M. P. Pandit’s Talk on the Mother’s Withdrawal

Dear Friends,

On 28 November 1973, M. P. Pandit gave a talk at “Peace” in Auroville on the Mother’s withdrawal. The text of the talk—which had originally appeared in the January 1974 issue of Mother India (the monthly review of culture published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)—has been published in the online forum of Overman Foundation.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee
Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

It was last week that a friend spoke to me of certain mental perplexities that had been created by what happened on the 17th of November, and she desired that I should come at the earliest and share my faith and certitude with you all. Somehow it could not be done earlier, but I have been thinking of all friends here and desiring to put certain facts before you. After all, any event has to be seen in the proper perspective of all that has gone behind it, of the immediate circumstances, no doubt, but also, of the horizons it opens up.

I have to take you back to a casual encounter that I had on the footpath of the main Ashram building some ten years ago. As I was passing, a lady who has grown up here since her very childhood stopped me, and I don’t know what made her ask, “Do you think that the mission of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother will be successful this time?” Spontaneously I replied to her: “What do you mean? It has already succeeded.” She was pleasantly surprised to hear me talk that way, and I explained; this explanation I shall elaborate.

Those of you who have read the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother know that their main objective has been to bring down the Consciousness of the Truth-World—what they call the Supramental Consciousness and Power—on earth. They declared, a hundred times, that their object was to manifest the Truth-Consciousness on earth, fix it on the earth as an operative principle, and enable it to gradually transform human life into a divine life. They pointed out that no other power except the Truth-Power, the Truth-Will, could do it. For thousands of years man has tried to perfect himself, his life and his environment, but has not been able to succeed for the simple reason that every power that he marshalled and put into action happened to be an inferior power—not a power of Truth but a power that derived only indirectly from Truth.

In the long course of evolution there have been previous manifestations to bring down from the supernal heights the highest power conceivable at those times, at each evolutionary juncture, and establish it on earth. We know that Rama came to evoke and set in motion the law of the sāttvika mind, the enlightened mind. He was followed ages later by Krishna who manifested the overmind-consciousness and, through it, the delight-consciousness of the Lord. Ages had to elapse before the next step had to be taken; and that was to bring down the Vijñāna, the Truth-Consciousness, the Supermind, the Supramental Power, on earth, not as an individual siddhi, which the Vedic sages had done thousands of years ago, but for the entire collectivity—something that could operate as a fixed power on earth, not as an individual realization valid only for the particular individual.

This object got clarified in Sri Aurobindo only after he came to Pondicherry. He first formulated it, spelt it out, in the Arya. Before the Mother joined him here, the Mother also had spoken of the Divine Consciousness in her Prayers and Meditations. The Mother has never spoken in terms of philosophy, she plainly put it: it is the Divine Consciousness that has to manifest and transform life. So both and she, in the manifesto that was printed in the Arya, announced that to make a new age possible, to make a perfect life possible, to make a perfect man possible, a new consciousness that has been hitherto unmanifest has to be brought down and made active on earth. It was with that object that the Mother joined him in 1920 and Sri Aurobindo accepted those who felt called upon to accept his ideal and strive for it. You all know how the Ashram came to be started in 1926, on that day, November 24th, when the overmind-consciousness (originally brought down by Krishna) descended into the physical body of Sri Aurobindo and he felt the need to retire completely to prepare for the next step, to concentrate all his energies and faculties on the next step: to bring down the Truth-Consciousness.

There are letters from 1926 onwards—he kept up having contact through correspondence from 1926 till 1938, the year he had the unfortunate accident—he carried on correspondence, wrote detailed replies, for eight hours per day during nights; somewhere in 1934 or so he says that he is catching the tail of the Supermind. Later he speaks somewhere that it comes and goes; the Mother also has said somewhere that she had seen the Supramental Light coming in to Sri Aurobindo, staying there for a while, and then withdrawing. As years went by, their efforts continued. They did not consider anything that happened in the world as irrelevant to their purpose. They paid full attention to cataclysmic events like World War II, the political movements and revolutions in India, as part of the cosmic plan. And they strove.

A situation arose in 1950 or thereabouts when Sri Aurobindo found that the earth conditions were still resistant to the descent of the Supramental Force. If the Supramental Force were to come down at that stage, things would break. We have a hymn in the Veda which speaks of the unbaked jar: unless the jar is baked enough, brought to sufficient consistency and strength, it cannot hold the descent of God; the Rishis speak in symbolic terms. Sri Aurobindo found that physical Matter was not yet ready to hold the descent. It was then that he took a decision, for the genesis of which I have to take you back to the years somewhere between 1923 and 1926. In one of the evening conversations (I do not remember if this particular one has been published) Sri Aurobindo was asked, “Have you conquered death?” He replied, “Even if I take a cup of poison it cannot kill me.” “That means that you can’t die?” someone asked. He answered, “There are only three conditions under which I would leave my body: one, successful completion of my mission; two, it being shown to me that it is not to be this time; three, accident.” Well, by 1950 he saw, it was shown to him, that the final descent was not to be in his body. He took a decision to withdraw.

He had cured innumerable people of so many diseases by his spiritual power, but when disease attacked him in 1950 he refused to cure himself. When one of his attendants asked him, “Sir, why don’t you cure it?”, he said, “You will not understand.” He had taken the decision to withdraw, but simultaneously—characteristic of his heroism—he decided to make a purposeful sacrifice of his body. As the hour was approaching, he was seen pulling the Power down and down. The Power came down and he laid down his life. That was his sacrifice. No other material vehicle could have received the descent that came that day. And as it penetrated, as it got fixed in his body, simultaneously the Mind of Light got formed in the Mother; she had an equally developed ādhār. The Mind of Light, as you all know, is the physical mind being taken control of and suffused with the Supramental Consciousness. That was in 1950.

Those of you who were not here at that period can have no idea of the gloom that settled over the Ashram community, of the shock that all friends and well-wishers all over the world received—totally an unexpected event. But there was the Mother. She assumed control. She radiated the confidence, the faith, the cheer, that revived everyone; and she conveyed the assurance of Sri Aurobindo that he would not leave the earth atmosphere till the Truth-Consciousness was established on earth.

Thereafter, heroically, stoically, the Mother continued the work. And somewhere before 1956 she was confident that that year would see the manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness on earth—not in one body or in two bodies, but generally on earth. She said in the New Year Message that year:

The greatest victories are the least noisy.
The manifestation of a new world is not proclaimed by beat of drum.

But events took her and everyone by surprise. All were sitting for meditation after the Wednesday class, it was the 29th of February. You all have read how, that day, the Mother came face to face with a door and, as prophesied in Savitri, she broke open the “dual door” and let in the stream of Truth-Consciousness which flooded the earth. The Mother said privately to some that when she had opened her eyes she had expected that by the sheer impact of the descent all the people in the playground would be flat, but, she saw, all were packing their bags to go. However, as she said once, she was never disappointed because she never depended on humanity for success in her work. She slaved for humanity, but she did not expect the slightest return. I have seen her at very close quarters, she has never, never complained. She has sympathized, she has tried to help, but never complained of lack of response, lack of support, from anybody. That happened in 1956.

Now the point I want to make is that with the manifestation, the flooding manifestation, of the Truth-Consciousness on earth on the night of February 29th, 1956, the declared objective of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to bring down on earth the power of Supramental Consciousness so as to make it form a part of the earth, attainable by anybody who strives for it, was accomplished. Still, the Mother did not announce it. A few days thereafter news got around and, as in confidence, it was passed from one person to another. And when I told the Mother, “Mother has not said anything but the word is going around that the Supramental Consciousness has descended”, she didn’t express any surprise but said, “Ah!” It was about then that for distribution on the 29th of March an Ashram artist’s painting, “The Golden Purusha”, was printed with a passage from Prayers and Meditations:

The Lord has willed and Thou dost execute:
A new light shall break upon the earth,
A new world shall be born,
And the things that were announced shall be fulfilled.

Copies had arrived from the press; there were four or five of us present; she took the sheets and, along with other changes in her own hand—I still have my copy as a memento in my room—she turned the future into the present tense:

Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute:
A new light breaks upon the earth,
A new world is born.
The things that were promised are fulfilled.

That was her answer to our implied question whether it was true. That was a milestone in the evolutionary journey of the earth, the achievement of the prime objective, for which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had taken birth.

Thereafter it was a question of working it out, of working out the consequences. The main thing was done; she herself explained that once the Supramental Consciousness was established on earth, thereafter it was a question of extension—larger and larger extension so as to acclimatize the earth to the vibrations of the Supramental Consciousness. This work she has been doing since 1956, for the last seventeen years, with many changes taking place in the earth atmosphere.

That very year one could see the repercussions of the descent of the Supramental Consciousness, the Supramental Force, in the international situation. I had recently occasion to meet a senior statesman in India and he told me how from various pieces of information and his own deductions he had anticipated the Suez Canal crisis, the invasion by Britain and France, on the 9th of November, 1956. But certain things happened and the invasion took place on the 2nd of November. He was very much intrigued. So when he came here, while reporting things to the Mother he asked, “I have never been known to be misled in my calculations; why is that this time things have taken me by surprise?” The Mother smiled and told him, “True, you have taken all things into calculation except one important thing.” Then he asked the Mother what it was. She said, “You have not taken into account the new Force that has come.” Immediately he woke up to the new situation.

Since 1956 no situation that could easily have led previously to a general war has been allowed to develop into a world war situation because of this presence of the Supramental Force of harmony, of unity. A world war, a third world war is impossible. There may be local skirmishes, local battles, on other people’s territories, but a world war is impossible. The very basis of the forces of violence and war has been struck with the establishment of the original Truth of union, harmony, love. A new set-up has been created which enables us to confidently expect the world to move towards One World. This is but one consequence, there are many more. The manifestation of the Supermind has had many results, some are to be stabilised on a collective scale, some to be worked out individually, but all have to be organised.

There is the question of the perfection of the mind, an infallible knowledge; attainment of power which keeps pace with that knowledge; there is the change of human nature into divine nature after which alone the process of transformation is possible; there is the consequence of physical or terrestrial immortality. Now all these, mind you are consequences of some central achievement, which have to be worked out slowly, gradually. The Mother said she had once asked Sri Aurobindo, “After the descent of the Supermind how long do you think the process of transformation will take?” Sri Aurobindo looked up and told her, “Perhaps three hundred years.” Now it doesn’t exactly mean three hundred years, it gives an idea of the long period of time that is required. The Mother, while she was recalling this, added, “He said three hundred years, but you know there is something like Grace—anything can take place.” But in her own mind she had no illusions; born fighter that she was, she always set about things with the faith that the things would surely be done.

For her there was no question of changing her human nature into divine nature, which for us is a lifetime programme. She didn’t have this question because she had already, during the course of the last fifty or sixty years, seen her human system — I wouldn’t say nature — taking on the divine nature. The process of physical transformation, she has explained, means taking up each cell, persuading it to change, coaxing it to change, exposing it to the Force of change; and where it resists, it has a repercussion in the body as a pain which no medicine can cure—one has to endure. There are millions of cells in each body, that was a laborious and a patient process which she was undergoing. Nobody seriously expected that the entire process of transformation could be telescoped within a few years, barring, of course, a miracle; but the Mother’s way was never to work in miracles or to make her time-table in terms of miracles.

Side by side with her effort from here, from below, of the transformation of the various cells in her body step by step, work was going on from above. Sri Aurobindo, according to his promise, had been working. A new body was under formation, the supramental body, in which she was to take her embodiment as the end-result of the transformation of this body. The body was being prepared. She gave in “Notes on the Way” descriptions of this body, described how it looked. And about a year ago she told someone, “I am trying to fuse this material body into that body but I have not been able to get the clue.” She said, “Nobody on earth has tried this, the secret is not given to me.” On that point, she said, there was no help from above. She was searching.

Thereafter—if I would be right in taking you into confidence—one day it flashed to me that as soon as that luminous body was ready the Mother would just walk into it without dying; “without dying” means not necessarily keeping the body, but without the gap in consciousness; keeping up the continuity of the personality she would just cross into that luminous body. It just flashed, and the way it came I thought it was something more than just an idea; I noted it down in my diary. I looked it up the other day, it was dated the 24th of July 1973. I did not think it wise to speak of it to people except in my closest circle, which I did. And thereafter one of the friends from here came to me and asked, “Why is it that for the first time I could detect a different note in your talk the other day in answer to questions regarding Mother?” I did not know what to reply but I told him the way in which my mind was working.

Then on the morning of 17th November at about nine o’clock, a particular friend of mine—he has a certain grounding in occult experience, occult knowledge, and normally when we meet we exchange notes—told me, “I have seen the Mother’s body of light.” I got interested. He said, “The new body is full of light but it is not yet dense enough to function in earth conditions. It is there, and as I was looking at it I got the feeling that the Mother would enter this body the moment it became dense enough to stand and function in the earth atmosphere, seen or unseen. But there is no question of revival of the material body.” And he added, “Those who are capable of seeing the Mother’s halo, aura, they will be able to see that luminous body.” It confirmed what I had perceived some four months earlier; I told him as much.

That evening at 7-25 p.m., as you all know, the Mother withdrew from her body. They say the cause was heart failure, but let me tell you the heart failure was not the cause, the heart failure was the result of her withdrawal. She had decided; the moment things were ready she walked into that body.

She has not passed away, she has just changed her body. Not changed in the manner of the Gita—soul changing bodies—but consciously; keeping the full personality she has gone into that body. And, as it was revealed to me on that day, she will function in that body, work through those instruments who are open to her, expedite the remaining work—the working out of the consequences—but her activity will not be confined to the Ashram or to Auroville; for her the whole world is her ashram. As I was led to put it on radio the next day, “The sea of Love that is the Mother swells into an ocean”: not a perception, not an idea, not an image, but an experience.

I am sure all of you feel her Presence. You can’t feel the presence of a dead person as you feel hers. Do you feel any panic in the Ashram atmosphere? Can you imagine two thousand people who have lost their leader breathing this peace, this calm? Is there grief? Of course there is a certain pang of physical separation, but she is there. Thousands of visitors who came afterwards have told us, “We were sad, we were grief-struck, we did not know what to do. We took whatever was available without thinking of the timings—plane, train, bus, car.” They arrived and they said that within half an hour or one hour of their arrival their grief was completely taken away. They felt that it was worth coming, that she is here, she is not gone; “she is here” does not mean she is in the Ashram only but she is on earth.

Sri Aurobindo is there, the Mother has assured us, in the subtle-physical world in his supramental body waiting for the conditions under which alone he can manifest on earth; we do not know when. That body cannot function on earth till the earth substance has been changed. The Mother’s body, the body that she has assumed, is nearer the earth. She is going to be the bridge between Sri Aurobindo’s supramental body in the subtle-physical world and this material world. In Savitri Sri Aurobindo says of the Mother:

She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.

Well, she is the bridge; she is the bridge for all that is to come from above, for all of us who are loyal to her and who owe it to her to devote every minute of our lives to the achievement of her ideal, to the perfection that she has desired of us. The only way in which we can repay our debt of gratitude to her for what she has done for us is to let her live in us, to let her manifest in our selves: each in his own way.

She is there looming over the whole world. And for those of us who have openness to her, who have love for her, who have devotion for her, these act like magnets to which her consciousness, her love, her force, comes pouring down in floods. Keep that connection. Have a loving thought for her; think of her with love. Cheerfully, gratefully, joyfully, keep yourself at the disposal of the Mother’s Consciousness. For her there is no death.

I remember how on the Mother’s birthday, the 21st of February, 1973, when I met her, in the course of a few words that I had with her, I said on a spontaneous impulse, “If by taking my life thy physical life can be prolonged by a day, please take it.” She in-drew for a moment, held my hand and said, “Life is eternal.”

She lived in eternity. She did not and does not live only in earthly space and time. There was always a different dimension to her life and function. She once told someone—one of the workers like me—“If I say something now please don’t quote it against me half an hour hence because within that half an hour I will have gone five hundred miles ahead.” That was years ago. That way she did give us a glimpse into her real personality. I was watching one day as someone was talking to her, and she said, “But don’t you see that only the part that belongs to this universe is here!” You know what she meant, there is no need for me to emphasize her supernatural aspects to you all. You all have faith in her, believe in her, but I am mentioning this as something which you would love to know, it’s not to prove anything to you.

The Mother was a spiritual pragmatist par excellence: I claim to be a spiritual rationalist. I would accept nothing unless it meets the demands of common sense, as much of common sense as I am gifted with. And I assure you, after thirty-five years of stay and service at the Mother’s feet, I am proud to tell you that she never, never asked me to accept anything only on faith. If I asked anything—not only I but anyone—she would explain as to a child; she would suspend everything and as if we had the whole of eternity before us, she would start explaining. She never denied an explanation either of her actions or of her words.

There is no problem for one who understands the Mother, who has understood her personality. The teaching is great, the masters have been great, there is no question of success or failure, it is a discharge of their mission, the mission with which they were sent here: they have done it. For seventeen years things have been spreading out all over the world, and that will continue. Each one of us, however, has a responsibility to keep up the great Ideal of perfection of life, transformation of human life into a divine life, embodiment of the Truth-Consciousness in however small a degree in the most developed part of us. More I do not say at this moment.

Questions

Q: In “Notes on the Way” and other sources the Mother often spoke of her body and the possibility of the physical transformation; now it has been said that her body was of the old creation and was never meant to be the transformed body. This has created quite a bit of confusion…

A: Well,— excuse me for interrupting you—I know what you mean. It was some years ago, before 1958, when the Mother was still going to the playground and holding classes: she said that a body born in the normal way (what is normal at present) would have a normal end; second, a body born in the normal sexual way could not become supramental proper. A supramental body will have to come from above. What can be done with the human body is that it can be brought up to the level of the Superman, but not the Supramental Being straight away. The stage of complete supramentalization is far, far ahead.

The word “transformation” has a big content, even physical immortality is not central to it; it is only a consequence of complete transformation. Sri Aurobindo gave very little importance to this immortality. He said all that is needed is conquest over death, freedom to keep or shed the body when one wants to change.

The Mother knew very well that in the normal process the complete transformation of the body was problematic. But she had always put forth an unknown factor: Grace, the Supreme’s Will which brooks no opposition, which doesn’t care for our laws, processes; so that proviso was always there.

Her horoscopes had spoken of the subject living up to a hundred years, but at the end of a hundred years no death was indicated, it was left to the choice of the person. Not one but many astrologers have told me—not now, but long before—that her horoscope extended up to a hundred years and thereafter it was left to her choice. That was our normal expectation. It she took a different decision it is because the body would not respond, would not support further working. She saw no use in continuing in this body. She went on preparing the other body during the last six or seven months in which she was in-drawn; she was always attending to that, staying in this body till she could enter the other body.

There are interpretations and interpretations; each one has to accept what feels true—not sounds true—to him. You can’t hold her in a formula. There has been no parallel to the Mother in the spiritual history of mankind. She is unique, you can’t apply any comparison. What she spoke was scripture, what she did was supreme law.

She has prepared us, even when she was in the physical body, to face the situation. She is there guiding, leading us. All these little controversies pale into insignificance before the grandeur of her personality, the splendid horizons opened by her for man. She has set man on the highway to God.

You will see, I tell you you will see, her work being expedited now. She will work more effectively now in her luminous body than she was allowed to in her material physical body. I do not speak of the Ashram so much as an institution, but of Auroville, of the future of man, her work in the world—progression towards one mind, one life, one world. The forces of harmony, the radiations of love: you will see how they gather, how they are marshalled. A great change will come over the world by being precipitated by her from there.

Q: If we cannot reach the supramental body, those of us who are born in the usual way, what then is the function and what is the goal of humanity?

A: To arrive at our highest possible perfection. By arriving at our highest perfection we are opening the possibility of the intermediate race, the race of superman. That intermediate race, the superman, will prepare the field in which the supramental beings will manifest. How they will take birth is a secret that Nature or Supernature has not yet revealed to us.

You have to take it that the time is not come for what has not been done today by the Mother: earth conditions are not ready. Her body was a reflex of the whole earth. All the resistances and difficulties in physical matter were projected in her physical body and she had to tackle each cell in a representative manner. That was why all the difficulty, that was why the decision. Do you mean to say that if she had wanted individual transformation she could not have done it? She had only to ask for it, she could do it by a miracle, but she would not. She herself told me once in another context when I had asked her a question about some recalcitrant natures in others, recalcitrant habits in myself, that she did not favour changes by miracles effected from outside. She wanted us to change in a natural way of evolution. She did not believe in doing things through miracles.

For us to arrive at the highest possible state of perfection means: first, psychicization—to bring the psychic being within ourselves to the front of our nature, let it govern all our movements of body, life and mind; then, extension, cosmicization, universalization of our consciousness—so that the beats of the heart of the world can be felt in us; thereafter, spiritualization—above the mind, all the manifest levels of consciousness have to be scaled and normalised in us. After these three are done to their maximum,—psychicization, universalization and spiritualization—after all these three processes are complete, then only can you say man has arrived at the highest possible perfection normally open to him. Thereafter arises the prospect of supramentalization and its farther consequence of transformation.

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8 Replies to “M. P. Pandit’s Talk on the Mother’s Withdrawal

  1. Please read this extract from page128 on Mothers agenda volume13 on what was to be done with Her body. Was this followed?

    I want to tell you something. I had already explained to Satprem that if the time of the transformation comes,if my body grows cold , they should not rush to put it in a hole in the ground.Because it could be…..it could be only temporary.you understand? It could be momentary.They should arrange to keep it here until it shows the sign of complete….of the beginning of decomposition.i am telling you this because I want to make sure its understood; it would be stupid to put it in a hole and have all the work stop because of that.

    You understand.? Do you understand what I mean?

    Yes,Mother,your instructions are noted.

    You see,make absolutely sure that I have left my body.
    I don’t know…. I know an attempt is being made to transform it- it knows it and is very willing–but I don’t know if it will be able to do it…..Do you follow? So for some time it will give the impression, that it is over,although it could be only temporary.it would start again- it might start again.But , then I would be…I may be incapable of speaking at that time, of saying this.

    So I am saying it to you—Satprem knows.One other person should also know

    I believe Pranab also knows it.

  2. And then — oh,I haven’t told you:yesterday or the day before,I don’t remember ,all of a sudden, for two or three minutes, my body was seized by the horror of death– the idea of being put like this( gesture of being tossed into a hole) in a tomb was so horrifying! Horrifying…I couldn’t have stood that more than a few minutes .It was HORRIFYING.Not because I was buried alive but because my body was conscious .it was considered “dead” by everybody for the heart had stopped beating — yet the body was conscious

  3. These are extremely important sayings and observations by the Divine Mother …Will someone who is truly worthy .. who is wisely competent add more to it .. comment more to it .. it leaves you numb when you read all this again and again
    I guess it will need all the courage and conviction for some one to convince all the children of the Divine Mother.
    Thank you very much Dayanand for high lighting this … Are we still looking for the Truth or just repeating what everyone knows..
    Surendra s chouhan saice ’69

  4. The next question people ask is: “Did Mother give you any indication that she was going to leave her body?”

    Dada-To this I would say, “No.” She fought and tried up to the end. She had a tremendous will and she was a great fighter and she fought and tried to do what she had taken upon herself. She suffered a lot, there was much suffering. Once, a few years back, when she was suffering terribly, she sometimes said that perhaps death would not be so painful, death would perhaps be better. But she never said that she would like to leave her body. And the explanation for her suffering, I can give like this: because she resisted, because she fought, she suffered. If she had yielded to what we call natural laws, that is, decay, disintegration and death, there would not have been so much suffering for her. But that she did not want; she tried, she fought and she suffered and showed us how suffering could be taken.

  5. EVEN AFTER READING THIS WHICH I SENT HIM ,HIS DOUBT FROM READING THE AGENDA HAS NOT CLEARED AND HE GOES ON BADGERING US WITH HIS DOUBT…..last month a very dear and old friend and sadhak DAYANAND accosted me with …”why did Dada move the body without consulting anyone when She had given specific instructions to the contrary ”, was shocked and horrified that this rumour of spoiling all Mother’s work of transformation was still on in some minds , particularly those familiar and reading the Agenda where tremendous misunderstanding and confusion was created by Satprem after Mother left Her body in his footnotes…everybody had heard ”do not disturb my body, do not move it, otherwise the work will be have come to nothing, am in catalyptic trance…” and such phrases have seen some friends who have it on their table at home in Mother’s hand xeroxed….copies and evrybody blamed our dear Dada who had worked with the Mother all his life and been instructed to do whatever had to be done by THE MOTHER IN A NOTEBOOK WHERE SHE WROTE OUT THE INSTRUCTIONS in case something happened to Her since 1947……here is what he says in “I Remember” a book of his memoirs with Mother…”’ From 1947 onwards Mother would often say: “If you ever feel that I have left the body and gone away, don’t rush to entomb me, for I may have gone into a deep trance. Protect my body very carefully. Only when you have absolute proof that I have left my body, should you entomb me. I don’t mean that I’m leaving my body. But if I ever do then bury me under the Service tree in the Ashram.”

    In the beginning, I used to listen to her words very seriously and try to understand their import. Later, I noted

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    that whenever Mother was a little out of sorts, or a little sad, she used to start talking about this. So that is why, whenever I saw her in that state, I would avoid giving too much importance to what she said and try and divert her mind by talking about other things. And as a result, she would come round.

    Many years later, towards the end of her life, one day Mother fell ill. And she remained unwell for a few days. Nirod-da too started worrying a little.

    One day, as I went to her at about noon as usual, I found her room full of people – Sujata, Noren Singh, Satprem, Champaklal, Dr. Sanyal, Kumud – they were all there. The tape recorder was running.

    Barely had I entered when someone told me: “Mother has something to say to you.”

    I asked Mother.

    Then someone else said: “Sujata wants to tell you something.”

    Then I realised that the old story was being raked up again. A fit of great anger came into me on seeing that instead of trying to get Mother out of her condition, these people were, on the contrary, creating such an air that it would worsen her condition. Shouting and rebuking, I turned everyone out of the room. I blurted out whatever came into my mind.

    After pacifying Mother, I fed her lunch and let her rest. Later by talking to her about other things, I managed to get Mother out of her downcast condition.

    By evening she was perfectly all right. I went down and informed Nirod-da about it.

    Towards the beginning of 1950 Mother had told me one day: “I’ve prepared a diary in which I have written down quite a few things for you. Of course I’m not saying that I am going to leave my body. But suppose I were to leave my body then you will find all my directions in that diary.”

    Page – 133

    A few days later she said: “If some day you want to be a trustee of the Ashram, then you have only to say and they’ll make you one. This too I’ve put down there.”

    I told you before that whenever Mother spoke in this vein I would take no notice and change the topic of conversation.

    Then when Mother finally did leave her body, I remembered her diary. I thought I should see if Mother had left any directions about my future course of action.

    So I spoke to Kumud and she opened the cupboard and brought the diary out.

    On opening the diary, I found the first few pages had some writing. But at the end many pages had been torn out. On the last page was a note from Mother saying: “I have retained only those things that are ‘more true’. All that is superficial I have removed.” The note ended with “Blessings” and her signature.

    There were no directions at all about what I was to do after her physical withdrawal. So her last rites were performed according to what she had told me earlier. I consulted Nolini-da, Andre-da, Champaklal-ji, Dyuman­ bhai, Kumud and Dr. Sanyal before taking the decision.

    I consider it as Mother’s supreme Grace that she did not leave any directions to me in the diary. First, Mother left me completely independent and free. She did not tie me down to any sort of responsibility. Secondly, by leaving a note in her own hand, Mother took care to remove any eventual doubt from people’s minds that I may have torn those pages out myself to destroy the negative things that Mother may have said about me. Whenever I think of this compassion of Mother’s, her foresight and great affection, I am overwhelmed.

    I have kept the diary with me.

  6. It is mind bogling. To understand , even a little, of what has been achieved by Sri.Aurobindo and Mother we need to elevate our thinking capacity to a significant level. The details given in this attachment are priceless. It is essential for every one of us to keep this mail in tact and go through it again and again to enhance his/her knowledge base with wisdom.
    I thank profusely all those responsible for enlightening us.

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