In Her Company When the Mother was giving collective meditation, in the playground for instance, along with those people assembled there around Her, a different kind of people also joined in and gathered – beings from other worlds, gods and angels. The Divine in a physical human body upon earth – it is such a temptation for the disembodied beings in the other worlds; it was so great an opportunity to be near the physical aura of the Divine. It was indeed a privilege, the privilege of having a material body, the privilege possessed by human beings alone to come in touch with the divine material body! So these beings rushed down and tried to be as much near as possible to the

HYMN TO DARKNESS ONCE more I turn to the gloomy river bank, I turn to the embedded breeze here, To the dense and intimate shade of the Bo-tree, Once more I return to the darkness. I have, O Darkness, lighted lights Ever keener and keener; And I have found no comfort there, Nor consolation in that light. O Darkness, I turn to thee, receive me. Nirendranath Chakravarti Page – 73

TEXTS OF TRANSLATIONS IN VOLUME FIVE Vedic Hymns Page - 91 Page - 92 Page - 93 Page - 94 Page - 95 Page - 96 Page - 97 Page - 98 Page - 99

Page - 76 TEARS OF GRIEF SHED not tears of grief, Creeper of the glade! Shall Heaven's salver simmering with fragrance' Cast the unsleeping moments of the New Revelation, as the rosy tint from a brush, Upon the counter of the hardened miser that has fallen from the Path? Shall the branded arm of the harlot wear bracelets that enshrine the echo of the whitest snows? Shall the march of divine destinies, revealed in the memory of the spotless Beyond, Seek the gradient of a Beauty reeking with the cry of passion? In silence the Creeper in her ascetic bareness closes her eyes, vacant and tawny... Out of the dream of the Night the

Page - 84 EGO SUNKEN deep down I lie, with my ego Yet you ask where's the ego? But it is the ego that has been since my birth the glory of glories! It is the mounting plenty to the penniless: The more you buy up, the more it multiplies… I am, I am, I am ! The great Eagle in its home one with its Rider ... One gulpful it takes in its yawning beak and is again agape for yet another ­– I am, I am, we are – each and everyone. Whatever it is – universal or familial or communal ­– It always conjugates: I am, Lam, We are, We are ... However universal, familial or communal It is I, I, I. That will come one day, possess and fulfi

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Gods and Men I BEGIN with a Sanskrit proverb: it is not exactly a proverb but a witty saying, half in jest, half in earnest. You will see however the significance it carries. Perhaps, there is a story hanging about it. You know that the Sanskrit pundits, perhaps all pundits, are proverbially supposed to be very unpractical. That is to say, they are so much engrossed in their study, in their books, in abstract things that they lose their sense of the material world, of the external things. So, once it seems, a pundit wanted to know what a pig was: "I have heard of a pig, a boar, what is it? I have not seen it." Someone answered: "It is an animal." "What kind of animal?" Then another

IN LOVE WITH DARKNESS IT is all well, it is all well: If a speck of light from out of the sky Just flitted into my room, It were indeed a thing of unbounded joy. But when the whole earth Lies enveloped in darkness, I for myself need no light, Never into the tribe of jackals Would a stag enter, its horns clipped and shorn. I worship light And I sing to Darkness: This is no contradiction. For the life I would fain touch Still lingers on darkness' edge And I must love Darkness To reach out to that life. Gopal Bhowmik Page – 71

Vision of Dante DANTE is known as a great poet and also as a great seer: Sri Aurobindo mentions him as one of the very greatest. He names three as the supreme poets of Europe, of the very first rank: Homer of ancient Greece, Dante in the Middle Ages, and nearer to us, Shakespeare. Along with these Sri Aurobindo mentions also Valmiki of India. However I shall speak of Dante not so much as a poet but as a seer: as such he was a Traveller of the Worlds in the path of the life Divine in his own way; His poem is his autobiography. He speaks of his long journey, even like King Aswapathy in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, as a traveller of the worlds. Dante describes his journey through the

The Double Ladder I HAVE said, at the very beginning creation was a mass of material particles, dust-particles as it were, millions and hundreds and thousands of millions of them strewn about and scattered in infinite Space. And these gradually condensed and gathered in volumes and masses, definite forms and shapes, gradually changed their material nature also, developed into sentient forms, living creatures, conscious beings and self-conscious human persons. I have said also that the original dead material particles had in them or associated with them or fused into them particles, as it were, of light. They were not merely material energies but light energies which on their