My Last Meeting with Sri Aurobindo in His home in the Subtle Physical
9.9.99
Though Sri Aurobindo and Mother have spoken to me and guided me through the years of Mary Helen's cancer and her departure, and He has sent me poetry and came twice into Arabinda Basu's home where I felt His presence and the calm that filled the room in 2013, this is the last memory I have of being before Him.
I fell asleep and in a dream more real than life itself, I met Sri Aurobindo. He was in his chair, looking so beautiful, tall and slim. His body was not the one we see in the Cartier-Bresson photographs but much younger, though without the signs of the suffering he had to endure for us when, in his great compassion, he took a human body.
I knelt before Him but there were no words spoken. I clearly remember as if it were yesterday, His stillness and love and compassion flowing into me. I will never forget the next moment because he allowed me to massage his feet. There is nothing more to say.
Note: Ten years later, in 2009, I related this experience to Arabinda Basu. He said that it meant that I had surrendered to Sri Aurobindo and now I must work to make the surrender more complete.
Dear Narad,
I liked your letter very much. It has throughout an effortless inner touch a sweet profundity such as always characterises the souls native speech.
Your latest dream holds, for all its brevity, a world of significance. It reminds me in general of Plotinuss words: alone with the Alone. The difference is that he had found himself merged in a vast divine impersonality beyond human life. Your experience is intensely human and yet with a penumbra of what I may call the intimately infinite. My heart is deeply touched and goes out to you most intimately, most happily.
Love, Amal
Amal wrote to me as well, in a lengthy reply and in his own hand, appended at the end of this article, on how one should read Savitri. I recall with great delight, the times I had the honour of taking him to the Samadhi in his wheelchair, when we would recall a line from Savitri on the way to the Ashram and discuss it together. I remember one line in particular that I quoted to him,
The star-defended doors of heavens dim sleep.
He replied enthusiastically and happily, Yes, I remember that one!
I recall with a smile his wit and great sense of humour on many occasions. Once he said to me in a perfectly straight face, Yes, Sri Aurobindo was great but He only wrote 34 books and I wrote 42! It was also a great privilege for me to be asked by Minna to find and send something to heal Amals bedsores. I felt Mother guiding me in my search and when I send a colloidal silver compound his bedsores healed rapidly.
There are two special remembrances I would like to share. The first is a question that I put to Amal when I asked him what one should do if one felt a line of poetry that came was not up to the mark. How could it be improved, as Sri Aurobindo wrote that we should not use the mind to alter it with the intention of improving it. Amal said to me, Appeal . Then he waited a few moments and said, If you are patient there will always be an answer.
In closing, I wish to remember with gratitude, all Mothers children, especially Minna and Esther, who attended Amal for years with love and devotion and dedication that I shall never forget. Their offering has touched my heart.