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I am with you by Kailas Jhaveri

I am with you

“I am with you” recounts the author’s close relation with the Mother, reflected in the book’s title from a personal message received by the Mother, beginning with their first meeting in 1950 following Sri Aurobindo’s Mahasamadhi up until the Mother’s passing in 1973. It provides an inside view of the teaching and work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from a deeply devoted and dedicated sadhaka. It recounts the author’s work for the Mother in helping to establish UNESCO’s sponsorship of Auroville and various projects to promote its international status, including extended compilations made by the author for this purpose. It recounts her work with Richard on flowers and their interactions with Mother in this work. The book is replete with personal messages, correspondences, prayers and poems exchanged with the Mother, as well as their exchange of beautiful gifts. The book conveys the essential nature of a soul and life sincerely devoted to the Divine.

Book Details

Author: Kailas Jhaveri
Print Length: 348p.
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Book format: Pdf, ePub, Kindle
Language: English
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An Extraordinary Girl by Nirodbaran

An Extraordinary Girl

Nirodbaran narrated to Sri Aurobindo an incident that had taken place in Calcutta. The Mother was present during the narration. The incident concerned a girl of about ten or twelve. She belonged to a very well-known family and had visited the Ashram with her parents more than once. Now there was a tea-party in their sumptuous house. Many high-ranking people had been invited. The topic of the Ashram came up. Comments and criticisms started flying freely. Even the Mother and Sri Aurobindo were not spared. The child listened quietly. But when somebody seemed to overstep the limit of decency, she could stand it no longer. In a firm tone she said, “Look here, if you speak one more word about my Gurus, I’ll give you such a slap that you’ll tumble down.” Everybody was stunned. The child’s mamma left the room in shame and anger at the insult to her guests. Her uncle started looking at the ceiling in embarrassment, and to change the subject he started calling to the servants, “Hari, Ram, what a lot of dust is here!” Nirodbaran’s story was enjoyed by all immensely. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo looked happy.

Esha, the late Dilip Kumar Roy’s niece, was a little girl visiting the Ashram when I came to know her through my niece Jyotirmoyee with whom she had become very friendly. She wanted to settle in the Ashram, but her mother did not want it as she was still a minor. When after many years she came to the Ashram again and stayed with Sahana Devi, I became more closely acquainted with her. By that time she had already married and obtained her divorce and had decided to settle here. I came to her help and made all possible arrangements for the purpose. Since then I have come to know her well and listened to her narration of the incidents of her life. As I found them interesting I began to note them down and was thinking of publishing them in Mother India when somehow she got wind of it and strongly objected to it. As I felt I had Sri Aurobindo’s sanction for it, I did not listen to her. In spite of my disregarding her objection, luckily she did not stop recounting her saga. Of course she narrated it in Bengali and later I put it down in English as faithfully as I could. When the story began to appear in Mother India, she insisted more than once that I should stop it. My answer was that I believed it could be helpful to many readers and that Sri Aurobindo seemed to support me.

We find that many bhaktas are indeed appreciating the story, particularly because they realise through it that Sri Aurobindo is still very much with us and our faith has been strengthened, helping us through the difficult moments of our life. – NIRODBARAN

Book Details

Author: Nirodbaran
Print Length: 125p.
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Submitted by: Avinash Tiwari
Book format: Pdf, ePub, Kindle
Language: English
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India The Mother

This book is a companion volume to India’s Rebirth, a selection from Sri Aurobindo’s writings and talks which presented his vision of India and the way out of her most pressing problems. India’s Rebirth, first published in 1993, has generated much enthusiasm in India and abroad; it has been translated into Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Oriya, as well as French, and translations into other languages are under preparation.

In India the Mother, we have collected excerpts from the writings, messages, letters and talks of Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s companion, who joined him in 1920 and worked tirelessly until 1973 to materialize his vision. As with India’s Rebirth, we have followed a chronological order, which covers almost sixty years. The greater part of the extracts are drawn from Mother’s Agenda (13 volumes), the record of the private conversations which Mother had with her confidant Satprem between 1954 and 1973. (The reader should remember that the extracts presented here have been edited for the purpose of this compilation; the integral text will be found in Mother’s Agenda, 12 volumes of which have now been published in English translation.)

For Mother, as for Sri Aurobindo, India is more than a piece of land, however lovable it may be; it is the Ancient Mother, a form of the Shakti who fashions worlds and ages as well as her recalcitrant children, and pursues her goal through progress, defeat or even destruction. When the world is experiencing the last years of the West’s “long decomposition,” when we are being compelled to understand that Man is not the ultimate product of our Evolution and that this earth is not meant to satisfy our petty destructive greeds, the dormant strengths of India’s civilization are destined to shape the path of our future humanity and give the world the inner impetus and vision that the West’s fast-fading glitter failed io provide.

Book Details

Author: The Mother
Print Length: 307
Publisher: MIRA ADITI, Mysore
Book format: Pdf, ePub, mobi (Kindle)
Language: English
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India and her Destiny

India and her Destiny

Compiled from the writings of the Mother, this booklet speaks of India’s soul and its mission to act as spiritual guru to the world, the significance of India’s freedom, its division, and its path to unity, India’s true genius and her destiny, and some notes on Indian culture.

Book Details

Author: The Mother
Print Length: 41
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Book format: Pdf, ePub, mobi (Kindle)
Language: English
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New Correspondences of the Mother – II

New Correspondences of the Mother – II

This book contains the Mother’s correspondence with nine disciples, all of them members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Each correspondence is presented in chronological order, with the question or comment of the disciple provided whenever possible. A brief life sketch of each disciple appears at the beginning of his or her correspondence.

The reader should note that the word “new” does not mean “published here for the first time”, but rather “not published in the Collected Works of the Mother and therefore new to most of its readers”. The Collected Works was organised and published around 1978, at the time of the Mother’s centenary. More than forty years have passed since then and a number of new correspondences have come to light, including those in this book. Five are being published here for the first time. The remaining four have been published in books or in the Ashram’s quarterly journal Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education or in both.

The nine correspondences in this book supplement those published in Collected Works Volumes 16 and 17.

Book Details

Author: The Mother
Print Length: 590
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Book format: Pdf, ePub, mobi (Kindle)
Language: English
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The Inner Attitude

The Inner Attitude

This is a collection of quotes from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on the inner attitude — everything depends upon it.

Book Details

Author: Editor: K. C. Anand
Print Length: 52
Publisher: All India Magazine
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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On Savitri by Nolini Kanta Gupta

On Savitri

This volume was originally conceived to be a comprehensive volume including all the articles of Nolinikanta Gupta on ”Savitri” in both English and Bengali. But Jayantilal Parekh wanted it to be a booklet in English only and containing the articles written by Nolinida exclusively on ”Savitri”. Hence it had to be reduced to only these six articles contained in this volume. I also told Jayantilalda that I am going to request Dr. M. V. Nadkarni to write a preface for this book. But inspite of Dr. Nadkarni’s willingness and best of efforts the preface could not be completed and shown to Jayantilalda since he passed away.

The blessings of the Avatar of the Supreme – Sri Aurobindo – has been invoked by adding as an appendix what he himself has said in his author’s note on ”Savitri” to make this volume complete in all respects.

This will hopefully be a very popular volume and will get a wide circulation and then I shall expect someone to come forward and take up the compilation in Bengali of Nolinida’s articles on ”Savitri” for publication.

Book Details

Author: Nolini Kanta Gupta
Print Length: 43 pages
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Submitted by: Avinash Tiwari
Book format: PDF, ePub, Kindle
Language: English Read more

Living India

Living India comes from a 24/7 experience of being pickled in the Indian culture, in the context of Auroville – the City of Dawn aspiring to live an actual human unity in diversity.

Living India, loving India – the essence of it and its countless eyes, names, faces, facets and flavours. Living it. Carrying it. Always.

Book Details

Author: Anandi Zhang
Print Length: 117
Publisher: Our Home (OH), under Auroville Art Service
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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The Nectar within the nectar

Poems and writings by Vikas Vickers

This Collection of poems and writings was started in the 1970’s when Alan was given his name ‘Vikas’ (meaning Progress) by Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator, The Mother. He was born on 20^th. November 1944, in York, England. In Auroville and amongst Aurovilians, he also differentiated himself as Vikas Vickers.

Having completed his education and practical training as an architect, Vikas went travelling in 1971, leaving the West feeling the need to seek something to give more meaning and purpose to his life. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he did know that where and what he was, at that time, could not satisfy the deeper part of himself that wanted something more relevant to the world than an ordinary, little life. When he was on top of a truck en-route to Kathmandu, he met a 17 year-old Swedish man who embodied the maturity, calm and wisdom that made Vikas feel “I want some of that.” The young man had just come up from the former French territory of Pondicherry in the south of India. He started telling Vikas about Sri Aurobindo, about meeting The Mother and about the beginnings of Auroville. Vikas was fascinated. He immediately went there and this is where he started these writings. He also worked in the construction of The Matrimandir, the design and construction of the Amphitheatre and the design of the first EcoHouse in India.

His search has been for a vision and understanding, to use de Chardin’s phrase, of “the within of things”. To change one’s way of seeing the world it is necessary to change one’s consciousness out of ‘this earth-bound littleness’. In his case, he admits, a work still very much in progress after more than 50 years, but by following Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Integral Yoga’ he definitely feels that he is somewhere in the foothills. And he says that, rather than make a wretched battle out of the process, he has aspired to walk what The Mother called ‘the sunlit path’, which requires a surrender to the inner guide, who, one anyway discovers, has been leading us even when we thought we were doing the yoga of life.

Vikas laments the fact that England is currently somewhat Godless, although there is still a deep appreciation for philosophical poets like TS Eliot. In England there is a limited audience for the sort of spiritual seeking and vision which forms the inspiration for the kind of poetry Vikas writes. India, with its treasury of ancient spirituality and with the influence of Sri Aurobindo still recognises the value of poems about spiritual journeys. Vikas has also compiled two books of Auroville poems published by Prisma:

50 Poems from Auroville and 50 More Poems from Auroville

The writings included are thought-pieces exploring themes related to Auroville and a spirituality rooted in the aspiration for a better, truer, more beautiful life on earth.

Book Details

Author: Vikas
Print Length: 53
Book format: Pdf
Language: English
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Words of the Mother – II

Collected Works of the Mother Volume 17

This volume contains the Mother’s correspondence with six members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The material covers a thirty-five year period, from 1932 to 1968. All the correspondences are presented in chronological order. Two of them were written in English; four were written wholly or partly in French and appear here in translation. Further information is given in the Note on the Texts.