Bilkees Latif reminisces Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Courtesy: "The Fragrance of Forgotten Years" by Bilkees Latif, pp. 159-165, Rupa & Co.,

New Delhi, 2009.

An Aurovillian: Energy but it is not my energy...

Energy but it is not my energy...

                                    Roy in the seventies     

 Energy…It is not my energy...

When I came to Auroville, it was like an extension of that existence I already was living.

"Here is your ticket for Sunday."

"But I can't leave on Sunday, I don't have a visa!"

On Friday I go to the Indian Consulate. The Indians there hate India, they really try to discourage you.

"Why are you going to India? We spent so many years trying to get out of India. You don't want to go to India!"

"Yes I want to go to India. What kind of visa application?"

They told me to go into another room to find the Visa Applications which were on the floor in a pile.

"Here it is".

"Come back tomorrow," the guy said.

So I came back Saturday. The plane left on Sunday February 28th, 1971.

For me it all started when I was four or five. At that time I had an experience which later I called my "Sri Aurobindo chair experience". It is hard to describe, but after that I started speaking a language that only my cousin, Justine understood. She was a year younger than me and I bossed her around in that language. Later my sister asked me, "Do you remember that language you spoke?", which I didn't, as I didn't know I wasn't speaking in English, but the only word of that language that I remembered was what I used to call my cousin: "Didi", and afterwards I learned that this is Bengali for sister. I often asked my mother, "Why did you call me Roy?" and she replied ,"Because it is a short name". Much later, when Imet Nolini Kanta Gupta he told me, "My name used to be Roy". I thought this was very special until I discovered later that everybody in Bengal is called Roy. So I felt for a very long time that I had a connection to Sri Aurobindo and very much to the Mother from some earlier times. As a child I was very secretive because my family was hostile to anything having to do with spirituality. There was just so far I could go with them in discussions because they were very sarcastic. They have a New York sense of humor which is sarcasm, which I did not share. So I was waiting to grow and leave, living in my own private world, and finally at 18 I left home. I was really happy when the sixties happened; it was such a great thing having a community of people that I could identify with. I hated the fifties. The beginning of the hippie thing was great: communities, no money, everything was free; you would just go from place to place. I assumed this was the beginning of the new age. And it was not only the beginning but it was going to expand. Itwas so obvious, you could see it everywhere. So when I came to Auroville it was like an extension of that existence I already was living. During the sixties, I was looking for a spiritual commune to live in, and people of my own kind. I went to Harvard square, where there was a bookstore where I picked up the latest copy of a magazine called Modern Utopia. On the cover, there was the Lama Foundation which was started by Ram Dass (Richard Alpert). I thought, "Ah, great! A spiritual community, in New Mexico. Perfect!" On the back cover, there was a picture of the galaxy of Auroville, but it didn't really register. So I took off for New Mexico, which was a big adventure and quite interesting, and there I met somebody who had actuallybeen to Pondy, and as he was describing Pondicherry, I visualized something, a weird building with green shutters. My first discovery of Sri Aurobindo was in 1968, and I got seriously into yoga. I had a kind of opening into the vital world which was really unpleasant. I had these occult experiences many of which were quite frightening: being pulled out of my body, things like this. So I came specifically to see the Mother to get patched up again. I had studied Tibetan Buddhism, and all those deities they talk about in their texts, I met them, but when you meet them outside your body, it is much scarier than the way they look in tankhas. So I came here to see her. I was reading Sri Aurobindo. I read in Letters on Yoga that if you want the transformation, you have to see the Mother. Of course he wrote this in 1936, so that wasn't exactly relevant, but I took it as an indication that I had to come and see her. Before I left for India, I was living at Tail of the Tiger at this Tibetan Buddhism place. I don't know if you have ever been to a meditation center, but after a couple of months, you become very addicted to meditation. I got really into it. You keep on increasing your hours until eventually you are living in a kind of monastic life in which all you do is meditate. When you turn the brain off, it is really nice. I was quite happy there, but I had no money as usual. Meanwhile I went down to Boston visit my yoga teacher, who instructed me on Sri Aurobindo. He opened the door and he said, "If you have been thinking of going to India, go!" And he closed the door in my face. So I said okay. I went into New York. There was a bookstore which sold Sri Aurobindo's books. I used to go there and read. On the wall, there was an announcement: India, $350, one-way ticket. I said, "Oh! I can afford that". So the next day, Thursday, I go to this airplane place. "I am interested in the ticket for India". "How do you pay?" "In cash". "Here is your ticket for Sunday." "But I can't leave on Sunday, I don't have a visa!" On Friday I go to the Indian Consulate. The Indians there hate India, they really try to discourage you. "Why are you going to India? We spent so many years trying to get out of India. You don't want to go to India!" "Yes I want to go to India. What kind of visa application?" They told me to go into another room to find the Visa Applications which were on the floor in a pile. "Here it is". "Come back tomorrow," the guy said. So I came back on Saturday. The plane left on Sunday February 28th, 1971. I left a chit to my parents: "I am going to India". I arrived in the Ashram. I just came from that Tibetan Buddhism center in Vermont which was very cold, so I arrived at the Ashram with an Icelandic wool hat on, a woollen lumber jacket, back pack and a guitar, dressed for winter. At the Ashram gate they saw me and they freaked out. "Go away, go away!" "Where should I go?" "Take him some place," they told the rickshaw. The rickshaw took me to some lodge, Anavasyam Lodge, which turned out to be this ugly building with green shutterswhich I had visualized earlier at Lama Foundation. So my trip coming here in hindsight was guided forcefully because I am still pretty stupid but I was really stupid then, really an unconscious person, and to get here took something else. I would never have made it. I went to see her. Before we were allowed up there, her secretaries came down the stairs, like Counouma who came literally creeping down the staircase, and looked really scary. There seemed to be a very strange kind of cult thing surrounding her. It was hard to have access. But when she touched me, she changed my whole personality, from this uptight New-York Jewish guy into something else. And lots of people who meet me say, "Roy has such a good energy". It is not my energy they feel, it's hers. It has always been like that. If anything, because I am a simple person, she put something in me physically that people feel - those who are open to me, they feel this. The thing I am sure everyone who came early will tell you, is that the vibration of the Mother here was so strong and physical that you could not think of leaving. Now everyone goes out for the summer because it is hot. In those days we would not leave for a second because it was totally happening and you would not like to miss one moment. You had these experiences, and after a few days Mother would say, "Oh, yes, something came down and did this..." You felt it. Her Being was so big and powerful and present that you would not even dream of... . Why leave? So it is a lot different now than it was. I stayed in Pondy for a couple of months, then I got directed to Auroville. I lived in Silence, where Bharat Nivas is now. There was Larry, who came the same day I did, and Jaap and Lisbeth who also came the same day I did. Black Krishna was there, big Jocelyn and Constance and Daniel. Minu had a hut that was only big enough for a bed. She had a big framed sign that said "Sincerity", that the Mother wrote to her. When she left Silence, she moved over to Gene Maslow's place (which is where Sincerity is now), and she brought the sign Sincerity over to there. So they called the place Sincerity. It was an interesting time. I was very young when I came. In fact, the oldest persons in Auroville were Frederick and Shyama and Francis. They were the adults. The rest of the people were my age, like twenty. The whole place was run by kids basically. Besides the other aspects, it was really fun. It was an amazing place where you would feel totally comfortable as a young person. There was no one to tell you what to do. So we did every stupid thing you can imagine. It did not matter. It felt very experimental: we try this, it does not work, so what? We were living in the middle of the fields, sleeping in the fields, there were no trees. The water used to come by kattavandi. We would wait and see in the distance the kattavandi coming with the water. It was timeless. There was no electricity, no village music. It was still the ragi culture here; there was this amazing cycle of timelessness. I don't know if you have ever ploughed a field with bullocks, it is an amazing feeling. Watching them is different, but if you do it yourself, you feel an amazing security. This is a wonderful thing, ploughing the field. It is so ancient. India was really incredible. Now with TV and everything it is totally ruined. It is not the same thing. A year before Mother died, I was living in the Matrimandir workers camp. I had this very vivid dream where I went to the Samadhi and there was a long line of people. I waited in line, and I went in and there was the Mother lying dead. So I go up to her, I kiss her feet and all this energy comes out. I thought: She is not dead. Then I woke up. Larry who was living next door came in, looking the way Larry looks when he is in a state of shock. He said: "I just dreamt that the Mother died!" I went to see Pandit and I said, "I just dreamed that the Mother died." – "Ah! this is in the atmosphere, you know!"  like: forget about it. One year later I was in Pondy. I used to play Go with this Chinese man, Fan Chan Hsu, who lived in the Ashram and was translating Sri Aurobindo into Chinese. He was a very special kind of person. He once told me he could look at somebody and tell if he was going to die or not. I said, "Oh it's interesting!" He said that well, it wasn't interesting, because when the Japanese had invaded China, everywhere he looked he saw people about to die. He came to Pondy in 1949 to study Sanskrit. The Red Chinese took over and he could not go back to China because he came from an aristocratic background. He would have been executed or sent to a camp. I used to play Go, which is a Chinese game, with him. On November 17th, in the middle of the game, he stands up and says, "Let's stop playing". I looked at the clock: it was7.25. He says, "It would be good if she could live up to a hundred." Then I went to a place called Aurovilla where little Jocelyn had a kind of guest-house. I was sleeping on the roof, billions of mosquitoes, it was impossible to sleep. When the sun rose I was so happy to get up and go to the Ashram. There was a long line of people, it was like in my dream, she was lying in state... When I saw her, she looked totally different than the picture they show you now: she was quite erect and her head was up, and she was still in her trance. There was a picture [like this] that they posted in the Ashram briefly, but then it disappeared and they put the other one, where her head is down, on her chest. I've always been trying to get that picture but no one knows where it is. In this picture, she looks incredible, in a different state - not dead, in a complete trance state. Satprem wrote about all that. It was my experience also, that she wasn't dead, she was in a trance. She shouldn't have been touched or moved for a while at least but then they brought her downstairs and disturbed everything.  After that happened, I was in a total state of shock, because that was not supposed to happen. We had a belief system that was total commitment at that time, so it was impossible. Then Nolini came out with his statement saying the transformation has been postponed! I freaked out a little more: like the whole thing is over, that's it. Still we had this faith that it was not finished. Then these incredible years began. The war with the Sri Aurobindo Society started in 1975. From that point on, another thing kept us here, which was this fight for freedom. It was such a together thing. A lot of people got messed up, but at the time it was like no question, we felt so strong. When it started, it was a shock not only because of their hostility, but that it could even happen in Auroville. Now I feel more compassion for Nava and everybody. Everyone is an instrument for the Divine, which uses whatever it can, so there is no blame. People did what they did. I guess everybody was sincere. But the attacks on Auroville - I felt they have been happening since the very early days. We used to have occult attacks that every night people experienced in their body. These were intense experiences. We had to stay really focused on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, whoever one felt closest to, and shield ourselves, because the hostility was incredible, totally penetrating. Auroville has been under that kind of hostility since the time I came In Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo says "You should not criticize the Ashram, because it is a creation of the Mother." And it is the same thing for Auroville: It is Her creation and it is difficult to justify criticizing things because we are not really conscious of how She is developing Auroville. When Krishna calls you to wish you a happy birthday, it is such a nice thing. Last time he called me, I told him, "As long as I can hear your voice say Happy Birthday, I know everything is good." I feel like that, because a little bit of personality makes such a huge difference. When Kireet first came, he said that when one wrote to Sri Aurobindo, they used to bring his reply by hand to the person, so the people in the Ashram felt some contact with him, physically. Kireet had the idea of a Unity Council: a group of people that would make everyone feel known. They would know your birthday; they would come and see you, like the Ganges flowing with goodwill into the community, all the time, all the time, all the time. Later it switched to something else, but it was a great idea, a simple idea... From a conversation with Roy TURNING POINTS published by Auroville Press Publishers Link: http://afforestationauroville.blogspot.in/2013/05/energyit-is-not-my-energy.html

Poet Harindranath Chattopadhyaya and Shelley

Courtesy : "The Illustrated Weekly of India", dated December 1, 1985

"God, Religion and Rites" by Aju Mukhopadhyay

The whole of India is replete with stories of Rishis, Munis and Sadhus from ancient time who realized God, established relationship with God and inspired people to live a pious and righteous life. There were deviations as in every field of life but usually spiritualism is an accepted fact of Indian life which gradually got mixed up with various other modern motives and ways of living; unnecessary rituals.

The hoary tale of Agastya coming to Pondicherry to spread Vedic teaching and culture in the south, coupled with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s venture in establishing their ashram in recent past at the same spot where Agastya had his own, were the main sources behind the spiritual ambience of Pondicherry. The olden temples of the age old gods, foundation of churches by the Europeans and different places of worship fixed by other communities added flavor to this spiritual ambience. South India is full of temple-towns. Pondicherry is one of them. A large number of temples, semi-temples, some masjids, churches and other similar constructions dot its lanes and by lanes besides the not-too-broad highways where bare footed women often move to and from temple doors with thalis full of puja materials in their hands and the temple staff clear the air blowing trumpets.

Temples, churches, mosques and ashrams are places for collective religious practices. Places of worship by their association and tradition are often holy but it does not always hold good. They become sources of business; those who run them become dogmatic, sometimes help corrupt or criminal practices as they are the source of huge income at some places. Without entirely denying the dignity of the places of worship and rituals, for they too have their virtues and values in their respective areas for a devotee who meticulously follows them without any paraphernalia to go up the ladder and leave them when he reaches the real site. All worships are for seeking the divine, for establishing a relationship with the God at the personal level. This relationship is neither democratic nor autocratic nor to be forcibly claimed or snatched away by any. If we dive deep into our psyche we will find how true the realizations of the few are compared to the clamoring crowd. But such things are really rare.

We know of perfunctory rituals galore in different religions. Think of the three times call, now-a-days almost everywhere, over the amplifier by the muezzin. And a story of going to the church or in absence of it somewhere as collectively decided on Sundays, comes to mind as told by the Mother of Pondicherry.

“The first time I came to India I came on a Japanese boat . . . .

“Now, Sunday came. There had to be a religious ceremony on the boat, or else we would have looked like heathens. . . .

“It took place in the lounge of the ship. We had to go down a few steps to this lounge. And that day, all the men put on their jackets- it was hot, I think we were on the Red Sea- they put on their jackets, stiff collars, leather shoes, neckties well set, hats on their heads, and they went with a book under their arm, almost in a procession from the deck to the lounge. The ladies wore their hats, some carried even a parasol, and they too had their book under the arm, a prayer book.

“And so they all crowded down into the lounge, and the Presbyterian made a speech that is to say, preached his sermon, and everybody listened very religiously. And then, when it was over, they all came up again with the satisfied air of someone who has done his duty. And, of course, five minutes later they were in the bar drinking and playing cards, and their religious ceremony was forgotten. They had done their duty, it was over, there was nothing more to be said about it.” (The Mother/148-49)

What we see around us; a few usurpers grab temple lands for their own gains or people of a community create great sound pollution by playing popular songs through amplifier during pujas disregarding the immense disturbance of the other sane and peace loving people whose work and smooth sailing life get disrupted by such worshippers who raise money from the public, a usual practice in Bengal, by request and threat or force as it suits the circumstances, to use for the festivity and excitement, to satisfy their whims and personal ends; displaying lighting and decoration in extravagant ways for the show of puja in most such collective worshipping in public places. Durga Puja and large numbers of other pujas in Bengal, particularly Kolkata, Deepavali or Diwali, Christmas and many such ever increasing ceremonies elsewhere, have come to a stage of popular festivity giving place to all political plays underground and display of popular but poor culture. These are not simply rites but doing the other paraphernalia in the name of God.

Let us come to the most important festival and pilgrimage of the year 2013; the Maha Kumbh Mela which is being held after 12 years at Prayag, at the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati river which is invisible. Leaving the last, the other two rivers do not have adequate flow of water to allow the most auspicious dipping during the period up to 10 March 2013. During the time world’s largest number of pilgrims, 100 million, has reached the mela, it has been reported. Waters have been released from barrages and dams hundreds of miles up the river to help pilgrims to fulfill their ardent wish to dip in the confluence. The congregation is 80 times bigger than the population of the host city, Allahabad, five times the population of Mumbai and two and half times the population of Tokyo. Despite huge security and other arrangements large number of people have died due to stampede and breaking down of a bridge over the river. The pollution like overflowing excreta, feces, urine, plastic bottles, cans and various ingredients like puja offering materials have flooded the mela ground; toilets are overflowing and drinking water is not pure enough for health. Many have been suffering from diseases, especially diarrhea. To help such a large body of humanity to stay and visit the rivers, live and enjoy the visit, are gigantic affairs which must have some expected fall out. British and Indian researchers have published papers which have recorded that despite cold weather, polluted atmosphere, huge noise and risk of disease the mental makeup and physical health of the devotees who participate in the program are generally good and they have a very high level of wellbeing. The strong faith and aspiration of the devotees, of tasting perhaps some nectar that fell in drops on these rivers in the mythical age due to churning of the sea, kept them going, living with not too healthy food in unhealthy atmosphere. They perform all rites and take Ganga water in bottles for use throughout the year in spite of pollution as they believe that Ganga water remains pure. It may have some truth too as scientifically proved at certain levels. (Down To Earth/26-30)

On the whole no one who has once dipped or has so done more than once will know whether all sins of this life and the life before have been washed away, whether they would be born again or would melt with the divine forever. If it happens they become utterly pious without any trace of self-contradiction, without an iota of conflict with the others in mundane affairs once they visit the holy spot. Still, such pilgrimage takes place in growing numbers as a result of blind faith and the spirit of fulfillment; pilgrimage galore throughout the globe including the Hajj to Mecca. Does it mean that those who haven’t ever gone to participate in such fairs would have less pious lives? Has it ever happened that any such visitor has become really spiritual after the visit? As the pujas so these pilgrimages thrive on gross human faith and sense of achievement. True spiritual life has to be achieved usually through the process of yoga or doing some other types of ascesis, tapasya.

Such festivals have become, besides meeting ground for people accompanied by all merriment mixed with unsavory display of consumption of national energy, occasions for publicity and propaganda, for sales and for business. Real worship is almost absent in such public places; a display of collective might.

In some temples certain restrictions are not only irrational but also contrary to the real ideas of worshipping for which such things were created. Some are not allowed inside the temple precincts on the basis of sex, caste or race. They create communal feelings. In an age when atheism is gaining ground more and more, superstitions or age old practices should not turn back those who want, are willing to enter the temple and offer prayers, etc. to the God for after all, such practices give chance and hope for further growth.

While temples and idols for public worship on the roads and parks may help in collective worship, their increase in numbers does not bring forth equally the quality of bhakti, quality of life. Temples, when constructed encroaching public places or others’ lands creating great inconveniences to the general public, become redundant, contrary to the ideals of a bhakta who tries to lead a righteous life.

Great people have always denounced elaborate worship and dry rituals. They realized that the true spirit of godliness is in physical cleanliness, cleanliness in the heart, in thought, ideas and actions. “Be pure in mind. That is Dharma. All else is but pompous show,” said Thiruvalluvar (Tirukkural No.34/9). But when one goes to a higher realm of truth he realises, like the follower of Lao Tse that, “That is everywhere, - That which I searched for, That, That is my soul” and the sage replies, “Look at the scene around. The trees, the mountains, the sea, they are your brothers as are air and light . . . . Tao is in us. Tao is in repose.” (Wu Wei/6-7). Our age old Upanishad proclaims the same truth of God’s presence everywhere, especially in our hearts. Go to Raman Maharshi and find that he only searches the soul inside, “Who am I?” When you get the answer you reap the fruit of your life long search without going into any place of worship. Sri Aurobindo began Book One, Chapter Four of The Life Divine with his own translation from the Taittiriya Upanishad, “If one knows Him as Brahman the Non-Being, he becomes merely the non-existent. If one knows that Brahman Is, then is he known as the real in existence.” (The Life Divine/18/1)

It is the same as saying that God is all existence as Tao is.

Swami Vivekananda, during his lecture at Jaffna, said that the meaning of Vid is to know. It is the root of Veda which means divine knowledge which is eternal and infinite. The meaning of Rishi is one who has the vision of the mantra, the idea and words of God which already exists. The Rishis visioned them. They carried the spiritual message as seen and realized. But they did not create Vedas, the oldest scripture of the world so far discovered, which carry the eternal message of the God, as it already existed. In his Vedic Religious Ideal he said that the mantra or revealed words which created a wave in the thought world of ancient India and which shall be the focal point in the world of religion in future is: “Ekam Sadviprah Bahudha Vadanti”, the truth is one, the wise called them variously.

In the chapter titled “Religion and Spirituality”, in his voluminous The Foundation of Indian Culture, Sri Aurobindo presented and discussed the aspects of Indian religion and spirituality, their respective areas and perspectives.

Indian civilization and culture are based on the foundation of spiritualism. At the beginning man required the scaffolding of dogma, worship, image, sign, form and symbol in order to build the pure temple of the spirit, Sri Aurobindo said. The first stages belong to religion. Spiritualism is the freedom from outward forms and rituals. Those who achieve spiritual consciousness realize the truth. In their ascent they leave the paraphernalia of religion behind. About Hinduism Sri Aurobindo wrote, “It gave itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal adhesion . . . it was less a creed or cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavor of the human spirit.” (Indian Culture/122)

A seeking for beyond, a curiosity to know more than what we find in our vicinity is the innate urge in human beings. It is more so with Indian mind. About the history of Indian religion Sri Aurobindo wrote, “It is sheer falsehood or a willful misunderstanding to say that it has lived always in the externals only of rite and creed and shibboleth. On the contrary, the main metaphysical truths of Indian religious philosophy in their broad idea- aspects or in an intensely poetic or dynamic representation have been stamped on the general mind of the people . . . .

“The one Godhead is worshipped as the All, for all in the universe is he or made out of his being or his nature. But Indian religion is not therefore pantheism; for beyond this universality it recognizes the supracosmic Eternal. Indian polytheism is not the popular polytheism of ancient Europe; for here the worshipper of many gods still knows that all his divinities are forms, names, personalities and powers of the One; his gods proceed from the one Purusha, his goddesses are energies of the one divine Force . . . .

“Observing the one Truth from all its many sides, it shut out none. It gave itself no specific name and bound itself by no limiting distinction . . . .

“First comes the idea of the One Existence of the Veda to whom sages give different names, the One without a second of the Upanishad who is All that is, and beyond all that is, the Permanent of the Buddhists, the Absolute of the Illusionists, the supreme God or Purusha of the Theists who holds in his power the Soul and Nature, - in a word the Eternal, the Infinite . . . .

“Follow this great spiritual aim by one of the thousand paths recognized in India or even any new path which branches off from them and you are at the core of the religion. For its second basic idea is the manifold way of man’s approach to the Eternal and Infinite. The Infinite is full of many infinities and each of these infinities is itself the very Eternal.’ (Indian Culture/128-136)

Why forget the famous lines from an earthly poet, close to our heart, Rabindranath Tagore?

Whom does thou
worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open
thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones. (Gitanjali/11/46)

Whatever it is, it is not the rites that we do on the streets of towns and metropolis.

Work Cited

1.  The Mother. Collected Works of The Mother. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Centenary Edition. V.8. 1978
2.  Can Faith Heal? Down To Earth. February-1-15, 2013
3.  Tirukkural. V.R. Ramchandra Dikshitar. Madras; The Adyar Library and Research Centre. 2000. Reprint
4.  WU WEI. Henri Borel. Translated by Shyam Sundar Jhunjhunwala. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo’s Action.1997
5.  The Life Divine. Sri Aurobnido. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram-SABCL. V.18. 1972
6.  The Foundation of Indian Culture. Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram- SABCL. V.14. 1972
7.  The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore. Ed. Sisir Kumar Das. Sahitya Akademi. 2004. Reprint.
   
   Courtesy and Link: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=14310