Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran and Udar Pinto on the Mother’s Agenda

Dear Friends,

Born as Bernard Enginger on 30 October 1923, Satprem was a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943. He was released after spending one and a half years in German concentration camp. He visited Pondicherry for the first time in 1946 and came to know of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Their evolutionary yoga. After travelling to French Guiana, Brazil and Africa, he settled in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at the age of thirty in 1953 and earned the new name of ‘Satprem’ from the Mother in 1957. He went on to become one of Her most trusted confidants. In 1978 he was expelled from Sri Aurobindo Ashram after which he—along with his collaborator, Sujata Nahar—settled in a little known place in South India and devoted his time to the publication of Mother’s Agenda in thirteen volumes and his other books like Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness, By the Body of the Earth or the Sannyasi, The Great Sense: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of the Earth, On the Way to Supermanhood, Mother or The Divine Materialism, Mother or The New Species, Mother or The Mutation of Death (these three books form a trilogy on the Mother), The Mind of the Cells, The Revolt of the Earth, Evolution II, The Tragedy of the Earth—From Sophocles to Sri Aurobindo, Neanderthal Looks On, The Philosophy of Love, The Veda and Human Destiny and Notebooks of an Apocalypse (in multiple volumes). A charismatic figure who had considerable influence on the seekers of the Path, he played a pivotal role in introducing innumerable people to the works and philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and his books inspired many seekers to take up the stupendous task of physical transformation begun by Them. He left his physical body on 9th April, 2007.

Satprem

The Mother’s Agenda, consisting of six thousand pages and published in thirteen volumes, is the account of the Mother’s exploration in the body consciousness and of her discovery of a “cellular mind” capable of refashioning the nature of our bodies and the laws of the species as drastically as, one day, an infant “thinking mind” transformed the nature of the ape. It is a veritable document of experimental evolution and speaks of a revolution in consciousness that alters the laws of the species. Like a scientist working in his laboratory, the Mother goes back to the origin of the formation of Matter, to the primordial code, and where, “by chance,” She stumbles upon the mechanism of death — upon the very power that changes death — and upon a “new” Energy, which curiously parallels subatomic physics. In other words, the key to Matter contains the key to death as well as the key to the next species.

Although The Mother’s Agenda has led many people to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, it is not free from controversies. We present before the readers certain views of Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran alias K.D. Sethna and Udar Pinto (three prominent disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother) on the Agenda which had appeared in print in the early 1980s.

With warm regards,

Anurag Banerjee

Founder,

Overman Foundation. 

Nirodbaran’s Rejoinder to a Footnote of Satprem’s in the Agenda Vol. XI

My attention was drawn by a disciple to a talk of the Mother on 9 September 1970, in the Agenda (Vol. XI), about Sri Aurobindo’s physical suffering during his last illness, and to the Editor Satprem’s footnote apropos of that talk. I could make out the meaning of the Mother’s talk: it was quite straightforward as was always the case with whatever she said or wrote. The footnote, on the other hand, was not so, and therefore threw me into a great confusion and caused much pain. It seemed to carry for me a double meaning. Here is the relevant portion (p. 334) of the Mother’s talk and the footnote connected with it:

“J’ai eu (et ça, c’était effrayant) j’ai eu la conscience de tout ce qu’il a souffert physiquement. Et ça, ça a été l’une des choses les plus… (Mère a la voix couverte de larmes) les plus difficiles á supporter. Comme si… physiquement… Et nos inconsciences physiques á côté de ça et l’espèce de TORTURE physique qu’il a subie. Ça a été l’une des choses les plus difficiles, les plus difficiles.

“La torture qu’il a supportée et que nous traitions si légèrement comme si… s’il ne sentait rien. Ça, ça a été l’une des choses les plus effrayantes.”

Satprem’s footnote to the phrase containing the word “TORTURE” runs thus:

“‘Nous insistions sur des remèdes dangereux…’ avoue l’un des médecins qui soignait Sri Aurobindo (Nirodbaran, I am here). Sri Aurobindo refusait—une fois. Mère refusait. Puis ils n’ont plus rien dit. ‘Il savait, note l’un des médecins, que [ces remèdes] ne seraient d’aucune utilité et il les rejetait catégoriquement, mais comme nous n’avions pas la compréhension  et que nous n’étions pas capables de juger de la valeur des mots lorsqu’ils sont prononcés d’un ton habituel, nous insistions sur des remèdes dangereux en lesquels nous avions foi et confiance.’ Ibid., p. 20. Notons que le meme phénomène se reproduira avec Mère.”

The English translation of the Mother’s talk:

“I was conscious (and it was frightful) of all that he physically suffered. And it was one of the most difficult things to bear. (The Mother’s voice was choked with pain)… As if… physically… And our physical unconsciousness beside it and the kind of physical TORTURE he went through. It was one of the most difficult things, most difficult.

“The torture which he bore and we took so lightly as if he felt nothing. It was one of the most frightful things.”

Satprem’s footnote in English:

“We insisted on dangerous remedies…’ admits one of the doctors who attended upon Sri Aurobindo. (Nirodbaran, I am here). Sri Aurobindo refused—once. Mother refused. Then they said nothing farther. ‘He knew’, notes one of the doctors, ‘that [these remedies] would be of no avail and he emphatically ruled them out, but as we had not the insight nor the proper appraisement of the value of the words when they are clothed in the common language we are habituated to use, we insisted on the dangerous remedies in which we had faith and confidence.’ Let us note that the same phenomenon will be repeated in the case of the Mother.’

Satprem, quoting a passage from my booklet, “I am here, I am here”, has linked it with the word “torture”, which he has put it capital letters, in the Mother’s talk. At the end he says that the Mother was dealt with exactly as Sri Aurobindo had been. My confusion and pain arise from the fact that he appears to imply that we gave dangerous remedies, thus causing torture to Sri Aurobindo’s body against his consent. He mentions that Sri Aurobindo refused, the Mother did the same and then they said nothing farther. The last phrase would mean that without their permission or taking it for granted we applied the remedies. But in my booklet I have very clearly stated that only with their explicit consent we started the treatment. Why has Satprem left out this important part from the quotation? He has surely read my Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo and Dr. Sanyal’s A Call from Pondicherry where both of us have given a precise detailed picture of the case and our agonizing predicament. Satprem’s final sentence, which drags the Mother’s illness into the picture, leaves me in no doubt that there is a hostile insinuation throughout. I have been confirmed in my impression by more than one source. At any rate, I fear that many readers are likely to be misled. Therefore I feel called to write this article in order to remove whatever misunderstanding may be created by the statement.

I remember how a similar written allegation was made against the doctors by a sadhak soon after Sri Aurobindo’s passing. When I referred to it to the Mother, she said, “Why don’t you write something?” And I wrote the booklet, “I am here, I am here.” It is true that I have used the word “torture” there, having been then in an emotional state of mind and strongly influenced by my knowledge of the great sensitivity of Sri Aurobindo’s body where even a mosquito-bite would cause a red swelling. But all that was done had the Mother’s and the Master’s consent.

Another point: when the Mother speaks of the “physical torture” that Sri Aurobindo underwent, does she at all mean that it was the doctors who inflicted it? Satprem’s linking his footnote with that word suggests this to us. But she cannot mean it. For it is not only we who saw the physical torture which Sri Aurobindo suffered and which had nothing to do with the doctors: the Mother herself saw it. On the other hand, Satprem never saw it. Sri Aurobindo’s suffering was indeed intolerable. It surely forms part of the Mother’s statement about him, his work and his achievement, which is engraved on the side of the Samadhi. The statement includes the words: “Thou who hast suffered all…”

Let me more reluctantly recall the painful episodes to which we were witness and give again a brief account of them. Sri Aurobindo had two periods of acute distress. One was when the urine stopped. It made me run at midnight to Dr. Satyabrata Sen. The other time was when Sri Aurobindo was suffering from acute breathing difficulty so much so that he asked me twice, “Nirod, do something.” In the first case, the obstruction of the urine was relieved by a catheter and, in the second, Sri Aurobindo withdrew himself into the inner consciousness and thereby obtained temporary relief from the suffocating respiration; but as soon as he would come to the surface it would show itself with all its acute symptoms. However, when he moved from the bed to the sofa, before he called for the commode, we were astonished to see that he was breathing in a normal way and it gave us no small measure of joy. For we thought that a miracle had happened, and hoped for further miracles. But alas, if was only a short respite and as soon as he came back to the bed the breathing distress renewed itself. He then plunged within and remained so most of the time till he passed away.

In the last days Dr. Sanyal arrived and saw that the condition was taking a serious turn. It was then that he proposed to use medical remedies with complete sanction from the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. And what we did was the utter minimum that was necessary.

Even if the medical resort be considered torturous, could anyone, seeing the suffering before his very eyes, humanly remain passive and abstain from any action to give prolonged relief by temporary discomfort?

About the phrase, “the same phenomenon will be repeated in the case of the Mother”, I take it to mean that the Mother was also subjected to torture by the doctors. I inquired from one of the closest attendants of the Mother how far she had been given painful treatment. Strongly refuting any allegation of torture, he said that there were two periods of gravity in her illness. In the first one, Dr. Sanyal was treating her with oral medicines, but when there was no improvement Dr. Bist was called in and a great change was the result of what he gave her by mouth. In the second period there was no question of the application of medicines at all.

This is my answer by way of exonerating ourselves from any charges implied in Satprem’s statement.

*

Incidentally, going through the Agenda volumes is like entering into a domain of sudden unpleasant surprises whenever the Editor intrudes. One cannot but be pained to notice many indiscretions and inaccuracies committed by his bringing in his own judgments and prejudices and dislikes which have no place in a book of the Mother’s talks. I shall not give the full list. I shall confine myself to a few instances which appeared to me as a flagrant breach of confidence and, above all, a deliberate disobedience which is an unpardonable action on the part of a disciple.             

First of all, the Mother asked him not to publish some talks, but he has done it, giving at one place the reason, “we considered it right…” Can a disciple justify himself in this manner? Could it be alleged that, because the Mother was no longer in her body, matter forbidden by her can be published? Let me cite a personal example to indicate the sanctity of the words of the Guru. Sri Aurobindo gave me a long reply on politics to refute some charges levelled against his political leadership. The reply was extremely illuminating, but he wrote: “Subject Politics. Taboo. Extremely confidential.” After his passing I asked the Mother if the letter could come out. She replied, “How can it when Sri Aurobindo has said it is confidential?” There was the end of it.

Secondly, the Mother has talked freely to Satprem about people, countries, nations, institutions, politics, etc., which any sensible person would regard as said in confidence. To others also she has expressed certain views which were unmistakably meant to be kept private as well as to be understood only in a particular context.

Thirdly, the footnotes carry biased snap-judgments without any assessable evidence.

I cannot really understand what was the motive that impelled Satprem to make unwarranted disclosures. When in all her work the Mother’s insistence all the while was on harmony among ourselves and among nations, will they not tarnish her image in the eyes of the public? Will they not produce more mutual bitterness, discord, misunderstanding and thereby hamper and delay the purpose her Agenda would be meant to serve? We must understand that between our criticism of persons and the Mother’s there is a vast difference. Her consciousness is far higher than ours. Even when she criticizes, she works for our well-being and subtly moves to make us less criticsable. “When Durga kills, she kills with compassion and for the soul’s good,” says the Shastra. Are not all of us her avowedly beloved children for the advancement of whose souls she worked?

Lastly, one most deplorable indiscretion is the publication of the Mother’s talk about one C in her relation with Sri Aurobindo. The Mother pointedly told Satprem that it was private and to be kept aside. Yet he publishes it saying that it was a long talk and that he was giving just a summary of it! The summary is incriminating enough and does not exonerate him in the least from the gravity of his disobedience.

I am certain that the Mother would have strongly disapproved of the disclosures and the disciple’s gratuitous remarks. Our long association with her and with Sri Aurobindo allows me to make this assertion.

From these and other instances not mentioned here, we can now see why the Trustees wanted Nolini (the Mother’s secretary) and André (the Mother’s son) to go through the talks before they would be printed, and I know on good authority that the Mother herself also wanted things to be done that way.

In one place in the Agenda the intention of the Trustees is grossly misconstrued. There is a reference to a good number of pages torn out of Pavitra’s diary before its publication. The comment is to the effect that the Agenda would have been similarly treated in several places if it had been in the hands of the Trustees. If the Editors of Pavitra’s diary have excluded certain portions it could be only because of two reasons. One is that they contained some matter too personal to Pavitra himself to be laid before the public—matter which he, a reticent and sensitive soul, would certainly have liked to withhold. The other reason could be that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had expressly forbidden divulgement of the contents or else, without openly banning publication, had counted on Pavitra’s knowledge of his Guru’s standing wishes for non-disclosure of the material concerned.

The Trustees can surely be taken to have a sense of the preciousness of whatever Sri Aurobindo and the Mother meant for the spiritual and material good of the disciples. If they had not possessed this sense, the Mother would have never appointed them Trustees. To impute to them a conspiracy to censor or suppress their Guru’s truth is to be completely carried away by personal animosity.

As things are, how does one know that nothing has been censored or suppressed in order to suit the present Editor?

One cannot help regretting that irresponsibility and private grudges have smirched so illuminating a document as the Agenda which the Mother had intended—as we know from more than one source—to be handled with reverence and obedience by those whom she considered her children.

Udar Pinto’s Comment Apropos of Nirodbaran’s Rejoinder

I must congratulate Nirodbaran on his article… He has written with strength and dignity and well expressed the pain he feels at the way things have been misrepresented by the editor of the Mother’s Agenda. He has also clearly shown how a lot of material which, as we know quite well, the Mother would never have permitted to be published and even some which was expressly forbidden by Her has been broadcast with arrogance and a complete indifference to Her wishes. I should like here to go a little further in the subject than Nirodbaran.

I may draw attention to a fact which is not generally known. The first copy of the transcript of the Mother’s tape-recorded talks used to be kept in safe custody in Her own room and, pointing to the place where it was, She gave instructions to some veteran disciples not to let anything be published without careful scrutiny as to what was suitable or not for publication. This copy disappeared from the Mother’s room and what was meant to belong to the Ashram Trustees is no longer there.

The Ashram Trustees have unanimously and distinctly written to the editor of the Agenda that all the words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are the sole copyright of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust formed by the Mother Herself and so he has no right to publish the Agenda without permission from the Trust. He has ignored this declaration, as he knows that the Ashram will not, of itself, initiate legal proceedings. But curiously, when the Journal of Sri Aurobindo’s Action started to publish certain chosen extracts from the Agenda in English translation, he is known to have consulted legal opinion on proceeding against it for copyright infringement. I really hoped that such proceedings would be started, as then we would defend ourselves and expose the whole racket. But, unfortunately, no action was taken: he seems to have been advised not to proceed.

One may wonder with what face the present editor could have proceeded against Sri Aurobindo’s Action. The Agenda which he is publishing contains an amount of material which originally appeared with the Mother’s sanction in the Ashram Bulletin of the International Centre of Education, with copyright vested in its editor and publisher, Nolini Kanta Gupta, and subsequently it was brought out in copyrighted book-form. Without reference to the copyright-holder and without any permission being taken, it is impudently appropriated and set before the public again.

I shall now give an extract from the introduction to the Agenda, Vol. I (1951-60), which will show the editor’s hostility towards the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and its members and his arrogance as well as his ugly intentions. Here are his words, translated officially by his own people into English. I have only italicized some phrases to better focus the reader’s mind on the drift of the extract:

‘This mystery we call Mother, for She never ceased being a mystery right to her ninety-fifth year, and to this day still challenges us from the other side of a wall of invisibility and keeps us floundering fully in the mystery—with a smile. She always smiles. But the mystery is not solved.

‘Perhaps this AGENDA is really an endeavor to solve the mystery in the company of a certain number of fraternal iconoclasts.

‘Where, then, was “The Mother of the Ashram” in all this? What is even “the Ashram”, if not a spiritual museum of the resistance to Something Else. They were always—and are still today—reciting their catechism beneath a little flag: they are the owners of the new truth. But the new truth is laughing in their faces and leaving them high and dry at the edge of their little stagnant pond. They are under the illusion that Mother and Sri Aurobindo, twenty-seven or four years after their respective departures, could keep on repeating themselves—but then they would not be Mother and Sri Aurobindo! They would be fossils. The truth is always on the move. It is with those who dare, who have courage, and above all the courage to shatter all effigies, to demystify, and to go TRULY to the conquest of the new.’

From this extract one can judge for oneself the intentions of the editor of the Agenda without much explanation from me. I have only a few things to point out. What is the “little flag” that he ridicules? It is the flag of the Mother over Golconde that the Mother said should always be kept flying. Now it becomes a subject for fun by this person. Then, who are the “fraternal iconoclasts” and what are the “effigies” that they will “shatter”? The most important effigy, in the sense of a memorial image, we have at the Ashram is the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Does that company of “fraternal iconoclasts” propose to break it up? Are some of them planning this? Are they already installed in the Ashram as a fifth column?

Amal Kiran’s Statements Apropos of Udar’s Comment

A Letter to a Friendly Critic

I am sorry Udar’s article in Mother India has proved so offensive to you. I know it hits hard at places but it does not seem to me more offensive than the extract Udar has quoted from the Introduction to Vol. I of the Agenda. Perhaps your reaction is really to what he has said in reply to that extract? As you have singled out this reply, let me first say something about it.

Obviously it is subjective in most part but the provocation is to be understood before one judges it. It is very likely that the “flag” Satprem has mentioned in a derogatory way is metaphorical, but surely he must know that this metaphor happens to answer to a very concrete and significant reality in the Ashram. Possibly you are unaware of the circumstances associated with the Mother’s flag. On the Independence Day in 1947, the Mother had her flag hoisted over the building where Sri Aurobindo and she were staying. She said it would fly for 3 days, including August 15. There was an anti-Ashram riot and in it a sadhak was murdered, the sadhak who used to massage Sri Aurobindo’s right leg every day. There was even a threat given that the hostile elements would climb up the building and pull the flag down. The Mother refused to take it off until her 3 days would be over. Udar was prominently involved, by the Mother’s own orders, in organizing the Ashram defence. I was on a visit to the Ashram from Bombay on this occasion. The Mother’s flag was the centre of the whole conflict. At that time Golconde too was in great danger of attack: the Mother’s flag was flying there also. It still flies and is meant never to be taken down. You should be able to imagine Udar’s feelings about it. Besides, doesn’t the Mother attach to it in the Agenda itself a great symbolic importance?

You consider as “nonsense” Udar’s suggestion that there may be a fifth column in the Ashram planning to break up the Samadhi. I do not know anything about breaking up the Samadhi. A friend abroad has been asking that the Samadhi be opened so that one may know whether the Mother’s body is really lifeless or is a radiant living presence in spite of the decomposition which was going on while it was lying in state. What put the idea of a plan to break up the Samadhi into Udar’s mind was Satprem’s reference to “fraternal iconoclasts” who would have “the courage to shatter all effigies”. We may think Udar jumped to a wrong conclusion by taking Satprem’s menacing words literally. But I am surprised at your implied disbelief in “a fifth column” in the Ashram. The description could well cover certain numbers. They want the present Trustees—who were appointed by the Mother—to be thrown out and themselves or their supporters installed in their place. They would be very happy if they could persuade—after Nolini has departed—the Government to take over the Ashram in their interests. They do not disapprove of Satprem’s hostility to the Ashram.

Before I published Udar’s article I sent for all the relevant documents—the Trustees’ letter to Satprem and the letter sent to him by the Mother’s son André telling him that the Mother had explicitly asked André to edit the Agenda. Evidently she had confidence in André and not in Satprem. This point brings me to your theme—broached in good faith, I am sure—of people looking at the negative instead of the positive side of Satprem’s work. The basic negative side is that he has not attended to the Mother’s wish that André should read and judge things. To avoid this wish from being carried out he managed to take charge of the typed copy of the Agenda which used to be kept in the Mother’s room and towards which she had pointed when giving André her instructions. When the basis is an absolute falsehood, what you call the positive side is bound to be a specious splendour.

No doubt, the Mother’s talks are very illuminating—the Agenda in itself (minus the parts the Mother would never have published) is a divine gift to the world, but we cannot forget the ambitious and unfaithful hands that are offering it to us—not only with those parts included but also with malicious and misguiding footnotes. While benefiting as much as we can from the Mother’s wealth of wisdom we must not let ourselves be over-impressed and carried away by the labour which Satprem has spent on it and which you in your innocence want us to profoundly appreciate. Have we not always to look first at the sort of force at work behind a project? Constructive energy on a large scale lay behind both Hitlerism and Stalinism, but even though we may learn something from it we cannot get lost in admiration of it. Of course, Satprem is neither a Hitler nor a Stalin, yet a clear tinge of the totalitarian in him is evident from the intolerant, exclusivist, single-type mentality he has fixed in the group which follows him.

I have observed that people who are not steeped in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother turn against the Ashram on reading the Agenda. Even an old-time Swiss sadhika stopped coming to the Ashram for years because of the propagandist spirit which has moulded the Agenda. A friend of mine in Holland was also affected with anti-Ashramism by it. I who knew his warm and sincere heart wrote him a clarifying letter and he began to see differently. Apart from this there is the question: “What picture does it present of the Mother?” The Mother, complimentary or critical, spoke from a divine consciousness—and her personal comments were never meant to be carved in “monumental alabaster” for all time. They were made for a purpose and she could say the very opposite the next minute. Even people in the Ashram don’t always realize this but people outside who have no feel of the divine consciousness in the Mother are liable to be completely misguided both as to her aim and as to the level of being from which she spoke. While getting a bad opinion of those whom at a particular moment she has criticized they are likely also to see her as a repeatedly grumbling back-biter as well as a sower of discord between people and countries.

Then there is the question of fairness in the editor. On the strength of some tapes and letters, I have been assured of subtle manipulation and even of certain talks cut out because they were complimentary to a person who has fallen from grace in Satprem’s eyes. The spirit behind the Agenda is very far from being admirable. That is why Nolini refuses to encourage it and not just because Satprem has not let the Trustees have a hand in it.

It is not my intention to show Satprem as all black. I knew him very well for years, I have known his difficulties and his good points and I am sure the Mother has given him some genuine spiritual experiences. But I am afraid they have gone to his head and have failed to touch with refining fire the outer being, the lower part of him to which the Mother’s reference can be traced in the Agenda itself. And the Agenda has been turned by him into a powerful means of self-aggrandisement and self-advertisement: he uses it to make himself out to be the one and only apostle of the Mother.

Have you seen the folder he or someone inspired by him has prepared to go with the two English volumes of the Agenda? It smacks of sensational journalism and tries to focus the limelight on him and to present the Mother not as she was—a real Divine Mother working for the good of her children with deepest love and understanding—but as a kind of super-occultist bent only on one object with the help of her single confidant. Do you know that in a recent interview Satprem has allowed the impression to be made that the sole Yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and himself is to change the “programming” of the cells and reveal the Supermind in them by a certain inner process? Except for an endeavour to silence the intellect, the vital being and the physical mind, no sadhana is required. It is as if the numberless spiritual experiences which lay behind the final stage of the Mother’s sadhana for the world were of no importance and could be bypassed. What Sri Aurobindo called “the one thing needful”… is completely ignored in the new Gospel á la Satprem. To bring out the inmost Psychic Being, the true Soul, to experience the In-dwelling Deity and the immutable Self of selves and the Cosmic Consciousness, to realize the Transcendent Divine, to be filled with the Supreme Peace and Wideness and Illumination and Compassion and Dynamism—all these sine qua nons of the Supramental Yoga are never mentioned.

Do you believe it is possible to transform the cells of the body without a long process of psychic and spiritual Yoga? The Life Divine, The Synthesis, Savitri and Letters seem to have become superfluous just because the Mother towards the last part of her life was concentrating on supramentalising the cellular consciousness. Could she have hoped to succeed if she had not had behind her a plenary life of Yoga answering to all that is said in those books? What Satprem is preaching to his admirers is a mutilation of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother—a path that cannot lead the aspiring soul of the West anywhere near the “Divine Materialism” (to adopt a fine phrase of his own) at which the Mother was at work for the last 15 years of her stay on earth—without, of course, stopping to help us all the time towards the realizations which she herself had compassed and which alone can prepare us for the culminating Cellular Sadhana.

17 December 1981

Postscript

 I have spoken of Satprem’s aim of self-aggrandisement and self-advertisement by means of the Mother’s Agenda. A note has come to me from an independent party—a keen-eyed disciple—drawing attention to a few points which acutely illustrate this very aim:

‘Perhaps the most ludicrous of the wild claims made throughout the Agenda, and in televised and published interviews given by Satprem, is in Vol. 13, p. 319—it would be in keeping with the psychological theorem that “If a lie is big enough, repeated often enough, it will come to convince the most unbelieving”.

‘Satprem twists the Mother’s remark that her body must have the conviction that “it is useful for something” into meaning that the single conceivable usefulness of the Mother’s body was not her unparalleled endeavour to supramentalise the corporeal consciousness but rather its usefulness consisted of the support and succor she afforded to her one and only true disciple, and to deprive her of physical meetings with him meant death.

‘Footnote assertion, p. 319:

‘“When Mother’s door was closed to us [the editorial ‘we’ he uses throughout] she was being condemned to death. This is the simple truth. But nobody, not a single person, understood or wanted to understand. No-one. Of what were their [her jailors’] hearts made?”

The facts are that André, the Mother’s son, who visited her every evening all through her self-imposed seclusion—except for the first few weeks—would have been entirely co-operative in summoning Satprem or anyone else she might ask to see, and so would her doctor and attendants, but she summoned no-one. The picture which Satprem paints of a woman encircled by malevolent and omnipotent conspirators, while Sri Aurobindo stood idly by and heeded not her abject helplessness in their hands, has been actually accepted by a considerable number of otherwise sane individuals in Auroville and abroad.

Perhaps the saddest part of the frequent misleading twists and the contrary-to-fact assertions rampant in the Agenda is their effect of denigrating the Mother’s stature in the juggler’s attempt to glorify his own. One thinks in particular of the heart-rending episode of the Mother’s suffering in 1970 (Vol. 10, September) when a small intimate detail is bared which was spoken in deepest confidence at the moment of a desperate plight, the Mother never dreaming Satprem would put it on a loud-speaker to the world to enhance his own glory while exploiting a moment’s weakness of the Mother at a time of unspeakable stress.

All the falsifications committed in the Agenda, both deliberate and/or unwittingly, diminishing and exploiting the Mother will one day fall away and the incalculable value of her experiments and experiences will be available, stripped of the dross of an errant disciple.

The greatest of falsifications is at the end of the 13th volume where the all-but-shouted drift is that the Mother was driven to her death by the Ashramites she had appointed to look after her. It is true that before her retirement she spoke more than once of some expedient she might employ of forcing the issue of physical transformation which did not seem to get solved in a normal progressive manner. She spoke of the possibility of entering into a cataleptic trance and warned against mistaking it for death. But side by side with this possibility she hinted that, if the body failed to endure and hold out, a new attempt in the future would have to be made. What she might actually do in the present life was never precisely announced. A general clue as to whether she would be in a cataleptic trance or had left the body Would be the fact of decomposition. She let it be understood that, unless decomposition started, the body was not to be put in the Samadhi-vault. Of course, departure from the body would be contingent on her receiving from her own Supreme Self the word that the venture to transform the body would not succeed in this birth. She had said about her body’s future: “(…as if the world put the question) Will it continue or will it get dissolved?… But the body knows that it has been decided, and that it is not to be told to the body. It accepts, it is not impatient, it accepts, it accepts, it says, ‘It is all right, it is as Thou wilt’…” [Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, April 1969, p. 87.]

What exactly happened on the evening of November 17, 1973? There were unmistakable symptoms of physical distress. The respiration was acutely in trouble. There was no entering into any kind of trance. A life-crisis was evident. And the upshot was as if the Mother had come to know that the work would not be completed and that no point remained in continuing in a body which was suffering intensely under the pressure of the first experiment in supra-mentalising flesh and blood and bone.

There was not the slightest doubt that the Mother had left her body. The proof of it came soon enough. Small spots of decomposition appeared after a day or so — and then the process increased its speed until the doctors came to the conclusion that the time had arrived for placing the holy and heroic body in the Samadhi.

It is high time a halt was called to the anti-Ashram propaganda whose agitated centre is Satprem — propaganda which can also be termed anti-Mother in the sense that it goes not only against her principal field of work but also against the spirit of Truth, the Truth-Consciousness, which she represented on earth.

3 February 1982

112 Replies to “Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran and Udar Pinto on the Mother’s Agenda

  1. Whatever maybe the reasons behind Satprem’s mighty egoism, one thing is certain: Satprem is a wonderful writer, far greater than Peter Hees . He is unmatched by any, in the post-Sri Aurobindo scene, in the field of commentaries on Evolution. But like Hees , or more powerfully than Hees, he created a controversy, which helped in the world-wide publicity of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Who knows if the Mother had wished this controversy? Even when Satprem speaks on poetry and literature, which were not his fields, he doesn’t look as childish when Hees writes on Sri Aurobindo’s Poetry n Prose with a tone of assertion! Sethna once said to me: ” I have told Peter not to comment on literature.”

  2. Dear Mr. Anurag Banerjee,

    Thank you for publishing the above. It is certain that the “deliberate and/or unwittingly, diminishing and exploiting the Mother will one day fall away”!

    Arindam Gupta

  3. It is good this has been published again, with great thought and with a great sense of responsibility. It brings into sharper focus the fundamentals about their withdrawal, which means doing the work in another way. I suggest that Pranab-da’s talk in the Playground about the Mother’s withdrawal be also included in this series.

  4. My first-hand acquaintance with Nolini Gupta, Satprem, André Morisset, Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran and Counouma gave me enough material to prove the negative aspect of Satprem’s magnanimous enterprise. I had ample scope to compare my notes taken in the Mother’s class on a particular subject which interested me and the version edited by Satprem, since I did not belong to his group of friends. Further proof came thanks to my contact with the French circle of his well-wishers and admirers like François Baron, Yves Jaigu and André Brincourt. In spite of a hostile atmosphere, when I persuaded Jacqueline Piatier to bring out an article in Le Monde to celebrate the Mother’s centenary of birth in 1978, I did not fail to point out the occult role Satprem had been playing: this led to an immediate satpremite rejoinder.

    1. Articles about demystification of infamy cast on ashram and ashramites are real eye openers. Specifically Amal Kiran’s. Thanks fr good work.

  5. Finally, I think it is good to ponder on what the Mother once wrote in response to a question. Here it is:

    First and always, we must ask ourselves what our instrument
    of judgment is. One must ask, “What is my judgment based on? Do I have perfect knowledge? What in me is judging? Do I have the divine consciousness? Am I completely disinterested in this matter? Am I free of all desire and all ego?”
    And since the answer to all these questions will be the same, namely, “NO”, the honest and sincere conclusion must be: “I cannot judge, I do not have the elements needed for a true judgment; therefore I will not judge, I will keep quiet.”
    19 May 1965

  6. my only objection to the whole, is WHY EDIT, MOTHER’S TALK, IF any malice was not there, Sunilda was the first to point out when the Agenga was released, in 1977-8, as the vols came out one by one, on his birthday, he was present, during the agenda recordings, and as these have been deleted , and doctored, he was the first one to have pointed it out to friends, no malice at all. the other person who was probably the closest associate , and worked most in the project, from day one is Luc Venet, who in his illuminating article points out,…matter deleted from the agenda texts AMOUNTING TO ANOTHER FULL VOLUME HAS BEEN DELETED, WHY? could any non Padmashrees give me an explanation? would be happy to be enlightened.thanks

  7. Other source am indebted to is Suresh Joshi who had the whole set of agenda recordings, which I copied to listen to Mother and the cuts were very, drastic to say the least, and many a time wished whole would be there, ,INSTEAD OF LYING TO THE WHOLE WORLD, RECORDING DOES NOT EXIST, as is .corroborated..by Luc, in his article of 2007, in Collaboration ,.’END OF ILLUSIONS’. have anyone heard of aurobindo.ru, Michael who left us in 2020 dec, had upoaded the whole text and recording in 2011, as it was banned , saying he had done it for posterity and humanity, another footnote to MOTHER’S SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS ON A PARTICULAR AGENDA TOTALLY PERSONAL WHICH MOTHER HAD SPECIFICALLY ASKED HIM TO ERASE FROM TAPE, LET ALONE PUBLISH, very symptomatically, FOR THE SAKE OF POSTERITY HE PUBLISHED AGAINST ALL PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS , a very BRAVE? OR BETRAYAL TO HIS GURU, do not know where to classify , you do it…okand the episodes with Rameswaram panditji , have in pdf form if Anurag permits my comments will post then , and then only…

  8. I wish to clarify that the Sri Aurobindo Ashram kept a room (next to where Bansidhar gave the passes for Sri Aurobindo’s room) for the ashramites wishing to read Mother’s Agenda. The sister and brother of Sujata were in charge, and also Bonnidi, one of the two nieces of Nirod. If I remember correctly, it was Nolinida who came up with this provision. I have recently been told that the Agenda dispute is over but I have not yet verified.
    I remember Sujata’s sister as a nice, gentle person – and so was Bonnidi; she, Dollydi and their brother looked after my small daughter, so that I could go cycling to work at the Matrimandir’s construction. Fond memories of a golden age.
    I have always been aware of Satprem’s double personality, and so was Satprem himself. Which is no wonder: doesn’t the Mother explain that light and shadow are directly proportional? The first volume of the Agenda describes Satprem’s internal struggle, and also his suicide in (two?) previous lives; it is a compelling narrative documenting Mother’s relentless love and compassion. Also, in “The adventure of consciousness” Satprem wrote a striking chapter about “le double mauvais”, the evil persona: Sri Aurobindo’s reply to Kishor Gandhi forwarding him a text by C. G. Jung on the shadow. Kishor Gandhi published in his annual magazine, “Sri Aurobindo’s Circle”, a powerful article by Jungian Raymond De Becker on Sri Aurobindo, Jung and the evil persona; Kishor gave me a copy of this article and, daily, for one week, photocopies of the Mother on the shadow; from him came the inspiration for a book, “Becoming One – the Psychology of Integral Yoga”, compiling from the Mother, to which I added an appendix largely dedicated to the shadow, inclusive of these texts. Nor could Nolini Kanta Gupta be missing; in my book I reproduced, by him, “On the brink”, where a key statement appears in a footnote :
    “Sri Aurobindo in one of his private notes discloses that most of his disciples were Asuras, the bigger the disciple the greater the Asura. Perhaps they, impelled by a higher Call, came of themselves in order to surrender and be converted to the new life. It may be that that urge wore off in the end and had to be postponed for its fulfilment. It is significant what Sri Aurobindo says in his Hymn to Durga:
    “0 Mother, give to our life and mind the Asura’s strength, the Asura’s energy and to our heart and intelligence a God’s character and a God’s knowledge.”
    All my work of research and books publication in Auroville has been inspired by these two sadhaks, towering intellectually as spiritually: Nolinida and Kishorji. Integral Yoga demands relentless work and vigilance on one’s shadow so that it doesn’t change into evil persona. And this applies to all, great and small sadhaks, regardless of one’s status and achievements. This was Sri Aurobindo’s reply to Kishor Gandhi:
    “What you say about the ‘Evil Persona’ interests me greatly as it answers to my consistent experience that a person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost always—perhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things —a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done. Or, if it is not there at first, not bound to his personality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realise. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumblings and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the work he has started to do. It would seem as if the problem could not, in the occult economy of things, be solved otherwise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own. That would explain many things that seem very disconcerting on the surface.”
    At the Masters’ lotus feet
    Paulette

  9. Thanks, Anurag, for finally publishing these comments by Nirod-da, Udar-da and Amal to give to readers a more balanced understanding of a very delicate, controversial aspect of the Ashram history. Very sadly when you idolise and institutionalise any strong personality (and Satprem undoubtedly was one) there settles a kind of reticence which withholds us from pointing the light at the less edifying elements of the person. And there again, Satprem had his fair share of “spots” like everybody else which need to be acknowledged in order to be less “affected” by the profoundly disturbing insinuations that he has woven into the Mother’s Agenda through his utterly unnecessary footnotes. Irony and sarcasm, maybe very distinctive traits of the French mind, sadly never left Satprem all through his life and he used these to belittle and despise those who did not see the world with his glasses. These qualities are TOTALLY absent from the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, which make them such formidable avatars and one cannot but be increasingly enamoured of Them and Their splendidly dignified compassionate Vision of people and the world.
    So thank you, Anurag, once again for your honesty and courage to bring these texts back into our memory.

  10. For some technical reason the two references were not reproduced, so I post them here:
    NOLINI KANTA GUPTA, Collected Works vol. 6, Sweet Mother, p. 21.
    SRI AUROBINDO, Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 24, p. 1660.

  11. Nolinida said it is fire, do not touch it, unless you have the discrimination after you have read all of Mother and the Lord’s works

  12. Mother’s Agenda records the last 13 years of Mother’s process of transformation of Her cells. I am at a loss to see the connection of Satprem’s footnotes with this process or the importance attached to parts ‘not be published’. I presume that parts that were not published are also non-essential to understanding the process of transformation.

  13. To me what is important in this discussion around The Mother’s Agenda is not to lose the sight
    of context. I agree that some sadhaks have been hurt by Satprem’s footnotes and personal remarks, which have been addressed and placed in a wider context by the specific sadhaks.

    However, the context to me is that for the Mother she had an individual who made an effort to follow her in her process of the transformation of the physical body. Satprem would listen, ask questions, start a related discussion, would come back on the Mother’s previous remarks and experiences and ask what her progress or further assessment was. I think this was important for the Mother, that she had a sounding board if not a spectator. He followed with interest the causes of obstacles, the highlights of slight progress, and how the Mother was going through all this. It was the Mother’s choice to tell Satprem her experiences of transformation. Evidently to me, Satprem gave her the responses she needed or what stimulated her to attempt to put the transformation process into words. Often she said it cannot be mentalized and yet she used words to describe her experiences, and when we read those we benefit from these unique descriptions. That is the jewel the Mother’s Agenda is today, inspite of all the controversy about Satprem. The question is maybe, would there have been the Agenda without Satprem? There are many people I don’t like in the Integral Yoga collective but I am sure we all have a true role to play.

  14. This has been an excellent many-sided discussion, comprehensive, very mature and learned, enlightening in several respects, and we should be thankful to Anurag for the Post. I would like to point out something which can perhaps be taken forward in the course of time.

    Satprem might have thieved, pilfered, misappropriated the original papers and tapes; this might be imprudence, offence, malfeasance, wrongdoing, transgression, indiscretion, whatever one might like to call it, quite a reproachable action. But for all that, surely, in the occult working he will have to suffer harsh reprisal, pay back as the consequence of his karma.

    But that is entirely for him and the Mother to resolve, and we have no place in it. There are many other similar cases also, even calling Sri Aurobindo having forgotten his own spiritual philosophy, and he making slips when we not understanding him. We really need not be concerned about these stuffs.

    For us, however, this Agenda is now a fait accompli, something with which we are completely and helplessly stuck, being the only thing available. Nothing can be done about it, absolutely nothing, and there is no point in ruing over it or deploring it, or even cursing it, particularly when we don’t have our own objectives clear in our minds. Yet we have to find a way out to move on in the best manner possible.

    The Mother’s revelations in the truest form of Agenda are absolutely marvellous, most precious, and it is that which we have to discern and decipher, open the code, the cipher, perceptively read and understand it.

    It is the golden record of their work in the wake of the most momentous withdrawal of Sri Aurobindo from the physical, on 5 December 1950, withdrawal by which he fixed the Supermind inescapably in the material-physical, a most triumphant action in the will of the highest. In the annals of glorious spirituality that is most enduring, is of the most dynamic value.

    The Mother worked in it. She was constantly in contact with Sri Aurobindo in the subtle-physical and it is only from her we learn how much he worked after his withdrawal from here. His presence in the subtle-physical also means he becoming universal, and of course she too, if we can enter into that subtle-physical.

    It is that Agenda, that golden record along with the Mother’s own amazing Yoga of Cellular Transformation that should be of interest to a futuristic spiritual seeker. One of the things one could do with what is, is to decant it, take out from it all that appears inelegant and worthless. One can prepare one’s own subject-wise texts based on it. Some examples could be, all that she has said about the work of physical transformation, all that she has said about Savitri, all that she has said about Sri Aurobindo himself, his work and his passing away, about the future race governed by the Mind of Light, the surhomme consciousness, and the materialisation of the psychic being.

    There is so much of it in the Mother’s Collected Works published by the Ashram, for instance Volume 11, Notes on the Way, vis-à-vis the Agenda. Do we look into it, brood over it, enter into its contents and significances? Do we compare these two publications? I am afraid, not much is done in that way, not even by them who reproach Satprem.

    Sorry for this longish comment, but if it resonates somewhere all happiness will be mine.

  15. Here is a comparison between what we have in Agenda and Notes on the Way, CWM Vol. 11:

    From Agenda

    December 21, 1968
    There have been a lot, a whole lot of things these last few days…. But that’s enough! (Mother has just listened to a conversation to be published in the next Bulletin). Do you have something to say?… what?

    Someone (not me) has asked a question. It seems it’s “typical” of the questions people ask after reading your “Notes”…. Would you like to know?

    It must again be something …

    I’ll read it to you: “While describing her experiences of last August and September, the Mother refers to the ‘exclusion of the mind and vital.’ Why do they have to be eliminated for a rapid and effective transformation of the body? Doesn’t the supramental consciousness act on them too?”

    Certainly it acts! It’s ALREADY been acting, for a long time. It’s because the body is used (was used) to obeying the vital and especially the mind, so it’s to change its habit, to make it obey the higher Consciousness alone. That’s why. It’s to make things go faster. In people, That acts through the mind and vital – and as I said, it’s safer that way. As an experience it’s rather risky, but it makes things move considerably faster, because normally you must act on the body through those two, whereas in that way, with them absent, That acts directly. That’s all.

    As questions go, this one is innocent.

    The process isn’t to be recommended! Every time I have an opportunity, I say so: people mustn’t imagine they should try to do that (they couldn’t, but that doesn’t matter), it’s not recommended. One should take the time needed. But that was because of the number of years … to make things go faster.
    (silence)

    From Notes on the Way, CWM, Vol. 11

    21 December 1968
    A question has been put. I translate it: “While describ- ing her experiences of last August and September, the Mother spoke of the exclusion of the mind and the vital. Why must they be eliminated for a rapid and effective transformation of the body? Does not the supramental consciousness act upon them also?”

    Certainly it acts, it has already acted for a long time. It is be- cause the body is accustomed — was accustomed — to obeying the vital and particularly the mind, and therefore this was in order to change its habit, so that it would obey only the higher consciousness. It is for that, so that the thing would go faster. In people it is through the mind and the vital that That acts, but I have said it was also more sure. As an experience this is rather risky. But it increases the tempo considerably, for normally one has to act upon the body through the other two, whereas in this way, when the two are not there, That acts directly. That’s all.

    The procedure is not recommended! Each time the occasion arises, I repeat it; people should not imagine that they should try it (they would not be able to do so, but that does not matter), it is not recommended. One must take the necessary time. It was only because of the mounting years… so that it would go quicker.
    (Silence)

  16. Well, I appreciate the raw version for the way it emanates the Mother’s atmosphere better. However, I agree, the Ashram should be able to publish its own version of the Agenda and the two should coexist. Ashramites who are still reluctant would then be happy to read the Mother’s Agenda as it is essential for the Integral Yoga.

    We must not forget the difficult time when the Mother left her body. It was a difficult transition period for the Ashram and much worse for Auroville. I can imagine that Satprem was very protective of the Agenda recordings and did what he did. Whether that was illegal or not, I don’t think he will experience any karma for this, as he was fully accepted and loved by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as we know from the Mother herself.

    We are in a very different era today. The world is upside down from serious problems and I think it is about time that collaboration starts happening in all fields among the IY collective. The Ashram could contact the Institut de Recherche Evolutives in France and start an inquiring discussion about this? I am just dreaming aloud. Nothing should be fait accompli but remain open for true progress.

    1. Perhaps a word of clarification might be necessary here. Notes on the Way as we have in the Collected Works of the Mother published by the Ashram had first appeared in the Bulletin of Physical Education that came out on the occasions of the four Darshanas. Following is the note from the Publishers:

      Publisher’s Note
      During the years 1961 to 1973 the Mother had frequent conversations with one of her disciples about the experiences she was having at the time. She called these conversations, which were in French, l’Agenda.

      Selected transcripts of the tape-recorded conversations were seen, approved and occasionally revised by the Mother for publication in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education; they appeared regularly from February 1965 to April 1973 under the titles “Notes on the Way” and “A Propos”. The English translations that accompanied the French text in the Bulletin were sometimes read out to the Mother for approval; the same translations, with minor revisions, are published in this volume, number eleven of the Collected Works of the Mother.

      The following introductory note preceded the first of the “Notes on the Way” conversations:

      “We begin under this title to publish some fragments of conversations with the Mother. These reflections or experiences, these observations, which are very recent, are like landmarks on the way of Transformation: they were chosen not only because they illumine the work under way — a yoga of the body of which all the processes have to be established — but because they can be a sort of indication of the endeavour that has to be made.”

      The Bulletin had both the French and English texts, published together.

      I understand that during this period Satprem himself was the editor of the Bulletin.

      Later, when the Agenda came out we have, what we are told, as the original conversations. But if Satprem was looking at them both then a question arises, as why there should be differences between the two, between Notes on the Way and the corresponding entries in the Agenda.

      In any case, it only hints at the fact that, while going through the Agenda, one has to be very cautious, guarding oneself, guarding with the Mother’s protection, with every psychic precaution taken.

      1. Please mark that in Notes on the Way there are only 34 entries against hundreds of them in the published Agenda, hardly 10 percent of the total.

  17. What follows is a letter from Sujata Nahar to Bula alias Charu Chandra Mukherjee, an old disciple who was in charge of the Ashram Electrical Service. Bula’s mother was the elder sister of Sahana Devi.

    Bulada,
    Your letter, inviting Satprem and myself to come back to the Ashram with Counouma’s blessing, came. It took my breath away. You are now over 80 years old, so I was reluctant to reply. But it is so full of hypocrisy, and ridiculous to boot, that I decided to put plainly some facts.

    You say that you consulted Counouma when you wrote. Who is Counouma? The managing trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (poor Sri Aurobindo!). And what did this Counouma do as such? He locked out Satprem from his house and home, [ See Notebook of an Apocalypse, Volume I, date: 6 January 1978] he “expelled” Satprem from the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo; he denounced Satprem to the police. And now you say that “he will be very glad” if Satprem came back because he is keeping Satprem’s house. Why this shameless lie? (…) Surely it must stem from the well-renowned courage of the Ashramites in general and of the “senior sadhaks” in particular.

    Not a single protest by any “devotee” of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother when Sujata’s home was locked by the trustees of the Ashram during her absence and on her return she had to spend the night outside. Who is Sujata? A child of 9 who came to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and spent her youth and middle age serving Them.

    Nolinida, Dyuman, Harikant, trustees all, knew this Sujata from her childhood, she has worked intimately with them, but they colluded with Counouma to lock her out. Yet they knew Sujata’s place in Mother’s heart, and in this way they repay Her trust in them. Pradyot, another trustee, was admitted to the Ashram much after Sujata. And of course, the so-called “senior sadhaks” like Amal Kiran [=K. D. Sethna], Nirodbaran, Tehmi, and the “senior devotees” are such cowards that none dared open his mouth to lodge even a single protest. Yet every single one of them was ready to pounce on Satprem because he would not betray Mother. Like a pack of wolves all these people were ready to tear Satprem to pieces, because he had the courage to say “no” to their meddling and distorting Mother’s Words. What did these self-styled “senior sadhaks” (or any sadhak for that matter) know about the private conversations — which Mother called Her Agenda — that took place between Mother and Satprem over the years? Yet these same “senior sadhaks” wanted to censor this Agenda — for what design and purpose of their own only they know. (…)

    Frankly, the Ashram is full of 99% shams who care only to get their meals and a roof over their heads and gossip and put on a mask of spirituality for the gullible public, but where none has the courage to stand up for Truth. And if someone does stand up, like Satprem, he is “expelled.”

    I have put things passionlessly, merely stating some facts.

    You are an old man now, Bulada, over eighty, so what have you to lose by an act of courage?
    I dare you to put this letter on the notice board for all and sundry to see. But knowing fully well the extent of your cowardice, I am pretty certain that you will not do so nor even show it to anybody.

    Well, I need not say anything more.
    Sujata

  18. On 22 February 1981, Satprem wrote to a friend named Micheline that Pournaprema, the Mother’s grand-daughter, ‘had met with a lot of politicians and led a whole politically well-organized campaign with “influential” people to explain, as Mother’s grand-daughter, that the Agenda was a fraud of Satprem’s, that Satprem had illegally “smuggled the tapes out of India” in complicity with “certain people” (meaning Tata). In brief, that I had stolen and distorted Mother’s message for lucrative ends, etc., etc. Why this political campaign? What are they preparing? It was not quite clearly said, but I vaguely understood that they announced a “true” Agenda to rectify Satprem’s imposture. And this campaign was so well organized, backed up by “proof” (or so they said) that not only Pratibha but C.P.N. Singh himself thinks that I have really “smuggled” the tapes out, breaking the law — though naturally, they side with me, they will fight on my side if necessary without hesitation.’

    1. You write “…Satprem had illegally ‘smuggled the tapes out of India’ in complicity with ‘certain people’ (meaning Tata). …”

      In the Aurobindonian community/fraternity I never heard this name “Tata”. Can we please have specific details about the whole episode? Please elaborate. Thanks.

      1. Satprem was referring to J.R.D. Tata, the then Chairman of the Tata Group. For further details, I would request the readers to go through the first volume of Satprem’s “The Notebooks of an Apocalypse” where he has written about this entire episode in detail.

  19. On February 21, 1982, Nolini, the oldest disciple and Secretary of the Ashram after Mother’s departure, would officially declare to the Governor of Pondicherry: “The Agenda presents no real aspect of the Mother. It gives only some distorted and scattered and out of focus snaps of her most external life”.

  20. On the night of 28-29 December 1981, Satprem had a vision in which he saw that he was ‘violently attacked and chased’ by Nirodbaran. Satprem adds in his diary: ‘Pranab is there, but assists without attacking.’ Later, Satprem remarked: ‘… I don’t really know why he attacked me, except that he was with the Ashram managers. It is true that, in the Agenda, Mother spoke of the “treatment” prescribed by the doctors who “tortured” Sri Aurobindo. In fact, the only one who resisted the grip of the Ashram was Champaklal; he was also the only one Sri Aurobindo embraced when he said his farewells.’

    1. Nothing of these is of interest or of any real worthwhile consequence. What matters is the Mother’s Yoga of Physical Transformation. That is the path-breaking contribution of hers, leading to new spirituality governed by the highest consciousness. The rest is too human and frustrating.

  21. This is about Beyond Man by Georges van Vrekhem published by HarperCollins India, in 1997. Earlier Georges wanted it to be published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, and to that effect he had sent the manuscript to Jayantilal Parekh of the Ashram Archives to take it forward.

    Jayantilal P gave the papers to me seeking my opinion about it. I went through the typescript thoroughly and found it to be an extraordinary work, with lucidity and vigour that we do not find in biographies by the Indian authors. But my strong recommendation had a rider, that the book has references from the Agenda, and that this factor should be set aside and the publication of the book taken by the Ashram.

    But it didn’t work and Georges had to go outside which, in a way I suppose, was very good for the book.

  22. My ignorance. I have the book Notes on the Way and was surprised that this small book contains 9 years of the Agenda from 1964 to 1973, in 332 pages. If that means that the Ashram has all the recordings and publishes only one small book of these then it shouldn’t complain about the full Agenda published by Satprem, which is 13 volumes.

    I appreciate the Agenda and think that most of us are mature enough to read between the lines and can place Satprem’s remarks in the right perspective, of what is too personal or really factual. Also readers from outside the Ashram complain that Satprem put himself too much into the picture and the Agenda should be more thoroughly edited. It seems that we have now two fait accompli. Who knows, maybe a third edited version will appear one day.

    Anurag’s given texts here on all of this show clearly that something was amiss at the Ashram. It is true that not everything is suitable for the public to know, but most of us in the IY collective know.

    I was wondering why this discussion on Satprem had been started. If it is only for finger-pointing, to call him a bad person, then let us not forget what he meant to the Mother. She handpicked him especially for the Agenda conversations – recordings. For me it is not a matter of liking or disliking Satprem but if you want to point to the dark side of someone also tell the right side of the person. That is what the Mother teaches us.

    1. My point is, this Notes on the Way was done by Satprem himself, with the final revision and approval by the Mother herself. If so, then, why did he not go by it in the Agenda? That still remains unexplained or un-understood. It also leaves a suspicion if the recorded conversations have not got subjectively edited by him.

      Incidentally, I have made a compilation from these 13 volumes of Agenda pertaining specifically to the topic about the physical transformation, and related it also with relevant passages from Savitri. It is entitled Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells; French friends of mine, Lili and Marc Desplanque, have made this into French itself using the original French l’Agenda text. These can be had from
      Savitri Foundation, info@savitri.in,
      Ph: +91124-4280241

      All that does not mean that Satprem was not her chosen instrument for this work, when there were several other choices available to her. This is surely significant and we should not cast doubts about these matters of her options. But finally what matters are the occult-yogic contents of the Agenda and we have to be intuitively discerning about them.

  23. Fair enough, but there is so much more in the Agenda besides the talks on the physical transformation. The Mother talks about her life and world affairs. Surely these talks give precious insights that are very relevant to us, the readers.

    That the Ashram would prevent publication of personal information on sadhaks and Ashram affairs is fair enough but it was strange of Nolini to say “The Agenda presents no real aspect of the Mother. It gives only some distorted and scattered and out of focus snaps of her most external life”. I think that the Mother told these stories to give us a better perspective of her life and of world affairs. Who is to say they are not fit for the IY collective? So much more to be grateful for the full edition of the Agenda.

    Yes, we always need to be intuitively discerning about the occult-yogic contents of everything that comes to us. Also about those comments from Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran and Udar Pinto and Nolini Kanta Gupta. 😉

    It is great to hear that you have made a compilation of the 13 volumes of the Agenda combined with quotes from Savitri. Then the most important issues do not get lost for the Ashramites. I will have a look.

  24. What necessitates opening up this Pandora’s Box in the public domain?
    This is certainly not going to help anyone and has no spiritual importance.
    Rather this may help someone to carry on a different kind of Agenda and, satisfy a few to exercise their pseudo-intellectual interest.
    And fanning the controversy that the new generation is completely unaware of.
    It is needless to say that the Truth will prevail.
    My humble request is to remove the article immediately if possible.

    1. Dear Niladri Dada – you have only voiced the concern of us all -🌹 you could not have put it more clearly than this strong point of view and perception -🙏
      Surendra s chouhsn SAICE 69

  25. For clarification, I am deeply inspired by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and the Integral Yoga since my twentieth year. I do not follow or side with Satprem nor with other sadhaks.

    The wonderful fact of the Ashram today is the solid Presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and the Supramental, which I experience even all over Pondicherry (and probably extends much farther) every time that I have visited.

    I noticed that the publication of Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells is only available digitally or is there also a print version?

    1. Here are the reviews of the Yoga of the Cells vis-à-vis the Kindle edition:
      /www.amazon.com/Savitri-Yoga-Cells-Sri-Aurobindo-ebook/dp/B00B1T6I96#customerReviews

      The book is also as a hard copy, both English and French versions.

      One of the reviews is as follows:
      This is a wonderful collection of quotes and journal entries from both Sri Aurobindo and The Mother Mirra. Its main thesis is that there is a continuity from Aurobindo’s experiences in the late 30s, through Savitri his epic poem, and then on to forming a bridge that leads to the Mother’s own experiences until her death in 1973. The quotes involved talk about a sort of transfiguration that occurred between Aurobindo and Mirra. I don’t think the project of the descent of the Supramental consciousness has failed but it’s more that it has yet to find alignment. There is much talk about the awakening of the cells but I believe that one has to dive deeper. During Aurobindo’s time, the details of what was beneath the cell was not known (such as DNA and the sort). Through Mirra’s work, we have the Yoga of Cells, the crystalization of the Overmind through the psychisization of the body. However, my interpretation of the involution of the Divine is that it must go beyond the cell unto the core of the body’s being. Many have claimed this is DNA, such as Richard Rudd’s Gene Keys. I feel one most go further unto the molecular, atomic, quantum levels. It is like witnessing a sperm penetrating the egg’s boundary- A singular instant that upon which all is transformed into supreme splendor. Cellular Consciousness is necessary for the descent of the Divine but for it to flourish the age of the Gnostic Being, the descent of the Divine must express itself deeper to the very singularity of being of which the big bang of matter occurred but this will be of spirit.
      3 people found this helpful

      1. Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells is in the Kindle edition. But regarding your query — “I noticed that the publication of Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells is only available digitally or is there also a print version?” — let me tell you that Amazon blocked its publication because of “ambiguity” of its copyright.

        You can however contact Savitri Foundation for it. It is available both as English and French versions.
        info@savitri.in Ph: +911244280241

  26. The tapes of the whole Agenda with Mother’s voice are public, so to my mind a discussion about differences between the Agenda and Notes on the way are superfluous and unnecessary. We need nothing more than Mother’s voice, Mother speaking and we have it.
    Who need comments and mental interpretations? Mother often said that understanding the supermind or the transformation is not possible with the mind. The Agenda is not for understanding but for experiencing the truth behind what Mother says.

    1. “The tapes of the whole Agenda with Mother’s voice are public”. But how does one know that these are absolutely the original tapes, that they are not doctored? The impression all around is that these have been tampered with, to suit the presenter’s views and predilections. There is in fact no way of knowing their overall authenticity. What is in the public domain could be these re-done tapes. Hopefully, the virgin tapes are in the archives of Satprem’s Institute, and only if these could be accessed.

      1. I am sorry, but I find the ‘fact’ that ‘there is no way of knowing their overall authenticity’ a strange statement for persons that have been following and practicing Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga for decades.
        But we can know (for a fact?) that they are tampered, though.
        Moreover the science of tampering tapes is a recent one, while the tapes were available from the Institute in the 80’s.

        1. I have not heard personally the tapes and checked with the printed text, nor do I know that much of French. I am essentially going by what some of the trusted and knowledgeable seniors had told me about the matter, that there is the tampering of the tapes, that there are abrupt cuts at places, and things appear at times disjointed. Is there anyone on this website, knowing French well, and comparing these both, who can vouch about the matter? Can Anurag check it? But certainly I do see differences between the Notes on the Way and the corresponding Agenda entries. Why should these be if both were processed by Satprem himself?

          1. I have personally listened to the tapes at least a hundred times. With the french Agenda next to it you can easily follow that they are the same. You, therefore, do not need trusted and knowledgeable seniors to verify yourself.
            Abrupt cuts are easy to explain: end of tape, long silences that are cut out etc.
            That Notes on the Way has differences is also easy to explain. Notes on the Way Satprem prepared for the Bulletin so people could follow Mother’s transformation. It is prepared for understanding, it is not supposed to be a perfect transcript.
            The Agenda is a transcript of the tapes with Mother’s voice. I still do not see why that does not close the discussion as you did not say Mother’s voice is tampered with.

  27. To my information, Satprem was instructed by the Mother not to publish the Agenda before thorough editing and consultation with other senior disciples. He didn’t obey the Divine Mother and remain adamant despite persuasion of no less than Amal Da to publish the same without editing.
    This became the reason of his expulsion.
    Am I right Anurag ji ?

    1. You are absolutely correct – this fellow has taken to his grave many information which he wanted to use as had hidden ambitions to become a spiritual guru himself.

    2. Will be interested to know Anurag Banerjee’s answer to your question, but I recall this statement of the Mother in the Agenda itself where she says that it is not to be published as it is, but with some edition. This and many other things in the Agenda brought me to the conclusion that, as a sadhak, I am to be careful with the way I read the Agenda. I didn’t know of Nolini ji’s statement mentioned by Beni Da above, but his words -invariably helpful, reinforce my own conclusion. Since then, the books have been sitting on the shelf and I will return to them only when I have the intellectual and spiritual maturity to understand and discriminate. Until then, the risk is simply to put oneself in unnecessary confusion, I humbly believe. What is unfortunate on a general level is that certain type of mentality will go straight for the Agenda without any or hardly any serious study of other works by the Mother or even the Master. Imagine the spreading confusion about the Work amongst such people. Pity.

      1. Thank you so much for your insights and scholarly observation. Your hold on spiritual issues is full of light and clarity.

    3. In Satprem, the Mother had found an inquisitive seeker with whom She could converse about Her ongoing yogic experiences. When Satprem realized the significance of the Mother’s talks, he began to record them. From 1964, selected passages of the Mother’s conversation with him were published in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education under the title of ‘Notes on the Way’. Gradually, Satprem became the Mother’s confidant and along with Her spiritual experiences, She shared with him Her views on the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo Society and some of Her prominent disciples. These remarks were not always favourable (for instance, the Mother had called Amal Kiran a ‘moron’ in one of Her talks) so the members of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust wanted Satprem to publish the talks but only after a careful editing. But Satprem was determined to publish the talks as they were. Since he had realized that Sri Aurobindo Ashram would not publish the ‘Mother’s Agenda’, he founded the Institute of Evolutionary Research in Paris in 1977 and initiated the work of publishing the Mother’s Agenda in French. The English translations saw the light of day after some years. Since Satprem had paid no heed to the instructions of the Ashram Trust Board, the Trustees decided to expel him on account of ‘anti-ashram activities’.

      The significance of the Mother’s Agenda cannot be ignored. Georges Van Vrekhem has rightly remarked in his biography of the Mother (‘The Mother: The Story of Her Life’) that it is not possible to know what the avataric mission as well as the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ‘were and are without being knowledgeable about the contents of these conversations.’

      So I personally prefer to read what the Mother has said in the Agenda but not the comments made by Satprem in the footnotes.

      1. Thank you so much for your elaborate response.
        There is no doubt about the spiritual sanctity and significance of The Agenda and of course, the conversations widen the horizon of Sri Auribindo and the Mother’s spiritual vision and its understanding.
        You did not, however, explain why Satprem didn’t follow the Mother’s clear advice( instruction) not to publish the conversations without editing. Ashramites and trustees are human beings and they may have their own human prejudices and preferences and thus, not every request from them is worth observing. But Satprem chose to disobey the Guru–this is serious.
        Ma would have called Amal Kiran a ‘moron’ in a lighter mood and about a particular context. All of us know very well that he wasn’t a moron but one of the best and versatile geniuses Sri Aurobindo and The Mother produced. His intellectual brilliance and charity of thought is unmatched even with the first rung of Sri Aurobindo’s disciples.
        Thank you so much.

        1. Dear Brother: The Mother had advised Satprem to be selective about the Agenda while publishing it because She knew that most people would understand nothing of it. And Satprem would assure Her time and again: “Yes, of course a few understand” (to quote his own words). And he was the one who prompted Her to speak and share Her experiences and views. Thus “Notes on the Way” was born. But Satprem himself had admitted that it was not the Mother’s wish ‘at all’ and that “Were it up to Mother, She would have told nothing to these people.” So, in a way, Satprem went against the Mother’s wish, not as an act of disobedience, but to enable Her children to have a taste of the unadulterated nectar, that is, the unedited Agenda. With warm regards, Anurag.

          1. Anurag Banerjee ji
            Thank you so much for your insightful clearance.
            I hope you didn’t mind my enquiries.
            Charan

  28. A classic example of “CICERO PRO DOMO SUA”…
    Yes, it is always very easy to criticize the ego (real or supposed) of Satprem or anyone else. More difficult (but far more useful) would be to track down and destroy one’s ego.
    By the way, such narratives are full of crafty quibbles and even of incongruities. One should know how to climb mirrors to perform such stunts, and one has to be very naïve to take seriously all these “wise disquisitions” full of dialectical inconsistencies.
    What technicality has been put forward to justify the fascist expulsion of Satprem and Sujata from the ashram? What quibble to justify not having obeyed Mother’s written instructions regarding the eventual death of her physical body?
    Best wishes,
    Tommaso Iorco
    http://www.arianuova.org

  29. I am happy to read Anurag’s comments. Evidently, this topic was presented with the intention to give credit where credit is due: the effort of Satprem to save the Agenda recordings and make the most out of them, even if this goes at the cost of the image of sadhaks, it is an act of Courage. That is the True Spirit of the Overman Foundation.

    Look at the creativity that came out of this: the “Institut de Recherches Evolutives” in France; George van Vrekhem’s book “The Mother the Story of Her Life”, which is profoundly inspiring for everyone who is part of the Integral Yoga. Then, RY Deshpande thought it would be legal to “steal” 😉 from the Agenda and produce his own book Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells. Who is not grateful for all this? Isn’t it great we can end with Gratitude!

  30. There certainly is a strong tendency amongst us in either deification or demonization of ‘chosen’ individuals. But that strong tendency itself is our great weakness, a condemnable vital paleness, something too human which must be dismissed at once. It clouds the basics, it clouds the fundamentals, it clouds the essentials, and the focus starts getting defocused, if not lost.

    Without a doubt, Satprem was the Mother’s ‘chosen instrument’ for a certain work of hers. He was a master of the French language with the creative zeal for expression which, surely, Pavitra the Frenchman, for instance, didn’t have. She could speak to him in her ‘native’ language with the spontaneity and naturalness and precision, with all the authentic shades and nuances of speech. He was also a well-prepared mind with an ingenuousness as well as penetration that could draw her out more and more, she finding in all that pretexts or occasions to pour herself out. And his most beautiful and inspired biographical Adventure of Consciousness had already earned for him a certain inner merit and reputation qualifying himself for being a ‘chosen instrument’, he could receive the promptings from Sri Aurobindo himself directly. What else is required? What else, indeed? And all that goes without saying.

    But there were also other ‘chosen instruments’ for other types of work, Nirod for one type, Amal for another, Nolini for yet another, and Pavitra and André and Champaklal and Purani and Sunil and Huta, and, and, and …

    Our unfortunate puzzling dilemma is, we placing one ‘chosen instrument’ against another ‘chosen instrument’, they not unoften, in one way or the other, being, one may say with a good deal of exaggeration, reproachful or censorious of each other. Not only that, we overvalue it. Not only that; we rejoice in that kind of human play.

    One may be very close to the Divine, even physically close, yet one may remain too human, housing in oneself the undesirable elements. One may not be what Savitri would like to have:

    In moments when the inner lamps are lit
    And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,
    Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.

    A wider consciousness opens then its doors;
    Invading from spiritual silences
    A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile
    To commune with our seized illumined clay
    And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.

    In the oblivious field of mortal mind,
    Revealed to the closed prophet eyes of trance
    Or in some deep internal solitude
    Witnessed by a strange immaterial sense,
    The signals of eternity appear.

    The truth mind could not know unveils its face,
    We hear what mortal ears have never heard,
    We feel what earthly sense has never felt,
    We love what common hearts repel and dread;
    Our minds hush to a bright Omniscient;
    A Voice calls from the chambers of the soul;
    We meet the ecstasy of the Godhead’s touch
    In golden privacies of immortal fire.

    One example of this here is the letter from Sujata to Bula-da quoted earlier by Anuraga. Our minds do not hush to a bright Omniscient.

    My point is, Agenda is so futuristic that these passing transient current events or relationships lose all their significance. With all these buffeting winds of human kind, these harsh winter winds of ingratitude spoken of by Shakespeare, we have now this Agenda, and we must now decide exactly what to take from it, take in the spiritual sense.

  31. And here is something most marvellous:
    Oh, I’ve had an experience, a new experience. I mean, it’s the cells of the body that have had a new experience. At two in the morning I got up, and I suddenly noticed that all the cells, the whole body, that consciousness felt bathed in and at the same time shot through by a MATERIAL power of a fan-tas-tic velocity bearing no relation to the velocity of light, none at all: the velocity of light is something slow and unhurried in comparison. Fantastic, fantastic! Something that must be like the movement of the centers out there … There was that will and that endurance. And there was this sudden revelation: a sort of joy, a very peaceful but very smiling joy, very smiling, very sweet, very smiling, very charming – charming! So innocent, something so pure and so lovely: the joy which is in all things, in everything we do, everything, absolutely everything. And it’s the result of that awesome “flow”: a flow that carried the cells along; they were IN the movement, they were moving with that same velocity – a fantastic velocity with a dazzling luminosity and unimaginable speed, felt materially, like that. It lasted for hours. [The Agenda: 2 June 1966, abstracted]

  32. “In moments when the inner lamps are lit” in Ghana Recitation

    Let us take the above passage from Savitri and recite it in Ghana Style, Repetitive Recitation, a style in Sanskrit scriptures most effective and powerful in large groups of chanters.

    Here we have taken each line as a unit, most facilitated for Savitri, it being with end-stopped lines as its poetic technique.

    The grouping in sets of three lines is ABC, BCD, CDE… Each group then has the following sequence for chanting: AB-BA-ABC-CBA-ABC; BC-CB-BCD-DCB-BCD; CD-DC-CDE-EDC-CDE; …

    By way of an example here are the first two sentences of the quoted passage from Savitri,

    In moments when the inner lamps are lit|
    And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,|
    Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.|

    A wider consciousness opens then its doors;|
    Invading from spiritual silences|
    A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile|
    To commune with our seized illumined clay|
    And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.|

    In the oblivious field of mortal mind,|
    Revealed to the closed prophet eyes of trance|
    Or in some deep internal solitude|
    Witnessed by a strange immaterial sense,|
    The signals of eternity appear.|

    The truth mind could not know unveils its face,|
    We hear what mortal ears have never heard,|
    We feel what earthly sense has never felt,|
    We love what common hearts repel and dread;|
    Our minds hush to a bright Omniscient;|
    A Voice calls from the chambers of the soul;|
    We meet the ecstasy of the Godhead’s touch|
    In golden privacies of immortal fire. |
    [Savitri, Book One Canto Four Section One]

    In moments when the inner lamps are lit| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| In moments when the inner lamps are lit| In moments when the inner lamps are lit| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| In moments when the inner lamps are lit| In moments when the inner lamps are lit| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.|

    And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;|

    Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Invading from spiritual silences| Invading from spiritual silences| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Invading from spiritual silences|

    A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Invading from spiritual silences|Invading from spiritual silences| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Invading from spiritual silences| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| Invading from spiritual silences| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| A wider consciousness opens then its doors;| Invading from spiritual silences| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile|

    Invading from spiritual silences| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| Invading from spiritual silences| Invading from spiritual silences| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| To commune with our seized illumined clay| To commune with our seized illumined clay| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| Invading from spiritual silences| Invading from spiritual silences| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| To commune with our seized illumined clay|

    A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| To commune with our seized illumined clay| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| To commune with our seized illumined clay| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| To commune with our seized illumined clay| And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.| And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.| To commune with our seized illumined clay| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile| To commune with our seized illumined clay| And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.|

    1. I will be keen to receive feedback about this mode of chanting in which sound counts more than sense as is the general case in reading or reciting Savitri. This is a ‘new’ way of approaching Savitri and it will be good to know how effective it is, how much acceptable it is. Thanks.

      1. First in a general way, I want to express my gratitude to you and all others who intervene on this very polarizing post. I very much appreciate the mature debate appearing here, thanks the way you and many others expressed very respectfully different views on a situation conveyed by Satprem’s personnal choices. I think we approach a general syhthesis that will apply as a “catharsis” on many old injuries.

        As you are asking for feedback on this particular litterary proposition, I will try to give you my point of view, or more precisely, my “point of feeling”. For me as a French Canadian, it was initially difficult to understand mentally what you meant, not even knowing what the ” Ghana Style” was. Then, I simply followed the rythm imposed by the repetition of the verses that you suggested, reading it again very carefully and methodically. I then found that a particular meaning imposed itself by penetrating powerfully my consciousness. For example: ” And the life’s cherished guests are left outside” imposed itself, meaning for me (within the limits of my actual state of consciousness…) that my own personal desires and preferences have to be left outside for “Our (my) spirit (to)sit alone and speak to its gulfs”, all that being possible “In moments when the inner lamps are lit”. Indeed, this “Ghana Style” seems at first sight quite helpful for the Yoga, the True Meaning (which may appears differently and more profoundly as my consciousness go along enlarging itself) seeming to penetrate progressively, but powerfully, our consciousness.

      2. After a couple of days of repeating it regularly this way, it seems to me that it puts in front the mantric component of the sacred Poem. I would be glad to have the point of view of Dr Prithwindra Mukherjee who certainly is one of the main expert of these questions.

        1. Many thanks for your perceptive response; I am very happy about it, and feel rewarded. But sorry for the delay in replying, as I had for a few day the broadband problem.

          Your “point of feeling” about catharsis has a point. But one wonders whether this “catharsis” can really bring about purification. It is the Vedic Agni the Purifier, Agni Pāvaka, the Spiritual or Mystic Fire who alone can do it. And one of the conditions is to dismiss the “cherished guests” whom we house so fondly within ourselves. In his little Masterpiece “The Mother” Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Triple Yoga of Aspiration-Rejection-Surrender. The cherished guests belong to “Rejection”, the threefold process involving the physical, the vital, and the mental. That is far beyond the Aristotelian Catharsis. With this Aurobindonian Catharsis can begin the Yoga we propose to follow. It is that which alone can give us a wholesome perspective of them all whom we call “chosen instruments”.

          But coming to Ghana or the Repetitive Recitation, I am exultantly satisfied to note that you do feel a particular meaning imposing itself by penetrating in consciousness. This is absolutely tremendous. I would say that it is that which makes the verses of Savitri most yogically impressive, most mantric. It is not so much the sense that makes such an impact; it is the voluminous sound that wins the day, wins by surrounding it and filling it. You acknowledge that it is “quite helpful for the Yoga”, and that is great, and I feel rewarded. It does penetrate progressively and powerfully our consciousness. Ghana has to be done in a voice not too loud nor too low, just vocal or forceful or strident enough for the physical body to start hearing it, feeling it, impacting it.
          You take even a thoughtfully simple narrative sentence as follows, just one sentence, the first sentence of the Book of Fate, Book Six of Savitri:

          In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane
          Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
          Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
          Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.
          In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane
          Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
          Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
          Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.
          In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane
          Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
          Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
          Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.
          In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane
          Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
          Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
          Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.

          Recite it a number of times in Ghana, and the wonder! You already start seeing Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise crossing the large and lustrous air and entering into solidity of the earth atmosphere. A picture stands out; a person is there in front of us. There is nothing otherwise “mantric” in these lines, as for instance it is in the line I have quoted earlier, “Our minds hush to a bright Omniscient”, very dense, luminouly charged with power, but what holds us in their bound is the rhythm, and the voice of Savitri verses. It is that which has to be seized. That is the power of recitation, coming from just one sentence, and we don’t seem to be needing anyting else. Savitri is charged through and through with that power.

          The magic of sound is the finest gift of Savitri. In it, it is the Japa that you constantly do. Savitri is that Mantra, is that Japa, given to us by Sri Aurobibdo. The Mother acknowledges it greatly. In fact it is the Mantra of Transformation. It is the body that must experience it. Repetitive Recitation in calm meditative-receptive poise, of the Ghana Style, or possibly of any other style drives us towards it. That is my thesis, and glad you are corroborating it. When you say, “it puts in front the mantric component of the sacred Poem”, I will add that it also becomes so in a collective when a large number of chanters, ten-fifty-hundred, with some soft tune behind, do it in the spaciousness of consciousness.

          We will be certainly very happy to hear from Prithwin. And also from others? May I request him, and them, to respond? And thanks.

    1. Thanks. I wonder if you would like to consider this mode of recitation of Savitri, in Ghana Style, at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan on 15 August, this done by a large group of chanters. In that case, I will give the full corrected passage to you. It will be a vibrant reverberating prayer-offering to the Master Yogi and Poet, on the occasion of his 150th birthday. This should take about ten minutes to recite. Of course, you can make selections of your own choice, and follow the technique as explained; or else I can do it for you.

      Incidentally, Aurelio at Auroville is exploring the possibility of doing it in his group.

  33. Let us quickly read an extract from the Agenda dated 14 March 1970, a free abstraction. It is so reassuring, so firm and established that everything else appears frustrating and disappointing. It is in prose, it is also a translation; yet it has all the power the inevitable, the most authentic Word carries in it, holds in it the power of the Mantra, that by which the experience can be a realisation. Read it again and again, read paragraph by paragraph, and we have the power of the silent Ghana recitation impacting on us. Let it be read in a group and there is the transformative authority by which things get done. Here it is:

    I remembered the time when Sri Aurobindo was here. You see, the inner part of the being used to enter into a consciousness that felt and saw things according to the higher consciousness… the body itself would feel the divine Presence… . And this Pressure of the Consciousness is a pressure for things as they were… . So then, I really saw — saw, understood — that the work of this Consciousness is for the normal state to cease to be for the dawn to come … something dawning on the horizon: a new Consciousness. That something truer and more luminous.

    IT’S THE BODY’S experience. And that’s the REAL CHANGE, that’s what will enable the new Consciousness to express itself. And the body is learning, it’s learning its lesson—all bodies, all bodies.

    But this change, that is the great Victory. You feel—feel and see, and the body itself has experienced—the possibility that soon, here too, things will be truer. There is … there is really something changed in the world.
    Naturally, for things to be truly established, it’s going to take time. That’s the battle going on. From every side, on every plane, there’s an onslaught of things coming to say outwardly, “Nothing has changed”—but it’s not true. It’s not true, the body knows it’s not true. And now it knows, it knows in what sense.

    What Sri Aurobindo wrote, in fact in those Aphorisms I see right now, is so prophetic! It was so much the vision of the True Thing! So prophetic! Now I see, I see how his departure and his work so … so immense, you know, and constant in this subtle physical, how much, how much it has helped! How much he has … how much he has helped prepare things, change the structure of the physical.

    So then, all these years have been years spent preparing and preparing—freeing oneself and preparing—and these last few days, it was … ah! the body PHYSICALLY noting that things had changed. It has to be worked out, realized in every detail, but the change IS DONE—the change is done.

    Which means that the material conditions, … the physical is CAPABLE of receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness, and of man-i-fest-ing it.

    It has taken this Consciousness a little more than a year to win this Victory. Naturally, as yet it’s visible only to those who have the inner vision, but … it’s done.

    That was the work Sri Aurobindo had given me, that was it. Now I understand.

    This too: how far, how far will the body be able to go? There too, it’s PERFECTLY peaceful and happy: it will be as You will. All the rest looks so old, like something that belongs to a dead past—which is trying to come back to life, but it can’t anymore. And all, all circumstances are as catastrophic as they can be: troubles, complications, difficulties, everything, just everything goes at it relentlessly like that, like wild beasts, but it’s over. The body KNOWS that it’s over. It may take centuries, but it’s over. To disappear, it may take centuries, but it’s over now.

    How he has worked since he left, oh! All the time, all the time. It looks … it looks like a miracle in the body. The disappearance of this formation really looks miraculous. And everything becomes clear. We’ll see. Things have moved relatively fast. Good …

    ‘Does it mean that all the human consciousnesses that have a little faith now have the possibility of emerging from this mental hypnosis?’ Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

    1. Very powerful, sir. Thank you for all this! Now, it is time to work all together to allow Their Grace to manifest this Strength in the Body of the Earth.

  34. With the permission of Anurag, may I just inform about my three volumes on Ghana Recitation of Savitri that have been published by Savitri Foundation. These can be had from Amazon or, for the Indian print, from Savitri Foundation by contacting info@savitri.in Each volume runs into about 400 pages with a large selection of passages from the Savitri-text. Thanks.

    Savitri in Ghana Recitation: Part One: Book One – Book Two – Book Three 17 March 2019
    Savitri in Ghana Recitation: Part Two: Book Four to Book Eight 29 March 2019
    Savitri in Ghana Recitation: Part Three: Book Nine to Book Twelve 23 April 2019

  35. Here is a quick compilation from the Mother’s Agenda, vis-à-vis Japa she found useful in her Yoga of the Cells. Perhaps what she is telling is more dynamically applicable to Savitri which is all power of vibrant and luminous sound and utterance, full of benign peace and calm and tranquillity. Perhaps modes of Savitri recitation could arrive at it, that it will have that transformative power. In that sense one could say that Sri Aurobindo did arrive and give the Mantra for the sadhana of the body.

    19 May 1959: I have also come to realize that for this sadhana of the body, the mantra is essential. Sri Aurobindo gave none; he said that one should be able to do all the work without having to resort to external means. Had he reached the point where we are now, he would have seen that the purely psychological method is inadequate and that a japa is necessary, because only japa has a direct action on the body. So I had to find the method all alone, to find my mantra by myself. But now that things are ready, I have done ten years of work in a few months. That is the difficulty, it requires time …

    6 October 1959: It is similar with this japa: an imperceptible little change, and one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, to the true japa full of power and light. I even wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call the ‘power’ of the japa. … I got up to do my japa, started walking back and forth in my room. I had to apply a certain will. Of course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the japa, because then you feel nothing, none of all the body’s drawbacks. But the work has to be done in the body! So I got up and started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced—the Light, the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the japa tired, ill, and I came out of it refreshed, rested, cured.

    4 June 1960: I evoke the Supreme and establish the contact with the body. This is the main reason for my japa. There’s a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time.

    11 October 1960: Doing japa seems to exert a pressure on my physical consciousness, which goes on turning! … The japa is made precisely to control the physical mind. … I invoke… the Lord of Tomorrow. Not the unmanifest Lord, but the Lord as he will manifest ‘tomorrow,’ in Sri Aurobindo’s words, the divine manifestation in its supramental form. So the first sound of my mantra is the call to that, the evocation. With the second sound, the body’s cells make their ‘surrender,’ they give themselves. And with the third sound comes the identification of this [the body] with That, which produces the divine life. These are my three sounds. … But now my japa is different. It is as if I were taking the whole world to lift it up; no longer is it a concentration on the body, but rather a taking of the whole world—the entire world—sometimes in its details, sometimes as a whole, but constantly, constantly—to establish the Contact (with the supramental world).

    8 June 1963: It is this mind of the cells which seizes upon a mantra or a japa and eventually repeats it automatically, and with what persistence! That is to say, CONTINUALLY. That’s what Sri Aurobindo means when he says it can be a help: it keeps at things indefinitely.

  36. It may be pointed out that Satprem did not publish the Conversation dated 19 May 1959 in the Bulletin; nor does it appear in the Collected Works of the Mother, Notes on the Way, Volume 11.

  37. I wanted to go ahead and apply here what was so generously shared by Mister RY Deshpande about the Ghana style of reciting. So I found in a bookmark the following quote of our Master:
    “It is in the unity of all
    In the solidarity of a common manifestation
    That will allow the creation
    Of the new and divine world upon the Earth.
    Each will bring his part
    But no part will be complete
    Except as a power in the solidarity of the whole. ” -Sri Aurobindo (CWSA 32:84)

    Please correct me if something of the following is wrong, but that should make this in Ghana style:
    ” It is the unity of all | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | It is the unity off all | It is the unity of all | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | That will allow the creation | That will allow the creation | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | It is the unity of all|It is the unity of all | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | That will allow the creation | That will allow the creation | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | That will allow the creation | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth. | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth. | That will allow the creation | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | In the solidarity of a common manifestation | That will allow the creation | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | That will allow the creation | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | That will allow the creation | That will allow the creation | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | Each will bring his part | Each will bring his part | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | That will allow the creation | That will allow the creation | Of the new and divine world upon earth | Each will bring his part | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | Each will bring his part | Each will bring his part | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | Each will bring his part | But no part will be complete | But no part will be complete | Each will bring his part | Of the new and divine world upon the Earth |Of the new and divine world upon the Earth | Each will bring his part | But no part will be complete | Each will bring his part | But no part will be complete | But no part will be complete |Each will bring his part | Each will bring his part |But no part will be complete | Except as a power in the solidarity of the world | Except as a power in the solidarity of the world | But no part will be complete| Each will bring his part | Each will bring his part | But no part will be complete | Except as a power in the solidarity of the world.

    1. While doing this exercice, sometimes, everything becomes confused, my mental went in every direction and has to struggle to focus again. At an other point, suddenly, a particular word started to vibrate particularly, for example, the word “THAT” in the fragment “That will allow the creation”. It also happens that the particular relation between the words was amplified or modified as and when I was going on writing the recitation in Ghana style. Over all, I found it all powerful. Sure enough that Sri Aurobindo’s writings descended essentially from the Supramental plane.

    2. Your grouping has to be ABC; BCD; CDE; DEF; EFG; FGH; … So the first set, of the first three lines, is correct as AB-BA-ABC-CBA-ABC. The other parts will have to be redone. Here is your ABC:

      It is the unity of all |
      In the solidarity of a common manifestation |
      In the solidarity of a common manifestation |
      It is the unity off all |

      It is the unity of all |
      In the solidarity of a common manifestation |
      That will allow the creation |

      That will allow the creation |
      In the solidarity of a common manifestation |
      It is the unity of all|

      It is the unity of all |
      In the solidarity of a common manifestation |
      That will allow the creation |

      Savitri lines have the power of poetic movement and rhythm and measure. It is that which is brought out most powerfully by the repetitive recitation, Ghana [“a” as in “urban”, “German”] making the mind go silent. The sound then gives the meaning and significance. The magic is sound brings the sense making the mind fall silent. [Savitri: Book Three Canto Three] That is perhaps one good way of getting the precious “silent mind”.

      That is what makes the Savitri lines most auspicious for the Japa, the Mother so much emphasized in her later experimentation. Perhaps she did not explore that possibility in Savitri itself. I don’t know.

      The power the metrical form brings can be most vividly and perspicuously felt in the following example. I hope in formulating it I have not made any slips anywhere.

      85.1: Then suddenly there came a downward look

      Then suddenly there came a downward look
      As if a sea exploring its own depths;
      A living Oneness widened at its core
      And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. ||85.1||
      A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love
      Caught all into a sole immense embrace;
      Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast
      And each became the self and space of all. ||85.2||
      The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul,
      To feel was a flame-discovery of God,
      All mind was a single harp of many strings,
      All life a song of many meeting lives;
      For worlds were many, but the Self was one. ||85.3||
      This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed:
      This seed was cased in the safety of the Light,
      It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. ||85.4||
      Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp
      And from the throbbings of that single Heart
      And from the naked Spirit’s victory
      A new and marvellous creation rose. ||85.5||
      ________________________________________________________________________
      Then suddenly there came a downward look | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | Then suddenly there came a downward look | Then suddenly there came a downward look | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | A living Oneness widened at its core | A living Oneness widened at its core | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | Then suddenly there came a downward look | Then suddenly there came a downward look | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | A living Oneness widened at its core | [1]

      As if a sea exploring its own depths; | A living Oneness widened at its core | A living Oneness widened at its core | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | A living Oneness widened at its core | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A living Oneness widened at its core | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | As if a sea exploring its own depths; | A living Oneness widened at its core | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | [2]

      A living Oneness widened at its core | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A living Oneness widened at its core | A living Oneness widened at its core | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A living Oneness widened at its core | A living Oneness widened at its core | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | [3]

      And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | And joined him to unnumbered multitudes. | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | [4]

      A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame-white Love | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | [5]

      Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | And each became the self and space of all. | And each became the self and space of all. | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Caught all into a sole immense embrace; | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | And each became the self and space of all. | [6]

      Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | And each became the self and space of all. | And each became the self and space of all. | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | And each became the self and space of all. | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | And each became the self and space of all. | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast | And each became the self and space of all. | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | [7]

      And each became the self and space of all. | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | And each became the self and space of all. | And each became the self and space of all. | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | And each became the self and space of all. | And each became the self and space of all. | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | [8]

      The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | [9]

      To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | To feel was a flame-discovery of God, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All life a song of many meeting lives; | [10]

      All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All life a song of many meeting lives; | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All mind was a single harp of many strings, | All life a song of many meeting lives; | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | [11]

      All life a song of many meeting lives; | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All life a song of many meeting lives; | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | All life a song of many meeting lives; | All life a song of many meeting lives; | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | [12]

      For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | For worlds were many, but the Self was one. | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | [13]

      This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This knowledge was now made a cosmos’ seed: | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | [14]

      This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | This seed was cased in the safety of the Light, | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | [15]

      It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | [16]

      Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | [17]

      And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | A new and marvellous creation rose. | A new and marvellous creation rose. | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | A new and marvellous creation rose. | [18]

      And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | A new and marvellous creation rose. | A new and marvellous creation rose. | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | A new and marvellous creation rose. | [19]

      And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | A new and marvellous creation rose. | A new and marvellous creation rose. | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the throbbings of that single Heart | And from the naked Spirit’s victory | A new and marvellous creation rose. | [20]

  38. To say it in your own words: “The Agenda is the golden record of their work.”

    It is profoundly important to read/hear how the Mother finally came to this conclusion:

    ” Which means that the material conditions, … the physical is CAPABLE of receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness, and of man-i-fest-ing it.

    It has taken this Consciousness a little more than a year to win this Victory. Naturally, as yet it’s visible only to those who have the inner vision, but … it’s done.

    That was the work Sri Aurobindo had given me, that was it. Now I understand. ”

    With other words, their mission on Earth was accomplished/completed in 1970.

    And Satprem’s question is as significant :

    ‘Does it mean that all the human consciousnesses that have a little faith now have the possibility of emerging from this mental hypnosis?’ Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

    1. “Which means that the material conditions, … the physical is CAPABLE of receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness, and of man-i-fest-ing it.”

      That is absolutely the thing, that which never happened in the annals of spirituality. That is what the Avatars have accomplished. Obviously, in comparison with that, Satprem’s last comment, his question, looks to me rather pale.

      1. That’s true, very pale. However, I find it strange that this breakthrough in 1970 by the Mother which signifies the accomplishment of the Mission of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was never registered as such.

  39. Here is another example, Book IV, Canto Three: Ghana Recitation — 98.57 “As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear”:

    As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear,
    Its message enters stirring the blind brain
    And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;
    The hearer understands a form of words
    And, musing on the index thought it holds,
    He strives to read it with the labouring mind,
    But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth:
    Then, falling silent in himself to know
    He meets the deeper listening of his soul:
    The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:
    Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self
    Are seized unalterably and he endures
    An ecstasy and an immortal change;
    He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power,
    All knowledge rushes on him like a sea:
    Transmuted by the white spiritual ray
    He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm,
    Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech:
    An equal greatness in her life was sown. ||98.57||
    ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________
    As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear, | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear, | As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear, | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear, | As when the mantra sinks in Yoga’s ear, | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | [1]

    Its message enters stirring the blind brain | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;| And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;| Its message enters stirring the blind brain | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;| The hearer understands a form of words | The hearer understands a form of words | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | Its message enters stirring the blind brain | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | The hearer understands a form of words | [2]

    And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | The hearer understands a form of words | The hearer understands a form of words | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | The hearer understands a form of words | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | The hearer understands a form of words | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound; | The hearer understands a form of words | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | [3]

    The hearer understands a form of words | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | The hearer understands a form of words | The hearer understands a form of words | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | The hearer understands a form of words | The hearer understands a form of words | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | [4]

    And, musing on the index thought it holds, |He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind,| And, musing on the index thought it holds, | And, musing on the index thought it holds, |He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | And, musing on the index thought it holds, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | [5]

    He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | Then, falling silent in himself to know | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | He strives to read it with the labouring mind, | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | [6]

    But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | Then, falling silent in himself to know | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | [7]

    Then, falling silent in himself to know | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | Then, falling silent in himself to know | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | Then, falling silent in himself to know | Then, falling silent in himself to know | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | [8]

    He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | He meets the deeper listening of his soul: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | [9]

    The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: |The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains: | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Are seized unalterably and he endures | [10]

    Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Are seized unalterably and he endures | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self |Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self | Are seized unalterably and he endures | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | [11]

    Are seized unalterably and he endures | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Are seized unalterably and he endures | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | Are seized unalterably and he endures | Are seized unalterably and he endures | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | [12]

    An ecstasy and an immortal change; | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | An ecstasy and an immortal change; | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | [13]

    He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power, | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | [14]

    All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | All knowledge rushes on him like a sea: | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | [15]

    Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | Transmuted by the white spiritual ray | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: [16]

    He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: |An equal greatness in her life was sown. | An equal greatness in her life was sown. | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | An equal greatness in her life was sown. |[17]

    He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: |An equal greatness in her life was sown. | An equal greatness in her life was sown. | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | An equal greatness in her life was sown. | [18]

    He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: |An equal greatness in her life was sown. | An equal greatness in her life was sown. | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, | Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech: | An equal greatness in her life was sown. | [19]

  40. I said: “Savitri lines have the power of poetic movement and rhythm and measure.” Apropos of it, let us take the “the matra sinks in Yoga’s ear”-sentence of 19 lines, and scan it. The metrical scheme is essentially iambic, with occasional pyrrhic-spondee-trochees and trisyllabic feet. In a total of 95 we have 63 iambs, 18 pyrrhics, 3 trochees, 4 spondees, the remaining 7 trisyllabic feet. Occasional foot-variation removes the iambic ti-tum monotony.

    As when| the man|+tra sinks| in Yo|+ga’s ear,|

    Its mes|+sage en|+ters stir|+ring the| blind brain|

    And keeps| in the| dim ig|+no+rant cells| its sound;|

    The hear|+er un|+der+stands| a form| of words|

    And, mus|+ing on| the in|+dex thought| it holds,|

    He strives| to read| it with| the la|+bour+ing mind,|

    But finds| bright hints,| not the| em+bod|+ied truth:|

    Then, fall|+ing si|+lent in| him+self| to know|

    He meets| the deep|+er lis|+ten+ing| of his soul:|

    The Word| re+peats| it+self| in rhyth|+mic strains:|

    Thought, vi|+sion, feel|+ing, sense,| the bod|+y’s self|

    Are seized| un+al|+ter+a|+bly and| he en+dures|

    An ec|+sta+sy| and an| im+mor|+tal change;|

    He feels| a Wide|+ness and| be+comes| a Pow+er,|

    All know|+ ledge rush|+es on| him like| a sea:|

    Trans+mut|+ed by| the white| spir+it|+u+al ray|

    He walks| in na|+ked heav|+ens of joy| and calm,|

    Sees the| God-face| and hears| tran+scend|+ent speech:|

    An e|+qual great|+ness in| her life| was sown.| ||98.58||

  41. Sir, I am so grateful that you took the time to respond in such a generous way! May I ask you a question I have been asking myself for several years, which may seem evident for you, nourrished by your age-long indian civilization and aurobindonian knowledge? There it is: Is it necessary for mantras to be recited loudly (meaning, with the voice) or is it also possible to recite them silently inside of us, without uttering a sound (as a prayer)? My feeling is that both are OK but the first way seems to bring something more PHYSICALLY. Am I right? What would be your recommandation?

    1. Your question, if it is necessary to recite mantras loudly, is perfectly valid. Also are your two answers. Silent Mantra-Japa, or the repetition of a name, psycho-spiritually becomes most effective when it enters into the inner realms, perhaps more inner than the higher, inner or the subtle-physical where it can go on constantly even when one is not consciously occupied with it. It will bring about a psycho-spiritual change. But that may not deeply touch the external gross physical nature, that physical would remain more or less as it was, subjcect to helpless decay-disintegration-death. The Mother’s Yoga of the Cells is to make the physical itself conscious of the divine, the divine it is, full of truth and light and power and joy. For that the power of sound could be a great aid. She herself says that. “There’s a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time.” This is particularly so in a large collective. When there is the full-throated chanting by a sizeable group of chanters, or when you have a large number of instruments synchronously playing in a concert hall and you have a different experience. Perhaps it is in that sense that among the fine arts it is Music that wins the Apple of Paris. The Mother is attempting the physical being capable of manifesting the powers and attributes of the spirit. I believe the essential thing has been done not only in principle but also in reality.

  42. It must be pointed out that Ghana Recitation may not be universally acceptable or amenable, may not be always successful, even if there is present the poetic movement and rhythm and measure in a metrical scheme. A certain classical dignity of diction, a tranquil weight, a luminous density of evocativeness and contents with a calm composed poise are desirable.

    Take, for instance, the opening passage from Wordsworth’s Ode “Intimations of Immortality”. The last four lines lend themselves very well for this style of Ghana reading, while the earlier six fail to make that kind of appeal.

    Here is the text of the Ode we are considering:

    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
    And while the young lambs bound
    As to the tabor’s sound,
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
    And I again am strong:
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
    The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep …

    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,|
    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,|
    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    As to the tabor’s sound,| [1]

    And while the young lambs bound|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    And while the young lambs bound|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|[2]

    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    As to the tabor’s sound,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,| [3]

    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    And I again am strong:|
    And I again am strong:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    To me alone there came a thought of grief:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    And I again am strong:| [4]

    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    And I again am strong:|
    And I again am strong:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    And I again am strong:|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    And I again am strong:|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,|
    And I again am strong:|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;| [5]

    And I again am strong:|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    And I again am strong:|
    And I again am strong:|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    And I again am strong:|
    And I again am strong:|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;| [6]

    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,| [7]

    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep|
    The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;|
    I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,|
    The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep| [8]

  43. The Agenda: 24 June 1967
    I remained standing there, near his bed, and in an absolutely … well, to me, it was absolutely visible—all the organized consciousness that was in his body DELIBERATELY came out of it and into mine. And I not only saw it but felt the FRICTION of its entry.

    All that supramental power he had attracted into and organized in his body little by little came into me METHODICALLY. …

    Some time ago, I said that the cells were wondering, “But what is death?” They kept wondering like that. And just yesterday or the day before, because there came a certain state, the Knowledge that constantly comes from above seemed to be saying to them, “But why do you wonder? You had the experience, you know how it is.” Then, to the small central consciousness (there is a small central consciousness, the mind of the cells, which is now gradually growing and taking shape), this Knowledge said, “Don’t you remember? You know how it was.” Ah, then all the memory of the experience in all its details came back—they did know.

    At that time, for a few moments, there was the certitude of such a simplicity! A simplicity … (how can I put it?) whose immensity made it all-powerful. …

    Tell your cells not to make a drama and you’ll see! If you know how to tell them.
    +++
    And check this with the revelation we have in Savitri, earlier than 1944:

    A divinising stream possessed his veins,
    His body’s cells awoke to spirit sense,
    Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:
    Tissue and flesh partook beatitude.
    [||89.7|| Savitri Book III canto Four]

    Sri Aurobindo already had that supramental light and force in his “body’s cells”, that early. It was in his physical. What the Mother’s Agenda is revealing is, is doing is, making that an aspect of the earthly physical nature, moving towards the collective in a selected and ready way.

  44. The Agenda: 4 Jun 1960
    I evoke the Supreme and establish the contact with the body. This is the main reason for my japa. There’s a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time.

    Mark this: “There’s a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time.”

  45. In retrospect of this delicate topic on Satprem and the Agenda, I would like to thank Anurag Banerjee of the Overman Foundation for having had the courage to address this topic for open and free discussion. I never thought this conflict around Satprem would touch the Light and “dissolve” but the Overman Foundation did it.

    I don’t know if you have noticed, but the start of this ‘discussion’ was not in favour of Satprem. My impression was that for this reason the Agenda itself was not accepted and respected for what it is. It would have been a disservice to the Mother to reject the complete Agenda on that basis.

    When the discussion turned toward the content of the Agenda a U-turn happened: deep appreciation for what the Mother’s Agenda truly stands for – The Agenda is the Golden Record of their work, has been confirmed by several persons. And, appreciation for Satprem for having recorded these profound conversations in his position as the Mother’s confidant.

    The Ashram published in 1980 the book ‘Notes on the Way’ and this might be the most precious book ever that has come out of the Ashram after Mother’s departure. Although the Agenda conversations in the Notes on the Way were already published in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education, they are now in one book, and are also found in number 11 of the Collected Works of the Mother. You could say, compared to the Agenda of 13 volumes, that Notes on the Way is a truly significant edited compilation of the Mother on her transformative work on the physical and its breakthroughs, whereas the Agenda gives the full record of what she has shared with Satprem.

    I think the conversation of March 14, 1970 stands out as ‘The Supramental Manifestation in the Physical’ – which was Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s Mission on Earth. The text can be found in the Agenda as well as in Notes on the Way.

    For this unique year of 2022 in celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th Birth Anniversary this has been a breakthrough in discourse. Thank you Overman Foundation.

  46. I consider that one goes to the Mother’s Agenda not because of Satprem; one rather goes to it in spite of Satprem (and Sujata). There is so much of extraneous or non-essential non-consequential stuff, so much of distraction in it that one feels terribly cheated; true worthwhile Agenda has to be decanted. It is that which should count in “this unique year 2022”.

    But let me wait for other alert members on this Overman Foundation forum before I express my views about the matter.

  47. Thanks Anurag. Let me make an attempt, with the hope that it will be furthered by others.
    In the integration and further pursuance of Savitri and the essential decanted Agenda we have to see to what extent our best intuition can lead us to find answers for questions that can come up in their sequel.

    Perhaps the first important question that arises is to ask as to how far ahead, how much beyond Savitri has the Mother’s Agenda, vis-à-vis the physical transformation, gone after the physical departure of Sri Aurobindo. His gifting to the Mother the Mind of Light, the physical’s mind receiving the supramental Light and Force, at the time of his passing away, on 5 December 1950, is the starting point of her Yoga of the Cells. This Mind of Light was the last gift of Sri Aurobindo to the Mother; his first gift to her, on 29 March 1914, in the Guest House, was the Silent Mind.
    Take an example, given earlier. Already by 1944 Sri Aurobindo had the following:

    A divinising stream possessed his veins,
    His body’s cells awoke to spirit sense,
    Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:
    Tissue and flesh partook beatitude.
    [||89.7|| Savitri Book III canto Four]

    Surely, this “divinising stream” was gifted by him to her at the time of his passing away in 1950. How, then, did that “divinising stream” flow in her veins and how it started becoming earthly universal, in a ready collective, that needs to be discerned from the Agenda.

    Undoubtedly, Satprem has done his job, and we must acknowledge it. But, then, we have to do our job also. The focus has to be on it.

    My sad disappointment is, none of those three or four wonderful stalwarts have said anything substantial about it, at least to the best of my knowledge. What we have in the present Overman Blog are the angry reactions of Nirod-Udar-Amal. They have not deeply and critically, in fact insightfully, seen anywhere how that “divining stream” flowed in these Mother’s revealing conversations, most amazing disclosures.

    Let me pick up at random, in a hurry, some examples from the Agenda about what the Agenda has added to Savitri. This is a deep subject and needs much greater attention than what I am giving. Maybe Anurag can open out an independent topic for a more thorough understanding, and I request him to do that.

    Here are the few entries:
    I: 3 April 1962
    It’s something Sri Aurobindo and I have discussed, something we spoke about: there is a power, yes, to FIX the form here on earth, a power we don’t have. Even people with the ability to materialize things (like Madame Théon, for instance) can’t make their materializations last; it can’t be done, they don’t last—they don’t have the quality of physical things. And without this quality, well … the creation’s continuity could not be assured.

    II: 17 October 1964
    To what extent does the presence of a physical body, in the world as it is now, act on the Work that is being done? To what extent? Is it indispensable? Is it really indispensable? And what is the effect and the extent? In other words, are there things that one can do only in a physical body, or can the same things be done anyway?

    III: 26 February 1966
    When people asked Théon, “How did things come to happen that way? Why did they separate themselves?”, he would reply very simply, “Why is the world as it is, in this state of disorder? Why is it like that? That’s not the interesting point: the interesting point is to make it what it must be.” But after all those years, there is something in me that would like to have the power or the key: the process.

    IV: 3 September 1966
    What takes time is to prepare Matter, this cellular matter as it is now organized… There is a small beginning of how that being which Sri Aurobindo calls “supramental” will be—the next creation. A small beginning. And it is, as Sri Aurobindo said, an explanation from within outward—the “outward,” the surface, has only a quite secondary importance and it will come at the very end, when it’s ready. But it begins from within outward, and it begins in a rather precise and interesting way.

    V: 24 June 1967
    … there are kinds of GRADATIONS in death. Gradations in life and gradations in death: some beings are alive to a greater or lesser degree, … . But for those who know, oh, for those who know that this material form can manifest a supramental light, well, those who don’t have the supramental light in them are already a little dead. That’s how it is. So there are gradations. What people have conventionally called “death” is just a purely external phenomenon, because it’s something they can’t deny—the body going to pieces. … the small central consciousness (there is a small central consciousness, the mind of the cells, which is now gradually growing and taking shape)

    VI: 29 November 1967
    But the strange thing was that this time, on the 24th, when I went to the balcony, it was someone … (and that happens to me now and then, more and more frequently) someone looking on from a sort of plane of eternity, with, mingled in it, a great benevolence (something like benevolence, I don’t know how to express it), but with an absolute calm, almost indifference, and the two are together looking on like that (Mother draws waves far away below), as though it were seen from far away, far above, far … (how should I put it?) seen from such an eternal vision. That was what my body felt when I went out for the balcony. So the body said, “But I have to aspire, there must be an aspiration for the Force to descend on all these people!” And “That” was like that (sovereign gesture above), oh, so benevolent, but with a sort of Indifference—the indifference of eternity, I don’t know how to explain it. And the body feels it all as something making use of it.

    [By the way, there is considerable difference between what we have here in the Agenda and the entry in the Notes on the Way, CWM, Vol. 11.

    Notes on the Way: 29 November 1967
    And what was strange is that this time, the 24th, when I went to the balcony, it was someone… (and this happens to me from time to time, but more and more often) someone who looks from a sort of plane of eternity with a great benevolence mixed in (something like benevolence, I do not know how to express it), but with an absolute calmness, almost indifference, and the two are together, looking like that (Mother describes waves far down below), as if it was seen from very far away, from very high up, from very—how to say it?—seen with a rather eternal vision. It was that which my body was feeling when I came out to the balcony. The body was saying: “I must aspire, there must be an aspiration so that the Force may descend upon all these people”, and That, it was like this (sweeping gesture from above). Oh! Very benevolent but a sort of indifference — the indifference of eternity, I do not know how to explain it. And all this the body feels as though something were making use of it.]

    VII: 15 April 1972
    The subconscient contains the memory of all the previous pralayas, and this memory is what always gives us the impression that everything is going to dissolve, to collapse. But if you look at things in the true light, there can only be a more beautiful manifestation! Théon had told me this was the seventh and last one. Sri Aurobindo concurred, for he said, “This one will see the transformation towards the Supermind.”

  48. That is a wonderful and uplifting contribution you make Deshpande. Indeed, one would expect a leader’s role from the Ashram in how the Yoga would need to be studied and continued according to the conversations and revelations in the Mother’s Agenda.

    It seems that you might be the only one or one of the few who has been intrigued by the Agenda as well as Savitri and sees the correlations. It is this what we need to do, today and new advancements can be made. I would like to mention that the Mother points quite regularly to what role the psychic being is going to play in the manifestation of the supramental being.

    I would suggest that for study reasons a third, edited, version of the Agenda should be published exactly as a guide for everyone on the Way. That would be a true accomplishment of our Integral Yoga Collective.

    1. “I would suggest that for study reasons a third, edited, version of the Agenda should be published exactly as a guide for everyone on the Way. That would be a true accomplishment of our Integral Yoga Collective.”

      Absolutely. That is the way forward.

  49. Thanks for your mail with the new entry about Mother’s Agenda and editing it a la Satprem.
    So many things have been revealed. Once I so liked the booklet, “I am here, I am here”, that I said to revered Nirodbaran that I liked much that book and he smilingly replied that why didn’t I tell that to them! I am so glad now to know the occasion of its birth.
    Many things seem hidden in respect of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s work and activities as secret whereas they should be available to true scholars and writers who should have the first access to them at their original source. Someone who had such access utilized them to the full extent including in footnotes after editing, culminating in an ill-designed, demeaning biography; its spread was saved through court only.
    Arguments of all the three greats were justifiable. It seems that Satprem should have obtained concurrence of others before publishing, at least of those who were named and authorized by the Mother. But then the question arises about the urgency of publishing such a subject. It might have ever remained, at least great portions of the volumes in question, in hibernating stage, if not done then. What exactly transpired among the personalities trying to get hold of them is not exactly known or how each behaved with the other, why was there such a great controversy. And about editing? Editors in such situations usually hold on their own truth; Sethnaji too would not have allowed other’s interference in his area. We got plenty of materials, mostly unknown till then. I once told the revered editor of Sri Aurobindo’s Action that whatever the differences they had with Satprem, whatever wrong was done in publishing the Agenda, we have been benefited by the chance of knowing so much what the Mother did. Surely whatever the Mother did was envisaged by Sri Aurobindo who stressed the need for use of her particular body for such purpose of manifestation of the supramental force etc. and for transformation. Both agreed as he parted, to continue the work. Mother had innumerable statements to that effect. By the way, clash and controversy; ego-burst has often been witnessed in this circle whereas many have been deprived of getting real spiritual help on the way to their continued Sadhana after the departure of the Gurus. I feel regret for what had happened, specially for Nolini-da’s disagreement in publishing it and in its circulation for the very attitude of Satprem in hurrying to publish the materials for “The spirit behind the Agenda is very far from being admirable. That is why Nolini refuses to encourage it and not just because Satprem has not let the Trustees have a hand in it.”-said K. D. Sethna. But at the same time all the protesters have agreed that the main treasure inside the volumes are great.
    Submitted at the Lotus Feet of the Mother,
    Aju Mukhopadhyay

  50. Let me quote here what Sri Aurobindo explains in one of his letters. Though speaking in a different context, it has a universal validity, and its occult charge carries in it the entire luminous effectivity, a purposeful pragmatism that is seen in all the actions of the Avatars, the earlier and the present ones.

    He writes: “The Divine takes men as they are and uses men as His instruments even if they are not flawless in virtue, angelic, holy and pure.” [Sri Aurobindo on Himself, SABCL, Vol. 26, p. 397]

    I think this should settle everything, even as it urges us to go to the essence of the matter, about the Mother’s Yoga of the Cells proper.

  51. After the passing away of Sri Aurobindo in 1950, the Mother revealed something very significant, most imperative and essential, the depth of which we are not able to grasp, perhaps that which we can never grasp. One would like to know in what way the Mother’s Conversations can tell us something about it.

    This is what she told in 1950:
    “People do not know what a tremendous sacrifice Sri Aurobindo has made for the world. About a year ago, while I was discussing things, I remarked that I felt like leaving this body of mine. He spoke out in a very firm tone, “No, this can never be. If necessary for this transformation, I might go, you will have to fulfil our Yoga of supramental descent and transformation.”§ [CWM Vol. 13, p. 8, 1950. This spoken comment of the Mother was noted from memory by a sadhak and approved by her for publication.]

    The Agenda: 15 July 1961
    We had some conversations on precisely this subject, because we saw that … (there were many other things, too, but this isn’t the time to speak of them) the prevailing conditions were such that I told him I would leave this body and melt into him with no regret or difficulty; I told him this in words, not just in thought. And he also replied to me in words: Your body is indispensable for the Work. Without your body the Work cannot be done. After that, I said no more. It was no longer my concern, and that was the end of it. This was said in … 1949, just a little more than a year before he left.

    The Agenda: 8 April 1964
    … he said to me, “Only your body can withstand THAT, has the power to withstand ….”

    The Agenda: 2 March 1967
    Sri Aurobindo said to me, “Your body on earth …” He said, “What I see is that your body is the only one that has sufficient endurance to go through the ordeal.”

    The Agenda: 22 December 1971
    It was what Sri Aurobindo told me when I asked to leave (we both knew one of us had to go); I immediately said to him, “I will go.” And he said no, he told me, “Your body is much more capable than mine of bearing the work of transformation.” Sri Aurobindo told me that. And so it accepted, but …

    What was that which was special in the Mother’s body, very special, very different than that which was not there in Sri Aurobindo’s?

    This is a difficult question to answer, and one will have to look into the Agenda with sufficient care to get clues about it, about “Your body is much more capable than mine of bearing the work of transformation”. Could it be some other Sankhya, Super-Sankhya, of the direct materialisation of the transcendental? Perhaps it is the supramentally loaded Sankhya, extremely charged and rich and flaming, not so much with the Spiritual but with the Psychic, in the case of the Mother’s body. It was the Psychic Being of hers that was making its entry in this exception birth of hers. Perhaps.

    1. 30 January 1972: “Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world. Not only did he announce this manifestation, but he also partially incarnated the supramental force … .”

      Mark the phrase “but he also partially incarnated the supramental force”. That “partially” had to be carried forward.

      1. Maybe the Body of our Master has suffered too many ailments when He was a child? He lived in extreme poverty between the age of 7 and 21.Then He had to live in jail for one year. Then He got a severe injury to the leg in 1938. All this may have left some traces in His Body’s material parts or physical organs leading Him to make the choice of keeping the Body of Mother on earth for this mysterious stage of their Divine Work?
        I seem to remember reading that, maybe in the Agenda itself…

        1. But perhaps there is something relevant in “Savitri”, in the Book of Love, Canto Three. Satyavan is making advances towards Savitri and he tells her his problem, of Matter unaware of its Lord. Could that be to some extent the case here also, Sri Aurobindo telling the Mother her body prepared more than his for transformation? Let us look into it.

          But still there lacked the last transcendent power
          And Matter still slept empty of its Lord. ||103.43||
          The spirit was saved, the body lost and mute
          Lived still with Death and ancient Ignorance;
          The Inconscient was its base, the Void its fate. ||103.44||
          But thou hast come and all will surely change:
          I shall feel the World-Mother in thy golden limbs
          And hear her wisdom in thy sacred voice. ||103.45||
          The child of the Void shall be reborn in God. ||103.46||
          My Matter shall evade the Inconscient’s trance,
          My body like my spirit shall be free:
          It shall escape from Death and Ignorance. ||103.47||

          Earlier we had:

          Rare is the cup fit for love’s nectar wine,
          As rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth;
          A soul made ready through a thousand years
          Is the living mould of a supreme Descent.

          If “a soul made ready through a thousand years is the living mould of a supreme Descent” — standing for Sri Aurobindo, — we could say that “rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth” is for the Mother. In one case it is the “soul”, in the other “vessel”. This is absolutely precise, and stated already by 1945.

          1. So Beautiful!
            What came to me when reading this was Champaklal’s vision of Mother/Sri Aurobindo united in one form. His vision took place after the physical departure of Mother but I don’t have the specific reference.
            Like you do, respected Deshpandeji, I am sure that Savitri contains all the keys for the future progress of mankind/supermankind. Let us all go ahead steadily with our studies of the Sacred Poem!

  52. That Sri Aurobindo stressed the issue of the suitability of Mother’s body for physical transformation and manifestation of the supramental was mentioned by me in my comment on 21.6.2022. I said that, “Mother had innumerable statements to that effect.” I am happy to find that Dr. R. Y Deshpande has quoted many such statements by the Mother after my comment. Yes, it is a matter which requires further research, if possible. But every such incident and statement cannot be intellectually established for many of them are purely spiritual and occult. About editing the Agenda, it may be reminded that the work was registered under copyright Act in India. One may write different things but how can one edit the matters copyrighted without consent of the parties concerned? Though that too has been done, I am wondering, how!

    1. But that copyright is challengeable. But, more importantly, how long is that copyright going to prevail? Maybe for another twenty years. That could be a good period for us to prepare ourselves in several respects. The imperative is, the Essential Agenda.

  53. Sethna’s letter was written on 17.12.1981 writing inter alia, “They would be very happy if they could persuade—after Nolini has departed—the Government to take over the Ashram in their interests. They do not disapprove of Satprem’s hostility to the Ashram.” And the PS portion of the letter was written on 3.2.1982. But you have written that “the views of Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran alias K.D. Sethna and Udar Pinto (three prominent disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother) on the Agenda which had appeared in print in the early 1980s.”
    How could it be published in early 1980? In fairness to the subject please mention where and at what period the above protest letters were published.
    Though it is not very important and urgent after such long gap, at least no more important than the work titled “Mother’s Agenda”, your reply would make the reading of them coherent.

    1. Nirodbaran’s rejoinder was published in the October 1981 issue of ‘Mother India’ (pp. 563-567). Udar’s comment appeared in the same journal in its December 1981 issue (pp. 712-713). And Amal Kiran’s letters were written on 17 December 1981 and 3 February 1982 (the postscript).

  54. Though the wonderful Rasa, the Essence, the Flavour of the original Overmind Afflatus and Expression is missing, here is a sample which can serve a certain purpose to study the Agenda, to brood upon it, to meditatively reflect on it, to intuitively grow in it.

    The Agenda: 3 February 1968
    The body is bathed in the Divine Consciousness. The Divine Consciousness is everywhere, very strong, powerful, and the body is as if bathed in it; the impression is of something which is still a bit tough, like bark, but beginning to have suppleness, that plasticity. And the two things are like that, closely mingled. It does its best to be translucent and transparent and not to obstruct or distort this Consciousness in its action.

    That’s really the point: not exactly “transparent”. It’s an effort to melt, to identify, to such a point that nothing moves. There seems to be a dilation and like something that would want to melt. And throughout the cells it brings about an extraordinary power of vibration! Something wholly out of proportion to the human body,—tremendous!

    I’ve had a few times that experience with people; and at such times all the cells seem to swell, like something growing very, very big, huge like this, and there is such a … an almost awesome vibration. I simply used to think, “The Lord is doing his action”—but it’s not that! It’s … it’s that there really is something changing in the body.
    But now it has become clear, conscious, and the body … I just have to stop my activities even two or three seconds, one or two minutes at the most, for the body to feel as if it’s floating. You see an immensity, like an ocean of this vibrating, luminous, golden, powerful Consciousness, and the body floats in it. It’s not perfect identification because it’s still felt—but felt in such a bliss! … With that the trouble disappears, and the MEMORY of the trouble disappears. And that’s how disorders which had become habits gradually disappear.

    Sri Aurobindo said: as soon as the being is annulled, the essence, the essential purpose of individualization immediately reappears WITHOUT the ego’s limits. But if that annulment of the personality, of the individual, took place before all the elements of the body, or even of the vital or the mind, were ready, it would be dissolved, and then there’s no knowing what would happen. So when one is ready, one can let oneself go. And as soon as the fusion is done … what we might call the raison d’être of individualization comes back, without the ego’s limitations.

    I had that experience in the vital and in the mind; now I see that it’s the same in the body. But all that remained was like pieces of bark floating about. But when the body is ready, it will be able to let itself go like that WITHOUT BEING DISSOLVED. And that’s the work of preparation.

    How to keep the form without the ego’s presence?—that’s the problem. Well, that’s how it takes place, little by little, little by little. That’s why it takes time: each element is taken up again, transformed. That’s the marvel, that is it: it’s keeping the form while entirely losing the ego.
    Then came the knowledge that it was only the inner preparation to be capable of identification, and then, the very clear vision of this plasticity, this suppleness so extraordinary that if it were realized … once it’s realized, it obviously means the abolition of the necessity of death.

    This morning’s experience was … Everything was an immense ocean of luminous consciousness, so tremendously powerful! And something so sweet at the same time, so compassionate, but causeless—there was no cause: just like that. Like Divine Love which is without object, it’s like that. So this body starts floating in that, lighter and lighter, more and more transparent, and still remains the impression is of bark, but not all over: incapacities—spots of powerlessness, a lack of receptivity. But little by little, gradually, slowly, that gets cured.

    Every time the rule or domination of Nature’s ordinary laws is replaced by the authority of the Divine Consciousness, that creates a state of transition with all the appearances of a tremendous disorder and a very great danger. But if the body begins to know, it remains still and has faith—trust and faith; it remains still, then all goes well. But for the body to know automatically and spontaneously, it means that a large part of its elements must already be conscious and transformed. Now, it’s all right. Now the movement is spontaneous.

    There will be a moment of transition as for all the rest, and it will probably be dangerous. The state of truth-consciousness must be sufficiently ESTABLISHED to be spontaneous: there should be no need of a concentration and a will; the state should be spontaneous. Then it will be possible for the transition to occur.

    The Consciousness which rules things is a marvel of wisdom, patience, compassion, endurance. Matter’s resistance in the individual or in things is so strong that it quite naturally brings about disorder or destruction. But that doesn’t form part of the supreme Action, which is a marvel. The body has understood that, it is patient. There’s no longer any impatience.

  55. “Every time the rule or domination of Nature’s ordinary laws is replaced by the authority of the Divine Consciousness, that creates a state of transition with all the appearances of a tremendous disorder and a very great danger.”

    Taking as granted that They are still working through the gates between Their subtil physical Body and the material world for the preparation of the Divine Body of the new race, all this mess around the COVID and other external disorders everywhere in the world for the last couple of years, seems to indicate that this replacement by “the Consciousness which rules things” is very very near.

    The key for us is written in the most recent Bulletin (April 2022, p. 50-55). It is the Talk of 8 February 1973:
    Question:
    “What is the best way of preparing ourselves, until we can establish a new system?”
    Mother’s answer:
    “Naturally, it is to widen and illumine your consciousness-but how to do it? Your own consciousness…to widen and illumine it. And if you could find, each one of you, your psychic and unite with it, all the problems would be solved.
    The psychic being is the representative of the Divine in the human being. That’s it, you see-the Divine is not something remote and inaccessible. The Divine is in you but you are not fully conscious of it. Rather you have…it acts now as an influence rather than a Presence. It should be a conscious Presence, you should be able at each moment to ask yourself what is…how…how the Divine sees. It is like that: first how the Divine sees, and then how the Divine wills, and then how the Divine acts. And it is not to go away into inaccessible regions, it is right here. Only, for the moment, all the old habits and the general unconsciousness put a kind of covering which prevents us from seeing and feeling, You must…you must lift, you must lift that up.

    In fact, you must become conscious instruments…conscious…conscious of the Divine.

    Usually this takes a whole lifetime, or sometimes, for some people it is several lifetimes. Here, in the present conditions, you can do it in a few months. For those who are…who have an ardent aspiration, in a few months they can do it.”

    1. Apropos of her own work, to this extract I will first add the following from the Agenda:

      I am nearing my hundredth year – it’s only five years away – and I started my effort to become conscious when I was five. It’s a fact. That’s telling you…. And I am going on, and it is going on. Now, of course, I have come to doing the work in the cells of the body, but the work started long ago.

      I don’t mean to discourage you, but only to tell you it isn’t done in a wink!

      The body … the body is made of a substance that is still very heavy. It is the substance itself that must change for the Supermind to manifest.

      That’s all I can say. ”
      +++
      The significant proviso is: ” It is the substance itself that must change for the Supermind to manifest.”

      In the Life Divine Sri Aurobindo tells of the grades of substance. Let me quote a passage from it:

      Our substance does not end with the physical body; that is only the earthly pedestal, the terrestrial base, the material starting-point. As there are behind our waking mentality vaster ranges of consciousness subconscient and superconscient to it of which we become sometimes abnormally aware, so there are behind our gross physical being other and subtler grades of substance with a finer law and a greater power which support the denser body and which can by our entering into the ranges of consciousness belonging to them be made to impose that law and power on our dense matter and substitute their purer, higher, intenser conditions of being for the grossness and limitation of our present physical life and impulses and habits. …

      The ascent of man from the physical to the supramental must open out the possibility of a corresponding ascent in the grades of substance to that ideal or causal body which is proper to our supramental being, and the conquest of the lower principles by supermind and its liberation of them into a divine life and a divine mentality must also render possible a conquest of our physical limitations by the power and principle of supramental substance. And this means the evolution not only of an untrammelled consciousness, a mind and sense not shut up in the walls of the physical ego or limited to the poor basis of knowledge given by the physical organs of sense, but a life-power liberated more and more from its mortal limitations, a physical life fit for a divine inhabitant and, — in the sense not of attachment or of restriction to our present corporeal frame but an exceeding of the law of the physical body, — the conquest of death, an earthly immortality. For from the divine Bliss, the original Delight of existence, the Lord of Immortality comes pouring the wine of that Bliss, the mystic Soma, into these jars of mentalised living matter; eternal and beautiful, he enters into these sheaths of substance for the integral transformation of the being and nature.

  56. I would like to compliment RY Deshpande for being such an inspiring and relevant contributor to this discussion around the Agenda, on this forum. The quotes that Deshpande has been stating here are profoundly relevant and uplifting, and all that from the source most of the readers would know or have – The Mother’s Agenda, of 13 volumes.

    Now, I have been so fortunate in having received, last week, RY Deshpande’s own published book which is called “Savitri and The Yoga of the Cells”. I am truly impressed by this book, the way it has been divided into three main chapters: Introduction on Physical Transformation, Excerpts from Savitri, and The Mother’s Yoga of the Cells which contains all the words from the Mother taken from the 13 volumes of the Agenda.

    In his Introduction, Deshpande gives the history of the physical transformation, where Sri Aurobindo started and what he had accomplished before he left his physical body, and where the Mother continuous with the yoga of the cells, starting from 1952 until 1973.

    To my insight, RY Deshpande has done a tremendous job, of finding correlating excerpts in Savitri and of elegantly editing the Agenda. And I have only just started reading.

    This is the book that the Integral Yoga collective should have – for profound inspiration and study of the Yoga and for not loosing the sight on the history and efforts that went into the work of manifesting the supramental consciousness on earth and the yoga of the transformation of the physical.

    We live in strange times, this book Savitri and The Yoga of the Cells is not published by the Ashram, as it should have been, but by Savitri Foundation. Whether this is due to the Satprem issue and to copyrights, I think all that should belong to the past. If this book could be published with the index and references that it needs to have it could be The Book of the Millennium. Meanwhile, the digital version is available on Amazon for Kindle, and it can be ordered through the Savitri Foundation, although currently, in India, businesses and foundations cannot receive payments from abroad. So it seems.

  57. “This earthly life become the life divine”
    A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal’s world. …
    The supermind shall claim the world for Light…
    This earthly life become the life divine.
    [Savitri: Book Eleven: 155.1-71]

    Thank you so much for your appreciative and insightful words apropos of “Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells”. That is a great encouragement also for me to take it to another degree of presentation. When I am looking at it after a gap of about ten years I see that something better needs to be done about this very important Conversation extended over a period of a dozen years, absolutely unique in the spiritual annals.

    What is necessary is that the Mother’s Agenda should stand on an exalted par with Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. This needs very deep and intuitive editing of the raw text as we presently have in those 13 volumes. The spiritual-occult has to emerge in its most imperative sense, in its light and essence of delight, in its flavour and the rasa of the language. And what a narrator the Mother was! Absolutely overmind utterance and language! Throughout!

    Any editing of it is going to be an act desecration; yet perhaps a risk has to be taken for a certain type of understanding hedged as we are “by the limits of a mortal’s thoughts, bound by the chains of earthly ignorance” — as Savitri would say. [124.28]

    About “Savitri and the Yoga of the Cells” you write that “this is the book the Integral Yoga collective should have – for profound inspiration and study of the Yoga and for not loosing the sight on the history and efforts that went into the work of manifesting the supramental consciousness on earth and the yoga of the transformation of the physical.”

    I feel greatly elated, of course, with the full awareness of responsibility. I must also thank Overman Foundation to have provided me this occasion for bringing it to the attention of the Aurobindonian community at large. If it can take us farther on the glorious path of spirituality, the Aurobindonian spirituality, the gain will be entirely ours. Let us expect that it will happen.

    You write: “If this book could be published with the index and references that it needs to have it could be The Book of the Millennium.” I completely agree with what you are saying, about the necessity for indexing and references. But at present I feel too lazy to go back to that work. And, remember, at my age, with, I don’t know, how much active time I will be given to me. Perhaps one could do something else.

    I know that “Savitri”-quotations in Part Two are hanging without references; these should also have ready contextual details plus my own observations. Part One is too sketchy and done in a kind of hurry. The entire set of those exceptionally wonderful eight articles Sri Aurobindo wrote for the “Bulletin”, at the request of the Mother, from February 1949 to November 1950, have remained regretfully undiscussed. So also the Mother’s vision of the supramental boat and her “a new world is born, born, born” have not found their significant relevances. But this could not have been done in the parameters which were more or less fixed for the Agenda. As it is, the book is too thick, it running into some 800 pages with a small size font.

    The absence of those eight articles in Part One is a big gap, a glaring blatant lacuna, though it could not have been just summarily or swiftly touched upon. It is for the first time Sri Aurobindo is speaking of the Mind of Light governing the Intermediate Race, the Mother’s Surhomme or Overman Race. This Mind of Light is the physical’s, the bodily mind that is directly receiving the supramental Light and Force.

    Was this Intermediate Race governed by the Mind of Light a compromise made by Sri Aurobindo at a later stage? when he was all the while talking about the Gnostic Being or the Supramental Race, of the Flame-Pioneers? That may seem so for a hasty observer when the deeper issues had yet to been reckoned with and resolved. I think, seeing the magnitude of problems arising due to stubborn Inconscience, this was a very pragmatic step, very practical and truthful step that he had taken. It is the Mind of Light which will pave the way for the Supramental Descent and Transformation, usher in the reign of Krishna-Kali, of the Being of Bliss and the dynamic executive Power, Shakti, who followed Savitri in her coming back to earth with the soul of Satyavan.

    That is what would necessitate rewriting the brief Introduction in a more comprehensive way.
    What perhaps could be done is the following.

    We can have three complementary volumes or tomes under a single title:
    “This earthly life become the life divine”
    A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal’s world. …
    The supermind shall claim the world for Light…
    This earthly life become the life divine.
    [Savitri: Book Eleven: 155.1-71]
    Tome One: Towards the Intermediate Race
    Tome Two: Savitri and the Reign of Krishna-Kali
    Tome Three: The Mother’s Yoga of the Cells

    This is a massive daunting work. But perhaps one could do it in collaboration with interested members on the Forum here.

    1. Sir,
      Something very strong has been started here, “as by accident” , because we have clearly gone beyond the original topic. You said: “Perhaps one could do it in collaboration with interested members on the Forum here”. So why don’t you send something very short to Anurag for the next issue of this Forum, just something to start with? Then the informal instructions might be to find relevant quotations from Savitri or from The Agenda? My only concern is this one: Who among us will have the profound perception that you have? You will certainly have to take the lead, but maybe your soul wants to do something else at your venerable age” (which is, by the way, not at all evident when we read you: your way of writing is fresh and lively)? I personally am very interested in it but I will be in France for the next 11 months and then move back to Montreal after 10 years out of Canada. So I do not have with me the complete collection of the Agenda that I use to have when in Montreal, even though I’ve always had Savitri at home in France and receive the Bulletin quarterly. I do not know from where are the other participants of this Forum but it would be quite an experience if, being so physically far from each other, we can make something happen collectively in this Forum. The lenght of this thread, started in May and constituted of 109 posts , seems to indicate that there is an interest and an aspiration for it…

  58. It’s so nice of you to say that. But let Anurag open out the discussion on the occasion of 15 August special Darshan.

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