In 1956, André established the Sri Aurobindo Study Centre; this organization sent teaching materials, class textbooks and other objects to the Ashram School. However, this organization did not increase in size. Janine, in her letter to Nirodbaran, explained the reason: “In the statement approved by the Mother about the textbooks in the Centre of Studies, we read: ‘The role of the Centre is to serve as a link between the Ashram and the French people, etc.’ The link functions in such a manner that the Centre could never have more than a hundred members: as soon as that number was reached, some of them decided to settle permanently in Pondicherry…”

In the same letter, Janine writes about her father: “His concern was to extend all his efforts to the service of the Mother in France in order to realise the vast projects that she had conceived for this country. I know how attached he was to the Ashram, so much so that one day he asked the Mother (in 1955-60, probably) for permission to settle definitively in the Ashram. The Mother answered: “No such question! I need you in France.” If André has done anything for the Ashram, it is work more of a general nature which the Mother had assigned to him.” …    more »