Darshan

Foreword

Lt.Gen. Ashoke Chatterjee

(Retd)

A bouquet of flowers has been offered to the Mother by her children in the form of personal reminiscences. Our grateful thanks to the offerings of these children who have consciously chosen to walk Her Sunlit path and have been aspiring for the realization of their infinite self being. These recollections will enthuse many more aspirants on their onward inward journey.

Spirituality has always accepted the reality of the Supreme in humanity. The Mother descends into the individual form of the otherwise unknown and unknowable Godhead and leads us to work out the Will of the Divine. She guides us in transforming the entire Nature and divinising it. The Mother is the Mahashakti, the Parashakti, the Supreme Shakti and the omniscient Supremo: the Mother reveals to us that it is possible to see the whole universe within oneself; to understand all its forces and powers governing it.

She supports our spiritual attempts at all levels and takes with Her the receptive segment of humanity in the uphill endeavour. Even in Her prayers and meditations the Mother is not praying for Herself; She is praying on behalf of the earth and all humanity. It is Mother's consciousness and love which is transforming each one of us in the measure of our receptivity. This linkage of love with the Divine is all important in our endeavour. Our conscious surrender will establish the intimate love and trust relationship, the mantra of ceaseless self-transcendence. Only the Mother's Force can up bear and uplift us to the required status necessary for transformation.

The Mother tells us that each one of us can transcend and grow into immortality. By the very nature of evolutionary process, we will sooner rather than later succeed in affirming the prediction of the Divine in us and also in the universe. It is this knowledge, that the material universe will one day be the

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home of the Divine, should guide our energies for the building of this great habitat, Auroville. It is the Mother who is building it and we are only the labourers in Her work. — Her hands and instruments. It is our responsibility to help the universe and not escape it.

Auroville, dedicated to the Mother's vision as a place of "unending education and a youth that never ages" is the place of growth of capacities, possibilities, of the field of action and range of consciousness and progress in the working out of details. It is this consecration of our life to the realization of something higher and broader that will free us from the weight of the passing years. The Mother asks us to live for the new creation to grow stronger and stronger while remaining young and progressive.

Freedom, equality, brotherhood are the three godheads of the soul; One who sees God in all will serve the Mother's cause; One's individual freedom and perfection has to be seen as one with the universal life. It is a spiritual and inner freedom that can create a perfect human order. The Mother exhorts 'Auroville wants to manifest the Divine consciousness on earth as an attempt to express human unity".

Our loving gratitude goes out to our talented friends Syamala and Varadharajan for their painstaking effort in getting the recorded talks transcribed and typing out the texts and reaching out personally to each one of the children to complete the offering. But for them, the publication of these personal experiences would have remained hidden from other seekers. Our gratitude to them.

For oneself, reading these personal perceptions has brought me closer to the lotus feet of the Mother, the Mahashakti, the Parashakti and the Supreme Shakti.

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