At the Feet of The Mother (28 March 2008, Gnostic Centre, Delhi) - Track 102
It was at that time that the Mother contrived that I should read the ‘The Life Divine’. This I see retrospectively. A friend of mine who was studying with me in my college in Bombay; his uncle had read the ‘The Life Divine’, without understanding it and he told his nephew, who was my partner in the hostel that he should read that book and tell him the summary of that book. When I read the title the Life Divine, I thought that once again it must be Maya, so I left it on my table and said all those philosophers talk of Maya and explain nothing at all and give no meaning to life. So that is how the book remained one week on my table and I did not touch it, but that uncle was more persistent and he asked him, “Have you read that book?” That friend of mine came to me in the evening and said, “Kireet, you must read this book.” He said “I am engaged in a romance at present, and I am in no condition to read. Please don’t read for God’s sake, read for my sake, but read this book.” So I remember on that particular day I happened to read the ‘Life Divine’. I studied it and went on the whole night and the little rest at night, next day, and next day and the next day. The first part of the volume I read in four days time and I came to the conclusion (I didn’t know that Sri Aurobindo was the author, and I didn’t know who Sri Aurobindo is) and I told my friend, — there is only one person in the history of the world who knows the truth, who speaks the truth truthfully, there is only one person, i.e. Sri Aurobindo, this was my intellectual conviction. It had proved that God exists intellectually. Later on, when I read Mother saying that Life Divine is intellectually perfect, it was simply a confirmation in my own consciousness of the conclusion that I had arrived at when I was nineteen years old. There is no book in the world history which is intellectually as perfect as Life Divine. I considered this to be the first boon that Mother gave to me, to give me the chance to read the Life Divine, and gave me a great balm to my intellectually query. Thereafter I have had no skepticism of any kind, I was totally liberated from skepticism. I came to the conclusion definitively, — God exists. This world is a gradual manifestation of the Divine consciousness, because it is gradual, it is not perfect. It is possible to make the world perfect, — if Divine manifestation takes place fully and that it is possible to make it fully manifested. These were three conclusions intellectually, from the age of nineteen that I have never doubted; all my life is a confirmation of these three statements. But still there was no question of submission and I can only say intellectually because of my great satisfaction. If I could say truthfully that if I bowed to anybody in my life, it was Sri Aurobindo, the only person to whom I can bow down effortlessly. There was no question at all in my mind that he is the only person in the world to whom you can give yourself. Thereafter for 2-3 years I was still studying and I read still more of Sri Aurobindo in the meantime. Until one day one of my teachers asked me, ‘do you want to go to the Ashram, to Pondicherry?’ I said, ‘I would like to go one day but from whatever I have read, I have found that to do the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo you must first attain Brahmic consciousness because where all the roads end, Sri Aurobindo’s yoga begins’. So I said ‘I must first attain the Brahmic consciousness, and then I can be fit to go to the Ashram, to visit the Ashram”. I said ‘I haven’t yet reached Brahmic consciousness, so how can I think of going to the Ashram?’ So he smiled and said “But would you like to go?” I said, ‘yes, I am not qualified, yet if I can go I’ll be happy’. So he wrote a letter to the Mother and got permission for me. At that time, we must know that it was very difficult to get admission even to visit the Ashram. Not many of you maybe knowing about this fact, that even to visit the Ashram, you had to have a very special permission. Within a week’s time he told me that “Mother had permitted, so you can come with me, I am going on the 1st November”, — seven days I remained in Golconda and I had no questions in my mind because intellectually, I was perfectly at home and the only boon I had was to see the Mother several times a day because at that time Mother used to be coming to the balcony at about 9:45 to10:00 o’clock. Not many people were there (ashramites were not there at that time) all visitors used to sit below the balcony and Mother would suddenly come, would rush out and we could see the Mother on the balcony. And then of course, she used to go for playing tennis. One could see Mother playing tennis and this was very elevating experience for me to see the Mother playing tennis. I used to feel that when she hit a ball, I felt as if the whole universe was being smashed by one hit of Mother’s racket. That is the majesty of the Mother and in the evening she used to distribute groundnuts to the people, visitors were also permitted at that time that was the time when one could go and see the mother. On 7th November, when I was leaving, when I went to the mother for her blessings she gave me bunch of jasmine flowers, that are called flowers of purity and she gave me a smile which has remained immortal for me, even today when I remember that smile of the mother then I say, ‘ I’m, now at the feet of the mother’ that was the time when I fell at the feet of the mother, I often ask this question “what it is it to be at the feet of the mother?” There is in our tradition, a great place is given to the guru, to the teacher, we even speak of Guru Bramha, Guru Vishnu and so on. But I must confess that I’ve not looked upon the Mother as a guru.