Darshan

6

"Her Presence Leaning

Out Toward Me"

Bhavana Dee

When I came to Pondicherry in 1971 on my way out of India to Sri Lanka, I'd already visited many ashrams and I'd come up with the somewhat peculiar notion that if the renunciation of worldly life that was everywhere proclaimed as the essence of spiritual practice was true, then when people became enlightened they should disappear. But they didn't—they lived on as fat gurus! So I was pleasantly surprised and ready for the world-inclusive spirituality of Auroville.

At that time Mother was already well known to be not keeping well, and I didn't feel like adding myself to the throngs bidding for Her time and attention. Also, I was not a "feeling" person; most things which thrilled other people left me cold, and I didn't want to risk the subtler sense of connection I had with Her. I felt that because of Her, whatever I did in Auroville would be of service to the whole world—and that was just what I was looking for. So I set to work, living in the Auro-Dairy barn and helping with the milking, having faith that because I was part of Her Dream—this was working hard to help the world. I did go to see Her once at public darshan, windswept on the balcony, but this was not the real connection.

She sent me away from Auroville, and I didn't see Her then either, but accepted that if She didn't want me there, I didn't belong. But her son told me that these things are not to be taken as permanent—I should come back later, in a year, and apply again which I did, and although Mother had passed in the meantime, I was readmitted.

I lived with a person who had great impatience in waiting—

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smoke of irritation would almost pour out of his nose and ears whenever he had to wait. I found that an unproductive way to behave, and decided that whenever I had to wait I would remember Mother. Thus meditation started. Many years later, when someone asked, as a conversation piece, if I could have tea with whoever I liked in all of history, who would I choose, I chose Mother. I wanted to tell Her about Village Action and the insights I'd had about Her and Sri Aurobindo trying to develop us,—like we were trying to help out the villagers —the parallels I'd seen in theirs and our incomprehension and incapacity.

Later, when I took my third Vipassana course I had a real meeting with Mother. I saw Her clearly, above and on my left looking down on me as if from that balcony, and nodding Her head and smiling and enthusiastically saying, "Yes, yes. Now you're working, now you're working." I knew that my practice was approved by Her. This was further corroborated when, after I'd followed at last an urge—coming in meditation—to change my name to Bhavana, Mother's Messenger Suresh, sent me an envelope with "Bhavana" written in Mother's own hand. Then I really did "feel" Her Presence leaning out toward me, over time and space, and approving of my practice, including my sadhana in her embrace.

Mother did a great thing in creating Auroville as a radically new tapaloka, a place for spiritual practice. "Build a city," She said and invited everyone who had a hope for the future to participate. Not the usual holy place full of rituals and pretences— Her Dream will only come true if we manage to make that infinitesimal shift in consciousness which will have us thinking in wholes rather than parts. An economy without taxes or even money, a society without a constitution or even laws or rules— the only way to bring this about is to change from within. I think that what She did with as unlikely a specimen as me is testimony to Her greatness, and so with humility I write this at the request of Syamala and Varadharajan. Jai Ma.

My God is will and triumphs in his paths,

My God is love and sweetly suffers all.

Book IX, 2

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