1921

1920	1921	1922

(A. B. Purani:) “The second time I met Sri Aurobindo was in 1921, when there was a greater familiarity. Having, come for a short stay, I remained eleven days on Sri Aurobindo's asking me to prolong my stay.
         ... The greatest surprise of my visit in 1921 was the ‘darshan’ of Sri Aurobindo. During the interval of two years his body had undergone a transformation which could only be described as miraculous. In 1918 the colour of the body was like that of an ordinary Bengali – rather dark — though there was lustre on the face and the gaze was penetrating. On going upstairs to see him (in the same house) I found his cheeks wore an apple pink colour and the whole body glowed with a soft creamy white light. So great and unexpected was the change that I could not help exclaiming:
         “What has happened to you?”
         Instead of giving a direct reply he parried the question, as I had grown a beard: “And what has happened to you?”
         But afterwards in the course of talk he explained to me that when the Higher Consciousness descends from the mental level to the vital and even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. He asked me to join the meditation in the afternoon and also the evening sittings.”

(Champaklal:) “When we went upstairs Sri Aurobindo was seated in the verandah. I saw nothing except him and when I prostrated before him I lay there for one full hour. I just could not get up. No one disturbed me. At the end of that hour Sri Aurobindo placed his hand on my head, blessed me and said “Tomorrow.” Then I got up.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “Students of my generation in 1921 took to English education mostly to get jobs in State service, and had no serious views of life. Simple living and high thinking were at a discount. When Mahatma Gandhi came to our hostel in a loincloth, and on seeing the huge waste of food scattered in the dining halls, he advised us to be frugal and simple in our habits and tastes, many students laughed at him, not understanding the great soul. I read with great interest Sri Aurobindo's essays entitled “A Defence of Indian Culture” and advised my friends to study them and the Master's other works. But they had no inclination to study this literature as they considered it ‘serious’, but wasted their time in wading through detective, sensational novels. After my first contact with Sri Aurobindo, I lost interest in my class books though the degree examination was nearing.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “[In the Ashram] we used to spend our time in meditation in our rooms, and reading books on literature, philosophy and art and various journals, and contributing articles to journals. Nolini was a good football player and he used to go with Moni and Bijoy to play the game. I was going out for walks with Varma or other friends and sometimes alone. Mother was having meditation separately with Sri Aurobindo and it was said that she used to go into trance for long hours. Time did not hang heavy upon me and I felt as if transported into a higher world, always feeling happy, with an ever-present inner delight. I forgot completely everything about my friends and relatives in the outer world, and everything in the world appeared as play.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “Barindra, the younger brother of Sri Aurobindo, was a great revolutionary who was sentenced to transportation for life in the Alipore Bomb Case in 1908 along with others and he went to serve his sentence in the Andamans. After the termination of the First World War, as a result of the royal amnesty, he was released in 1919 along with Upendranath Banerji, Hrishikesh Kanjilal and others. So these three persons came to stay with Sri Aurobindo in 1921. Barindra lived in one of the ground floor rooms in the Master's house and Upendra and Hrishikesh lived in the rented guest house. Both Barindra and Upendra were great humorists, talented journalists and story writers like Moni.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “Barindra was an active worker and so he wanted to organise spiritual centres like the Prabartak Sangha that was started by Motilal Roy in Chandernagore. But the Prabartak Sangha though originally inspired by the Master strayed away from his ideals and was getting into troubled waters. Sri Aurobindo was of the view that the Deva Sanghas, divine centres, could not function without proper men and the men must first be built up and so he was not in a hurry about the work.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “Barindra was narrating to me about the terrible ordeals he and others underwent during the revolutionary days in our morning walks. We used to gather flowers and Barindra kept them in a flower vase on the Master's table. In those days the disciples did not observe the formality of saluting the Master or making pranams to him daily at the meditation time or in the mornings when they happened to see him. They sat in the chairs before the Master and even smoked. But Sri Aurobindo never took exception to this or any other failings and treated everyone as an equal and enjoyed the company of all kinds of persons.”

(T. Kodandarama Rao:) “In 1921 and afterwards, the non-cooperation movement started by Mahatma Gandhi was in full swing. As Sri Aurobindo was a great political leader before the advent of Gandhi, thousands used to come to him for advice as to the future course of action. As the C.I.D. police were always watching the movements of the Master, he avoided seeing all these persons except a few leaders. After Tilak’s death Sri Aurobindo paid homage to him in an article “A Great Mind, a Great Will”. Thereafter Gandhiji sent his son Devdas Gandhi with a request to the Master to come out and lead the country. Sri Aurobindo said that Gandhiji would win freedom for India and that his own work was elsewhere in other fields and he predicted that India would get freedom and become the spiritual leader of the world.”

(A. B. Purani:) “This time I saw Mother for the first time. She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo was going upstairs after lunch. Such unearthly beauty I had never seen, – she appeared to be about 20 years of age whereas she was more than 40.
         I found the atmosphere in the Ashram tense. The Mother and Datta, née Miss Hodgson, had come to stay at No. 40, Rue Francois Martin. The house had undergone a great change. There was a clean garden in the open courtyard, every room had simple but decent furniture – a mat, a chair and a small table. There was an air of neatness and order. This was, no doubt, the effect of the Mother's presence. But yet the atmosphere was tense because Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were engaged in fighting with forces of the vital plane.”

(Nolini Kanta Gupta:) “I have said that so far the Mother had been to us a friend and companion, a comrade almost, at the most an object of reverence and respect. I was now about to start on my annual trip to Bengal – in those days I used to go there once every year, and that was perhaps my last trip. Before leaving, I felt a desire to see the Mother. The Mother had not yet come out of her seclusion and Sri Aurobindo had not yet retired behind the scenes. I said to him, “I would like to see Her before I go” – ‘Her’ with a capital H, in place of ‘the Mother’, for we had not yet started using that name. Sri Aurobindo informed the Mother. … The Mother came in from her room and stood near the door. I approached her and said, “I am going,” and lay prostrate at her feet. That was my first Pranam to the Mother.”

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See also

• The stone-throwing incident

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