with Sri Ganesh

affection on them and on their families, she was not altogether happy about what they had become and she did not feel free to communicate with them the way she would have wished; she felt that her commitment to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and her choice to live and work in Auroville, was not well understood by either of them, even though they outwardly showed respect for it. She would make it a point that I should meet them whenever they would visit and, somehow, they always brought some thing for me, which I was bound to accept – a towel, a brass trinket, some disposable lighters -; I could see that her hope was we would become friends, as we were all three about the same age. When Madhu became interested in spending more time at the Ashram and meeting with elder sadhaks and reading about Mother and Sri Aurobindo, she grew expectant: perhaps she and her elder son would at last become able to share a common understanding and cultivate companionship. Her hopes grew when Madhu began to talk with me and to read what I suggested he ought to read; he would phone from Ahmedabad on those evenings he knew I would be present and talk to each of us in turn, and this made her happy. But after her passing, the link she herself had been between us could not be maintained; the gap was too wide for Madhu to look at; I was willing, for her sake, to extend affection and care but, when he began to insinuate that I was perhaps responsible for her ill-health, and not to be trusted with her personal things, I understood that further communication was futile. I just went on with my daily service to Sri Ganesh and withdrew from the rest of their affairs and handed over all her diaries and let them do what they wished with her personal belongings. Her room was given over to the Auroville Foundation. I simply held on to the care of the temple, in spite of all these opinions to the contrary, and slowly the peace returned. But it took a few years for all the turmoil to cease. Here below is a record of notes I took while serving Sri Ganesh. At first I was groping and engaged my efforts and attention in the practical upkeep and maintenance of the temple and its garden, keeping the puja to a bare minimum – although I always spent time to arrange the flowers, as this act was always a meaningful one in my consciousness and my life. There were periods when I did not take any notes. It is only much later, almost three years later, that I began to make a daily record of who had come and what work I had done and what I had perceived, as I began to experience the Darshans of Sri Ganesh.

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