Vol. 44 No.

THE JOURNAL OF INDIAS RESURGENCE

February 2013

The variations in human nature are too great to be covered by a single trenchant rule.
Sri Aurobindo

Contents
From the Editors Desk Bringing about a change The Mother answers Shyamsunder A Unique Little Girl Bande Mataram A Wild Thorn Silent Valley Indian Youth In Search of IconsII A Disciples Death Living with nature an introduction Part I The Challenged Coast of India A summary - Part II Divine man-making My Encounter with a Catfish Prema Nandakumar The Mother Tim Wrey PondyCAN Sri Aurobindo Manju Bonke Pournaprema Shyamsunder Murali Sivaramakrishnan Sunaina Mandeen 2 3 4 6 7 8 11 12 13 14 15 16

2 Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013

From the Editors Desk

Bringing about a change
Change yourself if you wish to change the world, said the Mother in August 1952, Let your inner transformation be the proof that a truth-consciousness can take possession of the material world and that the Divines Unity can be manifested upon earth. She also said The world will be made better only in proportion as we make ourselves better. Everyday, we look around and see how badly the world around us needs to change. We proclaim loudly all that is wrong with it and all that needs to happen to make it better; but usually we stop there, and do not take that thought forward to see how this change can come about. And it is rare indeed that we take it ever further to see what do WE need to do to change ourselves. In the opening chapter of The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo states that all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony, and he goes on to say, For essentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, life and matter in their own sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its perceptions. Maybe that would be a good place to start. Harmony seems to be the underlying principle of the whole of creation. Our very earth exists only because there is a harmony and a balance of forces that keeps it from either plummeting into the sun or breaking free and going its own way. Nature too maintains this harmony. But we humans seem to be straying further and further away from this. Everything and everyone has its special place and role in creation. The idea of love and respect towards all living beings and also inanimate objects is what our culture and knowledge has passed onto us across millennia, through the words and writings of great and realized beings. This love and respect is the first step towards a harmony that we all thirst for in this world. And it is only this harmony that can remove strife and discord and lead towards happiness. The relationship between men and women is one place that is in urgent need of this harmony and balance. There was a time when women were respected and held a special place as the goddess, the mother, represented by the female principle. But history and present experience shows us that the reality is different, and there is less of love and respect for women and more of domination and abuse. It is sad indeed that this has happened in India where even today, the goddess continues to be worshipped. India is the spiritual beacon of the world. We know here, what it is to worship Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal and call for her force to manifest on earth. It is up to us to show the way by extending the love and respect of the Mother and the Nurturer of all living beings, be it the Mother Earth or the Goddess, to the woman, the mother of our coming generations and the nurturer of the family. It is not just a question of bridging the inequality between men and women; it is each of the two trying to rise to their respective full potential. Both must liberate themselves from their lower natures and from everything that holds them down in order to rise to higher levels of consciousness so that both can become the perfect instruments of the Divine Shakti. The Mother shows us the way: For in their mutual relationships, man and woman are at once rather despotic master and somewhat pitiable slaves to each other. Yes, slaves; for so long as one has desires, preferences and attachments, one is a slave of these things and of the people on whom one is dependent for their satisfaction. Thus woman is enslaved to man because of the attraction she feels for the male and his strength, because of the desire for a home and the security it brings, and lastly because of the attachment to motherhood. Man too on his side is enslaved to woman, because of his possessiveness, his thirst for power and domination, because of his desire for sexual relations and because of his attachment to the little comforts and conveniences of married life. That is why no law can liberate women unless they liberate themselves; likewise, men too, in spite of all their habits of domination, will cease to be slaves only when they have freed themselves from all inner enslavement. And this state of veiled struggle, often unavowed but always present in the subconscient even in the best cases, seems unavoidable, unless human beings rise above their ordinary consciousness to identify themselves with the perfect consciousness and unite with the Supreme Reality. For as soon as one attains this higher consciousness one realises that the difference between man and woman reduces itself to a purely physical difference. In celebration of the Mother's birth anniversary this month, let us open our hearts and minds to her words and her force. It is only by aspiring towards a higher consciousness that we can bring about the change we all wish for. Sunaina Mandeen

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The Mother answers Shyamsunder

Trees in the Rainforest

Shyamsunder: Is the Yogi's sleep without dreams? Mother: They are no longer dreams. They are visions and activities in worlds that are invisible for the physical consciousness. 19.12.69

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A Unique Little Girl

In February 1978, the Mothers granddaughter Pournaprma narrated anecdotes from the Mothers life to the children of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education between the ages of 8 and 12. They were extracts from her notes, during her conversations with the Mother. These were later published as a book in French entitled Une Drle de Petite Fille. Its English translation by Shaupon Boshu was published as A Unique Little Girl. The children addressed the Mother as Douce Mre literally meaning, Sweet Mother. The French term has been retained through out the book. We are happy to bring you some extracts from that, during the month of Mothers Birthday. The Eds team

Even as a little child, Douce Mre had inner experiences. When she was about five years old, she used to feel the consciousness, there, above her head. She would sit in a little arm-chair which had been made specially for her. A tiny cushioned arm-chair, such as were made in those days, covered with grey-blue cloth, with flower designs. To the left there was a window, in front there was a door, she has said. And this little chair was in her room, in Paris, at 41, boulevard Haussmann, where she was born. She would sit and feel this consciousness, always, above her head. This is not at all a mental recollection:, she has said, it was an experience in the body. That is why I remember it well. The psychic was already very formed. The mind developed later, very slowly. She would sit in this little arm-chair, all alone in her room, and she would concentrate on this light, above her head. And she would say to herself, It is That that I want to live. She felt she would do great things in her life. She did not know what these great things were, but she felt she would do them someday. She could feel as if this force above her head, this consciousness were pressing down on her.

Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013 5 At the age of thirteen, she tells us in her Prayers and Meditations, she would see herself at night clad in a long golden robe which spread out to heal the miseries of the world. It was the period of the dark-skinned Asian who appeared and instructed her in the nights and whom she later recognised as Sri Aurobindo. She was indeed a unique little girl and as I have told you, she observed life minutely. She was all the time trying to find out the why and the how of this existence. One day when she was thirteen, she decided to search in books to see if she could get an answer. Now, there was in her house a room with a large number of books, - a home-library with more than eight hundred books. She settled herself in there and set about reading all the books in the library. Well, it had eight hundred books, and within a year she had read them all! Which means, she read more that two books a day, everyday, for a whole year she read every single book and when she had finished the last one, she had found absolutely nothing in any of them. This is what she has said. The first time she read something interesting, not only interesting, but as she has remarked, something truly enlightened, happened much later, the day she got hold of a book by Vivekananda. It was a book on Rajayoga. There suddenly, she found something. For her it had remarkable clarity, was absolutely luminous, as though all at once even the printed letters became lucent. This was the first time she had heard about yoga. Pournaprma

There are some prayers of the Mother written before she came here in 1914 in which there are ideas of transformation and manifestation. Did she have these ideas long before she came here?

Sri Aurobindos answer: The Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth, even from her childhood, upward and she had done sadhana and developed this knowledge very long before she came to India. 23 December 1933

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Bande Mataram
India is not the earth, rivers and mountains of this land, says the Mother, neither is it a collective name for the inhabitants of this country. India is a living being . . . India is a goddess. If she likes she can manifest in a human form. And, Even as the individual has a psychic being which is his true self, governing more or less openly his destiny, each nation too has its psychic being which is its true self, moulding its destiny from behind the veil; it is the soul of the country, the natural genius, the spirit of the people, the centre of natural aspiration, the fountain-head of all that is beautiful, noble, great and generous in the life of a country. True patriots feel its presence as a tangible reality. It is this which in India has been made almost into a divine being and all who love truly their country call it Mother India (Bharat Mata), and it is to her that they daily address a prayer for the welfare of this country. It is she who symbolises and incarnates the true ideal of the country, its true mission in the world. The ordinary conception of the nation centres round its geographical, territorial aspect. There is the passion for the land in which we dwell, the land of our fathers, the land of our birth, country, patria, vaterland, janmabhumi. It is a strong and passionate emotion, it has been behind historic efforts and sacrifices; but to see and love and adore our country as a land of our birth and life is not the same as to see it as a living being, a living goddess. For us to see our country as a living mother-goddess is to see Bharat Mata. This vision is possible to us only if we go deep within instead of being confined to the surface. It was this seer-vision which was vouchsafed to Bankim Chandra in the nineteenth century. It was this vision that made him the giver of the mantra Bande Mataram. The mantra Bande Mataram gave a new spirit, a new life, a new power to the nation. The nation of millions, then in slumber, was awakened; it rose to break the iron chains of the foreign rule. But once the independence was achieved, the mantra was gradually pushed into the background. There was an onrush of Western materialism; the geographical and territorial country, the country of rich rivers and minerals came to the fore. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was asked to be content with political freedom obtained by her warriors. Here the Indian politicians did what any other materialistic country would have done but what was not expected of a country with Indias spiritual heritage. Man is of a less terrestrial mould, wrote Sri Aurobindo in 1908, than some would have him to be. He has an element of the divine which the politician ignores. The practical politician looks to the position at the moment and imagines that he has taken everything into consideration. He has, indeed, studied the surface and the immediate surroundings, but he has missed

what lies beyond material vision. He has left out of account the divine, the incalculable in man, that element which upsets the calculations of the schemer and disconcerts the wisdom of the diplomat. And in post-independence India that is what has happened. Given the brain-power, man-power and natural resources of India, any other materialistic nation would have developed much more of material prosperity than what has been achieved in our country. The neglect of spiritual values, the erosion of dharma, ethics and morality has brought unbridled selfishness, deformation and corruption in all walks of life to such an extent that even the material progress has not taken place in the desired dimensions and what ever material progress has been achieved has failed to bring commensurate happiness and enjoyment. The slogans that came to us after 1947 are many. The slogans of big dams and big industries, the slogans of parties, the slogans of institutions have remained slogans. In this crowd the mantra that stirred the soul of the masses to win freedom has been ignored. It is that mantra which can again touch the chords of the hearts of the people of our country. It is that mantra which relates us to our living deity Bharat Mata, asks us to be in contact with our soul and the soul of the country, exhorts us to adore our country and to work for her greatness and prosperity with the simplicity of a child for his mother. On the momentous 15th day of August 1947, at Pondicherry the Mother invoked Bharat Mata, O our Mother, O Soul of India, Mother who has never forsaken thy children even in the days of darkest depression, even when they turned away from thy voice, served other Masters and denied thee, now when they have arisen and the light is on thy face in the dawn of thy liberation, in this great hour we salute thee. Guide us so that the horizon of freedom opening before us may be also a horizon of true life in the community of the nations. Guide us so that we may be always on the side of great ideals and show to men thy true visage, as a leader in the ways of the spirit and a friend and helper of all the peoples. The mantra Bande Mataram has to be restored to the people of the country; Bharat Mata has to be invoked by the people of the country for guidance. By the worship of lesser godheads of money and selfish power-hunting India is not going to be great. With a sincere heart, with true adoration, we have to look to Mother India, we have to work for the high ideals set by her, we have to endeavour for the peaks of greatness which are Indias destiny. Shyam Sunder

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A Wild Thorn
I have passed nights with ascetics in the monastery, I have slept with infidels before the idols of the pagoda. I am the pangs of the jealous, I am the pain of the sick. I am both cloud and rain: I have rained on the meadows. [Jalaluddin Rumi, Soul of the World, Mathnawi, Trans. R A Nicholson] There is a certain quiet that falls in the mind when one enters any forest. Of course, even the most troubled and the tortured souls have found silence and calm in the solitude of the deep jungle. The Silent Valley reserve forests of Kerala, in south India, are no different. The last of the remaining tropical wet-evergreen rain forests, this 200 odd square miles of almost virgin forest had created such a profound social unrest in the lives of many people living in the far southern coast of India in the mid-seventies and early eighties almost to the level of being raised to the iconic level of signifying the struggles of environmental protection and preservation. The forests are so named because of the huge silence that descends amidst the rocky cliffs and giant trees and the neartotal absence of the otherwise persistent cicada. Through the valley snakes the river Kunthi ( recalling the epical presence of the Pandava lineage) and the jungle goes by the name of Sairandhri (Panchali renamed herself as Sairandhri, the queen Sudeshnas aid, while the Pandavas were in exile) I first heard about Silent Valley in the summer of 1976, while I was registered as a Graduate student in Trivandrum. My college was a premier institution in the state and the country considering its stupendous history and the large number of scholars and intellectuals who had sauntered across its portals in the years of yore. The University College had celebrated its centenary and more by then. As they used to say in the small laid back city this was the college to grow up in! Those years were also years of tremendous change and political upheaval. Every second student I met there had an ideological point to debate and prove. The teachers who came to the classes were also equally intelligent and committed (or perhaps gave such an impression, or even appeared thus to my youthful imagination.) It did not appear strange to me that our professor turned out to be an accomplished ornithologist and I recall the many hours we chatted about pelicans and pigeons and edible-nest swiftlets, while he did have some spare time away from the classes and other work. The red brick-walls of the old British style building were built to last any amount of student unrests and rebellions apparently because I had witnessed quite a number of those during the years I spent there. The bird-watcher professor was always quite nonchalant and unmoved by those million mutinies and kept on lighting up his non-filtered cigarettes one after another. He was a confirmed skeptic and was quite derisive about student agitations. The

song of a bulbul or the call of the White-breasted Kingfisher was no doubt more capable of creating ripples in his sardonically cynical mind than any number of political happenings. He was the President of our Kerala Natural History Society organized in the lines of the Bombay version of the same. We used to get together during the last Saturday of every month in the Museum campus under the trees or, when it rained during the persistent monsoon days, in the damp up-stairs rooms of the silent citadels of a colonial era. Nature was our concern and ecology and conservation our subject. It was then that I came across the Silent Valley debate and the time and age were so volatile that soon I was sucked into the maelstrom of the first ever peoples movement for environment in India. Silent Valley was a passion, it became the icon and symbol of what we humans were about to lose forever on account of the wayward march of uncaring science and technology. The whole project of development was something I came to detest and deride. The very idea of the city and its ambience was what I came to identify with the inhuman policies and projects of the imperial west! When one is young ones thoughts are pretty fast and the youthful brain adapts easily to the ideas of resistance to authority and power. One arrays oneself always with the underdogs and identifies everything else as potential threats. For my enthusiastic mind urbanization appeared as some kind of Americanisation, and technology that ushered in the terrible change figured as the juggernaut of maldevelopment and calamity. The very name Silent Valley was enough to evoke the idea of greenness and solitude, tranquility and serenity. Over and above it when I came to know more about the policy of the State Government to build a dam across the placid water of the deep jungle streamthe Kunthi riverI was determined to throw in my might to save all that I stood for at any cost. I trekked the hills and mountains of the western ghats sometimes with friends and fellow naturalists but mostly alone. Many of those few close friends I had in the literary artistic circles thought I was a freak and started keeping safe distances from me. And yet there were a handful who sympathized with my view and I soon found myself drawn into a larger circle of committed young people like me. Then came the wild-life week celebrations. The State Department of forests also came to our aid and sometimes provided some sort of help. During one of the ubiquitous poster exhibitions of those days I was awarded a bird-book by our President in the presence of a few committed naturalists and wild-life enthusiastsand as he proclaimed it, it was in return for the single-handed service I had rendered for the social awareness raising campaign. Life was in the fast lane those days and much was happening beside the valley issue. The political emergency clamped on the country by the then prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi was crucial and critical in the way of our growing up. No one was allowed to protest and there was little one could do by way of resistance. Mrs Gandhi herself was a sensitive soul when it came to issues of Continued on page 10

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Silent

The Greenery of Silent Valley

The forest with its emerald multitudes Clothed with its show of hues vague empty Space, A paintings colours hiding a surface void That flickered upon dissolutions edge; The blue heavens, an illusion of the eyes, Roofed in the minds illusion of a world. Sri Aurobindo

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Valley
At first in a blind stress of woods she moved With strange inhuman paces on the soil, Journeying as if upon an unseen road. Around her on the green and imaged earth The flickering screen of forests ringed her steps; Its thick luxurious obstacle of boughs Besieged her body pressing dimly through In a rich realm of whispers palpable, And all the murmurous beauty of the leaves Rippled around her like an emerald robe. Sri Aurobindo

National Park: Silent Valley

10 Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013 Continued from page 7 conservation and preservation, as I came to realize, but the political climate of those days inspired innumerable young people to take to the streets and be tortured and martyred apparently for no significant purpose. This might appear no big deal to the youth of today so very used to terrorism and needless political massacres. But then, protest and resistance were the order of our youthful days! And Kerala was a hotbed of socio-political and cultural action. However, there were many so called pretentious intellectuals who hid themselves away from the prying eyes of the Gestapo-like police force of the ruling powers that be. Strangely enough many of them made it big in some way or other in later days, conveniently forgetting those times of struggle in the darkness. I can recall a couple of instances when, as a student, I had occasions to witness the dastardly and cowardly actions of some so-called intellectuals who later paraded themselves as big shots and culture-vultures! Julien Benda had rightly dubbed such situations as the betrayal of the intellectuals. And then there were other mean minds that played havoc with several innocent younghearts who were absolutely unaware of the profound political intrigues of the times and their deeper significance. They would organize some action rally or other forms of activities like street plays etc. and parade the unknowing innocent victims in the forefront while hiding behind their shadows lurking and ducking the vigilant police and political spies. How many times did I fall prey to these dirty games that these political big-wigs played! How many dark nights and sleepless dawns did I tread the erroneous bylanes running reckless errands for these uncaring scoundrels! The worst thing was that I had carried out all these under the pretence that I was doing something heroic! And growing up in those dragon-ridden days and nights I had played out my active part in the drama of the silent valley too. We got ourselves organized as a society calling It the Save Silent Valley Society. There was an equally involved student of Engineering with whom I struck up a good working friendship. The two of us were the conveners of this society. We sent out a call for a public seminar and proclaimed our intentions to create an open forum to bring the great intrigues into the clear light of day. There was also a specially mounted exhibition that displayed posters and photographs depicting the facts and figures of the silent valley issue. On the date of the rally and march the court issued an injunction order and it was announced that anyone found defying the court order would be punishedthe rally was called off. But a few enthusiastic friends had decide to take out a march to the government secretariat silently holding forth placards and their mouths covered with handkerchiefs symbolizing the imposed silence. Many were arrested and the march disbanded cruelly. Some of my friends forcibly locked me up in the exhibition hall to keep me safe from being arrested. I dont actually know what happened except through the newspapers that carried detailed reports daily. There were of course no television or cell phone in those daysand anyway we were too poor to afford to buy even a book or a journal: the ubiquitous newspapers came and went. And days moved onto nights and darkness made way for the next dawns. The peoples movement had caught on and there were many hands to carry the placards and prepare the posters and many mouths to spread the message. The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad the peoples science movement in the state had taken up the issue and another organization acme to be founded: the Prakriti Samrakshana Samithi (the peoples association for the protection of nature). Leading poets, intellectuals and cultural activists came to take up the flag from our tired hands and the burden of saving the valley came to be the problem of a larger community of sensitive people. The silent valley was silent no more. It was a burning issue and vociferous political problem debated and discussed by thousands and millions not only in Kerala but all the way from Gujarat to the far eastern states and from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. The desecration of the valley symbolized the perilous avarice of the human beings and its deprivation signaled the disappearance of an all-time green soul from the human body. The silent valley was a passion in my youthful mind and its memories are even now ever-green, and will be like that forever, even after I pass. Three decades after that when I visited the place, I lugged with me the dead weight of a long lost past. I walked down the much trodden path into the green jungle and trampled carelessly over brown and yellow leaves and rounded boulders. The rush of the forest stream had not lost its power and passion. The wild breeze taunted me with the touch of evergreen green deeps. Occasional bits of blue sky showed through the rich verdance of the west coast tropical wet evergreen rain forests. I had forgotten even to wet my feet in the swirling waters of the Kunthi river. Did I hear the whistling thrush mock me for attempting to stop the building of a dam across these waters? Who can resist the juggernaut of change? When I left the forest I fumbled in my pockets for the change I had brought along. I pulled out a clutch of currency notes but no change! I realized I had lost the coins in the jungle. The deep-chested whoop of the Nilgiri Langur floated downwind and a Sambhar stag bellowed. An old friend who had spent long years in Russia had told me that whenever the Russians leave a place where they want to return later they fling a coin behind their backs. The magic of the lost coins would take me again and again to Silent Valley! Who knows! At least, there is still a valley one could think of going back to. For me, the Silent Valley, is a wild thorna painful memory of a lifetime. I have kept it buried deep within my secret memories with the sacredness and rectitude of a serene religious experience, nursing and preserving the bitter-sweetness of an unhealing wound, not relishing or caressing it even in my dreams for fear of losing it forever! Murali Sivaramakrishnan smurals@gmail.com

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Indian Youth In Search of IconsII

(Continued from January 2013) Sri Aurobindo analysed the situation at that time which arose out of this new awakening and drew lessons for the youth in clear cut terms. What the youth needed was faith in Sanatana Dharma which taught selflessness and courage, the needs of the hour. For Indians, faith in God has always meant a faith in Sanatana Dharma which is a faith in the glory and good that is man. Countless are the times when racial experience distilled thus has been brought to us as the Religion of Man with the refrain, esha dharmah sanatanah. For instance, the dharma-vachanas spoken by Savitri to Yama as they walk in spaces beyond the finite in the Pativrata Upakhyana of the Mahabharata, form such a Religion of Man: Perception helps one to arrive at a conclusion, which is then seized by speech; this is then set to action. For me my perception is the last word. Wherever my husband is led, or to whichever place he moves, I must indeed follow his footsteps, this is the eternal dharma (eshah dharmah sanatanah). It is obvious then that the constant search for human perfection and the alignment of the individual and the community moving in tune with each other, has given us the Sanatana Dharma. In this very act of garnering the wisdom of the ages as the Ancient Way, we have been gifted with innumerable icons that suit individual characters and aspirations. There are plenty of Ideals and Icons in our culture that help us achieve a good life. What we need is faith in these Ideals that have an undeniable transformatory power to make of the youth today ambassadors of the peerless Indian culture to teach others the significance of the word civilization. A hundred years ago Sri Aurobindo found such ambassadors who taught the whole nation how to rise against oppression and the debilitatory effects of the Western civilization. He saw that the inspiration set in motion by the presence of Sri Ramakrishna and given an active thrust by Swami Vivekananda taught the youth of Bengal to have faith and gain the strength that faith gives to suffer for the good of the nation in the Bande Mataram Movement. Bengal lived in that faith. She felt a mightier truth than any that earth can give, because she held that faith from God and was able to live in that faith. Then that happened which always happens when God brings other forces to fight against the strength which he himself has inspired, because it is always necessary for the divinely appointed strength to grow by suffering. Without suffering, without the lesson of selflessness, without the moral force of self-sacrifice, God within us cannot grow. Sri Krishna cannot grow to manhood unless he is called upon to work for others, unless the Asuric

forces of the world are about him and work against him and make him feel his strength. Why should the youth be worried that things seem to be bad all around? In truth, it is not so. Dharma continues to thrive among the common people and that is why mankind continues to move forward. To recognize this and push onwards, one needs along with faith and selflessness, courage. In fact Sri Aurobindo finds selflessness and courage to be extensions of ones faith. So he addresses the youth of his time (and the youth of all times): When you believe in God, when you believe that God is guiding you, believe that God is doing all and that you are doing nothing, -- what is there to fear? What is there that you can fear when you are conscious of him who is within you? Courage is then a necessity, courage is natural and courage is inevitable. With this firm faith secured, we have to find out how best to make of ourselves invincible warriors by getting trained in Sanatana Dharma. But I can hear my young readers protesting: Where are the leaders like Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo to inspire us with such faith that brings in its wake selflessness and courage? That is why we place before the youth of India this ancient heritage, the Sanatana Dharma. Interestingly enough, here, the center is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. Why not make a beginning with Panchatantra and Hitopadesa instead of wasting our time in purposeless meanderings of violence in the name of magic projected by the Harry Potter hysteria? Come then to our treasures of commonsense, our scintillating baskets of wit and humour, our precious caskets of faith and spirituality, our hard disks of noble living. Make a beginning with two of the finest icons Indian youth can reach out for, the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa! Even if you do not study anything else but simply master and imbibe the whole of these two works and act according to the tenets, victory will be yours in all your undertakings! To Hitopadesa, then. A book which is ageless, ancient and never palls. A work which is down to earth, but high in instilling soulful faith. The opening places before us the importance of learning and what it does to gain for us fortune and faultless Ananda, vidyaa dadhaati vinayam: Learning, although possessed by a low man, introduces him to the king who is (ordinarily) inapproachable, just as a river, although flowing through a low region, takes one to the inaccessible sea: (sources) from which floweth great fortune. Learning endows one with modesty; from (having) modesty one passes on to (gets) worthiness; being worthy one obtains riches; from riches religious merit and from that happiness.1
1

Translated by M.R. Kale

12 Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013 Sanatana Dharma does not teach simply with such moralistic formulae. The practice always is to make you think for yourselves. What is good for the individual? What is beneficial to the community? Which is the right path to achieve the best of living for both the individual and the society? This is how parables became the rich granary of Indian culture and Hitopadesa contains one of the oldest and richest collections of such stories. It is amazing to know that for several millennia we have learnt the values of self-sacrifice for loyalty from Viravara, of discrimination from the tale of Chudamani and the barber, of the power of intelligence in the fall of the elephant Karpuratilaka and of the evil of arrogance in the suicidal leap of the lion Durdanta. Painlessly, wisdom was injected into the young mind by Pandit Vishnusarman who taught the sons of King Sudarsana of Pataliputra. Indeed, throughout, Hitopadesa pellets of good judgment are strewn about with a prodigal hand. Indian youth who are in search of icons to lead a gracious and virtuous life and become achievers, ought to hold on to one or two of these and they would never feel the lack of inspirations in their life. Yes, life on earth is never smoothsailing. But our foundations have placed before us heroes and heroines like Arjuna and Damayanti who have suffered, endured and overcome. It was inspirations like these books and characters that gave us a Swami Vivekananda, a Mother Sarada Devi, a Sister Nivedita. Hold on fast to our cultural foundations and all will be well. Havent we the widely known Vedic chant to sculpt our lives and fare well and fare forward? Satyam vada, dharmam chara! Speak the truth. Practise virtue (dharma). Neglect not study (of the Vedas). Having brought an acceptable gift to the teacher, Cut not off the line of progeny. One should not be negligent of truth. One should not be negligent of virtue. One should not be negligent of welfare. One should not be negligent of prosperity Be one to whom a mother is as a god Be one to whom a father is as a god. Be one to whom a teacher is as a god. Be one to whom a guest is as a god.2 (Concluded) Prema Nandakumar

A Disciples Death

(A reported talk of Mother on 11.8.64)

I recall the day when Janina [a Polish disciple who was an artist] died, (she died at 6 in the morning, I believe), at about 4 in the morning something suddenly made me interested in this question. How will the new form be, how will she be? I looked at man and the animal. I saw that there would be a much greater difference between man and the new form than between man and the animal. I began to see certain things, and it happened that Janina was there (in her thought, but her thought was quite material and very concrete) and it was very interesting (that lasted a long while, almost 2 hours), because I saw the whole of the timidity of human conceptions, while she had contacted something this was not an idea but some sort of contact (with a future reality). I had the impression of a Matter more plastic and more full of Light answering in a much more direct manner to the Will (the Higher Will) and of a plasticity which was able to respond to the Will by taking variable and changing forms. I saw these forms of hers which she had conceived (somewhat like those being which do not have a body like us, but which have hands and feet when they want them, and a head when they want it, luminous clothes when they want them things like that). I saw all that and I remembered that I congratulated her. I told her: you have had a partial perception but partially very clear of one of the forms that the new manifestation will take. And she was very happy. I told her: You see, you have fully worked for the future, and suddenly I saw a blue sapphire light, pale, quite luminous, in the form of a flame (with a somewhat wide base) and it made a kind of flash pfft! And then was gone. It was not there any more. I said to myself: How strange! An hour later (I saw this at about 6 in the morning; all this had lasted nearly 2 hours) they told me: she is dead. That is to say, she passed the final moments with me, then from me, pfft! Gone towards . a life elsewhere. It was very sudden. She was so happy. I told her: You have worked well for the future! and suddenly like a flash (a blue sapphire light, pale, very luminous, having the form of a flame with quite a broad base) pfft! She was gone. It was exactly the moment when she died. It was one of the most interesting departures that I had seen fully conscious. And so happy to have participated! I, myself, did not know why I said to her: Yes, you have truly participated in the work of the future, You have put the earth in contact with one of the forms of the new Manifestation.
The Mother

Taittiriya Upanishad, translated by R.E. Hume.

Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013 13

Living with nature an introduction Part I

This is the first of 3 parts reproducing the opening chapter of a book titled Footsteps through the salad on the wildlife of Auroville, by longtime Aurovilian Tim Wrey. For more info on the book e-mail prisma@auroville.org.in When I first came to Auroville with my family in 1973 we spent five weeks living in a dilapidated semi-open thatched hut in the horticultural nursery. Being two adults and two children it felt quite crowded, but we soon discovered that we were also sharing it with numerous other occupants. Chief among them were some 18 toads, who lived under the kitchen cupboards and in various other cool spots around the house.

Drawing courtesy of Bombay Natural History Society

When we first moved in we decided to shoo them all out, and with a concerted effort we almost succeeded; but as we scrabbled about trying to get the last three or four to leave, we turned round to see the first dozen or more hopping back in again! Twice we tried, and twice they all came back within a space of 10 minutes. Then we gave up, and settled down to our first experience of living in Auroville i.e. living with nature! That hut was an unforgettable introduction. Not only was it full of toads at ground level, but the roof was a veritable wildlife park. Frogs hid in the palm-leaf thatch, and snakes went up there to find them. A feeble cry from above usually heralded the end of a frog, but the snakes werent always successful. Sometimes the frogs would escape by jumping down onto our beds on one memorable occasion immediately followed by the snake, which fell onto a mosquito net I was putting up. There was a frozen moment of shocked confrontation, before we each jumped back in opposite directions! In the world of that huts thatched roof, these and mice were the big game species. But there were also many other creatures up there, from cockroaches and lizards to ants and spiders, plus termites by the thousand. We had only to touch the roof and the whole structure rattled with the latters synchronous

vibrations. When the time came for our departure after our five week stay, it was like saying goodbye to a familiar zoo. When I finally returned to live in Auroville in 1977, one of the first friendships I made was with Dietra, an American woman living in the settlement of Gratitude, who was brilliant with injured and fledgling birds. She also later did something else wonderful for Auroville, which was to introduce peacocks into our environment after an initial intensive breeding programme using chickens as surrogate mothers. Today they are seen all over Auroville, and are breeding successfully in the forested areas. (Some years ago I had 14 walk across my garden in a single awesome parade!) Most of my memorable confrontations with nature, excepting those in and around my own residence, have been in connection with Gratitude, where I lived while waiting for my own place to be completed. I remember one evening, while there, going out to a nearby communal dining facility for my evening meal, and coming back to a semi-nightmare in my room. I didnt know it at the time, but the wooden beams had been penetrated by termites, and it was their mating-flight night! As I approached the room I couldnt make out what was causing the heavy rustling sound I heard coming from within until I entered, and walked into a cloud of fluttering insects, trapped inside by the screened windows. It took nearly two hours to clear them all out. Not long after I had moved to my own place, I found about a dozen small eggs in a pile of builders sand being removed from outside my house. I carried them down to Dietra for her opinion. Could be lizard eggs, she said, and then suggested I leave them with her to see if they would hatch. They did, that same night, but instead of harmless lizards out popped 12 snakes, which then proceeded to escape and hide all over her house. The following morning my popularity rating was zero! Dietra levelled scores with me not long after, however, through her dog. In a moment of weakness I had let it share my room after it turned up whimpering and drenched at my door one night during a prolonged monsoon downpour. It smelled strongly of wet fur, but settled quietly for the night. The next morning, after I had sent it on its way, I was puzzled to see some small, grey, pebble-like objects on the floor, each nearly a centimetre long. On closer examination I found they were huge ticks, engorged to bursting point on the dogs blood. It had generously left five of them, which seemed poor payment for the nights lodging, but adequate repayment for the snake eggs! Dietra also scored via a young Kite she had reared and released, which used to swoop down on me and unsuspecting visitors to grab objects we were carrying. It was a special menace up at the tennis courts, where it delighted in sometimes catching lobbed balls in mid-air and flying off with them! Tim Wrey (To be continued)

14 Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013

The Challenged Coast of India A summary - Part II

(Continued from January 2013) This is the second part of a very short summary of the report The Challenged Coast of India which is over 230 pages.

Coastal Activities

Human Activities & Settlements within the 500m Zone

Fishing is an important activity, with 1,511 marine fish landing centres and dedicated fishing ports. About 38% of the marine fisherfolk are engaged in active fishing, 85% of them working full time. Most of the fishing continues to be small scale/artisanal, though in recent times close to 70% of the catch is brought in by mechanized boats that provide employment to only 34% of the fishers. The estimated marine fish landing of India during 2010 was 3.07 million tonnes. Sea salt manufacture is carried out in certain areas. Gujarat is the highest producer of sea salt in India, followed by Tamil Nadu. Coastal aquaculture, though a traditional activity, was limited to certain areas till the early 1990s. Extensively practiced today along the coast, the rapid growth has been at considerable environmental cost, with shrimp aquaculture farms being held responsible for destroying mangroves, increasing salinization of water, pollution and land degradation. Tourism religious, cultural and recreational is extensive, with a large number of religious shrines located in coastal towns/villages that attract pilgrims from all over. In recent times, recreational tourism, especially in sandy beach areas, has been steadily growing, with coastal resorts and hotels mushrooming all along the coast but also causing, in many places, problems due to reduced/restricted access to beaches.

Large scale development activities since Indias Independence have resulted in a proliferation of industries, mostly located near the major ports. In recent decades, to attract private investment in industry and allied activities, a number of notified ports have been privatized and expanded to handle the huge goods traffic, especially of raw materials such as ores. 143 ports were identified, enumerated and mapped in the study, and while the area occupied by them in the 500 m zone may appear to be small, their actual area of impact may extend far beyond the immediate port area. In fact, for planning purposes, the area of impact of a port can be considered to be at least 20 km more than the land a port occupies along the coast. The area of impact of all ports along the coastline is therefore estimated to occupy approximately 3,000 km or approximately 45% of Indias coastline. Port-based and port-associated zones for manufacturing and processing have also grown in number and extent, called by various names such as special economic zones or special investment regions. Land for most of these activities is being allocated/acquired by the government, especially in the case of public-private partnerships. There have been a number of cases where community lands have been incorrectly designated as wastelands and allocated to private industrial entities at low prices. To provide energy for the vast development activities that are being planned, the coast is also going to be dotted with thermal (mostly coal-based) power plants due to abundant sea water available for cooling and disposal of the coolant water as well as ease of import of coal. This study found 27 existing power plants with 59 more in the offing.

Many of these development activities have, apart from extensive change in the land use of the area, adversely impacted the shoreline. The breakwaters and other structures constructed for ports and harbours have resulted in the interception of the littoral drift, and the result has been down-drift erosion. Sand mining in rivers as well as along the beaches, a lot of

Sri Aurobindos Action February 2013 15 it illegal and in response to the burgeoning demands of the construction industry, as well as interception of sediment and water by upstream dams, has contributed to a sediment deficit in the coastal areas, resulting in coastal erosion.

Divine man-making

Coastal Structures
The extent of shoreline affected by erosion is over 1624.435 km according to the latest information available with the CPDAC (part of which is yet to be updated) which is about 29.96% of the coastline. Coastal protection is mainly localized, using RCC or rubble mounded seawalls, though in recent years attempts have been made to use geotubes. In this study, 516.84 km of seawalls were measured. Kerala which has 80% of its coast as sandy beaches and reportedly the maximum extent of erosion was found to have 215.9 km of seawalls, followed by Gujarat with 117.89 km of seawalls. In both cases, sand mining is supposed to be a major cause for coastal erosion. An earlier study by the Ministry of Earth Sciences has implicated ports (specifically port-related structures such as breakwaters) in coastal erosion, especially along the east coast. Of the 565 structures in the littoral zone mapped in the study, 204 were groynes and 93 were breakwaters. Groyne fields are being increasingly promoted as the solution to coastal erosion, often as alternatives to seawalls. However, groynes need not necessarily promote the growth of beaches, a case study from Pondicherry showed that the extent of beach gained was only a fraction of the area lost.

Groyne and seawall Malabar coast PondyCAN (To be continued)

Soon after the Arya began, I got a letter from some graduates saying that what they wanted was man-making. I have done my share of manmaking and it is a thing which now anybody can do; Nature herself is looking after it all over the world, though more slowly in India than elsewhere. My business is now not man-making, but divine man-making. My present teaching is that the world is preparing for a new progress, a new evolution. Whatever race, whatever country seizes on the lines of that new evolution and fulfils it, will be the leader of humanity. In the Arya I state the thought upon which this new evolution will be based as I see it, and the method of Yoga by which it can be accomplished. Of course, I cannot speak plainly yet my whole message, for obvious reasons, I have to put it in a severe, colourless fashion which cannot be pleasing to the emotional and excitement-seeking Bengali mind. But the message is there, for those who care to understand. It has really three parts (1) for each man as an individual to change himself into the future type of divine humanity, the men of the new Satyayuga which is striving to be born; (2) to evolve a race of such men to lead humanity and (3) to call all humanity to the path under the lead of these pioneers and this chosen race. India and especially Bengal have the best chance and the best right to create that race and become the leaders of the futureto do in the right way what Germany thought of doing in the wrong way. But first they must learn to think, to cast away old ideas, and turn their faces resolutely to the future.
Sri Aurobindo Extracted from a letter by Sri Aurobindo written between 1914-1915 page 225 CWSA Vol 36 Autobiographical notes

16 Sri Aurobindos Action February

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REGISTERED: TN/PMG(CCR)/113/1214 Sanction to post without pre-payment: WPP No. 44

My Encounter with a Catfish

I opened my eyes and looked out the window. It was still pitch dark and a bit foggy. It was the beginning of August and I had come for a months stay in Niederalteich, my home in Germany. I was under the spell of jetlag as I had just arrived the day before from India. Now that I was awake, instead of lying in bed I thought of going for a long swim in the neighbouring lake. I cycled with the moon hanging like a lantern on top of my head. I jumped down from my bike and ran on the dew drop grass till I reached the lake. The water was cool and fresh. At a distance, the fog was melting and a pin drop silence pervaded.. The world around was still in deep sleep. I swam with closed eyes, relishing the water caressing my limbs. It was just exhilarating! The sky, the moon, the fog. Everything around seemed so unreal And yet so real Just as the world around us should be! Suddenly in the water I felt some movement and there was a gigantic wall of water gushing out of the lake in front of me Thunderstruck at seeing a hazy form of a giant fish and even whiskers, I rushed towards the shore swimming as fast as I could. It was still dark and I felt something chasing me. Being a rather slow swimmer, I must have definately broken an Olympic swimming record, at that point. At the shore I saw some police patrolling, who seeing me trembling informed me that a few days back a catfish 2 meters long was caught there. So I had encountered a giant catfish! Perhaps, having gone at an unearthly hour for swimming I had disturbed the creature. I pedaled home all exhausted and wet, still in my swim wear. I sat at my doorstep and saw the first sunrays dissipating the darkness. My heart was racing like a wild horse. Getting on my cycle again, the towel wrapped around my waist I pedaled towards the lake. No, not a minute more should I allow myself to be gripped with fear. No catfish was going to keep me away from something I love to do, like swimming. Jumping again in the water I swam to make friends with this giant fish. The Mother says: Do not torment yourself, do not worry; above all try to banish all fear; fear is a dangerous thing which can give importance to something which had none at all. The mere fear of seeing certain symptoms renew themselves is enough to bring about this repetition. Manju Bonke

www.sriaurobindosaction.org Quotations from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother are printed with the kind permission of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. Printed at All India Press. Puducherry, by Nishant Jhunjhunwala and published by him on belhalf of Sri Aurobindos Action, Puducherry605002, India. Founder Editor: Shyam Sunder, Editorial Team: Manju Bonke and Sunaina Mandeen, e-mail: sriaurobindosaction@yahoo.com Typeset by: PAGE VIEW Book Designers, pvbookdesign@gmail.com Subscription: Inland Rs. 80 (Annual for individuals), Rs. 100 (Annual for libraries/institutions) Rs. 1600 (25 years for individuals) Overseas (sea) $10 (annual) $200 (25 years), (air) $20 (annual) $400 (25 years) Single Copy: Rs. 10.00