Some recollections of a person who attended upon Minakshi-Amma
A STREAM OF SURRENDER
MINAKSHI-AMMA (1899 – 1993)
NOTE: In December 1985, when Brajkishoreda took up full charge of his re-located boarding, he suggested Bharatiben try me out as a replacement for his night-duty work at Amma’s. But for his trust and the benevolence of Bharatiben, Ichchafoi, & Shantaben (respectively, calm, silent, & bracing), I would have lost a God-sent accelerated course in self-development — to them all my eternal gratitude. As the ageless Poet put it, "men live like stars that see each other in heaven"; one ‘sees’ the others across the mists and dusts of light-years, ‘knows’ even the ‘closest’ only through one’s ego-prisms; forgive therefore, if….
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Born on 20th of December 1899 at Tiruchengodu to Venkatarama Iyer, a devout Shaivite, Amma was named after Sri Minakshi Sundereswarar of Madurai, an incarnation of Shiva’s Consort. Her father, she once told me, disliked public observances of worship and, if chided, would say, "He is my Father! However long I tarry on the path, His gates will never be closed to me."
By the time she was ten, Amma took every opportunity to go up to the temple of Shiva perched on a hillock near her house. "In my childhood," she told me on 23rd January 1987, "although I never saw an elder in my family dying, I saw many children in the neighbourhood dying; one of them, a younger brother of a close friend. Later, during another severe epidemic,[1] my father had to pack our belongings into bullock carts, and we joined other families leaving the town. Every time I saw or heard of a child being seriously ill, I prayed fervently to God, asking Him to cure the child as it would make everybody, especially the child’s family, happy; but the children died. Naturally, after some time I forgot the shock and the pain, but I never stopped wondering why God so often lets children die and the old linger on. Perhaps that is why I had to see so many of my own family die before me."
The psychic life in a child, Mother says, is one of unquestioning trust, total dependence and unreserved surrender; it is the path always preferable in yoga, but it is not so easy for it has to be taken spontaneously, in all sincerity.[2] When the consciousness awakens, one begins to ask, "But then, why is one born? Why does one die? Why does one suffer? Why does one act?" None of these things seem to have a meaning or a purpose. Then, one suddenly feels that "this uneasiness one feels within oneself, this lack of satisfaction, this need, this thirst for something must lead us somewhere else".[3] "Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward,"[4] the silent thirst of Amma’s soul fused with the thirsts of the other souls of the same Family,[5] and their collective call merged in Mother’s prayer of 15 February 1914:
O Thou, Sole Reality, Light of our light and Life of our life, Love supreme, Saviour of the world, grant that more and more I may be perfectly awakened to the awareness of Thy constant presence…. Give me the peace of perfect disinterestedness, the peace that makes Thy presence felt and Thy intervention effective, the peace that is ever victorious over all bad will and every obscurity….
Amma was acquainted with this prayer before her first darshan of Mother and Sri Aurobindo in August 1926, as her husband, Doraiswamy Iyer, was a disciple and knew this was Mother’s favourite prayer.[6] Again, on 4th June 1928, two days before Amma joined the Ashram, Kapali Sastriar, a relative and friend, then staying in their house in Madras, received a copy of Mother’s prayers.[7] His note on this prayer could thus paraphrased thus: "By ‘Sole Reality’, ‘Love supreme’, ‘Absolute Consciousness’ is meant the Divine Mother who will save the world by bringing it back to its original purity and power and light and life, by a fuller manifestation for which it is being moulded through suffering and darkness. For this consummation to be possible there must be a readiness in the physical consciousness to open to the influence of the psychic being, the inner soul."[8]
Soon after joining the Ashram, she took up embroidery — an excellent means of concentration and sadhana. "Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few," we read in Sri Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga, "if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind."[9] One of the silk sarees she embroidered and offered to the Mother, had a stream of the flower Divine’s love. A life-size photograph of the Mother wearing it on 25th October 1954 (Kali Puja day), stands in the ground floor Meditation Hall.[10] Amma also embroidered sarees with the flowers Grace and Realisation.
Long before I met Amma, glaucoma had debarred her from embroidery and a weak heart from physical exertion. The question "What use was her living to Mother’s work?" nagged so much, she could not fully accept what we who came to know her only recently maintained, that she exemplified the peace that faith and surrender can make grow in us; for one, the seed-drops of Shiva’s Peace that entered her in her childhood had grown tangible enough when we saw her in meditation. And in her last fortnight, as she lay in trance-like stillness, she seemed suffused with the crowning lines of that prayer of 15th February 1914: "In the perfect silence of my contemplation all widens to infinity, and in the perfect peace of that silence Thou appearest in the resplendent glory of Thy Light."
In 1912, Amma was married to Sayanapuram Doraiswamy Iyer, who but for his promise to his mother on her death-bed, would not have married. Having lost an earlier child, his mother used to pray daily at the Kaalahasthi temple[11] for three boons to her forthcoming child: longevity, an illustrious career, bhakti. One day, after her pradakshina of the temple, she fainted and on coming round found the prasaadam of coconut, betel leaves and fruit placed near her, symbolising His assurance.
Doraiswamy-Appa was born on 2nd January 1882. A multifaceted personality, his life grew into an opulent tapestry of signal achievements in many fields. The first facets were religion and classical music. His father, Vaidyanatha Iyer, was in the administrative service of the Raja of Kaalahasti. After his death, the family left Sayanapuram and came to Madras, where the children grew up under the benign influence of their maternal grandfather, the great Veenai Kuppu Aiyer and his son Thiruvottiyur Thyaga Aiyer, both deeply religious personalities and masters of Carnatic music in the tradition of Sambamoorthy Sastri. Kuppu Aiyer’s guru Saint Thyagaraj of Thiruvaiyaru, once visited them and sang his famous kriti "Sri Venuganalola ne" in raga Kedaragowla. Twice a year Kuppu Aiyar held ten-day music festivals where famous artistes including his disciples Coimbatore Thai and Veena Dhanam performed and the whole neighbourhood attended. The family worshipped regularly at the Thiruvottiyur Amman temple and later became devoted to Ramana Maharshi.
A stronger facet of Appa’s personality burgeoned in 1904. Still a student at Law College, he became a disciple of Kavyakantha[12] Ganapati Muni – "Nayana" (the word means ‘Father’ in Telegu) to his disciples, – who fired him and his friends with his discourses on the greatness and depth of our Vedic heritage and the need to recover them to regain the vitality and courage of true manhood. By then Subramania Bharathi had moved into a house on the same street. He composed many of his songs in Appa’s house. With V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, Chakkarai Chettiar, Jayarama Naidu, Raghunatha Rao and several teachers, lawyers and writers, they formed the first group of nationalist Tamils. Appa and the Mandayam brothers, Tirumalachari and Srinivasachari, contributed generously in starting Pillai’s Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company and in launching Tirumalachari’s weekly India. Inspired by reports of revolutionary movements in Punjab and Bengal, Nayana’s student-followers at Madras, Vellore and Chittoor, persuaded him to form an association. He gave them the Mantra Umaam Vandemataram, as a source of their power, and the next year wrote Uma Sahasram — a thousand hymns in praise of the Divine Mother, embodying the quintessence of all Her aspects and invoking Her grace for the freedom of the Motherland. Soon thereafter Appa led a small group to Surat.[13] In August 1908, Bharatiar and his friends moved to Pondicherry.[14]
Appa first visited Sri Aurobindo here, Amma said, in 1911. Sri Aurobindo discouraged him from throwing himself wholly into the freedom struggle. Later, when Appa wanted to join Gandhi’s movement, he repeated the same advice stressing, "The Motherland does not need either my own or your services. She is destined to achieve freedom any way and very soon." At the same time, he was against Appa giving up everything for solitary sadhana, and advised him to continue in his profession as the basis from which to contribute to all fields of his activities.
While Appa’s was thus a multifaceted personality with signal achievements, the plain simplicity of Amma’s life and personality had throughout veiled her true attainments. While Sri Aurobindo discerned in him amshas (portions or elements) of François I, Chandragupta, and Janaka, the greatest kings in history[15], the Mother saw in her the advanced soul of a Rishi’s wife. As if marriage had not dazed her enough, a familial misunderstanding ensured she never saw her parental home again. Thus, from that early age, adversity and suffering dogged her footsteps.
When Amma entered Appa’s family, it comprised his elder sister Thayathayye, with her daughter Nagammal and son-in-law Ramaswami with their daughters Ramani and Lalitha, his elder brothers Kumaraswamy and his wife (a sister of T.V. Kapali Shastriar) with their children Tripura and Mani, and Chinnaswamy and his wife Mangalammal with their son Nagaswami (Swami), and his sister Rukmini (a posthumous child, widowed at an early age) and her child. Soon afterwards, Mangalammal took Amma under her wing and their love grew ever deeper and deeper. And, in the sixteen years she spent in that family, Amma grew quite attached to Swami, Ramani and Lalitha.
In April-May1917, Nayana and his family stayed for a few days with Appa’s family. Appa had by then set up his legal practice. That was perhaps the first time Amma met Nayana. He initiated her in his Renuka stotram, which she thereafter repeated every morning along with Guru-stotram.[16] The next time he came to their house, in 1922, he stayed for two months.
The ideal of womanhood was then still exemplified by Tara, Savitri, Ahalya, Mandodari, Sita, Kunti, Draupadi — married women solemnly worshipped these seven Satees every morning. (No wonder then, that Amma could never understand the "love" which now forms the criteria par excellence of our pre-marital, marital and extra-marital relationships.) Among the stories of the family’s womenfolk Amma recounted, one is unforgettable. This lady had attained a high spiritual consciousness even while fulfilling every obligation and duty enjoined upon a householder. One winter day, she was so ill that the doctor told her daughter she had not more than a few hours left. As was the custom, the family carried her cot into the courtyard outside. The poor woman pleaded with them: "Please do not do this. My body is old and weak and I cannot bear this cold. I assure you, I am not going to die now. When the time comes, I will tell you and you can take me into the courtyard." When the day arrived, she told her daughter that she would be leaving her body that evening, so she should feed the children and finish the household chores. Later, giving each one her last advice, she asked to be carried outside, insisting that they must observe a peaceful silence and not grieve. When she saw the end approaching, she said: "Death has started from the feet; now it has entered the legs.…" Until the end, she remained fully conscious.
In June 1990, while most mildly reminding me of how my morning and evening meditations had stopped, Amma told me that Appa’s eldest sister, Thayathayye had for years meditated most regularly, and in the end realised her Guru Ramana Maharshi’s presence in her heart. Very recently, I came across an account of Thayathayye’s passing written by her grandson, R. Ganapati:
Every Saturday Appa used to drive down to Tiruvannamalai, stay in the Ashramam doing service to Maharishi and return on Sunday night. One Saturday, Thayathayye, who had been ailing for a long time and slowly sinking, had a premonition and felt she would not last long. She asked him not make the trip that weekend, but he said, "You are O.K., Thayye, nothing will happen to you," and left. That evening at the Ashramam, Bhagawan chided him, "What are you doing here when your sister has breathed her last and her soul has already reached here!"[17]
These and other instances of spiritual attainments that Amma came to know strengthened her belief that if one attains Moksha it helps seven generations of ancestors and seven generations of descendants. And yet, she never sought to convert anyone even in her own family to the Yoga she herself so diligently practised. For, as I found out while discussing this point in connection with her favourite great-grandchild, she knew too well that the genuine turning to the Divine is one that comes from within oneself.
Twice Appa took Amma to Swami Chandrashekhara Saraswati, the Paramacharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. These darshans left a deep enough imprint on her, for her to describe them to me after so many years.
The most unusual yogi she met was Kullaswami. A native of Pondicherry, he preferred to wander about all over Tamilnadu, never staying in one place for any length of time. He was quite well-known to Appa and his nationalist friends, especially Bharati. The most memorable story Amma heard about him concerns Sri Aurobindo, then living in the house now called Guest House, at 43, rue François Martin. Kullaswami once performed this intriguing anushtan. He would stand for an indefinite time outside Guest House then walk off to Tiruvannamalai, to stand outside Bhagawan’s place for a similarly indeterminate time, then return to his station outside Guest House — no one knows why, or for how many days, he continued this! One day he went into Guest House, rushed upstairs onto the verandah where Sri Aurobindo was sitting. Without a word, he picked up an empty tumbler on the desk in front of Sri Aurobindo, turned it upside down, put it back, and rushed out. The young inmates present burst out laughing. Later, Sri Aurobindo explained to them the significance of the incident: "Since some time my sadhana had stopped; he came to tell me to throw out the old, so that the new could come in."
One day Appa came upon an unkempt Kullaswami roaming in the streets of Madras and he brought him home. They bathed, clothed, and fed him and insisted he stay with them for some days. When, during one of their conversations, Appa asked how he could move around in such a state, the Swami shot back, "If this embarrasses you, what do you think of millions of your ‘normal’ people moving around perfectly unconcerned with the dirt in their minds and hearts?" During another conversation he warned Appa against letting anger get the better of him, because "Once you express it, it becomes an arrow loosed forth and the consequences will prove harmful to you."
After taking his law degree, Appa worked with S. Srinivasa Iyengar (later Advocate-General), and later under Sir P.S. Sivaswami Iyer. According to Sri Aurobindo, although, he began practice (around 1916-17) with only Rs.15-30 a month, his inborn gifts, his many-sidedness, uprightness, straightforwardness, nobility of character, helped him build an exceedingly successful practice. "He was never known to mislead the judge or overstate his client’s case or understate that of his opponent," writes his ‘junior’ Rama Iyengar. "So much so, it became a regular practice for the presiding judge to ask the court stenographer to take down his opening address, and to reproduce it later verbatim, in the initial paragraphs of the judgement." His ethical and professional standards won the esteem of judges to the extent that he was exempted from having to stand up when the judge entered.
He was equally highly respected for the help he rendered to the needy who came to him. Amma recounted this striking instance: "One night an armed mob on rampage, rushed into our street. Their terrible shrieks and the lights their torches cast on the houses in the street frightened us. But when they were nearing we heard their leaders shouting, ‘The next house is Ayya’s. Let no one touch that property!’"
In the mid-twenties Appa purchased ‘Palm Grove’ to help a lawyer friend in dire straits. The building was located in a 3-acre estate, on Royapettah High Road, about twenty minutes walking distance from the Kapaaliswarar Temple in Mylapore. (Presently it houses the Kesari High School.) Rama Iyengar notes that Appa used to organise chamber concerts of maestros like Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Aiyangar, Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu, Veenai Dhanam and others, where all interested were welcome. He had a great attachment to Veenai Dhanam who taught him to play the instrument proficiently.
Appa was a reliable source of financial support to Mother’s work and his house was perhaps the first ‘centre’ open to all disciples of Sri Aurobindo. The responsibilities the Mother charged him with could be commonplace, such as procuring some minor articles required by the Ashram Stores, or taking up a work of great importance. For instance, in June 1923, when C.R. Das was in Madras, after a visit to Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo sent word to Appa to meet Das. In his letter of introduction he referred to him as one in whom he had "implicit trust".[18] Then, soon after the August Darshan of that year, Appa was given another responsibility. While Punamchand and Bejoy were walking on the seashore, B’s walking stick had accidentally hit P’s knee, and the wound had become septic. Doctor Upendrababu, who diagnosed the wound as necrosis (bone decay), wanted it operated at the earliest. Sri Aurobindo asked Appa to get the operation done at ‘Palm Grove’. Rajangam, Purani and Champaklal accompanied Punamchand. The surgeon, Dr. Rangachari, came in his Rolls Royce to Palm Grove where everything was set up for the operation.
In 1927, Sri Aurobindo called Appa to witness the signing of the documents for the purchase of Meditation House — the most important of the four houses forming the main building of the Ashram. The signing took place in the room where Mother and Sri Aurobindo used to meditate.[19] Later Appa told a fellow sadhak that he had found Sri Aurobindo’s body "very tender and much fairer than before". Afterwards, Mother reserved a room for Appa inside the Ashram premises and made him one of the twenty-four sadhaks she met in the Stores in Library House. In one of the last meetings there, she cut out some prayers and meditations from her diaries and gave them to the participants; to Appa she gave her meditation of 28th December 1928:
There is a Power that no ruler can command; there is a Happiness that no earthly success can bring; there is a Light that no wisdom can possess; there is a Knowledge that no philosophy and no science can master; there is a Bliss of which no satisfaction of desire can give the enjoyment; there is a thirst for Love that no human relation can appease; there is a Peace that one finds nowhere, not even in death. It is the Power, the Happiness, the Light, the Knowledge, the Bliss, the Love, the Peace that flow from the Divine Grace.
Such was Mother’s trust in Appa’s judgment that she permitted him to bring for Darshan any newcomer he felt was worthy of it. Thus for 15th August 1926, he brought his client-turned-friend Shree Rama Reddy[20], the highly cultured zamindar of Nellore.
That Darshan was also the first time Amma came for Darshan. Then, on 6th June 1928, she joined the Ashram as finally and fully as, sixteen years before, she had joined Appa’s family. She had brought her fifth child, Skanda, because he was still an infant. Her sister-in-law Rukmini, who first met Mother on 10th March 1927, had become an Ashramite on 24th March 1928.[21] When Rukmini first met Mother, she had laid her head in her lap and gone into a deep trance. Referring to that, Mother had told Appa, "Her devotion is like mine."
Mangalammal not only accompanied Amma here but stayed on until she was well settled. Back at Madras, she took charge of Amma’s children. Thereafter, she came down regularly, generally during Darshan time.[22] "Mangalammal was a wonderful person," says Kowma (Amma’s eldest child), "I was only 13 or 14, Mithran 11 or 12, Thyaga 9 or 10, and Anu 7 or 8 years old. She took Thyaga and Anu to Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh, put them in school and looked after them till they finished S.S.L.C. She gave us much love…! All my school holidays I spent with her and uncle in Kurnool."
Among the main features of Ashram life, when Amma took it up, was the soup ceremony. Sadhaks and sadhikas would assemble in the Reception Room in the evening for a collective meditation with the Mother during which she would keep her hands over a cauldron of soup. Thereafter, each one would go to the Mother with his cup into which she would pour some soup. In this way, writes K.D. Sethna, Mother gave to each participant "her own luminous subtle-physical substance and energy — a most concrete transference of spirituality into the physical stuff".
In Madras, while Amma had never shirked her duties, she felt more attuned when attending a spiritual discourse. That and her long-standing childhood aspiration to see the end of Death and Suffering made it instinctive for her to accept the conviction then prevalent among Ashram inmates. "There was an unshakable faith in us in those days that not only will Sri Aurobindo and the Mother never die, those of us who succeed in surrendering ourselves to them entirely would be under their protection and also not die. Now, I cannot believe how that faith had entered in us. People in Madras used to laugh at me when I said such things. ‘Has anyone ever become immortal? Don’t you know the story of Trishanku who tried and is neither in heaven nor on earth?’ But, you know, nothing they said could shake my faith. But then, most unexpectedly, Skanda died. It was the first death in the Ashram. What a shock it was! Mother patted me for a long time when she came to console me. Soon afterwards, a sadhika died and people began to lose their faith about Yama being barred from entering this Ashram." Skanda contracted diarrhoea in 1929. A young sadhak with a medical certificate but no experience tried to help but failed. By the time Dr. André of the General Hospital was called, it was too late. "Some years later Thyaga died, and soon after that Mithran. Then came the biggest shock of all, the passing of Sri Aurobindo. You see, most people turn to Yoga because life gives them such shocks and they cannot bear the suffering, but it was the reverse for me, I came here with a life full of happiness!"
Kowma accompanied Mangalammal on some of her visits to the Ashram. The first time, seeing Amma, who once wore rich South Indian silk sarees and heavy jewellery, ate the choicest foods, commanded a host of servants, now wearing the plainest of clothes, eating spartan meals, doing household chores and observing the strict rules of the Ashram, Mangalamma burst out crying. She took Kowma with her when she went to the Mother, because she did not know English. After Pranam, she expressed her anguish, but the Mother merely enquired if Mangalamma wished to know anything else. Later, after Amma explained about Yoga and life here, she calmed down.
Sadhana was in those days the beginning, the middle and the end of Ashram life. For many years, each one was given a day to go and meditate alone with the Mother. Not only was their sadhana strictly and directly under the Mother’s control — they were to do nothing, not even talk to one another, without her permission or without reporting it to her. Even what you perceived as a real necessity often turned out to be not really so from the yogic point of view. There was a time when Amma and Rukmini had only one almirah between them. But when Amma wrote to Sri Aurobindo enquiring if it was possible to have another almirah, he replied, "Not necessary." Inmates were not allowed to visit each other without permission. Servants swept only the passage outside the room, they were not to enter it. The only time you saw other inmates was at the Dining Room and when you went to the Ashram for meditation or Darshan. When relatives came, you met them only in the Reception Room. When you were sick, only your attendant came to your room, and only for the time and work required. Birthdays were a personal affair between you and the Mother — an interview and meditation, its only external expression.
Rukmini and Amma were among those allowed to cook a few dishes for Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo was very fond of Amma’s lemon rice preparation. Amma’s mother sometimes sent a basket of fruits for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The Mother always sent down some to them, and told Amma what to reply when her mother asked about her offering. Once, Mother forgot to send them any. It was only when she asked her if she had liked the mango, did Amma reveal the error. Her reply to her mother had to be diplomatic! Incidentally, whenever her mother came for a visit, they were allowed to meet only in the Reception Room.
"In my earliest days," Amma said, "I did not know Ashramites called each other by their first names. I was stunned when one day a sadhak I hardly knew, shouted ‘Minakshi’ from behind me. Afterwards, I realised how this could help keep one’s ego in check and remember we are all equal in Mother’s eyes." This was a most healthy practice, judged in the light of Mother’s declaration: "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."[23] (But naturally, age-old Custom hastened to uproot it by classifying Ashramites as ‘advanced/ novice’, ‘educated/ illiterate’, ‘senior/ junior’ in age or years since made ‘permanent’, doing ‘important/ ordinary’ work, belonging to a ‘superior/ inferior’ regional or linguistic group.) Amma could easily adjust to both practices because she had long since imbibed Nayana’s precept: "It is wrong to be agitated over changes in outer practices, as long as the eternal truth at the core is followed." She and Rukmini were, in those days, given rooms in ‘Saravana House’ (later becoming ‘Huta House’), where two north-Indian sadhikas, X and Y were also housed (the latter had come as a seeker’s companion, not for Yoga). Their English education and social accomplishments had convinced them of all-round superiority over these Tamil women. Disregarding the rule that inmates must not interact without Mother’s permission, they took to ordering Amma to go to the market and buy whatever they needed. After a time, Amma realised that to them Tamils, per se, were an inferior and backward race. "But I never let them know the humiliation they were subjecting me to," Amma told me. "You ought to have told them off like Bharati did," I flared up, and read out the narration of an incident that had taken place in Sri Aurobindo’s presence in the 1910s.
…One day, a Bengali youth blurted out: "Tamils are inferior to Bengalis." That was all! Bharathiar flared up: "To begin with you have no idea of Tamil…society, you are ignorant of its history and culture and its architecture, its achievements in modern scholarship, in science, in politics.... Don’t you see it is Tamilians who have given asylum to Aurobindo Babu and you all...? In my opinion Tamilians, if not superior to Bengalis are at least their equals.".... Sri Aurobindo said with a smile, "All that Bharati says is true. I accept it wholeheartedly."[24]
Once X decided she needed to eat eggs. Although she was part of Mother’s ‘inner circle’ and went ‘Upstairs’ daily for her work, she ordered Amma to get Mother’s permission. "I was a buddhu," Amma told me. "When I conveyed X’s wish, Mother was very angry. On my way out, when I asked what I was to tell X, Mother said, ‘Tell her to do what she feels like.’"
The Mother encouraged Amma to learn French since she already had sufficient English to get by. "Strangely," she told me, "I remember perfectly well whatever I learnt in childhood but the French I tried then, like the Hindi and Sanskrit I took up [in the seventies] with Vasudha, has disappeared!" Then she related a memorable experience in Suvrata’s French class — it was held in the Library-cum-reading room in the Ashram — that she and Tripura joined; X and Y were also there. "One day, Suvrata told us that there would be no class the next day, as she was going to Madras. So, Tripura and I spent the next day doing our embroidery work. Now, Suvrata did not go to Madras and came to take her class and was angry at our absence. In those days, it was a fashion to get an excuse to go to Mother; and telling half-truths and rumours about what someone did or failed to do was a hot favourite. The next morning at Pranam time, Mother behaved normally with X and Y, but was very stern with us! The next day was my turn for an interview with Mother. I told her, ‘Yesterday you showed displeasure but the fact is that Suvrata had announced she was going to Madras and there would be no class, so we attended to our work instead. No one informed us she had not gone, though our department is so close!’ But then you see, as Sri Aurobindo has said that the Mother deals with each of us according to our nature and need, so in the end it was not difficult to accept the differences in Mother’s dealings with those two and us three." [25]
Decades later, there was another incident involving Y. One day, she invited Vasudha to her room and Vasudha forced Amma to go along. Not only did she not say a word to Amma, she did not even look at her. But while Amma learned to be indifferent to Y’s behaviour, Y remained self-centred, greedy and arrogant to her very last days. "This is why," Amma said, concluding these reminiscences, "I keep repeating to you that we are not here for acquiring great realisations and experiences and writing and lecturing about them. All we are asked is to know and change our nature so that Mother can do her work in us." When I said I have neither the knowledge nor the capacity to control or change my nature, she said, "At least you have the aspiration to change, so many don’t even have that. As long as you have it, there is the possibility that some day you will succeed. As Ramakrishna said, the mother surrounds the child with toys and it keeps playing until it needs only the mother and starts crying for her…."
Another experience of Amma is connected with teaching. Satyakarma’s wife Krishnamma first came in February 1930; in August 1932, she came with her son, Dayakar; and in 1933, the two also became ‘permanent’. Soon thereafter, Mother asked Amma to teach English to Krishnamma, who knew Sanskrit and, having worked in Gandhian organisations, some Hindi. Amma on her part was familiar with Telegu because Carnatic music was an indispensable part of life in Appa’s family. Under the circumstances, the proceedings were unconventional. Amma’s son Mithran, who often came down from Madras, sometimes watched the class. Once he could not suppress himself and asked Amma, "Are you teaching her English or is she teaching you Telugu?" This became a standard joke. However, the tutor-pupil duo struggled on for two-three years and developed a life-long friendship. In addition to her Dining Room work (she worked there for four years), Krishnamma took up embroidery under Amma’s guidance. Dutta would bring to them the cloth-pieces, along with the flower-designs (usually Sweetness of thoughts turned towards the Divine) to be embroidered. From these pieces were made window-curtains, table-cloths, piano covers etc. for Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s rooms. It was a work that demanded, as well as promoted, a quiet mind and body, thus providing ample scope to concentrate on the Divine. Perhaps that is why most sadhikas did some embroidery in their spare time, and also to create something to offer to Mother on their birthday.
Another close friend was Amrita’s sister, Padmasini, who was in charge of the domestic service. A daughter of a police inspector, her bearings and dealings intimidated most sadhaks. As a result, her long-time assistant Arvind Sule told me, almost everyone made him the go-between. Surprisingly, for one with such a strong grip on the physical, she was unusually fond of cinemas, the world of fantasies, and she often took Amma and Krishnamma along, of course always with Mother’s permission.
When Amma’s two daughters, Kowshiki and Anusuya were old enough, Mother called them and asked them their plans for their future. The former chose marriage and the latter to join the Ashram. Appa consulted the Mother in the matter of choosing the groom for Kowma. When the time came, Mother gave Kowma a message which can be inspiration for anyone choosing to get married.[26] The marriage took place in March 1933. Amma’s not attending the marriage created a sensation among family-members and society but did not disturb her. In the same spirit, she obeyed Mother’s advice and did not visit her father on his deathbed or join Ashramites going to Tiruvannamalai for a darshan of Bhagawan’s body after he passed away. Actually, the night he passed away, in April 1950, Bhagawan had come and blessed Amma in her dream. As the Mother says,
One who has given himself to the Divine has no longer any other duty than to make that consecration more and more perfect. The world and those who live in it have always wanted to put human — social and family — duty before the duty to the Divine, which they have stigmatised as egoism. How indeed could they judge otherwise, they who have no experience of the reality of the Divine?[27]
"Appa had a long-standing wish to give up his work before he was sixty and settle in the Ashram," Amma once told me. "After he crossed fifty, every time he got a chance, he would ask Mother’s permission for it. Every time she assured him that he was doing excellent work for Sri Aurobindo in all that he was doing in Madras. Finally, one day I explained to Mother that he felt he might die around sixty because most members of his family had passed away in those years. And if that happened, wouldn’t he miss the rarest of opportunities of doing sadhana here, under Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s direct guidance? Ultimately, Mother granted his wish but asked him to provide for his children’s future before he wound up his affairs there." Thus, Appa came away to the Ashram in 1938.[28] When he told his family that he was going to offer his share of the family’s moveable properties to the Mother, his sons added their share to it. Much of that vast pool of furniture is still in use in the Ashram.
Now, from the day Sri Aurobindo arrived in Pondicherry, the British police had been keeping a watch, not only on him and those in his household, but also everyone who visited him. An account by one of his disciples from Andhra Pradesh is worth noting:
When I left Pondicherry to go to Madras [in 1923] a secret policeman was dogging my footsteps and pointing out to his relieving brother policeman at the railway junction, and this continued till I reached Gooty, my destination…. After I reached the place, the local inspector came to enquire with my father-in-law as to when I would leave the place and about my future plans etc.
[And when he returned to Pondicherry] …the police, as usual, dogged my steps till I reached the Master….[29]
Then, in 1937, the first Congress ministry was ushered in in Madras, with Rajaji as the Premier. Rajaji offered Appa the post of Advocate-General. While declining the offer, Appa requested a cessation of this police harassment, perhaps making it worthwhile by pointing out how unproductive and ever-increasing was the expense of money and manpower. Rajaji pulled the necessary strings and, ultimately, the harassment stopped, as is reflected in this remark by a sadhak:
I began my journey to Pondicherry, arriving on 11 August 1932. In those days, the main gate of the Ashram remained always closed. Outside the Ashram, British spies kept constant vigil. Only in 1937 did this spying stop, due to the intercession with the Government by… Doraiswamy.[30]
Appa settled here on 29 June 1938, six months after his fifty-sixth birthday. Amma’s daughter, 18-year-old Anusuya, who joined Ashram on 1st April 1938, had been given work in the Dining Room and, like others, did some embroidery at home. Soon, the family moved into the small house to the east of the Ashram main building.[31] (Incidentally, Mangalammal’s last recorded visit was in August that year.)
Vasudhaben (a sadhika since February 1928), who lived in the adjacent building, had long since become an informal leader of those doing embroidery. With 21-year-old Ichcha joining in November 1941, 15-year-old Minoo in July 1942, 17-year-old Bela in August 1943, 19-year-old Jaya Bose in 1943, and Minoo’s 14-year-old aunt Madhuri in October 1944, Vasudha’s group burgeoned into a ‘department’; and, thanks to Vasudha, Amma became the department’s ‘Amma’ and she ‘Akka’. Soon afterwards, perhaps as a result of this inner coming closer, the boundary wall between two houses too disappeared and they shared a common main door opening on rue Francois Martin.
One evening in the 1990s, when we were talking about Playground activities, Amma told me that it was an ideal illustration of how difficult it is to understand the work Mother and Sri Aurobindo were doing. "We created all sorts of ideas and beliefs around the Soup ceremony, the meditations, the pranams, the ‘darshans’ for various occasions, etc, but the true reasons for her starting or stopping them were never fully understood, because of our habit of imprisoning ourselves in conventions. Every time she destroys one set, we create another! Up to the early forties, Mother had insisted on exclusive concentration on our sadhana, on husbands and wives staying apart, on women wearing sarees and veiling their faces when outside. Then, when she began the Playground activities for the children, she encouraged adult sadhaks and sadhikas also to join. [Rukmini, Amma, Tripura and Krishnamma were among those ladies, whom, asked by the Mother, Madeleine (a sadhika) taught keep-fit exercises. Amma even tried out some anti-rheumatic movements, exercising the joints from toes to neck, that I showed her!] Mother herself changed from saree to salwar-kameez, and led the sadhikas in coming out and joining in the physical exercises and games. Anusuya started with them, but could not continue for long. Later, seeing that salwar-kameez were hindered the required freedom of movements, Mother designed the type of shorts and shirts sadhikas were to wear in the Playground. Similarly, Mother put an end to the practice of segregating men and women in the Dining Room. In the School, she forbade any distinction between boys and girls. That radical transformation by Mother in Ashram activities was too difficult for many sadhaks fixed in the grooves of traditional Ashramite-hood, and their faith in Mother was badly shaken [two or three left the Ashram]. On the other hand, while some said Mother was organising and popularising the Playground because the Supramental was to descend there, some others refused to believe that the Supramental had at all descended, there or anywhere. We have always failed to understand the true reasons behind Mother stopping, changing, or starting something here."
When the Second World War broke out Amma’s sons enlisted. The elder, Mithran, joined the Indian Army as an engineer, and the younger, Thyagaraj, then studying in England, joined the Royal Air Force. Reminiscing on those days, Amma told me in June 1990: "You know, Mother had once told us that Thyaga will become famous in the world and Mithran will become a great yogi. Thereafter, Thyaga used to go round telling everyone, ‘Oh, I am not doing any yoga.’ And yet, when he was informed that Appa had set apart his inheritance so he could establish himself, he wrote back (he was studying in England) that he did not want any of it, he would stand on his own feet. He offered it all to Mother. I was so touched! It so happened that soon after this, my brother who came on a visit told me that some of my relatives were quarrelling over our ancestral properties. So, I showed him Thyaga’s letter which had already been shown to Mother. In fact, it was this youngest brother of mine, the least well-off in the family, who served our mother in her last days. When the war broke out, Thyaga joined it saying, ‘I want to fight for our Mother’s country.’ Then, when official letter that came after his plane crashed was shown to Mother, tears were streaming down her face as she read it. That was the only time I saw tears in Mother’s eyes."
Some incidents in Mithran’s life are of historic importance. It was as his blessings for Mithran’s upanayam ceremony that Sri Aurobindo wrote his Gayatri mantra:
Om, tat savitur varam roopam jyotih parasya dheemahi, yannah satyena deepayet :
Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme, which shall illumine us with the Truth.[32]
When he was studying in France, he was once mistaken for a spy and arrested. When word reached Mother, she arranged for his release through her brother, a very senior officer in the French Government. After the war, Mithran returned to the Ashram where he joined the Electric Service. Unfortunately, in his stint in the army, he had contracted a rare heart problem, which soon grew serious. He was kept in Appa’s room, then on first floor of the south-east corner of the Ashram. The Mother, who assured Appa that she will see to it that he is cured, visited him daily. When the illness prolonged, a Madras specialist called in by Appa, started a course of penicillin (then considered the best in such cases). However, Mithran succumbed to the disease. Long afterwards, when Mother was informed that Kowshiki’s daughter’s son, still a child, was killed by a speeding car when he ran across a road after his ball, she exclaimed, "What? Our Mithran has gone?" Revealing the deeper reason for the accident Mother had remarked that the anguish Mithran had suffered when he once witnessed exactly such a grievous death of an innocent child, had made his soul resolve to go through the same experience.
Early in 1966, Anusuya developed a bad cough which persisted in spite of the treatment the Ashram doctor provided. Soon she began to get breathless, and her health swiftly deteriorated. In April she was taken to JIPMER, where a junior doctor gave her an injection sealing her fate; by the time Dr. Bisht was located and came, she was beyond help. Anusuya’s death dealt an unbearable blow: Appa and Amma had now lost four of their five children. Akka and her colleagues tried their best to comfort them both, becoming in fact so many children of the bereaved parents.
Appa passed away on 2nd December 1976. "Even when it was clear that his end was approaching, he did not let Counouma call Kowma, or Akka to call his yogi friends in Bengal," Amma told me. "He kept saying, ‘I will tell you when to call them, so that they come in time.’ On the last day, after meeting each of us separately, he asked to be let alone and went into deep meditation. You see, Sri Aurobindo had promised to come to him at the time of death and he wanted to be fully prepared. Long long ago, he had an experience of the vacant mind, and he must have gone there." In the words of Appa’s favourite young attendant, Shanta, "His was a many-faceted life wherein he had achieved success and fulfilment in whatever he had undertaken. But he felt greatly blessed to have come to know closely so many spiritual luminaries, who had held as it were, his hands firmly in theirs, and led him on the way. It was no surprise therefore that at the point of his soul’s departure he felt Sri Aurobindo’s presence and peace enveloping him. He was conscious till the very end."
On 7 December 1983, Akka passed away after a very long and extremely painful illness. Amma suffered a severe heart attack. Luckily, Akka’s colleagues Iccha, Minoo, Bela, Bharati and Shanta took up the task of looking after her. Not too long afterwards, Fate dealt another blow to Amma, a grandson passed away due to cancer.
In the first week of December 1985, Brajkishoreda urged Bharatiben to try me as his replacement for night-duty at Amma’s, as he was taking full charge of his boarding from the 12th. That morning Amma cut the ribbon for Brajkishoreda’s relocated boarding and that night began my crash programme in self-improvement at Amma’s. Gradually, like the proverbial camel tethered outside its master’s tent, which had sneaked inside the tent due to a stand-storm, circumstances saw me practically living at Amma’s.
On 23rd January 1987, as I have said, Amma told me, "You know, in my childhood, although I never saw an elder in my family dying, I saw many children in the neighbourhood dying; one of them, a younger brother of a close friend. Later, during another severe epidemic,[33] my father had to pack our belongings into bullock carts, and we joined other families leaving the town. Every time I saw or heard of a child being seriously ill, I prayed fervently to God, asking Him to cure the child as it would make everybody, especially the child’s family, happy; but the children died. Naturally, after some time I forgot the shock and the pain, but I never stopped wondering why God so often lets children die and the old linger on. Perhaps that is why I had to see so many of my own family die before me."
"But Amma, the soul’s age is not the same as the body’s. In those Puranic stories children with far more developed consciousness than their parents come only for some special experiences — "
"Yes, I know. They decide beforehand what sort of experiences — "
" — and after getting them, go off!"
"Yes, yes, I know all that. But you see, the most important thing about these higher truths is how real is our faith in them. When I was in Madras, one day I was alone in the house with all the children in our family. My sister’s grandson was prone to fevers and fits. That day he suddenly developed a high fever. I gave him an enema and put some cold pack on his forehead. I put Mother’s blessing packets on his head and started praying to Her. By evening, the fever came down. When my sister and others came back and heard all that had happened, they started scolding me, ‘What would you have done if the child had gone into fits?’ I told them, ‘But you can see that Mother’s blessings and grace have brought everything under control, what else can we want?’ That time, I had just once or twice visited the Ashram, but I had absolute faith in Mother’s Force. Similarly, during Mithran’s last illness I never worried because I had the faith that Mother’s protection was there. So now too, I have faith in Mother’s help and so I am pulling on. I know nothing will happen until she decides."
Two comments made by Amma in June 1990 are relevant here. The first: "You know, after Mithran passed away, I used to find a great similarity between him and Rajaji’s son, Ramraj. Later, I realised it was something in me and not in Ramraj that was giving me that feeling." The second relevant comment was while talking about a sadhika almost as many years in the Ashram as herself, now totally bedridden and blind: "You see, they say ‘kick the bucket’ but it is not like that. Who can kick it even when he wants to? If it were so simple, just imagine how many of us would have kicked it long ago. It is all decided Up There, and until then we have to pull on. It is not for us to decide."
In February that year (1990), one evening while Amma was meditating I noticed the clear resemblance between her face and Mother’s picture in that year’s calendar which was hanging on the wall-almirah behind her chair. (Remember, she learned to meditate when still in her teens, with Bhagawan, later practised it under Nayana, and since June 1928, scores of times sat alone with Mother, not to forget the intense collective meditations with Mother in the Ashram premises in the thirties and forties.) Two years later, a sadhika working in the Nursing Home who happened to be present one evening when Amma was meditating, made the same inspiring discovery — a certain resemblance between Amma’s and Mother’s faces. It is "a well-known fact," Mother writes in connection with the austerity of love ("of all austerities the most difficult" she calls it), that "one grows into the likeness of what one loves. Therefore, if you want to be like the Divine, love Him alone." That Amma had travelled far on that road, was proved to me when, in the same period, my old Gujarati teacher told me, "You know, Appa and Anuma were outgoing and effusive, always full of warmth. In comparison I found Amma withdrawn to the point of appearing cold." But would Amma’s heart have borne so much for so long, with such equanimity, without a deepening inner life and a growing love for Her alone through her growing faith and surrender behind that seeming ‘coldness’?
In March, regretting a previous letter to a friend, I spent a whole day writing an apology. At night, when I related it all to Amma she disapproved of what I was doing. "You cannot change what is already done. It is enough that you realised and repented. You must remember that Mother accepted you because she saw a possibility to change your nature; that is the most important thing. Stop brooding over such things, it creates obstructions in your path and only benefit the adverse forces. I know perfectly well how difficult it is to forget. I too often remember Mithran, but I know what has happened cannot be changed, so I pray that wherever he is let him be happy, and stop dwelling on it." Interestingly, the long, long, long letter I wrote, my friend later informed me, had reached but got lost before she could read it.
If at all Amma chose to comment on my behaviour with others in her presence, she always waited until we were alone or only Ichchafoi was present. Among the prized advice the two of them gave me was that what you believe you know about others is never wholly true because you come to it only from your own point of view which is coloured by prejudices and ignorance; and that, therefore never to get upset by what others say about you. "You are what you are, so learn to avoid judging others and not to be upset at others’ comments on you." A natural corollary to this, they explained was to be able to put up with unfavourable or annoying circumstances. This had come up because I was very angry with the way the uncouth policemen in the booth attached to Amma’s bedroom wall behaved every night. Much worse than their nasty reactions to my requests to stop the racket they were addicted to, was their congenital harassment of the poor (especially a lone woman) who passed by at night, and even those taking a seriously ill patient to the hospital! "You know," Ichchafoi told me, "I was given a room with only one ventilator which opened on the Atelier side beside the generator which was silent only between midnight and 2 a.m. Then the bakery came to life. Besides this was the fear of being alone. You must get over all this, there is no other way."
One evening, in the last week of May in 1990, Shantaben recalled an interesting incident: "Once, when a visitor asked Amma, ‘Who is spiritually greater, J. Krishnamurti or Champaklal?’ she immediately replied, ‘How can I judge that? I have to be greater than both of them, before I can decide that.’" When I told Bharatiben this the next morning, she smiled and said, "Amma’s spontaneous answers are always the best."
While on the subject of spirituality, I found that Amma loved to listen to "Mister God, this is Anna", the book Bharatiben gave me to read out to her in the evenings. Significantly, while I would get entangled in my analysis of the writer’s prejudices and motives, slips and shortcomings, Amma always noticed only the spiritual truths and beauty he was trying to portray.
On 26th June, after dinner, Amma came out with this interesting comment: "You see, in my life I have seen a great improvement in the behaviour of husbands with their wives. My father used to beat us when he felt he was disobeyed. Appa never uttered a harsh word to me, let alone raise his hand — of course, he had his own way of making people do what he wished. Once Kowma was crying and he could not sleep, so he rushed to the child’s room and thumped the back of the woman attending to the child, thinking it was I, but it was my sister-in-law. She turned round immediately and retorted, "What is the matter with you? It is only a child crying, why should it anger you so much?" Kowma’s husband was not only extremely considerate, he did not let her do any housework or even use public transport — made sure she did not bear the slightest inconvenience. My grand-daughter’s husband, poor fellow, always quietly waited however long it took her to get ready to go out, whereas her father would not have tolerated even a minute’s delay. You know, he scolded his son and daughter-in-law on their wedding day in front of everyone because they were just a little late at the reception. I wonder how future husbands will fare with their wives."
On 30th June, on the subject of inexplicable suffering, Amma recalled these incidents: "When Akka informed Mother about the death of Kowma’s 9 year-old grand-son [in a freak road-accident], Mother exclaimed, ‘What, our Mithran has gone?’ Then, she told Akka that the soul must have wanted that experience. When Akka recounted this, I remembered that long back Mithran had told me of a disturbing dream of his. His car knocked down a child and, instead of attending to the victim, he was arguing that it was not his driver’s fault. ‘I was shocked,’ he said, ‘to see my consciousness had fallen to such a level!’ Of course, it is very difficult to accept that he took birth just to undergo such pain. But then, it is not possible for us to really know which soul has taken birth in which body and why. When our Anuma passed away and ten months later R[34] was born, many began to believe Anuma had returned. But you know, we might be merely indulging our feelings and desires by such talk, the real truth can only be known by realised souls." Then she switched back to the question of even the best people having to undergo suffering. "Once, Kowma asked Akka why she had to undergo the excruciating pain of cancer in spite of having served Mother so long and faithfully. Akka told her that it was because the soul was trying to exhaust the bad karmas of the world by taking them upon itself."
The next month, the topic of age and illness again led Amma to compare her situation with Appa’s at the same age. "You know, not only could he read and write and meditate for long hours, when he had to be alone, he could discuss any subject for hours with those who visited him, and there were so many. I can hardly hear or read or write or even walk freely like he could and I have so little knowledge of things to talk to the few of you who come!" Among the diversions Amma generally accepted, was listening from "Get Well Soon", a book her favourite great-grand-daughter had sent long back. The writer dwelt gently and lovingly on how, distancing oneself from the memories of yesterdays and the gloom arising from aches and pains and inabilities imposed by illness and age, one must concentrate on the now and the positive because that most definitely will lead to a healthier state of mind and body, etc. However, sometimes, when we would be alone Amma would come up with, "It is too easy to speak and write such things, but it is only when you are in my condition, living alone, practically deaf and blind, that you can understand; it is not like you just switch one thing off and turn another on."
On 17th July (1990), Amma allowed me to put up a large laminated photograph of the Samadhi (taken on a 15th August night) in the best corner of her room. I had purchased it a fortnight back in memory of my late mother’s birthday. She chose to indulge me to the extent of allowing Nayana’s photograph (showing the crack on his forehead caused by the descent of a great Force) to be shifted to the ante-room where, as it transpired later, she was to spend the last months of her life. The same day, she permitted me to install in another corner of her room, a tiny T.V. set I purchased, to add one more means of diversion for her. That night I told her the story of the poor Arab and his camel; how, like that camel, I had not only sneaked into her house but was now inching myself even into her room; how disgraceful! But, amazingly, all she said was "Why are you so over-sensitive? Stop imagining what others may think or feel about you. Just do what you want to do; let them say or feel whatever they want to." So I reminded her that I had heard she had refused similar offers made by people with every right to introduce such changes. "Yes, I had refused them, but one can always change one’s ideas and feelings, no? We are all evolving, aren’t we? So why should you worry?"
On Rakshabandhan, I made her tie the rakhi sent by my niece. "Since I have no sister, my mother used to tie it and now my niece sends it." Immediately she said, "But you will have to give me money!" Then she told me the story prevalent in the South about this festival. A sister was carrying the lunch she had prepared for her brothers to the fields where they were working; suddenly, unknown to her, poison from a snake, wriggling in the claws of a bird flying with it just above, dropped into the pot on her head poisoning the food. The brothers died. Shiva and Parvati who happened to be passing by, heard the poor girl wailing beside them. Parvati told her, "Perform this ritual and then sprinkle some consecrated water on your brothers; they will come back to life." I told the story of Uttara’s potent rakhi on Abhimanyu. Krishna knew that death dared not come to A as long as the rakhi was on his wrist, but not unless he died would his father, Arjun, put his whole heart in the war. So Krishna took the form of a rat and loosened the rakhi before A went into the battlefield. Thus the rakhi dropped from his wrist before he was encircled and killed by the Kauravas. To this Amma added another trick played by Krishna. When A blew on his conch calling for help, Krishna too blew on his own to muffle A’s call, thus preventing Arjun and others coming to his aid. "But the most important reason why Krishna needed Abhimanyu dead," Amma said, "was that that was the only way to justify the way the Pandavas killed Drona and Karna. Avatars are above sin and virtue, all their actions are meant only to ensure our evolution."
On the 1st May 1991, around 6.15 a.m., Amma slipped in her bath‑room and fractured the hip-bone. The next six months she was in the Nursing Home. The first three months, her leg was in plaster up to her knee and in traction, practically immobilising her. Every time she wanted to turn on her side (naturally, scores of time every hour) or to get up to go to the toilet, the traction pressed on her delicate nerves and muscles, not to think of the subtler wounds that condition inflicted. And the next three months, though freed from cast and traction, she was not to get up — not exactly a release. Of course, there was a steady stream of visitors every evening, each trying his best to comfort and cheer her up. But only the handful of sadhikas closest to her really knew what sustained her through that six-month long tunnel of loneliness; knew that the total absence of the slightest griping against Fate was due not to any ‘philosophical’ resignation but to a total inner surrender to Mother’s workings. Scores of time every evening, she would tell me in Tamil, "Come on boy, let’s go home," but always quietly; never once the least sign of any upset or irritation at her condition.
By the time she finally could ‘come home’, the combined effects of medicines and imprisonment had weakened her mind as much as her body, but her spirit was all the more determined not to fail Mother’s workings in her. That is why more severe blows were on their way.
Within two months of her return from the Nursing Home, in January 1992, Ichchafoi’s long-standing back-pain, which had defeated the physiotherapist, the vaidya, the homeopath, and the orthopaedist, was diagnosed at JIPMER as cancer. Within a week or so, early one morning news came of Amma’s favourite grand-niece Ramani passing away in Madras. That night, on her way to the bathroom, she slipped and fell. Luckily, this second fracture was only a hairline one, but, surely, the consequence, ‘bed-arrest’ for several weeks in the Nursing Home, was undeserved.
Ichchafoi’s chief characteristic had always been her unflinching will-power and strict self-discipline. Her self-composure under the frightful pain that her body was racked with was surely unique. Those who went to commiserate came away with the feeling as if it was she who had invited them for a casual chat over a cup of tea and to watch the T.V. that someone had hurriedly installed for her! Amma visited her several times, but it was clear who was consoling whom. While this disease had tortured Vasudha over several years, it was in a deadly hurry in Ichchafoi’s case and, after a brief stopover at the Nursing Home, Ichchafoi left her body on 15th August.
With Ichchafoi’s disappearance, Amma lost her most trusted support. She began to lie down more often and for longer periods, and her interest in the goings-on around her, even in conversations with visitors seemed to flag. Frequently, the first thing she said in the morning would be, "You know, I couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t wake you up. I just lie quietly concentrating on the Mother. I don’t want to disturb you for nothing." Those who knew her nature predicted that Amma’s withdrawal will be a quiet fading, step by natural step.
In June-July 1993, the imp of insincerity[35] tricked a highly respected scholar-sadhak into claiming to be the ‘earliest surviving Ashramite’ and his friend the next, by making him forget that Champaklal’s aunt, Amma, and two others were ‘earlier’ than him, and at least ten ‘earlier’ than his friend. Above all, the imp successfully blinded him to one of his own favourite warning of Sri Aurobindo "The mind does not record things as they are, but as they appear to it. It catches parts, omits others; afterwards the memory and imagination mix together and make a quite different representation of it,"[36] as well as Sri Aurobindo’s disapproval of any classification of Ashramites.
I was shocked to find one with such wealth of knowledge and experience fall so low, and poured out my anguish to Amma who merely laughed it away with, "But, he has so often indulged in such games that none of us bother any longer! Anyway, reality is not going to be affected, so just ignore it." But I could not resist going to the scholar and a few days later went and argued it out with him. Naturally, he remained unmoved.
Back home, Amma consoled me with, "This should stop you from being dazzled by mental gymnastics; especially your own. Never forget what Mother says in that prayer, ‘Extricate me from the illusionary consciousness of my mind, from its world of fantasies’." Recently, when I related this experience to Amma’s ever-cheerful colleague Madhuridi, she came up with this story: "One day, I asked Nolini-da, ‘You people know Life Divine, Synthesis, Savitri, etc. and so do this Yoga so well, but we understand only some things in Prayers and Meditations. How then can we do this yoga?’ You know what he said? ‘Actually, you people will realise the Divine before us intellectuals, because your faith and surrender are spontaneous, while we spend years mentalising everything….’ "
Interestingly, thereafter, even when she saw me wallowing in mental gymnastics, Amma never reminded me of that bitter incident. Similarly, in my first months with her, she told me a couple of times to meditate regularly every morning and evening, inspiring me with how Nayana taught Appa and her to meditate, how they had done that daily without fail, at the very least half-an-hour, how Appa had learned to meditate up to four-five hours, etc. But, when I stopped meditating regularly, she pointed it out, just twice. Not because she no longer cared, her long established "peace of perfect faith" automatically left it to the Mother’s care.
Amma and I had purchased a copy of Mother’s Prayers and Meditations on 16 January 1992. I read out from it when we were alone in the evening, not regularly of course. She could still recite the prayer of 15 February 1914 — known as Mother’s favourite — it was, in my view, intimately connected with Amma’s childhood prayer to save people from suffering and death. Inexplicably, she always faltered on the last paragraph; later I worked out an explanation for it. The prayer of 25th October 1914, Amma’s own favourite, characteristic of her method of sadhana, she always recited faultlessly. Of the prayer Mother wrote in 1937, "For those who wish to serve the Divine", she had made the last three sentences a mantra. And naturally, she made me read the meditation Mother copied out for Appa, that of 28 December 1928. Among the lines of Mother’s prayers she most liked to repeat were the closing lines of Mother’s prayer of 23 October 1937:
Glory to Thee, O Lord, Supreme Master of all realisation. Give us a faith active and ardent, absolute and unshakable in Thy victory.
Often, we chose the prayer by sortilege. The only record I have kept of those, are the three she opened on 29 July 1993 — perhaps because by then she seemed to be withdrawing pretty fast, to quietly fade away into the more ‘real’ world the Mother has prepared in the subtle world. At any rate, these three seem significant if not prophetic.
The first was that of August 17, 1913:
O Lord, Master of our life, let us soar very high above all care for our material preservation. Nothing is more humiliating and depressing than these thoughts so constantly turned towards the preservation of the body…. How shall I describe that utter relief, that delightful lightness which comes when one is free from all anxiety for oneself, for one’s life and health and satisfaction, and even one’s progress? This relief, this deliverance Thou hast granted to me, O Thou, Divine Master, Life of my life and Light of my light, O Thou who unceasingly teachest me love and makest me know the purpose of my existence….
The second was the one of January 17, 1915:
Now, Lord, things have changed. The time of rest and preparation is over. Thou has willed that from the passive and contemplative servitor I was, I become an active and realising one; Thou has willed that joyful acceptance be transformed into joyful battle, and that in a constant and heroic effort against everything which in the world opposes the accomplishment of Thy law in its purest and highest present expression, I find again the same peaceful and unchanging poise which one keeps in a surrender to Thy law as it is now being accomplished, that is, without entering into a direct struggle with all that opposes it, making the best of every circumstance and acting by contagion, example and slow infusion.
The third, of October 8, 1914:
The joy that is contained in activity is compensated and balanced by the perhaps still greater joy contained in withdrawal from all activity; when the two states alternate in the being or are even simultaneously conscious, the felicity is complete, for then, O Lord, Thy plenitude is realised.
O divine Master, Thou hast granted to me the infinitude of divine contemplation, the perfect calm of Thy Eternity, and through an identification with our divine Mother, the All-Realiser, Thou has permitted me to participate in her sovereign power to be conscious and active….
Two incidents occurred, late in July or early August, substantiating Sri Aurobindo’s assurance in The Mother: "The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear?"
The first: One morning, as soon as Amma saw me, she asked, "Why did you not come down last night when I shouted and shouted for you? Did you not hear?"
"No, Amma, I am sorry I did not hear. What happened?"
"I was lying quietly as usual when suddenly there were loud bangings on the door and windows and I saw some huge black men trying to break the door and windows and enter. But I was not afraid. I called you again and again. Then they went away."
Here is an interesting parallel in a sadhak’s correspondence of May 1930.
Last night these forces…put fire to the house. There was nobody in the house, still noise of weeping and cries of people…began to come…. Groups and groups began to come…one with the face like Mother’s. It could not come inside. Windows were shut for it. It began to move from one window to another, but no chance. In fact windows were open but shut only for these forces.…
Sri Aurobindo’s reply:
…These are the usual forms of the Rakshasi Maya, illusory formations of the vital world. They wanted to make a formation of the house on fire in order that you might accept it and then with the help of your acceptance they would have tried actually to put the house on fire. Reject and dissolve these formations, as soon as they appear. To take the appearance of myself or the Mother is also a familiar trick and a dangerous one. But as long as you keep the power of discrimination, all is well.
The second incident: That morning, as soon as I came down Amma asked: "Do you know what happened last night? I was lying quietly as usual and suddenly six people entered and surrounded my bed. I was not at all afraid! I just smiled at them. They were dressed in long white gowns like doctors; they looked at me and did something to me but I was not afraid. Then they went away."
Who were those ‘surgeons’? Why six, because each was the god of a particular region, plane, kosha? Did they prepare her for that ‘Ashram’ in the subtle world set up by Sri Aurobindo and Mother, we are told — that place where...? It seems appropriate to paraphrase here Nayana’s experience as described in his biography I have been quoting from:
In April-May 1922, after a couple of months in Appa-Amma’s ‘Palm Grove’ mansion, Nayana returned to Tiruvannamalai to his mango-tree cave. Some time in May, he finished revising Umaasahasram for the seventh time and started on Indraani Saptashati, a hymn of 700 slokas (the same number as in the Gita) in praise of Indraani, where, he repeatedly invokes the Goddess, described the miseries and problems of the Motherland, and prayed for strength to remove that misery. Writing at the rate of one canto of 25 slokas every day, he completed the hymn in 28 days. One night, thereafter, he felt an excruciating pain in his head, as if thousands of termites were stinging and an axe chopping the brain into mince-meat. He sat praying through the torture, his attendant propping up the body. Suddenly the skull broke at the top and a smoke-like thing emerged — a photograph of this period with the fractured forehead quite visible was hanging by Amma’s bed until the end. After this experience of Kapala Bheda, he could clearly feel a current from Akaasha flowing through his Brahmarandhra and spinal column down to the Mooladhara. It permeated his whole system and he was experiencing a happy release from the bodily bondage. Nayana described such occult experiences as the Divine Mother playing in the body of a devotee fully attuned to Her, and making his body Her special abode.[37]
All these months, Amma had managed a fairly normal routine — an unmatched feat, if you compare the way invalids of her age (especially our Y, as an eye-witness told me) in their last months. Often, at any time of the day, she would suddenly say, "I am tired, let us go home." Perhaps a Nursing Home accessory that may be misleading her into thinking she was not at home was the frequent presence of the catheter bag. However, a few reminders if she was lying down, or a tour of her rooms with her bravely pushing the walker and we pointing out familiar objects, generally did the trick.
"Often now, Amma began to feel that Kowma was coming and asked if the necessary arrangements were made; sometimes, she asked why, if Kowma had finished her meal, she was not coming to sit with her; sometimes, why was Kowma still reading in the next room and not coming to talk to her. In other words her surface consciousness had begun to slip down into the past, but it was far from getting trapped there, for every time we clarified that Kowma had not written about coming but should we call her, she would ‘climb back’ to our ‘reality’ and say, "No, no; don’t do that. Let her decide on her own if and when she will come. It is not easy to leave everything and come just like that." All this was conveyed to Kowma, and she arrived as soon as she could.
Evidently, Amma’s love, even for her own family, had grown, to use Mother’s definition of true love, into "something very deep and very calm in its intensity" and did not need to "manifest itself through outer effusiveness".[38] This characteristic, I had witnessed three years back in the way she behaved with R. That was when Amma had told me that because R was born just ten months after Anusuya had passed away, that too on Appa’s birthday, a belief was born that her soul had returned. But the belief could have been born, she had felt, out of the subconscient feelings and desires of the persons involved, because "the real truth can only be known by realised souls". Later that day, when I told her that R seemed to possess some ‘opening’, some inclinations that could lead her to this life, she replied, "Yes, but if she wants children she must marry, otherwise it may cause trouble later." Again, as I said above, not because she did not wish R to turn to this path, but because her long established "peace of perfect faith" automatically left it to the Mother’s care. Some days later, when I told her, "I know how long you will live — seven years," she sighed, "I would rather it was just six months…. What made you think it will be seven years?" The moment I said, "Have you forgotten your wish to see R’s children?" she pounced with, "But that day you felt she may never marry!" In the end, she had the final word: "Perhaps she may not because when one is so developed and has been independent for so long, it is difficult to surrender to others’ wishes." The next month (July 1990), an incident proved how intimately Amma knew what it is for a wife to surrender to her husband’s needs and ways. An old acquaintance of mine, Rajshekhar (then in the Foreign Service) came on a visit. His wife Akhtar and Amma hit it off practically from the moment they saw each other. The sangam of the affection flowing from Amma and the spontaneous upsurge of Akhtar’s love, was a divine event. If Akhtar’s response had much to do with the chemistry and psychology of a woman’s first pregnancy, the outflow from Amma sprang from the deepest origins of motherhood. Naturally, Akhtar declared her wish to return as soon as circumstances permitted and to stay here as long as she could, and, naturally, her duties to her family did not allow it. It did not really matter — the gods had done their work.
A fast growing obstacle since June-July 1993 was intensified glaucoma combined with memory lapses. More and more often she began to mistake any of the ladies passing by her for "Mangala ammal" and another relative whose name I couldn’t catch. Often, after dinner she would begin, "You know when I was in Pondicherry we were living in a house just opposite the Ashram", then describe the Ashram-life of those days. Many evenings, convinced she was back in Madras, she would ask why, in spite of being in this house, Mangala or Swamy or his wife and children, were not coming to her bedside. (I did not know then that Swamy was the pet name of Nagaswamy, Mangala-ammal’s only child and Amma’s favourite nephew. He became a physician and paediatrician and always rushed down whenever Appa or Amma called him. A shock Amma had shared with him and his family was when his child died in his infancy due to a wrong medicine administered by mistake. Swamy had passed away in 1970-71.) Also, quite often, when we met in the morning, she would complain of our having carried her in her bed and left her in the garden in the night and how cold it was etc. It reminded me of the story she had told me of that saintly lady in the family that I have already related.
On 11 September, as I was tucking her in for the night, she suddenly looked up and smiled, — the joyous smile of an infant with pristine faith in all around it, "You are Swami, isn’t it?" Since I only knew the word ‘Swami’ to be used only for husband or God, I could not but reply, "No Amma, there is no one called Swami here." Then, inspired, added, "you are the only Swami in this house!" In a flash her mind cleared, and with her usual calm she said, "No, my boy, we are all ‘swamis’ here. We are all gods and goddesses because we are Mother’s children. It is only our mind that doesn’t let us realise it. But that doesn’t matter for Their Grace is always with us and one day it will make us realise that truth." Evidently, in spite of physical memory plunging her back into time — a shuttling between solid, familiar past and misty-to-darkening present is common at this stage of life — she had not in the least lost her ‘normal’ awareness. Her ever-growing yogic consciousness was, I believe, awakening in the deeper and higher ‘realities’ of her Self with the help of the Sole Reality who is "Light of our light and Life of our life".
On the 22nd, Amma celebrated Kowma’s birthday as her own — surely not as wholly unconsciously or subconsciously as it externally appeared? She went to the Ashram, I am convinced, as much ‘to recharge her batteries’ (as the Ashram slang goes) as to pray for Mother’s protection for Kowma. She meditated in the Meditation Hall in front of Mother’s life-size Darshan photograph, the one in which Mother wore the saree with flowers of Divine’s love Amma had embroidered — infusing in every stitch who knows how much love and surrender in each flower.
Soon thereafter, Amma turned into an infant: Sleeping almost the whole day with total abandon in the Mother’s lap: "...You can decide my life or my death, my happiness or my sorrow, my pleasure or my pain; whatever you do with me, whatever comes to me from you will lead me to the Divine Rapture." In a previous life, Mother had said, Amma was a Rishi’s wife. That is to say, she was born in this life with the adhikara to receive and retain the Divine’s Grace, and, consequently, her uncluttered sattwic mind and pure heart weathered the cruellest attacks of the adverse forces solely on the strength of her faith and at last reached the haven of "splendid soft repose".
The last fortnight, Amma lay cocooned in motionless trance. A thank-you gift to Bharatiben, illustrating, as it were, her (B’s) favourite prayer, that of 7th December 1912 (7th December happens to be B’s birthday):
Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee.… When Thou willest I shall be in Thee, Thyself, and there shall be no more any distinction; I await that blessed hour without impatience of any kind, letting myself flow irresistibly toward it as a peaceful stream flows toward the boundless ocean. Thy peace is in me, and in that Peace I see Thee alone present in everything, with the calm of Eternity.
And her unwrinkled face revealed the opening lines of her own favourite:
My aspiration to Thee, O Lord, has taken the form of a beautiful rose, harmonious, full in bloom, rich in fragrance.[39]
Obviously, the years of sincere and regular meditation on the Mother, repetition of Her prayers,[40] and unwavering faith in Her work and surrender to Her Will, had borne fruit. The only physical sign of her not having left the body was a gently pulsating vein on her throat. And, at least one of the reasons, if not the chief one, Amma waited until the afternoon of 10th October to leave her body, was to bless her favourite niece, Susheela, with a last darshan. For, unaware of the situation, Susheela suddenly turned up and could spend a quiet hour sitting by Amma’s bedside. Soon after she left the pulsating vein too subsided, again, the only sign that she had left us. It was 1.20 p.m.
Why did the tears gush ceaselessly at the cremation, the next noon? It was as homage to an ideal mother and, through her, to all self-sacrificing mothers. But much more truly, even if subconsciously, to that stream of surrender rushing to merge into the Supreme Mother, who
In her deep and great love for her children…consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation....[41]
* * *
[1] Droughts, famines, epidemics, were trademarks of Pax Britannica, the "peace of death and torpor, security to starve in, the ease of the grave", as Sri Aurobindo defined it in Bande Mataram in March 1908.
[2] More Answers from the Mother, Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Vol. 17, 1978, pp.122-3.
[3] Questions and Answers ’57-58, CWM, Vol. 9, 1978, pp. 373-74.
[4] Prayers and Meditations, December 7, 1912.
[5] "…when you have one or more people who are in exactly the same state of mind and have the same aspiration, quite naturally…among you, you will form…a true family." [CWM, Vol. 4, pp. 258-9.]
[6] This was the information Kapali Sastriar gave to Madhav Pandit. Since Amma knew Sastriar….
[7] In those days, sadhaks permitted by the Mother received copies of some of her prayers and meditations.
[8] The full commentary is found in Complete Works of Kapali Sastriar.
[9] SABCL, Vol. 20, pp.74-75.
[10] On Kali Puja days, Mother distributed blessings-packets with petals of Divine’s love. In the photograph, a tray with these packets is on a table on the Mother’s right side.
[11] In South India, the five earth-elements are represented at the following kshetra(s), pilgrim centres: Water at Jambukeshwara or Tiruvanaikkaval, Fire at Arunachalam or Tiruvannamalai, Ether at Chidambaram, Earth at Kancheepuram, and Air at Kaalahasti.
[12] This title was awarded to him by Raja Krishna Tarka Panchanana on 2nd June 1900, for winning that year’s national poetry contest of ashta-avadhani, held by the University of Nawadweep, the last surviving ancient seat of traditional learning after Nalanda, Ujjain, Amaravathi and Kancheepuram. [Nayana, pp.28-36]
[13] V. Venkateswara Sastrulu (Proprietor, Vavila Press, Madras), The Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Lokamanya Tilak, edited & published by S.V. Bapat, Poona, 1924, pp.36-37.
[14] "After Bharati escaped to Pondicherry," writes Appa’s grand-nephew, "information regarding the freedom struggle used to be sent to Appa through paper slips that were dropped as though they were alms into the hands of couriers who were in the guise of beggars seated outside the Tiruvottriyur temple…. This stealth became necessary because his house was under police surveillance — a constable in mufti was always sitting on the thinnai." ["A Mission to Tiruvottriyur", Cdr. R. Ganapati (Retd), Madras Musings, March 16-31, 2009.]
[15] Record of Yoga, Vol. 11 of Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, 2001, p.1344.
[16] Incidentally, the name of Amma’s first child, Kowsiki, harks back to the river Kausiki near Peramma Agrahaaram, Rajahmundry, whose banks Nayana chose for tapasya in 1896.
[17] "A Mission to Tiruvottriyur", by Cdr. R. Ganapati (Retd), in Madras Musings, March 16-31, 2009.
[18] I believe Appa arranged for the printing of "An Outline Scheme of Swaraj" (a Constitution for India), which was drawn up by Das and his colleague Bhagawan Das for that year’s Congress session at Kakinada.
[19] Sri Aurobindo Ashram — The Story of the Main Building, Ed. Raman Reddy, 2008, p.25.
[20] Later Sri Aurobindo gave him the name Satyakarma. In 1955, when Mother created the Ashram Trust Board, she made him one of the Trustees in charge of the Ashram finances.
[21] Born on 11 May 1884, she passed away on 23 March 1973. Note the three occurrences of March.
[22] 23 visits were recorded in Ashram register between Feb. 1930 to Aug. 1938. She came generally during Darshan days; stayed longest in 1936: 7th Apr. to 24th Nov.; the last time in Aug. 1938. She died in 1946.
[23] CWM, Vol. 13, 1978, p.76
[24] N. Nagaswami, in his Puduvail Deshabhaktagal, 1966, pp.62-63.
[25] X soon decided that a second plunge into wedded bliss would hasten her sadhana & left the Ashram. Years later, the very day Appa left Ashram for a long vacation, Y ordered Amma to send over even his own furniture! No wonder, before publishing her correspondence with Sri Aurobindo and Mother, Y destroyed or omitted all that dealt with or betrayed her weaknesses & failings, thus assuring her sainthood.
[26] CWM, Vol. 14, p.312.
[27] Ibid., 306.
[28] Interestingly, he was nearing 95 when he passed away on 2nd December 1976.
[29] At the Feet of the Master, T. Kodanda Rama Rao.
[30] "Their Presence: Vast and Unfathomable", Yogananda, Mother India, January 2009, p.61.
[31] A few parts of that house now form components of The Studio built over and beside it in 1994-98. Around 1950, Rukmini moved into the building to the west of the Ashram. She died in March 1973.
[32] On Himself, SABCL, Vol. 26, p.513
[33] Droughts, famines, epidemics, were trademarks of Pax Britannica, the "peace of death and torpor, security to starve in, the ease of the grave", as Sri Aurobindo defined it in Bande Mataram in March 1908.
[34] One of Amma’s great-grand-daughters.
[35] "Sincerity", runs Mother’s message of 21 Feb.1930, "means to lift all the movements of the being to the level of the highest consciousness and realisation already attained. //para// Sincerity exacts the unification and harmonisation of the whole being in all its parts and movements around the central Divine Will."
[36] SABCL, Vol. 24, p.1245.
[37] Nayana, pp.133-34.
[38] CWM, Vol. 16, pp.175-76.
[39] "In the first movement of self-preparation…, the method we have to use is this concentration of the whole being on the Divine that it seeks…. An entire consecration of all that we are, think, feel and do will be the result of this persistence. This consecration in its turn must culminate in an integral self-giving to the Highest; for its crown and sign of completion is the whole nature’s all-comprehending absolute surrender. In the second stage of the Yoga, transitional between the human and the divine working, there will supervene an increasing purified and vigilant passivity, a more and more luminous divine response to the Divine Force, but not to any other; and there will be as a result the growing inrush of a great and conscious miraculous working from above. In the last period there is no effort at all, no set method, no fixed sadhana; the place of endeavour and tapasya will be taken by a natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing of the flower of the Divine out of the bud of a purified and perfected terrestrial nature." [Synthesis of Yoga, Chapter 2.]
[40] "The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not possess… but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane." [Kena and other Upanishads, Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Vol. 18, pp.30-31.]
[41] The Mother, SABCL Vol. 25, p.25.
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