Breath of Grace

Bushy, the Cat

Cats, too, were along with us, bright recipients of the bountiful grace of Sri Aurobindo. For long years, right from His early stay at Pondicherry, i.e. soon after 1910, some lucky cats enjoyed His divine hospitality and made His house their own.

It started like this. A cat persisted in her desire to adopt His house, and although other house-members were at pains not to allow her there, she remained resolute in her will and won.

Sri Aurobindo thought of working upon cat-consciousness also, and this cat-sadhika found a home for herself and her progeny.

It may need a long chapter for dealing with this cat-colony, which we cannot afford. I will, therefore, limit myself to one, Bushy by name, one who is immortalised by Sri Aurobindo, the Master-Poet in His poem "Despair on the Staircase".

Bushy was a great devotee of the Mother and the Master. She had made it a rule of her life to follow the Mother like a faithful dog, whenever She came down either for the giving of Her soup-prasad or for general meditation. Bushy's greatest ambition or rather aspiration was to carry her kittens to the Mother and if possible to the Master to be laid at Their feet as her offering.

It was for this reason that she kept her young ones under the corner-cupboard, half way up the stairs. From here as soon as the door opened and the Mother came out, she would carry them and lay them at Her feet. It was, indeed, a touching sight. How even a cat aspired to make her offering of her dear ones to the divine Mother!

And this was not all. She yearned to lay her offering at the Master's feet also. But before one could reach Sri Aurobindo's room there was first the main entrance door to be negotiated and then there was a wooden partition over 7 feet high. So at night when the Master was alone and the Mother in the meditation hall, Bushy would wait at the stairs to take her chance and at the first opportunity jump in with her kitten in her mouth and again jump over the wooden partition, and perhaps have the Master's darshan, but I don't know whether she laid her baby at His feet or not.

Sri Aurobindo in His stroll at night must have seen her waiting on the topmost stair at the entrance door, ardently desiring to enter, but being refused the opportunity, showing her pose of self-respect worthy of a cat belonging to the Divine.

There she was in despair, magnificently upholding her dignity. This is the subject of the poem "Despair on the Staircase", wherein is revealed the way our Lord looked at all creatures. He writes, "Whether she is spirit, woman or a cat" and "A charm and miracle of fur-footed Brahman". He naturally looked upon all beings as forms of the One Brahman, and in this particular case clearly indicated that there was in her cat-body a future woman too.