APPENDIX I National Committee for the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary, 1972 Patron President (Shri V. V. Giri) Chairman Prime Minister (Shrimati Indira Gandhi) Vice-Chairmen Education Minister (Dr. V. K. R. V. Rao; Shri Siddhartha Sankar Ray; Prof. Nurul Hasan) Lt.-Governor, Pondicherry (Shri B. D. Jatti) Shri Farouk Maricar Convener Dr. Karan Singh Members Shri Bishwanarayan Shastri, M.P. Dr. D. S. Kothari, Chairman, U.G.C. Shri Ganga Saran Sinha, M.P. Shri G. Parthasarathy, Vice-Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University Dr. Hare Krushna Mahtab Shri J. J. Bhabha Shri Kedar Nath Mookherjee

CHAPTER 21 A CHOICE OF GAMES I In an earlier chapter, the short-lived but psychically very potent effort at communion known as the Soup ceremony was described: its distant filiations with the Japanese Tea Ceremony, the evocation of a unique spiritual atmosphere in the Reception Room where it was held in the evenings, the mystic phenomenon of sharing and exchange, the rewarding experiences of some of the participating sadhaks, the gradual decline in the degree of consecration and dedication, the effect on the Mother of the one­sided exchange and her decision at last to withdraw her own personal participation in the ceremony - it was a marvellous lyric

CHAPTER 31 COMING OF THE CHILDREN II In the Ashram during the War years, especially after 1941, as if in answer to the violence and destruction outside, there were assembled day after day for the adoration of the Lord all the flowers of the Ashram gardens and as if in answer to the adult lunacies and horrors in the War theatres there, in the Ashram, more and more of the flowers of humanity - the children of the sadhaks and disciples - found a free atmosphere for integral growth. The War, for one thing, had forced the hands of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and made them agree to the withdrawal of the earlier rule of exclusion of children from the Ashr

CHAPTER 57 SUPERMAN CONSCIOUSNESS I The Mother's New Year message for 1969 ("No words - acts ") had doubtless been decided upon in the last weeks of the previous year. During the small hours of the night preceding the dawn on 1 January, however, she had the experience of the descent of a new power of consciousness: In the night it came slowly and on waking up this morning, there was as though a golden dawn, and the atmosphere was so light. The body felt: "Well, it is truly, truly new." A golden light, transparent and... benevolent. "Benevolent" in the sense of a certainty - a harmonious certainty. She came to know later

CHAPTER 55 SADHANA OF THE BODY I The Mother was to all appearance confined to her rooms on the second floor of the Ashram, her movements were severely restricted, and the little she ate consisted mainly of fruits and vegetables mashed and made semi-liquid. And yet never had her consciousness been more wide-ranging or exercised more effective power than at this time. In 1965 she had tackled the virulence and violence of the anti-Hindi agitators when they turned against the Ashram on the night of 11 February; she had launched the stupendous Auroville project for invoking and safeguarding the Next Future; she had given the guidelines and provided the main

CHAPTER 54 "FREE PROGRESS" I In the early 1960s the Centre of Education was to undergo the beginnings of a revolution in the pupils' motivation, in curricular structuring and in teaching techniques. More than once during the nineteen-fifties, the Mother had expressed her deep dissatisfaction even with the best that was being done at the Centre of Education, and of course she knew that what passed for education in the outside world was hardly worth the name. But it was not enough for the Centre of Education to do just a little better than what others did badly elsewhere. A bolder attitude or strategy was called for in consonance with Sri Aurobindo's vision of

-33_The Mother^s War.htm CHAPTER 30 THE MOTHER'S WAR I In the last months of 1940, although Hitler had had to abandon his idea of invading Britain, the Luftwaffe sporadically continued its aerial warfare and among the cities receiving special attention were London, Coventry, Southampton, Bristol, Sheffield and Manchester. There was punitive counteraction too, and so the War entered 1941, extended to North Africa, and caused widespread destruction and dislocation. The seesaw between attack and counter-attack went on, and the comparative lull in Europe was too good to last much longer. Realising at last that a successful invasion of Britain was impossible so long as the m

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY WORKS OF THE MOTHER The Mother's writings and recorded conversations have been published in the original French, as well as in authorised English translations. The Mother often wrote or spoke in English too to her disciples, and most of these writings and conversations have also been collected and published. In the birth centenary edition of the Mother's Collected Works the following titles have come out to date: Vol.1 Prayers and Meditations: Prayers and meditations selected by the Mother from her diaries of 1912 to 1919, and five prayers of a later date. Vol.2 Words of Long Ago: Writings before 1920: Early es

INDEX Abdul Baha 40ff, 50 A.B. Patel 573, 686 Agastya, Rishi 133 Aiyar, V.V.S. 85, 132 Alfassa, Mathilde 3-4, 833 Alfassa, Matteo 132, 833 Alfassa, Maurice 3, 833 Alfassa, Mirra see MOTHER, THE Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) 86-7, 244, 253, 261, 264-5, 287, 290, 296-7, 319, 321, 325, 327-9, 341, 354, 358, 372, 387, 402,488,495, 504, 549-50, 573, 590, 604, 618, 686, 691 Ambalal Purani 136, 143, 151, 211-2, 214, 221, 225, 235, 239, 398, 400, 496, 676, 691 Ambu (Ambalal) Patel 496 Amrita (K.A. Iyengar) 85, 91-2,121, 201, 203, 230, 235, 246,263, 296, 326, 328-9, 340/494,691,780 Ananta (Frederick Bushnell) 624 Andre Morisset 28, 477-8, 577, 579, 801, 817, 820, 823, 834

CHAPTER 58 MATRIMANDIR I In her message for 1970, the Mother asked: The world is preparing for a big change. Will you help? The first part was an announcement, but the second part was not quite an exhortation-like, for example, "Remain young..." (1968) or "No words - acts" (1969) - but rather an invitation, almost an intimate pleading. "Are you ready?" the Mother had queried in 1964; now it was more pressing, more urgent: Will you help? A role was reserved for the sadhaks, and for humanity at large. In the developing world drama, in the unfolding cosmic drama, people were suddenly — peremptorily, irresistibly - invited to the stage. We were no