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

CHAPTER 24 SURRENDER AND GRACE I At long last, after a month's suspense, anxiety and longing, on the morning of 24 November 1931 the Mother came down, although still convalescing, to accept Pranam and prepare the disciples for the afternoon's Darshan. It was a blissful occasion for the sadhaks. Speaking for the Ashram community as a whole, Sahana Devi thus recalls the occasion: All this while we were very heavy of heart. When we again met her at Pranam what a joyful day it was! The intensity of our feelings was as thrilling as when we had the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's Darshan. It is quite impossible to express in words the feelings of joy, a

CHAPTER 7 CONSECRATION I After the elections, from sometime in June, the Richards lived at 7, Rue Dupleix (now 3, Jawaharlal Nehru Street), a north-facing house not far from Sri Aurobindo's in Rue François Martin. In course of time there seems to have developed a certain rhythm in their meetings. Mirra would come to Sri Aurobindo daily in the afternoon between 4 and 4.30, bringing sweet-meats prepared from coconut; she would make cocoa too. Mirra and Sri Aurobindo would compare notes, as it were, regarding their occult and spiritual adventures. They had their hopes and dreams about the future, and in the early months Mirra started learning Sanskrit

CHAPTER 27 JOINT ADVENTURE I During the seven years between 1931 and 1938, there was, as we have seen, a decisive progress in the sadhana, the lead of course being given by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and the disciples too - most of them - were no slackers, and were reasonably responsive to the demands of the Yoga: some moved fast, some at a moderate but steady pace, and there were laggards as well, and even a few detractors. However in a collective sadhana involving so many sadhaks, - the number had increased from about 100 in 1931 to over 150 in 1938 - such inequalities couldn't be helped, and the crucial thing was the force imparted by the Engineer