The Mother's ‘Antardhaanam’: Her Gathering Inward

THE MOTHER’S ‘ANTARDHAANAM’:
HER GATHERING INWARD

A REFLECTION

Dr. H. MAHESHWARI, M.A., Ph. D.

“The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existences, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence.”
–SRI AUROBINDO

The phenomenon overtly known and called ‘the Mother’s passing’ has created really a bewildering stir in the minds or all those who came to be associated with her in one way or another, by faith or experience, by love or adoration, by prayer or devotion, by belief or intuition, even by wishful expectation. The common concern of them all is: Why at all the Mother should have passed away despite the prevalent belief and an undisputable understanding that she would not, and particularly in view of the assurance that she having come upon the earth the work of physical transformation would be accomplished by her in her own body to initiate a superhuman evolution of the human race in the terrestrial life. Thousands of her devotees all over the world had lodged in themselves the conviction that she was not an ordinary evolutionary being, and though born in a human way she was not to pass through the portals of man’s mortality; she would rather cancel by her single will and divine power ‘Nature’s harsh economy’ and change the course of life. From her ‘Notes On The Way’ we had all started gathering with hope the impression that the transformational change in her body cells was progressing with speed and the work would be accomplished sooner than expected, some had even started cherishing miraculous things by the year of her Birth Centenary in 1978.

The undeniable as also inexplicable fact that she left her body on the 17th of November, 1973, is now the topic round which many of us are temperamentally constructing, rather reconstructing, the entire thought regarding the Mother’s Being, her personality, her work and her role in the Yoga of Transformation. Many others are eager to hear a congruous note from those who matter. Many have found an occasion to voice what sometimes crossed their minds as candid doubts relating to the very idea of death-defying existence, though not very boldly. Many are recollecting hitherto unheeded experiences containing some clues or hints about the otherwise unimaginable and unpredictable event forsome explanatory hypotheses. Some find their minds open to hostile suggestions as if all their past belief stands collapsed for want of a real foundation, and, still worse, as if they now see no grounds to stand upon! The entire spiritual endeavour to such persons appears to be at stake.

Besides, the situation has thrown open the gates to ‘whisper’ and vain words and weakening suggestions. Man’s ‘prudence’ seems to sound its own sense of caution against all validity of adventure into the yet unchartered. A variety of hypotheses are springing up inviting attention to their own claims to probable truth, and our frail mentality, used so far to assured faith, seems now to face an unexpected challenge with insecure possibilities, our confidence as if threatened, our faith and reliance as if self-suspicious.

Quite normal, no doubt, it may be for us, human as we are, to ask: What is this phenomenon we call the Mother’s passing? For indeed it cannot be a mere case of natural decay of her body. Even in the case of ordinary yogins and pious souls, we have heard the recognised truth, there is no absolute helplessness in respect of death and an element of their will is, if nothing more, at least a contributing factor while leaving their bodies. In the case of advanced Yogins their will is well recognised to be often the determining factor rendering a voluntary control over their death termed as ichchaa mrtyuh. In the case of our Divine Mother, then, who knows what maternal ‘power’ of her immutable Being condescended to the Infantile game of necessity and dispersal? What eternal principle of her Force made a gesture of allowance to the god of mortality to have the thrilling touch or her divine body? What command of her occult Authority hinted to the nature’s economy for effecting a retirement in the workings of eternity? What plan of her ulterior work designed a pause in the exteriors of its operations? What scene of her aeonic Drama provided for a curtain-drop on the stage during its continuously sustained play? What mood of her cosmic Muse called in a suspense in the world’s rhythms of constant concerts? What image of her perfect Art concentrated onto a dark dot among the exuberant touches o her colourful designs?

If it is beyond human mind to understand even the sense and meaning of the event of her passing, much too above human comprehension would be its reason or its significance, its purpose or its justification, its import or its implication. Howsoever deeply concerned we might humanly feel, no amount of mental effort can help us or explain the situation. And then have we not been told by Sri Aurobindo that “to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and the most vast intelligence”? The fact, therefore, that nobody expected the event of her passing is at the most indicative of the habit and disposition of our mind to its own clumsy methods of calculation, and can have no bearing or relevance to her movements or her steps. All our mental approach shows simply that we are somehow so disposed as if our first or our sole concern is to see what the Mother does and why she does, what she does.

The incomprehensible being incomprehensible, and yet the human being human, we could justifiably as well as usefully engage our mind in reviewing whatever is reviewable for helping us out of the bewildering weakness of thought and emotion. If our “expectation” purports to seek its own raison de etre in such a context, it must only stand prepared for the “unexpected”, all its calculated moments must attentively turn towards “the hour of the unexpected.” Not so much for this or that kind of explanation as for a rehabilitation of ourselves may we observe that the whole of the past decade is resonant with the Mother’s charging messages, her heralding commandments delivered to her children successively year after year on each New Year Day.

In the year 1963 came her message: “Let us prepare for the hour of God.” How inspiringly inviting! How powerfully charging! How meaningfully arousing in us the spiritual awareness and awakening our souls to “the hour of the unexpected,” the boon to the sincere, the terrible “blow” to the deceitful. The Words of Sri Aurobindo are there to guide us for the “preparation”:

In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected.
(“The Hour of God”)

The “hour” perhaps continues and the terms of preparation are unambiguously imperative. Whether we prepared ourselves or neglected the command is a matter of the past review; whether even today we are preparing or simply slumbering, whether we “stand for the true purpose” or are given to “insincerity”, is a matter or our present reflection. Who knows whether the “hour” with its “blow” has not come to cast us down and whether the “worldly prudence” is not “whispering too closely” in our ears? Is it not that our worldly sense of security has been knocked down and the shock has been sent to wake us up from our indolent stupor and all-corrupting insincerity? And yet who knows whether this casting down is not a deliverance in disguise? Shall we then rise to the present “hour” as the hour of “terrible” awakening!

The very next year, i.e., in 1964, the Mother asked and simply: “Are you ready?” What a searching message, a charge, a call, an invitation! Was it not rather a whole life programme and a life long search? We might review whether and in what measure we truly attended to it; we may even today assess our readiness.

Ready for what? could be asked by the year 1964 only by missing the full hint of the year 1963 for the “hour of God”. The “hour” surely was decreed; our readiness was for our privilege to welcome the “breath of the Lord”. And the Mother’s words hymned the year 1965: “Salute to the advent of Truth.” The hymn continues, and whether our hearts reverberate with it or lie dull and insensitive, is what we might ask ourselves while recalling the past for self-assessment And is not that “salutation to the advent of Truth” all-promising to us in our souls’ seekings, much above our mentality failing always in its calculations? Shall we now, heart and soul, join the hymn and salute the Truth that has come not only to visit but to abide and conquer and rule our nature?

Yes the Truth, the supreme inescapable Truth, which the whole of our being must receive and which no part of our life must resist or neglect! The Mother’s message for 1966 guided: “Let us obey the Truth. Cling to Truth.” The simplest advice, the most direct command, the absolutely categorical direction, the sole formula for rising to the occasion! Whether we obeyed the Truth or attended to the whisper of Falsehood, whether we clung to Truth or stuck to Error, is what the self-examining eye in us can ever revise. Obedience to Truth is not a temporary formula; it affords an everlasting life-regulation, and in that the Mother’s guidance is ever fresh.

When falsehood persists and there lingers human indolence, the Divine warns and sometimes absolutely. The year 1967 received for us, one and all, such a warning from the Mother: “Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.” Perhaps we had not started obeying the Truth, or, perhaps, we were still given to mixed allegiance, our profiteering ego compromising with falsehood or submitting to its enticing influence! Nothing can hide itself from the all-seeing Eye of the Truth, and the Divine’s compassion allows a chance, provides a choice. We might inwardly refer whether or not we had made our choice even when available. Who knows whether the choice still continues! Perhaps a postponement of choice can never save us from the “abyss”! Will the Truth wait?”

The imperative nature of the “choice”–“Truth or the abyss”–surely calls for a zealous strength of will and the Mother’s Force brought the charge of an unfailing enthusiasm against all possibility of despondency through her message for the year 1968: “Remain young! Never stop striving towards Perfection”. What could be a greater secret of youthful strength, a more elevating inspiration of life, a better sustaining power to follow unfailingly our choice for the Truth? But whether we courageously strove towards perfection or easily rushed towards alluring conveniences is a rather heart-searching question. And yet the inspiration to “strive towards Perfection” is always rejuvenating and the path ascending to the heights of true Perfection is never barred either in scope or by time.

The Perfection-oriented youthful striving to which our Mother beckoned, nay beckons ever more, would meaningfully be a sole preoccupation with no wasteful allowances. Prome as man is to talkative indulgences, tempted often to “announce” much more than “realize”, our Mother’s guidance commanded by her imperative message for the year 1969: “No words –acts”. Brief like a syllable, potent like a seed, her command was and is all-sufficient. We could turn to ourselves in silent self-examination to at least look into the proportions between our words and our acts!

How far we the humans prepared ourselves and lived and acted up to the divine advice is not the total story. The role of Mother Nature, responding to “the advent of Truth” in “the hour of God” enacted on the world scene found its worthwhileness in an all round preparation, and the Mother announced in her invitational message for the year 1970: “The world is preparing for a big change. Will you help?” How significant the privilege offered to us to “help” in what the Divine would accomplish as perhaps the very fulfilment of the world’s long cherished destiny, the “big change” towards transformation! One is reminded here of the significance of the legend of Sri Krishna’s lifting the mountain Govardhana on his all-supporting, all-directing finger and at the same time providing a full scope to his human playmates, the Gopas, to have the privilege of contributing their mite by applying their sticks in support, and having thus the delight of their collaboration. Whether and how far we truly resolved to “help” and collaborate for the “big change” or whether we indolently stood idle and unheeding, is simply a matter of self-retrospection, important and meaningful to ourselves though perhaps insignificant as far as the Divine’s work is concerned. The privilege of collaboration surely is never denied.

One could quite sincerely ask: How to help? What would be the help? And, particularly when the whole world was preparing for “a big change,” no customary sense of world-service could suffice for the true meaning of “help” nor any socio-political programme of reform could serve as the ways and means to that “help.” The enlightening message of the Mother for the year 1971 came to guide us in that regard and significantly declared: “Blessed are those who take a leap towards the Future.” Herein is revealed to us not only the true secret of “help” in the context but also its incalculable value. The world of humanity is in the divine scheme of things to rise above its present limitations and fast move towards its destined superhuman excellence. That would need an exceeding of the normal speed of its progress through slow changes in our life, without or without. The usual habit of remaining secure in the beaten track of the past cannot let us move towards “big changes”. Adventurous strides would be necessary, for the great Future awaits us eagerly. The pioneering effort can be made not by all at once; the brave, the strong, the hero are called upon to move ahead, “take a leap” and plunge into the yet unexplored verities of life. What could be a greater gain in life? What could be more valuable than being “blessed” by the Divine Mother for a forward leap into the “Future” of her vision? Whether we have taken a “leap”, whether we are now ready for it, is of utmost importance in the present situation, for, who knows whether our sweet Mother has not herself assumed a cosmic “Leap” to see us brave and make of us her worthy hero children.

Her message for the year 1972 came to us not only in silent communication but also in her eloquent voice, each of its syllables releasing a tremendous vibrant energy: “Let us all try to be worthy of Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary.” Compassionate and soft and loving and linient is her motherly advice when asking us to “try”, but imperative and unexempting is her commandment to “us all.” To be “worthy of Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary” at once means to be worthy of the age and (future) history of Sri Aurobindo himself, who in the words of the Mother “represents a decisive action direct from the Supreme”.

With the messages of the past decade rings again and again her assurance: “All things promised shall be fulfilled.”

Although our fallen minds forget to climb,
Although our human stuff resists or breaks,
She keeps her will that hopes to divinise clay;
Failure cannot repress, defeat o’erthrow;
Time cannot weary her nor the Void subdue,
The ages have not made her passion less;
No victory she admits of Death or Fate.
Always she drives the souls to new attempt;
Always her magical infinitude
Forces to aspire the inert brute elements;
As one who has all infinity to waste,
She scatters the seed of the Eternal’s strength
On a half animate and crumbling mould,
Plants heaven’s delight in the hearts passionate mire,
Pours godhead’s seekings into a bare beast frame,
Hides immortality in a mask of death.

–Savitri