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1. Introduction

 

  Sri Aurobindo started yoga thinking he could gain enough yogic power to liberate India from British domination. As soon as his yoga revealed to him that India was free in the subtle plane, he realised that God had given him the work of emancipating humanity from falsehood and suffering. At the same time, there was someone in Paris doing similar work for God and meeting Sri Aurobindo in her meditations. In her mind she called him ‘Krishna'.

  They met in Pondicherry in 1914 and discussed their plans to serve God and to finally dissolve pain and suffering from the earth. Together they agreed on a course of action that was a further step in Indian yoga. She returned to Paris because of the war and later joined him in 1920 to remain in India forever. She became known as The Mother. Indian freedom was their concern. She told Him that she saw India free in the subtle plane. Once that much was settled between them, they wanted to finalise their course of action to fulfil God's original aim on earth.

 Together they decided to carry Indian yoga to the next step from where Krishna left it in the Gita. Disciples in small numbers gathered around them to participate in their yoga. In contradiction to the Indian tradition that the body is false, they saw the body as the foundation for God's Truth in man and believed it must be liberated from falsehood. Rama had come on earth to establish the Dharma of sattwic guna in the individual. Later Krishna went a step further and tried to establish God's Dharma in collective human social life. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother decided to establish God's Truth at a higher level, viz., in earth's life, so that suffering, pain, falsehood, cruelty, and poverty in any form would be fully and finally abolished from earth's life, not merely from human life. Rama worked for the individual, Krishna for the collectivity, and Mother and Sri Aurobindo for the whole earth. If about a dozen people could accomplish this feat in their bodies, God's truth would descend, they declared. Hence they allowed seekers to collect around them. That was how the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was founded. Mother declared that in 1956, six years after He left his body, the promised Truth descended on earth, but for its full expression the earth was not ready.

 The common man may ask where does he come in this scheme of things and what is the relevance of this yoga to his life. Apart from being an avatar, Mother is a mother to every created being. She comes to us as a mother too. Falsehood is found in several forms. They are poverty, illness, mental pain, human impurity, imperfection, disharmony, etc. If the ordinary man relates to Mother, Her Truth and Power reduce these forms of untruth and finally abolish them. If man, while suffering, prays to Mother for relief and is relieved from any of these deformations, he receives Her Truth and serves her. In other words, man comes to Mother to get his daughter married, his son employed, to restore his lost property, cure his illness, secure promotions and in this way he is serving God's purpose of establishing Truth on earth forever. This book narrates several such experiences of devotees.



book | by Dr. Radut