The Mother Abides – Final Reflections

The Mother Abides
Final Reflections (1973–1983)

by Nolini Kanta Gupta

These thoughts and reminiscences of Nolini Kanta Gupta were written or spoken during the final decade of his life — from the time of the Mother’s passing in November 1973 until shortly before his own passing in February 1984. During that period they served as a source of guidance and consolation to the Ashram community, and they still seem relevant today.

Many of these writings and talks were first presented to the students, young and old, of Nolini-da’s classes. Later they were published in The Advent, a quarterly journal he edited, or in his Collected Works. Details about their publication and a life-sketch of the author are given at the end of the book.


Book Details

Author: Nolini Kanta Gupta
Print Length: 77
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Book format: Pdf, ePub, Mobi
Language: English


Book Download


Contents

PART 1: SWEET MOTHER

  • November 17, 1973
  • A Canadian Question
  • The Mother Abides
  • Twin Prayers
  • The Soul’s Freedom
  • One Day More
  • The Mother, Human and Divine
  • The Mother and the Nature of Her Work
  • She Is Always There
  • A Vision

PART 2: THE ASHRAM

  • A Review of Our Ashram Life
  • The Ashram: Inner and Outer
  • The Ashram, the World and the Individual

PART 3: A NEW CREATION

  • On the Brink
  • The Great Holocaust — Chhinnamasta
  • What Is to Be Done?

PART 4: TALKS TO THE STUDENTS

  • Words, Words, Words
  • The Golden Chain
  • Mother’s Playground
  • The Iron Chain
  • The Two Chains of the Mother
  • Your Soul

PART 5: THE INTEGRAL YOGA

  • Not to Destroy but to Transform
  • Love the Divine
  • How to Understand Savitri
  • Man and the Other Beings
  • To Live Within
  • Falsehood
  • The Secret of Life
  • Our Yoga
  • Intensity without Impatience
  • Freedom
  • Yesterday

Sample

The Mother Abides

November 17, 1973

1

The Mother’s body belonged to the old creation. It was meant to be the pedestal of the New Body. It served its purpose well. The New Body will come.

This is a test, how far we are faithful to her, true to her Consciousness.

The revival of the body would have meant revival of the old troubles in the body. The troubles were eliminated so far as could be done while in the body — farther was not possible. For a new mutation, a new procedure was needed. “Death” was the first stage in that process.

2

Sweet Mother,

Your physical body belonged to the old creation because you wanted to be one with your children. You wanted this body to uphold the New Body you were building upon it, and it gave you the service you asked of it. You will come with your New Body.

Your children’s, the world’s call and aspiration, love and consecration are laid at your feet in gratitude.

November 1973


About Author: Ernest Becker

Nolini Kanta Gupta (13 January 1889 – 7 February 1983) was a revolutionary, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, philosopher and yogi, and the most senior of Sri Aurobindo‘s disciples. He was born in Faridpur, East Bengal, to a cultured and prosperous Vaidya-Brahmin family. While in his teens he came under the influence of Sri Aurobindo, then a well known revolutionary fighting for independence against the British. When in his fourth year at Presidency College, Calcutta, he left a promising academic career and rejected a lucrative government job to join a small revolutionary group under Sri Aurobindo. In May 1908 he was among those arrested for conspiracy in the Alipore bomb case. Acquitted a year later, after having spent a year in jail, he worked as a sub-editor for the Dharma and the Karmayogin, two of Sri Aurobindo’s Nationalist newspapers, in 1909 and 1910.

He was taught Greek, Latin, French and Italian by Sri Aurobindo himself and was among the four disciples who were with Aurobindo in 1910 at Pondicherry. When the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was founded in 1926, he settled permanently in Pondicherry serving the Mother and Sri Aurobindo as secretary of the ashram and later as one of its trustees. A prolific writer on a wide range of topics, he has about 60 books to his credit of which about 16 are in English and 44 in Bengali, as well as many articles and poems in English, Bengali and French.

Nolini Kanta Gupta died at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on 7 February 1984.

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