PART III

1

Meeting with the Mother:

A Remembrance from Childhood

Dr. Beena R. Nayak

All can be done if the god-touch is

A hope stole in that hardly dared to be

Amid the Night's forlorn indifference.

As if solicited in an alien world

With timid and hazardous instinctive grace,

Orphaned and driven out to seek a home,

An errant marvel with no place to live,

Into a far-off nook of heaven there came

A slow miraculous gesture's dim appeal.

The persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch

Persuaded the inert black quietude

And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God.

A wandering hand of pale enchanted light

That glowed along a fading moment's brink,

Fixed with gold panel and opalescent hinge

A gate of dreams ajar on mystery's verge.

One lucent corner windowing hidden things

Forced the world's blind immensity to sight.

The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak

From the reclining body of a god.

Then through the pallid rift that seemed at first

Hardly enough for a trickle from the suns,

Outpoured the revelation and the flame.

The above lines from Canto One Book One "The Symbol

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Dawn" of 'Savitri', the epic poem by Sri Aurobindo is the sum total of the experience signifying the dawn of my life.

I met Her at the age of ten. At ten in 1971, my grandfather Shri Kalidasa Desai, invited me to accompany him on a journey. A journey to Pondicherry for a Darshana. At ten, I was studying in the St. Francis of Assissi Convent School in Navsari. My bench mate and friend was a mischievous boy called Hateem. I used to boast to him what a pet I was for my grandfather, Bapa, who came from Africa. Bapa was the centre of my universe at that time. He had become devoted to Sri Ambelal Mehta who had joined the Ashram in the early days. Ambelal whom he called Bhai used to send him blessings and messages right from those days of 1940's. My grandfather who had lost his wife in a second childbirth was totally anchored in the Mother since his darshana visits to the Ashram. I agreed to join him on the trip because we were going to fly from Mumbai to Chennai. I remember all the feelings so vividly. We reached Pondicherry, met Bhai who lived with two young Ashramites Hrishi and Deepak. He rushed us to the Samadhi. I remember how tired and sleepy I was on the last leg but as soon as we reached the Samadhi in the atmosphere of incense and flowers all on a sudden I was awakened refreshed.

"One lucent corner windowing hidden things

Forced the world's blind immensity to sight."

I looked up at a window and saw a lady smiling down at me; and all was wondrous. From that moment on memory records show only a gradual widening of that Smile and a growing awareness of a wonder that made everything joyous, marvellous....

On April 24, 1972 we saw the Mother—a crowd silently praying as one, at the Balcony Darshana. Then it drizzled a little but it was felt as a shower of magic. Everyday we asked Her to grant us an audience with Her by putting our little prayers in the message box. But there was no call. But on the Darshana day I wrote to her with my ugly, clumsy handwriting. On 25^th as we waited near the Samadhi the call came. I, my papa and my grandpa had been granted to see Her...

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"The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak

From the reclining body of a god."

I felt shy and hesitant as we climbed the stairs. Space, time as a continuum of consciousness became concentrated on one point—how I must bow to Her. I watched all the people bow to Her and being blessed. I saw my father bow to Her and then the awesome moment came when my turn came. I suddenly was so overwhelmed by the radiant Smile that I bent to touch Her feet and found myself completely embraced with my face on Her lap. How to measure that time encapsulating all the yearning and prayer answered in one signal moment when I felt Her touch and I realized in my overflowing heart that I had met my Mother. Finally, all that followed, being blessed, given gifts by Champaklalji, coming down to the Samadhi, going to Auroville directly afterwards, was flowing in that utter feeling of Mother's love.

Beauty is his footprint showing us where he has passed,...

Book II, 2

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