30       Evidently I have survived the celebration of my debut as a nonagenarian on 25 November 1994!"It was a bit of a hectic time, what with a large gathering in the spacious Dining Room of the Park Guest House and a wheelchaired Me being - as old-fashioned reporters would have put it - the cynosure of all eyes. My friends Nirodbaran and Deshpande had arranged the celebration. Nirod was asked to make an introductory speech and I had to follow up with one which might have gone on and on if I hadn't remembered that people might be waiting for nice things to fill their mouths as soon as I stopped wagging mine. There was a lot of cordiality and appreciation and I am

32       As to Christianity and your antipathy to it in general, I would advise you not to subject Jesus to any mud-slinging. You may criticise the historical religion which takes his name, and criticise its pretensions, persecutions and political manoeuvres. But you are mistaken in thinking that it started with a backing of force. St. Paul, whose epistles are our earliest Christian documents, was not the initiator of any "jihad". The backing of force came only with the arrival of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to be converted. Till then the Christians were at the wrong end of the stick, though the Roman persecution has been considerably exaggerated. This persecution

23       Apropos of the topic of people doing pranams to sadhaks and receiving their blessings, a number of points have been raised for consideration. The most significant of them is: "A sadhak may not desire pranams, but if somebody on his own wants to do them, the sadhak does not interfere: he allows them. There is no desire or wish involved. Is there anything here to find fault with?"   The situation presented in the question is not quite as simple as it looks. The person who allows pranams on the terms mentioned may be perfectly honest and unassuming and have a genuine consideration for the psychological needs of those who want to do pranams to him. But what may

36       Did I misquote Hopkins when I recalled his line on Oxford as Towery city and branchy between towers?   You have written "leafy between towers". I thought of "leafy" but somehow could not feel it to be as apt, visually no less than rhythmically, as "branchy". The largeness, the grandeur evoked by "towery" fails to get support enough from the former. Something soft and sweet and huddled together comes in, where the requirement is of something strong that springs out at the same time that it makes a crowd. I wish you or I could check the phrase.   Your picture of the new skyline of Oxford horrifies me. Not that I am wedded to the past in all i

7       You have written: "Am I right in thinking that given the defects of timidity, vanity, jealousy, shyness, possessiveness 1 am supposed to represent the exact opposite of these in my spiritual life? If it is so, I can draw some solace from the fact." I suppose by "solace" you mean not being in the dumps, overwhelmed by one's defects. It must never imply complacence, saying: "I have a great saintly future to be reached despite these shortcomings. Let me not mind them too much." What is required is the refusal to be upset by them. Look at them steadily, without moaning and groaning -rather seeing through their thick hides the future glory which exemplifies the conquest

      LIFE- POETRY-YOGA         Life - Poetry -Yoga PERSONAL LETTERS by AMAL KIRAN (K.D. SETHNA) Vol.3                 The Integral Life Foundation P.O. Box 239 Waterford CT. 06385 USA   First published 1997 (Typeset in 10.5/13 Palatino)                 © Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) Published by The Integral Life Foundation, U.S.A. Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA

26       I am always glad to hear from you but feet sad that all the news is not happy. There are two components here: one is the actual weakness, trivial thoughts, lack of sleep - the other is the worry about these things. Take them for brute facts without thinking: "How long will they last? Will they be there for ever? What other troubles will come in their wake?" When you write, "My equipoise is gone", you touch the real mishap. But this is not an irrevocable affair. Call for Sri Aurobindo's peace which is invisibly there all the time above you and around you and deep within you. Once he has accepted you as his own, he never leaves you. The same with the Mother's sweet g

19 On November 25,1993, my eighty-ninth birthday, I visited Sri Aurobindo's room after nearly fourteen years. My physical disability had deterred me from becoming a burden to friends who would have had to carry me in a chair. They said it would be a pleasure, but I had no heart to impose on them such pleasure. Now my young friend Saurav, who is one of a small group of youngsters most willing to help me and who often goes out of his way to make life easy and interesting for me, pleaded that I should go to the Room of rooms. I just could not disappoint him. So he took me in my wheelchair to the Ashram's ground-floor-space outside Nolini's room. Then he and others helped

14       I found your letter very enjoyable. I am never tired of reading whatever expresses sincere deeply-felt convictions - especially when the writer realises that feeling should never be gush and that one must be deep without being ponderous. You have put many things eloquently - but you have imagined me standing up for ideas and attitudes which are not truly mine. Having stayed for years in Sri Aurobindo's Ashram and known intimately the ways of the Mother and the mind of the Master, how could I ever make a fetish of the cleavage some yogis drive between the normal consciousness and the aloof Atman?   The intransigent leap into the Atman is not Sri Aurobind

18 Two letters of yours have been lying before me, constantly crying to be answered. They carry something of your magical presence and have tried hard to lift the heavy hand of indolence that has recently been weighing down the "man of letters" in me. I say "magical" about your presence because that is what I have always felt in all the years I have known you. One aspect of you seemed always to be looking out of "magic casements", so that there is an expression in your eyes at once of reverie and wonder as if they reached forth from a strange inwardness to some enchanted secret behind the commonplaces and familiarities of the outward world. And what is that secret? Her