SABDA eNews 12/03

Rishabhchand, 1900-1970, is probably best known for his biography of Sri Aurobindo, first serialised in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education from 1960 to 1971, and published as the book Sri Aurobindo: His Life Unique in 1981. But he wrote two other books that are considered important works on the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: In the Mother’s Light (1951) and The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo (1953).

In this issue we introduce the third edition of In the Mother’s Light, a collection of essays and reflections, many of which were originally published in the Bombay edition of Mother India. The representative character of the Mother’s yoga is the dominant theme of this book, which was first published in 1951 and substantially revised in 1967. Through a deep reading and study of the Mother’s Prayers and Meditations, the author traces the broad outlines of her spiritual experiences and examines some of the basic concepts of the Integral Yoga in the light of her observations and perceptions and her moments of profound communion with the Divine. He shows in his study of these prayers that the Mother’s dual identification – with the Divine and with the whole earth – gives her a unique position in the spiritual evolution with the sublime mission of preparing humanity for the fulfilment of its highest aspirations:

This, then, is the Mother’s work— to awaken in man the supramental Truth-Consciousness and help him grow according to its law….The Mother’s Force is directed to the radical transformation of the whole active nature of man, so that the gulf between his outer consciousness and the divine Consciousness may be bridged and he may manifest the Divine in every movement of his individual and collective life on earth.

Towards the end of the book “The Rainbow Bridge” begins a series of five essays in which Rishabhchand shows how her prayers bear witness to the essential identity of vision and ideals which had existed between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother even before they met in March 1914. He traces this identity of aim and purpose under four headings: “The Divine Union”, “Physical Transformation”, “Conquest of the Subconscient and the Inconscient”, and “The Divine Manifestation and the Divine Life”.

To read an article on Rishabhchand and his biography of Sri Aurobindo, click here.

Our next book, The New Being and the New Society, is a compilation of the Mother’s words and some archival material concerning the formative years of Auroville. The compiler has gathered notes, messages, and excerpts from conversations and letters and arranged them under headings that reflect the concerns and emphases of life in the early years of Auroville. She begins with an introductory section called “Apprenticeship for an Ideal Society”, which sketches out the ideals and higher aims of the new city. Other topics include how money and property are to be viewed and approached, the industries, agriculture, and other activities that would provide the economic infrastructure for a self-supporting township, the challenges of organising the work of the Aurovilians, and the changing political and social organisation of Auroville as it grows and develops. There are the “Aspiration Talks”, the Mother’s weekly conversations with some Aurovilians during a few months in 1970, and many excerpts from the Auroville archives, from the papers of Auroville’s chief architect Roger Anger, from committee meeting notes, from the working notes of Shyam Sunder, whom she used as her liaison on Auroville matters beginning in 1971, and from her talks with and letters to several other disciples who were closely connected with the project. Roger mentions in his notes this response from the Mother relating to expenses for the Bharat Nivas file:

It is the work we will take up when you return—knowing how to learn what to do at each instant, what decision to take, to understand and see in the world of intuition the thing to do.

For the time being we must do our best with what we know, but later we will live in the world of intuition. (28.6.1970)

From Shyam Sunder’s notes there are many examples of how the Mother set guidelines for the development of industries and agricultural enterprises in Auroville:

Regarding the optical lens industry in particular and industries in general there, Mother answered that we could have local paid labour, but as for technicians from other places, they should be those who have understood and liked and accepted Auroville and its life. “Otherwise”, she said, “you will not come out of the old thing.” (17.4.1972)

And in response to a suggestion that fifty acres of cashew trees, planted on small parcels of land not more than an acre or two in size, might be given on lease to local farmers for one season, the Mother replied:

It would be better to find among the people of Auroville some who will be happy to do this work. (28.12.1968)

According to the author of the next book introduced below, From the Near to the Far, the essays collected there represent exercises in self-discipline, attempts to understand Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and thus “create in his heart the necessary condition of receptivity to their concepts, ideals and creative modes”. As a professor of English, Dr Basu’s interests naturally lead him to literary topics and most of the essays belong to that realm—studies on Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri and his long poem Ilion, comparisons between the poetry of Sri Aurobindo and Tagore, a look at Sri Aurobindo’s appraisal of Shelley’s creative genius, an essay on K. D. Sethna’s role as a crusader of aesthetic principles firmly seated in the spiritual consciousness, and an accolade to Sri’s Aurobindo’s prose work The Mother, calling it “poetry of sheer spiritual illumination”.

The power and grace of the Mother’s presence, so wonderfully evoked by Sri Aurobindo’s words in The Mother, are movingly presented in the recently released DVD The Mother: Terrace Darshan. The DVD includes 106 photographs of the Mother taken during her Terrace Darshans from 1965 to 1973, accompanied by the Mother's organ music and several of her readings from Sri Aurobindo's Savitri. The photographs were taken by Sudha Sundaram and sent to the Mother, who selected those prints she approved for distribution. To view them here in progression, year by year, is indeed to be caught in the spell of “her compelling attraction and captivating grace”.

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