In 1949, an opportunity arose for André to visit India and meet his mother after a gap of thirty-three years. “It was his first opportunity to arrange a business trip,” informs Janine, who also adds that before 1945, there were “no planes and vacations. It took at least three weeks to reach Colombo by ship. Such a long absence from work was out of question at that time.” And in that year only, André’s younger daughter Francoise alias Pournaprema got married. Champaklal noted in his diary on 12 August 1949: “Mother informed Sri Aurobindo while leaving his room: ‘My granddaughter is going to marry.’ ”

On 4 November the Mother informed Sri Aurobindo: “André is coming today from France. They want to arrange things in such a way that he can meet me as soon as he comes from Madras without waiting. I do not know where to see him; there is no place where I could see him alone. Generally, I arrange these things in Mona’s office at Golconde. I think I will see him there.

It is many years since we last met. Perhaps if we met on the road without being introduced to each other I would not know him, and he too would not recognise me. For many years have passed—he was eighteen when I left—and in all these years hardly twenty letters have been written. He reads your books and understands them too. He had sent his wife’s photo; she resembles me. André had also written to me that he resembles me very much. That is true.” ...   more »

At the age of eighteen, André joined the army in October 1916 as an artillery officer. Meanwhile the First World War had started (in 1914) and in March 1916, the Richards left for Japan where they arrived on 18th May. André met his mother in 1916 and the next time they were destined to meet was in 1949, i.e. thirty-three years later. He did receive letters from his mother (written from Japan) regularly but was compelled to destroy them due to the strict military rules.

Though André was separated from his mother due to the war, yet he always felt as if a force-field was protecting him. An inner contact continued to exist between the son and his mother due to which André escaped fatal accidents several times. He himself has admitted:” The continuous flow of “luck” was amazing.” Let’s quote two such instances of “luck” from his reminiscences. In May 1918, André had suffered an attack of flu along with others and was treated with heavy doses of aspirin. He and his colleagues recovered after forty-eight hours of high fever. However, they did not catch the ‘Spanish Flu’ which started towards the end of the war (and claimed the lives of twenty million people across the world—Sri Aurobindo’s wife Mrinalini Devi being one of them) for which aspirin was no longer a cure. “It seemed that we had been more or less vaccinated by the first attack of what was not yet called the Spanish Flu”, recollects André. The second instance of “luck”: on the night of 15 July 1918, the battery of 6# howitzer in which André was serving had to face severe gunfire from the enemy camp. “The way from the Command post to the battery was limited to a narrow footpath by rolls of barbed wire,” remembers André. While he was walking over there, he was caught in one of the rolls which were thrown on him following the explosion of a shell. Some more rolls fell on him as he was trying to extricate himself. Three months later, while he was at a distance of two hundred and fifty kilometers on the North-West of the site of 15 July, he found one of La Main de Massiges—the place where he and his fellow soldiers were present in July—and the location of their battery was shown as a target; however there was a mistake and the “ four guns being shown at both ends of the footpath” so that the spot where André was “pinned to the ground” was shown as the actual target.

The war ended in 1918 and André, as a reward for his bravery and contribution, received several titles of honour which included the Cross of the War 1914-1918 (which he received just after the War), the Cross of the Voluntary Fighters and Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (these were received after 1935) which is considered as the highest order conferred by the State. In December 1919, he joined Ecole Polytechnique and obtained the title of Ancien éléve de l’ecole polytechnique in August 1921, after which he joined Le Carbone-Lorraine (Le Carbone came to be known as Le Carbone-Lorraine when it merged with Le Lorraine probably in 1935); he was the director of a factory making batteries and other electrical materials for Le Carbone-Lorraine from 1926 to 1939. Later he joined the Industrial Company of Battery Cells and became the honorary President of the company. He was also associated with several foreign and international organizations and established himself very well in the elite society of Paris. On 10 September 1923, he married Wanda and was blessed with two daughters Janine (born on 7 November 1924) and Françoise (19 June1931-15 March 2008) who was better known as Pournaprema...   more »

The history of spirituality and the world preaches in great detail the lives, times and sayings of the Avatars. Their mission on earth is often discussed and the teachings left behind by Them for posterity are well preserved in order to transport the aspirants from Darkness to Light for the purpose of enlightening them. But while the spiritual family of the Avatar gains infinite reputation, yet, detailed information about His physical family is seldom documented and that too half-heartedly. The world seems to be least interested about them or the halo of the Avatar overshadows the existence of His children. And sometimes they prefer to remain anonymous, unsung; the cause being ambiguous. But we tend to forget that though the children of the Avatar may not necessarily inherit the spark of Divinity possessed by the Parent, but they were born through Him and that made them special as they too were blessed by the divine-touch of the Avatar in the form of their parent. In the garb of ordinary mortals, they work for the Avatar as His instrument, but the garb disallows others to peep into their inner true-self. Moreover, they allow themselves to be misled by their outer appearance only (the fact that appearance is always different from reality is understood by a few). Such has been the case of André Morisset, the Mother’s son...   more »

In the Evening Talks, Sri Aurobindo observes that one can determine the spiritual aptitude of a person from the "signs in the eyes and the face". In several places in the Gospel, Ramakrishna also makes notes of such signs. This is a compilation of some of these related those observations...   more »

The Indus Valley and its forerunner civilisations continue to cough up treasures of an ancient past. Some of these date as far back as the Stone Age (before 3,300 BC). The latest discovery in Lakhian Jo Daro near Sukkur has unveiled archaeological remains, utensils, faience paintings and mirrors that are believed to predate Moenjodaro, harking back to at least 5,500 years. The uncovering of the site comes after the discovery of similar remains at Mehrgarh which dates back to some 7,000 years. Sited in Balochistan, it was unearthed by French archaeologists in 1974. The treasure trail along the Indus and its tributaries stretches all the way up to Swat. Preliminary findings at Lakhian Jo Daro suggest that the discovery matches at least the remains found at Kot Diji that predates Moenjodaro—the most spectacular of Indus Valley sites excavated by John Marshall and Mortimer Wheeler, among others, in the 1930s. The finds make the Indus Valley civilisation rival those of Egypt and Mesopotamia...   more »

Here are presented just two images of Imam Maleki’s remarkable paintings: A Girl by the Window, and The Musicians. Not only are they living and full of life with a kind of magical appeal; there is the wonderful sense of beauty in their exquisite and cultured sublimated vitality, exuding sweetness and charm, aesthetically belonging to the high expression of the unimpeded streaming of the life-force. These may not touch the deeper layers of the inner being or climb up the ladder of the spiritual perceptions; nor are they simply realistic or imaginative—there is in them a colourful and vibrant element of creativity. Perhaps it is this which makes them enchanting and valuable even as they come in the age of highly mentalised or sophisticated forms of art.   more »

Three great Abbasid names, roughly during the period 750-850, that brought renown to the Muslim pride and triumph stand out distinctly: al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Mamun. Al-Mansur—“tall, slender, bearded, dark, austere, no slave to woman’s beauty, no friend of wine or song,”—was an excellent orator and administrator. His empire stretched from western China to northern Africa. The Caliph of the Arabian Nights, al-Harun—“a gay and cultured monarch, occasionally despotic and violent, often generous and humane”—brought wider cultural horizons that also included scientific works. And then al-Mamun—“though capable at times of the fury and cruelty that had disgraced Harun, was usually a man of mild and lenient temper”—set up an institute, the House of Wisdom, to promote learning and render into Arabic ancient manuscripts. Amongst translations from Greek writings one of the first was Ptolemy's astronomy founded on the geocentric system. Based on this foundation we have three centuries that mark the zenith of Islam’s golden age when there was an unrivalled intellectual activity in several fields such as science, mathematics, technology, art, literature including biography, history and linguistics. Along with these also prospered agriculture and trade…   more »

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Connected with the ancient Sankhya System is the all-encompassing aspect of physical transformation as envisioned by the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. If the present material formation given by it has the origin in the faculty of Samjnan, the comprehending consciousness, it also carries in it its seeds of incompleteness. But completeness can come only in the luminous dynamism of the Supermind or Vijnana and it is that they were busy with, to make it operatively a part of the great terrestrial evolution in the growing faculties of the Spirit. We have on the Mirror a few related postings and perhaps it is appropriate to bring them together to get an idea of the entire process as far as possible for us to figure out and grasp or realize. These might also suggest the direction in which we should move in this rich and rewarding field to make genuine progress in the Spirituality of the Future given to us by Sri Aurobindo.   more »

I’m compiling here excerpts of all the articles dealing with the Sankyha theory of material creation, articles posted during the last couple of weeks on the Mirror of Tomorrow. It is expected that a complete unified picture of the theme giving an overall view of the theory could be obtained from these presentations,—with the hope that they will be taken up for further studies in the context of the physical transformation aimed at by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, in their Yoga of Supramental Manifestation. The series had its earlier genesis in the author’s book entitled Narad’s Arrival at Madra published by the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry (2006). The book itself is based essentially on the extraordinary opening passage of 83 lines of the Book of Fate of Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri.

The present series on the Mirror discussing the ancient Sankyha theory began with the talk Sri Aurobindo had given early in 1926, on 8 May, just a few months before his retirement towards the end of that year. It was noted down by his French scientist-disciple Pavitra and can be accessed at talk recorded by Pavitra. Thanks to Pavitra, we have extremely valuable insights available from it about the process of materialisation before reaching the gross stage of formation. It is felt that an intuitive understanding and grasp of the several aspects connected with it might give a sense of direction to the connected researches and, perhaps more importantly, to a poised opportunity to enter into its occult-yogic dimensions, we possibly lending ourselves to it.   more »

There is a higher state in which the consciousness, though it still remains principally mental or partially mental in its functioning, is already open to higher regions in an aspiration for the spiritual life, and open to the supramental influence. As soon as this opening occurs, one passes beyond the state in which life is purely physical; I am speaking of a physical which is the summit of human capacities, of an earthly and material life in which man can express values of a higher order from the mental and intellectual point of view—one can go beyond that state, open oneself to the supramental force which is now acting on earth and enter a transitional zone where the two influences meet and interpenetrate, where the consciousness is still mental and intellectual in its functioning, but sufficiently imbued with the supramental strength and force to become the instrument of a higher truth. At present this state can be realised on earth by those who have prepared themselves to receive the supramental force which is manifesting. And in that state, in that state of consciousness, the body can benefit from a much better condition than the one it was in before. It can be put into direct contact with the essential truth of its being, to the extent that, spontaneously, at every moment it knows instinctively, or intuitively, what is to be done and that it can do it. Of course, there is a higher state than this, the state Sri Aurobindo speaks of as the ideal to be fulfilled: the divine life in a divine body. But he himself tells us that this will take time; it is an integral transformation which cannot be achieved in a moment. This is the ideal, the Mother continues, we must keep before us, for the realisation of which we must strive. And already one can not only foresee but feel the moment when the body will be able to repeat integrally the experience of the most spiritual part of the being…   more »

…In a preface, Heehs quotes L. Gordon's characterization of previous Aurobindo biographies as "hagiographies," that is, as attempts to "read back the holy man into the earlier stages of his career" (p. ix), and distinguishes these from his own intention to steer clear of glorification. And indeed in Part One he succeeds in chronicling Aurobindo's history—especially the important political events in which Aurobindo was involved—without much speculation about the yogi-to-be's inner life. But Aurobindo's education in London and at Cambridge University and his work for a Maharaja and as a professor along with his role in the Bengal political upheaval reads at such a fast pace—the entire story is told in less than seventy pages—that little room is left for psychological interpretation, whether adulating, "reductionist," or whatever. And few are likely to notice the absence of it, the story is so intrinsically interesting for anyone who loves tales of the Indian nationalist movement or of life during the British Raj, whatever the interest in Aurobindo. Such is not the case with Part Two. The division in Heehs's book may reflect a natural break in Aurobindo's life—roughly, the years prior to his taking up residence in French-ruled Pondicherry and those after—but this prompts a radical change in Heehs's writing. In his Pondicherry years, Aurobindo presents his biographer with no such curious and exciting events to sustain a narrative as in the years before. So Heehs in Part Two inaugurates "biography" of a highly unusual sort. Part Two is an interpretive venture that is less successful than the chronicle of Part One…   more »

Sri Aurobindo is giving all the process of rebuilding the Consciousness into the Unconscious. He calls the separation “the fall”: that is truly a fall of the Consciousness in the Unconscious. And now he describes how the message sent from the Supreme to repair the harm done wakens up again the Consciousness—as by a kind of imperative influence—to begin to climb up, back to the Supreme Consciousness.

This ascent is the evolution that will take so many thousands and thousands of years. But for a very long time it was not measured. It is only when Mind took the form in man, that time began to be measured. And, before that, who can know how long It took to wake up from the complete Unconsciousness? He is speaking of the starting-point of this evolution.

Savitri came to transform this world and make it fit to receive the Higher Light and Power. But in order to transform the world, one must come upon earth, accept it, and then accept at the same time its insincerity, its weakness, its incapacity to live this Higher Consciousness. That gives me the impression, a strong impression, of what has been for ages and centuries, but it is not the final destiny of the earth. Life is expected to transform itself in order to be able to express the divine things—the Divine Consciousness. And that is why She has come upon earth to prepare it.

That is the history of human life upon earth: each time that help has been sent to hasten the evolution, it has been received in that way. But each time the effort and the help are bigger, higher, truer; and each time a little work, some result, is achieved; and step by step, the world grows towards its Realisation. The whole story has been shown under a symbolic form, in a symbolic story, and it is that that Sri Aurobindo gives in Savitri…

It is this terrible story of the creation of earth and man as the means to save the world from suffering and destruction. The death of Satyavan becomes the symbol of the misery of the earth’s creation, of its fate and, through Savitri, of its liberation. She faces the doom in order to give the solution. The creation is plunged in misery, suffering and death. But it can and will be saved through Her intervention. …   more »

Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

He emerged from the metro at the l'enfant plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape...   more »

This is a real story. Playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people.

The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?   more »

In Savitri there is a striking phrase, “the sense-formed ear” given to us in the context of what Aswapati listens to in an unusual situation. His daughter Savitri has grown up into ripened maidenhood and it is his duty, his noble dharmic responsibility as the ancient custom would see, that without any delay he arrange for her marriage. But then he has a pretty serious problem also; no heroic or Aryan prince comes forward to claim her hand in marriage and such a situation causes him considerable worry. Savitri’s radiant personality puts them all off. However, Aswapati is a Yogi and can perceive subtle movements, can hear subtle sounds coming from cosmic fields…

But what does the sense-formed ear mean? If mind or Manas is the primary sense behind all the senses, it follows that the sense organs must have had their origin somewhere there in it: it is the sight that produces the eye, it is the sound that develops the ear and not the other way round, and behind sight and sound is the mind sense. Occult-spiritually, such indeed is the truer deeper mechanism by which our faculties get formed. There is an action of the sense-mind, explains Sri Aurobindo in his commentary on the Kena Upanishad, which is superior to the particular action of the senses and is aware of things even without imaging them in forms of sight, sound, contact, but which also as a subordinate operation does image itself in these forms. Sight and the other senses are not mere results of the development of our physical organs in the terrestrial evolution. Mind, subconscious in all Matter and evolving in Matter, has developed these physical organs in order to apply its inherent capacities such as sight or hearing on the physical plane by physical means for a physical life; but they are inherent capacities and not dependent on the circumstance of terrestrial evolution and they can be employed without the use of the physical eye, ear, skin, palate. It is an action of the functioning of the Sanjnana, the essential sense which in itself can operate without bodily organs. This sense is the original capacity of consciousness to feel in itself all that consciousness has formed and to feel it in all the essential properties and operations of that which has form, whether represented materially by vibration of sound or images of light or any other physical symbol. It is at the root of the presence of our cognitive faculties which also, drawing from the material world, provides the cognitive instruments. Thus the ear becomes a product of this double action; the other organs also ditto; when we recognise this sense behind the senses to be the pre-eminent cause, the originator of our physical faculties, we essentially get the sense-formed ear…   more »

When all over the world there was a growing eagerness to know more and more about Sri Aurobindo and the interest in his work was on the increase, he suddenly disappeared from the earth-scene. Superficially, this is a terrible irony of fate. But a study of his life suggests that more than once the utterly unexpected occurred as if by a choice on his own part. One may say that such an occurrence is almost a regular feature at each decisive turn of the upward spiral of his life. We see the rising curve bending down of a sudden when he threw away the ICS career after a brilliant success and retired into an unpretentious State job in Baroda. There his sun was again in the ascendant, but as soon as he had captured the vision and admiration of the people, he left that peak of eminence. The sun then passed under a cloud; it worked behind the veil till it burst upon the political horizon with a dazzling lustre and when everybody's eyes were filled with wonder and delight, the light hid itself in the shadows of the prison cell where he had one of the sovereign spiritual experiences of his life. When he came out of the prison, his tremendous sacrifice and wise guidance awakened the nation and it waited at his door with the offer of All-India leadership.

Again he disappeared one night and passed into oblivion for a large number of years in Pondicherry's unknown retreat. As if this was not enough, he entered into a greater oblivion when in 1926, after having achieved what we may call the first supreme victory in his sadhana, he, instead of hoisting the banner of the glory of the Spirit on the world's summit, withdrew himself for an indefinite period, to the utter surprise and disappointment of his close followers. Now at last has come as a logical conclusion the greatest oblivion in a most staggering manner and the shock had the intensity of a violent explosion. Always he has avoided the limelight and all his great achievements have been prepared in the secret silence of his retirement, and with each emergence he has brought down a greater light; a higher range of illumination and a vaster kingdom of knowledge and power.

But why has he chosen to withdraw through the last painful gate of human existence when, like other Yogis, he could have discarded the mortal sheath by an act of will and for what purpose? For Sri Aurobindo to do anything without a purpose and ultimate advantage is in the last degree inconceivable. If he gave in at times to what he called the Adversary, that was because, to quote his own words, "retreat" (palâyanam) suited his purpose. One who had mastered the secrets of Life and the Spirit by his tremendous sadhana, who had been acclaimed as the Yogeshwara by those who had attained to the height of the Spirit, to him death could be neither a terror nor a mystery nor an inevitable necessity. Paying the full price of suffering he would pass through the "exit" of the common man, only if he felt that otherwise his life, his own Yoga would lack completeness and that to bear the human destiny on his God-like shoulders he must face, in its own den as it were, the dark Power that rules over this destiny and somehow wrest from it all its secrets. He would embrace the dire extremity not unless he found it to be the one way to emerge finally victorious and say, "0 human race, from the citadel of the dark King I have issued forth and brought what promised to you, the golden seed of Immortality."

This supreme sacrifice whose total significance will remain ungrasped by our limited intelligence, he accepted, as the Mother has said in unmistakable terms, for us alone. ...   more »

And there are “the conditions of Light and Truth, the sole conditions under which the highest will descend; and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties… There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature. The surrender must be total and seize all parts of the being. It is not enough that psychic should respond and higher mental aspect or even the inner vital submit and the physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be no part in the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses.”...   more »

During the Upanishadic period six seekers of the Knowledge of the Brahman, the Eternal, approach Rishi Pippalada with due respect having done several years of tapasya. The Rishi tells them to dwell in holiness and faith and askesis for another year. Then Bhargava, hailing from Vidarbha, asks him: “Lord, how many Gods maintain this creature, and how many illumine it, and which of these again is the mightiest?” The Rishi answers: “These are the Gods, even Ether and Wind and Fire and Water and Earth and Speech and Mind and Sight and Hearing. These nine illumine the creature: therefore they vaunted themselves, ‘We, even we support this harp of God and we are the preservers.’ Then Breath answered, their mightiest: ‘Yield not unto delusion: I dividing myself into this fivefold support this harp of God, I am its preserver.’ ” The presence of Prāņa behind the five elements, indeed they coming from it, is what makes possible this harp of God, this instrument, to play the earthly song of manifestation. But Speech and Mind and Hearing and Sight, and the organs of cognition, come from Manas, the sense-mind, the essential sense behind them, behind the other five senses.

The material universe we inhabit is formed from these five elemental states of Matter, the ādhibhautic constituents. In it move the powers of Mind and Life, the ādhidaivic Gods. But far beyond them are the ādhyātmic or spiritual powers. Yet beyond them, beyond Indra and Vāyu and Agni, there is the Consciousness-Force that gives rise to them all. …   more »

In the late forties we began to notice a change coming over Sri Aurobindo. He was becoming more and more silent, aloof, as if deeply preoccupied with some problem and the talks were less and less frequent till they ceased almost completely. Many were the days when we hardly exchanged a word. We were attending on a god who had suddenly become aware of his true identity and would now escape from his human bondage. The contrast between the past years of abundance and the present years of famine was so striking that our minds were rife with all sorts of speculations as to the reason of this ominous silence. Was it a terrestrial problem or a supraterrestrial one? Could there have been any possible dereliction of duty on our part? Was it due to the increasing symptoms of the disease that had now lodged in his body? As regards terrestrial affairs, the War had come to a successful completion, India had gained her freedom, for both of which he had worked incessantly. The supraphysical was out of our ken; so we could lay our finger only on the physical world. But that would be a very tenuous ground indeed on which to build our conjecture, for Sri Aurobindo certainly was the last Person to be perturbed by mere physical troubles, however serious they might be. Besides, he had cured this disease when it appeared the first time. Surely he could do it again, if that was the real issue! What ailed him then? Or was the disease more serious?

Let us go back to the origin of his illness and follow the sequence of events that ended with his leaving the physical sheath and were apparently its cause and try to discover the truth behind the appearance. One day we came to notice that Sri Aurobindo's urination had increased in frequency. He wanted to know the reason.…   more »