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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><b>
<span
lang=EN-GB><font size="4">A Review of Our Ashram Life</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">&nbsp;</p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>IN its
early days, quite at the beginning, we may now say, long <span class=SpellE>long</span>
ago, for it is now almost half a century ago, the Ashram from its very start
and quite spontaneously and inevitably grew into a community life. That is to
say, the individuals ceased to have any personal possessions. Whatever they had
belonged not to themselves but to the group, rather to the Master of the
group, the Guru, to the Mother and Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span>.
Whatever they had, they considered as having received from the Mother for use
only. They are not proprietors or possessors of anything: whatever they needed
or they thought they needed, they had to ask for it and the Mother decided what
they should have or not. It was a joyous surrender of possessions and a
grateful acceptance of gifts. One may yet remember the beautiful movement that
impelled each one of those who were fortunate to be there at that time. One is
reminded of a parallel movement, although on a different field, described by <span
class=SpellE>Tagore</span> in his well-known lines:</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<img border="0" src="_Jpeg%20image/Bengali1.jpg" width="300" height="39"></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><u><span lang=EN-GB>
<o:p><span style='text-decoration:
 none'>&nbsp;</span></o:p></span></u></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:.5in;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>There was a scuffle and scramble</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:.5in;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>A great hurry as to who would be the first to throw away
his life.</span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:.5in;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:
.15in;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>Well, it was a picture worth
contemplating. Here is one carrying his trunk or valise or wallet, and placing
it before the Mother, displaying all his possessions and receiving them back
from her as her gift. She did not take away anything as superfluous or not
necessary! It was for us to judge and decide what was really necessary and what
<span class=GramE>was luxury</span>. We had to be sincere. She was generosity
itself.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-top:0;text-align:center;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 70<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

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</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.95pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>The life of each one was directly linked with the Mother. The
relation between individuals was founded on the relation each one had with the
Mother. It did not depend on one's liking (or disliking), one's attraction (or
repulsion): but it was as necessitated by the need of the common life as
arranged by the Mother.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>Such a life was possible because of two reasons: (<span
class=SpellE>i</span>) a physical reason and (ii) a psychological reason. The
physical reason was, the number of people forming the Ashram was very small:
instead of the two thousand and odd that we are today, there were at that time
(the time I am speaking of) barely fifty. And there were no children.<span
lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>¹</span> <span class=GramE>And</span> of men, only those who were allowed,
who had a real call for the spiritual life, those alone who were chosen by the
Mother and Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span> and permitted to live here.
And here is the natural psychological reason: it was a select group who had
already had an inner life and spiritual aspiration. And so they were ready for
a life of surrender and self-giving, obedience and allegiance to the guru. They
did not come ignorant and innocent of the rudimentary elements of spiritual
life.</span></p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent style='text-indent:14.6pt;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt'>The work that Mother could do then and was
doing, she has herself described and explained to us. It was the creation of a world
– a region at least – of the higher consciousness in which everyone who
participated had his own place, everyone with his soul-being sufficiently in
front; and this being she could connect or link up with a being of the higher
sphere – a counterpart, an over-soul as it were for each soul. It was a kind
of descent – a subtle incarnation of Gods which the Mother's Grace occasioned
or brought about into the elevated and sublimated human level.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>The ground had already been prepared, we may note, by the descent of
</span><st1:date Year="1926" Day="24" Month="11"><span lang=EN-GB>the 24th
 November 1926</span></st1:date><span lang=EN-GB> – the descent of the <span
class=SpellE>Overmind</span> or Krishna-consciousness into Sri <span
class=SpellE>Aurobindo's</span> body-consciousness and thence generally into
the earth-atmosphere and becoming its natural and permanent possession.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>But arrived at one point, Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span>
happened to make an observation which meant halt! The Mother narrates to us the
story in an amusing way. One day Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span> was
telling the Mother: &quot;What you are doing is very fine and very </span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>¹</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'> The first child that came was <span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">Anu, then five years old.</span></span><span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;"><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 71<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

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</span><span
lang=EN-GB>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>grand. It will bring you name and fame, you will become a world-figure and your work a marvel.
It will be a &quot;grand <span class=SpellE>succ<span style='font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>è</span>s.&quot; Well,
that was sufficient. The whole thing dropped from Mother's hands. The new
creation vanished in a moment, as it were: there was a pralaya.</span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The Gods <span class=GramE>withdrew,</span> we came down with a thud
upon earth – down to earth, earth to earth. We are still there, crawling,
forward I hope, as best as we can.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>This creation of a luminous world in a higher sphere of the mind
which Mother attempted could not be fully achieved; for the foundations were
not properly laid, the basic ground was not prepared. Any higher structure of
the mind and <span class=SpellE>overmind</span> must be built upon man's vital
being and physical life. The new creation left out of account these realities
of basement, so one had to come down, forgetting for the moment the higher
realisation, into these darker regions and make a thorough cleaning of them.
The regions of the vital consciousness and physical consciousness are, as we
all know, full of human failings and dangerous complications. One had to leave
the heavens and come down to these lower levels and tackle the problems that
beset them, the crucial problems whose solution alone could lay a strong
foundation for the final consummation, the supreme transformation. One had to
face the stark realities there and master them before one could think of a
heavenly ascent. So we all became once more ordinary human beings with human
weaknesses and a modicum of aspiration perhaps. <span class=GramE>This was then
the task given to all to battle through and conquer</span> here below. The
scene changed completely. A mid-summer night's dream turned almost into a
sombre Hamlet-tragedy.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The first sign of this Return, this resumption of life as it is, was
the re-assertion of the individual, the <span class=SpellE>feedom</span> of the
personal unit. Because of the increased number of people and because of the
incursion of children, the earlier frame could no longer hold good. The willing
surrender of individuality is a lesson that has to be acquired and achieved: it
is not just God's gift, for the many. The many have to grow, grow by degrees,
through toil and trouble, and slowly led into the mysteries of the higher
realisation of surrender and self-giving. And towards that consummation
independence, <span class=GramE>freedom,</span> is the first step. But once the
climb down begins, it does not admit of an<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p></span>
<span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 72<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

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</span><span
lang=EN-GB>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>arrest, it becomes <span
class=SpellE>slidedown</span>, a continuous descent until you reach the very
rock-bottom of the vale of tears. The Roman poet spoke of the easy descent down
the cliffs to the river.<span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Book Antiqua";
mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>¹</span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The realisation aimed at demands a wholesale change, an integral
transformation; it does not rest content with a partial success, an attainment
on one level, on one portion of the being. There is therefore a global
shake-up, nothing is allowed to remain in its old status unnoticed, <span
class=GramE>all</span> must come out and declare themselves to the Light. <span
class=GramE>Hence the darkness of it all.</span> All the impurities,
imperfections and <span class=SpellE>vilenesses</span> show themselves – the
grass-roots as they say, that have to be extirpated and the ground ploughed and
furrowed – prepared for the new seed. It is a difficult <span class=GramE>time,</span>
the heroic soul must bear and stand, know what it is and move bravely on.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I spoke of the community-ideal that obtained among us at the outset
of our life <span class=GramE>here, that</span> broke to pieces. Individualism
reared its gruesome head with all its inevitable consequence: egoism had
uncontrolled sway, instead of submission and surrender and obedience, freedom
attained complete freedom, liberty pushed to licence.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Like individuals collective bodies also (in the matter of work and
enterprises) were allowed freedom to grow – or perhaps not to grow – independently.
Each group or section, each undertaking sought to depend upon itself, secured
its own personal equipment and resources: its gains were its own; and naturally
losses were bound to be more than the gains, the real gain was perhaps the
experience. The experience is meant to develop the consciousness and it is
hoped that the consciousness did make a gain.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The freedom, the devolution or departure from the centre control
went so far as to bring about, as I say, almost a real separation between the
two: the same tendency, by the way, as we may notice in the play of world
politics today.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.95pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The limbs declared their independence and sought and fought for this
independence but that could only be at the cost of the Heart. The <span
class=SpellE>calvary</span> of the Divine lay precisely here: it is due to this
sense of separation, an individual exclusive self-existence prevailing in his
children, issues of his own body. The </p></span>
<span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.95pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>¹ </span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'>Virgil: <span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">Aeneid,
Book II, v. 126<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:16.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">FaciliS descensus Averni...</span><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:16.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 73<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:12.0pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:16.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

</span><span
lang=EN-GB>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>units in the cosmic body of the
Divine in the Ignorance are indeed ignorant; and the force that compels them to
be together apparently is the forced bond of ignorance, they seem outwardly to
press towards inevitable disintegration and chaos.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In reality however, this movement of dispersion out of bounds, a
flight away from the centre, harbours a reverse movement in it, a
self-conscious advance towards a re-awakening to the one central consciousness
that is in all, that is all.</p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent2 style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">This is an intermediate stage when
the faults, the imperfections in the creation, the wrong forces that issued
from and were inherent in the original Ignorance and first separation had to be
tracked and met, could not be allowed to lie dormant eternally; therefore they
rose and declared themselves so that the Light can deal with it and swallow it.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>One remembers the legend of the Vedic <span class=SpellE>Rishi</span>
<span class=SpellE>Agastya</span> and his consort who once attempted a new and
renovated creation. They were engaged in a tremendous and superhuman labour to
discover the roots of evil upon earth: they dug up, opened out its very bowels:
they went deeper and deeper, layers after layers of obstructive darkness till
they arrived at the very source of the Night. They brought in there with them a
light that could produce a reversal of consciousness changing darkness into
radiance.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The lower sphere of the vital and the physical is a mass of ignorant
nature (<span class=SpellE>prakriti</span>) – all moving together helplessly,
mechanically, bound together indissolubly to one inexorable <span class=GramE>fate,</span>
and it stands on the rock of utter unconsciousness – the <span class=SpellE>Inconscient</span>
– which is the very basis and stuff of that sphere. Consciousness, the <span
class=SpellE>conscient</span> Being has to come down or emerge and penetrate
there, break the hard block of inert matter, striking and scattering and
throwing up as it were, its myriad disparate bits, turning them into particles
of Light and Consciousness. These free sparks, the first-born of consciousness
at the outset become erratic, errant conscious units, free but fighting against
each other, each exclusive in its unitary consciousness: but that was the way
towards a purer, higher, wider, integrating consciousness. As the consciousness
works and moves forward, the dross, the grit is blown away and it works towards
a clearer light and a harmonic weaving of all component units.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p></span>
<span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.75pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 74<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.75pt;
line-height:12.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div></span><span
lang=EN-GB>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:10.05pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-bottom:0'><span class=SpellE>Weare
thus in a transition period, it is an interregnum, it is beset with great
difficulties but they are also great opportunities. The calvary
is not merely a passage of pain and suffering, it is a purgatory, that is to
say a period or a zone, a process where the being and consciousness is cleaning
itself, throwing off its own scales, shuffling its old skin and in course of
time it will come out in a rejuvenated body and in a harmonious setting. The
Paradise lost will one day be thus regained. Paradise Lost thus will have one
day inevitably as its sequel and consummation Paradise Regained.</span></p>

</span><span
lang=EN-GB style="font-size:10pt;">

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-top:0;text-align:center;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 75</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='color:blue'><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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