I have been asked to speak about the Mother. How to speak about one whose movement is inscrutable even for the keenest and most vast intelligence?
I will begin by an episode in my own life. Many years ago when I had just entered yogic life, an interesting incident took place, which set my feet firmly on the path. It happened, as far as I can remember, after an interview with the Mother. She asked me how my aspiration was formulated. I could not understand what She meant. The language was too yogic or philosophic for my medical brain to understand. She, therefore, put it in a simpler form. When I replied that what I wanted most was Ananda, She smiled and said that Ananda was very difficult to bring down. However, there was no harm in asking for it. That very afternoon when I had gone for my walk and was looking at the blue sky overhead, a sudden downpour of Ananda came like a cascade upon me and made me feel like dancing–so overpowering it was! Not knowing how to contain it I sat down to write some poetry and no sooner had I started than the whole experience stopped.
So you see, my friends, Her movement may be inscrutable to the human mind but its effect is very real and palpable.
The realisation of Sri Aurobindo’s ideals is a cosmic necessity. Nature finds many instruments to fulfill her purpose. But the most glorious manifestation is when the Divine Nature Herself consents to wear a human cloak in order to uplift humankind. Such was our Mother. God is Sat-Purusha, the pure Existent and His Divine Nature is Chit-Shakti, Consciousness-Force, which is here the Mother. Indeed so complete was Her identity with Divine Nature that She could declare,
“Since the beginning of creation wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of consciousness, I was there.”
We know Her as the Shakti of Sri Aurobindo the Avatar. He said that with the Mother’s help He covered ten years of Sadhana in one year. About Her wisdom, knowledge, power, compassion, love, administrative efficiency, executive qualities, artistic ability etc., I need not deliberate. The Ashram is a living testimony for these things.
… The one unfailing means of success in the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo is to open to the Mother’s force, and let it work in one’s being and nature with happy consent and willing acceptance.
When Sri Aurobindo wrote about the Divine Mother in Savitri, I am sure he had our Mother in mind.
I end by reading some of these lines:
At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,
In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;
Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base.
Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The Might of all that never yet came down.
All Nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.
All here shall be one day her sweetness’s home,
All contraries prepare her harmony;
Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes,
In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,
Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.
Our self shall be one self with all through her.
In her confirmed because transformed in her,
Our life shall find in its fulfilled response
Above, the boundless hushed beatitudes,
Below, the wonder of the embrace divine.
– Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, (Book 3, Canto II)
– Nirod Baran
(Taken from Remembering the Mother with Gratitude; published by SACAR)
