10 The Mother's Blessings — Soul and Body — St. Augustine and the Early Christians — A New Disciple's Birth — A Great Moment — Then and Now Life with the Mother, life away from the Mother, life again with her — this briefly was my lot from the end of 1927 to the beginning of 1954. And running through that threefold movement of time was the basic theme: life in the Mother. I say "basic" in a double sense: the support underlying all and the support not always showing itself through all the overlay. As I had appealed to the Mother never to let go her hold on me, no matter how much I might appear to deviate from the path, there w

The Mother and The Lord of Falsehood A Reader's Letter and the Author's Answer The Letter I was going through the article "Our light and Delight", No. 18 and was astounded by the statement that the mother assumed and form of the Lord of Falsehood in order to misguide Hitler and make him launch an attack on Stalin's Russia. This seems incredible. I have not heard of this before and surely it is not the way the Mother worked for achieving results. Did she really say at any time that she had assumed this form? The Answer I am sorry I have disturbed you. But what I have written about is factual. Both U

4 The Mother and My Last Darshan of Sri Aurobindo I had come from Bombay with my wife Sehra and some friends on a visit for the Darshan of November 24 in 1950. Sri Aurobindo was reported to have been unwell. But he gave a long Darshan, with a short break after some hours. He kept himself in a tolerable condition in the following days — until the late evening of December 2 when the Ashram's Sports-demonstration was over. His condition worsened on the 3rd; and when the Mother returned from the Playground she found him running a temperature. The same night I was scheduled to leave for Bombay. The Mother had previously informed me that she would see me bef

2 Some Ways of the Mother's Working All of us have enchanting memories of the Mother's sweetness and understanding — a divine enfolding of us and entry into the most sensitive chambers of our hearts. But the Mother was no ordinary spiritual Guru. The Supramental Divine acts from a level which can often leave us agape at its unclassifiable originality. A very unusual feature at times was the Mother's reception of physical facts reported by the sadhaks. Physical facts so impress and obsess us that we find any disrespect to them, or brushing away of them, a very disturbing if not incomprehensible matter. I have heard Champaklal say to me that these things me

9 The Mother's Compliments and Criticisms The Mother, although capable of being a "supreme Diplomat" (a phrase from Savitri) when the Divine Guidance required it, could be quite uninhibited both in the tenderness of Mahalakshmi's Grace and in the severity of Mahakali's Grace — both the movements being straightforward acts for the soul's good and having behind them the Grace of Maheshwari's wisdom and the Grace of Mahasaraswati's skill in works. We must realise that the same soul, for its good, could receive in clear-cut terms at different times the unqualified compliment and the unconditional criticism. It would be wrong to go e

16 Spiritual Life in the Mother's Light In the spiritual life, even more than in other fields since the possibilities and the pitfalls are greater here, a proper assessment of oneself is salutary and helpful. Two generations ago Tagore said that although India was lying in the dust the very dust in which she lay was holy. Obviously it was in his mind that this dust had been trod by the feet of Rishis and Saints and Avatars. Sri Aurobindo's comment is reported to have been that whatever might be the case the dust could not be the proper thing for a man to lie in and that man had not been created to adopt a prone posture. Indeed, if the Rishis and Saints and

14 Some Spiritual Aspirants from the West (a) Some days back I came across the March issue of the English periodical Encounter. Among the books reviewed I saw the title: Wittgenstein's lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939. The editor had drawn upon the notes of four students of that brilliant Austrian who had become the most influential thinker of his day with his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In the list of the students I noticed the name : R. G. Bosanquet. My mind flew back to the late 'thirties when my brother had gone to Cambridge for a year and in the course of his research had attended some of the talks o

18 The Mother and the Beings of the Vital Plane The Mother and Sri Aurobindo did not work only on the physical plane. Behind the physical are subtle realms with influences good, bad and indifferent. The Victory Day of 24 November 1926 brought the Overmind Gods into direct alliance with our Gurus' purpose of earth-transformation and rendered more effective their fight with the occult Evil that acts upon earth from its headquarters on the vital plane either directly or through human beings open to it. The Overmind dynamism, preliminary to the Supermind power which was the ultimate aim, came into repeated use during the Second World War. This war bro

3 What Came Out of an Easter Egg On a visit from Bombay in 1953 I reached Pondicherry on the 11th April. The whole journey had been a passage from state to state of aspiration — particularly aspiration in the head, a mounting movement which sought God with a passion eager to pierce through the skull — symbolising, of course, what Sri Aurobindo calls in Savitri "the intellect's hard and lustrous lid" — and grasp the infinities that seemed to brood overhead. This movement pulled at the heart also, lifting it up, though not quite deepening it into a discovery of its own inmost God-possession. Bombay drifted away like mist — only a few vivid impressions remaine

20 Lights and Shades of the Yogic Life An elderly lady who had come to the Ashram through me and stayed here for several years went back to Bombay because of some dissatisfaction with her lodgings as well as in response to a call from her family. She must have thought Bombay-life would be a bit of a relief after the rigours of Yoga. But she was soon disillusioned. A lot of suffering had to be undergone and she was very anxious to return. The Mother, however, did not encourage her. Time and again her request went unheeded. I was again in Bombay at the time. So she visited me with a plea to recommend her to the Mother. She said she was prepared to accept any