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My first trip to India was actually in the form of a delayed honeymoon. My then new wife was a devotee of The Mother, Mirra Alfassa, the partner and collaborator of Sri Aurobindo. She had been declared by Sri Aurobindo to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother, the shakti force of nature, and indeed was responsible for much of what grew up around Sri Aurobindo, including the ashram in Pondicherry and the businesses and schools associated with it. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is still there and is a thriving concern, an important stop on the South India spiritual tour for many Indians, and many Westerners as well.
My then wife had a teacher there, Mikael, an Israeli devotee who taught sacred movement and practiced massage and healing in Auroville, a collective community outside of Pondicherry of some 2000 sadhaks and followers of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. We spent much of our time with him and with his best friend and a partner on his spiritual journey, Mary, an Englishwoman Tantrika who'd lived in Pondicherry for most of her adult life.
It was just after Christmas and the four of us were speding an evening with a man we'll call Baba, who was the head of the ashram bakery and who had been at the ashram since before the passing of Sri Aurobindo, which was in 1950. Baba was one of the foremost authorities in the world on Sri Aurobindo's one-thousand page magnum opus, a sacred poem to the Divine Mother called Savitri. We read from the work, back and forth, and discussed it, stanza by stanza, for more than two hours, all while seated on straw mats on the cement floor of Baba's room above the bakery. Indeed the only furniture in the room was a rack on which hung Baba's two changes of clothes, and a pad on which he slept. The straw mats were thin, and after two hours of cross-legged discussion, I was ready to move. Anywhere. My knees and my ankles were on fire.
"Now, we will meditate," said Baba.
My meditation practice at the time consisted of closing my eyes and trying to still my thoughts. Never terribly effective even at the best of times. So for the next 45 minutes or so, I winced and shifted as quietly as possible, trying to impress with my spiritual acumen, but feeling like an imposter. Finally bidding farewell, we took our leave and went out into the warm December evening and the quiet streets of nighttime Pondicherry. No traffic. Near silence. A cool breeze off the Bay of Bengal.
My companions all seemed to be in a state of near-rapture.
"Oh my God, that was amazing!"
"Wasn't it? I'm still floating. Literally!"
"I really felt The Mother there, didn't you?"
"Baba just radiates with her energy."
I felt like Charlie Brown in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 'I got a candy bar! I got a candied apple! I got a rock.' Mikael finally noticed my silence. "What about you, Jeff?"
I wanted so badly to join in, to be a part of, but I couldn't. "Um... my knees are kinda sore."
"But what about your meditation? How was that?"
I shook my head. "Nope. Sore knees. Sore ankles. Cement floor. Straw mat. That's about it."
Much head shaking and reproach followed. I was doing it wrong. Once again.
We begin where we begin. For me to be able just to sit there at that time in my life I suppose was a spiritual practice in and of itself. I know that something happened that night, because I remember it as if it were yesterday. I know that it was part of my path from where I was before to where I am now, that it's a story I enjoy telling, that it's a fond memory of something I shared with my then wife. And I know for me it's a brilliant juxtaposition when put up against my meditation practice of today, a practice that gives me so much more than sore knees each and every time I do it.
I don't believe we have to earn a spiritual practice, but in those days I did so believe, and this was part of putting in my time. Thank you Baba, Mikael, Mary. Thank you, Ex. They were good days, weren't they?
Today I will be grateful for where I've been and for how far I've come.
Self Portrait on the Beach at Quiet, Auroville, Tamil Nadu, South India
All material copyright Jeff Kober
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