Perhaps, in keeping with its stillness of the mind ethos, even celebrations of special occasion at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram are relatively quiet affairs.
It is with calm and certain orderliness than pomp and splendour that the city’s most famous spiritual destination observes even the handful of red letter days in its calendar and the rarer occasions when it opens its sacred rooms for thousands of devotees for darshan.
So, when the 101st anniversary of the visit of Mirra Alfassa, or The Mother, protégé of Sri Aurobindo, came by on March 29, Ashramites celebrated with a session of meditation and silent prayer.
And, this happens to be a very special week for Ashramites and the legion of followers of the city’s two most remarkable philosopher-seers, for it also marks the 105th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s arrival to these shores. Again, it was with quiet prayers that the Ashram observed the occasion.
It was in 1914, at the age of 36, that Mirra, accompanied by her spouse Paul Richard, embarked on two different journeys; one an exacting trip stretching over three weeks by ship, boat and train to this city, the other one of life-changing self-discovery and enlightenment that would follow her momentous meeting with Sri Aurobindo in this city.
While the centenaries of both the events — one in 2010 and the other in 2014 — were grand affairs with the Government and a host of organisations pitching in, since 2002, the World Peace Trust here and the Bangavani Trust based in Nabadwip Dham, West Bengal, have been celebrating the anniversaries of the both events with various programmes.
Following a special commemoration at the Puducherry railway station on March 29, the organisations led several programmes at Gandhi Thidal on Saturday to mark the 105th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s arrival.
The highlights included devotional music, meditation, dance performance and the reading out of the messages of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.
And it is not just the inhabitants of the institutions emblematic of the visionary seers, the Ashram and Auroville which The Mother founded in 1968 as an experimental universal township that transcends creeds, nationalities and politics, who abide by their words of wisdom.
There are many people from all layers of the social spectrum who have imbued the teachings and messages of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother into their lives.
“Even in day to day activities the innumerable messages of the Mother on attitude, conduct and surrender to a higher power, until we realise perhaps that the power is within us, has helped me immeasurably in carrying out successfully responsibilities in both my professional and personal life,” says Dr. M.V. Thayumana Sundaram, who founded the New Medical Centre as a multi speciality hospital where “service is our lifeline.”
Dr. Sundaram, who has been practicing medicine in Puducherry since 1994, after more than a decade of service overseas, says he was introduced to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother only after arriving in the city. “I was immensely attracted to their philosophy,” he says.
For him, if one quote could be the touchstone of his approach to life and work it is these words of The Mother: “If we take the human body as a tabernacle of the Lord, then medical science becomes the ritual of worship and doctors the priests who officiate in the temple.”
These words have led him to the conviction that the medical career was “a priesthood and should be treated as such..” and that “a broad mind, a generous heart, an unflinching will, a quiet steady determination, an inexhaustible energy and a total trust in one’s mission this makes a perfect doctor.”
In contrast, the petty shop trader on Mission Street may not have read Aurobindo’s ‘The Life Divine’ or assimilated The Mother’s thoughts on Supramental consciousness. But he keeps faith in the implicit goodness of The Mother.
Which is why for S. Kadirvel, it is a daily ritual to offer flowers for a portrait of The Mother immediately after lighting a lamp in front of a picture of Manakula Vinayakar as soon he opens his shop on Mission Street.
“Business has its ebb and flow … but I am content when I remember with gratitude that what I started with a few products is now a bigger shop with many more items,” he said.
