Contact with The Mother

NO NEED TO BE AFRAID

It was in 1936 that at the age of 28, I came to Pondicherry for the first time. I did not know much of Yoga nor about Sri Aurobindo and nothing about the Mother. I had not read any of their books.

On my arrival, I was taken to the Mother. It was in the room near the staircase, where she used to give collective meditation to the sadhaks. As the light was dim, I could not see her face distinctly. I can only remember her white figure in half-lit silence when we sat in concentrated hush.

I was put up in an Ashram house, then called the “Artists’ House”, where now the three-storeyed steelless cement marvel of architecture, the Golconde, stands.

At night I was alone in that house and, to be honest, I was afraid of ghosts. I felt a little frightened in that dumb and gaping loneliness.

After a short sleep, I got up and suddenly saw the Mother sitting in the chair opposite my bed. Then I dozed off. Again I got up after a time and saw her standing outside my mosquito-net, as if in the air, but with a face as clear as before. Once more I dropped into sleep to be roused a third time by her presence which seemed to grow more and more concrete. I felt a great happiness poured into me.

When I went to the Mother in the morning, she caught my hand and said, “You were afraid last night? There are no evil spirits here. I have driven away all of them from here. There is no need to be afraid.”

This was a most fortunate day for me. It changed the entire future course of my life.