37 All Life is Yoga It was going to turn out to be an incredible 'spiritual adventure.' Because it was the 'Yoga for the Earth.' Not an atom was to be neglected. Sri Aurobindo's motto was 'All Life is Yoga,' and he lived up to it. His was the Upanishadic view, which did not assert the unreality of our present existence but only its incompleteness and inferiority. So what Sri Aurobindo had to do was to get to the bottom of things: where did things go wrong? Why did they go wrong? He began by observing life. Not only of man, to be sure. No creature great or small was beyond the pale of observation of this Scientist of Yoga. He observed, studied, analyzed. He ob

-31_French Government^s Headache.htm 28 French Government's Headache "Without too much trouble"? Let us see. Bharati appreciated the "keen sense of justice on the part of certain French magistrates." We shall meet one of them by and by. Nolini went further: "In fact," he said, "the French Government had not been against us, indeed they helped us as far as they could. We were looked upon as their guests and as political refugees, it was a matter of honour for them to give us their protection. And where it is a question of honour, the French as a race are willing to risk anything," he said in the 1950s. "But at the same time, they had their friendship, the entente cordiale,

-57_Mirra^s Prayers.htm 54 Mirra's Prayers Mirra continued to confide her thoughts to her diary, which we know as the Prayers and Meditations of The Mother. Shall we have a look at some of those pages between her arrival at Pondicherry and Sri Aurobindo's birthday? "Pondicherry, March 29, 1914." It was a Sunday. "O Thou whom we must know, understand, realise, absolute Consciousness, eternal Law, Thou who guides and enlightens us, who determinest and inspirest, grant that these weak souls may be strengthened and those who are fearful may be reassured. To Thee I confide them, in the same way as I confide to Thee the destinies of all of us." Then Mirra met Sri Aurobindo.

13 Statecraft Earth's little Wedge became the great Mother of a mighty civilization. Worldwide there grew pockets of human development. The nomadic, hunting Palaeolithic people, using rude stone implements, gave way to the Neolithic people with greater skill, who used polished, improved implements.' An astonishingly long stride took place between the former and the latter. Neolithic tribes learned the art of agriculture, to domesticate animals, to make, paint and decorate potteries, to construct boats and go out to sea. In India, Neolithic people could spin cotton and wool, and weave cloth. Like their counterparts in other regions of the world, with whom they

Prologue : Once upon a time, long, long ago, before I or you were born, before our parents or grandparents were born, even before their grandparents were born, some thousands of years ago, the Vindhya mountain was upset one day. And why was he so upset? "Why," he asked the Sun and the Moon, "why do you not go around me? Aren't I a greater Mountain than the Meru?" The Sun thought to himself, "Oh, these old fellows! Look at his pride! Comparing himself with the golden Mahameru. Really!" Instead of answering politely, the Sun went on his daily business of going round the mountain Meru. That surely made Vindhya angry "Ah, old! Am I! I shall show you who is old!" He too sent

A Word with You, Please Hello! Hello! Friends. Are you still there? My absence has been pretty long, hasn't it? But only a wink in time, no? This probably calls for an explanation. But knowing my readers, I don't think it's necessary. As you enter this story you will understand the reasons for the length of time taken over this book. The time span covered is only four years, but, oh my! What years they turned out to be! It's a secret for the moment and I wouldn't want it to be immediately noised abroad. I let each of you discover for yourself. I must, however, divulge a few secrets. Our friend, Patrice Marot, obtained for me a pile of documents regarding

52 The Himalayas in Rue Dupleix "Listen," Mother told Satprem on 29 May 1962, because Satprem wanted to go to the Himalayas, away from Pondicherry's heat, to write his book on Sri Aurobindo.1 "Listen, I also had a longing to go to the Himalayas, I had a great longing for it when I was in France. When I came here the first time it was fine, I was very happy, everything was beautiful, everything was perfect, but ... oh, to go to the Himalayas for a while! (I always loved mountains.) I was living over there in the Dupleix house, and I used to meditate while walking back and forth. There was a small courtyard with a dividing wall, and shards of glass

8 Search and Seizure The third option was time-consuming. The government now concentrated on finding some indiscretions on the part of its 'dangerous adversary.' Any statement that Sri Aurobindo made was submitted to the closest scrutiny. The Intelligence Bureau, the police, even high government officers were roped in to analyse his speeches and writings. Oh, if only he would commit a blunder! The British government was ready to pounce on his slightest slip. But neither his actions nor his public utterances seemed to lend themselves to a new charge for sedition. Months and months passed. Then on 25 December a second signed letter was publis

36 A Spiritual Adventure "I regard the spiritual history of India" wrote Sri Aurobindo in a letter (18 August 1935), "as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the Upanishad and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed. In this development the recent spiritual history of India is a very important stage." Decades earlier, in an article in the Karmayogin (26 March 1910), Sri Aurobindo had given three names—Rama-krishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda, and Bijoy Goswami —as examples. They had then indicated to him "the lines from which the future s

19 Enter the French During the Second World War, specially after the Normandy landing by the Allied forces, Saint-Malo was much in the news. I still remember the horror we felt when in August 1944 we heard from the BBC that before capitulating to the army of General Patton, the Germans had set fire to the city and destroyed almost three fourths of it. But when our recital opens, it was a flourishing port on the estuary of the river Rance. It had become a part of France in 1491, and a hundred years later it had become fully integrated. The Malouins, as the inhabitants of St-Malo are called, were first-class navigators, and the ships they used were eminen