INTRODUCTION

The Purna Yoga of Transformation that has evolved from the guidance of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother at the Master's Ashram situated on the Coromandel Coast in South India has attracted thousands of aspirants from all over the world.

This Spiritual Centre of the Maha yogi of Pondicherry was envisaged many thousands of years ago by the great Rishi Augusta when he foretold of the coming of the greatest yogi from the North who would establish his asana, seat, for an integral world-yoga where East and West would find their ultimate synthesis. This yogic prediction was also confirmed in the songs and poems of another great yogi, Swami Rama-lingum who predicted the same coming of a Maha Yogin from the North, exactly one hundred years ago.

It is therefore not surprising if we find a great richness of poetry, and especially devotional poetry from among the first-comers to arrange themselves at the feet of the Master Sri Aurobindo.

Pujalal is fortunate to be among these early disciples who showered the Master with their 'LOTUS PETALS' and wove their lives into the KALPALATIKA of His divine embrace. He in answer to their devotional efforts took each petal with its offered texture, fragrance and colour and transformed them into a perfection worthy of the gods. Pujalal, entering a new devotional movement of his sadhana, felt the flood of poetry well up within him in the early thirties. It was at a time when those who had gathered around Sri Aurobindo and The Mother had individual access to their personal guidance, love and affection; their great patience and enthusiasm fashioning the foundations of the Synthesis that was to come and the basic preparations for the coming of the Supramental Light upon earth. It was at this time when Sri Aurobindo was engaged in answering letters all through the night after the

heavy work of the day was done. It was also at this time that Sri Aurobindo took infinite pains to correct and suggest changes to the flood of poems submitted to him by the disciples. Pujalal's poems of this time, from the early thirties to the year 1949 had always the grace to be read by Sri Aurobindo, to be commented on and corrected by him.

No criticism or assessment is needed in an introduction to these poems of sadhana, poems of spiritual and devotional experience which evolve through time from an individual to a collective utterance; from the song in the heart of the chaitya purusa to the spiritual insight of a kalpasamadhi.

These are songs that blossom with the evolving realisation of the poet. One who has trod the Path of Love and Devotion. One who has kissed the Lotus Feet of the Divine and come to realise the Divine in himself.

Pujalal says in the Author's note that the later collection of LOTUS GROVE poems "are naturally deprived of Sri Aurobindo's own touch"—I feel, on careful reading and identifying myself with these affirmations of devotion, that this is hardly the case. It seems to me that Sri Aurobindo's imprint continues to echo in the beautiful lines on say "At The Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo" and "The Service Tree" etc.

It is inevitable that such poems must be left for the reader to draw what Amrit he can from the fragrance of words that issue from the inner worlds and spirit of a KAVI of the Life Divine.

Norman C. Dowsett