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CLAIRVOYANCE
Once Mother said to me: I saw you when Dikshit had come.
I remember.
C: But Mother, I did not come with Dikshit
at all; he came alone.
MOTHER: But I have seen you, I remember
very well !
Now, I have heard things like this so many
times; some I distinctly remember. Someone brings a
letter from his friend. While reading that letter she
sees that person. Or to tell you of another incident:
Once Sri Aurobindo said to Mother that Barin
was bringing a letter and he was on the staircase. Mother
told Sri Aurobindo that Barin was coming along with
another man.
What had happened was that Mother saw the
writer of the letter accompanying Barin, though only
his letter was in Barin's hand.
1 Dikshit had come in 1921, the same year
in which I came, but earlier.
You once asked me what were my first
impressions when I met
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Well,
it is difficult to describe. But I remember this: I
felt I was in the presence of Shiva when I saw Sri Aurobindo.
When. I saw the Mother, I felt an extraordinary closeness
to her and felt and saw in her an embodiment of Beauty.
Now after all these
years of stay with them the total impact on me is this:
To me Sri Aurobindo
Is a living example of complete surrender. The
Mother is a living example of perfect service to
the Lord.
KRISHNA
AND SRI AUROBINDO
When I came to stay here for good,
Mahesh came with me. Ostensibly we both came for the
same purpose. But I found a difference in Sri Aurobindo's
way of dealing with us. To me he was speaking and showing
practices of sadhana. But to Mahesh he was speaking
of worship and upasana of Krishna. Later I found
out that Mahesh had a strong attraction for Krishna
and his way was different from mine. One day, however,
when he expressed his difficulty in reconciling his
adoration of Krishna with his devotion to Sri Aurobindo,
Sri Aurobindo told him :
There is no difference
between me and Krishna.
I
JOIN THE EVENING TALKS
1923
When I asked Sri Aurobindo whether I could
join in the Evening Talks, he smiled happily and
said: Yes, but you see, there is no chair there. You
have permission to come.
As all were sitting on
chairs I too was expected to sit on a chair ! I did
not know what to do. But then I remembered that during
my first visit I had been introduced to a well-known
Chettiar and he had been pleased with me. I felt he
would be happy to do something for me. There was much
hesitation to go and ask but I had no alternative. I
wanted to attend the Talks, not indeed so much for the
talk as such as to be able to be there for some time
with Sri Aurobindo. My principle was not to ask for
anything from others. It was not a vrata taken
in a religious way but a principle observed as sincerely
as I could. However, in this case I set aside my vrata.
I went to the bungalow
of the Chettiar. There I learnt that the old gentleman
had died. His son came and received me with welcome.
I did not know how to speak in such a situation. But,
as usual, the Divine helped me. The gentleman himself
started speaking. He said he was happy to see me and
would be glad if he could do anything for me.
Hesitantly I said: I need
one chair if possible.
Readily he asked me to
follow him and took me to one of his halls where there
were rows of chairs. He asked me to choose and I chose
one. There were no ordinary chairs in that place. The
one that I had chosen was a nicely polished and cushioned
rose-wood chair.
Returning home I took
the chair straight to the verandah upstairs and put
it in the row. However, when the talk was to start in
the evening I did not sit on that chair. I went straight
to Sri Aurobindo's chair and sat on the floor in the
space between his chair and another to his left. The
space was just enough for one person to sit.
Sri Aurobindo looked aside
and smiled. All were surprised.
I myself was surprised
!
For I had not planned to sit there at all !
LIBRARY
HOUSE
When
I first came -it was in 1921 -Sri Aurobindo lived in
the Guest House. When I came for good in 1923, both
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were living in the Library
House. Sri Aurobindo used to see people upstairs in
the mornings in the verandah. At that time it was an
open verandah, the three sides of which were covered
with big curtains. The windows you see there now were
done much later. The hall where Mother distributed the
prosperity blessings was her store; on the other side
of it was her room (what was later to be my room). The
corner room was Sri Aurobindo's. The room at the entrance
case was Datta's.
The verandah had three doors, the middle
one being used as an entrance. The left-side door used
to be kept shut and Sri Aurobindo's chair was kept there
with a small table in front. Two chairs, one to the
left and one to the right of Sri Aurobindo's chair were
kept leaving sufficient distance between them and Sri
Aurobindo's.
There was a row of chairs across the small
table. As I said, he used to meet visitors in the mornings.
Some sadhaks were allowed to meditate there when he
was reading the newspaper. Amrita would come up with
the newspaper and also tell Sri Aurobindo which persons
were due to meet him that day. Then he would go down
and announce the order in which people had to come up.
After the interviews were over, the sadhaks permitted
would sit in meditation till Sri Aurobindo completed
reading the newspaper. Usually we were three or four
of us who meditated there: Tirupati, Rajangam, Kanai
and myself. All were sitting on chairs.
The shutters of both the side doors
were kept open. And, as I came to know later from Mother,
whenever she was in the store, she could see through
the shutters the persons passing to meet Sri Aurobindo.
That way she had watched me. And it appears she had
told Sri Aurobindo then itself: This boy will help me
in my work; he will be very useful. (That was long before
I took up work)
I may add she had said similarly of
Pavitra. Seeing him she had told Sri Aurobindo: He will
be very useful; he will do all my foreign correspondence.
(And that is exactly what turned out to be.)
Regarding the disposition of the rooms
downstairs: the room where there is now the Reception
Service was Moni's room. When Moni left, that room was
given to me. The Reception Hall was Nolini's room and
the present reading room was Amrita's. What is now Prithwi
Singh's office was Bijoy's. And Prithwi Singh's storeroom
under the staircase in the courtyard was Barin's.
When Sri Aurobindo came down to the
dining room to take food, he came down the Prosperity
stairs, passed through Nolini's room, Bijoy's room and
then entered the dining room which was where fruits
are being distributed now. It is specially interesting
to me that everybody receives fruits from the
very room where once Sri Aurobindo used to take his
food.
COWS
Cow
were being brought by the cowherds to the courtyard.
Mother would come down and herself receive the milk.
When Sri Aurobindo and Mother moved into
the Meditation House, Amrita's room was converted into
a Library and hence that house came to be called Library
House.
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