Contact with The Mother

THE MOTHER COMES TO A CHILD

I came to Pondicherry with my wife and youngest son of about 8 years in 1940 for the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Children were not then so easily permitted into the Ashram as now. The spiritual atmosphere was considered in many cases to be too intense for the immature child-body and child-nerves.

We bought some flowers at Villupuram to be offered to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. My son too collected some cinema film frames which he said he would offer to the Mother.

On arriving at the Ashram gate we were told that we could not take the boy into the Meditation Hall. “The Mother will see him tomorrow morning and then she will decide about his entrance.”

Naturally we felt it a little that we had to leave our son outside, though he was so turned towards the Mother. The child too was sad and started crying. But somehow we made him sit in the Reception Room. To console him we said that if he kept calling to the Mother she would allow him to see her.

We went to the Mother for her blessings and, when we returned, we found him playing outside the gate, with another Ashram boy of his age who also was not allowed within the Ashram compound. As soon as he saw us he came running towards us and, embracing my legs, shouted, “Father, Mother came and told me, ‘I will see you tomorrow’.”

“How did she come?” we asked him in surprise.

The child took us to the Reception Room and, pointing to the high-raised big photograph of Sri Aurobindo, he said, “She came through the door behind that photograph.”

He had been satisfied at this and started playing outside the Ashram Gate before we came after the Mother’s blessings in the Meditation Hall.