PART TWO
"....It matters not if there are hundreds of beings plunged in the densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth. His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into Light, when Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth...."
The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, on her first meeting with Sri Aurobindo on 29th March 1914.
"....long after this turmoil, this agitation will have ceased... he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and lover of humanity... his words will be echoed and reechoed not only in India but across distant seas and lands....,"
C.R. Das, Counsel for Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Conspiracy Case, in concluding his defence address in April 1909.
"....You have the Word and we are waiting to receive it from you. India will speak through your voice, 'Hearken unto me'."
Rabindranath Tagore on his visit to Sri Aurobindo on 16 February 1928.
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Sri Aurobindo's great life stands a living truth of these previsions.
The nineteenth century was a century of worldwide upsurge. In Europe it witnessed the birth of free nations and great leaders of thought, and in Asia, particularly in India, it witnessed the birth of a number of mighty souls through whose concerted lives and works came about the resurgence of her soul. More than thirty of these historic figures were born during the significant period 1856-1872.
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. His father Krishnadhone Ghose (1845-1893) came of the well known Ghose family of Konnagar, a township in the district of Hooghly, West Bengal, the historic birthplace of quite a few leaders of Indian renaissance. Krishnadhone married Swarnalata, the eldest daughter of Rajnarayan Basu, a pioneer of Indian nationalism. He took his M.D. at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and served as C. M. O. at many places in Bengal. He was a man of great ability and lavish munificence. He developed an almost exclusive love for everything Western and wanted to give his three sons 'an entirely European upbringing'. Consequently, Sri Aurobindo, when only seven, and his two elder brothers — Binoybhusan and Monmohan — were taken by him to England.
Sri Aurobindo had his early education in an English family. When he joined the St. Paul's School in London as a scholar, he had already
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learned Latin, and read, by himself, even as a school boy, Shakespeare and the romantic poets. He passed the Indian Civil Service examination, obtaining record marks in Greek and Latin, and also the Classical Tripos (Part I) of the University of Cambridge, with a high first class and all Classics Prizes. He learnt also French and German, Italian and Spanish in order to read Goethe, Dante and Calderon in the original. When only eleven, he started writing poetry in Greek, Latin and English. Later he took up literary Bengali too.
In his eleventh year and then in his fourteenth he had mystic intimations of his personal role in great events and world movements of the future. In response to these divine calls and as a reaction to the humiliations and injustices meted out to his countrymen by the alien rulers, he resolved to give himself to the cause of India's liberation. As Secretary to the Indian Majlis, Cambridge, he made revolutionary speeches, hinting at armed rebellion as a way to it. Naturally, therefore, he dismissed all idea of joining the I.C.S. and returned to India, in 1893, with an appointment in the Baroda State Service.
As he stepped on Indian soil at Apollo Bunder, Bombay, he experienced the descent on him of an infinite calm which abided with him for weeks.
During his Baroda Service, first in the administrative and then in the secretariat work for the Maharaja, he became lecturer in French and
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Professor of English, afterwards, Vice-Principal, then Officiating Principal of the State College. The Principal, an Englishman, observed 'a mystic fire and light in his eyes'. He said: 'They penetrated into the beyond. If Joan of Arc heard heavenly voices, Aurobindo probably sees heavenly visions.' Sri Aurobindo's thirteen years at Baroda were years of preparation for his future work. He learned Sanskrit, Marathi, Gujrati and spoken Bengali; studied the Epics, the Upanishads and Sanskrit plays; wrote poetry, plays and essays in English.
Sri Aurobindo's political activity in India began, informally, with his articles in the Indu Prakash of Bombay, in 1893, exposing the futility of the then Congress aims and methods. The new and challenging ideas were much too bearable for the British government and also for the then Congress leaders. A well-known one of them requested Sri Aurobindo not to publish such articles any more. Thereafter he drew up a plan of revolutionary work and took part in its organisation in Bombay Presidency and Bengal. Sister Nivedita, who had been asked by Vivekananda to work for India's freedom, joined Sri Aurobindo in this work. She was on the Council of the first Calcutta organisation started in 1902 under Sri Aurobindo's direction.
In 1901, Sri Aurobindo married, according to strict Hindu rites, Mrinalini Devi (1888-1918), daughter of
Bhupal chandra Basu. In a letter to his wife in 1905, Sri Aurobindo expressed a little of what he
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felt his life was meant for — the liberation of his country by the power of the spirit, Brahmatej, founded in J nana (Knowledge), which he felt he had in him. He also said: 'God has sent me to earth to do this work the seed of which first germinated when I was fourteen and it took deep root in me when I was eighteen.' After Sri Aurobindo had left Bengal for Pondicherry, Mrinalini passed her days in religious persuits in devoted remembrance of Sri Aurobindo.
The Partition of Bengal in 1905 brought Sri Aurobindo out into the open as a leader with the mantric power of the Word in his voice and pen. He came over to Calcutta as Principal of the newly set up National College, now Jadavpur University.
Now when the national feeling against the Partition flared up to a white heat, Sri Aurobindo directed the revolutionary workers to utilise the situation and expand and strengthen their activities; guided the Nationalists in the Banaras Congress in formulating their policy and organising their work; started the Yugan-tar, a Bengali daily, and joined the Bande Mataram, the English daily of Bipinchandra Pal. These two Nationalist organs carried his lofty ideas of love of country and its freedom, of a flaming zeal for service and sacrifice, of quiet courage and confidence, into the hearts of his countrymen, particularly the youths. He published in the Bande Mataram his sequence on The Doctrine of Passive Resistance charting out a necessary method of execution of the Nationalist Programme of Swadeshi and Boycott.
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On the eve of the Calcutta Congress 1906 Sri Aurobindo was the first openly to declare 'complete autonomy free from British Control' as the country's aim, and to organise the Nationalist Party with Bal Gangadhar Tilak as the leader.
Early in 1907 Sri Aurobindo told his youngest brother Barindra to organise a revolutionary centre in their Maniktala Garden in Calcutta. The same year he attended the Surat Congress but, the Nationalists failing to have their stand adopted had the session broken up. And a number of Congress delegates immediately assembled and adopted the Nationalist programme. This collapse of Moderate leadership of the Congress was a pointer to the new spirit that was in action.
Outwardly, he was occupied with the two-fold work of politics and revolution; inwardly, his soul was preparing for the greater work to which he was to be called. Hailing Sri Aurobindo as 'a rare phenomenon in the world', a far-seeing exponent of the revolutionary nationalism of the time said: 'When such a man worships the Mother, Swaraj is now no far-off event.'
And why did he want Swaraj? It was, he said, because, besides other reasons, 'in the next great stage of human progress it is not a material but a spiritual, moral and psychical advance that has to be made and for this a free Asia and in her a free India must take the lead, and Liberty is therefore, for the world's sake, worth striving for. India must
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have Swaraj in order to live;... in order to live well and happily: she must have Swaraj in order to live for the World, not as a slave for the material and political benefit of a nation, but as a free people for the spiritual and moral benefit of the human race'.
Sri Aurobindo was in the political field for a short time, from 1902 to 1910, the first half of which was spent on silent groundwork; the second half, from 1906 tol910, on open activities. His achievements during this brief period is that 'he flooded the land from Cape to Mount with the effulgence of his light', says P. Sitaramayya in his History of Indian National Congress. M.A. much says in his Rise and Growth of Indian Militant Nationalism: 'The nationalism of Aurobindo Ghose was a burning religious emotion, the voice of God in man, the invincible demand on the part of the great Indian spiritual culture for expression through the reawakened soul of the world'.
Early in May 1908 Sri Aurobindo was arrested along with 38 other revolutionaries with whom he remained in jail as an 'undertrial' for one year, after which period he was acquitted. While in jail he had the realisation of cosmic consciousness and the vision of Sri Krishna everywhere. He had also Sri Krishna's assurance of India's freedom and of his release for his greater work for the world.
Obviously to prepare for this greater work, Sri Aurobindo started doing Yoga in 1904. In 1907
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while meditating according to the guidance of the Maharashtrian Yogi Lele he had the realisation of the silent Brahman and a complete stillness of mind. From now on whatever he wrote and said came from a higher source quite above the mind. And all his movements began to be guided by what he recognised to be the Divine Will.
Coming out of jail in May 1909 Sri Aurobindo resumed his work with two newly-started weeklies, the Karmayogin in English and the Dharma in Bengali, in both of which he wrote articles on the deeper significance of Indian nationalism. A veteran Indian historian holds that the essence of Sri Aurobindo's political work was to create 'in the mind and heart of the people the will to freedom and greatness'.
Now he arrived at a turning-point in his career. He received a definite ades, 'Command from God', to retire into seclusion and concentrate on his spiritual work. And he immediately started for his destined place and reached Pondicherry on 4 April 1910. Suspecting some dangerous revolutionary design in his move, the British Government tried several well-planned means to have him out of the way but Sri Aurobindo's resolve, T won't budge an inch from here', foiled their attempts.
On 29 March 1914 the Mother arrived in Pondicherry and joined Sri Aurobindo's work.
When in August 1914 the First World War broke out and man was up against man, immediately
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it called forth the Saviour Voice of Sri Aurobindo. And jointly with the Mother, he started the work of raising man to a higher level of consciousness by opening to him the vistas of a new light through the monthly philosophical review Arya in which he revealed new truths of man's divine destiny, the path to its realisation, the progress of human society towards its divine future, the unification of the human race, the nature and evolution of poetry and its future, the inner meaning of the Veda, the Upanishads and the Gita, the spirit and significance of Indian civilisation and culture. All these have since been embodied in The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Future Poetry, On the Veda, The Upanishads, Essays on the Gita, The Foundations of Indian Culture. The Arya ceased publication in 1921 after six years of uninterrupted appearance. Sri Aurobindo's supreme spiritual work in poetry is the epic Savitri in 23,813 lines of blank verse, the longest poem ever written in English, regarded by an American critic as 'probably the greatest epic in the English language... a perfect cosmic poem'. Besides Savitri, there is a large body of his poetic creation, including several dramas, all of which have since been in book form. There are about fifty other publications covering his essays, speeches, correspondence, and translations of and commentaries on Vedic and Upanishadic texts.
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Within a few years of his arrival at Pondicherry distinguished leaders, like Chittaranjan Das, Lajpat Rai, B.S. Moonje, visited him seeking his guidance in spiritual, national and international matters; others, like Tilak, through their emissaries, tried to persuade him to come out and resume political leadership of the country again. He declined the proposal making it clear that very few were likely to follow his ideals and ideas which were in line with the Indian spirit and would be 'unintelligible to many and an offense and stumbling-block to a great number'. Nevertheless, he maintained his keen interest in India's freedom and world affairs. For example, he recommended acceptance of the proposals of the Cripps Mission not that they offered freedom immediately but, as he himself put it, they 'provided an opportunity to organise the freedom of India'. He also applied his Yogic force effectively on certain world movements and events, including the Second World War in which Hitler, Sri Aurobindo held, represented titanic forces bent upon destroying human civilisation.
In his vision human problems including that of world unity cannot be solved merely by economic and political means but by a deep and psychological change. Man is destined to evolve a higher than mental consciousness which is essentially a principle of force and harmony. Even for social reforms Sri Aurobindo would not support any legislation or imposition from outside. Any reform, if it is to be
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truly effective and fulfil a real need of life, 'must come from within', he said in the early twenties when inter-caste marriage was sought to be legalised.
That the elite of humanity is opening to his thought is evident from the growing study-centres in the West and from translations of his works into various languages of the world as well as from the utterances of men of light and leading in the modern world.
Unlike most ways of Yoga, which are paths to the Beyond leading to the Spirit and away from life, Sri Aurobindo's Yoga rises to the Spirit to re-descend into life with its gains — the light and power and bliss of the Spirit — in order to transform life, mind and body. In a word, an integral transformation is the dynamic aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. The only power that could effect such transformation is a Supreme Power above the Mind. This he calls the Supermind. Its manifestation in man would mean his emergence into a new race of Supermen, of Truth-conscious beings. This, affirms Sri Aurobindo, is man's inevitable evolutionary future.
His Ashram in Pondicherry is not a planned institution. It grew as disciples came to live with him and do his Yoga. It took a definite form in 1926 when Sri Aurobindo went into complete seclusion leaving the entire charge to the Mother. Since then it has been expanding. Today it is an international
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community of above sixteen hundred men, women and children from various parts of India and the world. Among its many-sided activities today are of the Sri Aurobindo Society, World Union, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, an international City of Oneness, Auroville in name, all representing attempts to give shape to the Master's Ideal.
Sri Aurobindo had five dreams the first of which was 'a free and united India'. When on 15 August 1947 India became free Sri Aurobindo took this coincidence with his birthday 'not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition'. His second dream was 'the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia'; third, 'a world-union'; fourth, 'the spiritual gift of India to the world'; and last, 'a step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness'. Sri Aurobindo saw all these also either 'arriving at fruition or on the way to achievement'.
On 5 December 1950 Sri Aurobindo entered into Mahasamadhi. But the work initiated by him continues under the divine guidance of the Mother, and the Power he has liberated, says Nolini Kanta Gupta, is working through her for the manifestation and establishment of a new world with a new consciousness.
The Mother declares: 'What Sri Aurobindo represents
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in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation, it is a decisive action from the Supreme.'
One day we shall surely see the fulfilment of Sri Aurobindo's memorable vision: 'The sun of India's destiny would rise and fill all India with its light and overflow India and overflow Asia and overflow the world.'
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THE MOTHER, INDIA AND THE WORLD
The Mother round whom the Ashram at Pondicherry has grown up, the Mother who has been presiding over this Ashram and carrying on her work of transformation since 24 November, 1926, is the Mother of whom Sri Aurobindo has spoken in his book The Mother. That small but great book is the inner picture of the Mother revealed by Sri Aurobindo — her complete introduction to the world. It is, besides, the straight mantric approach to the very heart of the Integral Yoga.
Says Sri Aurobindo: 'The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.' And on her role in the supramental creation: 'The Mother comes to bring down the Supramental and it is the descent which makes her full manifestation possible.' Further he adds: 'Her embodiment is a chance for the earth-consciousness to receive the Supramental into it to undergo first the transformation necessary for that to be possible.'
Thus does the Mother act in the universe and in the individual. And she is also
beyond the individual
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and the universe. But she is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world in order to transform the life here; it is thus, as the Divine Shakti, that she works here for this purpose. She is that in the body, but in her whole consciousness she is also identified with the other aspects of the Divine.
Born, in France, and in the lap of opulence and luxury, she, as a child of three, four or five, would often move away from her toys, playmates and other pleasures into solitary spots and there pass in silence long hours in musings. Visions and intimations of the unseen and the far-off swam into her ken. 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy', says the poet.
The Mother once said that a child can see far ahead. She herself was an instance. One day the Mother was sitting in a chair. Suddenly she felt the world's weight upon her head. She also felt that something expanded, expanded and expanded. Then she knew all about the constitution of the universe and could describe it. At five years of age, the first initiation of the Yoga of Silence was given her when a deep silence from above descended upon her.
About the age of thirteen, for about a year, night after night, while in bed, she seemed to go out of her body and rise straight up above the house, then above the town, very high, clad in a magnificent golden robe far too long for her. As
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she rose higher and higher the robe lengthened, spreading in a circle around her as if forming a vast roof over the town. She would see coming out from all sides men, women, children, old men, sick men, unhappy men. They would gather under the outspread robe recounting their sufferings and imploring help. In response, the robe stretched out to them, and as they touched it they were consoled or healed, and became happier and stronger than before. All her consciousness was concentrated in the heart and the heart was no longer an organ but the Divine Love, impersonal, eternal, living in the centre of everything upon the whole earth, stretching out infinite arms and enveloping with limitless tenderness all beings that clasped upon her breast vaster than the universe.
The visions and intimations apart, the Mother had, on 8 December 1916, a direct conversation with the Lord, the concluding part of which is:
'I (the Lord) have chosen thee from all eternity to be my exceptional representative upon the earth not in an invisible and hidden way but in a way apparent to the eyes of all men. And what thou wert created to be, thou shalt be.'
Similarly, in his early childhood, Sri Aurobindo had his mystic experiences and, at his eleventh and fourteenth years, clearer and clearer intimations of world movements to be in which he would have his role to play. Finally, in Alipore jail, in 1909, he had the darshan of Vasudeva and His constant
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association, His clearest assurance of India's independence and His definite adesh (command) to leave off politics and prepare for His work — the transformation of India and the world.
This is how the Supreme prepared His chosen ones for His stupendous world-reshaping work.
When, later, the Mother used to go up in her consciousness and was once on the threshold of Nirvana, the divine Will turned her towards the earth. One part of the Buddha had received Nirvana, the other part, she said, came down to work for the good of the world. The suggestion of her work for humanity came from the Buddha himself as recorded by the Mother in her Prayers and Meditations, dated 20 December 1916: Says the Buddha to the Mother in her meditation: 'I see in your heart a diamond surrounded with a golden light. It is at once pure and warm, so that it can manifest impersonal love.... Turn towards the earth and men and radiate ....'
A fact of historical importance, once disclosed by the Mother, was that, while engaged in Buddhistic sadhana in France, she had a vision that the Divine was on earth to aid her. work but she did not know where He was till she came to India, saw Sri Aurobindo and recognised him. Also she recognised in India her spiritual home. 'From the first time I came to India,' the Mother said, 'I felt that India is my true country, the country of my soul and spirit.' It was in India that she became conscious
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of her Universal Motherhood. Since then identified with the soul of this ancient land she has been working with Sri Aurobindo in her infallible spiritual way for the all-round uplift of India as a step towards the fulfilment of her high mission in the world.
March 29, 1914, will go down in the spiritual history of the world as a red-letter Day when two Divine Forces in human forms, so long working secretly and independently but more or less on identical lines, without outwardly seeing each other, met and each recognised the other — be it remembered that since the beginning of creation they have been co-workers — joined their forces in the common task of carrying out their divinely-appointed mission — to rescue the earth from the abyss of darkness and death to the Light and Bliss of the Life divine.
In the same year, from the heights of her consciousness, the Mother saw that India was free and told the fact to Sri Aurobindo to whom it was a reaffirmation of Sri Krishna's assurance of India's freedom, given him in the Alipore jail. On 6 July 1914, the Mother had a wonderful perception. She writes: '...the formidable omnipotence of Thy Force is there; ready for manifestation, waiting; it is building the propitious hour, the favourable opportunity....The Force is there. Rejoice, you who wait and hope: 'the new manifestation is sure; the new manifestation is near.' It is remarkable that
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both the perceptions — of India's independence and of the manifestation of the formidably omnipotent Divine Force — obviously, the Supramental Manifestation — provisioned at about the same time, materialised too at about the same time, the former on 15 August 1947, the latter in April 1956. We learn from the Mother's talks on her Prayer of 22 December 1914, that her prayer for the transformation of the earthly desires has been granted. But the effect will take time to be felt here. The delay in materialisation is caused by material resistance, explained she.
It is a well-known fact that on the rock of this material resistance the mighty efforts of the spiritual masters of the past have been wrecked. That was why they ignored and dismissed what now constitutes the second and the most dynamic side of the Mother's personality and preferred the first: self-identification with the Supreme or the Transcendent at the top, rejection of the earth at the bottom — left abandoned to its fate.
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have been called to work at the opposite end, on the earth and for the earth. How possible in the face of material resistance? Let us then turn for a moment to the Mother's revealing New Year Message (1958):
'O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate and there is no limit to the splendour of this collaboration.'
By way of a short explanation the Mother has
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said that Material Nature has joyfully admitted into her workings the Supramental Force that is now very active on earth. The deeply entrenched Resisting Force is now a glad collaborator of the Mother working with Supramental Power.
A Victory unprecedented in the spiritual history of the world; to the evolutionary movement a powerful impetus and an accelerator.
Aided by Supramental Power and the open-hearted collaboration of Nature, the Mother now advances on the path of her work. Her work is for the world — to divinise it into a permanent Home of the Spirit, purifying and perfecting human life into a golden vessel of Divine Love, Power and Bliss. A revolutionary change embracing every department of life, sweeping off barriers and divisions within man himself as an individual, between man and man, country and country, nation and nation, kneading, as it were, the whole mass of humanity with the ferment of her all-powerful Divine Love into one great indivisible Whole, its innumerable components not dissolved but richly developed and developing in perfect liberty, and placing it in the arms of the Servant and Master of Love, the Supreme and the Transcendent.
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo stand pledged to each other and to the world that they will carry on the work till it is achieved. Their call to man has gone forth out of their Infinite Love and Compassion. It is for man to respond, and collaborate with
a glad spontaneity.
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Man now has the happiest assurance in the Mother's own words: 'A constant action is going on in the world. It is spreading and it is effective everywhere. Everywhere it gives new pushes, new turns, new ideas, new will-formations.' 'Through the apparent chaos of today a new and better order is being formed, but to see one must have faith in the Divine Grace.' The broadening of outlook and cooperative effort in matters of human concern beyond national limits, to the international, even to the universal, is a promising sign. If the world today is heaving to higher ideas and awakening to newer truths, hitherto considered strange or fantastic, one can well imagine how the fuller picture will emerge with the growing action of the Super-mind now always at work.
Says the Mother: 'Once more we are at this moment at a decisive turn in the history of the earth....All the aspects of man's progress should now unite with yet many others to form a more total and complete progress, a more perfect understanding of life, a more integral approach to the Divine. Even this unification is not sufficient. One must have faith, a vision of the future, of the goal towards which humanity is moving, of the future realisation of the world, the last spiritual revolution of which Sri Aurobindo speaks, that which will open the new age, that is to say, a Supramental revolution....That will not be a new religion which
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will not only be useless but harmful. A new life has to be created, a new consciousness has to be expressed, something which is beyond intellectual limitations and mental formulas. It is a living truth that has to manifest.
'But all that is of the future, a future that has begun but will take some time before realising itself integrally. In the meanwhile, we are in a very special situation, extremely special which has had no precedent. We are attending on the birth of a new world, altogether young, altogether weak — weak not in its essence, but in its external manifestation — not yet recognised, not yet felt, denied by most; but it is there, it is there endeavouring to grow and quite sure of the result. Yet, the road to reach there is a new road, that has never before been traced; none went by that way, none did that. It is a beginning, a universal beginning....It is no longer a hope, it has become a certainty.'
What place has India in the new divine set-up? Why has the Universal Mother, the Mother of all, and of all the worlds, why has Sri Aurobindo with his infinite expanse of divine wisdom, chosen to fix upon India as the centre of their work? Let every Indian, every man in general, infer the answer from what they have said of India.
Says the Mother: 'In the whole creation the earth has a place of distinction, because, unlike any other planet, it is evolutionary with a psychic entity at its
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centre. In it, India, in particular, is a divinely-chosen country.' And further, 'The future of India is very clear. India is the Guru of the world. The future structure of the world depends on India. India is a living soul. She incarnates the spiritual knowledge in the world. Government of India ought to recognise this significance of India and plan their actions accordingly. The soul of a nation consists in its aspirations, aptitudes, capacities placed at the service of the Divine. India is very conscious of her mission in the world. She is waiting for the exterior means of manifestation....India must maintain the spiritual leadership of the world. If she does not, she will collapse, and with it will go the whole world....India has a single soul and while we have to wait till we can speak of an India one and indivisible our cry must be: Let the soul of India live for ever.'
Here is the Mother's Independence Day Invocation: 'O our Mother, O Soul of India, Mother who hast never forsaken thy children even in the days of darkest depression, even when they turned away from thy voice, served other masters and denied thee, now when they have arisen and the light is on thy face in this dawn of thy liberation, in this great hour we salute thee. Guide us so that the horizon of freedom opening before us may be also a horizon of true greatness and of thy true life in the community of the nations. Guide us so that we
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may be on the side of great ideals and show to men thy true visage, as a leader in the ways of the Spirit and a friend and helper of all the peoples.'
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O India, land of light and spiritual knowledge! wake up to your true mission in the world, show the way to union and harmony.
India has become the symbol representing all the difficulties of modern humanity. India will become the land of its resurrection, the resurrection to a higher and truer life.
What is the duty of every Indian today in the present emergency?
The number one problem for India now is to find back and manifest her soul.
Divine Power alone can help India. If you can build faith and cohesion in the country it is much more helpful than any man-made power.
It is only India's soul who can unify the country.
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Externally the provinces of India are very different in character, tendencies, culture, as well as in language, and any attempt to unify them artificially could have only disastrous results.
But her soul is one, intense in her aspiration towards the spiritual truth, the essential unity of creation and the divine origin of life, and by uniting with this aspiration the whole country can recover a unity that has never ceased to exist for the superior mentality.
Let India work for the future and take the lead. Thus she will recover her true place in the world.
Since long it was the habit to govern through division and opposition. The time has come to govern through union, mutual understanding and collaboration.
To choose a collaborator, the value of the man is more important than the party to which he belongs.
The greatness of a country does not depend on the victory of a party but on the union of all the parties.
Let us all work for the greatness of India.
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True spirituality is not to renounce life, but to make life perfect with a Divine Perfection.
This is what India must show to the world now.
India must be saved for the good of the world since India alone can lead the world to peace and a new world order.
There must be a group forming a strong body of cohesive will with the Spiritual Knowledge to save India and the world. It is India that can bring Truth .in the world. By manifestation of Divine Will and Power alone India can preach her message to the world and not by imitating the materialism of the West. By following the Divine Will India shall shine at the top of the spiritual mountain and show the way of Truth and organise World Unity.
Sri Aurobindo always loved deeply his Motherland. But he wished her to be great, noble, pure and worthy of her big mission in the world. He refused to let her sink to the sordid and vulgar level of blind self-interests and ignorant prejudices. This is why, in full conformity to his will, we lift
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high the standard of truth, progress and transformation of mankind.
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Just as, on seeing Sri Aurobindo for the first time, she had foreseen India's independence as far back as 1914, so also had she foreseen the descent of the Supermind in 1931 and had prophesied that 'the effect of its connection with the material being would be a new creation, beginning with a model town and ending with a perfect world'. And just twelve years after the Supramental descent, the 'model town' had its inauguration in the border areas of Madras and Pondicherry on 28 February 1968. The town has been named by the Mother Auroville meaning literally the City of Dawn, the Dawn of the new Light of Heaven, meaning also the City of Sri Aurobindo whose divine ideals are to be its base, core and summit and whose spiritual Force and Light of guidance along with the Mother's are to be its life and soul. Its other appellations used by the Mother, are: 'a World City', 'a City of human unity and universal culture', 'a City at the service of Truth'.
All these names and the Mother's 'Greetings from Auroville to all men of good will, to all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life' and the Charter of Auroville announced by the Mother, as follows, throw light on how Auroville is intended to make for 'a perfect world'.
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The Charter runs:
1.Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2.Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress and a youth that never ages.
3.Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4.Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual research for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.
Sponsored by India, unanimously supported by UNESCO, all its 124 member-countries participated in the inauguration by adding, each its country's earth to the earth of Auroville, thus symbolising human unity as its foundation. And under the divine guidance of the Mother, Auroville is destined to be the centre of a world movement leading to its ultimate aim, 'a perfect world'.
It may be added that Auroville's plan has evolved
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itself in a way all its own and symbolises the Truth of the world to be. And it is the Supreme's will and the Supramental Force alone that can execute the plan through capable human factors, sincere to the core.
Here are a few more words of the Mother on Auroville:
'At last there is a place where one can think only of progressing and transcending oneself.'
'At last there is a place where one can live in peace with no conflict and rivalry among nations and religions and ambitions.'
'At last there is a place where nothing will have the right to impose itself as the exclusive truth.'
'Auroville is the shelter built for all who want to hasten forward towards a future of Knowledge and Peace and Unity.'
'Humanity is not the last step in terrestrial creation. Evolution continues and man will be surpassed.
'Each one must find out whether he wishes to participate in the coming of the New Race.'
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Says Bhawani the Mother: 'I am the Infinite Energy which streams forth from the Eternal in yourselves. I am the Mother of the Universe, the Mother of the Worlds, and for you who are the children of the Sacred Land, Aryabhumi, made of her clay and reared by her sun and winds, I am Bhawani Bharati, Mother of India.... by making a centre for the future religion you will be furthering the immediate will of the Eternal and storing up merit which will make you strong in this life and great in another. You will be helping to create a nation, to consolidate an age, -to
Aryanise a world. And that nation is your own, that age is the age of yourselves and your children, that world is no fragment of land bounded by seas and hills, but the whole earth with her teeming millions.' (Sri Aurobindo in Bhawani Mandir)
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