The literal meaning of Sri Matriniketan Ashram is the abode, niketan of the Divine Mother, Matri, which is surrounded, concentrated and protected by Her vast harmony and opulence, Sri, subordinated by Her destined children whose mind, life and body have received Soul initiation and shelter, the Ashram. She has chosen this place as a field of manifestation of Her Divinity and fulfills some of Her special mission of elevation of Consciousness towards Spiritual knowledge and power which will transform the law and Nature of external form and of discovery of the ‘greatest possible spiritual fulfilment’¹ directed towards ‘the most difficult transformation of all’² in resolving harmoniously ‘all the problems of existence’. It is situated ten kilometre west of Bay of Bengal, eleven kilometre north-west away, in the outskirts of Brahmapur city in the state of Odisha, dedicated to dynamise Sri Aurobindo’s comprehensive vision and action either through practice of Integral Yoga or through Nature’s conscious Integral Evolution.

               The contents, innovations, adventures and splendours of the Spirit cannot be exhausted by the profound revelations, exulted narrations and inspired writings of Saints and Seers of all Time. If the Divine Potter shapes one human pot more perfectly than another, then ‘the merit lies not in the vessel but the Maker’ ³. It is ‘an exceedingly good fortune’ ⁴ for a seeker of integral Yoga as Sri Aurobindo pointed to meet a perfect vessel or ‘one who has realized or is becoming That’⁴ and it reproduces, multiplies and universalises through ‘an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity…’ ⁵. In addition to it all the creatures of the world are ‘seen and felt as the Divine manifested in many disguises become by that very fact part of integral Yoga’ ⁶. The sons of Men, Nara, are also revered and adored as the sons of Gods, Narayana, and when both the faculties are equally paced then that localizes the evolutionary thrust to lift up the general consciousness of the race. They are at once the leader of all that are behind them in Consciousness and follower of all that are ahead of them in cognition. The greatest Master is much less a Teacher, Instructor, Exemplar, Propagator, Orator, Writer, Savant, Scholar, Forecaster, Healer and Preacher than an Influence and Presence pouring down ‘the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.’ ⁷

Sri K. Anurakta:

               A profound Yogi and Occultist, established himself in Supreme Consciousness, a Britisher by birth and yet harmonized and synthesized the great traditions of the West and the East, universalized all Deities to realize the One; he lived in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. In his little hut inside the Sri Aurobindo Hand Made Paper Factory, he was found deeply united with The Mother pouring down Her infinite Love, Compassion and Help to the bereaved. Seeing his close relation with Indian deities, particularly Lord Sri Ganesh, out of curiosity we had asked him long years ago, around the year 2002, whether he is an emanation of Lord Sri Kartikeya, he nodded with mono syllable ‘Yes’, and when asked where his Consciousness is actually established, he explained us that it is higher than Overmind; when again asked whether he lived in Consciousness where World, Self and God were reconciled, he confirmed with single syllable ‘Yes.’ His recent state of Consciousness had established in absolute Divine state and when asked about his present state he explained that he was holding together The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the heart, who were preoccupied in transforming his physical cells.

               The Mother gave his name Anurakta, which means ‘especially and exceedingly devoted to the Divine;’ he later added the prefix Kartikeya, to his name due to his special contact with the south Indian deity Murugan. He was a part and conscious channel of The Mother’s present most difficult action of transforming the earth’s Subconscient hell, ‘where the gods and demons battle in night.’¹³ We got the special opportunity to meet in him ‘the Lover’s everlasting Yes’ ¹² and Sri Matriniketan Ashram grows under his all embracing Compassion and Grace, holding together the Dual Divine Power within him.

S.A. Maa Krishna:

               She was instrumental in developing Sri Matriniketan Ashram from a collective aspiration of study circle and a school for small children in 1991 with the conviction that one can aspire to begin this integral Yoga with rigorous self-control, without least human attachment, without desire towards earthly enjoyment and one should develop patience to arrive at the end of this Yoga, not in one life span but an endeavour extending over thousand years through successive rebirth.

               She followed a long passage to move the Consciousness with the aid of her limited personality and traditional Bhakti Yoga with full of adverse trials, arduous difficulties, worst threats, flat failures and prolonged sufferings to experience seven-fold self-concentration subordinated by seven-fold self-expansion. Thus she concentrates to become the follower, seeker of truth, disciple, servant, slave, instrument and child of Their limitless Divine Consciousness which diffuses as the Master of all action, the Friend of all difficulties, the Lover of closest union and oneness, the Teacher of all Yoga, the Father of all compassion, the Mother of All Life and joy and laughter of the Playmate and she works out gradually the Divine’s dream of perennial Joy, imperishable Truth, ineffable Beauty and supreme creative Action with grace, faith, patience and courage. Thus a shifting of concentration from single Avatara in the heart through partial Divine union of the traditional Teaching has extended towards the movement of Consciousness which leads one towards realisation of dual Avatara and integral Divine union.

               The path she follows or the lessons learned from Them in successive years gives this conviction and certainty ‘I carry no power, no knowledge, no capacity to solve any problem, no ability to do thing’ and offer all to the Lord who is Omnipotent and Omniscient source of our existence. He decides everything and is responsible for whatever small or big work executed through us. He can give large Spiritual experiences which includes the realisation of the One and the Eternal in Impersonal Self, Nirguna Brahman and its extension as Cosmic Manifestation, Saguna Brahman, the infinite depths of universal Silence and the infinite largeness of the universal Action and working of the Divine Force in Subconscient and Inconscient sheaths, contact with Overmental Gods, the subtle physical wideness and increasing intensity of Light to bridge the higher planes of Consciousness with the gross physical world, Psycho-Spiritual communication and interchange with The Mother and the Master to mark the passing out of our limitation and transition in sadhana, confirming that Their each occasional personal appearance and constant impersonal Presence are special privilege to meet the hour of crisis, overcome the critical hour of difficult gulf that all must cross. The role of seven-fold personal Divine Presence predominates over the constant impersonal Divine once the Consciousness is established in the Supramentalised Psychic plane.

                She received the inner call to serve The Mother in all life through the inner and outer action, limit breaking personality and step by step Her Soul saving Divine Consciousness will be established. This is a collective action with Souls who are linked with Her from past births and the Time proves that they are not separated from each other in successive births and bodies. The literal meaning of her name is the Jivatma’s symbolic oneness with Paramatma, represented through triple Avatara, or the Psychic turn to the call of the child-God Krishna fluting to rapture lifted her being to Sri Aurobindo’s Supramental Consciousness resulting in the transformation of Nature of The Mother possessed outer life, one with the Love of Her limit breaking Love, Ananda of Her overwhelming flame-intense Bliss, the Consciousness of Her world-shaking Consciousness, of which she is a symbol of living channel and emanation.

               Her realisation or understanding follows the Mother-nature’s Intentions towards existence; that of firstly, the emergence of the Divine is slow in the mass as their outer Nature is closed between two mental firmaments of brute outwardness and domination of sense activities that refuse to go within whereas its pace can be swift and uninterrupted with the rare individual Soul known as Divine Instrument, Yantra, Emanation, Vibhuti and Incarnation, Avatara; secondly, the basis of Divine collective living, sadhunam rajyam, begins with the discernment of Truth from falsehood, by loss of separative identity in the Divine and it can be more organised and harmonious by going deep into silence to create an atmosphere of Oneness; thirdly, all manifestation, sthabarajangamam,¹⁷ takes place by union of Spirit with Matter and the Creator of this world, even though exceeding His creation, He is Immanent in it as evolving Consciousness; fourthly, all evolving knowledge is useful for a brief period of time and becomes obsolete afterwards and in order to prevent a knowledge from becoming out dated and remain new for a long time to come it must descend from a very high universal and transcendental plane; fifthly, an individual’s help to collectivity and all humanity is dependent on his degree of realisation of Truth or Soul cultivation by transcending ego which can be measured through his catholicity of universal action, descended knowledge through writings, overflowing expression and captivating Divine Love and he can discharge his greatest service to humanity when he possesses the highest Knowledge which illumines, integralises, harmonises all Knowledge and cures all Ignorance; sixthly, an individual’s capacity in reconciling the Matter and the Spirit or his knowledge on the Unknowable is dependent on the exploration and extension of the whole range of Consciousness from the nether Inconscient plane to the highest Supracosmic plane; seventhly, all destruction, small or big, executed either through human agency or through the Nature’s intervention is generally the outcome of Kali’s wrath and Her limit breaking world action, and the extent of damage gives the measure of human imperfection and unwillingness to change and whatever remains untouched by these disaster and destruction is considered Divine in its essence and lastly, all Spirituality or possession of God’s power of Omnipotence and Omniscience is to be generalised in humanity either through Nature’s unconscious Yoga of popular religion stumblingly through elementary stage of propaganda or through Nature’s semi-conscious Yoga of less popular ascetic schools and emergence of multiple liberated Souls as Sannyasa has been ‘widely preached and numerously practiced’¹⁶ or through conscious Yoga of lesser popular ancient Vedantic schools with its ideal freedom and self-ruling universalised king Consciousness of the few individuals or through largely developed Yoga of least popular ancient Vedic schools of thought with its ideal of Divine transformation and of physical Immortality, which is an action left for the last Avatara to accomplish and the physical Presence of successive Avataras organise immense evolutionary movement as They sign ‘salvation's testament’¹⁵ with Their blood and bear the law of earth’s pain and death. And all the above formulations can lead the existence far ahead beyond our imagination through intervention of Nature’s most creative power of Supramental action through prepared conscious human vessel.

             Her task of becoming the beginner of endless integral Yoga, God’s obedient slave who demands subordination and service, The Mother’s consecrated child, mediocre action in consciousness to uncover the infinitely superior Divine wisdom or the entire range of Sri Aurobindo’s vision are that; firstly, her liberated existence before the spaceless Infinity and timeless Eternity appears to be nothing but a tiny grain of dust; secondly, within this limited boundary her physical sheath seems to have large enduring capacity ‘to bear the wounds of Time’ which stands as indispensable condition for cellular transformation and her vital sheath is made up of increasing clear purity and intense capacity to hold the divine Love; her mental sheath aspires to liberate herself from all twilight thoughts; thirdly, Divine’s action and Yoga move ahead both in proportion and newness as one unveils initially a Spiritual path of his own fulfilling the norm that the ‘perfection of the integral Yoga will come’¹⁰ when each sadhaka ‘is able to follow his own path of Yoga’¹⁰ in conformity with its aim with ‘considerable free diversity in the self expression’⁸ and finally all effort, all self-discipline, all set method is transcended by ‘natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing of the flower of the Divine Shakti out of the bud of a purified and perfected nature’¹¹; fourthly, integral Yoga of Self-perfection can begin after one is thoroughly established in traditional Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga and direct the perfect Spirit to penetrate into imperfect Matter; fifthly, the Divine has created a commune through her minimised instrumental guidance in which the inner Spiritual life and outer living of a Seeker is nurtured and protected through double evolution of Mind and Spirit and the collective living ‘would create its own body of the life of the spirit’⁸ for the unrestricted free flow of Intuition and subsequently seven streams of Supramental Truth, Light, Word, Love, Force, Life-Radiances and Substance-Energy; sixthly, His Yoga will attain culmination by synthesis, integration and universalisation of all Yoga, all Evolution, all the Powers and Personalities of the Mother, all the Occult Science and all Education, and entire love for Him, His Law and His human collectivity for which Sri Matriniketan Ashram is preparing its base and lastly, through ceaseless consecrated Divine action combined with provisional intermittent self-isolation to reduce the hour of outward activities, one can concentrate on the worlds beyond this material world, their universal rhythm, mighty energies, self-existent laws, in order to give instrumental thrust to the pioneering incarnated large action in Consciousness of Their unfinished Evolution in the visible world which is a very small extension of Their present invisible action in the subtle world.

Why Sri Matriniketan Ashram?

               Many have enquired with curiosity about the subjective inner action and patient inner unfolding of the Unknowable at Sri Matriniketan Ashram. Some expressed their doubt and impatience regarding completeness and fulfilment of this effort that can change the principle and persistent character of human life and pursue its immaculate Divine living beyond all sect, clan, language, religion or its striving towards long slow ultimate human perfection whose highest terms are Immortality, satisfied delight of the whole being, Omnipotence, freedom and mastery over Self, God and World extending over All Life, replacing either the quest of hurried, immediate, practical, mundane and human achievements of this life or to make itself light and comfortable for the race by throwing away its impedimenta or the indifference to the cry that rises up from a labouring helpless humanity or the selfishness that cares not what becomes of those who left behind us in Consciousness. Few recognise it as a fortress where the highest Spiritual ideal and motiveless quest could maintain itself in its most absolute purity and the Presence of the eternal Vrindavan, where the imperishable union and oneness of the eternal lover Sri Krishna is entrenched between the intoxicating sweetness of the Divine beloved Sri Radha and all-embracing ecstasy of His manifestation, the Gopis.

          Sri Matriniketan Ashram aspires to become a bridge of all that Sri Aurobindo had attempted in accumulating the lost Spiritual Truth and enlarged them into hierarchies of Consciousness in Time through His tapasya and the present Sri Aurobindo through His subtle physical Presence extending far ahead of His future Divine action and vision. This Supreme energy enforces change in the individual, group, community, State, Nation and the World through discovery of Psychic and Spiritual being and subjective living of few or one Soul’s perfection. It accepts all the problems of existence including all that are most obstinate and infirm as a field of potential Divine action. It heals the apparent opposition between the Spiritual life and that of the World, reconciles the life’s discord with the Integral Divine Truth and insists our waking mentality to be wholly Spiritualised and dynamises waking trance that can permit adventure into multiple planes of Consciousness.

              The human thought and intellect have the habit to limit the mental preoccupation to practical and immediate problems of material existence and is oblivious of the ultimate and lasting solution of the race. When the individual realises that his mind is like a barren mother constantly preoccupied with creation of unreal child and experience of a world utterly false, divided and short lived, then he permits mind to fall silent of ideas, constructions and opinions and utilises it as a pure channel for the Light and Truth of Divine Knowledge and the ocean of Infinite flows through him and moves all his action. The highest truth and the integral self-knowledge are gained not by leap into static indeterminate absolute Sachchidananda state but by patient transit beyond the Spiritual mind into dynamic Truth-consciousness where the ‘Infinite can be felt, seen, experienced and known in all the fullness of its unending riches.’ ¹⁴
            The passionate aspiration of the few upward to unite with the Divine must be related sufficiently to the descending movement of the Divine, leaning downward to transform eternally its manifestation or the descending Divine Force must invade extensively by breaking down the surface mental, vital and physical sheaths followed by the ascent of Consciousness in order to lift the earth nature to the Divine height. These double exercises of ancient Vedantic and Vedic sacrifices respectively were disturbed in the immediate past extending through many centuries, as all voices of sacred Saints were joined in one great consensus of the intermediate interim solution, of individual happiness in the kingdom of heaven beyond far exceeding the earthly reward and escape even from kingdom of heaven into self-absorbed bliss in the impersonal infinity. This escapist exclusive Spiritual tendency could be transcended, if few could gather together who had reached the all-embracing Supramental perfection, then a new earth of Divine creation could take shape here and a world of Supramental light could invade the earth’s atmosphere with inexhaustible opportunities and new discoveries in the midst of receding darkness.

               Sri Matriniketan Ashram is a formative fortress of the Divine Mother which is intermittently and frequently invaded, possessed, embraced and conquered by the Supreme Lord manifested as Sri Krishna, who wears the glory of Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness, fulfilling one of the great visions of The Mother. The Mother was meeting regularly Sri Krishna during Her pre and post Pondicherry life. Later She verified that it was Sri Aurobindo who was coming to Her in that form. When Sri Aurobindo left His body, He used to come often to The Mother in His own form. Day by day this experience was so intense that She started thinking, “Why look after people and things, I want to remain like this for ever!”⁹ Sri Aurobindo caught Her thought and stopped walking with Her. Then The Mother attempted Her effort and tried a lot to persuade the Supreme Lord to walk with Her with His own form. In this exercise She felt Him, the absolutely concrete Presence, more and more clearly in an impersonal manner. And it was the Supreme Lord who told Her, “First Krishna, then Sri Aurobindo, then I (which means the Supreme Lord)”⁹. The Divine Mother’s interaction and fusion with Sri Krishna, Sri Aurobindo and the Supreme Lord are the different circumstances of the manifesting Lila of the One. It is the Divine who uses the individual as a centre, means of His pure receiving and transmitting channel, Consciousness as universal Witness and world action cannot proceed without this Witness, collectivity as a condition and field of action, human race as dual union of Nara-Narayana, seeks to express in them some image of unity, omniscience and omnipotence.

               From the above point of view, Sri Matriniketan Ashram collectivity stands to bridge partly the highest individual aspiration and the ultimate Spiritual destiny of the race. The Ashram has developed as an isolated cave of tapasya, with deep internal silence of The Mother possessed Consciousness extending its Influence directly to the world. Those who step in Sri Matriniketan Ashram, the Guru’s Grace, Force, Light, Peace, Ananda and Protection follow behind them
               .

References:

1. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/254, 547,
2. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/247,
3. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/250,
4. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/130,
5. CWSA-21/The Life Divine/45,
6. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/165,
7. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/67,
8. CWSA-22/The Life Divine/1068-69,
9. The Mother’s Agenda-6/131-136,
10. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/57,
11. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/87,
12. Savitri-310,
13. Savitri-686,
14. CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-296,
15. Savitri-445,
16. SABCL-17/The Hour of God/90,
17. “All manifestation, takes place by union between Field, Matter, Kshetra and Knower of the Field, Spirit, Kshetrajna.” The Gita-13.27,