The Mother’s work took countless forms, visible to the outer sight and sensible to the subtlest consciousness. One of the new books introduced in this issue, the two-volume set titled The Mother: Her Miraculous Touch, uses a combination of photographs and quotations to trace the outlines of her work for earth and man. The quotations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother act in concert with the photographs, many of them familiar and some less frequently seen, to touch upon many aspects of the Mother’s life and evoke the far-reaching scope of her work.

Volume One begins with photographs from her childhood, set among her reminiscences of early spiritual experiences and a quotation from Sri Aurobindo that “The Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth, even from her childhood.” Chapter Seven, “The Mother Divine”, highlights her direction and charge of the Ashram, “a work which includes life and action and the physical world…. Spiritual consciousness within but also spiritual life without”, and offers an array of photographs of the balcony darshan, daily blessings, and puja blessings that draws visual attention to the central role of her presence in the lives of the sadhaks. Additional chapters demonstrate the keen attention she gave to preparing the children for the future and making the body a perfect instrument for receiving and manifesting the higher consciousness.

Volume Two starts with quotations and messages on the supramental consciousness, its descent “a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness…. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother.” In the next chapter, work for the Divine under the Mother’s guidance follows as the natural way and form to help prepare the ground for a spiritualised life. Some of the most moving images of the Mother appear in the chapter “Divine Solicitude”, where the compassion and the strength of her Grace flow from each page. In the final section the quotations hint at the arduous work of transforming the cells of the body which the Mother undertook and her complete surrender to the will of the Supreme Lord:

At every second all the cells must be (gesture of motionless offering upward) in an adoration, in an aspiration—an adoration, an aspiration, an adoration…and nothing else. Then after a time there is also delight, then that ends in blissful trust. When this trust is established all will be well. But…it is easy to say, it is much more difficult to do. Only, for the moment I am convinced that this is the only means, there is no other.

On a page at the very beginning of the book one finds the Mother’s explanation that her photos contain “a living presence, a vibrant Force and an Entity or an Emanation which is projected and has a tremendous power of action and a means of execution”. These quotations and photographs, which seek to portray what is essentially beyond words or images, reveal the splendid and miraculous touch of the Mother in our lives.

At the other end of the spectrum from this evocative chronicle of the Mother’s mission on earth is a new critical appreciation of Sri Aurobindo’s epic work Savitri. Grounded in serious research and presented with a dedicated teacher's enthusiasm for her subject, this book, Transformation of Consciousness in Savitri, approaches a study of the poem as it relates to the key tenets of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. The chapters on the involution and evolution of consciousness, the different levels of human consciousness as seen in Savitri, and the triple transformation of consciousness – psychic, spiritual, and supramental – are firmly seated in an analysis of the poem and supported by references to Sri Aurobindo’s other major works. The author blends exposition and citations from Savitri in a format that encourages a systematic study of the poem. For example, while presenting the idea of the involution of consciousness, she writes that

The Supreme comes down through several states and gradations which form the different planes of consciousness. In this descent there can be distinguished seven distinct principles of the being, organized into seven different planes of existence — Sat, Chit, Ananda (Existence, Consciousness, Bliss), Supermind, and its secondary form the Overmind, Mind, Life and Matter. Sri Aurobindo has described these gradations in Savitri,           The seried kingdoms of the graded Law           Plunged from the Everlasting into Time,           Then glad of a glory of multitudinous mind           And rich with life’s adventure and delight           And packed with the beauty of Matter’s shapes and hues           Climbed back from Time into undying self,           Up a golden ladder carrying the soul,           Tying with diamond threads the Spirit’s extremes.

In addition to her analysis of the different levels of consciousness and its evolution and transformation as explained in Savitri, the author has expounded on the poem as an expression of Sri Aurobindo’s own theory of Overmind aesthesis. The final chapter, which also summarises the major themes of the book, claims Savitri as humanity’s guide for the radical transformation of consciousness that is required to solve today’s evolutionary crisis and achieve man’s future destiny as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo.

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