Flame of White Light

Preface

While reminiscing occasionally, Sri T. V. Kapali Sastriar used to speak to me of the various lines of Sadhana he had pursued since his childhood. Some of them like the Mantra Upasana, Puja Aradhana, were elaborate, complicated and quite strenuous. He practised them for years and years.

"And what came of them?" I asked once.

With a bound he sat up and said: "Here it is. It has brought me to the Feet of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother," impliedly questioning if there could be anything greater that one would want. The reply made a profound impression on me and it comes to my mind whenever there is a tendency around to take things for granted, to forget the momentous significance of the opportunity offered to us to breathe in the physical atmosphere of the Mother and bask in the sunshine of Her Smile.

He was conscious, every minute, of the rare fortune of living at this moment the like of which comes hardly once in a thousand years in the history of the earth. For he experienced and knew that the Mother is not simply a spiritual personality, a Saint; nor a Yogin who has arrived at the summits of spiritual realisation. She is not even an Avatar of the traditional conception, a Power or Part of the Divine incarnated in human form.

He saw and recognised in Her a conscious embodiment of the whole Divine, a living Murti in whom are present all the Four Personalities of the Adya Sakti spoken of by Sri Aurobindo as presiding over the course of the Earth's Evolution. He invoked in Her Person Maheshvari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasarasvati and got their response in an unmistakable manner. In Her he adored his Ista Devata, Sri Lalita Tripura Sundari, and surrendered his entire Sadhana to Her. Times without number he let me feel and get an inkling into the working of the Mother's Love, Force and Grace in his inner and outer life. Once he confided to me, with deep emotion:

"What has been done in me by the Mother's Force during the last six months would have taken for me at least ten years of exclusive Sadhana to achieve."

They say it is not always wise to say the whole truth, not judicious.

I do not know.

But I do know that there are occasions when it is wrong to resist the inner impulsion to declare a fact of one's own deepest perception and realisation, especially when it is an authentic Truth verified and verifiable in the experience of others who are competent therefore. And it is under such an imperative urge of the soul that I proceed to record the truth of the Manifestation that is the MOTHER.

This, says Sri Aurobindo, is the Hour of God. There have been similar junctures before in the long course of the evolution of the Earth, but with a difference. They too were critical moments when sudden transitions, saltus, were effected from one stage to another by special manifestations of the Divine emanated for the purpose. The present, however, is the most fateful climacteric reached so far. Evolution has arrived at a stage when man - the crown of the aeonic labour of Nature - has either to overpass himself into his Godhead and thus open out a new dimension of progress, or stagnate and perish with all that he represents. All the established forces of Ignorance and Falsehood are against this transition which sounds their deathknell. It is only the most plenary and direct manifestation of the Divine Conscious-Force, on a scale hitherto unknown, that can meet the situation. And this is exactly what the Mother is. She is the response of the Supreme Divine to the call of Earth when faced with her greatest challenge.

She is the most complete embodiment of the Divine

Grace manifested so far in the history of Creation. She has come with all the Higher Power and Knowledge, spiritual and occult, with all the dominating Force and conquering Love that alone could lift up Nature and reclaim Man for God. For decades She has striven to this end in Her frail body with endless patience and meticulous labour:

The world unknowing for the world she stood (Savitri)

And we know She has succeeded in bringing down to the Earth an altogether new Dynamis of the Creative Godhead, the saving Force Supramental, and established this Truth-Power in the Earth-Consciousness, thus creating the possibility of a New Life of divine fulfilment for every man and woman. The transition from the human to the divine status in evolution has been effected.

Her Mission has been gloriously fulfilled. As She declared in Her historic announcement on 24th April 1956:

"The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.

It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it."

The more one goes deeper in consciousness the more one realises the stupendous character of Her gift to Man. An Immense Power casting waves of Peace and inexpressible Joy takes you up and carries you onward. The moment you think of the Mother, the moment you repeat Her beloved Name, you open the floodgates. Truly, what an age we live in!

A word about the caption chosen for this brochure containing excerpts from the letters and other writings of Sastriar on the Mother.

An old and dear student of his once confessed to him that while he had devotion for the Mother he could not go further in accepting Her divinity. Sastriar told him: "You will realise one day. To me She is a Flame of White Light." Years after-wards, this person paid a visit to Padivedu, a Ksetra, holy place, in the mountains of South India revered as the centre of Manifestation of Devi Renuka, in search of peace. As he entered the valley he casually looked up, and what did he see? Astride over two steep hills there stood in Her glory the towering Figure of the Mother clad in Her characteristic attire! He was overcome. There was a descent of deep Peace. Winging from Beyond reverberated in his ears the words: "TO ME SHE IS A FLAME OF WHITE LIGHT."

I remember the days when the Mother was coming to the terrace of the Ashram buildings in the evenings for a light walk— Sastriar used to wait on the roof of his house to watch this 'Moving Column of White Light' which always recalled to him the Skambha hymned by the ancient Rishis of the Veda, the Cosmic Pillar, the Spinal Column of the Universe, - the Skambha in which All is rooted, skambhe sarvam pratisthitam, the Skambha that upholds, dadhara, that enters into and possesses all this Universe, idam visuam bhu-vanam ariesa (Atharva Veda X 7).

18.10.1959
M.P Pandit.