You will see me

‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother’ is a compilation by Shyam Kumari of incidents, events, serendipities, yearnings and higher callings that brought various disciples to the path of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. A certain ‘G’, referred to in the article, ‘You Will See Me….’ (reproduced below) was one such devotee. It was with an almost child-like humility that he always said his only identity was that as a child of The Mother.

It is with poignancy, and also with fond remembrance, that we inform readers that the ‘G’ referred to in this article is the Late Shri Nandlal Patel, fondly called Uncle Patel, by so many of us. Uncle Patel left his mortal sheath on the 2nd of April, 2011. The May 2011 issue of our Newsletter was dedicated to his memory and further tributes have been included in this issue as well.

‘You Will See Me…’ rounds off this series of tributes to the memory of a man whose love, warmth, humility and affection have touched so many of us in so many different ways.

Saints and sages say, "Blessed are they who are born in India, for they are spiritually awake." G inherited this inborn gift of a soul turned towards the Divine. He was born in 1923, into a family of devout Vaishnavas, followers of Vallabhacharya. From his childhood, G went regularly to Haveli — as Vaishnava temples are called in Gujarat — and avidly listened to tales of great devotees, such as Dhruva and Prahlad. Near and around his home, there lived many craftsmen who, in the evenings, gathered for collective singing of hymns — keertans. As a child, G participated eagerly in these devotional sessions and was deeply moved by them. Thus the ground became fertile.

In 1940, he met the great saint, Ma Anandamayi, and was attracted and fascinated by her. She would not stay in the home of a householder but remained in the courtyard. This left a deep impression on G. At the same time he started reading Sri Ramakrishna.

In 1943, while he was still in college, G married. His wealthy father-in-law was an evolved soul. Many saints came to him and scores of people turned God-ward under his influence. Two children were born to the happy couple.

The year of destiny arrived. In 1950, his firm, which had its headquarters in Japan, asked G to open a retail branch in Pondicherry. He set off to go there. He knew very little about the Ashram. Since he was from Gujarat somebody gave him a letter of introduction to a well-known Gujarati Ashramite. Very significantly, he reached Pondicherry on his birthday — 1st May 1950. He did not know the special significance birthdays have in the Ashram, but at 4 p.m. he found a Prosperity queue in the Ashram and joined it. Thus without knowing anything about the Mother he had his first Darshan on his birthday. He now considers it his rebirth.

On arriving in Pondicherry, he had gone straight to Hotel Bon Accueil. There he met a Muslim devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who had come from Madagascar. This gentleman became the link between G and the Ashram. G began going to the early morning Balcony Darshan fairly regularly. He felt that his being went there empty but came away replenished. He says, "The Mother's smile came straight and sank into me." G had many experiences during those early morning Darshans. One day he said to the man from Madagascar, "If I had a bicycle I would not miss a single Balcony Darshan." He found it a little inconvenient to walk all the way from the South Boulevard where his hotel was situated to the Ashram before 6 a.m. The gentleman replied, "Do not make the lack of a bicycle an excuse for not attending the Balcony Darshan." These words stirred G deeply and thereafter he never missed the Balcony Darshan. Incidentally the three children of the owner of this hotel grew very close to the Ashram through G.

He began to read the books of the Mother and felt he could understand everything. He had the good fortune of having Sri Aurobindo's Darshan in August and November 1950. He considered Sri Aurobindo a limitless Himalaya, incarnating grandeur and aristocracy, a vastness, a being without end who was un-fathomable, whom nobody could contain. When Sri Aurobindo left his body, he had twice the Darshan of the Lord lying in state. Then he felt as if he had gathered and received something from Sri Aurobindo into himself.

At the end of December 1950 G's wife and children joined him. This was a turning point in his career. For now, to introduce his family to the Ashram and to admit his children into the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, he came into closer contact with the Mother. The children were first accepted to the Playground. When G asked the Mother for their admission to the Centre of Education the Mother said, "Contact S who will teach them French." They started going to S for French lessons.

G's six-year-old daughter wanted to go swimming. When G conveyed her request to the Mother, she remarked, "Let her come and talk with me." G caught the meaning behind the remark and said to his daughter, "Go to the Mother and ask her yourself." "But, father, how can I talk with the Mother, when. I don't know English or French?" the child protested. G replied, "Then wait till you can." The upshot was that one day the little girl went to the Mother and said in Gujarati that she wanted to go swimming. The Mother asked Champaklal, "What is she saying?" Champaklal translated what she said. The girl got permission and then G's four-year-old son also wanted to go swimming. G had to ask the Mother on his behalf for the child was too young to ask for himself. In due course the children were admitted to the Centre of Education.

Strangely, on the first of every month, G's son came down with a high fever. Naturally the parents were worried. G went and reported the matter to the Mother. She said, "Go to Nripendra and he'll give you some medicine." But after a pause she remarked very gently, "He gets a fever so quickly, but it also disappears very quickly." G realised that what the Mother said was true and he did not feel anxious anymore; miraculously, after this conversation, the fever did not recur.

Slowly they grew closer to the Mother. G's family had the feeling of being accepted by the Mother. The Mother used to give blessings on Vijaya Dashami day. On that auspicious day G stood in front of the Mother and felt her human body change into luminous white clouds. It was such a delightful experience that thereafter on every Vijaya Dashami day G hoped for the experience to repeat itself, but it never did.

Whenever there arose some real necessity G used to pray for an interview with the Mother. Such an occasion arose with his problem of smoking. G used to smoke many cigarettes daily. Whenever he went to the Mother he ate a handful of cardamoms to cover the smell of tobacco. G's wife pleaded with him to give up smoking. She used to scold him, "You are hiding your habit of smoking from the Mother." Her constant rebukes made him lay the problem before the Mother. On 14th November 1952, he bared his heart to the Mother by simply saying, "Mother, I smoke." The Mother gently enquired, "Do you smoke cigars or cigarettes?" "Mother, I smoke cigarettes." The Mother said softly, "It is not good for your will-power." G prayed, "Mother, please give me the strength to give up smoking." The Mother looked at him and smiled.

When G went home he said to his wife, "You have been asking me to tell the Mother about my smoking. Today I told her and now I am free to smoke." He had a few cigarettes left in the tin, which he smoked. His wife said, "You went to the Mother and confessed to her and even then you are smoking. Are you not ashamed?" G felt that his wife was correct. Thereafter, though more than three decades have passed he has not smoked. Even when his friends who smoke pleaded with him to smoke just one cigarette, he did not deviate. He felt as if the Mother was telling him inwardly, "If you give way once, you will never conquer it." By the Mother's Grace he did not have to struggle severely to overcome the habit.

Birthdays in the Ashram were eagerly awaited. Once on his birthday, G joyously prepared to go for the Mother's Darshan. He had got a velvety bedspread to offer to the Mother and he was also taking a special imported perfume Je Reviens by Worth. At the last moment, his little daughter also insisted on taking some offering to the Mother. In his business, G used to receive many tiny sample phials of perfume. The little girl filled her hands with those small bottles and happily they went to the Mother.

The Mother received G graciously, showered her love and blessings on him and asked which books he would like to have. G replied, "Mother, I have not yet read the books you gave me last time." After receiving his birthday card and bouquet G felt that inwardly the Mother had given him what he needed. She turned to his daughter to give the child her full attention. She asked, "What have you brought?" The child opened her hands. "Oooh!" with a voice full of joyous wonder the Mother said, "You have brought Worth perfume! Do you know the history of their manufacturer?" She caressed the girl and her brother. G was overcome by the sweetness of it all. His mind was observing that his velvety bedspread and big bottle of perfume did not get such appreciation from the Mother as that handful of sample phials. The Mother went on to tell the children the whole story of the firm that manufactured the perfume. She opened all these small capsules of perfume that very day. Later she must have mentioned how much she liked that perfume, because that same day Dyuman went to the market and bought all the available bottles of this particular perfume.

A few years passed. G realised keenly the privilege of living in the Ashram atmosphere. But the Gods rule otherwise. In 1954, G's partners asked him to wind up the Pondicherry branch of the company and proceed to Hong Kong.

He had begun consulting the Mother whenever he had to take any important decision. So one evening he went to her in the Playground to get her blessings for his departure to Hong Kong. After seeking her consent and blessings he mentioned that he had two faithful and efficient employees and requested the Mother to absorb them in some Ashram department where they would prove valuable. The Mother nodded consent. Then G requested that, since much stock was still left in the shop, these two employees might be allowed to look after it from time to time. The Mother agreed. Then she went into a trance. After a while, coming out of her trance, she said, "Suppose we sell your goods?" G felt a surge of emotion. The Mother again went within and on coming out of the trance said, "How about our buying your goods?" G became speechless at this divine turn of events; a great silence entered him, a wonder at the marvellous thing that was happening. He became still like a statue. With an avalanche of tears flowing from his eyes he stretched out his hands in consent.

The Mother then added, "Since you are a junior partner in your firm, ask your seniors about it." G was so moved that he simply shook his head to show that it would not be necessary and whatever the Mother decided was acceptable. The Mother then said to G, "Dyuman will contact you in the matter."

G was deeply moved by her Grace. He had to go, but his wife and children were to remain sheltered in the arms of the Divine Mother. Before he left for Hong Kong the Mother called G one day to Pavitra's room. There she gave him a wallet with money in brand new notes, a blessings-packet and a lovely rose. That was the most thrilling and precious moment of G's life. For he saw the Mother as the Avatar, the Rajrajeshwari (the World-Empress) in her form of Universal Divinity with a luminous concentration of calmness. He has the wallet and the dried rose to this day. They are his most prized possessions.

In 1956, G returned to India from Hong Kong intending to place his children in an Ashram hostel and take his wife with him to Singapore. Now it so happened that a renowned saint, Ranchordas-ji, had been doing tapasya for two years in a secluded room in G's father-in-law's spacious garden. He had undergone great austerities. In February 1956, his tapasya was to end and an impressive closing ceremony was to take place at G's father-in- law's house. G reached Bombay but was in a quandary whether he should proceed to Pondicherry or to his father-in-law's home-town. Dyuman, with whom he had very friendly ties, had asked him to come to the Ashram, probably for the 21st February Darshan. By chance G met a saint, Swami Ramdas, and put the problem before him. The Swami advised him to go to Pondicherry. G followed his advice and thus had the good fortune to be in the Playground on 29th February 1956 at the evening meditation when the Mother brought the Suprarmental Light, Consciousness and Force into the subtle-physical layer of the earth.

Soon G left for Singapore, his new base of operations. He would not have the Mother's physical Darshan again. But his children lived in the Ashram and his daughter has made the Ashram her permanent home. There was a constant inner and outer contact with the Ashram. All the people connected with the Ashram who visit Singapore invariably become his guests. His body lives abroad but his soul has always remained in Pondicherry. He considers it an inestimable honour to be counted as one of the Mother's children and to serve the Mother in whatever way it is possible from a distance.

After seventeen years, he came to Pondicherry on 11th November 1973. He had come for the marriage of his son which was to be held on the 18th, in Bombay. On 13th November he left for Bombay followed by his daughter and son-in-law, both Ashramites, and some close friends. On the morning of the 18th they heard the news that the Mother had left her body. Some devotees had chartered a plane to go to Pondicherry and G's daughter and two others were lucky enough to get a place on this flight. But G could not come as he had to see the marriage through. Next day he tried to get a place on any available flight but there was a strike in the airlines. Ultimately, when he with his wife and son reached Pondicherry the gates of the Ashram were closed for the solemn Samadhi of the Mother.

G broke down and wept like a baby. He remonstrated with the Mother, "You have disappointed me. I did not see you for almost seventeen years yet you did not have the kindness to even let me have the Darshan of your body." The Mother reassured him from within, "You will see me in several ways and more often."

This came true but the pain and hurt of not having had the last physical Darshan lingered for years until one day G narrated the story to a senior Ashram friend. She replied, "How many years before 1973 was it that you saw the Mother?" "Many years before", answered G. "You are lucky that you have not seen the Mother after her passing. I had always seen her in her transcendent beauty. When I saw her body I did not want to see her in that state." On hearing this, the regret and the pain passed and G felt reconciled. He realised that this was the answer he was seeking. He says, "Whenever I went to the Mother I would lovingly look into the Mother's eyes and drink in her smile. For me they represent Bliss, Ananda, and Transcendental Joy. It is more precious to me than the whole Brahmanda."

(‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (Volume II)’ by Shyam Kumari)