Amal Kiran - A Tribute ( Part 2)

But I have fast forwarded too quickly so let me go back in time about eleven years ago when Mary Helen and I asked if we could interview him. He agreed readily but we didn’t do a very good job as ‘interviewers’ and we had only two sessions, but these were recorded on a mini disc which Amal liked, for he listened to his voice and found it to be very clear. The interviews have been preserved but since the technology is old no one has been able to transfer them.

Much more significantly was his invaluable help in areas of great importance. In the early 1970’s I received a very clear inspiration to compile a dictionary of words and terms in Savitri. Madhav Pandit gave me his whole-hearted encouragement and told me to complete the work as soon as possible as Mother’s Force would be with me constantly. Although I began the ‘Lexicon’ and even wrote my father (as we had no money in those early days of Auroville) who was, along with all of my family on both sides, strongly against my leaving the Russian Orthodox Church and going to India, and asked him for one hundred dollars to purchase the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The work of beginning the Matrimandir Gardens Nursery to provide the most beautiful plants for the future Matrimandir Gardens (the Matrimandir structure had not been begun as yet) was so intensive that I could not find the time to continue the Lexicon with Mary Helen. Yet, during the first twelve years of building the Nursery we did occasionally find time to go to Nolini and receive his illumined replies to numerous phrases in Savitri, as well as visiting Madhav Pandit with questions on various phrases. The title of the book is Lexicon of an Infinite Mind, taken directly from a line in Savitri and has now been published along with a Supplement to the Lexicon containing the answers given by disciples of Sri Aurobindo and Mother.

The greatest help, however, came from Amal when Mary Helen and I approached him in 2000 and asked him if he would help us. Week after week he wrote his replies by hand and passed them to Minna Paladino to give to us. My love and gratitude flow to him for the questions he posed to Sri Aurobindo on lines in Savitri as well as general questions on poetry. Sri Aurobindo’s replies give us an incomparable insight into the realms of poetry, His writing and recasting of lines, each from a higher plane as He ascended in his Integral Yoga until he brought down ‘Overhead Poetry’ in all its mantric force.

To be continued…