SABDA eNews 9/05

Moments Eternal, one of the new books introduced below, is a collection of reminiscences by Priti Das Gupta. The charm of the book lies in its wealth of intimate details and its candid and spontaneous style, for it is a record of how a young woman who comes to live in the Ashram learns to understand her own nature while learning how to live a life offered completely to the Divine’s work. Day by day she encounters the Mother not only as the Supreme Divine in all her multiple personalities but also as a best friend, a comrade at play, a teacher, and, of course, a loving mother. Interwoven with the vignettes of life in the Ashram are family memories from her childhood in Bengal, the two creating a kind of tapestry that when complete portrays the story of Priti’s growing awareness of her soul.

Each chapter reveals some “moments eternal”, as in the following excerpt which occurred not long after Priti came to settle in the Ashram and when she was feeling very shy in her new environment:
When I went to the Mother I would feel Her so exalted, so distant that I felt helpless. But then a strong attraction like a magnet would draw me to the Mother. Hardly had I entered Her room [when] She would greet me: “Bonjour, mon enfant” (Good morning, my child), and then lovingly give me a flower. She would keep smiling as she looked at me but I just could not forget that the Mother was that very Mahashakti (Supreme Power) that governed this world and the universe. The Mother strove to teach me to be simple and free but I was always in awe. I always felt that I was a most ordinary girl from a little town called Feni. And I just could not get over my diffidence. Suddenly, one day, I entered the Mother’s room and involuntarily exclaimed: “Bonjour, Douce Mère!” (Good morning, Sweet Mother!) But then immediately afterwards I felt a little ashamed.
The Mother hugged me happily and said:
“There! You’ve spoken! That’s very good, very good!” And in this way the wall of diffidence crumbled with that ‘Bonjour’. And in time a close friendship grew with the Mother.

In another incident Priti recalls how the Mother taught them to accomplish even the smallest work with perfection:
The Mother always expected from us work that was flawless and perfect. She did not tolerate any defect or imperfection. Here I am reminded of an amusing incident. Our press had just started printing books then. A few copies of these newly printed books were first sent to the Mother. The Mother’s eye fell straight on the page where a word had been misspelt: in place of a ‘t’ there was an ‘f’. Oh Lord, how upset She was! We had to open all the books and replace the ‘f’ with a ‘t’. We sat quietly rubbing out the ‘f’s and writing ‘t’s in their place. We did this with the utmost concentration. The Mother was naturally delighted with this response from us. It was quite astonishing that every time in proofreading a book or any other publication, the mistake that escaped our eyes would instantly be picked up by the Mother!

Also introduced in this issue is a new compilation from A. S. Dalal, The God-Touch, which takes its title from one of the often-quoted lines from Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri:
All can be done if the god-touch is there.
Dalal admits in his Preface that in his several readings of Savitri from beginning to end, he noted down the passages that contained Sri Aurobindo’s psychological and psycho-spiritual thought, to which he had always been particularly drawn. He calls these collected passages his “Savitri Reader”. This book represents a small portion of that personal reader, organised under twenty captions, which include some of the major themes to be found in the poem.

NEW PUBLICATIONS

ENGLISH

FRENCH

ITALIAN

RUSSIAN/ENGLISH

HINDI

BENGALI

ORIYA