I hear the primal phonon’s hum deep in the superconscient womb:
Outcurving into the region of Sound I chant the glory of the Name,
Incurving I am the Silence poised on wings of eternal seeing;
I’ve become a Bird of Fire zooming on breath of my own Shadow.

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She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

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Another very common tendency, which also reflects the desire to impress rather than inform with clarity, is the use of some key words which sound as if they have a deep meaning even when they do not. “Logistics” is a good example of this. So is “solutions”. We passed a commercial van a few days ago displaying the words “Manual solutions”, and my wife and I wondered what on earth that could mean. We felt that it ought to mean “hands”—but I suspect that this was not the intention.

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My dream is spoken
As if by sound
Were tremulously broken
Some vow profound.

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There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.—Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

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Mother, as you have promised me, envelope me with your presence, raise and purify me with your touch.

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Oh the burning secret, like a fire breaking through seven sheaths of trance,
The sight-fused Word as though the seven brides clasped a strange lover!
Together we adore the great child birthing in the womb of the Occult,
Together we chant the loud Hymn of Assertion to the seven mothers.

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And the heavy day, like a ball of silver, sinks in huge bowl of the sky,
And the wings are buried, as if in a glacier calm of the unflown flights,
And the phantom-worlds of Gandharva-kings swirl and gleam in vain.
So not through the silken trellis-lines would hopes of loveliness bloom,
And not under the storm-burdened trees the rainsome peacocks dance;
But a magic heart in the Symbolist’s noon of a happy gathered mood
Shall in the Body of Truth capture with its smile all-beauty’s Delight.

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Here is an anecdote for you. One Xmas evening, I was sitting by Amal Kiran. He asked me whether I had received walnuts and, on hearing me confirm it, he proposed to teach me how to crack them without nut-crackers.

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There is no island sans girdle of roar of the loud civilisation,
No wayside shrub, no tall lonely palm, silvery gull on the beach,
No skilled rhyme responding from across mortality’s worlds;
But only in vacuity of vision bloom roses of the thoriated eye
And the song is stuck like a wheelless star in grooves of the night.

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The big difficulty, in Matter, is that the material consciousness, that is to say, the mind in Matter, was formed under the pressure of difficulties—difficulties, obstacles, suffering, struggle. It was, so to speak, "worked out" by those things, and that gave it an imprint almost of pessimism and defeatism, which is certainly the greatest obstacle. This is the thing I am conscious of in my own work. The most material consciousness, the most material mind, is in the habit of having to be whipped into acting, into making effort and moving forward, otherwise it's tames. So then, if it imagines, it always imagines the difficulty—always the obstacle, always the opposition, always the difficulty ... and that slows down the movement terribly. So it needs very concrete, very tangible and VERY REPEATED experiences to be convinced that behind all its difficulties, there is a Grace; behind all its failures, there is the Victory; behind all its pain and suffering and contradictions, there is Ananda. Of all the efforts, this is the one that has to be repeated most often: you are constantly forced to stop, put an end to, drive away, convert a pessimism, a doubt or a totally defeatist imagination. I am speaking exclusively of the material consciousness.

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Some of the Indian contributions in arithmetic, basic algebra and trigonometry were transmitted by the Arabs and Persians to Europe, though most results in algebra and calculus were too advanced for contemporary civilisations. It is through the blending of the two great mathematical cultures—the geometric and axiomatic tradition of the Greeks and the algebraic and computational tradition of the Indians—that the mathematical renaissance took place in Europe. However, Indians virtually took no part in the rapid development of mathematics that took place during 17-19th century. This period coincided with the general stagnation in the national life. But, as Sri Aurobindo remarks, ''Indian civilisation must be judged mainly by the culture and greatness of its millenniums, not by the ignorance and weakness of a few centuries.''

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Look, woman, in the West. There wilt thou see
An amber cradle near the sun's decline:
Within it, featured even in death divine,
Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee.

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To quote Winston Churchill (without at all making any even vague comparison) “I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter”. The weekly writing has been a long and rewarding haul, and the column can record a few incidents where it has made a difference. I must also thank all those readers who have responded, generally favourably and with common sense.

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Sri Aurobindo had to write these important letters in an absurdly ill-provided situation. He used any scrap of paper he could make available, writing closely on both sides. Now, for more than half a century, the ravages of time have impaired their textural quality, colour, and legibility. They are brittle, some have crumbled in parts or extensively. We have had a formidable task in deciphering them. No pains have been spared in this toil, yet a few gaps remain—to the readers' guess, …

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There is now a new road laid out as if all light turned into substance,
And swift the swallows fly like names reaching the azure of names,
And copper-pod trees blossom with fragrant songs on green boughs.
In a hush, ardent like prayer and heavenly vast as in the spiritual noon,
Om the Lord of Creation descends again, wearing the form of Sound.

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They asked: What is this fire that went to the ether when it rained?
It is the fire that burns in the seeds and in the roots of things.
They asked: What is this fire founded in the speed of the Wind?
It is the fire that consumes food in the belly of the universe.
They asked: What is this fire that dwells in the Inconscience?
Of Man and Woman this fire is the unborn son nourished by Death.

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Sri Aurobindo once said to me that he doubted if there was in the past any figure embodying so great a Yogic power. He added that he had done ten years’ Yoga by one’s contact with her. The Yogic Power of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo opened wide the doors of the unostentatious Ashram, so long in the grip of want and difficulty, to the steady inflow of sufficiency and prosperity. Spontaneous offerings came from disciples and admirers. The most ordinary men found in themselves an outflowering of the poetic power, a wonderful talent for painting, a capacity for meditation, occult vision and skillfulness in work. Day by day the Pondicherry Ashram grew into a Yogic place of pilgrimage for the entire world. An aspirant had a vision: the Mother and Sri Aurobindo were inside a golden tabernacle on the top of a luminous hill, and men from different climes from all directions thronged to the place in endless streams. To-day his vision has materialised.

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One cannot imagine—one cannot imagine what a grace it is to have someone in whose hands you can place yourself entirely! By whom you can let yourself be guided without having the need to seek. I had that, I was very, very conscious of it as long as Sri Aurobindo was there. And when he left his body, it was a dreadful collapse.... One cannot imagine. Someone you can refer to with the certainty that what he says will be the truth. There's no path, the path has to be blazed out!

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Behind all the destructions—the big destructions of Nature—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, floods, etc., or the human destructions—wars, revolutions, riots—there is always Kali's power and upon earth Kali works for the hastening of the terrestrial progress.

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