Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Photographs of the Mother with Dyuman

Dear Friends,

Chunibhai Patel (19.6.1903—19.8.1992) was a Gujarati sadhak who was renamed ‘Dyuman’ (“the luminous one”) by Sri Aurobindo on 24 November 1928. He visited Pondicherry for the first time on 11 July 1924 and surrendered himself to Sri Aurobindo. He became an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in May 1927. He was in charge of the Dining Room and looked after the Granary. A dedicated worker to the core, the Mother made him one of the Founder-Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust on 1 May 1955. He became the Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust in 1991.

As our humble homage to Dyuman, the great Karmayogi, two hundred and thirty-six photographs of his taken with the Mother on various occasions have been published in the website of Overman Foundation.

With warm regards,

Anurag Banerjee

Founder,

Overman Foundation.

The Mother with Dyuman and Umirchand Kothari on 23 April 1950.
The following photographs were taken on 25 April 1950:
Also seen with the Mother and Dyuman: Champaklal.
Also seen with the Mother and Dyuman: Lallubhai.
The Mother with Dyuman and Mona Sarkar.
The Mother with Dyuman and Priti Das Gupta.

The Mother on 6 January 1952 after inaugurating the Centre of Education. Also seen in this photograph: with the Mother are Sumitra Nahar, Amrita, Suprabha Nahar, Lilou, Sujata Nahar, Krishnakumari, Sisir Kumar Mitra, Norman Dowsett, Pavitra, Chandrakant, Udar Pinto, Dakshinapada Bhattacharya, Shanti Doshi, Dyuman, Jyotin, Vishwanath Lahiri and Soli Albess.

The following four photographs were taken on 6 January 1953 at the Courtyard of the Ashram School. Also seen with the Mother are Dyuman, Pavitra, Udar Pinto, Champaklal, K. Amrita and Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya.

The following eight photographs were taken on 24 April 1953:
Dyuman and Amiyo Ranjan Ganguli with the Mother.
Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya on the extreme right.
Champaklal and Nolini Kanta Gupta are seen with the Mother and Dyuman.

This photo was taken in 1953 during the Mother’s visit to the Atelier. Also seen with the Mother are: Gangaram Malwade, Vishwanath Lahiri, Noren Singh Nahar, Udar Pinto, Pavitra, Dyuman, Nolini Kanta Gupta, Kaushalya, Maniben and Kapila.

The following photographs were taken on 5 October 1954 on the occasion of Durga Puja. On either side of the Mother, Dyuman, Chimanbhai and Champaklal are seen.

Ananta
Sanjay Bhatt
Kamalaben
Amiya Devi
Noren Singh Nahar
S. Ravi
Tehmiben
Prithwi Singh Nahar
Raghav
Vasudha Shah and Kamalaben
Medhananda and Biren
Manibhai
Mounnou, Madam Suvrata and Mahi
Omkarprasad
Pavita
Renu and Sudha Rai
Shrikanta and Espoir
Tara Jauhar and Victor Jauhar

The following photographs were taken on 7 October 1954:
Also seen with the Mother and Dyuman are Parul Chakraborty, Lata Jauhar and Bhavatarini.
The Mother with Dyuman, Vidyavrata, Sushilaben, Ichchaben, Samir Kanta Gupta and Chimanbhai.
The following photographs were taken on 11 October 1954 on the occasion of Lakshmi Puja:
Dr. Prabhat Sanyal.
Same as above.
Lilavati Dutt.
The following photographs were taken on 12 October 1954 during the Mother’s visit to the Atelier:
Also seen with the Mother and Dyuman: Abhay Singh Nahar, Chandrakant, Amulya, Lakshman and Ajay.
Chandrakant, Amulya, Dyuman, Abhay Singh Nahar, Vishnu Lalit, Suresh J. and Arun Ganguli.
The Mother with Dyuman, Chandubhai and Lakshman.
The Mother with Dyuman, Udar Pinto, Pavitra, Nolini Kanta Gupta and Vishwanath Lahiri.

The Mother with Jyotin, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Dyuman, Pavitra, Chandrakant, Khirod, Abhay Singh Nahar, Lakshman and Ajay.

The Mother with Pavitra, Dyuman and Louis Allan.
Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Dyuman, Vishwanath Lahiri, Udar Pinto and Nolini Kanta Gupta.
Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Khirod, Louis Allan and Dyuman.
The Mother with Udar Pinto, Nolini Kanta Gupta, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Vishwanath Lahiri and Dyuman.
The following photographs were taken on 25 October 1954 on the occasion of Kali Puja:
Ananta
Ananta
The Mother with Dyuman, Gauri Bhattacharya, Champaklal and Bimala.
The Mother with Dyuman, Champaklal, Chimanbhai and Rothindranath Mukherjee.
The Mother with Dyuman, Chimanbhai, Champaklal and Nolini Kanta Gupta.
Dayawati Jauhar
Dr. Prabhat Sanyal.
Debou Bhattacharya
Kumudben
Sashi Poddar
Priti Das Gupta
Rasendran and P. Counouma
Sudhir Kumar Sarkar
Tehmi
Usha and Stephanie
The following photographs were taken on 1 November 1954:

The following photographs were taken on 28 January 1955 on the occasion of Saraswati Puja. Also seen in these photographs are Chimanbhai and Kamalaben.

Himangshu Niyogi
The following photographs were taken on 4 April 1956 :

The Mother with Dyuman, Chimanbhai, Champaklal and a group of Russian gymnasts who had visited the Ashram.

The Mother with Dyuman, Chandubhai and Champaklal.
The Mother with Dyuman, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Chimanbhai and Narendranath.
The Mother with Dyuman in Her room on 12 February 1960.
The Mother and Dyuman on 18 October 1961.
The Mother with Dyuman and Dayawati Jauhar on 16 December 1961 at Jhunjhun Boarding.
Undated photographs:
The Mother with Ravindra, Dyuman and Udar Pinto.
The Mother with Dyuman and Dr. Prabhat Sanyal.
Same as above.

The following photographs were taken on 5 July 1970 in the Mother’s room. Also seen in these photographs are: Champaklal, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, Dr. Prabhat Sanyal, Vasudha Shah and Dyuman.

Photographs courtesy: Ms. Tara Jauhar, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi Branch.

18 Replies to “Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Photographs of the Mother with Dyuman

  1. These photographs bring the same impression of sudden joy as Wordsworth experienced at the sight of the daffodils

  2. Thanks a lot for sharing.

    ॐ तत् सवितुः वरं रूपं ज्योतिः परस्य धीमहि यन्नः सत्येन दीपयेत् !!!

  3. You could add the devoted persevering work in establishing the Dairy at the Lake and the planting of the coconut grove from one only given by the Mother to begin with. Then pushing all that aside he gave all support to Gloria, against innumerable odds…
    for the Dairy and more assistance in the planting of trees, flowering shrubs for their Meditation Room, making them self-sufficient.
    Besides photographs, (a truly unique collection), maybe his reminiscences will add to the picture of this truly surrendered servitor of the Mother

    … When you give yourself, without demand or insistence … give completely..

    These lines, (not properly quoted) come to my mind

    Love from both of us to both of you, brother,
    Richard

    1. On second thoughts ’tis evident that you are doing already such a detailed work with the photos alone…

  4. Your sharing this treasure is heart touching. Dyumanbhai was a great soul indeed. Very loving and had immensely helped and guided many budding sadhaks. He was Divines’ faithful and surrendered to the core instrument. He has set a lively and inspiring model to follow the footpath of sadhana for many of us.

  5. MaThe most striking and admirable aspect of his personality was his attitude
    of clinging to the Mother, come what may. Often he would say that
    whatever happens or whatever one does follow one thing — never leave
    the Mother, cling to Her. He would give a very beautiful and touching
    image: a toddler clings to the sari of his mother, never letting her go —
    following her wherever she goes — even if the mother had scolded him
    for doing something wrong. The toddler would cling to her sari crying his
    heart out, but would never let her be away from him. That was the way
    one should cling to the Divine Mother. It was the most important lesson I

    15 June, 2019 The Sunlit Path Volume 11, Issue 111

    ~
    ….
    To conclude, you will be happy to learn that Bhupalbabu visited the Ashram with his wife in the thirties and did pranam to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, his son-in-law, during the Darshan. The Mother seems to have told him that Mrinalini’s soul was with her. Dyuman adds that Bhupalbabu had the vision of Mrinalini in the Mother when he went to the Darshan and bowed to her and he
    was very much consoled. (I believe that in the interval she has taken a new birth and is now perhaps living as a sadhika in the Ashram.)
    https://aurobindo.site/workings/nirodbaran/00/0002_e.htm


    “To be a true wife is as difficult as to be a true disciple. Love and Blessings.

    https://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/Narayan%20Prasad/-01%20English/Life%20In%20Sri%20Aurobindo%20Ashram/-15_The%20Mother%5Es%20Revealing%20Talks.htm

  6. Thank your very much

    FUNDACIÓN – CENTRO
    SRI AUROBINDO DE BARCELONA
    Ivorra, 20 – 08034 Barcelona

  7. Ma
    When does the spiritual life begin ?”
    “When one is united with one’s psychic being and conscious of the divine presence, when one gets the impulse for action from this divine presence, when one’s will has become a conscious collaborator with the divine will, then that is the starting-point.
    “Before this, one can be an aspirant for the spiritual life, but has not got the spiritual life.”
    N once asked the Mother, “When far away I utter to myself your name and call for your aid, do you hear the call?”
    The Mother: “When in the midst of my work I make an abrupt halt and give you the answer, do yo hear me ?”
    We find in the Bulletin a question of the same type :
    ” ‘I am with you’�what does it exactly mean ?
    “When we pray or struggle with a problem within ourselves, are we really heard, always in spite of our clumsiness and imperfection, in spite of even our bad will and our error? And who hears ? You who are with us ?”
    “And is it you in your supreme consciousness, an impersonal divine force, the force of yoga or you, the Mother in a body with your physical consciousness ? A personal presence that knows our each thought and each act and not some anonymous force?
    Page-269Can you tell us how and in what way you are present with us?
    “Sri Aurobindo and you, it is said, form one and the same consciousness, but is there a personal presence of Sri Aurobindo and your personal presence, two things distinct, each playing its own role?”
    The Mother : “I am with you because I am you or you are I.
    “I am with you, that signifies a world of things, because I am with you on all levels, in all planes, from the supreme consciousness down to the most physical. Here, at Pondicherry, you cannot breathe without breathing my consciousness. It saturates the atmosphere almost materially, in the subtle physical and extends to the Lake, 10 kilometres from here. Further, my consciousness can be felt in the material vital, then on the mental planes, everywhere…..
    “But that apart, there is a special personal tie between you and me, between all who have turned to Sri Aurobindo’s and my teaching,�it is well understood, distance does not count here, you may be in France, you may be at the other end of the world or at Pondicherry, the tie is always true and living. And each time there comes a call, each time there is a need for me to know so that I may send out a force, an inspiration, protection or any other thing, a sort of message comes to me all of a sudden and I do the needful. These communications reach me evidently at any moment, and you must have seen me more than once stop suddenly in the middle of a sentence or work, it is because something comes to me, a communication and I concentrate.
    “With those whom I have accepted as disciples, to whom I have said “yes”, there is more than a tie, there is an emanation of me. This emanation warns me whenever it is necessary and tells me what is happening. Indeed I receive intimations constantly but all are not recorded in my active memory. I would be flooded;
    Page-270the physical consciousness acts like a filter.”3THE MOTHER’S REVEALING TALKShttps://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/Narayan%20Prasad/-01%20English/Life%20In%20Sri%20Aurobindo%20Ashram/-15_The%20Mother%5Es%20Revealing%20Talks.htm

  8. Ma. Three Aspects of the Mother

    Individual, Universal, Transcendent

    I am or was under the impression that Mother is the Cosmic and Supracosmic Mahashakti.

    I don’t quite understand the question. I have explained in The Mother that there are three aspects, transcendent, universal and individual, of the Mother.

    31 May 1933

    As I see it, there are two Shaktis in the world: the Cosmic Shakti and the individual Shakti —our Mother. I believe it is difficult to remain in direct connection with the Cosmic Shakti, while the individual Shakti is always here before us. I would like to know more about these Shaktis.

    There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all three, but she is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here —it is so that you should regard her as the Divine Shakti working here for that purpose. She is that in the body, but in her whole consciousness she is also identified with all the other aspects of the Divine Force.

    16 June 1933

    The Universal Mother and the Individual Mother

    The universal and individual Mother are the same —these are two aspects of the Supreme Mother —but the differentiation is for the multiple action and play. So also one feels the self as one’s own self in an individual way but also that there is the same self

    Page – 50

    individualised in others and all are one.

    4 November 1934

    What people mean by the formless svarūpa of the Mother, —they mean usually her universal aspect. It is when she is experienced as a universal Existence and Power spread through the universe in which and by which all live. When one feels that Presence one begins to feel a universal peace, light, power, bliss without limits —that is her svarūpa. One meets this more often by rising in consciousness above the head where one is liberated from this limited body consciousness and feels oneself also as something wide, calm, one self with all beings —free from passion and disturbance in an eternal peace. But it can be felt through the heart also —then the heart too feels itself wide as the world, pure and blissful, filled with the Mother’s presence. There is also the Mother’s personal and individual presence in the heart which brings immediately love and bhakti and the sense of a close intimacy and personal oneness.

    9 June 1935

    The Mother’s Universal Action and Her Embodied Physical Action

    Being sincere to the Mother demands communication of all our secret thoughts. There should be no secrecy between the mother and the child. But apart from this, is there any other utility of confessions?

    There is the utility of the physical approach to the Mother —the approach of the embodied mind and vital to her embodied Power. In her universal action the Mother acts according to the law of things —in her embodied physical action is the opportunity of a constant Grace, —it is for that that the embodiment takes place.

    12 August 1933

    Is there any law of the working of the Mother’s Grace? Why does the Mother in her universal action act according to the law of things, but in her embodied physical by constant Grace?

    Page – 51

    It is the work of the Cosmic Power to maintain the cosmos and the law of the cosmos —transforming it by a slow evolution. The greater transformation comes from the Transcendent above the universe, and it is that transcendent Grace which the embodiment of the Mother is there to bring into action.

    13 August 1933

    Concentration on the Embodied Mother

    When calling down the Force, should I concentrate on the embodied Mother or open to and concentrate on the consciousness of the Universal Mother?

    The embodied Mother must be the foundation of the concentration —even when you receive from the universal Consciousness above you, it is from her consciousness that you are receiving.

    5 March 1934

    The Transcendental Mother and the Embodied Mother

    There are many Mothers in the cosmic and spiritual planes who help people in their search for the Divine. Above them, I have read, is the transcendental Mother and above her comes the supreme Mother. X and Y profess to have seen and spoken to the transcendental Mother in her embodied aspect. This is hard to believe.

    There are not many Mothers, there is One in many forms. The transcendental is only one aspect of the Mother. I don’t know what is meant by the embodied aspect of the transcendental Mother. There is the embodied aspect of the One Mother —what she manifests through it depends on herself.

    7 July 1936

    The Transcendent Mother and the Higher Hemisphere

    “At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal

    Page – 52

    Power.”1 The Transcendent Mother thus stands above the Ananda plane. There are then four steps of the Divine Shakti:

    (1) The Transcendent Mahashakti who stands above the Ananda plane and who bears the Supreme Divine in her eternal consciousness.

    (2) The Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Sat-Chit —Ananda where all beings live and move in an ineffable completeness.

    (3) The Supramental Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Supermind.

    (4) The Cosmic Mahashakti immanent in the lower hemisphere.

    Yes; that is all right. One speaks often however of all above the lower hemisphere as part of the transcendence. This is because the Supermind and Ananda are not manifested in our universe at present, but are planes above it. For us the higher hemisphere is पर [para], the Supreme Transcendence is परात्पर [paratpara]. The Sanskrit terms are here clearer than the English.

    27 January 1932

    X asked me the meaning of the term “transcendent”. He also asked if the Supermind is a world of transcendence. So far as I can see, the gradations of the upper hemisphere are, in a sense, the heights of transcendence, with the Mother at the summit.

    Yes.

    Is it here at the summit that the Mother is the Transcendent Mother and the Divine is the Transcendent Divine?

    Yes; but from the point of view of the present triple world of mind, life and body governed by the Overmind (Maya), the Supermind and the supramental Divine (all the upper hemisphere in fact) can be spoken of as Transcendent.

    27 January 1932

    1 Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 15.

    Page – 53

    The Eternal Mother

    X came to our house. I asked him, “First, one Mother must be born, then another Mother, then another Mother, is it not so? Who is the Mother who was first born before the others were born? How did She come to exist?” He said he did not know, but that Sri Aurobindo and Mother would know and can tell me. Therefore please reply so that I can know everything clearly.

    The first mother is the “Mother” —the eternal Mother; she always exists, she has no beginning or end.

    4 March 1933

    Page – 54

    source:Three Aspects of the Mother

    http://www.collectedworksofsriaurobindo.com/index.php/readbook/05-Three-Aspects-of-the-Mother-Vol-32-the-mother-with-letters-on-the-mother

  9. Ma.
    You say that this way is too difficult for you or the likes of you and it is only “Avatars” like myself or the Mother that can do it. That is a strange misconception; for it is, on the contrary, the easiest and simplest and most direct way and anyone can do it, if he makes his mind and vital quiet, even those who have a tenth of your capacity can do it. It is the other way of tension and strain and hard endeavour that is difficult and needs a great force of Tapasya. As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in the Ashram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer — a work such as, I am certain, none else had to do before us. For the Leader of the Way in a work like ours has not only to bring down and represent and embody the Divine, but to represent too the ascending element in humanity and to bear the burden of humanity to the full and experience, not in a mere play or Lila but in grim earnest, all the obstruction, difficulty, opposition, baffled and hampered and only slowly victorious labour which are possible on the Path. But it is not necessary nor tolerable that all that should be repeated over again to the full in the experience of others. It is because we have the complete experience that we can show a straighter and easier road to others — if they will only consent to take it. It is because of our experience won at a tremendous price that we can urge upon you and others, “Take the psychic attitude; follow the straight sunlit path, with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing you — if secretly, he will yet show himself in good time, — do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey.”
    p.463 (5-5-1932

    Q: The Overmind seems so distant from us, and your Himalayan austerity and grandeur takes my breath away, making my heart palpitate!
    A: O rubbish! I am austere and grand, grim and stern! every blasted thing I never was! I groan in an un-Aurobindian despair when I hear such things. What has happened to the common sense of all you people? In order to reach the Overmind it is not at all necessary to take leave of this simple but useful quality. Common sense by the way is not logic (which is the least commonsense-like thing in the world), it is simply looking at things as they are without inflation or deflation — not imagining wild imaginations — or for that matter despairing “I know not why” despairs.
    p.354-5 (23-2-1935)
    I had no urge toward spirituality in me, I developed spirituality. I was incapable of understanding metaphysics, I developed into a philosopher. I had no eye for painting — I developed it by Yoga. I transformed my nature from what it was to what it was not. I did it by a special manner, not by a miracle and I did it to show what could be done and how it could be done. I did not do it out of any personal necessity of my own or by a miracle without any process. I say that if it is not so, then my Yoga is useless and my life was a mistake — a mere absurd freak of Nature without meaning or consequence. You all seem to think it a great compliment to me to say that what I have done has no meaning for anybody except myself — it is the most damaging criticism on my work that could be made. I also did not do it by myself, if you mean by myself the Aurobindo that was. He did it by the help of Krishna and the Divine Shakti. I had help from human sources also.
    p.148-9 (13-2-1935)

    Source:

    SRI AUROBINDO ON HIMSELF

    http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/…/sriauro/on_himself.php
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