The Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram by Krishnendu
The Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram – In the Evolution of Humanity (part-1)
Krishnendu Sekhar Daspatnaik
First Edition November 2025
Published on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1926 – 2026)
ISBN 978-93-341-5373-6
Published by Angurbala Pattanayak
Printed by M/S Sudarsan Graphic Pvt. Ltd., Kottivakkam, Chennai-600041 INDIA.
564 pages
Price Rs 800, $25
Paper Royal Octavo glossy
Krishnendu Sekhar Daspatnaik’s awe-inspiring colossal distinctive Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram – In the Evolution of Humanity is a most welcome addition in the huge glorious Aurobindoniana. It starts with the Mother’s prayer of golden ardency, 25 September 1914:
The Lord has willed and Thou dost execute:
A new Light shall break upon the earth.
A new world shall be born,
And the things that were promised shall be fulfilled.
But this “A new Light shall break” had to become “A new Light has broken, a new world is born, the promises are fulfilled”. The significant Centre of that activity is the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Krishnendu’s is a full-throated majestic Hymn to that Glory.
The recitation could be as follows. The appearance of this Ashram was decreed in the very first meeting of the Mother with Sri Aurobindo, in the afternoon of 29 March 1914 when they first met in the Verandah of the Guest House, 41 Rue François Martin in Pondicherry. She was in deep concentration and when she came out of it she told Sri Aurobindo what she saw in it. It was a new world. She asked him if it would manifest. Without a moment’s delay he simply said “Yes”. And it began to descend, says she. “I saw that the Supramental had touched the earth and was beginning to be realised!” (https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/victory-over-falsehood)
Later she narrated something epochal: “In 1926, I had begun a sort of overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter… . Well, with my very own eyes I saw Krishna, who had always been in rapport with Sri Aurobindo, consent to come down into his body. It was on November 24th, and it was the beginning of ‘Mother’.” Her work had begun.
And Sri Aurobindo: “I have decided to retire to my room, and you will take charge of the people.” She details out: “Then he called everyone together for one last meeting. He sat down, had me sit next to him, and said, ‘I called you here to tell you that, as of today, I am withdrawing for purposes of sadhana, and Mother will now take charge of everyone; you should address yourselves to her; she will represent me and she will do all the work.’ ”
Sri Aurobindo wrote,taking the place of the Mother: “I am the Shakti of Sri Aurobindo alone, and the Mother of all my children.” And “I am the God of Wealth, the Strong and Splendid, I am the Master of the thousands … . All the riches of every kind … are mine by right… . My power is for the Mother; I call all these riches for her… , ॐ तथास्तु.” These were around 1927.
In June 1935 we have from him this: “The Asram is the Mother’s creation and would not have existed but for her, the work she does is her creation.” Occult-yogically: he wills, she executes. In that divine functioning naturally the institution is called “Sri Aurobindo Ahram” and above the main Entrance Gate there is the commanding Symbol of the Mother. That says everything.
About Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Georges Vrekhem writes: “Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had divided the tasks for the accomplishment of their mission. Sri Aurobindo, secluded in his apartment, took upon him the Yoga of bringing down the Supermind into his physical body. As his physical body, like any other human body, was a formation of the terrestrial evolution, this also meant that he was bringing down the Supermind in the very stuff of the Earth. The Mother had taken upon her the building up of the Ashram, materially as well as spiritually.” This division is essential to understand the nature of their occult-yogic engagements.
Krishnendu’s Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram running into nearly 600 pages in the Royal Octavo format on a glossy paper delights itself in this task of revolutionary Evolution. It has 14 chapters of exhaustive text and any number of photographs of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and the Ashramites, so many rare in that richness. I was particularly delighted to see a few pictures of my late friend Romen Palit who was taken to be an Ashramite as a young boy, he who was at once a poet, a musician, and a painter (pp. 105 with long hair and 195). He had invited me at his place for dinner a number of times, and also played Sitar for me every time I went to him. And of course there were sessions of poetry, when he was composing his epical Lotus-Flame hymning Sri Aurobindo. His poetry, he just a boy, went to Sri Aurobindo via Amal Kiran. I remember an occasion about his punctuality. One afternoon at 2.30 was scheduled our rendezvous. I went to his place at 2.20, but he wasn’t there and I was about to walk away after waiting for 5 minutes. There was no sign of him. It was almost 2.28, and he came on his bicycle just then. He was having another class elsewhere.
We may pick up some passages from Krishnendu’s to get some specific details about the nature and working of the Ashram. Here is the gifted architect George Nakashima, Japanese-American, renamed Sundarananda, connected with the most transformative design and execution of the Ashram guesthouse called Golconde, financed by Sir Akbar Hydari the Prime Minister of the Nizam State in British India.
He tells: (1) When I arrived, there were about two hundred men and women from all over the world living there. The monk-like life was beautiful and unadorned. The day had not yet come when the Ashram would have a more direct relationship with the outside world. Since I felt I was receiving more than I was able to give – the answer to all my searches, finally conferring meaning on my life – (2) refused a salary and joined the community. Sri Aurobindo gave me the name of Sundarananda, which translates from Sanskrit into English as “One who delights in beauty”, the suffix –ananda meaning “delight”. (3) The Ashram was not an institutionalised religious organisation, actually not a religion at all. There was no structure or dogma of any kind. It was a collection of men and women of all ages from all parts of the world, which was quite an unusual thing in India at that time. (4) We were of many races, nationalities, creeds and religions, but all were united in a driving quest for the ultimate truth. There was absolute equality and, in a sense, freedom. There were no impositions of what one could do, as long as it was done with the spirit of sincerity. (5) In a sense, I participated in life at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram during its golden age, when all the disciples were in close touch with both the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. It was, in a way, an ideal existence on earth, without a trace of rancour or harsh words, arguments, egotism, but with all Dilip was an accomplished instrumentalist, and he was often joined by Sahana, who had one of the loveliest voices in all of Bengal. Sahana’s room was on my street, and her voice, raised in devotional songs, would often fill the still, soft air of the evening. (6) I had another very dear friend in Mridu, a roly-poly Bengali woman who was Sri Aurobindo’s cook. Often she would call to me in Bengali “Sundarananda-ji, come for some prasad.” The food that she spoke of was returned to the kitchen by Sri Aurobindo, who ate sparingly: it was blessed by his having touched it. (7) The notebook that he kept during his stay was embellished with tiny ink drawings illustrating his way of detailing certain parts and processes for the building of Golconde, all of which had to be approved by the Mother before proceeding. It was certainly a different sort of training than he would have received anywhere else in the world. Indeed, it was a spiritual, as well as an architectural adventure. (8) The silence would be intense. In season, the strong, sweet odour of oleander would float into the room. Even this small formality of the evening meditation was not obligatory, and many did not attend. (9) Darshan Days:The weather was always perfect of course. At that time people would come from all over India and the world. Sri Aurobindo and Mother would see all the Ashramites personally one by one. We’d go in by Purani’s room and upstairs and Mother and Sri Aurobindo would be sitting on the couch side by side. We’d go to Mother first. We all had a flower and we laid it on her lap, then put our heads down on her lap and she’d give us her blessing on the back of our head. Then we’d go to Sri Aurobindo and get his blessing. Sri Aurobindo would take so much time that we’d reach a state of ecstasy. I think that was true for everyone. He touched us on the back of the head and that was it. It was the most extraordinary experience. You’d feel a sort of elation going through your body. I don’t think it was just psychological. I think it was actual.
Krishnendu’s Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram with such countless details easily takes us to the earliest publications bearing on the subject. There may be an immediate comparison with the masterly monumental biography of Sri Aurobindo by KR Srinivasa Iyengar, but this Significance has its own merit and its distinct flavour and place. Among many voluminous tomes we may, however, discerningly refer to Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram by Narayan Prasad, first published sixty years ago in 1965, earlier serialised in the Ashram’s monthly Mother India.
He writes: “Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a living symbol of the Master’s immortality and a sign of his work. In this world so full of darkness and disappointment, his Ashram is a beacon light and is dynamic in the hearts of its members. It is here in the Ashram that he laid the foundation of the lofty ideals of his life and initiated a new era by giving a large practical form to his vision.”
“Sri Aurobindo Ashram is situated at the eastern end of Pondicherry, a furlong from the sea. Around it are grouped most of the Ashram buildings, the others are scattered about in the town and beyond. The house facing the main gate and extending up to the garage in the north was called the Library House, because the beginning of our library was made here. The north-east section was known as the Secretariat-House. It is to the upper story of this house that the Master finally shifted shortly after November 1926. A new addition is the Mother’s room on the top floor.” From the terrace-balcony of this floor she was giving later Darshan Blessings.
About Narayan Prasad’s book the SABDA speaks this: “The book provides a sadhak’s view of life inside the Sri Aurobindo Ashram during the Mother’s time. It describes the Ashram’s character and atmosphere, its activities, the development of its various departments and services, and its system of education. … Later chapters deal with the impact of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s force on world events and human evolution.”
After telling us that his author offers the reader a fascinating account of life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Har Krishan Singh reviews Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram in these words: “Apart from dealing with subjects like activities and services of the Ashram, the Mother’s programmes and activities and interviews, celebration of events, discipline, children, divine conquest of money power, industry, trade, Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s crucial help during World War II, India’s Independence, growth of World Culture, we have now a fresh addition of chapters on Yoga in Action in various walks of life, ‘All Life is Yoga,’ ‘Work is Worship’, what Surrender is in its many aspects, and last but not least the welcome chapter giving a round-up of all available information on Auroville.”
It is also true that, as the reviewer points out, Narayan Prasad’s is an easy style; but we cannot say the same thing about Krishnendu’s.
Nevertheless, it could also be said that Krishnendu’s Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, while is not so easy or smooth, is acceptably loaded with a rich desirable preciousness of reflective-conceptive ideas and contemplations. That does tend to make it pretty much scholastic. However, unfortunately, the necessary academic rigour and tightness are not always present in it. That somewhat makes it not very reliable, not dependable from the point of view of a research student or scholar or an academician. Let us take an example or two.
A very perceptive and useful synopsis at the end of the book has the following. “A few deeply urgent questions confront us today where Urgency Meets Eternity ‘Alone the Divine’s hands can change Time’s dragon base’.” The part put in the inverted commas at the end — Alone the Divine’s hands can change Time’s dragon base — does not belong to Savitri even as it does not scan as a line of poetry at all, and the author has done well by not giving that reference. But there is a “deep urgency of present cares” and the only decisive Force that has to work is hers:
Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base. ||81.21||
Metrically the line scans as iamb-iamb-iamb-spondee-iamb, the spondee adding to the cumbrous heaviness of Time’s dragon. It is the divine Shakti who must incarnate herself and deal with the dragon base, the dark terrible immensity of Inconscience from where arise all oppositions. The entire significance of the Avataric presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and not really of the Ashram, is present in this supreme change that must be brought about. It must be recognised that there is the fire-and-splendour difference between “her hands” and “the Divine’s hands”, occult-mystically one very near and intimate and decisive in the terrestrial dynamism than the other which looks rather far away and aloof, in a distant as if unconcerned Passivity, poetically a very weak phrase, this “the Divine’s hands”. We cannot, we should not, take liberties with the line “Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base” which bears in its marvellous content and strength the Yogi-Incarnate’s entire vision and work.
The other context is about the passing away of Sri Aurobindo on 5 December 1950, a willed and strategic withdrawal from the physical to carry out the work from the dense luminous subtle. Apropos of it our author says: “The funeral of Sri Aurobindo has not taken place today. His body is charged with such a concentration of Supramental light that there is no sign of decomposition and the body will be kept lying on his bed so long as it remains intact.” (p. 316) The actual text is “did not take place today” and not “has not taken place today”. Here it is:
(Message for the Press) 6 December 1950
The funeral of Sri Aurobindo did not take place today. His body is charged with such a concentration of supramental light that there is no sign of decomposition and the body will be kept lying on his bed so long as it remains intact.
He adds: “Its immediate effect was unspeakable. With the setting of the sun, a profound silence fell over us.” This “fell over us” gives the impression that the writer was physically present in the Ashram at that time. And then he continues: “A sadhak was struck by the sharp difference in Sri Aurobindo’s looks between the Darshan day of November 24 and the morning of December 5. There was no trace of weariness, emaciation, or dull complexion. There was a mighty hero, his complexion changing overnight into shining gold, lying in perfect repose as if after a great victory. Not a shade of death. The figure was of Victory personified over Death.”
About this victory over Death here is a beautiful gem from an eye witness, that is, Dr. Sanyal himself who later signed the death-certificate of the unconquerable Yogi, the Avijeet:
‘’The Mother whispered: ‘As long as the Supramental light does not pass away, the body will not show any sign of decomposition, and it may be a day, or it may take more days.’ I whispered to her, ‘Where is the light you speak of? Can I see it?’ She smiled at me and, with infinite compassion, put her hand on my head. There he was with a luminous mantle of bluish golden hue around him.” Here is the full account as presented by Dr Sanyal:
On the 7th, the French Chief Medical Officer felt surprised to see a body from which life had gone looking so bright and life-like; after 55 hours of his passing, he officially certified that there was no sign of decomposition in the body.
That very morning the Mother made the statement: “Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed.” (p. 317)
That dynamic Presence in action enthusiastically and forcefully compelled the Mother in later years, after the supramental manifestation on 29 February 1956 in the subtle physical of the earth, within years of the ‘withdrawal’ of Sri Aurobindo in 1950, to go back to her first meeting with him in 1914. She had asked him if the new world she had seen in her meditation with him would manifest, and the immediate and emphatic answer was “Yes”. That should mean the embryonic birth of Auroville. As an aspect of it she was now engaged in the Yoga of the Cells, the arrival of the new race, the gnostic race, in the process of Evolution. We do not have any precious exposition of this most precious work of hers in the thick Krishnendu’s Significance of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Perhaps it is to come in another thick independent tome of mass and meaning. After Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri that will be her Essential Agenda.
In his last set of articles published in the Bulletin of Physical Education from February 1949 to November 1950 Sri Aurobindo wrote about the Divine Body. “A divine life in a divine body is the formula of the ideal that we envisage. … It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation.” The Mother had invited him to write these articles and we should be extremely thankful to her for this futuristic marvel of glory.
The Mother’s he “willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all ” has all this in it. It is he, and she, more than the Ashram that must be understood. She wrote: “Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence and that henceforth everything in us be concentrated on the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work.” (7 December 1950) https://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/mahasamadhi/
About the Mother’s withdrawal on 17 November 1973, the author pertinently quotes Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, the Mother’s personal attendant for years. To a question asked to him whether we shall be able to go through on the path she had laid down for us he answers:
“Yes, if we have a strong aspiration, a strong will, and the maximum of sincerity. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo came to us and They have shown us our goal. They have brought down the necessary powers into this world so that this goal may be reached. They have given instructions, which if we follow, we are sure to go forward, and They have given all their support and blessings to us. … Truly speaking, the Truth and the Power, the truth that They have established upon earth and the Power They have brought down for the implementation of that Truth, are spread throughout the length and breadth of our country and the whole world, and … this Truth will work itself out, and this Truth will be realised.” (pp. 325-26) Staying in the Ashram, concludes Pranab Bhattacharya, we are in a more privileged position.
That is the significance of the Ashram. Krishnendu writes: “Since the founding of the Ashram was overseen & guided by the strong spiritual force of Sri Aurobindo & the Mother, it is this very force that continues to help the Ashram community withstand as well as overcome the different phases of crisis even after the physical withdrawal of the founders. The Ashram represents a new genre of spiritual community that aligns with Sri Aurobindo’s broader vision of spiritual consciousness not only within but also manifesting outwardly in life.” (p. 69)
For this esteemed presentation of the Ashram’s “significance” in the march of evolutionary manifestation kudos to the author. Well done and our congratulations to you, Krishnendu.
RY Deshpande
9 December 2025
The Mother, 7 December 1950
Full Cover of the Book
Receiving the Present from Krishnendu
The Winds of Wonder 
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