Mother's little fairy

A Page from History

M. P. Pandit

If history is a process of the evolution of the human consciousness on its various levels, surely the Mother’s life is a continuum of concentrated history, and that too not on the earth-plane alone but also on several other orders of existence. For a close observer it was an intense education to watch how she made and unmade things, how weaklings were transformed into heroes, age-long impediments were dissolved with one smile. Her course of action was always first to set things moving on the subtle planes then to shape their results on the physical. Dimensions lost their meaning when it concerned the Mother: she could be at the same time high above and here below, concentrated on one point locally but at the same time aware of calls from all over the universe. She was supremely divine but equally intensely human. She held innumerable threads in her beautiful hands and knew which one to pull and when. She knew but would not appear to know, she could effect but did not want to. Some would say she was complex. But the way she operated was so natural. In her the divine and the human elements were delightfully fused. No instance would be happier to illustrate this side of her life than her meeting with a long lost friend who had returned to her from beyond the gates of death. We speak of Marguerite Lidchi, that little, blithe spirit who arrived at the Ashram early in 1960. I [Madhav Pandit] was one of the first persons to meet her and inform the Mother of her arrival.

Maggy — for that was how Marguerite was known to everybody then — happened to read Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita in France and was bowled over. Irresistibly she was held in the grip of Lord Krishna and she was, in spite of herself, drawn to Sri Aurobindo. She set out for Pondicherry forthwith. She knew nothing of the Mother at that time. And when she arrived she found herself quite at home. Everyone liked her, her petite form, her agile gait and above all her perpetual smile. Inquisitive minds found out that at her home in South Africa there were many servants working for the family. And here she was moving about without a care in the world—or so it looked.

All the while things were taking shape in another direction. When word was reached to the Mother about this visitor’s arrival, Mother made a cryptic comment: "It is someone I know." We looked for further elucidation, but none was forthcoming. We had learnt not to press for more than what she would say.

Well, Maggy was presented to the Mother on 1 February 1960. Champaklal remembers — as only he can — the full contour of Mother’s smile and Maggy’s tear-filled eyes. This was in the Pranam hall where Mother was giving blessing to all.

Very soon afterwards Maggy met the Mother alone upstairs. Her first words to the Mother were, "I know you already, I have known you before," and tears streamed down her face. Both meditated together for a long time.

How did she feel she had known Mother before? Obviously her inner being knew it though on the surface Maggy could not perhaps explain. But Mother explained it in detail to Champaklal. And here is the story, or rather facts which look like a story.

When Mirra [the Mother] was young, pursuing her studies in art in Paris, she had a friend of her own age, a dear friend— "and the only friend" as Mother took care to mention—and her name was Valentine. Their friendship was deep, so deep that when after her marriage Valentine had to leave for Egypt, she was so miserable to part from Mirra that she lost all taste for life. No wonder she left her body—soon afterwards (when only 19 years old)—at childbirth, a day before André was born to Mirra.

It is interesting to recall that Mother had painted a picture of this friend, a miniature which still retains its exquisite fresh pastel colors because it was painted on ivory. It is a portrait of a beautiful young woman dressed in the style of the times, just before the turn of the century, in a white gown with a white gardenia pinned to the shoulders. She wears a triple row of pearls. The face is sensitive but the eyes show the sadness at the impending parting. The Mother had brought the miniature with her to India and later gave it to Maggy, telling her, "I loved you very much then and I love you even more now. You came back very quickly." Of course to Maggy it seemed to have taken a long time. Once they met here, however, Mother showered her blessings and gifts, both inner and outer, so lavishly on her that all the longing of the past was forgotten.

This portrait of Mme Valentine is done on a small piece of ivory. The Mother presented it to Ms. Maggi Lidchi, one of her disciples, in whom she recognised a reincarnation of her friend. Mme Valentine, a close friend of the Mother's during her days in the art studio, died in childbirth just before the Mother's son, Andre, was born.

In the beginning, things were slow to develop, but very soon the old intimacies seem to have returned, though of course with some new dimensions added.

Writing on 3 November 1964, Mother turned Maggy into Maggi (Maggi—close to Mother); she writes:

Maggi, my dear child,

I am really happy with the manner in which your sadhana is developing and your growing receptivity."

Interesting developments followed. Mother became aware of a fairy who had attached herself to Maggi and was always present. Of her the Mother was to write:

"I have to tell you that my perceptions concerning you are becoming more and more precise—and that I am convinced that your vital is united to a charming little fairy, charming, smiling attractive, who likes to do pretty little miracles that give a special flavor to human life, quite dull in general.

Your presence is a joy and your collaboration is precious . . .

And I too love you.

That was not all. Maggi herself turned into Mother’s Fairy. For on her birthday, Mother wrote:

"To my sweet little fairy who brings a ray of sunshine to this earth."

Mother would address her as her sweet fairy, her good fairy, on the cards and letters addressed to her.

Maggi once asked Mother if the fairy had been with her since her birth and Mother said, "Probably," but that in any case she had arrived with her in the Ashram (in order to come into contact with Mother).

I hope I am breaking no confidences if I were to mention that Mother’s love for Maggi would flow at times in enveloping embraces, peals of laughter. Mother observed that when Maggi came into the room it was like being in a garden. The fairy used to weave gardens around them.

One day in a more solemn moment Mother asked Champaklal to bring a card. He brought once, she asked for a bigger card. Then she took Maggi’s hand with her forefinger drew four circles in the palm and joined them with lines. Then she took a deep breath and put her chin on her chest and closed her eyes in concentration. "I have just created an order," she spoke. Thereupon Champaklal gave her the card and she wrote:

"Maggi, Chevaliler de la Gentillesse," which can perhaps be put in English, "Knight of the Order of Nobility".

There was an interesting sequel. Much later, when Nata and Maggi started a home for children in Udavi where there is the Auroshikha Agarbatti factory and the school, and Maggi was asked to give a name, she heard the Mother’s voice saying: Gentillesse.

Speaking of Nata, Maggi considers that one of the biggest gifts she was to receive from Mother was her companionship with Nata. Nata, it will be recalled, was a splendid nobleman (Italian) who had settled in South America. On his very first visit to the Ashram, he had been taken to see the Lake Estate when the developmental program had yet to take shape. But what

he saw before him moved him so deeply that without a single thought, he took out all the money that was in his pockets— some thousands—and gave it as his contribution to the sadhaks who accompanied him there. He was responsible for initiating and developing the program of publishing Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s writings in Italian; he even started a journal. He was generosity personified. I may mention that though we hardly met once or twice, a deep inner relation had developed between us. He would occasionally write asking for certain clarifications. He would suddenly inundate me with boxes of high quality incense. The contact did not cease with his passing. He visits our place now and then, warming it with his soothing presence.

Mother’s last birthday card to Maggi reads: "Good secretary and excellent disciple."

Incidents bringing out the depth of the relations between Mother and Maggi could be multiplied. I will only cite a couple of interchanges. In one letter Mother writes:

"Maggi, my dear little fairy, you are adorable and it is a great joy to be served by you. With all my tenderness and my blessings."

Maggi writes: "Adored sweet Mother, I love you now and for ever. Your Maggi."

Mother replies: "Adorable little Maggi, I love you."

And the love continues. Mother’s physical withdrawal has not interrupted it. Maggi is never alone.

A couple of months after Mother had left, an Italian disciple, an artist by the name of Judi Cozzi, while visiting the Ashram, met with a serious accident, and while she was being operated on, left her body. She met Mother whom she asked if she must really go back to her body lying on the operation table. Mother directed her to return explaining to her what her work would be. She told her also to give Maggi the following message: Mother would send a little child to Maggi and that Maggi must not forget that the child came from her.

So Judi called Maggi and spoke of this. Maggi, however, did forget. When she took the child to visit Judi in Dr. Sen’s nursing home, Judi said to her, "There is the child that Mother sent you." You can imagine Maggi’s feelings.

There was once a period of financial crisis in the Ashram. Someone told Maggi of it. She immediately took out all the money that was with her at the moment and made it over to Mother. Mother was to narrate this to me much later, adding, "Maggi is a good girl." And beautiful too, beautiful of form and soul.