Darshan

13

"To Be Only Thy Servant Is All I Ask"

Donald Fisher

The first time I saw Mother, was the day my father left his body. In the morning, I heard him calling and when I went into his room, he told me, "Your Mother was here." Naturally I understood that it was my physical mother. And I knew that his time would come soon. But a little later, he called me again. And this time he was smiling very happily. He shook hands with me and then he closed his eyes. Beside his bed I saw a shadow. It was in profile. Somehow I knew it was not my physical mother but still it was Mother. Later on when I came to the Ashram, I saw the photo of The Mother taken in Tlemcen in Algeria. It is a profile photo in which She has a veil over her head. I recognized Her as being the person who had come to take my father. So naturally I was very grateful. At that time, 1967, there was the plan to build Auroville. The intention was to have the inauguration on the 28^th February, (1968). But there was no access road, neither was the land purchased where the Matrimandir and the inauguration site was to be. I offered some money that my father had left, thinking that the Person who helped my father to leave his body was in need of help from me. But it was not without difficulty. The money I had been left was supposed to be passed on to future generations. And the only thing for me to do was to decide not to have any children if I gave the money away.

One day Navajata Bhaiji told me, "I will take you to the Mother this afternoon." So in the morning, I went to Auroville. I had a Land rover. And I collected some wild flowers around the Banyan tree. In the afternoon when I was going up the staircase to see the Mother, I met the Mother's granddaughter

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coming down. She looked at the small flowers and said, "You can't take those weeds to Mother; you better go and get some real flowers." But I didn't take any notice of her. When Bhai ji and I went into Mother's room, She was sitting there and I simply offered Her the flowers and said, "Mother, here are the flowers from your fields." I looked at Her and She looked at me. I think we both knew what I meant. The flowers of the Auroville fields would be the Aurovilians who came to settle there. So, they would be my children as well.

When I left Auroville—it was to find a job. I left the Land-Rover behind and it worked there for many years. While I was walking across India, on my way home, I met a swami one day. He was very nice; he asked me to stay in his ashram for the night. While we were all asleep on the temple floor, now and then I kept on waking up. It seemed to me as though I was having some conversation with the swami. But I couldn't remember what we were saying. When I woke up next morning, the swami said to me, "Wouldn't you like to stay?"

"I only ever stay in one place, once."

So I went on my way. The swami walked down the road with me for a while and when we came to a bend in the road; he stopped and said, "You know, just now you are going to so many places and meeting so many people and getting help from them. One day you will have to stay in one place and so many people from so many places would come to take help from you." Now, I didn't want to be rude and I didn't say anything. But naturally I thought, what this useless person can do! How can I help anybody! I am not even useful enough to be a straw under the Lord's feet. I am supposed to know that I was mistaken because, you know; even the straw has some weight. It is said that a camel's back was broken by a last straw. So who am I to say what weight myself carries in this world, or what the consequences of my being here are!— it is not my business. At last I came to Haridwar (a holy town on the bank of the Ganges). While I was walking beside the Ganga (the Ganges) one day, a young sadhu met me. He gave me the hibiscus flower—of Auroville—and he motioned me to offer the flower to Ganga Ma (Mother Ganges). After I had taken my bath, I offered the flower and watched it float away.

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When I turned around, the sadhu had gone. Something within me made me go into the forest and make a small fire in a clearing. I did not know about yagna. But I wasn't cold, yet I wanted to make this fire. You know it was the 24^th April, (one of the four Darshan days in Sri Aurobindo Ashram) although I had forgotten. And at that time the Mother was giving Darshan at the balcony of the Ashram. So I saw Mother coming out of the fire and I extinguished the fire and walked off again through the forest. I came to a small road. A very friendly chap on a motorbike stopped and motioned me to get on behind. When we came to the main trunk road, he stopped and he stood in the middle of the trunk road. And he made a big lorry stop. He said something to the driver and the driver called me to sit up in the cab beside him and off we went. I didn't know where we were going. When we came to the middle of Delhi, somewhere near Connaught Circus, I think, the driver stopped and gave me a friendly smile. So I got out and I thanked him. Some English people came along and told me, "We are sending you back to London and when you get there you can pay us the ticket." So I thought this is what I have to do. As soon as I reached London, of course I went straight to the Employment office to look for a job. The lady there was very nice. I just landed from India, so, I was still a bit confused. When the lady asked me, "What sort of job you want?" I said," I don't know."

"What have you been doing", she asked. I said, "I just came from India this morning."

"What were you doing in India," she asked. "Oh, well, I was trying to do yoga."

T see", she said. And so she went to her filing cabin and when she came back, she had some forms. And she said, "Look here, I have got a job for you in a ware house. They sell yoghurt." So of course, you know, I just realized straight away, it would be impossible to explain anything. So, I took the job.

As soon as I started the job, I said to myself, "Now there is one thing you have to realize. Just like in the Ashram, at any moment Mother can walk in here and She would see whether the place is clean and tidy or not, whether the work is being done properly, whether everybody is trained for the job, whether

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they are observing the safety rules." So I thought this should be my attitude for as long as I am here. And thirty three years later, my attitude is the same. I haven't changed. I am still working for the Mother as best as I can.

When I met Sudha, in 1973, it was through an advertisement in a news paper. Sudha had put that: "I am Indian, teacher, aged 31, vegetarian and I am looking for someone similar." Of course I wasn't Indian but never mind, I was vegetarian and I was aged 31. So I took a chance and replied. Sudha received seventy replies to her advertisement and yet she wrote to me. Why was that? In the letter I wrote to her I had mentioned that I had just been staying in Sri Aurobindo Ashram. And although I wasn't a Hindu, I loved India. And Sudha grew up in East Africa. Once her parents took her to some one's house; that person had a photo of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Sudha looked at the photo—she was young then—and told her parents, "I want to stay with them." Of course her parents had a fright. So they never went to the house again; they thought that Sudha might run away. And they were afraid of Ashrams. When Sudha grew up she was sent to Teachers Training College in Nairobi. And later on, she came to England to get a job. Afterwards all her family came.

So when Sudha read my letter, my answer to her advertisement, she showed it to her mother and said, "This is the person I want to marry." Naturally her parents were pretty upset. First of all, I was English. Secondly, they had never set eyes on me. So Sudha's mother told her, "Alright, you write to this man and ask him to come to our house." I received Sudha's letter. Before I opened it, I could see from her handwriting what a nice person she is. So I telephoned to them and arranged to meet them. I think it was Easter holiday. The night before I left, I had a dream. A lady was speaking to me from over my shoulder. I couldn't see who she was. Yet somehow, although her accent was neither English, nor French. I understood: She was The Mother. So the Mother told me in my dream, "You see this lady." She showed me an Indian lady—typical Gujarathi lady with glasses, middle aged. I had never seen her before. The Mother told me, "You tell her something from me. She is thinking about me some of the time but I am thinking about her twenty

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four hours a day. So you give her, twenty-four red roses when you meet."

I thought to myself in the morning: there is no harm in taking the roses with me when I visit these people and if it is not the same person, I just keep quiet. When I went to their house and rang the bell, Sudha's father opened the door and standing at the top of the stair case was Sudha's mother. It was the same lady that I saw in my dream. So I explained to Sudha's mother: this is what Ma has said. When we went into the sitting room, I saw a picture of Durga sitting on a Lion and above Durga in the picture, there were, all around—red roses. Then Sudha's mother explained to me: you see, I wanted to know who you are, why you are involved with my daughter. In her meditation (Sudha's) mother prayed to Durga to enlighten her as to what was happening. In her meditation she saw Sudha and me. But it was not in this birth, it was in a previous birth. I was sitting somewhere under a tree. Sudha came along in a carriage. When she got down from the carriage, she approached me and said, "1 want to stay here with you." I smiled and said, "You are married in this birth. So you have to complete that. If you want to stay with me in your next birth, then, of course." Sudha and I got married and we came to get Mother's blessings. On 15^th of August, 1973, we stood in the road outside the Ashram beneath the balcony when the Mother came out. I don't think myself it mattered very much whether someone has seen the Mother or not. What matters is that She has definitely seen all of us.

Then we came back to England to work. But afterwards, Sudha found her teaching job too much and I persuaded her, "Look, we will manage on what I earn." It was easy to say that but not easy to do. We had a mortgage loan on the house that had to be paid. So for fourteen years, we did not go on any holiday. In 1990, we had saved up and bought our tickets for India.

There was a bit of a mix up from the start. First of all the travel agent said, "I have booked your ticket for 11^th of August." (Because we were going for Sri Aurobindo's Darshan day) Then he rang up and said, "Well, I can't get you on the 11^th, you have to leave on the first." On the morning of the first, I felt very uncomfortable. I had a sense of dark foreboding. The same

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feeling I had the day I left for the war in Vietnam. Sudha also said to me, "I had a very bad dream. It seemed the dark force was sitting on me." I said to her, "You know I feel we are not going to get there. So you had better not come." She told me, "Why don't you go to the doctor and tell him. You get a certificate, give it to the Insurance Company and get a refund on the tickets." But I said, "No, I think I have to go. But don't come with me." But she wanted to come. When we got to the Airport, they said, "There is something wrong with the aero plane. So you have to wait for about three hours"—while they were fixing the air conditioners, I think. When we finally took off, I said to the chap sitting next to me, "Where you going?" He said, "I am going to Kuwait." I said, "Does this plane go to Kuwait?" He said, "Of course, it does. It stops there on the way to Madras." I said, "Oh!" We were a bit worried to know, because Saddham Hussain was threatening Kuwaiti Government. And all his tanks and everything were sitting right on the border. I said, "This is a war. I don't think somehow we would be going further than there."

When we landed in Kuwait, everybody got off for a while to stretch their legs. And when we were queuing up to get back to the plane, I heard a Tank-shell in the distance. So I said to one of the stewards quietly, "Look, I think there is something going on." But he said, "Don't worry it's just a door banging." I said, "Okay. I can't do anymore." Sudha and I didn't get back on the plane. We went down the basement away from big sheets of glass—that's the last place you want to be if anything goes bang. While the plane was sitting there, the captain suddenly realized that Iraqi planes were bombing the runway. And he ordered everybody off. So we met them again. There was nothing to be done. The invasion had already started. Soon the Tanks will arrive at the airport. We were all told to go to the hotel.

When we reached the reception, the receptionist said to me, "Will you please share your room with this gentleman and his daughter. We are short of rooms." So we all went together. This gentleman—his name was Dr. Ameer—was from South India but living in London. His daughter was about fifteen. Dr. Ameer said to me, "Everybody is panicking but not you; why is that?"

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I said, "I have been through war in Vietnam, I know very well; either you get out of it or you don't." When were you in Vietnam, he asked. I said, "Well I went on 13^th of March, 1965." He said, "Do you know, you were right on that plane in Saigon Airport and I was waiting to get on it?" Twenty-five years later we meet again and this is the beginning of the Gulf War. I am going to say my prayers now, he said. "Do you want us to go out of the room?" I asked. "Not at all, please stay." After he finished his prayer, Dr. Ameer said to me, "I was praying about you to Allah. I asked Allah why he made you to come here. And I think it is because you have been through it all before and you have to help people who haven't. Dr.Ameer was an incredibly useful person. He arranged for all the Indian passengers, no matter if they had British, American or any other passport to get Indian passports—and Indian people were allowed to leave. He told us, "Look, don't worry. I will put you down as residents of Pondicherry. No matter, you say that you are French and you are now Indian and you both got Indian passport and off you go." I said, "That's very kind of you." But that night, you know what happened? The telephone rang and woke me up. "I am a British Airways pilot", the voice said, "and I am in hiding. I have hidden my uniform and I am wearing some of the clothes from the hotel kitchen. Can you please help me?" So, you see, I went back to Dr. Ameer and said, "I can't come with you." "Why is that", he said. I said, "Well, I just can't." "What about Mrs. Fisher? You must let her go." "Of course, if she wants." But Sudha refused. Dr. Ameer became very stern, he said, "Look, Mrs. Fisher, this is an Arab country, a Muslim country. You know the position of women. What will happen if they shoot your husband? What will you do then?"

Sudha told him calmly, "If they shoot my husband, I will stand in front of him." Then Dr. Ameer turned to me, "Mr. Fisher, I don't understand you. Why are you insisting to be the last person to leave?" So I just said, "If I am the last person to leave, I will remember to turn out the lights."

When we were caught by the Iraqi Police they took us to Baghdad. And then they took us to a strategic installation right up to the North East of Iraq. It was a dam. There was a vast lake

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behind the dam. And we were put in a store room above the generators of the dam—hydroelectric. So, of course, you know, I was wondering what on earth we are doing here; we bought our tickets to go to the Ashram and we find our self in this place. So, I asked the Mother. Then it came to me afterwards: this dam, if it's broken by bombs, it will flood the whole country. Everybody lives along the banks of the Tigris. And if all the force of this damn were to come down, most will drown. So then I thought, perhaps this is the reason for us being here. Whether we get bombed or not, what does it matter! But if it does prevent all these people from being drowned, then I don't mind. Surprisingly enough to us, after five months, we were released. It happened like this: One morning - it was the Ninth of December, 1990, Sri Aurobindo's fortieth anniversary of his Samadhi—the Iraqis came and said, "You are free." Are they letting everybody off?" I asked. "Yes, of course, all of you are free."

When we came outside, nothing had changed. The mountains were there, the lake was there, the dam was there; everything was unchanged. But something was different. It was hard to say what it was. I looked at the sky, of course the Sun was shining but it didn't seem to be moving. It didn't seem as if anything was changing. I thought, "I am very lucky." Not just, I am no longer a prisoner of Iraqis. I am no longer a prisoner of Time. We were put on a plane at Baghdad Airport and we reached London Airport by about three o' clock in the morning. By the time, we got to our house, which is on the edge of London, it was, may be six and not worth going to bed. At eight o' clock, I rang up my boss. I said, "I am back. And I want to come to work." He said, "Oh, no, no. You can take as long as you like in leave—to recover. You can take three months, six months, it doesn't matter. Please don't be in a hurry." But I said, "I just want to work." There is a Sri Aurobindo Centre near us, in our same village. You see, how lucky we are. There was a gentleman who ran the centre—his name is Mr. Vijayan Manik—and we went to see him. I can't really explain; we thought we had never been away. But everybody was very upset. They said, "You don't know how much we worried about you and what had happened to you. And we didn't even know if we would ever see you

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again" Then I understood. They had suffered much more than we had and I felt rather guilty to be the cause of their suffering. So I said, look, it seems that Mother wanted us to be there. That's all I can say. And it is better not to ask the Divine, why She is doing what She is doing.

One thing I would like to do now is to just to read a prayer of the Mother's. The Mother's Prayer. July the 27^th 1914.

"Humbly, quietly, my prayer rises to Thee, O sweet Master, Thou who acceptest without argument and without censure all that is offered to Thee, Thou who givest Thyself and makest Thyself known to all, without asking whether they are worthy of it or not, Thou who findest nothing too weak, too small, too modest, too inadequate to manifest Thee....

Let me lay myself at Thy feet, let me melt into Thy heart and disappear in Thee, let me be annihilated in Thy beatitude, or rather let me be only Thy servant, claiming nothing more. I desire, I aspire for nothing else. To be only Thy servant is all I ask."

In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,

Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.

Book III, 2

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