Guiding Light of The Month

O Lord, how ardently do I call and implore Thy love! Grant that my aspiration may be intense enough to awaken the same aspiration everywhere: oh, may good- ness, justice and peace reign as supreme masters, may ignorant egoism be overcome, darkness be suddenly illu- minated by Thy pure Light; may the blind see, the deaf hear, may Thy law be proclaimed in every place and, in a constantly progressive union, in an ever more perfect harmony, may all, like one single being, stretch out their arms towards Thee to identify themselves with Thee and manifest Thee upon earth. - The Mother

Editorial

February sees the return of joy and hope and the calm assurance of another opportunity to invoke her blessings on a very special occasion. It is now also, more than during any other months that we eagerly anticipate The Mother’s presence in our midst on this glorious day of her advent upon human soil on the 21st of February 1878. World over, in all the centres of the world, let alone in Pondicherry and Auroville, The Mother will be remembered by all her children in very special ways. The significance of this day will be realised by each in his and her own terms and if, if by chance or a happy meeting of conditions, something within us is awake and in the forefront, then we become happy recipients of a special grace.

And what does The Mother actually mean to one, in one’s raw self, in one’s life lived upon this earth, in this consciousness that is oneself? Ultimately and inevitably, this question will lead us back to our selves, about who we are or what one is and is meant for. This existential challenge drives us further into the recesses of our being.

Many texts and anecdotes of sadhaks who lived closely with the Mother in Pondicherry throw some light on what she was like in the human world, working with humans for humanity and its evolution out of the animal into man and from man to a higher being. Sri Aurobindo gives us a wholesome shape to The Mother from many angles.‘ The Mother’ and ‘Savitri’ are two significant examples of works that illustrate what The Mother stands for, who she was and continues to be. There is another text that throws light on who The Mother was in intimate ways. It is The Mother’s compilation of ‘Prayers and Meditations' addressed to the Divine. This month’s issue portrays The Mother in her inner regions during particular phases in her life.

The Mother’s Prayers and Meditation formed an important part of her sadhana during those phases. Sri K R Srinivasa Iyengar reveals in his work, “On The Mother” the importance The Mother placed on her entries, all of which addressed the Divine in some form or other. The fact that The Mother kept her entries under lock and key indicates her resolve in keeping her entries a secret between her and the Divine. She probably maintained this till Sri Aurobindo himself indicated that she should have portions of these published, which is what is now in our hands as Prayers and Meditations. The Mother measures profound heights in her entries as well as the most human problems that confronted her. In all these entries, what is striking is her absolute sincerity in progressing on the path before her, in aligning her will to the Divine’s will, to become the Divine himself. She herself indicates that when such a time came, she would stop addressing the Divine or revealing her inner movements to Him since she would become one with the Divine.

The Prayers and Meditations is a concrete record of intense aspiration, intense seeking, a one pointed resolve towards the goal, a total absorption in attaining that one realisation alone of the Divine, at all costs, a record of vistas of realisations, of jubilation of perhaps the highest order possible here on earth. Indeed, it a gift for us that offers silent lessons on what it means to seek, to be sincere, what it means to aspire and how a prayer of utmost sincerity and simplicity could be offered to The Divine; of how to speak to the Divine as one’s Father, Mother, Guide, Friend and Lover in silence.

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