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

CHAPTER 20 WORDS OF THE MOTHER I The series of fifteen Sunday morning Conversations beginning on 7 April 1929 constitutes the bulk of Words of the Mother (third edition, 1946) -178 out of its 214 pages.* The question-answer pattern gives the talks a homeliness and naturalness that is unfading, and involves the hearers (and the readers) in an intimacy of immediate action. One question leads to another, often in a collateral region, and the replies are full, frank and breathe an infinite freedom. In the result, the Conversations cover a wide expanse: what is Yoga for, and what is the needed preparation for Yoga; tapasyā and surrender (prapatti); union

CHAPTER 6 THE MEETING I On 3 March 1914, Mirra wrote: "As the day of departure draws near, I enter into a kind of self-communion."¹ A "thousand little nothings" had surrounded her all those years, and she had grown among them, basking in their companionship and friendship; and now that she was shortly to go On a voyage and would not be able to write "at this table in this calm room all charged with Thy Presence", she wondered whether those trifles around her would receive from other occupants of the house the same care and solicitude, the same loving kindness, she had given them so long. Even material things are not just to be taken for granted! Much later, she

CHAPTER 26 THE GOLDEN BRIDGE I The seven-year stretch from November 1931 to November 1938 was a period of great inner and outer development in Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The sadhaks steadily increased in number, the Kitchen and the Dining Hall were shifted in 1934 to a far more commodious place in front of the Park, and the several departments were beehives of dedicated work. After the Mother's serious illness of October-November 1931, she had to curtail the time devoted to meeting the disciples individually for pranam and interviews. views. And since early 1938, there was the daily Balcony darshan, and the evening meditation followed by Pranam. The ex

CHAPTER 41 NEW HORIZONS I For Sri Aurobindo and the Mother alike, the earth was a theatre of conflict, a veritable Kurukshetra, between the Asuric and the Divine forces; it was also a field of unfolding possibilities. On the one hand, the supramental change was decreed and inevitable, and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had direct evidence that the revolutionary power of the Supermind was well on its way to manifestation on the earth. On the other hand, this assured possibility was itself the provocation for the massing up of the undivine or Asuric forces to make their last-ditch stand. Aside from its political and economic implications, the First World War (not

CHAPTER 40 SACERDOCY I The School, now grown into the University Centre, on the one hand and the Ashram on the other were not wholly separate or separable institutions. The Mother was the common inspiration behind them both, their heart and soul and means of sustenance and growth; and the teachers were also sadhaks engaged in founding the Life Divine. When she was asked to spell out the nature of the Divine, the Mother wrote in a letter of 30 June 1952: The Divine is everywhere and in everything, the Divine is everything; true - in His essence and Supreme Reality. But in the world of progressive material manifestation, we must identify with the