21 May 1969 Today I will speak to you of the last sad incident14 - the passing away of our beloved Pavitra-da15, the passing away of a true and real yogi. It is said that there is a "... touch of tears in mortal things,"16 but this touch is also sweet at the same time. Within two months, we've seen the passing away of two great souls from our midsr.17 We shall never come to know their true greatness because they lived such simple and apparently common lives: they shared our lives, games, pursuits, as if they were one of us. So perhaps we missed their stature and greatness, which they wore so lightly and simply, or perhaps we forgot their greatness because they were so close t

16 July 1969 Nowhere shalt thou escape my living eyes." [This quotation was put up on the blackboard.] The line is from Savitri.88 It has the flavour of that epic. Whoever may have picked it, I must thank him or her. It is very apt, very appropriate, and very true indeed, as some of you at least must have felt, in your own experiences. I've given you in my way a few instances showing the truth of this line from Savitri - His "living eyes" are all the time with you and I could give you many more examples of this truth. Perhaps, from time to time, I might, but I have already shown you enough of my feelings. So this proves that they are "living eyes" and you cannot esc

24 December 1969 Last time I read to you my homage to Sri Aurobindo, and today I will read the counterpart or the complement to it, the homage to Mother by Madhav, a very genuine and moving record of his love and gratitude to the Mother of Love: Whatever the form the Ashram as an organisation may assume to meet the exigencies of the community, to us sadhaks it is and it will Page-281 continue to be what it has always been: our Mothers Home. We came here because our Mother was here, we live here because She is present here and we will follow Her wherever She is - not merely in this life but in all lives to come. All our live

27 November 1969 [A talk given to the students of Mother's School, Delhi, during their visit to the Ashram. Kireet bhai first introduced Nirod-da.] I'll tell you a few words about Nirod-da. He came to the Ashram several decades ago. When he came back from England, he returned with a medical degree. But he turned to poetry under Sri Aurobindo's guidance. He began to write poetry - and he is known to us, first and foremost, as a poet. It is important to tell you the value of the privilege that he had. He wrote hundreds of letters to Sri Aurobindo, and he got answers from Him, on a number of subjects. He also used to be with Sri Aurobindo for many, many years

14 May 1969 Last week I had read to you the life story of a remarkable yogi, which all of you had enjoyed and cherished. [Mahatma Krishnashram's story]. It seems that our photographer, Vidyavrata,1 has met this yogi and that much of the story is true. He doesn't talk with visitors, and to the chagrin of Vidyavrata, he doesn't allow himself to be photographed! He was a witness to the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, so now you can calculate his age! Now that we're in this mood of storytelling and you children like nothing better, I intend to tell you a story. I feel a little sense of guilt for pushing the Lord from our midst by this digression, but I hope He won't mind, for He has

30 July 1969 Well, I don't know why, but I enter this room every time with a certain kind of nervousness, in spite of all that Mother says about being calm. I've not been able to analyse the reason for my nervousness, though - I am sufficiently old in experience as well as in age. Perhaps I expect or I fear some newcomers. I try to release my tension by laughing away my nervousness; that is one of the reasons why I have tried to be cheerful at your cost. Anyhow, today I've taken a very pious resolution to become more serious; but as you know, all these pious resolutions (as your experience may have told you) often end in brilliant failure! And it is particula

17 December 1969 Friends, shall I greet you with namaskar or "bonjour" or "good morning" or "salaam"? Sisir was telling me just now that, in Shantiniketan, Rabindranath instructed the teachers to greet the students with namaskar. According to Tagore, the teachers must greet the students with namaskar - that way, it can help to awaken the soul in the students. And here, Pranab, as you know very well, greets you always with a namaskar and a broad smile. I don't know whether he smiles broadly at all of you or not, but I am fortunate in seeing his broad smile as well as his folded hands each time he greets me. Well then, at last we meet. Some of you, I underst

11 September 1969 Yet shall they look up as to peaks of God And feel God like a circumambient air And rest on God as on a motionless base.213 [After having written the above quotation on the board] What a feat of memory! Friends, comrades and fellow-travellers! (I am becoming Shakespearean!) Because I've been suffering from some troubles and since you are my very, very good friends, I will as usual lay down my heart of troubles before you and hope that you will shed some sympathetic tears (which is very common among you) over my problems. Although I say 'my heart of troubles', it is not my 'sweet heart' that troubles me, to quote Amrita-da;214 i

9 July 1969 Well, I hope you young people have got over the shock that I gave you the other day,75 but it seems to me that you have enjoyed the shock. I take it that you are not so much shocked over the expression as by my utterance of it. You didn't expect it perhaps from my mouth, thinking me to be a 'goody-goody' fellow. Perhaps you 74Grandmother. 75He is referring to his usage of the word 'sala, which is a rude word in Hindi. Page-39 did not expect me to use such unparliamentary language. Anyhow, shocks, they say, don't shock any more - we get them so often these days. Besides, Mother and Sri Aurobindo have said, sometimes knocks and shocks are good f

22 July 1969 I remember, long, long ago, somebody lost something and Mother told him, "Don't go by your small mind: 'I left it here and then there, etc.' Rather go by intuition." I've tried to put this into practice, in my own small way: sometimes I don't succeed; sometimes I'm right. You have to practise and learn how to interpret such messages. I have had many queer indications of that sort - dream-revelations. Suddenly you get a flash. It's strange how things are revealed. Once, I wrote a poem and sent it out for publication. I didn't know that it would be published. I wasn't at all sure. I dreamed I saw the journal and the poem. And really it was publishe