Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Mother's Agenda:February 1951

February 1951

(Note written by hand two months after Sri Aurobindo's departure)
The lack of the earth's receptivity and the behavior of Sri Aurobindo's disciples' are largely responsible for what happened to his body. But one thing is certain: the great misfortune that has just beset us in no way affects the truth of his teaching. All he said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will make this abundantly clear.

ISBN 2-902776-33-0

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

At The Bottom Of Hell Fire

The Mother


Two things you must never forget:

Sri Aurobindo's compassion and the Mother's love, and it is with these two things that you will go on fighting steadily, patiently, until the enemies are definitively routed and the Victory is won for ever.

Courage outside, peace inside and a quiet unshakable trust in the Divine's Grace.

19 May 1933 

[Yusufali 37:64] For it is a tree that springs out of the bottom of Hell-Fire -the quran                                                                        


                                                                                  

The Mother's Agenda: 9th Septembar,1970

September 9, 1970

The Hell
(Mother seems very slightly better, though still quite exhausted.)
I had something to tell you, but I don't remember at all.... Maybe it'll come back.
(very long silence, then Mother gestures that she remembers and plunges in again)
It's coming, but not yet precise enough. Do YOU have anything to ask?
Was it related to "that night," when you were as if in hell?
Yes, it was related to that. It was ... I'll try to explain. You know that OM is said to be the sound of the whole universe turned towards the Supreme, imploring the Supreme - and the result is OM. I had the impression that I was all the pain of the world - all the pain of the world (how can I put it) felt together. I don't know how to explain.
It must be that - it must be that because, before, I was dominated, you understand: when it came, I was as if crushed by the thing; whereas from the moment I understood that way, I was able to be above pain. And I am much better. But just when I said it, it was very ... it even had the character of a revelation. So then, it was very precise - very precise, very concrete. Now ... it's a translation, of course.
I felt, I felt at the same time something like an extraordinary Protection which prevented from going mad.... It was a VERY concrete experience for several hours: the protection of a Consciousness ... a higher consciousness, and a sort of power dominating the thing, with the perception that if That weren't there, there was enough to make lots of people go mad.
But the body is very ... the body is very affected (Mother touches her left eye and forehead). You see, there are ...
Impossible, almost impossible to eat - especially that.
(very long, moaning silence)
That sense of being crushed hasn't gone yet. It's like something preventing me from breathing freely. But the night after the day I saw you, when I told you, you remember, I told you (smiling) to pray for me ...
Yes, Mother.
... that night was absolutely wonderful - absolutely peaceful and wonderful. A night as I hadn't had in a long, long time.... I thanked you, I don't know if you know!
Oh, Mother....
(Mother laughs, Satprem lays his head on her knees, silence)
But Sri Aurobindo? Sri Aurobindo ...
Yes.
What does he say?
(after a silence)
I had (and that was frightful), I had the consciousness of all that he suffered physically. And that was one of the things most ... (Mother's voice is covered in tears) the hardest to bear. As if ... physically ... And our physical unconsciousness beside that, and the kind of physical TORTURE he was subjected to. [["We insisted on the dangerous remedies ...," confesses one of the doctors who were looking after Sri Aurobindo (Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo - "I Am Here, I Am Here!", 1951, p. 20). Sri Aurobindo refused - once. Mother refused. Then they stopped saying anything. "He knew that [one such remedy] would be of no avail and he emphatically ruled it out, but as we had not the insight nor the proper appraisement of the value of words when they are clothed in the common language we are habituated to use, we insisted on the dangerous remedies in which we had faith and confidence." (Ibid.) Let us note that the same phenomenon was to recur with Mother. ]] That was one of the most difficult things, most difficult.
The torture he was subjected to, which we treated so lightly, as if... as if he felt nothing. That was one of the most frightful things.
(very long silence Mother plunges in, then gives a start)
You see, it's like this (Mother gestures as if suffocating): an Anguish weighing down, and that's terrible. It's not in the thought, you understand (same suffocated gesture).
But Mother, this pain of the earth, isn't it to make it call the Supreme Consciousness there too, deep down?
Yes, of course. That's what I say to myself, what I try to find, but ...
There is something to be found.
(very long silence)
It's like this (same gesture of suffocation), and it's still there.... There is one spot, like a spot where there is such a dreadful anguish.... Do you feel how I have difficulty breathing? - That's it. It's constant.
(silence)
It's here (Mother draws a bar across the top of her chest). It's here. And I am as if forbidden to ... (Mother makes the gesture of rising to join the Origin above the head) ... As if I absolutely had to find something.
(silence [["A voice cried, 'Go where none have gone! Dig deeper, deeper yet // Till thou reach the grim foundation stone // And knock at the keyless gate.' ... I left the surface gods of mind // And life's unsatisfied seas And plunged through the body's alleys blind // To the nether mysteries." (A God's Labour) ]] )
What time is it?
Ten past eleven, Mother.
Do you have anything to say?
But doesn't the Mantra have an action on this?
My body repeats the Mantra ceaselessly. I think it couldn't hold out if it didn't.... Constantly, constantly.
(silence)
Sometimes I say to myself that OUR darknesses are YOUR obstacle, and that if we could conquer our own darknesses ...
Ah, naturally it would be easier for me. But that ... (how can I put it?) it's not my business. I have no right to demand it: I have to do the work.... Naturally, as I told you, your prayer that night had a ... you know, the word relief in English. It was, oh, such a relief!
(very long, moaning silence)
It's strange, it takes hold here (gesture from the waist to the knees), but especially here (gesture at the waist). I can't say what it is, but it's a dreadful anguish.... When it comes here (gesture to the chest), I scream.
It's in the legs down to the knees. Now I can hardly walk.
Its totally physical, material.
(silence)
Ah!...
I know very well what should be done, of course: this [phenomenon] should be observed rather than felt - it should be known: a knowledge rather than a sensation. Then it would be like other kinds of knowledge, you see.... But what does it depend on? I don't know.
(long silence)
We shall conquer, Mother.
Yes.
(silence, Satprem lays his forehead on Mother's knees)
You understand, that it will be conquered I am ABSOLUTELY certain of, but ... has the time come? That's the question. And it's this, this doubt, that's a torture.
(Mother takes Satprem's hands)

Monday, August 20, 2012

The Revolters

I looked at her.... Those cells, that body, so clear, so transparent, was constantly absorbing the surrounding negation, refusal, and even revolt. Each time it's as if those cells caught a human disease, or perhaps the human disease – THE human disease. And each time she had to purify, in her own body, all those suggestions, all that ill-will....
And WHO believed?
WHO said, "Mother WILL find the way. Mother WILL go through it."
Who believed?
She used to tell me, "I have no one here."
I have no one here.
So that being who tried so much for the earth, who sought so much for the sake of the love and beauty of the earth – and... "I have no one." It was so... moving, poignant, you know, to see her increasingly crushed, if I may say, by the pain of that human refusal, that human incomprehension.
There I truly loved Mother.
She was grand.
She was heroic.
Then, one day, they closed her door on me.
Towarnicki: Who?

Her disciples.
I don't know. I don't understand their world; their way of being escapes me. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand all those jealousies. I couldn't understand any of it.
They closed the door on me.
So there was no one left, you see.
Why become immortal?
Why become radiant?
For herself alone?
She who loved the earth so much, who tried so much to give it its own secret joy – joy in matter, that is. Its secret of vastness, of communication with everything and everyone.
She has gone.
But she has not gone far.
She is there. She is there.
I feel her. She smiles at me. She holds me.
But this is not for myself alone, either. It's so obvious that anybody can call in his heart, in a childlike way, anywhere, in any language.... "That" is ready to help us and... make us move mountains.
She is there.
If we have the courage of Joy.
Towarnicki: What did she say to you before she died?
Oh, yes!
Towarnicki: Could you tell us the whole sentence?
"They will believe me dead. You who know, you will tell them. I would tell them myself, but they will not believe me." That's what she said.
"But they will not believe me."
What did they believe?
That she was old.
Anyway...
Towarnicki: What was that revolt all about? Why did they rebel against Mother during those last years?
The revolt wasn't manifest. It was a muffled rumbling in many people, and especially in her immediate entourage.
Well, it's... fairly easy to understand.
For each one she represented an obstacle to his little desire, his little ego, his little power or prestige.... Each one felt it as an obstacle.
In fact, one just has to look around: After she left, the squirmings started to break loose. All those little... beings athirst for power, for prestige – all dressed in immaculate white – who even tried to lay their hands on Mother's Agenda, all the conversations she had had with me, so afraid were they of what she might have told me. They tried everything.
But there's no point in speaking of those negative things.
They'll go – let them go their own way; it doesn't matter.
More than one old orangutan or old primate protested against man. But that didn't prevent man from coming.
Let them return to their spiritual meditation, to their dust.
But what Mother sowed in the earth, with so much suffering – that's irreversible.
And that's what is in the process of... You see, the very same squirming we saw and are seeing in the disciples around her, well, that's what is now squirming everywhere on earth! It's all the little rats coming out of their holes, all the little cockroaches thrashing about, all the cruelties, the horrible things... coming out everywhere, as if the sewers had been opened.
Why?... It's because there's truly a STUPENDOUS beam of light that's focused here, revealing all the filth in the depths, so it can be gotten rid of. So something else can emerge from the DEPTHS of this matter, from behind those rat nests, or saint nests – so a new air, a new possibility, can emerge.
That's the phenomenon taking place right now. And it's taking place REGARDLESS of what we want or don't want.
So why not with a little of our breath?
For once in evolution, human beings could participate in their own transformation.
Constantly, constantly, Mother's body used to repeat that same vibration, that same mantra.
Anybody can repeat it.
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE

Friday, August 17, 2012

JRD Tata And Auroville


J.R.D. Tata and Auroville....

Towarnicki: And how do you explain J.R.D. Tata's helping Auroville?
Ah, that is something else.
Towarnicki: Can one talk about it?
Of course, one can.
Towarnicki: Do you know exactly what he did?
He helped Auroville a great deal.
Auroville was besieged by a corrupt police, paid by the "owners of Auroville" (in quotation marks).
Towarnicki: The owners of the land?
Yes....
They weren't the "owners." Mother had put a few people in charge (you've got to have funds to start building a city); she had asked one or two of her disciples to concentrate particularly on raising funds wherever they could to help in the birth or creation of Auroville.
And the people she had entrusted with raising funds to help in the development of Auroville are the very ones who declared themselves the "owners of Auroville"! It's quite simple and straightforward: "Mother is gone, so we are the owners."
And so those "owners" (who were unscrupulous people – really crooks, in fact) used every means in the book to try to keep their authority over Auroville. And unfortunately, with corruption pervading everything in India, they paid EVERYBODY – the police, the villagers, various officials – in order to have the government expel, or to choke the lifeline of, those residents of Auroville who refused to participate in the swindle and the big spiritual business. They used absolutely everything. They had some of them put in jail, they... Oh, there were all sorts of awful things!
Towarnicki: Including aggression?
Yes, absolutely, including aggression!
This is where Mr. Tata was very helpful.... You see, in fact, Auroville needed to be protected against those mercenaries. And he agreed to –
Towarnicki: That's really something...
He agreed that his name be used, and he said, "I guarantee Auroville's integrity." Well, the moment somebody like Mr. Tata guarantees something, it puts an end to a lot of intrigues; it kept a lot of little hyenas from perpetrating their mischief.
He was very helpful in that way.
And not only did he give his personal guarantee, but several of us joined together to found... not an institute, but a sort of society, called Auromitra, meaning "The Friends of Auroville," to protect Auroville from these crooks.
Towarnicki: And why did he do it?
Out of love, of course! Simply because he believed; he believed in those young people.... The group of a few
hundred young people living there: Germans, Italians, Canadians, Americans, French. He had seen them. He had seen their vitality and sincerity. And even if it looked eccentric or uncustomary, there was something healthy about it, something genuine, authentic.
So he said to himself, "I am going to guarantee the integrity of these people."
And he had seen, on the other side, the people who called themselves "the owners" – he clearly saw that they were crooks.
So, in his way, as the generous and very simple man that he is (he is indeed a very simple and straightforward man; Tata is a man who has a heart, a big heart), he said to himself, "I am going to protect these young people from the intrigues and corruption of those people" – who brought false charges against them to the police, who had them arrested...
He gave his personal guarantee. He had the guts to say, "No, no, no, this is not how things are."
Towarnicki: You have seen J.R.D. Tata several times, haven't you?
Yes.
Towarnicki: Have you talked to him?
Yes.
Towarnicki: He knows what you have tried to do, what Mother has done. He even went there....
Yes.
Yes, but he doesn't really understand how Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's undertaking can help present humanity in a practical and concrete way. He doesn't understand that.
Because, for him, the problem is mainly an economic one.
Yet, as he himself admits, what is needed is a change in human nature.
In truth, it is not so much a change in India's pocketbook that is needed as a change in human nature. If you don't change human nature, you always end up with failure.
In other words, it is not an economic problem.
Towarnicki: Or perhaps it's both. He thinks that, short of an economic solution, all attempts to ameliorate human nature – the "quality of mankind," as the founder of the Club of Rome put it – are bound to fail, because they will be thwarted by other forces we failed to take into account. If we let the fire in a nearby forest go unchecked, without fighting it, what is the sense of an experience aimed at opening the way to a future species? Will the force of such an experience be able to control the fire? Or will the fire inexorably and inevitably spread and end up destroying...
What you are saying is very true, but we keep talking of the future species as if... as if it were a thing of the future! But we are RIGHT IN IT – the process is taking place now.
We clothe the phenomenon in wrong explanations. But the real phenomenon is of an evolutionary order.
Towarnicki: Exactly.
The truth is, the old species is being broken apart so another possibility can emerge from it.
And that's the real key to everything.
Towarnicki: So...
The new species isn't in the next decade; it's right here and now.
We are living it. We are in the process of living it.
Instinct

http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/my_burning_heart_e.htm#048

Anurag Banerjee's Interview on Sujata And Satprem




On Satprem and Sujata
An Interview By Anurag Banerjee
On the occasion of the second death anniversary of Satprem and Sujata Nahar, I had interviewed Nirmal Singh Nahar in which he had shared his reminiscences about them. What follows are the questions I had put to him:

What are your earliest recollections of Satprem? How and when did you meet him?

When Charles François Marie Baron came to Pondicherry as its Governor Satprem, who was then known as Bernard, was the First Secretary to the Governor and Information Officer. Just next to the Government House there was an annexe where Satprem’s office was situated. He was a chain-smoker at that time and charminar was his preferred brand. During that time as a journalist I was introduced to him. In 1964 when I went to Pondicherry for the first time after 1951, I was re-introduced to him by Sujata. At that time the Mother was regularly giving him interviews; he was recording her conversations which later became Mother’s Agenda. After the Mother left her body Pranab said certain things which were absolutely rubbish because in Mother’s Agenda, there were certain instructions related to the Mother’s cataleptic trance which might look like death. Since I used to go to the Samadhi regularly I could hear Pranab saying, “This happened to the Mother, that happened to the Mother” and so on. This was soon after the Mother’s passing away. I don’t exactly recall what he had said in detail but I had informed Satprem what Pranab was saying as Satprem wanted to know about it. At that time Satprem, Sujata and I used to go to the beach for a walk. Afterwards when Satprem and Sujata went to Nandanam—Deer House—we used to meet there. What happened next is known to all. They left Pondicherry and started living at Kotagiri. At Kotagiri I met him a couple of times. I have stayed there for a few days as well

During the period between 1964 and 1973 when the Mother was speaking about her sadhana and was telling Satprem about the development of his own sadhana, did you interact with him regarding the nature of the yoga he was doing?

No, I was unaware of any details. This was because I was not interested. I didn’t even know what Sujata was doing. I was busy with my life and so were they with theirs. I also didn’t know that Abhay Singh [his youngest brother and an Ashramite since 1940] was in-charge of so many departments of the Ashram. I knew that he was looking after the Workshop mainly.

Was the Agenda the sole reason for the conflict between the Trustees and Satprem?

Yes, because there are a few adverse comments made by the Mother on the Trustees in the Agenda particularly on Navajata. All these comments they wanted to edit and Satprem had strong objection about it. He argued that not a single line of what the Mother had said should be edited. And this is all recorded in the cassettes and still it is available in the Mother’s voice. So the question of superimposing anything on the Mother’s Agenda does not arise.

Was Sujata-di also expelled with Satprem?

No, Sujata was not expelled. Only Satprem was expelled.
But did anyone in the Ashram protest when Satprem was expelled?
Many had protested but I don’t know who they were. But the main protest came from Sir C.P.N. Singh. Abhay Singh knew who among the Ashramites had protested.

But what about the confidants of the Mother like Nolini Kanta Gupta, M.P. Pandit who knew Satprem well? Did they also remain mum?
Neither M.P. Pandit nor Nolini-da were the Mother’s confidants at that time. Only Pranab was the sole in-charge. All the others were mere puppets. Even the Mother’s son André was dictated by Pranab what-to-do and what-not-do and he obeyed. No one could utter a single word in front of him. It was only when all the preparations were complete and a new dress was put on the Mother that Nolini-da was informed of the Mother’s passing away. There was no scope for anyone to do anything. When Satprem asked the people to take the Mother’s body back to her room no one listened to him. Pranab could never tolerate Satprem. Nolini-da too couldn’t say anything. Pranab had told very clearly that he didn’t want to listen to anything. It is recorded in the cassette. [See Mother’s Agenda, Volume XIII, 7 April 1973]

Tell us about their life from 1978 onwards, that is, after they settled at Kotagiri
.
Initially, we had no contacts for several years. I started visiting them after many years. Sometimes I used to receive Sujata’s letters. Satprem didn’t write. Only when he sent me books did he pen a line in them. I started visiting probably from the 1980s or 1990s. I didn’t go straight to Kotagiri. I went to Coimbatore and Sujata came there with Micheline for a few hours. Then once I went to Mysore with my wife and stayed there for two days; then we proceeded to Pondicherry. And subsequently it was like this that we used to go to Pondicherry every year and on our way back we used to go to Kotagiri and from Kotagiri back to Calcutta. In those days Satprem used to tell me about his sadhana and the difficulties he was facing. He was very much perturbed to see the deteriorating political scene of India. And he always insisted that this has to be broken completely, shattered like this [gesture of hitting the left palm with the right fist]. Three or four years before his passing away, since he was not keeping well we were advised not to go there because Sujata used to look after him and she could not assign any time to anything else.
The family members of Monsieur Baron used to come to meet Satprem. He was held in high esteem by them. He was highly respected in France. After his leaving the body, France and other European countries gave a lot of publicity to him but no publicity was given in India.
What sort of difficulties did Satprem face in his sadhana?
The same type of trouble that the Mother used to face.
And how did he conquer them?
That I do not know.

Didn’t he reveal it?

No.

Did Satprem face any difficulties from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram after leaving it?

Oh, yes. They had a spy system. As it is revealed in the Notebooks [Notebooks of an Apocalypse], he was in Dehradun and the notice of his expulsion was served to him when nobody was supposed to know that he was there. For several years Satprem and Sujata stayed in France, they went to America also. After coming to Kotagiri, the reports revealed that they were in Kotagiri. It was known to J.R.D. Tata, C.P.N. Singh and few others who became the Trustees of Mother’s Institute of Research in Delhi.
How did you witness the development of Satprem’s sadhana?
He was always in deep concentration. Sometimes he would walk with his hand resting on my shoulder for support but most of the time it was Sujata who supported him. This was because he was unable to take care of himself. He was not aware of his physical well being. And sometimes he used to sit on the doorstep; we used to sit there and he used to talk or simply meditate. Near a bush in the lawn of their house was a small Shiva-lingam which he used to worship regularly. And there was an idol of Ganesha at the entrance; everyday in the morning he used to go and offer some flowers to it.
In 2006 Satprem had sent a note to Kireet Joshi in which he wrote: “I have reached the goal.” What was the goal that he referred to? Was it the completion of the process of physical transformation or fixation of the supramental consciousness into his physical consciousness?
That I don’t know. Previously also he wrote to me that he had achieved the goal. What I know is that the supramental Light had come into his body. In his entire body there was a peculiar radiance. That I’ve observed. The way he used to walk showed he had no physical knowledge about his own body that’s why Sujata had to look after him.

Tell us something about Sujata-di’s sadhana?

Sujata was very silent about her sadhana. She had reached a very high level in sadhana. But she never revealed it except what she had said in her private conversations. She would narrate some of her experiences and those revealed that she had reached a very high level. We could understand that her consciousness was on a very high level. The supramental consciousness was present in her but she used to live in such a simple manner and she could adjust herself so well that it had to be seen to be believed. She had profound compassion and that used to come out.
In November 2006 I had received a letter from Sujata-di in which she wrote about Satprem: “He is deep in his new experiences…as he follows the footsteps of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.” But within five months we learned about the passing away of Satprem followed by Sujata-di. Please tell us what you know about their last days.
Satprem did not fall ill. He had completely lost consciousness about his physical being. He himself didn’t know what he was doing. That’s why Sujata had to look after him day and night because the condition was very intense for the last six months before he passed away. Sujata didn’t have even a wink of sleep. If she had gone to bed at night, suddenly Satprem called out “Ma Douce” (my dear) so naturally she had to look after him constantly. Gradually her health deteriorated and she too became bed-ridden. According to my nephew Pratip who saw her before her death she was not in a condition even to be moved to a hospital and she was not very conscious. My sister Suprabha and Pratip were the last ones whom she spoke to.
Didn’t you have a talk with her?
No, we didn’t have a talk. Almost a month and a half before Sujata passed away, when I had rung her up accidentally she had answered the telephone. That was the last time we spoke to each other. We just exchanged pleasantries. Before she left her body she was in a semi-conscious state for several days. I was in Palitana at that time. I used to ring up everyday and inquire about her health. I returned to Calcutta on 3 May 2007. Next day in the morning Suprabha told me that Sujata had left.

What happened to the mortal remains of Satprem and Sujata-di?

In Land’s End, that is, in the lawn of their house at Kotagiri, both Satprem and Sujata were buried side-by-side near the bush where the Shiva-lingam was placed.
Tell us something about the role Sujata-di had played in the sadhana of Satprem.
In one sentence I can say: Without Sujata Satprem was incomplete. And without Satprem Sujata would not have perhaps achieved so much. Basically Sujata had a beautiful soul since her childhood which developed under the Mother and Pavitra and then it bloomed in the company of Satprem.
ADDENDUM
What follows is a brief description of the last days of Satprem and Sujata Nahar that was reported to me by Shrimati Suprabha Nahar, youngest sister of Sujata Nahar and Shri Kireet Joshi:
Two months before Satprem left his body he had said: “The work is done.” His end came on the morning of Monday 9th April 2007. The last word he uttered while taking his breakfast was: “MA.” He was helped by the lady who looked after him and Sujata Nahar to get up from the bed and sit on the sofa kept near the cot. When she went to remove the curtains so that the morning light could enter the room, she heard two guttural sounds. She came to Satprem and saw that he had left his body in the sitting position with one eye closed and the other eye looking at a photograph of Sri Aurobindo. The following night his body was laid to rest in his garden.
Sujata Nahar was already bed-ridden when Satprem left his body. She had stopped talking and would only indicate whether she would take the liquid food or not that was given to her. Occasionally she called: “Ma, Ma.” On 4 May 2007, exactly twenty five days after the physical departure of Satprem, she was reading a passage from Mother’s Agenda (20 April 1966, re: Anousuya’s demise). Afterwards she was given some water to drink which she took and soon after she left her body.
***
Nirmal Singh Nahar belongs to the Swetambar Murtipujak Oswal Jain sect. Born on 28 July 1922, he is the fourth son of Prithwi Singh Nahar and elder brother of Sujata Nahar. He received his early education at Santiniketan where he stayed with his family from 1929 to 1935. He did his schooling from South Subarban Branch School where he was initiated to the student movement. He raised the national flag in the school building and as a result he was transferred to South Subarban Main School where along with other students he raised funds for flood relief work and handed the money to Subhash Chandra Bose. In 1943 he joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and worked in the Cazanove garden where he started rice cultivation till 1946; then he joined the Book Sales Department of the Ashram. In 1947 he joined Reuters Associated Press of India and Press Trust of India as their special correspondent. In 1951 he left the Ashram when he was declared a persona non grata by French India Government and an arrest warrant was issued for exposing French misrule in India as a journalist. He joined the Bengali daily Jana Sevak as its chief reporter after returning to Calcutta. In 1964 he promoted Haldia Scooter Project in collaboration with Armachie Harley-Davidson SPA, an Italian firm. He is a member of Governing Council of All India Sri Swetambar Murtipujak Jain Tirth Raksha Trust and The Mother’s Institute of Research (New Delhi). He was also a Founder-member of Sri Aurobindo Bhavan (Calcutta) and a member of West Bengal State Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Celebration Committee in 1971. He is also the author of the book Sri Aurobindo: His Birth Place.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Ungrateful India


"Apart from the odd item buried somewhere in the papers, there will be little on Sri Aurobindo on 15th August, though 15th August happens to be his birthday. 
source: http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/policypuzzles/entry/let-us-not-only-sing-but-also-read


In your scheme of things do you definitely see a free India? You have stated that for the spreading of spirituality in the world India must be free. I suppose you must be working for it! You are the only one who can do something really effective by the use of your spiritual Force.
 
That is all settled. It is a question of working out only. The question is what is India going to do with her independence? The above kind of affair? Bolshevism? Goonda-raj? Things look ominous.
16 September 1935
 
source:http://www.motherandsriaurobindo.org/Content.aspx?ContentURL=/_staticcontent/sriaurobindoashram/-09%20e-library/-01%20works%20of%20sri%20aurobindo/-01%20English/-03_CWSA/-35_Letters%20On%20Himself%20And%20The%20Ashram/-20_Remarks%20on%20Indian%20Affairs%201930%20%C2%AD%201946.htm

 

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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Sri Aurobindo's 140th Birthday

Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) is a greatest figure in the known history of the Earth. He is greatest because of his stature, because of those peaks on which he risen through yoga and because of influence and his work for the divine destiny of the earth.
The Mother speaks, "What Sri Aurobindo represents in the history of the earth's spiritual progress is not a teaching, not even a revelation. It is a mighty action straight from the Supreme."
And this direct action includes his Word.  But it is not simple task to read it because of high of the heights on which lives the Truth that was seen by Sri Aurobindo and put down by him into the human thought and language. To see this Truth, to breathe its air we must stand up and go on an pilgrimage to the same peaks following after inner intimates and after direct and simple words and after the vast colossal wisdom and after splendid music of his poems – not so through reading as through following after his Word can we try to reach its source. And this Truth is not some mental ideals or abstract ideas or thin air of the mountain tops. It is Truth-Consciousness, Truth-Power that is able to transform Earth Nature from fallen into Divine.
"Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass the past and to open concretely the route towards an imminent and inevitable future." (The Mother)
Sri Aurobindo's message to us is – this world is not illusion but a body of the Allmighty  who preferred to start this world from His own forgetfulness and Unconsciousness and find Himself step by step through evolution of consciousness that unwrap at first in plant, then in animal, then in man – till establishment of His unmasked Life Divine upon the earth. Following this message we follow from darkness to Light, from ignorance to Knowledge, from slavery to Mastery, from suffering to Bliss, from death to Life Divine. And doing so we fulfil our own life and our destiny and the Divine Will in us.
"Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future; he is the messenger of the future. He still shows us the way to follow in order to hasten the realisation of a glorious future fashioned by the Divine Will." (The Mother)
source:http://www.aurobindo.ru/about_sri_aurobindo_e.htm

Friday, August 10, 2012

Sri Aurobindo And Mohamed (PBUH)

Mahomed would himself have rejected the idea of being an Avatar, so we have to regard him only as the prophet, the instrument, the Vibhuti. Christ realised himself as the Son who is one with the Father – he must therefore be an aМЩАvatАra, a partial incarnation.

Sri Aurobindo And Lao Tse

On both occasions when Paul Brunton saw you, he had the
impression of you as a Chinese sage. In the early days of my
stay here, you struck me as a king of Hungarian gypsies! And
when I say Hungarian, I mean the Magyar element which I
suppose has mid-Asiatic characteristics. Do these ideas point
to some occult truth or some outstanding fact of previous
birth?

Confucius? Lao-Tse? Mencius? Hang-whang-pu? (Don’t know
who the last was, but his name sounds nice.)
Can’t remember
anything about it. As for the Hungarian gypsy, I suppose we
must have been everything at one time or another, on this earth
in some other cycle. But I am not aware of any particularly
Magyar or Chinese element in me. However, when I came here,
Iwas told I looked just like a Tamil sannyasi and some Christians
said I was just like Christ. So it may be.
More seriously, Brunton seems to have thought I was Lao-
Tse. Maybe, I can’t say it is impossible.

 7 December 1936
source:http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Letters-On-Himself-And-The-Ashram.pdf