this request we decided to celebrate Sri Aurobindo week, with the blessings of the Mother, from 10th August to 16th August (1950). The celebrations were held in Premabhai Hall, a well-known public place in Ahmedabad. Good speakers were invited to give talks on different aspects of Sri Aurobindo's personality, his ideals and his teachings. The members of all the Sri Aurobindo centres in Gujarat with their friends and relatives filled the hall and relished the lectures and the atmosphere of the Presence of the Divine Mother. We received messages from many well-known persons.
This was the first chance for the masses of Gujarat to know and assimilate something about the ideal and the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Ashram at Pondicherry. The daily papers took a note of the lectures. The All India Radio, Ahmedabad, covered these celebrations and gave extracts from the speeches in its fortnightly reviews.
Again we had a chance of arranging a music programme of Dilipkumar Roy, a well-known name in Indian music and a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Dilipkumar Roy had been giving programmes of Indian music in all big cities of India as an offering to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. We arranged this programme in the Town Hall of Ahmedabad in November 1950. Two days' programme brought about an offering often to twelve thousand rupees to the Mother.
Some friends approached me to inaugurate Sri Aurobindo Centre at Sojitra (Kaira District). I explained to them that it was the Mother's work and I could not take up the responsibility without the Mother's order. They requested the Mother to bless me to inaugurate
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Sri Aurobindo centre at Sojitra. After getting the blessings of the Mother in November 1950, I performed the ceremony most prayerfully and invoked her Presence. The inauguration speech is given separately, under the title "The Art of Living".*
Again in 1952 some friends from Barwala (Ghelasa) wanted me to inaugurate Sri Aurobindo Centre at Barwala near Bhimnath. When they got the Mother's permission and blessing, I performed the ceremony. During the ceremony the atmosphere was surcharged with the dynamic Presence of the Divine Mother.
On 24th April 1973 I was requested by Sri Ratilal Shah from Kapadwanj (Kaira District) to perform bhumi puja of the building to be constructed for Sri Aravindayan which was to be the venue of the activities of Sri Aurobindo centre at Kapadwanj. I was ever ready to do Mother's work and when she sent her blessings I performed the ceremony very willingly, praying to the Mother to be present and guide us all in our activities of the centre and of life at large.
Think only of the Divine
Live only for the Divine
Aspire only for the Divine
Work only for the Divine
Seek only the Divine
Serve only the Divine
Adore only the Divine
— White Roses
* Please see page 140.
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The Touch of Grace in the Practice of Naturopathic Eye Clinic
Health is the expression of Harmony, If Harmony is disturbed, ill health is expressed
The Mother
The eye clinic was started on 4-10-1947 (Vijayadashami) under the name of "Arogyamandir" with the blessings of the Divine Mother. It was started in an aristocratic area where people had tried excessive use of allopathic medicines and were suffering from the reactions of sulfa and other drugs and were anxious to find a new treatment which could save them from these reactions, and a new way which could train them for a natural way of living. Arogyamandir got its establishment on the top floor of the Orient Club, near Gujarat College, on the other side of the Sabarmati river, at the west end of Ahmedabad city. I was living outside the fort area of the city, in a mill area, named Gomtipur at the east end of the city. Every morning my pilgrimage started from the east end to the west end to attend the eye clinic from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., the rest of my time- being given to my general practice.
After I left my study and joined Mahatma Gandhi I had continued at home the comparative study of allopathy, ayurveda, homeopathy fjand naturopathy and that was continued at Pondicherry. During my stay at Pondicherry I had come across a book named Perfect Sight Without Glasses by an American allopathic eye specialist and
ophthalmologist, Dr. Bates. He had revolutionized the outlook of ophthalmic science and he was the founder of the well-known Bates' methods in which the patient was taught and trained to reform his
springful habits of using mind,
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body and eyes and establish a new outlook and a new way of living and using the eyes and discard the use of a mechanical device called spectacles.
Many English and German doctors had written books on Dr. Bates' method. I kept in touch with every new publication on Bates' method and studied all these books including the famous book The Art of Seeing by Aldous Huxley, who wrote the book out of gratitude to pay off his debt to the theory, which saved him from blindness and helped him to continue his life as a well-known author.
In India the standard of general health is very low. Unless this standard is raised, the relaxation and other exercises alone can never succeed in giving long-lasting results in improving the state of eyes. The results brought about by exercises alone, however attractive they may be, cannot last long in the absence of sound health of the body. To obtain better results and to make them long-lasting, I prepared a theory of treating eye diseases by relaxation and other exercises founded on a treatment for raising the standard of general health. When I was pondering over this theory in the Ashram at Pondicherry, Dr. Agarwal, a practitioner of Bates' method from Delhi visited the Ashram and tried to introduce and experiment the new method on some cases of defective eyesight in the Ashram. I attended his talk and treatment as an onlooker and did not reveal my interest in the theory. I realized that the fundamental difference in the application of Bates' method between myself and Dr. Agarwal was that he was applying only relaxation and other exercises alone and not touching on the general health at all in the treatment of eye diseases, while I wanted the foundation of general health to be raised and exercises to be founded on that sound footing for better and long-lasting results.
The theory that I prepared in Pondicherry Ashram found a field of application in Arogyamandir that was opened
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in Ahmedabad in 1947. Before opening the eye clinic I had begun to write a series of articles in daily papers and magazines of Gujarat to create a favourable atmosphere and to revolutionize the existing mode of living of the general masses and to awaken them to learn to preserve their health and sight by self-effort and to train them to co-operate in the process of living instead of helping and co-operating in the process of dying. In response to the articles published in the papers, I received hundreds of letters requesting me to continue the series and publish them all in the form of a book as early as possible.
The publication of articles in the papers and magazines had created the necessary atmosphere and generated interest about the subject among the educated classes and members of aristocratic society. So I began to receive calls from educational institutions, colleges and secondary schools for giving talks on preservation of health and sight. By the time I published the first edition of my book on preservation of health and sight with an introduction of Sri Umashankar Joshi, the Vice-chancellor of the Gujarat University and a patient of Bates' method for his weak sight, in December 1950, my Master Sri Aurobindo left his body. I had completed the first round of lectures on preservation of health and sight in almost all the educational institutions of Ahmedabad city; all these institutions accorded a warm welcome to the book. Some high schools purchased 50 copies each and others purchased according to their necessity with the result that the whole edition of 1,250 copies was sold out within a month. I was invited by the All India Radio, Ahmedabad, to give two talks on preservation of health and sight.
The readers of the series of articles were so much impressed that one paper which published the articles prominently, regularly, got one thousand new subscribers added to their list. The editor of the paper requested me for my permission for publishing and printing twenty thousand copies of the book for giving a free copy to each
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of the subscribers. I consented to his proposal but owing to some difficulty, the proposal did not materialize.
I wrote another book on main diseases of the eyes. It was published with the introduction of late Sri Dhoomketu, a well-known writer of Gujarat. The second edition of the book on Preservation of Health and Sight was published and three thousand copies were sold out.
During this period I received a letter from Dr. Agarwal inquiring whether I could make an arrangement for his consultation camp for the eye patients in Gujarat in my eye clinic; he expressed his intention to offer the income of that consultation camp to the Divine Mother. I was extremely glad to have an opportunity to serve the Divine Mother. I therefore planned out a programme to make his visit successful. I wrote two articles about Dr. Agarwal who was a pioneer in the practice of Dr. Bates' method for eye troubles in India. In those days we two were the only followers of Dr. Bates' method in India. I arranged for his public lecture in Premabhai Hall. Another lecture was arranged under the auspices of the Ahmedabad Medical Association and the third lecture was arranged in the University Hall. There was a good response. Within a week he gave consultation to 300 patients and there was a sale of his books and medicines worth Rs. 1,500. A sum of rupees six thousand was collected to be offered at the feet of the Divine Mother.
An atmosphere was prepared to some extent for nature cure treatment for the eyes but very few turned to this treatment in the beginning. Usually they came to naturopathy as a last resort, after trying all other systems. It is absolutely out of question to consider naturopathy as a source of good income. According to my experience I had to spend some money every month regularly for developing the work of naturopathy and it was never a source of livelihood. When people came to me as a last resort, I found that they were usually difficult and incurable cases. By nature I had been interested in facing and
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fighting all that is incurable and impossible. At the end of 1948 I got a case of accidental blindness due to haemorrhage in the eye. The patient was an uncle of the superintendent of fire brigade of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Sri Sorabji Bharucha was 65 years of age and was a veritable reservoir of many diseases—constipation, gastritis, diabetis, blood pressure etc. He was blind for five years. According to the opinion of twenty allopathic doctors he had lost his vision owing to haemorrhage in the eye.
When he came to me, I took down the history of the case and examined his eyes. After repeated examination I found that one eye was showing some reactions to the light. I told him that his eyes required to be bandaged for 72 hours and kept in compulsory rest so that they could reveal the possibility for improvement.
Charak, a recognized authority in Ayurveda, classifies the treatment of the eyes into three different categories: (1) Treatment by application of crushed leaves of medicinal herbs, (2) Treatment by application of bandage, (3) Treatment by feeding the eyes directly by honey, milk, glucose solution etc. I have tried bandaging in most difficult cases with success, for examination and for treatment. Sri Sorabji Bharucha was bandaged for 72 hours after flushing his bowels. After bandaging he was sent home with a psychological suggestion that many people begin to see when we open the bandage and that he too will see. In response to this suggestion, the patient asked: "Can I also see?" I said: "Why not?" The family members also reminded the patient many times during the day that in all probability he would be able to see when the bandage was removed. Every morning the patient visited me to ask me whether he would be able to see. I encouraged and stimulated his eagerness to see and requested him to pray to God to give back his vision. During the bandage he was kept on a special diet of a mixture of milk, honey and ghee.
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Before bandaging, Sri Bharucha was tested by showing him the light of a thousand watt electric bulb, and by making him stand in the open sun, but he said he felt the heat but could not see the light.
After 72 hours the patient was brought to the clinic by the fire brigade superintendent Sri Soli Bharucha for opening the bandage. I took him to the dark room and opened the bandage asking the patient not to expose his eyes staringly. He was asked to blink and see and as soon as he opened his eyes, he said, "Sir, there is a torch in your hand and the light is coming out from the end which is red". Soli Bharucha was standing behind his uncle when I was removing the bandage. He roared with laughter and said, "We told you uncle that you will see when the bandage is removed and you are now able to see". Soli embraced his uncle with tears of joy and thanked me for the result.
In dealing with such incurable cases I always collected my consciousness and went into the heart of quietness and prayed to the Mother to guide and suggest me the ways and means to shatter all impossibility and to lead me from darkness to light and to lead the patient from blindness to vision. When the patient reacts positively and when the sense of seeing that had withdrawn (by the submission to the suggestions of the doctors that he had lost his vision and nothing can be done for him) has been pulled out once more, the patient is in such a joy that no words can express it. On the other hand, a delicate and difficult position is created for the doctor for further treatment. It is a big interrogation for the doctor to find a way to nail down, fix and establish the sense of seeing which had been pulled out and which may recede again leaving the patient to his old condition of blindness.
I was puzzled for a moment; from the depth of my quiet consciousness I heard as if the Mother was saying: "Let him exert his vision". In a moment I asked Sri
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Sorabji Bharucha to sit in the sun and try to find out the white and black portion of the paper that I had given. He asked me whether he can take the paper near the eyes, when I allowed him to try to see as was convenient to him. He exerted his eyes from a distance of four inches and after ten minutes of effort he said that it was a photograph that I had given him to see. He took some rest and then I asked him to find out, whether the photograph was of a male or of a female. He tried and found that the person in the photograph had a moustache, that it was a male and as he had a crown on the head, it should be a photograph of a king. After taking some rest he tried again and found that the king had glasses on his eyes. The first day's treatment after the bandage was removed ended with exerting the patient's vision and after verifying minute details of the object he was asked to see. He was sent home with a suggestion that the members of his family should show him some big articles to exert his vision from a distance where he could see easily, but they should be careful not to break the pillar of faith on which the patient was to build and establish his sense of seeing so that he could strive for a better tomorrow and a new life. Sri Sorabhji Bharucha kept on recognizing small and big articles at home and visiting my clinic for further advice and other treatment for a fortnight. Within this period we prepared special charts of big letters for training his vision and when they were ready he was given the Montessory training of moving his finger on the b lack letter and reading. I went on changing the size of th e let t er s and the patient progressed in reading smaller and smaller letters. This training lasted for two months and the patient was asked to read the headlines of the papers and then was asked to read the news and tell us in the clinic. The patient was very happy and was progressing with great enthusiasm. After six months of training and treatment of his eyes and especially of his general health he was a new man with a new hope' to restart h is new life given to him by the Grace of the Divi n e Mother,
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Sorabji Bharucha gave a party in 1949 to honour the result obtained by naturopathy, under the presidentship of Dr. Hariprasad Desai, a well-known public figure of the time. This was an honour given not to me but to the Divine Mother's Grace who had guided, helped and secured the success that was a miracle.
The second case of blindness came to me in 1950. Balaben Vyas, aged 27, was admitted to the maternity home of V. S. Hospital of Ahmedabad for delivery. She lost her vision by the extreme strain caused by delivery. She had undergone such strain that the eyes rushed out of their sockets. She was treated for six months by the V. S. Hospital without any result. Her husband was a science teacher who took her to Calcutta, Bombay and Nagpur for treatment, but when there was no sign of cure, the teacher who had no faith in naturopathy came to me as a last resort after wandering for twenty months and spending ten thousand rupees.
When Balaben Vyas was examined she was absolutely broken down physically, nervously and psychologically. She had lost all hope of life and was in a very sad state. When I asked her to narrate her history, she broke down with tears and told me that God was very unkind to her and that she had no hope of getting pardoned by the Divine. I assured her that if she prayed to God with all her heart to be kind and to give back her sight, God was sure to hear. In examination I found that she had inflammation of the uterus and had lost her weight owing to chronic fever. She was also bandaged for 72 hours with a psychological suggestion that she was sure to see when the bandage was opened. She was kept on the diet of mixture of milk, honey and ghee. After 72 hours when the bandage was removed she reacted nicely and was able to see the light, recognize colours which she was not able to do before. Her general health was very bad and she was treated for five months
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to improve her health along with the training and exercises for establishing the vision which was brought back. When she was perfectly cured, she was overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude and expressed her desire to present something to me. When I said that she had paid my fees and I did not accept any present for myself she was not satisfied with my reply and presented me a shield made of silver worth Rs. 600 for starting competitions among students to create interest in developing their health and sight. This shield was handed over to the Gymnastic Association of Gujarat by Sri B. K. Thakor, a prominent poet and critic of Gujarati language who came to me from Bombay for the treatment of his eyes and was cured by one month's treatment and training.
When the Gymnastic Association of Gujarat could not organize the competitions they returned the shield to me after five years and I offered it to the Divine Mother whose Grace was at the root of all the miraculous results.
The Mother worked many more miracles in my practice of the eye treatment, but this is not the place that I can relate all of them. Apart from five blind cures many incurable cases of high myopia and especially cases of children whose education was withheld on account of their bad eyes were cured and they became high officers or great industrialists. Here it is worth mentioning that the Government servants from all different offices, pilots and captains of steamers had the privilege of being helped by the Grace when they had failed in their eye tests.
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The Dedication Pilgrimage
The Grace is sure to be victorious one day.
The Mother
The third Gujarati edition of Preservation of Health and Sight was published with the introduction of Kakasaheb Kalelkar in July 1972 by Gandhiji's Navajivan Trust. I received presentation copies from the publisher and when I turned through the pages of the book at night, I was held up when I came to the page of dedication. The book was dedicated to the Divine Mother. Whenever I published a new edition, I used to send an offering of some token amount to the Divine Mother, because the sale of the books was under my control. After giving away the copyright to the Navajivan Trust the position became quite different. I tried to find a way for dedication. I, therefore decided upon taking up the sale of the book.
I became calm and quiet and remembered the Mother and there was a contact with her. In that quiet concentrated mood I took a decision to stop my usual efforts to earn my bread but to start a dedication pilgrimage to approach every small or big educational institution and introduce copies of the book for their class library and for being given away as prizes. The sale proceeds of the dedication pilgrimage were to be offered to the Divine Mother. I experienced sound sleep after taking this decision and after pondering over the ways of surrender to the Mother. I was awakened at 4-30 a.m. by the idea of praying to my body which was 67 years old and by which I was to carry out the arduous programme of going from village to village for the dedication pilgrimage. I prayed to the body in a concentrated mood that it was very fortunate to get this
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opportunity to do this pilgrimage to realize the Divine. This work could not be carried out without the co-operation of the body. I prayed to the body to co-operate and in response joy, peace and power filled up every cell of my body. I approached members of my family early morning and told them that since the Mother had arranged for their bread and other necessities of life, I should not endeavour to earn their bread and they had to be satisfied with whatever was given by the Divine Mother. I arranged and organized my programme and started the pilgrimage and the first order I got was for one hundred copies from the President of Vaso Kelavani Mandal. The book received an encouraging response. Vaso purchased 100 copies, Borsad purchased 97 copies, Sardar University Campus purchased 63 copies. All educational institutions of Anand including D. N. High School where Dyuman, Shivabhai, Ambu and I studied and to which we are so much grateful for preparing us for spiritual development, purchased 51 copies; Nadiad purchased 36 copies, Petlad 36 copies, Khambhat 30, Sojitra 26 and Kapadwanj 24 copies. Generally Gujarat is believed to be much backward in these matters, but the same Gujarat responded to this book with great love and respect to the Divine Mother who was approaching them through me, and my head bowed to Gujarat in all humility. The whole edition of of 2000 copies was sold out within the record time of one hundred days.
I wrote to my friend Dyuman to request the Mother on behalf of me to grant me an appointment—an opportunity— for performing the dedication ceremony of my book. With the Grace of the Mother I got the appointment on 24 August '72. Then the Mother had stopped seeing and interviewing people since April 1972. When I reached the Ashram, I was not sure whether the Mother would grant me an interview. I approached Dyuman and inquired about my appointment. He told me to my astonishment, "Your appointment is not cancelled, so the Mother will see you on 24th of August."
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When I saw the Mother on 24th August '72, she was sitting on the ground. I approached her with all humility, offered a sum of Rs. 400/-, net income of the sale of 400 copies of my book. I bowed and kept my head in her lap. She held the head with her two hands for a few minutes and blessed me in that way. I stood up after pranam, she searched out a blessing-packet from the dish that was kept by her side, and she raised her hand to give the blessing-packet to me and cast a piercing glance into my eyes. Her eyes as if conveyed to me: "Good bye . . . ta-ta . . . we will not meet again physically."
This disturbed me a good deal. My difficulty was that I could not convey this feeling to anybody else . . . and I had to be in this agony till the arrival of the memorable day when the Mother left the body.
The dedication pilgrimage had become a means to revolutionire the final change in my life to lead me to the Divine and to be its humble instrument. It had filled me with a new spirit of dedicated life. I was moving with great speed; I used to walk ten to fifteen miles everyday and if necessary covered more than 60 miles on cycle per day. All members of my family, the educationists to whom I approached for the sale of the book and the Ashram people and the Divine Mother were astonished when they came to know about it. The Mother Divine was much pleased to hear from Dyuman the story of the dedication pilgrimage and the body that was co-operating in the work so nicely and she had sent her blessings both to the work and the worker.
The fourth edition of the book was available for sale in August 1973. I had decided to visit the Ashram again in October to celebrate my birthday only after selling five hundred copies of the books so that I could offer five hundred rupees to the Divine Mother. In Gujarat the rains were very heavy and incidents of communal tension
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had occurred in the Modasa district, where I was moving on my pilgrimage. It was extremely difficult, almost impossible, to move in that area. Despite these circumstances I tried and could sell 495 copies within a month.
The dedication pilgrimage marks a transformation of the old life. It was the concentrated move towards the Divine. In the course of the pilgrimage on the muddy roads of the villages, birds, trees, and the whole of nature talked and sang to me musical tunes of the Grace of the Divine Mother. It was a journey in a state of peace and bliss. After my return at the end of the day I used to feed my body with fruits or whatever I got from that locality and sit in deep concentration for hours inviting the Mother's force to fill up every cell of the body to remove the exertion and to replenish with a new energy and I was ready and refreshed the next morning to restart my journey to the Divine.
Once I had been to visit Dhansura in Sabarkantha and its surrounding villages. The Principal of a High School in Dhansura expressed his desire to take me to a patient—a boy of 12 years—who had become blind all of a sudden ten months ago. We had to go to a small village named Taka-tuka 100 miles away from Dhansura. Both of us travelled by bus and sat side by side. In the bus as usual I was in a concentrated mood and went deep into trance and established a contact with the Mother. After some time a stream of Light rushed down my head. Then, with a thundering noise, Light broke through the head, pervaded the whole body and every cell of my body was filled with power and bliss and began to glimmer like gems. The whole body, each and every part, became transparent as if made of small diamonds, and began to throw multi-coloured light that created an aura of multicoloured rainbow around the body. After a time again a thundering noise and multi-coloured light began to
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flow from each pore of the body and established union with the whole universe, and the hills we were passing through also began to glimmer with multi-coloured light, that was flowing out of the body and melting everything into a blissful universal Sat-chit-Anand Consciousness that had descended and a strong wave of inexpressible bliss pervaded throughout. We had travelled for more than two hours and we were nearing a bus stand where we were to change our bus. So the Principal tried to wake me up. He had been watching my face and had been convinced that I was neither asleep nor awake. He had found an extraordinary light round my face and my body. He was much puzzled to see a face so quiet and so much full of some unknowable light and joy. He tried to wake me up but as I was not in the surface consciousness, I could not hear his shouts. He shook my body and went on shouting. After fifteen minutes I could open my eyes, though I could not come out immediately. It took me another fifteen minutes to come to the surface consciousness, slowly took my bag and got down from the bus. The Principal enquired with amazement and with reverence about my state in the bus, giving me the description of what he saw around my face and my body and how he felt when he was looking at me. We changed our bus and reached our destination and found out the house of the patient. I examined him and found it to be a case of detachment of retina caused by dashing his head against the door.
The above experience came and disappeared with the following poem:
The Divine Grace descended into every cell of the body
And awakened me to the touch of the Divine
It created the union with the Grace
And a union also with the Divine.
—Victory to Sri Aurobindo
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(By the touch of the Grace)
There was a move in the Matter
And that created an ocean of Chaitanya
It was a shower of the nectar Grace
Thus descended as the blessings of the Divine.
—Victory to Sri Aurobindo
Every cell turned into shining Diamond
That created multi-coloured aura of Rainbow
A sun began to shine in each body
Began to shine in the whole universe.
—Victory to Sri Aurobindo
There resulted a strong wave of joy and bliss
As if Sat-Chit-Ananda was out to play.
—Victory to Sri Aurobindo
There was a great astonishment by the touch
Of waves of Joy and Bliss
And there was a realization of the Descent of
Grace of the Personal and Impersonal Divine.
—Victory to Sri Aurobindo
I launched on the dedication pilgrimage with the object of learning to live for the Divine, to do every little work as best as I can for the Divine and to establish a living and constant contact with the Divine through work. It began with the introduction of my book in all educational institutions, and along with the sale of the books it opened a way to establish a new contact with students. Principals of educational institutions requested me to give talks on the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and their Ashram and on preservation of health and sight. The sale proceeds were being offered to the Divine Mother. But all these, however attractive and useful they might appear had very little importance to me if they did not lead me nearer to the Divine and establish a closer union with the Divine.
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This pilgrimage to the educational institutions was started in August 1972. It completes five years in August 1977. During this period I visited 1800 educational institutions of seven districts (Baroda, Kaira, Sabarkantha, Panch-mahal, Mehsana, Gandhinagar and Banaskantha) of North Gujarat and distributed more than ten thousand copies of my Gujarati book on preservation of health and sight and 1200 copies of the first edition of this book My Pilgrimage to the Spirit.
During my visit to the Ashram in August 1972 I met the Mother on 24th August for the last time and offered the sale proceeds of the book to her. When I saw her that time I was most collected and concentrated. She was also in deep concentration. But during the period I was there, only once she opened her eyes and then closed them. I came again in October 1973 to celebrate my birthday in the Ashram for the first time. The first night after I came to the Ashram I had a dream in which I saw the same Sun that I saw on the first night after I joined the Ashram on 30th December 1927. This experience has been continuing since then. I had seen the same Sun around the Mother's face when I saw her for the first time in the morning of 31st December 1927 at 11-00 a.m. in the Library room of the Ashram. In November 1973 I had a vision in which there appeared in the Sun the upper part of Mother's transparent body except legs in deep trance. She dragged me also in trance and she showed me several worlds of Gods and the inner world of the Ashram. After more than an hour she kept her hand on my head and told me: "Integration of sincerity and faithfulness to the Divine is the present necessity. Establish integrated sincerity and faithfulness first in all parts of your being and then only will it spontaneously spread around you and in the whole universe. Without integration and harmony in the idea and action even the Ashram will lose its validity and the purpose for its existence." This experience took place on the day when the Mother left her physical frame.
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I woke up with the conviction that she had given me her last message and quietly tried to follow her message and began to contemplate on its significance.
On my birthday on 28th, October 1973 I went to the Ashram and sat in deep meditation near the Samadhi. Two forms made of transparent semi-fluid, golden light, energy and fragrance came out - of the Samadhi and stood in front of me. Both of them had long golden hair reaching to their knees. I could recognize one that was of Sri Aurobindo whom I had seen many times before, but could not recognize the other.. . . I tried and tried but could not make out because the features w er e changing. I bowed to both the forms and prayed for their b less ings. When I came out of meditation and went to see Dyuman, both th e forms led me to Dyuman ' s room and there I stood for tenminutes in deep concentration . They were there. But when I came out of Dyuman ' s room both the forms proceeded towards Samad hiand disappeared. I received birthday blessing-card with the touch of the Divine Mother. I remained in contact with these two semi-liquid forms till the Memorable D ay of the Mother's withdrawal. Then I could see that the se con d form which I could not recognize during a earlier experience was that of the Mother. It was the same form which was present by h er body which was kept for Darshan, I bowed to that holy sheath of the Divine Mother.
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Grace that Fulfils
Life is a Paradox with God for Key
—Savitri
Indian philosophy and scriptures like the Bhagavata speak very highly about the Divine Grace; and saints like Narasimha, Mira and others are inspiring and striking examples in the spiritual history of India, whose lives were looked after, inspired, guided, moulded and were finally fulfilled by the Divine Grace, even though they had not renounced the family life.
A man can make best efforts, but the success is in the hands of the Divine. A sadhaka can aspire, can surrender totally, can perform difficult tapasya, but the realization—the siddhi—the fulfilment comes if only the Divine intervenes—the Grace descends and blesses.
The Grace is the last word and culmination of all kinds of sadhana. There does not remain any realization after one's ego is entirely merged with the Divine and one is favoured by the Divine Grace, and ego is transformed into an instrument of the Divine—a channel. No hunger or thirst remains after the Divine replaces the ego and takes possession of the whole being. The Grace fulfils the life and the life becomes a living fountain of Peace—Harmony-Joy. Life vibrates with Grace and creates an atmosphere of fulfilment all around. It flows out in a natural way like the fragrance of a flower.
The Grace is a special favour of the Divine and an act of supramental light and power to replace the ego and transform the sadhaka into an instrument of the Divine. But the Grace can act only in conditions of absolute
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surrender and total reliance on the Divine alone. Its action is beyond calculation and can be understood by its own favour, but never by the reasoning mind.
The Grace has been acting since the birth of the universe or rather, the creation of the universe is a sovereign act of the Divine Grace, but there are only a few who are blessed to recognize, understand and accept or allow the Grace to act. The man born and bound by ego exists because he is destined to become the instrument of the Divine manifestation. The life will continue to remain a paradox till he allows the Grace to dismiss the ego and the key of the Divine Grace releases him from the bondage, fulfils and creates a Divine Kingdom.
The Mother Divine had been very gracious to use the Key of the Divine Grace to arrange, organize and mould my life and transform it into a successful instrument. Under the training of the Divine Grace, the divine intervention is very natural and one is to face it joyfully at every step of life. The reader has come across many such incidents fulfilled by the Grace in the preceding Chapters. I am giving two more incidents out of many, which have been culminated and were solved after many years by constant working of the Divine Grace.
In 1965 a friend borrowed some money from me for expanding his business, and on his request, I gave away all that I had. It was a saving of the whole life. The transaction went on smoothly for a year or two but collapsed soon after.
I waited for a year or more, but when there was no improvement, I approached the Mother, and details of the transaction were placed before her for the divine intervention. I suggested to my friend also to pray to the Mother for her help. A letter sincerely praying for the Mother's help to solve the problem was sent by registered post with a copy of my friend's photograph.
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I was to go to Pondicherry soon after the letter was dispatched. So, I took with me a copy of the letter and the photograph. When I met the Mother personally, I gave her the letter and all the details regarding the money transaction. After hearing everything, she closed her eyes and concentrated. Coming back from meditation, she gave me two blessing-packets, one for my friend and another for me.
The blessing-packet was sent to my friend by registered post and he kept it in his purse with faith and devotion. The time passed on and we went on changing the promissory note every three years.
I was sure of the action of the Divine Grace. It went on improving the condition of my friend. We met to change the promissory note in October 1976. He signed it and informed me that the Mother's Grace has improved his business and he will be able to return the money soon. The Divine Mother's intervention and constant help, solved the problem, and my friend returned the amount in 1977 t hat he had taken twelve years ago.
I had accepted the marriage to revolutionize and to reform the rigid customs of our society. In 1940 a Congress worker and freedom-fighter had come forward to cast in her lot with a freedom-fighter who was busy winning the freedom of the spirit from his nature.
The path of the reformist is not only not smooth but full of struggles and difficulties. Our society and relatives resolved to boycott us. But we had accepted the reform, to reform ourselves with full understanding and we knew what was to come and we were ready to face everything.
The time passed on, the social functions—the marriage of our children were favourably performed by the favour and protection of the Divine Grace in the opposite camp under the amazement of the society who boycotted us.
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All relatives except my brother-in-law took part in the marriage ceremony of our children. This break of the relation between brother and sister lasted for 37 long years.
In the Kingdom of the Divine nothing is constant. Unknowingly the action of the Grace was constantly working from behind and bringing about a wonderful change. Every night is followed by the illumining light of the dawn.
A fine morning after thirty-seven years, a messenger appeared at our door with the message of the victory of the Divine Grace. It was my brother-in-law's son's wife, who was a Principal of a Girls' High School at Sojitra, who had come to say that the mist of misunderstanding had vanished and she had come to invite us to attend the marriage ceremony of her husband's younger brother. She said, some members of the family will come to take your whole family respectfully to attend and to adorn the occasion. Please accept our invitation and oblige.
This is how the Divine Grace turned the table and a boycotted sister met her brother honourably after a long period of 37 years. It is the Grace alone that can make possible the impossible. "All can be done if the God-touch is there", and "All things can change in God's transfiguring hour."
"The Grace is sure to be victorious one day."
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7
The Art of Living
[The following is the report of the author's inaugural address on the opening of Sri Aurobindo Centre at Sojitra in November 1950.]
Life, down the centuries, has been an enigma for every thinker. It is of great importance to understand what we really mean by the word "Life" before we can discuss the art of living. Only after we have a clear conception of "Life", can we learn the art of living. The modern scientist says: "Life is movement, motion". But he is hardly aware that aimless motion results in a circular movement which means absence of any progress and development. The West has attained unprecedented growth in the field of the physical sciences. The scientific development has overpowered all other activities of man. And now it threatens his very existence. The prolific means for fulfilment of desire that have been supplied by these sciences have made man a slave of his senses, licentious, unnatural and mechanical. The axiom "Life is progress" no longer holds good. The natural and simple course of life is arrested and the modern man finds himself suffocated with the unnatural way of present life. Imprisoned within the walls raised by modern scientific conveniences, man is groping in the dark in the fond hope of touching some secret that will open up an escape from this labyrinth. In their despair, the Western people have turned to India in search of a solution to these burning problems of life, and realization of the goal of life. And when they turn to India they find that they have stumbled upon a new concept of life, which can be expressed thus:
Life is an agelong march towards God. In every activity a step in the direction of God means progress and any
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step in any other direction is degeneration, death and ruin.
What is life ? What is the purpose of living ? These questions are daily growing in importance and urgency among the seekers and searchers throughout the world. For the very fact that these questions are raised indicates a thirst for knowledge. A blind groping for solution to these problems evidences the urge for knowledge, i.e., aspiration, while a conscious and systematic search for their answers consists of sadhana, i.e., steady and conscious pursuit of Truth.
This problem is as old as the hills and has been an eternal quest. The Vedas and the Upanishads gave the solu-ton to this problem several centuries ago. Yet the most of men remained unaware of this. And so after all these ages, this stubborn question is still astride awaiting spiritual awakening and its active application in life. It is seldom realized that life means active application of spiritual findings. How can we find solution to this riddle without actually moulding life by that practical application of sadhana in one's daily life?
All living beings are endowed with a thirst for knowledge. A major part of life is spent in reading and understanding. But this part of life would be well-spent only if whatever is read and understood is implemented in one's own life. But how many can speak of such an application of their knowledge? However few they may be, there exists a class of people whose lives are constantly altered and modified by their reading and understanding. And on attaining a measure of success in experience and awareness, they come face to face with the same old questions which they are better equipped to tackle: "What is life? What is its purpose?" They are thus inspired to seek answers to these questions. The initial blind thirst for knowledge eventually leads man to a conscious pursuit of knowledge.
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After making some progress in this conscious pursuit, sooner or later man gradually finds answers to these questions. When we penetrate into the spiritual depth of life, when we make every effort to live on all the three levels—mental, vital, and physical—with the inner light, when we harmonize the entire life with the inner notes or when we reconstitute the outer life at the behest of the inner voice, then spiritual living becomes the normal and natural process of living. Life without these efforts then appears like a veritable death itself. Then one receives Grace and, from behind appears the Lord of life, Who initially inspires the quest, and says: "I am the purpose of life, and the life lived for me alone is life".
"A true life is a life lived for God". From this standpoint, life today can hardly be described as "life". Modern living is pivoted on Mind and its object is n-o longer the quest of the Supreme. Its object is self-interest and pampering of the ego. Down the ages we have been flattening our egos. For personal pleasure and satisfaction we never mind if others are hurt. We never lend a moment's thought to it! Incessant and global wars are waged ostensibly for the establishment of peace. But we have fallen into the wont of cultivating unhappiness and unrest, instead of happiness and peace.
Physical Science is the glory of life in the West, while Spiritual Science is the soul of life in the East!
Physical science is a creation of mind. It gives power but not wisdom. Power bereft of wisdom turns destructive. A living illustration of this is the gloomy world devastated by the two world wars. Science ought to have induced man to enter into one's inner self, to acquire that inner power and to attain control over one's nature. But instead, science has urged man to conquer the moon. Thus he may some day acquire the empire of the planets but, in the process, has been reduced to the state of a slave of his own nature.
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The craze for pleasure, prodded by scientific inventions like wireless and the television, has driven man to the point of insanity. The craze for power and domination over others has been further heightened by radio-operated aeroplanes, guns and the atom bomb. The craze for world conquest has gripped Western politicians who have acquired lethal weapons and devices that can reduce millions of their fellow-men to ashes in a matter of seconds. Have they at any time shown even a semblance of prudence by employing all these new-fangled inventions in the service of mankind ? It is a painful irony that all our efforts are turned to suppressing and tyrannizing others; and yet we harbour the hope that by some quirk of Fate these efforts will yield happiness and peace! It is sheer moonshine!
Thus we eternally widen the gulf between practice and precept thereby giving rise to several problems and yet have the face to ask: "What is life? What is its purpose?"
Considering the object of Creation, sooner or later, it was a very natural development that we should encounter this problem and yet it was an inevitable outcome. We can arrive at the solution of this question only when the entire process of living is turned towards God-realization, when every individual would do the work assigned to him as a vehicle for God-realization. This practice of Karmayoga, i.e., doing one's duty as a means for attaining self-realization, may be employed to purify life and the way of doing one's duty and prepare all the three levels of nature—mental, vital and physical—for the attainment of God which is the object of our existence. When every person will thus lead every province, every nation and ultimately all the nations of the world will be devoted to the same pursuit of life. Thus mankind will be linked together with divine ties, and wake up into a millennium of peace and happiness in the quest of which man has been engaged in an eternal odyssey. "All men are brothers" will not then be a mere pedantic quotation but a fact of life.
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The Ishopanishad says: "All that lives is full of God." In this world He has set up an experiment of proliferation of his own image. He has created the world for His own expression, and so He alone should be the object of all living beings. The further you go from this object, the wider becomes the chasm between you and the rest of the creation. The more we ignore this the more we give rise to discord and widen the cleavage between our life and God.
The modern attempt to instal ego on the pedestal of God has enslaved man to the pursuit of individual interest and pleasure and confined him to a vicious circle of more efforts for individual pleasure resulting in more unhappiness and distress. All happiness, all satisfaction and all peace reside in the Lord. This hard fact is ignored and modern life is virtually in an open revolt against the Almighty as Milton's Satan did in Paradise Lost. It is small wonder therefore, that man has lost his paradise, his happiness, and finds himself groping in the pervading gloom without the slightest ray of hope. And in this human situation, if at all we really and thoroughly feel besieged with the choking environment, and if we seek an escape into fresh air, we shall have to surrender ourselves to God, restore him to His place at the helm of life, dedicate all our actions to Him and try to recover our pristine love and unity with Him. Resigning ourselves to His benevolent will, we should perform every act of life with such purity and sincerity that every action will be prayerfully dedicated to Him. A steady practice of such prayerful Karma will one day transform us and our way of life, and every moment will be filled with incessant endeavour of strengthening the vital chord tying us with the Supreme. Then this thoroughly natural prayer will be the sole Karma in life. When this transformation takes place, the long-awaited downfall of the Satan and the resurrection of the Kingdom of God will be achieved over the ashes of the tyranny of the ego.
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In explaining the nature of the Lord, Whose Kingdom we desire to establish on this tormented earth and with Whose spirit we want to inform our lives, the Divine Mother says:
The wisdom that we wish to acquire, the power we want to gain, the love we want to realize, the perfection we want to attain, the harmonious and progressive state we wish to reach, and the unknown and novel treasures we wish to inherit, all that wisdom, power, love, perfection, harmony, progress and treasures are embodied in the Incarnate Lord in human frame. This God wills to express Himself in human form with all His powers and glory. As a result of opposition to and revolt against His appearance or expression in human frame today's life has become individualistic, egoistic, discordant and bleak, whose Satanic gloom is smothering the whole world.
The whole world, both the Orient and the Occident, is trying to evolve a remedy for the present malaise. But so long as the world craves for ungodly pleasures, it will have to stagnate in the cesspools of the ego and face the resultant putrefaction. Ignore God and you forfeit your right to peace and happiness!
We have seen earlier that God is life's sole object. He has also from behind the veil announced: "Life is to be lived for me!" In pursuance to this command, if every act of living is undertaken with the sole aim of God-realization, we will experience the real fulfilment. To render this realization as an everyday natural phenomenon is to be free from the shackles of human existence. Even after this highest state of living moksha, to fulfil His will, to become a tool for his expression, an instrument for his creation is the sole purpose of life. Then we should allow the highest light to react on the threefold nature for its transformation into divine nature. Thus God and His nature embodied in human frame, will manifest in transparent shape to us and the world. This manifestation is a divine boon to humanity.
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The Mother says:
Every individual comes across a moment in his life when he has to choose between sadhana and chaotic life. You cannot put one foot in sadhana and another in confused life. Any attempt to do that will rend the person to shreds. The heart which does not make a correct choice dies.
The time is ripe. It is high time we abandoned the struggle against His manifestation and prepare ourselves to receive Him amidst us. Today we are at the crossroads to choose our course between the ungodly Satanic life and the life for His sake. Is the goal of life to forsake God and lead a selfish satanic life or to realize Godhead by living for his sake? The whole mankind has been offered the chance of allowing itself to be the vehicle of His expression. Let us seize this chance, this opportunity. How long can we deny ourselves this golden opportunity of imbibing life with His spirit, and steeping the whole world in his power, happiness and peace?
This is the art of living. There are four objects to be achieved in this life—Duty, Wealth, Desires and Salvation. For each of these objectives a healthy, strong and fair body is not only necessary but indeed indispensable. As the Sanskrit saying goes "For the fulfilment of duty, wealth, desires and salvation best health is basic." But the modern man has turned his back on duty and salvation, i.e., liberation. He has drowned himself in the pursuit of wealth and pleasure. This has resulted in a gloomy and unhappy life, weak and diseased body, lustre less myopic eyes guarded by eye-glasses.
To utilize the golden opportunity of living for the sake of God and attaining union with Him and transforming one's existence into divine life, the body is the only instrument. Let us fulfil our duty of maintaining this instrument as fit as a fiddle and the eyes as fine as divine sparkle. To achieve this let us learn the art of preserving health and preserving our eyesight. Thus we shall be living a conscious life that leads us to fulfilment.
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BALCONY DARSHAN
One day I shall return, his hand in mine,
And then shall see the face of the Absolute.
—Savitri
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