from Joy Roy Choudhury e.aryans@gmail.com to "Tusar N. Mohapatra" tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com date 15 February 2011 16:19 subject Divine Mother’s Consciousness and Art: She is the “magnet of our difficult ascent”. Book III Canto II, Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Dear Shri Mohapatra,
Just have put this article: Divine Mother's Consciousness and Art:
Hope you will like this. Regards
Joy
Joy Roy Choudhury
Head of Communications Strategy
February 15 at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, 8 Shakespeare Sarani; 6.15 pm: Bhaskar Mukherjee will speak on Sri Aurobindo Nirdeshito Tridha Sadhana. ...
About 17 children took part in the IEP retreat on 30th January. The workshop was themed "harmony" and the children explored the concept through the use of stories, games and activities. Various aspects of harmony - such as harmony of the body, through yoga; teamwork - through dramatization; working in silence and harmony - through group paintings, were explored.
Sri Aurobindo referred to his “human imperfection” in the larger context of his yogic development and finally “embodying the Divine Consciousness”. If no mention is made of this final success and only the ‘defect’ of character highlighted with the help of further negative evidence from the reports of hostile British officials, what impression would the reader get? That Sri Aurobindo remained a coward and liar all his life!
2011 marks the 40 th year of the construction of the Matrimandir. We take a look back at these forty remarkable and event filled years….
There are, it must be said at the outset, a thousand tales of personal and community encounters interwoven into the growth of Matrimandir, and on some level it is these events which underlie and give heart and meaning to the whole story of Matrimandir's physical growth. In the account that follows we focus on the structure's visible growth. Some of those more personal tales of individual interaction with the soul of Auroville have already been told and surely more will be told in the years to come.
On Feb 21 st , 1971, at a dawn ceremony, the foundation stone of Matrimandir was placed in the earth between the Banyan tree and present site of Matrimandir. Sunil's moving music was played, and the Mother's recorded message that she had given for this occasion:
The land was bare. Warm winds swept across the empty plateau, raising clouds of orange dust. The sky was wide and cloudless. But the air was full of an intense Promise and an unmistakable Presence. The seed of a marvellous golden Future had been planted. As young trees began to reach upwards in scattered locations on the plateau – newly planted by the first pioneers in their campaign to bring life and nature's soft richness back to the denuded land, so too the seed of Matrimandir germinated, took root, and began to grow.
The first step was the preparation of the ground for the intended construction. A large crater had to be dug into the earth to lay the foundation slab of the building. This digging was bravely started by a handful of Aurovilians, breaking the hard red soil with steel crow-bars; they carried baskets of the earth out of the growing crater under the intense South Indian sun. […]
The globe was initially installed on a temporary set of supporting Sri Aurobindo's symbols while the final gilded set was prepared in Germany . On 18 Feb. 1993 the globe was installed on the final set of four golden symbols joined in a supporting square. Beneath it was the 3m wide Mother's symbol that had been carved in a circular slab of white Italian marble. […]
And so the Matrimandir has completed forty years. Literally thousands of people have participated in its construction, some for a day or two as passing visitors, some for a lifetime, whether physically here on the site or as supporting donors all over the world. One and all they have had the joy of contributing to this special manifestation at the heart of Auroville.