In 1953, as Dyuman recalls it, a Bombay firm which had a branch in Pondicherry wanted to close their shop here. The Mother took it with its entire stock, called Dahyabhai, a disciple in Bombay, to take charge of this shop and gave definite instructions about every detail of its working and management. That was the beginning of Honesty Society. In November-December 1960, a time of acute scarcity, the Honesty Society was among the dealers entrusted by the Government with the sale of rice at fair price, and rendered meritorious service to the town-community.
It was the Mother's view that although, like politics, money too perversely resisted any influence that aimed at transforming its ends and means, both had sooner or later to be brought under supramental action. The power of money was in the hands or under the control of the forces and beings of the vital world that were using the power against the cause of the Truth and the interests of the Divine. Sri Aurobindo too had said that money was the visible sign of a universal force which, although it was being exploited and put to evil uses by the Asuric forces, must be reconquered for the Divine to whom alone it belonged and should be used "divinely for the divine life". Should there be a single victory for the Divine somewhere, it would have its reverberations elsewhere, and ultimately everywhere. The problem was to make a decisive start and that was what the Mother did in the Ashram itself and through some of her disciples. In such alliance with the Divine, money could achieve wonders, increase wealth, improve distribution, and bring about a general diffusion of prosperity and happiness. In explanation of her own business initiatives the' Mother said:
"First of all, from the financial point of view, the principle on which our action is based is the following: money is not meant to make money. This idea... is a falsehood and a perversion.
Money is meant to increase the wealth, the prosperity and the productiveness of a group, a country or, better, of the whole earth.... And like all forces and all powers, it is by movement and circulation that it grows and increases its power, not by accumulation and stagnation.
What we are attempting here is to prove to the world, by giving it a concrete example, that by inner psychological realisation and outer organisation a world can be created where most of the causes of human misery will be abolished."
On 15 September 1960, the Mother inaugurated the New Horizon Sugar Mills set up by Laljibhai Hindocha, a Gujarati businessman with large business holdings in East Africa who - like his sister "Huta" - had come under the Mother's influence since the mid-fifties. When he asked the Mother's permission for buying up the Savana Mills in Pondicherry, she replied, "No, start a sugar factory instead." And when he argued about it, she said:
“Have faith in the Divine, and everything will be all right.... This will be my yoga in the material world and I want you to do it.”
He had received the establishment license from the Government of India on 24 November 1956 and within six months, with the cooperation of the cane-growers, he brought 6,500 acres under cultivation. The construction of the factory was taken up in November 1959. The Mother christened the factory "The Sacrur Sugar Factory", deriving the name Sacrur from the Tamil word for sugar and combining it with Ariyur, the name of the village where the factory was situated.
On 9 December 1960, the Mother opened the New Horizon Stainless Steel Factory. "These and other industrial and commercial units, whether run by her disciples or by the Ashram itself, were meant to demonstrate that the spiritual could be infused into the material, that Yoga could purify business operations and make them efficient. Acknowledging the infinite gain accruing from a total dependence on the Divine, Laljibhai is reported to have said, "My feeling is that the Mother puts a force which does everything, breaking all obstacles. One must have faith - faith in the Divine's way of working, faith which draws a spontaneous flow of Grace."
This could be illustrated further by a reference to what happened, some years later, when Manibhai Patel, another of the Mother's disciples, wanted to install the factory for his "Aurofood Products" near Pondicherry. The machinery ordered arrived at Pondicherry port aboard a Greek ship. The cranes available at the port had each a capacity of only 3 tons whereas the biggest machine to be unloaded weighed 6 tons. Inspite of the ship's captain being sceptical of its feasibility, Udar Pinto and Manibhai decided to use two cranes working in tandem. What happened next was thus recorded by Udar: "The cranes slowly lifted up the box till it came to the level of the quai-deck and then something happened and both the cranes tipped over. The cranesmen jumped out of the cranes and the whole box and the two cranes were falling into the sea. It would have been a major accident involving the loss of 20 boatmen, the boats, the machine and the two cranes. But, in falling over, the crane jibs swung inwards and the box came over the deck and landed on it as on a cushion. Both the cranes then came back upright again. At that time we came back from our lunch and found a great state of consternation and panic and then relief."
The Mother had said that the machinery could be landed at Pondicherry, rather than at Madras and then brought by road; and with implicit faith in her word further action had been taken - even in defiance of logic and common sense. Here was an instance of Faith really moving mountains!
(K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar in ‘On The Mother’, Chapter 50, ‘Wings of Exapnsion’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry)
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