42 Laying Down the Foundation It was a singular discovery of Sri Aurobindo's that the Supermind was everywhere, even in the atoms, just as mind and life were there. The only trouble was that the Supermind was not yet a part of manifestation, in the sense that it was not the organizer of life and mind. Being an effective power, the Supramental can work its way if once it can be activated in matter. What a trouble that proved to be! His plan, you see, was to get the organizing power of the Supermind—the Truth-Consciousness—work everywhere, down to the physical plane. That was the only way to effect a radical change of the present human nature. Now, t

17 The Colonizers That was the bright side of the coin. Then there was the flip side. It was Europe's unregenerated vital, full of greed and cruelty. It had grown almost unchecked. As though the Black Death had taken root in Europe's life system itself. That is why today, at the start of the twenty-first century of the Christian era, that European "civilization" seems to be in its last throes. But in the fifteenth century the western world was just coming into its own. And it had a role to play in the world. The new-found zeal of the Europeans for exploration and discovery, pushed along by strides made by technology, sped them to colonize the world.

25 South Indian Nationalists Bharati slipped through the Madras police net to Pondicherry in September 1908. That fateful year 1908. The colonial rulers were no sleepyheads. Once they swung into action against the Nationalists, they did a thorough job ... to the worst of their abilities. From May 1908, the Anglo-Indian government began filling up its prisons with the Bengali group of Nationalists—even a whiff of suspicion was enough to land a youth in prison, even a passer-by near a public meeting was not spared a jail sentence. The principal culprits, 'the prime movers' as the government put it, were the Ghose brothers; especially th

-07_Shankar Chetty^s House.htm 4 Shankar Chetty's House On their way from Cours Chabrol to Shankar Chetty's house, as they rode in the horse carriage, Srinivasachari and Bharati explained to Sri Aurobindo the arrangements made for his lodging. At first the Guest was reluctant to live in another man's house and said he would rather have a separate place. The two men assured him that an alternative existed, in case this one did not suit him. But this one was safer than the other. Would 'Babu' not give it a try tonight? Sri Aurobindo consented. On arrival he inspected the accommodation provided, "and found that by closing the doors of the stairs the whole upstairs became a separate bl

5 The Uttara Yogi What Moni and Bejoy must have enjoyed the most were the seances or sessions of 'automatic writings.' They could be exhilarating. Yes, for some years at Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo continued the practice of automatic writing until he found out fully what was behind it. For the first three months, it seems, the seances were regularly held. Apart from Moni and Bejoy, both Bharati and Srinivasachari were regulars too. Well, they were witness to the writing of Yogic Sadhan in that way. Every day one chapter was written, notes Purani. The book with its nine chapters was finished quickly. From whom did Sri Aurobindo 'receive' it? "When

38 Science of the Spirit Let us not imagine that Sri Aurobindo was passing his time like any old scientist simply studying the movements of birds and beasts and insects, and their psychology. No. I dare say that that was but a by-product of his keen interest in all-life. What was he doing then? "I am developing the necessary powers for bringing down the spiritual on the material plane," he wrote in a letter of 12 July 1911, from Raghavan house where he had met Alexandra David-Neel. How did he go about it? At Sundar Chetty's house he was already honing his skills. One of the first was to obtain the effectiveness of the Will on an object or

45 One Day The bad shape of the economy made Sri Aurobindo move to a small house in the centre of the "native" quarters: N°59 rue de la Mission Etrangere, or Mission Street; Mata coil Street to the locals. Sri Aurobindo lived in this fourth house for six months, from April to October 1913. With him were Bejoy, Moni, Nolini, Saurin and V. Ramaswami. Two Bengalis, Nagen Nag and Biren Roy, joined them in July 1913. With no improvement in their pecuniary state in sight, Sri Aurobindo wrote to Motilal detailing their plight. "Our position here now is at its worst; since all efforts to get help from here have been temporarily fruitless and we have to depend on yo

11 Vedapuri Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry. Nobody knows when this port town on the Coromandel coast came into existence. Its birth is lost in the mists of time. But if you sit on its sandy beach, quieten your mind, and listen to the lapping waters of the ocean, you will be taken to a time beyond time. My spirit drifted off with the murmuring voices of the sea. I was startled out of it by a loud noise. I jumped to my feet and turned. I saw a forest. Elephants trumpeted as they passed through it. Behind them came other animals. The spotted deer was lovely (I remember him so well even now). All were running. Running towards the north. The last to run

20 The Fly in the Ointment In a general way, the French turned out to be more humane in their dealings with the native populations. But they too had their moments of aberration. Things had gone on for several decades, with more ups than downs, after the death of Francois Martin (1706).1 Left to themselves, things might have developed harmoniously between the French government and the Tamil population, the vast majority of them Hindus. But there is always a fly in the ointment. In the event, the fly was the Christian missionaries. Jesuits to be more precise. It was impossible for a tribe of those proselytizers to tolerate Hindu temples. Mind you,

40 The Traveller To be sure Sri Aurobindo never did anything haphazardly. He had a programme all chalked out which he was following. When Sarala Devi Chowdhurani, Tagore's niece, and Sri Aurobindo's fellow worker of the revolutionary days, came to meet him towards the end of 1920, Sri Aurobindo hinted as much. "As for myself, I have a personal programme," he told her. He was more forthcoming in 1923. It was his fifty-first birthday, and the dozen or so assembled disciples wanted to know the actual state of his sadhana. In the middle of the talk Sri Aurobindo let fall that he was "following a certain programme that was laid down for me when I came down t