Work as Sadhana Under the Mother’s Guidance

Description

by Chitra Sen

EDITOR’S NOTE:

One often wonders, if the Divine was with us, how it would be! How would she guide, how would she talk! Would she guide in everything or leave a few things for human beings to explore? Would she get involved in the smallest problems and details of which she need not necessarily attend to? When she is around, is there any need for the human agencies to work at all? Such and many more questions come to the minds of those devotees who have not seen the Mother in the physical but had some inner contact with Her.

The present book Work as Sadhana under the Mother’s Guidance answers all the above questions. The Divine was present among her children as a Mother, Guide, Friend and Mentor. She would get involved and give instructions to the smallest detail like making nut and bolt and would also give the blue-print of one of the marvellous building of Golconde. She would attend to the needs of each of the worker and sadhaka and would allow his free will to explore and experiment in his/her work. She would extend her guidance to those areas where human ignorance thought that the she ‘did not know: Through her love and care she took care of the external needs and internal aspirations of all those who worked under her. All this is evident in this book.

One of the special features of this book is that, here we get to see the Mother directly working with the disciples. Her Mahasaraswati aspect of going into perfection in matter is concretely visible as one reads these pages. Even for those who have not seen her but aspire to know her working through the aspirants, one can gain a lot from the memoirs and reports presented here. The Mother as if holds our hand and takes us forward. Reading this is indeed like seeing a film on the Mother’s working.

The reports and memoirs mentioned in this book were published in the journal Mother India for several years. The author Chitra Sen has compiled a few relevant pieces and has added from her own written memoirs certain details of the Mother’s work with a particular department. A few references taken from books like Champaklal Speaks or How they came to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have aided to substantiate the memoirs and reports. For the sake of brevity and accuracy, a close editing has been carried out in the text while keeping the language and the details intact. We release this book on the occasion of the Mother’s birthday and the centenary of her final arrival at Pondicherry in 1920.

SABDA CATALOG DESCRIPTION:

This collection of memoirs, reports, anecdotes, and personal experiences from some early members of the Ashram reflects the Mother’s unique way of working with her disciples.  Her care and attention to detail instilled in them the thirst for perfection, helping their consciousness to grow. In the first section, we read how, from the very beginning, work was allotted to everyone, even the youngest children, how the departments started, how everyone gave their days and nights to the Mother’s work with joy and dedication.  Other sections reveal the story of Golconde, the genesis of the school boardings, and the development of the different libraries of the Ashram. The material has been previously published in Mother India and elsewhere, but its fresh presentation here gives form to Ashram history and underscores an essential aspect of life in the Ashram even today.