XV

1966
SHORT ASCENSION

    The year 1966 is a memorable year for me: I had the opportunity of renewing my contact with the Mother after a long interval and it was one of the closest and happiest, as if some old barrier had broken down. It came about in an unexpected manner. Champaklal had fallen ill during the last months of the year. Dr. Sanyal was treating him. I was one of the attendants. When after recovery he went to the Mother I accompanied him till he reached the door of her room. Then he asked me to come inside with him. Though I had a strong impulse, I hesitated to go without previous permission, but he insisted and told the Mother what he had done. She did not mind, of course, and received me very sweetly. Champaklal was naturally overwhelmed to meet her after such an ordeal and a long absence. He complained that the doctors would not allow him but he heard her call. The Mother's response needs no description. I too felt

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uncommonly happy, as it came almost uninvited and I met her in a completely new surrounding. I tasted the bliss for a couple of months till again the curtain fell upon the light and I had to come down before the cup was even half-full, and wait for the fullness which was not to be.

    But to our story: I used to follow Champaklal every morning and the Mother, sitting in her chair before her breakfast, divinely fresh after her toilet, would see me. She used to take hold of my hands, look steadily into my eyes and caress and pat my head as never before. It seemed as if so many years' void was being filled up with her radiant Presence. I had never had such a succession of 'long drawn linked sweetness' since my first contact with her. On the contrary there was always, even in the midst of sweetness which must have been necessary for my inner growth, a certain distance. On the first or second day, she said, "Nirod, take care of Champaklal's health." Besides this, our meeting was mostly a soul-to-soul communication. On the third day, I believe, I told the Mother, "Now that Champaklal is quite strong, I need not accompany him", while I really wished the contrary, and she fulfilled my wish saying, "No, you can continue."

    When some weeks had passed, I came to know Dr. Sourin Bose. His wife was suffering from cancer and was under H's treatment. One day I went to see her. I was far from happy with the condition of the

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patient and reported the fact to the Mother. Since she took interest in the case, I began to give a daily account. The patient was going down-hill and suffering the agony which only cancer can inflict. She prayed for cure or for deliverance from the body's unbearable pain. Her suffering made me so gloomy and depressed that I carried that dejection to the Mother herself. One day her warmth and sweet smile stopped. She would give me flowers and even caress my head during the pranam, but would not look at me. This continued for about two weeks. I knew very well the meaning of her stern gesture but I could not simply throw away 'the heavy and the weary weight' - "the hump", as the Guru would say- till one day the Mother resumed pouring her beatific smile. The burden was off my shoulders. The patient's death-in-life did not now affect me so much. Everyday she would pray for deliverance. The Mother was trying hard to cut off the life-cord, but it proved extremely tough and resistant. One day she said, "I was with her for three hours last night." Every morning she would expect the news of the end but none came. On another day she said, "I sent such a tremendous force that it would either cure her or end her." But when neither happened, she was markedly surprised and said, "There must be something that is working against the Force. I don't know what it is." Finally, on the eve of the February Darshan the poor lady found her peace. According to Dr. Bose, her

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face became luminous at the last moment and she exclaimed in an exultant voice, "The Mother has come, the Mother has come!" "Where, where?" asked Bose. "Here, here, in my heart. Don't you see?" With these words she started on her voyage to the Unknown. The Mother was happy to hear of the soul's blissful deliverance from the mortal coil.

    Here was another case of cancer of which I was an unhappy witness. I saw a frail woman dying inch by inch with nobody to look after her except her husband who nursed her till the last moment with such love and devotion rarely to be met with.

    The second topic that I discussed with the Mother was about my old ailing friend Nishikanta. He was at this time suffering from T.B. and had been admitted to the Jipmer hospital. I often used to visit him and inform the Mother about his condition. A new aspect of the poet Nishikanta was revealed to me. Living for days in a T.B. ward among patients from a very ordinary class of people and almost every week one of them going to the other world, amidst the loud lamentations of relatives, Nishikanta remained supremely detached and preserved his native wit and humour. One day, however, something went wrong and all on a sudden his urine stopped flowing. The surgeon wanted to remove his enlarged prostate but he refused to undergo any operation. At last he agreed provided the Mother gave her consent. When

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    I put the case before her, she asked, "What does he say ?" "He doesn't want it, Mother," I replied. "Well, then, there is no question," she said in a firm tone. Then looking at me she added in a grave voice, "Do you remember what happened five or six years ago? Nishikanta was dying. All of you brought him to me in that critical state. He took hold of my foot, placed it on his chest and prayed, 'Mother, I want to live'."

    Yes, I remember, Mother. It is much more than five years. Now, he would like to see Sri Aurobindo's centenary before he passes away. You have to fulfil his prayer," I replied.

    If he has faith," she answered with a smile. And with that faith he carried on till the year 1973, when on 19th May, leaving meteor-like a trail of poetic splendour, he disappeared from our earthly sky.

    My visit to the Mother was also cut short as had happened before, owing to her illness. I do not recollect when exactly the contact was re-established. Very probably from the next year, i. e. 1968. I used to see her once a week which again came to a halt because of her ill health.

    I may give a brief account of the miraculous intervention to which the Mother is referring here. I have already dwelt upon it at length in my article on Nishikanta. He had fallen seriously ill. It was a matter

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of life and death. The Mother said to me: "Tell him that I want to see him on the 24th. Gathering all his strength, he must come on that solemn occasion."

    The solemn occasion was 24th April, 1956, the day on which the manifestation of the Supermind about which the Mother had spoken to me one year earlier was first announced. Nishikanta had written to the Mother to keep him alive till that date and the Mother had given him her word. Now there were only three more days to go and he was on his death-bed. Somehow he survived till the Darshan day. Just after the Darshan was over, we brought him on a stretcher for the Mother's Darshan. The stretcher was placed at the foot of the staircase near where the Mother's couch has now been kept. She came down followed by Pranab and others. We raised the stretcher. Nishikanta stretched out his feeble hands. The Mother at once clutched them with both her hands, and drawing them towards herself, silently smiled into his wide open supplicating eyes. Then with her delicate fingers she smoothed his anguished brow, wiping away, as it were, all the dark karmic scripts from it. Suddenly Nishikanta, pointing to his chest, whispered haltingly, "Mother, your foot here!" The stretcher was put down. The Mother holding Pranab's arm for support quietly placed her right foot upon his heart. Nishikanta pressed it with his trembling hands. Sri Aurobindo's mantric verse came to my mind:

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    Heal with her feet the aching throb of life.

    In the evening when I went to see Nishikanta, there was no longer that fevered restlessness; the face and body breathed serenity. . . . In a low voice he said, "That hell-fire within has subsided . . . . Ah ! the body seemed to have become ice-cool. Every cell was soothed with peace and peace."

    This was the miracle that happened before our eyes in 1956. Nishikanta lived on seventeen years more!

    To come back to my story:

    In a talk about my sadhana, I told the Mother that during meditation, I felt some Force coming down to my head, but that when I tried to bring it farther down into my heart, I could not. What should I do? Would Mother help me ? She said, "I should not disturb the action, it will create a lot of trouble. Let it follow its own natural course."

*         *

    I have two entries in my diary a propos of what the Mother said to Pradyot. Since they are interesting and revealing, though not relevant, I am recording them here with his consent. One entry was with regard to the severe drought in Bihar in 1966. Pradyot said to the Mother that though as a result of the rain-which had been brought about by the intervention of the Mother-green patches were visible, still some places were without any vegetation, and that there was general scarcity of drinking water.

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    The Mother asked, "Are there still difficulties? The rain was not sufficient ?"

    "It may not have been sufficient in those places but these difficulties are not necessary," he replied.

    "No! There are two reasons for them. One is the people's inertia. They need blows in order to wake up. The other is more serious; it is a sort of liking, a preference, for dramas, which invites the blows. When we were working in the physical cells, Sri Aurobindo realised the difficulty of transforming the mind of the physical cells. I am not speaking of the physical mind or physical consciousness. He thought of leaving the mind of the physical cells alone. Then I saw that their refusal to change was not due to any bad will but to ignorance. The cells have a great aspiration and the progress is steady, there is no vacillation as in the mind or the vital. So Sri Aurobindo, before he left his body, entrusted to me this work and said that I alone could do it, but it takes long and I can't give sufficient time to it. I work upon it only in the first part of the night. In the second part I go about visiting people and things. Otherwise they go wrong. When the work in the cells will have been finished, there won't be any further difficulty."

    The other incident is about the special descent or manifestation that took place on the 4th of May, 1967, symbolically represented as 4-5-67. Pradyot was to leave for Calcutta and he wanted to know what was

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the significance of these figures so that he could, if he were asked, tell people about it. When Pradyot went to see the Mother, she said:

"You came to me this morning i. e. in a dream, and asked me the meaning of 4-5-67. You can tell them:

    4 Manifestation

    5 Power

    6 New Creation

    7 Realisation

This will keep them quiet.

    "I am not sure that it didn't happen on 24^th April. The meditation on that day was unique in my life. The very cells of the body were totally conscious. After the meditation, I should have sat down for a few minutes but I got up instead to reach the table and I nearly fell. Something was happening from the New Year day, very, very concrete. 24th April might be a preparation for 4th May."

    Pradyot was seeing the Mother once a week at this time. I asked him to inform her that my heart did not seem to be functioning well. I was feeling short of breath when climbing the stairs, the result perhaps of a general weakness. On hearing the complaint she sent two special blessing packets, the gold one to be kept under my pillow during sleep and the other to be kept in my breast-pocket near the heart whenever I went out. That was easy enough, but the difficulty came when

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I was doing exercises putting on our group-banian which had no pocket. So I circumvented the difficulty by getting a pocket stitched on the banian but I had to face the curious eyes of people who wanted to pry into the secret of these unusual pockets!
   
    At another time later on, I told the Mother that some uncanny adverse forces were often trying to attack me during sleep. Then too she gave me a special blessing packet to be kept under the pillow and it saved me from further incursions.

    I do not recollect at all if I was seeing the Mother in 1969 except on my birthday. Even if I was, it must have been once a week and there was no important communication between us. I remember that I sent a verbal note to her through Pranab about my health. I was suffering from general weakness. The Mother sent word that I must do everything necessary to improve my health. She sanctioned some pocket-money to purchase whatever I needed for the purpose. On the first day of every month, Pranab used to bring a small envelope of different colours, different shapes, containing the sum, with my name beautifully written by the Mother on the envelope. Sometimes when I was asleep at noon, Pranab would tuck it under my pillow and go away. I have a whole lot of these: they make a fine demonstration of her calligraphy. In later times when she was not keeping well, the envelopes used to come with the name written

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on a piece of paper by somebody else.

    In the middle of the year I felt that I needed an assistant to help me in my work. I found a young girl, who had been my student, ready to do it. I proposed her name. The Mother gave her consent readily.

    At the beginning of 1970, I wrote to her in a certain context, "Please think of me now and then." She underlined the sentence and wrote, "That much only ! Surely I do think of you more often !! love and blessings."

    It was a very touching reply carrying as it were a personal contact. A couple of months later I dreamt of the Mother telling me, "I will see you at 3 p.m." I asked her for confirmation of the dream. Was it a true one or just wishful thinking ? In reply, she wrote, "Something true coated with a mental formation = I thought of seeing you, but 8 pm. is an impossible time." The next day, when I corrected the error about the time saying that I wrote 3 which must have looked like 8 she wrote, "3 pm. is quite all right. And you can come tomorrow, Tuesday, at 3 p.m.". Was it only for a single occasion or did it continue every week? I cannot say. Whichever might have been the case, the Mother fell seriously ill in this year and all of us passed through a very anxious time. Here is what I noted:

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1970

The Mother's Illness

    The Mother had been suffering from cough and other ailments. The symptoms took a bad turn when Vasudha left for Bombay before the August Darshan. The heart was irregular; some beats were missing, a usual feature with her whenever she fell ill. She had been uttering piercing cries of agony during the day and also at night. She had done that before too but this time it seemed to be more acute and far more distressing. We thought it would pass off as had happened in the past. Her condition did improve but after the Darshan a reaction set in, perhaps due to exhaustion. The situation took a serious turn. The heart was found to be the main seat of trouble and the lungs were involved as well. All of us became very anxious. On inquiry I learnt that coramine was one of the drugs administered. Coramine had been her mainstay each time she had fallen ill. But now it seemed to be contra-indicated under such conditions and grave consequences would follow, if continued. I hesitated to accept the verdict, for doctors very often differ, and I had no direct knowledge of the case. We thought of a certain heart specialist who was supposed to be very good. But how to call him? The Mother would not like an outside doctor to come and treat her. I spoke to

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Champaklal; he would not advise any interference. Similar was Pranab's attitude when I approached him. Both of them were the Mother's attendants. I did not know what to do next. Meanwhile the Mother's condition was none too happy, the bad effect of coramine kept harping itself in my mind. My only recourse in such a predicament was to pray to the Lord and I prayed fervently, not knowing, of course, what effect the prayer would produce and particularly in what manner. At the same time I remained alert in order to seize any available opportunity. In this mood, I met most unexpectedly the Mother's son Andre in front of his office. I was not yet very familiar with him. It was his birthday. Our glances met. Approaching him I wished him Bonne Fete. I asked him about the Mother's condition, as he was one of those who had been seeing her at that time. His news was not encouraging at all. Then he asked me my opinion. I told him our objection to coramine. He reflected and said, "Yes, I have marked that Mother doesn't want to take this drug, she violently rejects it. But what to do?" We were in a dilemma.

    In the afternoon I felt moved to go to the attending doctor. He was very cordial and, explaining the situation, said why he had been giving coramine. He said also that he was much handicapped by the absence of other facilities such as cardiogram, blood examination, etc. In short he said that he had no objection to

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any other doctor being called in. Things drifted along. One day. Pranab told me that the condition had slightly improved and we should keep quiet. But the improvement was illusory. Symptoms of difficulty in breathing, swallowing, etc., were now noticeable.

    A few days later, when Champaklal came down at 2 a. m., he informed me that Dr. B of the Jipmer hospital was to be called. I felt much relieved and happy. At night I had a strange dream. I saw that 1 was following a man in a white dress; I could not see his face. He strode across the corridor, climbed down the stairs, flung open the door with great violence as if in disgust and hopped off. "Who is he and why in such a huff?" I wondered. Then I realised that he must have been an evil force so long in possession of the illness. Now that a specialist was coming, his game was up. I felt it to be a good sign, got up with a light heart and remained happy the Whole morning. Pranab then told me, "Have you heard the news? Dr. B is coming. Last night Dr. S himself suggested that, if needed, another doctor could be consulted. Then your idea came to my mind and I said Dr. B could be called. Mother asked, 'Is he a yogi?' 'I don't know about that', I replied, 'but he reads your and Sri Aurobindo's books and he is a good man."

    Dr. B was then called. He stopped the coramine and some other drugs. The condition began to improve and gradually the Mother was out of danger.

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    Andre told me the next day that he had informed the Mother about the effect of coramine. Still she had taken it but it was done consciously.

    The day before, perhaps, I saw during my afternoon nap a very strange animal huge in size, a hybrid of lion and tiger, drooping down as if from loss of vigour. That again meant for me the weakening of the hold of the adverse forces. I realised once more Sri Aurobindo's remark that behind diseases, as behind everything else, there are forces that work for our weal or woe. Doctors are instruments only in creating such conditions as may help the benevolent forces to work without any hindrance.

    This was the first time when an outside doctor had to be called for the Mother's illness except that once, long ago, Dr. Amaladas, a physician of Pondicherry, had been called to clarify certain impressions the Mother had about her body's condition during an illness. In Sri Aurobindo's life-time it was Sri Aurobindo himself who was the Mother's physician as I have stated in my book Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, and we had never seen her suffering from any serious ailment. I was once again reminded of Sri Aurobindo's prophetic lines in Savitri - among the very last he had dictated before his passing:  

    Alone with death and close to extinction's edge . . .

    The Mother recovered, however, but I am afraid the disease had left some permanent damage to the

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system and her health was never the same.

    In the month of November when she had resumed her work, I wrote her a letter expressing my intention to write my book Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo. I gave a detailed account of the contents of the book but I was not at all sure that she would give her permission. So I was exceedingly surprised when she replied, "C'est un excellent projet et mes benedictions sont avec toi pour son accomplissement". (It is an excellent project and my blessings are with you for its completion).

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