Contact with The Mother

BACK HOME AT HER FEET

When I first came to the Ashram as a visitor, I did not know anything about the Mother. My friend, with whom I had come, arranged for me permission for the Pranam which the Mother used to give in the Meditation Hall after 8 a.m., when aspirants came one by one in a queue and received her blessings on the head and some flowers with a special significance.

As I moved in the queue, my wife behind me, I saw people bowing at the feet of the Mother. My self-conceit revolted at the idea of this. “I have not come here to bow before a European lady. I came here for the darshan of Sri Aurobindo.” I thought of turning back, but good manners had the better of such an idea and I decided to follow on.

As soon as I reached the Mother and tried to look into her eyes, lo! there were no eyes there—but a deep vast ocean spread in front. I spontaneously bowed at her feet and took her blessings. Some years later, as I pined for the repetition of this experience, the Mother told me that it had been an experience of the sudden opening of the psychic being which had been very much in the fore at that time.

During this visit, as I stayed a number of days and the Mother came to know about me, I felt from her talk that she was encouraging me to stay on, but I could not catch clearly her idea. When I went to her for the parting Pranam, she asked, “So you are going today?” Continuing, she said, “There is a marked improvement in you. When you come again I shall try to accommodate you in a house nearer the Ashram. But your wife has to get accustomed to the Ashram life. When are you coming back?” I did not understand why she told me all this, but I just said, “Mother, I shall take the earliest opportunity to return.” And we left.

My wife wanted to see her mother on the way and we went to her parents’ house. Only the first night I had good sleep. On the second day I got ill and my condition started going from bad to worse. Breathing grew difficult. It was a small place, with no qualified doctor. The experienced compounder of the town had no hope about me.

I was on my death-bed. As is the custom, I was brought outdoors, for dying indoors is considered inauspicious. Although apparently unconscious, deep in my death-approaching silence I remembered the Mother’s words, “So you are going today?” and my reply, “Mother, I shall take the earliest opportunity to return.” Now I understood the meaning of her encouragement to me to stay on rather than go back; but yet my attachment had lain with my house and family. Although I had decided to go, her Grace had followed me and as I realised my foolishness, my heart appealed to her, “If I survive, I will for certain come to you.”

And it was all a miracle. Suddenly I began to breathe and so I was brought inside the room. Within a couple of days I recovered almost completely. I went home, soon to return to the feet of the Mother, forever.