In the Sri Aurobindo circle, this time of the year is one of the most anticipated, one that is sweetly cherished, just as it has always been, even as The Mother was around to cast her glance on the throngs of thousands who would queue up to present themselves before Her for brief moments.
February 21st shines like a magic number on the calendar, carrying with it some kind of subtle force. The day itself, inevitably, without exception, carries in it a certain presence, or force, or an atmosphere of peace and quiet, or joy and happiness or a sense of solemnity and serenity, these experiences varying from devotee to devotee or for the same one, from one span of time to another. It is a day that never fails to make us take a look at our lives with The Mother and all that has altered since that day when we first embraced Her. She has a way of magically filtering herself into the sphere of our time and space and gives each of us the needed. Importantly, it becomes a day for us to contemplate on the meaning of our lives with The Mother and its future course and direction. It naturally becomes a time to ask for that guidance and pray for the needed transformation to be effected in our natures to enable Her to penetrate one more measure of Her force into the dense clay of humanity. It is a day for self-examination and a honest barring of all we are to Her alone, that She may take the being in Her embrace and do the needed and necessary for the larger work at hand.
The Mother was born in 1878, in Paris. What was this year like? It was an interesting task getting this day in perspective on the world calendar. It was a year when wars were raging on in parts of the world, like The Battle of Shipka Pass IV, The Battle of Plovdiv and The Lincoln County War. It was also the Year that The Hindu, was founded. Hirota Koki and Yoshida Shigeru, later to become Prime Ministers of Japan were born in this year, together with Jack Johnson, the American boxer, Elizabeth Arden, the Canadian born cosmetician and entrepreneur and Andre Citreon, the French car maker.
Pope Leo XIII succeeded Pope Pius IX to become the 256th pope just a day before The Mother was born.
Then in 1968, after a lifetime of work dedicated to the divinising of Earth, a week past her 90th birthday, The Mother founded Auroville, The City of Dawn, a Township that was waiting to come down into existence since the time The Mother was in Her thirties. The following charter resounded over the Indian National Radio on that day in The Mother’s voice:
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
Auroville was intended to give a concrete form to Sri Aurobindo’s vision of the realization of human unity. We see its slow but steady march towards its ultimate completion and perfection. Many hold that that day of completion may never arrive, as Auroville brings humanity towards higher and higher realms, a more and more perfect perfection of itself leading to the manifestation of Divinity therein. The Matrimandir stands, more and more obviously, as the symbol dawn of such an evolution.
Salutations to this special month of February.
February 21st shines like a magic number on the calendar, carrying with it some kind of subtle force. The day itself, inevitably, without exception, carries in it a certain presence, or force, or an atmosphere of peace and quiet, or joy and happiness or a sense of solemnity and serenity, these experiences varying from devotee to devotee or for the same one, from one span of time to another. It is a day that never fails to make us take a look at our lives with The Mother and all that has altered since that day when we first embraced Her. She has a way of magically filtering herself into the sphere of our time and space and gives each of us the needed. Importantly, it becomes a day for us to contemplate on the meaning of our lives with The Mother and its future course and direction. It naturally becomes a time to ask for that guidance and pray for the needed transformation to be effected in our natures to enable Her to penetrate one more measure of Her force into the dense clay of humanity. It is a day for self-examination and a honest barring of all we are to Her alone, that She may take the being in Her embrace and do the needed and necessary for the larger work at hand.
The Mother was born in 1878, in Paris. What was this year like? It was an interesting task getting this day in perspective on the world calendar. It was a year when wars were raging on in parts of the world, like The Battle of Shipka Pass IV, The Battle of Plovdiv and The Lincoln County War. It was also the Year that The Hindu, was founded. Hirota Koki and Yoshida Shigeru, later to become Prime Ministers of Japan were born in this year, together with Jack Johnson, the American boxer, Elizabeth Arden, the Canadian born cosmetician and entrepreneur and Andre Citreon, the French car maker.
Pope Leo XIII succeeded Pope Pius IX to become the 256th pope just a day before The Mother was born.
Then in 1968, after a lifetime of work dedicated to the divinising of Earth, a week past her 90th birthday, The Mother founded Auroville, The City of Dawn, a Township that was waiting to come down into existence since the time The Mother was in Her thirties. The following charter resounded over the Indian National Radio on that day in The Mother’s voice:
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
Auroville was intended to give a concrete form to Sri Aurobindo’s vision of the realization of human unity. We see its slow but steady march towards its ultimate completion and perfection. Many hold that that day of completion may never arrive, as Auroville brings humanity towards higher and higher realms, a more and more perfect perfection of itself leading to the manifestation of Divinity therein. The Matrimandir stands, more and more obviously, as the symbol dawn of such an evolution.
Salutations to this special month of February.
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