It was also during 1953 that a disciple offered to construct a new room for the Mother above the first floor of the Meditation House. Soli Albless, another disciple, was one of the architects entrusted with the task of designing and building the room overlooking Sri Aurobindo's Samadhi. The spacious room was completed and properly furnished by the first week of December and was ready for occupation.

Srinivas Iyengar ³¹

What is known as the Mother's room is the room which is opened for Darshan on her birthday (21st February) and the day of her passing away (17th November). It was built by Soli Albless in 1953 and it should not be confused with the Music Room (also known as her Reception Room) built by Udar Pinto in 1962. Both are on the second floor of the Meditation House; the former is on the west overlooking the Samadhi while the latter is adjacent to the balcony on the east. It should be noted that the Mother also stayed in other rooms of the Ashram main building at different times, though these are not known as such. See pages 160-61, 170-73.

Editor's Note

On the morning of the 9th December, 1953, after meditation, Mother informed Dyuman that she would go up to her new room on the second floor from that night. Thereafter she spent the nights there. And now and then she would spend some time there during the daytime also.

Champaklal ³²

The Music Room and the East Balcony

Mother had been presented with a wonderful Wurlitzer Electric Organ on which She would play regularly. It was kept in Pavitra's room. This also She could not use now. Then one day I said to Her that unless She played on the organ from time to time it would get spoiled, and none of us would like to play on Her organ. So Mother asked me what was to be done and I suggested that we bring the organ up to Her new room [the room overlooking the Samadhi]. She refused to agree to this as She said that there was no space for the instrument in Her room: it would upset the balance of the furnishing of the room. So then I suggested that we build a special room next to Her bathroom as there was enough place on the terrace for it. Mother agreed to have a small room specially for the organ, and we set about to design it.

Now my Aunt Mary had given to Mother a beautiful carpet, an Aubusson, which she had herself received from the Maharaja of Mysore. Mother liked the carpet very much but did not know where She could use it. So we decided to put it into the Music Room that we were designing. We then did a strange thing: we designed the size of the room to fit the carpet instead of getting, as is usual, a carpet to fit a room. This made the room quite large and then there was still some space left between the end of the room and the eastern extremity of the building. That space, we felt, could well be used for a covered balcony which could be carried round to the south side also. This change we kept rather secret and did not even inform Mother about it. It also meant quite a bit more expense. So Dyuman, who had to find the money for all the work, was annoyed at this additional expenditure which had not been sanctioned by Mother, and he expressed himself quite strongly.

When all had been built I informed Mother that everything was ready for Her to see, and She came to see. She liked very much the large Music Room in which we had already installed the organ. Then She looked out east and saw the balcony and She said: "Udar! What is this you have done? A balcony! Do you expect me to start giving Darshans again from here?" I replied: "Mother, I expect nothing but only that You are happy with what we have done. So please come out and see this balcony." And Mother came out. In the meanwhile, we had sent word around that Mother might come on the new balcony, and so there were people all about, on the street and on each surrounding terrace, etc. Almost the whole Ashram had turned out and they all had a Darshan of Mother, after such a long time. Mother gave a real Darshan, standing some time looking at all as She did whenever She gave Darshans. All were so happy and Dyuman came to me and embraced me warmly and said: "Udar, forget all I said before. Our people have had Mother's Darshan at last. This is worth all that has been spent and even more; I am very, very happy." This brought tears to my eyes because I am very fond of Dyuman and was not happy that he had been angry with us. Now it was all wonderful.

This, then, is how the new balcony came to be and Mother gave Her Darshans on every Darshan Day from there. The Music Room was also very useful to Her, not only for Her to play the Organ but also to give Her interviews: She could be quiet and undisturbed there. So on every count it was a very happy thing brought about by Mother's Grace and by Her Love.

Udar Pinto ³⁴

On her eighty-fifth birthday (21 February 1963), the Mother gave Darshan in the evening at 6.15 from the new "balcony" on the terrace adjoining her apartments on the second floor of the Meditation House, the north-east section of the main Ashram building. A large number of disciples and admirers had gathered in the street below, and they had their long-awaited Darshan of the Mother and her benedictions. For almost thirteen months there had been no Darshan, and hence this was truly an uncommon event. Fair and frail in appearance yet visibly divine, the Mother stood in her simple attire, and surveyed and blessed the mass of humanity looking up to her in love and adoration. There was the union of poise and slow rhythmic movement in her sustained semi-circular sweep of compassionate comprehension, and everyone of the rapt and packed congregation thought the Mother had eyes for him or her alone, and everyone's face lighted with the mystic glow of ineffable fulfilment.

Srinivas Iyengar ³⁵

When the Mother fell ill in March 1962, she stopped coming down from the second floor to give the Balcony Darshan. After skipping it on the 17th and 19th, she gave her last Balcony Darshan on the 20th of March 1962. As her room on the second floor (the room overlooking the Samadhi) had only an attached toilet, plans for a new bathroom were immediately drawn and executed. The new bathroom on the second floor was ready on 11 May 1962. The Music Room and the balcony to the east were completed on 15 December 1962. When the Mother came to inaugurate them on the next day, that is, on the 16th, there

was such a crowd of people on the streets and rooftops wanting to see her that she "had no choice but to go out on the balcony". Though this could be recorded as her first Terrace Darshan, the first official Terrace Darshan was on 21 February 1963. Apart from a few special occasions, the Terrace Darshans were given only on the four Darshan days, that is, 21 February, 24 April, 15 August and 24 November, ending with the last Darshan on 15 August 1973.

The two balconies used for Balcony Darshan and Terrace Darshan should not be confused. The Balcony Darshan refers to the Mother's Darshan from the balcony on the north side of the first floor of the Secretariat; the disciples gathered daily on Rue Saint Gilles at about 6.15 a.m. until March 1962. The Terrace Darshan refers to the Darshan from the balcony on the east side of the second floor of the Meditation House. Strictly speaking, this is a terrace enclosure and not a balcony. The disciples gathered on Rue François Martin from 1963 to 1973 and the starting time of the Terrace Darshan varied from 5.15 to 6.15 p.m., depending on the month and the year.

There was also a "Terrace Darshan" during the mid-forties when the Mother used to walk at about 10 a.m. on the terrace of the first floor of the Meditation House and the New Secretariat before her rooms on the second floor were built (see pp. 148-153). When this was suspended, the term "Terrace Darshan" became associated with the Darshan the Mother gave from the second floor balcony to the east from 1963 to 1973.

Editor's Note

Often you have asked me to write to you about the most striking things of the Ashram here and so long I have somehow dodged the issue. You see, it isn't at all an easy job to pick and choose the striking things of the place. I am still, like a novice, seeing things more than understanding their deeper import. However, just to satisfy your curiosity, I am giving below some idea of what's known as the Balcony Darshan here. In my view it is the most marvellous part of the daily routine followed here and I have attended it almost every day of my stay here. Yet who can conspire with words to arrest and confine the peculiar thrill of the union of the human soul with the Divine? It is no ordinary darshan we see before us. There is no proclamation, no ceremony, no obsequious bowing or supercilious admittance. Here is no hurry, no bustle, no pushing nor jostling. Here there is no newspaper trumpeting of numbers, nor pompous festoonings and loud greetings.

Here is the quiet rhythmic beauty of a simple gathering of human souls below and the smiling peace and power of the graciously humanised Divinity.

Just mark, what a fine pattern of meeting quietly unfolds itself!

The drowsy mists of the night are fled and Dawn is slowly breaking, developing into day. The birds are astir with the eager songs for the coming glory. Our human hearts are aflutter with the desire to see the Mother. It is time for her to appear at the balcony - should I add, the infallible balcony of our sincere aspiration? From the east, from the west, from north and south, aspirants of all ages and climes, workers, scholars,

poets and sportsmen are moving to the one gravitational point of the balcony of grace. They are like muted waves driven to the shore by a simple, sweeping breath of some invisible power. Nothing, it seems, can resist this centripetal movement. Whether one comes alone or in twos and threes, the driving force is one undivided Presence. Within a few minutes, the whole scene of multitudinous gathering gets set before us. Small children have selected a little spot of their own. Free and frolicking as they are, they must have their little chat and fun even here and at this hour. The Mother keeps them in her breast forever and need they suspend their little talk and play for the sake of what we call conscious aspiration? And yet here even these child-souls never for a moment forget the purpose for which they have come, the glimpse of the loving mother they will have. But some of the grown-ups among them are already quietly standing or sitting apart, trying to awaken the proper spirit of welcome in their bosom and thought. Some of the adults quietly talk shop for a while; they almost automatically adjust themselves to the divine hour. But most are wholly engaged in silently sending prayers from the places they have chosen themselves. Each has his or her own favourite spot and as soon as they are on it, their inner being, it seems, gets in touch with the Divine Mother as though some unerring Finger has tuned them at once to a spell-binding mood of celestial waiting.

Except for the little children's audible prattling, the whole assembly is now gathered to such a silent upsurge of meditative quietness, there is now

created such a superhuman atmosphere of calm expectation that the scene appears to be ideally set for the purifying advent of the golden Dawn.

While this silent drama of human aspiration is being staged below, O with what an incredible quietness but no less unhurrying quickness the gracious body of the supreme Mother now appears like some fairy queen at the balcony above! Not only all eyes but all hearts and souls are instantaneously turned towards the heavenly face with bated breath. What a perfect puissant peace now growingly spreads over the purified place! As though some magic Will said "Let there be peace" and so there was the clear birth of peace all round. Even the children are hushed into silence.

While all eyes and thoughts are centred on the unfolding glory above, the divine eyes quietly survey the upturned being below. What inimitable phases of the beauteous smile, what outflowings, emanations of the superhuman compassion, what a personal touch of security and succour to each! There is an expansion of the soul-movements opened from below, there is a swift spontaneous widening of the human consciousness all round. Even the children are affected. All corporeal movements are suspended. All have ceased to live in their body. There is a strange silent transformation indeed! If one has the inward sight to see, one knows that bodies of inert clay have momentarily turned into undying flames of conscious beings. Time itself seems to stand still. Eternity has been squeezed into a few minutes. The human soul is face to face with the Divine Reality. The very atmosphere takes on the

radiance of the divine beauty. The breeze plays a celestial music. The soul blossoms with a rapturous fragrance. Wearing a smiling gravity all through, the multiform, multi-dimensional aspects and powers of truth converge upon a single leaning, down-looking expression of the Mother. The earth is gathered up into the heavenly vision. Truth alone rules and triumphs....

Shreekrishna Prasad 36