Even through the tangled anarchy called

Fate And through the bitterness of death and fall

An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives.

It is near us in unnumbered bodies and births;

In its unslackening grasp it keeps for us safe

The one inevitable supreme result

No will can take away and no doom change,

The crown of conscious immortality, . . . p. 59

I have so many things to tell you that I had to write them out so that I wouldn’t forget some of these very special moments with Mother. This is a talk similar to the one I gave on Feb. 14 th last year in the Hall of Harmony. As Mother had written to me though Pavitra she told me not to try to reconstruct my inner experiences as she said it would bring about a deformation that would render them quite useless. So I can only say that 12 years after Sri Aurobindo left his body, in a very short period of time I had His Darshan twice – Mother confirmed it – and again on 9.9.99. Since then He has spoken to me on at least one occasion when I was coming down the steps of the Nursing Home. I had asked Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) a question about the poetry that was coming to me. The question was: ‘If a line feels not quite right and one shouldn’t use the mind, what should one do?’ Amal replied, ‘Appeal. If you are patient there will always be an answer.’ As I went down the steps I heard Sri Aurobindo say, ‘Go deeper, go deeper.’ I think I can also share two experiences in the small meditation room at the top of the steps of the Ashram. One was the first poem I received through the Grace of Sri Aurobindo, four short lines:

These are the currents of my life,

Engulf them in Thy sea,

The tangled threads of daily strife

Reweave to image Thee.

The second is quite humorous. I was always drawn to His photograph in the Mediation Room and once asked one of the elder sadhaks why. He responded, ‘Because the Presence is there.’ I would go there as often as possible and one day when I was in a special mood of consecrating myself to the Lord I prostrated myself in front of His photo. Then in a voice so sweet and carrying an overtone of the divine humour, He said to me:

And it’s good for the circulation too.

I had my first experience of the mystical at a very young age – perhaps five or six years old. My mother was dying and the doctors were unable to cure her of an extremely high fever. As there was nothing more they could do and they had given up on her, her brothers decided to bring a monk who had lived on Mount Athos in Greece to our home in a small town in New Jersey in the U.S. They had heard that he had the power of healing. His name was Father Afanasi and he was a healer. I remember his black robes, none too clean, and his tall yet humble presence. He entered the room where all of us were standing around my mother’s bed. He said nothing but held a dish of holy water in his left hand. With his right hand he threw the water three times on my mother’s face. Almost instantly she got out of bed, said she was fine, and went to the kitchen to prepare food for the family. 

My father was a Roman Catholic who converted to my mother’sreligion, the Russian Orthodox faith, when my little brother was dying and the local priest demanded money to pray for him. Although the music of the Russian church was to me more beautiful than any other choral music I had ever heard, I revolted against religion at an early age, feeling there must be something more. So I studied the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, including his bio-dynamic practices, and shortly thereafter met a Pandit and began the study of Raja Yoga. At the same time I was preparing for an operatic career for the Metropolitan Opera, on a scholarship from one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of the day, Regina Resnick, and I began taking voice lessons from her teacher, Rosalie Miller. At Hunter College I met the writer and philosopher, Rene Fulop-Miller, who befriended me, and through him I met Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, who was to become a lifelong friend.

To quickly conclude this introduction: I was offered a scholarship to Shantiniketan by the Pandit I had been studying with since my late teens. I worked two jobs at the same time for many  months to earn  enough to come to India, and followed him to California. I waited week after week and he kept delaying, having been enticed by wealthy ladies in Riverside, California, and finally, as my funds were dwindling – after working 16 and 18 hours a day! – he said, ‘Everything has fallen through. If you truly want to do yoga, go home to your family and practice samata – equality.’ I looked him in the eye and said, ‘No! I am going to India.’ And almost, as if by miracle, within a day or two I met Dr. Judith Tyberg, Jyotipriya, whose name was given to her by Sri Aurobindo. At a very young age she travelled alone to India to find the secret of the Veda. She told me of this extraordinary experience. She had been raised as a theosophist – her entire family was in the Theosophical Society in California – and she went to Benares to find the secret of the Veda, and in a few days a man came to her after hearing the professors at the University tell her that there was no secret, and gave her a typewritten manuscript – it was a copy of the Secret of the Veda long before it was published. The man was Arabinda Basu. After reading it Jyotipriya said, ‘I have nowhere else to go, I need not seek anything else’ and she came immediately to the Ashram. She became a Professor of Sanskrit and founded the East- West Cultural Center, one of the focal points of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s work in America. It was here that I saw the photographs of Mother and Sri Aurobindo for the first time.

When I was nineteen, perhaps, I heard in the Pandit’s group a manwho said, ‘Oh, yes, I know Aurobindo, he’s that man who can say things in twenty words when he could have used one.’ I was twentytwo years old and Jyotipriya said, ‘Why, you must come to Mother.’ In those days one had to send a photograph and a sample of one’s handwriting – not just a photo. Mother’s reply came back very quickly by telegram:

Tell him he may come and stay as long as he likes.

Oh, can you imagine that for a young man? So I boarded a Japanese freighter bound for Japan, with a Blessing Packet from Mother! Near Alaska we ran into a typhoon. The deck was loaded with redwood logs, 200-300 feet long. I watched them break off like toothpicks in the sea. Nothing was left on the deck. I was invited to join the Captain on the bridge and watch this tremendous force of Nature. His officers were kneeling and praying and he said, ‘If we go one more degree we will capsize.’ Knowing nothing, I still knew that Mother would not allow this ship to go down and the seas calmed and we made it through to Japan. Then, because it is not easy to get to Mother, we had two weeks in Tokyo and then Kyoto where, while waiting for another ship to come, I visited some of the gardens Mother had seen.

I went to one garden that was so magnificent one could not apply adjectives to express its beauty. There I met a monk who took us around to each building and in the most perfect English I have ever heard, he told us the entire story of how each building had been constructed. I asked him if I could come back the next morning and ask him a few questions. I had seen a tree just outside, a huge pine tree, maybe 90 feet tall, and it was wrapped in straw about half its height, and I wanted to know about this. So I returned the next morning at 8 o’clock sharp. I knocked on the door and as I knocked it opened and he was there. ‘Come in, come in’, he said. I replied, ‘Sir, I’m so very happy to…’ ‘Slow, …no English’, he said. No English? He took me over to a building and showed me a bronze plaque that was on each building. He had memorized each plaque from an Englishman, and since that fellow had perfect diction, he also had perfect diction. So I had to go very slowly. I said, ‘Please tell me about that tree’. He said, ‘Tree sick, - give medicine. Two hundred years more, tree OK.’

So I boarded a French freighter bound for Madras. It was delayed one hour, then another hour. I was down in the hot smelly hold and wondering, ‘When am I going to get to Mother?’ Suddenly my name was called. I had not filled out the proper exit permit and the Japanese officers said I had to leave the ship. I pleaded with them to no avail. There were some French sailors who motioned to me and showed me a place where they could stow me away. Then I had this feeling from Mother, ‘No, you must stay in Japan.’ And I stayed for another few weeks and had an experience that was so beautiful. As I was singing for people, they asked me to come to a Children’s Orchestra and to sing for them. You see, this was all the Grace, all the Divine Grace. I went there: every child was blind. They had formed an orchestra of blind children. They played for me and I sang for them. Then I managed to get to Hong Kong. I was then helped get a flight to Madras and I made my way from Madras to Pondicherry – after many, many adventures in the south China sea – and the bus from Madras to Pondicherry cost me three rupees. I had about ten rupees left. Dayabhai took me in at Park Guest House, then Parc a Charbon. I arrived on November 23rd 1961, and I had just turned 23. On the morning of November 24 th I had my first Darshan of Mother. The old balcony – on what we now call Balcony Street – brought one so close to Mother. I have seen in the exhibition people’s accounts of how they felt that Mother looked at each one individually…there is no question about it. Each of us knew the moment She looked on us. In fact, one time She looked at me and her eyes turned into diamonds and the diamonds hit me right here (in the chest) and I fell back three feet. I told my friend Marilyn Widman about these spinning diamonds that bored through my heart and she said, ‘Oh, that’s not such an interesting experience – Janina has made a painting of it, it’s in the Ashram Library, go and have a look at it.’ So I went to the Library and felt the experience again because there it was in the painting. Mother’s eyes were absolutely spinning in the painting. So I guess many people have had that experience, but for me it was very special. Sam Spanier, the founder of Matagiri, was interviewed on film and he recalls his first Darshan under Mother’s balcony and remembers being slightly nudged from where he was standing because it was where I always stood, just under Her feet, and I gently pushed him!

My first interview and experience with Mother and the opening She made in me cannot be described, as words fail, but I can relate some of our conversation. Each time I went to see Mother I had the same experience, of entering a room without walls. Another friend of mine, Bob Zwicker, also has had this experience. I recall that it was a very large room and one had to walk some distance to reach Mother’s feet. But now I see that it’s a small room, and with not even a step and a half you could be there. Nonetheless, the journey to Mother’s feet is long and might encompass one or many lifetimes. My first interview lasted about an hour. When you go to Sri Aurobindo’s room and you are coming out and you see where They sat together to give Darshan, and then you turn to go out, there is Mother’s chair and that is where we had our interviews with Her. In those days no one else was in the room. You were alone with Mother. Today no one stops me when I put my head on Her chair and footstool.

Mother spoke to me for some time about music. She asked me, ‘Isthe music with you now?’ I said, ‘Yes, Mother, it is always with me.’ It was recurring music that came all the time. Mother looked at me and smiled and said, ‘Not always.’ And then She took it away for many years, to work on other aspects, especially that of helping me to ‘empty out’. Mother spoke to me about Chopin, which was very interesting. She said that Chopin’s music is that most often heard on the subtle planes, but She said, ‘I don’t know why.’ Then She said,

 You must bring down a new Music!

It was Her first adesh to me. At the time I was studying opera and more than opera, concert lieder and art song. So poetry and music were very much intertwined. I said, ‘Mother, I don’t know anything about combining words and music.’ Mother replied,

No, no, you must go far above words and bring down the pure music.

After more than 47 years of listening to thousands and thousands of works of music, seeking the new music everywhere, and singing – but not often, having given up all thought of a concert career – about seven years ago I had the experience that the New Music was to descend in a collective body – one body with many tones, opening in surrender and aspiration. So I began, by Her Grace, the OM Choirs in the Ashram and Auroville which I will tell you about later.

I go back to the Ashram, my first days. Mother made me an Ashramite and put me on Prosperity She also gave me permission to teach music in the school (which I did rather poorly) with the only proviso that I should teach only Western music. I also formed an Ashram Choir with many of the people who are still with us today, Manoj Das Gupta, Richard Pearson, Rathna, Dolly, Lilou, Kokila and many others. The story of our singing to Mother is very interesting. There were many good voices among the young men and women who joined, yet even more important, an enthusiastic willingness to rehearse and a joy in singing that infused each work we sang. Having sufficient sheet music for a cappella choir, primarily from the religious repertoire, we soon built a program of choral music covering many centuries.

Everyone had an aspiration to learn the scores and to blend their voices, individually and by section, one of the great challenges for all choirs. After numerous rehearsals I can say that we had developed into a finely honed ensemble. Most of the singers were in the late teens and early to mid twenties and we all expressed an aspiration to sing for Mother. I wrote to Mother of our wish to sing for Her but received no reply. During this time I was seeing Marilyn Widman regularly and she, in her role as an elder sister, encouraged me to write Mother again. I did so and once again there was no reply. I felt that Mother was too involved in Her work to be able to devote the time to listen to our choir.

Being a callow youth I was deeply influenced by Marilyn who insisted that I write Mother again since She may not have received my letter or was too busy to answer. Marilyn instructed me to write Mother that we would sing for Her under Her balcony on a fixed date and hour. This time Mother replied, fixing the date and time, and saying that it would be better if we would stand by the Samadhi. She would come down the stairs and sit by the window overlooking the Samadhi.

Although at times I have been deeply pained that I troubled Mother and disturbed Her work, I also realize what an extraordinary blessing She gave us. We were all shocked when we entered the ashram courtyard and found that it was filling up rapidly, for little did we realize how quickly the word had spread that there would be a special darshan.

A place was made for the choir on the east side of the Samadhi looking up towards the window where Mother was seated. Suddenly, all was silent and it was time to begin our choral offering. The choir was facing Mother and since I was conducting I faced the Samadhi. All was silent as I gave the tones to the various voice parts. I brought my hands up, gave the downbeat and the most awful cacophony resounded through the Ashram courtyard!

The first piece was a total disaster! It was so completely out of tune it was painful. In fact, Dimitri said it was the most excruciating music he had ever heard! I realized then that we had a serious problem in that we had not rehearsed out-of-doors and the wind was playing havoc preventing the different sections from hearing each other! And there were still six or more works to sing.

At this point I turned around and lifting my eyes to the window where Mother sat, I prayed simply: ‘Mother, we are singing for You, please help us.’ The remainder of the concert was perfect, not a missed note, everyone in perfect harmony, a blend of voices that would make the angels proud. As we concluded, we all looked to Mother in gratitude and today, more than forty-five years later, I can remember the joy amongst all of us for this very special Darshan. As everyone began to leave the courtyard I met Dimitri who told me that after our outof-tune rendition of the first piece on the program, each composition thereafter was indeed perfectly sung.

Now, in those days I was a pretty wild fellow. Mother knew this of course, as She knew everything about my soul. So, one day at about 6:00 in the morning, a young man comes to me and says, ‘Nolini would like to see you.’ I went to Nolini and he said the most extraordinary thing to me. He said, ‘Mother wants you to know that She gives you complete freedom in the Ashram…but with that comes total responsibility.’ This lesson has stayed with me all my life and though I have faltered and fallen innumerable times, I remember that Sri Aurobindo tells us not to do anything that we would not do in front of Mother. Since my vital was a bit too active and my visa was expiring, I went back to the U. S. in 1962, but before I left I wrote Mother on a number of topics. On the same paper She would give Her answers. I would write on the envelope, ‘To Divine Mother from Richard’ and She would cross out ‘To’ and ‘From’ and write ‘From Divine Mother to Richard’. 

My parents were devastated. I was virtually disowned, because leaving the Church was a terrible and unforgivable thing to do. Mother wrote,

Will they not understand if you tell them frankly that you have a way of your own?

In that letter I had also asked Mother some additional questions. ‘Mother, These problems are now confronting me and I turn to You for their solution. Now that I definitely know that this Yoga is my path and that You are truly my Guru, I don’t really know what to do next. Since my visa is expiring I must leave India. Should I visit Europe and the Middle East or return directly to America?’ Mother replied,

Return directly to America.

Then I wrote to Her about marriage and She replied

No doubt and no hesitation – you must marry.

I then asked about my future work – because Mother had totally upended me. I didn’t know where to go, what to do: this force that She had put in me…I couldn’t go back to…I don’t know, that world. So I wrote Her as to what should I do: ‘Mother, I feel that I can offer myself to the Divine through developing my voice and singing or through returning to school to study choral music, eventually forming a choir. As both of these ways require intense work, I would like to know which way is most pleasing to the Divine, or if I should do one now and the other later on, or both simultaneously? Please help me with this question.’ Mother replied at the bottom of my letter;

One or the other. Because the most important thing is not so much what you choose but the spirit in which you will do it. Keep living in you the spirit of consecration and all will be all right. With blessings, Mother’

Then there was this wonderful young man, an extremely handsome young man, who invited me to go all through Europe with him and, of course, to meet many beautiful young ladies. His name was Ivan. I wrote to Mother, ‘If I return through Europe should I go with Ivan Lara? I am not sure whether it is good for me to be with him.’ Mother wrote,

Better not.

And you know, when I next met Mother she went through each question in detail, without referring to anything – (and in the intervening weeks She had seen thousands and thousands of people and read innumerable letters) – in just the order I had written to Her. And most interestingly, at the end, she told me about this man, this wonderful fellow. She said,

It is better not to be with people who live outside of themselves, as it were.

Oh, at the bottom of my first letter She wrote,

Go on boldly, following your way with joy and confidence, taking great care of one thing only – never to forget the Divine. Blessings, Mother.

When I returned to the U.S. I worked at various jobs to put food on the table. I married Anie and did whatever I could for Mother’s work.I took up the work of the handmade watercolour paper, which I askedMother to name, and She gave it the name, Arvind. I made contact withthe pre-eminent watercolour artists in the U.S. and sent them samplesof the paper and they were all ecstatic about it and wrote glowingassessments. But although the samples were fine, the quality-controlwas lacking. The first ream of paper that arrived was ruined by seawater because it was improperly packed. The interesting thing at thispoint was that the handmade watercolour papers from England, theWhatman papers, had just gone out of business because of labourcosts and there was only one Italian paper available, and the Ashramhad a chance to make millions of dollars. I apologized profusely toMr. Dyson who was head of the English firm based in the U.S. andtold him, ‘We will send another ream at our cost and it will be fine.’But the second ream arrived with the paper full of black spots. Therag had not been properly cleaned! This was 100% rag, handmadewatercolour paper. Then I met a man from Long Island who was anexpert in making handmade watercolour paper and had been doing itfrom his home for many years. He told me that if I would get a ticket for him to go to the Ashram he would go and share his expertise and teach the people how to make handmade paper properly. I wrote to Mother, and then on a beautiful card She sent me, She wrote:

This is all a dream in the air and cannot be realised.

And then She sent word to me,

If they cannot do it properly, then it has to be left.

And so I left it.

I share with you a brief anecdote here concerning an inspiration I had. I thought that if I could learn to hook a rug I could make a beautifulcarpet for Mother’s feet. I purchased wool and monk’s cloth and drewHer symbol and with Anie’s help I hooked a rug in Mother’s colours,blue and white. The rug was a circle about three feet in diameter. Isent it to Mother and received the following letter on July 26, 1963,from Amrita, one of Her secretaries:

This is to inform you that the Mother received yesterday the beautiful symbol carpet sent by you. The Mother startedusing it the very day of its receipt. The Mother is sending youboth Her special Blessings. Please find the same enclosed herewith.

Mother would send me birthday cards every year and sign them with Her love and blessings, but one year, 1964, She sent a card with a quote from Sri Aurobindo which has been the source of so much of my inspiration:

It is by a constant inner growth that one can find a constant newness and unfailing interest in life.

On the right side of the card Mother wrote,

To Richard with love and blessings for a luminous and progressive year.

In the mid 1960’s I was working at various jobs and at one point got a position in a record store. In those days classical music was on long-playing vinyl records. So I thought I would write Mother, and wrote a two page letter to ask Her what composers She had heard before Her arrival in Pondicherry. I put together a chronological list of composers since the time of Debussy and Ravel. Mother wrote me a beautiful letter which has unfortunately been lost, possibly destroyed at my parent’s home, in which She said She would be very happy to listen to all of the records I would send Her. She underlined the last composers She had heard, namely Debussy and Ravel and wrote,

I probably have heard almost everything they have written.

But from that time forward She had not heard any of the composers I had listed. So, with the help of a musicologist who was the manager of the record store, I put together a box of fifty long-playing records with all the great composers from that time on and selected their best compositions., I included electronic music, atonal music, 12 tone music, and even the Doors, the rock and roll group. Mother listened every afternoon for one hour until She had heard everything.

 In the mid 1960’s Anie and I were in a car accident in a blizzard on an ice-covered hill on a major parkway. Two elderly ladies had stalled their car perpendicular to traffic and there was no way to stop or get around their car as it was completely blocking the road. I crashed into them and Anie‘s head went into the windshield. She had to have numerous stitches but Mother said there would be no scars and there were no scars. I was guided to break open Vitamin E capsules and apply the oil to the stitches. Finally – you know in those days one recovered very little – today it is millions and millions of dollars if you burn your tongue on a cup of coffee at MacDonald’s – but we received $3000.00 for medical expenses. I immediately wrote to Mother wanting to send Her the money for She had saved Anie’s life and mine. Mother wrote back,

Why don’t you use the money to come for the inauguration of Auroville?