Dear Friends,
Wish you a blessed Darshan!
21st February 2025 marks the 147th Birth Anniversary of the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. On this special occasion we have published — as our loving homage to Her — three conversations with Her recorded by Sehra Sethna, wife of K.D. Sethna alias Amal Kiran.
Sehra married K.D. Sethna in 1944 and shifted to Pondicherry from Mumbai ten years later in 1954 and joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram as an inmate. She passed away on 24 April 1980.
With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee
Founder,
Overman Foundation.
Three Conversations with the Mother Recorded by Sehra
15 January 1962
Sehra: Mother, did you read my letter mentioning the predictions made by the astrologers about February?
The Mother: Yes. Many people have asked me about these predictions. The astrologers say that something bad will happen. Even Punditji says so. Every time I hear all these things I try to see what the truth is. But always there is a blank. I see nothing. There is neither a Yes nor a No. This may mean that nothing is going to happen. Or else it may be the Supreme’s Will that I should know nothing and not interfere with anything. Usually I don’t interfere with happenings in Nature.
Sehra: But, Mother, aren’t you and the Supreme the same?
The Mother: Yes, and when I go into a trance I see everything. Even in the present case I must have seen everything, but when I come back into the outer consciousness I sometimes forget and there is a blank.
Sehra: You mean you want to forget and so you don’t remember.
The Mother: You may put it like that if you wish. But when I am meant to interfere I clearly remember everything I see in my trance. For instance, I see the great threat of a World War, and I put all my force against it to prevent anything that may develop into a World War. Even lately I have done that.
Sehra: I am asking you about the astrologers’ predictions because it is said that half of Bombay [presently Mumbai] will be submerged in water. I feel very worried: my people are staying just opposite the beach in Bombay. Will the predictions come true?
The Mother: Well, if anything bad threatens to happen, we’ll see about it and prevent that also.
23 February 1962
The Mother: Why were you so late? You are always in time here.
Sehra: I was cooking for my guests.
The Mother: Have you come straight from your cooking?
Sehra: Yes.
The Mother: Oh, that’s why I have such a delicious smell. You must have prepared something very nice. It is so nice that I would like to eat it. I keep on smelling it. Yes, it is delicious. But, you know, I can’t eat at present because my teeth are weak. When I get a new set of teeth — I mean not false, the real ones, then I’ll ask you to prepare some food for me.
24 February 1962
The Mother: You must have been in Egypt once, an Egyptian lady.
Sehra: Mother, why do you say this?
The Mother: Because I saw, just now, behind your shoulders, an Egyptian god with his head-gear on which there was an eagle. You were as if standing held and protected by him.
Sehra: You are protecting me now. So it must be you at that time also.
The Mother: Yes, I know, but I don’t like always to say it was I or that I have done this or that. You see, it must have been a promise given at that time and it is being fulfilled now. Similarly the promise which is given now will be fulfilled in the course of time — in the future.
The following poem entitled “Sehra: First View (24.4.1980)” was written by K.D. Sethna alias Amal Kiran on 26 April 1980, two days after Sehra’s tragic demise:
With the Far-away’s call
Quickening your heart-beat,
You freed yourself from all
Earth’s bitter-sweet.
Terrible at times the means
By which the soul
Drops out of mortal space
To its inmost goal.
A moment your whole life hung
’Twixt heaven and abyss;
Then the Great Mother caught you
In Her arms of bliss.
No shadow fell from the past.
A smiling future’s light
Flowered through your face to answer
Our clamorous questioning sight.
The following write-up entitled “Sehra: Last View (25.4.1980)” was written by Ravindra Khanna on 12 May 1980:
‘I entered the room a little trepidant—expecting to see a face with all the mental agonies and physical afflictions engraved on it. But a most marvellous sight met my gaze. Such beauty of a blissful calm enveloped it that its ripples could be felt all over the room. She was no longer the Sehra I had been seeing over the years—as if all the ravages of long physical agonies had been effaced and given place to the radiance of a spiritual love and compassion for all. All through my stay in the room I could not take my eyes off this spiritual beauty suffusing a human body and it was impossible to believe that it was a corpse with all life extinct from it.
‘Surely her soul chose this blessed hour to depart obeying some gesture from Above. Even to recall her face in imagination opens up new heights for the soul. I could visualise what Sri Aurobindo had meant when he wrote:
Calm faces of the gods on backgrounds vast…
‘There was no trace of any dissatisfaction or disgust with life but only a benign and compassionate goodwill for all from one who had left the unquiet lands far away.’
The following write-up was written by Amal Kiran and it was published in the March 1981 issue of ‘Mother India’:
THE MOTHER’S WORK IN A DREADFUL PLACE: AN EXPERIENCE OF SEHRA
‘Perhaps the most frightening peep into the unknown which Sehra ever had was recounted by her to the Mother in a letter sometime in the 1960s. The letter is not available, but I who typed it can recollect its gist as well as the Mother’s comment on it.
‘Sehra found herself in a very dark place as if deep underground. There were long shelves on both sides of her, like beds heaped high one upon another. In each “bed” was a corpse-like being who was yet alive. The “corpses” were bleeding. Between the two heaps of shelves strange ghoulish creatures were busy. They were pulling out some of the bodies from the beds and attempting to tear them and eat them. Blood-stained pieces were lying all around, a torn hand or foot or some other part of the human body.
‘The atmosphere was most foul. Sehra felt utterly sick—and for over a fortnight after the experience she was unwell. While visiting the dark den she said to herself: “This is where at present our Mother is working.”
‘When she told the Mother of what she had seen, the Mother said in effect: “You have seen correctly. I am now working in the subconscient. It is a very terrible region and even worse than what you have described. The ‘corpses’ are the human beings in their subconscient aspect. They are in a horrible state and are subject to the evil forces who are trying to make use of them. My job is to take them out of the subconscient. It is very difficult and full of danger. I am not surprised that you are feeling unwell. But be calm and call my protection and light. You will recover. There is something written by Sri Aurobindo on the subject. I shall tell Nolini [Kanta Gupta] to show it to you.”
‘What exactly Nolini showed Sehra—or whether he could find anything quite to the point—is not within recollection. But I do remember Sehra and me thinking: “How little we realise what a stupendous labour of love the Mother has undertaken for us all!”’
The following letter was written by the Mother to Sehra on 29 December 1958:
‘My dear child,
The true way of helping me is to keep quiet and strong, with a confident love and the cheerful feeling of my response. The attack has come because it had to come, it will go when it is time for it to go and all is always the effect of the Supreme Grace.
It is your love itself, in its sincerity, that helps and nothing exterior or material.
I am always with you.’
The following statements of Sehra were published in the December 1980 issue of ‘Mother India’:
5 December 1956: First Statement
‘This is my experience during the meditation. I had no sense of body. There was nothing except infinite space. Then I heard a voice which said: “From now on, I will rule the world.” I asked: “Who is that ‘I’?” The answer came: “The Supermind.” Then I laughed and asked: “But who is the Supermind?” At the same time I said “Sri Aurobindo”, as if addressing him—and then there was a sort of stroke on my mind and I knew that I had uttered the answer.
‘It was all darkness. It was from this darkness that the voice came. When the last answer “Sri Aurobindo” came I was looking into the darkness. Out of it very slowly an egg-shaped fire came. At first it was quite red, then it became a little golden together with red. Then it began to move round and round me. This was the Supermind come forward to rule the world.
‘The Mother’s comment: “It is quite correct.”’
Second Statement:
‘When I asked Mother what was the meaning of “From now on,” she said: “The very moment the meditation started at 10 o’clock in the morning. So far Sri Aurobindo was not doing anything.” Mother herself saw the same fire. She saw the oval lit-up picture, which was there, of Sri Aurobindo becoming red at first and then golden. It was something grand and intense. The background of the light was all dark and in the darkness all the gods—Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva—were lying as if heaped like rocks. It meant that their reign was over and Sri Aurobindo’s had begun.’
Here is a note the Mother had sent to Sehra on the occasion of the latter’s birthday in 1956:
á Sehra
bonne fête
programme for the year 1956
1) Love me more and more perfectly.
2) Be more and more happy through that love, knowing that I love you.
3) Be always in good health so that your body never prevents you from coming to me—
With all my love and blessings.
An Experience of Sehra recalled by Amal Kiran
‘It was in 1963. Sehra was ill. I informed the Mother. Having acted as usual with her spiritual force she expected a result. But somehow the attack of asthma continued. Then a strange incident took place. I wrote to the Mother about it.
‘On the night of January 13, racked by a terrible asthmatic spasm, Sehra was sitting on her bed with her legs hanging to the floor. She felt her feet were getting cold; so she wanted to put on her sandals. When she bent towards them she became aware of something at once very soothing and very energising. To her great surprise she saw the Mother’s bare feet putting on her sandals as if getting ready to go out. Immediately Sehra touched those feet and exclaimed: “Oh, the Mother is here!” Soon afterwards, she lay down in her bed and went to sleep. When she woke up, she was completely cured.
‘The Mother confirmed later that Sehra had not indulged her imagination. The Mother’s feet had been really there—rather something of her that took the form of her feet in order to become perceptible to Sehra.
‘I have learnt on reliable authority that when the Mother recounted this whole incident to a French disciple she gave it as an example of what could happen by way of an automatic response on her part and introduced it with the words: “quelqu’un qui m’aime vraiment, c’est Sehra, la femme d’Amal…” (“someone who loves me truly, it is Sehra, wife of Amal…” (‘Mother India’, September 1980)
A Dream-Vision on 14 June 1956: Sehra’s letter to the Mother
‘After the Distribution at the Playground, instead of going into your room you are sitting in a broad gold chair with red plush, which is like a throne. Nobody is there except Amiyo [Ranjan Ganguli] standing near you. There is no electric light. The effect in the atmosphere is as of very faint moonlight. Your dress is also gold and red, both in a different shade from that of the chair, a lighter shade.
‘I come towards you, hesitatingly, uncertainly. I am wondering what you are doing. You call me. When I go close, you pull me to yourself. I kneel at your side. As I can’t understand what you want to do, I look at you. You catch me by the shoulders and pull me so that my head is in your lap. The feeling is as if I were pulled inside you. You ask me: “Don’t you want it? You have asked for it so many times!” Then I say: “Mother, are you really going to give it to me?” You laugh and reply: “Certainly.” Then you separate me from my body and say: “Now you will never feel separate from me.”’
The following poem “In Memory of the Mishap on 24.4.1980”—written in memory of Sehra—was authored by A. Venkatranga and published in the September 1980 issue of ‘’Mother India’:
In the love of the Mother you lived, so near to Her, O blessed soul!
Free and undivided, giving your heart’s rich whole.
Though rash and reckless was your fatal decision, but then
The date and the time and the miracled perfection of the plan
Make it clear that with you She plunged too, invoking our great Master,
And held you close to Her breast, safe from disaster.
Your peaceful look and slightly parted lips in calm delight
Bear a shining seal of the Saviour Force, the Mother’s All-might.
Even in your death was revealed the unexpected God-face.
O rest in peace, dear Sehra, in the splendid lap of Grace.
Sri Aurobindo’s Home in the Subtle-Physical:
A Letter to the Mother and Her reply
27.2.1963
Last night Amal told me that you had spoken of “a permanent home of Sri Aurobindo in the subtle-physical”. At once my mind went back to a dream in last September. This is how it ran:
I enter the Ashram and see that there is some difference in the building. I say, “Well, something has changed.” And I see a staircase and climb. I pass through a corridor upstairs towards a room at the end of it. In this room there are cupboards very high, reaching near to the ceiling. All the walls are lined with such cupboards which have moon-silver panels and glass doors. On top of the cupboards there are lovely vases of various colours and designs—vases such as we never find on earth. I am standing at the door of the room. On the floor I see a carpet one-foot thick, adorned with beautiful designs and I say to myself, “This room with book cupboards is not Mother’s room. It belongs to Sri Aurobindo. All these books are written by him.”
Then I look for another room, thinking Mother might be there. I see a room and go to its door. But I find something quite different from what I was expecting. It is not Mother’s room. The whole room is made as if of moon-silver. And the furniture consists of two beds, two cupboards, two dressing-tables—everything two. All the furniture is carved out of moon-silver. And the arrangement of things draws from me the exclamation, “How beautiful!” Then I say to myself again, “Some day in the future, Mother and Sri Aurobindo will come and stay here.”
So again I search for another room where I may see Mother. I find a third room. This room is not of moon-silver. It is a little golden in colour. The carpet is also as if of gold stuff—very soft, with a flower-design in red. And I see on the carpet four or five low small Japanese tables, all carved in gold. On the tables there are plates with fruits that we never see on earth. And there are some tiny toys on the carpet—rabbits and deer and other animals—as if they were decorations. Then I just kneel down and stretch my hand to touch and pick up one of the toys. Suddenly the toy becomes alive and runs away. All the others also start moving to form a new pattern. Then I know that all these animals are real ones. I say to myself, “Oh, this is the dining room. But where can I see Mother?”
While I am wondering, I hear a voice saying, “Mother is with Sri Aurobindo and very busy. So you won’t see her today.” I turn back to go away and say, “My God, so much wealth is here—more than the wealth of the whole world, and why is Mother always telling me I must bring wealth to her?” Then I go down the stairs and—wake up.
Mother, what do you think of my dream? Have I seen something really there? Is it Sri Aurobindo’s permanent home?
I may add that the whole dream—everything in it—was bathed in an atmosphere and a light of moon-silver.
When I told Amal about it, he quoted to me four lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem, A God’s Labour :
A little more and the new life’s doors
Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
In a great world bare and bright.
Sehra
The Mother’s Reply
‘It is certainly part of His permanent home in the subtle-physical—a part of it only. Once, surely, you will meet Him there.’
(‘Mother India’, February 1976)
A Message Heard by Sehra on November 17, 1974 before passing in a queue through the Mother’s Room
“Do not look for me only in my room. I have liberated myself from my human’s body. I am now everywhere.”
(‘Mother India’, February 1975)
A Dream-Vision of the Mother recounted by Sehra
Outside Sri Aurobindo’s room I was waiting for the Mother to come from the room in the eastern wing where she used to stand and receive people in the course of every morning. Some people were in that room. The Mother entered it, spoke with them and then turned and saw me.
Smiling, she put both her arms forward as if to draw me towards her. I went and held her hands and told her: “Mother, I am depressed because I’ve to see you only in my dreams-and that also not every night.”
She then took me near Sri Aurobindo’s room and said a little angrily: “Why can’t you open your eyes and see me whenever you want to see? I am always there. Why should people think they can see me only in their dreams?”
I replied: “Mother, I am an ordinary person. Many a time I feel your presence just next to me, and I try to see you but I can’t. How can I with my eyes open-unless you do something for me?”
She laughed and, tapping my left shoulder, said: “Have some patience.”
(‘Mother India’, November 1975)
PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE:
A Letter of Sehra to the Mother and Her reply:
14-6-1970
Dearest Mother,
Some time back I said to you that I would like to tell you something about my state of health and mind.
In 1956 or 1957 I had a dream. Some being was saying to me what my life would be like if I stayed here with you. I was shown everything. There was darkness, and big stones were thrown from all sides on my body, completely breaking it. Then the being showing me this said: “If you live with the Mother, this is what she will do to you.” I replied: “Never mind. Let the body break.”
Then again the being said: “Not only your body but also your mind will break.” And again I replied: “It doesn’t matter. Let her do what she likes.”
Then I was shown the other side. If I left you, my body would be quite healthy and everything would be most pleasant. After seeing this, I still said: “I have chosen to live with the Mother.”
So far, my eyes were shut during the dream. Then, in the dream itself, I opened them. Everything was quiet, and on the horizon I saw a band of light.
Mother, I want to know the meaning of all this. The dream has come true in regard to my body and mind. My body is becoming weaker and weaker. All my energy is going and I can’t work even to occupy my mind. I feel as if I were being broken to pieces. And I get ideas which are not healthy. This condition is there not only in Pondi but more or less in Bombay too. The general feeling is as if you were breaking me in order to make from me something that you wish. Is that true?
And what about that band of light on the horizon? Is it something meant to be after this life or in this life itself?
Please let me know the truth.
With love,
Sehra.
The Mother’s Reply:
The eyes closed represent the ordinary consciousness which is blind to the truth. When you opened your eyes you saw the light of the truth towards which you are going. What is needed is the endurance and the patience to face the apparently unpleasant preparation that is making you ready to emerge in the light of the truth.
Keep your faith in the Divine and all will be well.
With love and blessings.
Here is an account of an extraordinary occult phenomenon involving Sehra which had taken place on 19 December 1978. It has been recounted by Amal Kiran in his book, Our Light and Delight, in the following words:
The time was a little after 2 a.m. on 19 December 1978. I happened to be awake in bed. In the bed across the room Sehra started moaning very piteously. I thought she was doing so in sleep, as on some occasions she had done during a nightmare. As she went on moaning, I spoke loudly to her and then got up and touched her so as to rouse her from sleep.
She answered: “Someone has attacked me with a stick and beaten me on my head,” I said: “It’s only a bad dream. Don’t worry.” But she complained of severe pain in the head and shouted to our servant Lakshmi who was sleeping in the next room. I said: “There is no need to wake her. Tell me what you want.” She went on shouting for Lakshmi. I called out also and Lakshmi came in.
Before this I had switched on the light. When Lakshmi came, I pulled back from Sehra’s head the counterpane which had been over it. The sight before our eyes was horrible. Above the upper ridge of the left eye there was a huge ugly lump and a swelling along the bone between the eye and the ear. In the middle of the lump was a point where the skin seemed slightly abrased: it was a reddish spot as if the stroke of the stick had especially fallen there.
What we saw was unbelievable. How could a beating received on the head in a dream have such a strong physical effect? I have read accounts in journals of occultism in which people getting hurt in dreams showed visible marks. The Mother also has in one place spoken of the body showing signs of mishaps experienced in a dream. But never had I witnessed such a consequence and never could I have imagined that so concrete and severe an injury to the body might appear as the result of a nightmare.
If I had not been absolutely sure that Sehra had not got up and fallen somewhere, I would not have believed a nightmare had hurt her so grievously. But here was no room for doubt. She had not got up at all after she had been to the bathroom just before retiring at about 10.30 p.m. on the night of the 18th. Besides, if she had fallen in the bathroom or on the way to it or back from it she would have cried out from that place and not from under her counterpane in bed. I could at once have known — and so would Lakshmi or her daughter who early that night had been sleepless and later asserted that she had not heard Sehra go to the bathroom any time after 10.30 or so. Again, our bathroom door creaks very loudly whenever opened or closed and is likely to wake up anyone who is not too heavy a sleeper. It is quite certain from my own evidence as well as from that of others that the terrible hurt was received during a nightmare.
Sehra asked Lakshmi to apply lightly a balm to the hurt area. She also asked for water to drink. The great pain continued for some time, accompanied by a splitting headache. We did our best to make her comfortable. I sat by her, soothing her and invoking the Mother’s help. Gradually she fell asleep.
At about 3.15 she woke up, wanting to go to the bathroom. I took her there. When she saw her face in the mirror she was amazed at the gravity of the hurt.
I brought her back to bed and she slept up to 6.30 in the morning.
While drinking her coffee she recalled that she had started dreaming of going to meet the Mother. Before she could proceed she was crossed by some being and dealt a blow with a stick. The blow was aimed at her head and meant to break it. Somehow it was diverted to the area of the left eye and it landed on the temple above it.
The enormous swelling subsided just a little during the day by getting spread along the temple, but the entire part round the eye became a deep blackish red and the skin below the eye was puffed up. (It took Sehra nearly seven weeks to get back to normal.)
The whole event proves how dangerously one can be attacked by a hostile force in one’s sleep. One must always call the Mother’s protection and be on guard even in a dream. People have got up with pain in some parts of the body — e.g. the abdomen — after a nightmare. I was myself once attacked during one of my out-of-the-body rambles several years ago and the sensation was as if the spine had been smashed. But there was no physical injury left. Sri Aurobindo in Savitri has written of how a spiritual worker in the subtle world
“Assaults of Hell endured and Titan strokes
And bore the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal.”
But I think that in the Ashram’s history the case I have reported is the first in which a misadventure in the dream-state got translated so substantially in the body.
I may end by striking a spiritually optimistic note. When I had an occasion to relate the incident to Huta, she suddenly lighted upon an implication I had not guessed. I had seen only the frightful possibility of hostile blows having more and more gross-physical consequences. I had not let my mind appraise all-round the critical point at which the workings behind the scene might have arrived. But she exclaimed: “What has happened shows that the Divine Force also can now have a direct effect upon the body. If the dark powers have this new possibility, the inner Light and the higher Consciousness can just as well emerge into the body with concrete changes in it if we are truly receptive!”
[Our Light and Delight, pp. 176-179]
Your hard labour brought before us precious moments. Many, many thanks.
Many thanks for publishing the direct contact with The Mother and the spiritual experiences of noble and senior Ashramites .