My Salutations to Amal

I met Amal for the first time in Bombay in 1952. At that time I was studying at the Elphinstone College of Bombay. My professor, Dr. Chubb, was a great friend of Amal’s. It was at the suggestion of Dr. Chubb that I sought an interview with Amal at his residence. My meeting with Amal was extremely instructive and inspiring. He told me of his association with the Ashram and his apprenticeship of poetry under the direct guidance of Sri Aurobindo. During my conversation with him, Amal narrated to me a number of his experiences, one of which related to his consumption of an overdose of a medicine which had caused him a terrible pain in his heart. During the course of the pain he got an inner message to take up Savitri and read a specific passage from it. He said, as soon as he completed the reading of the passage, the pain had miraculously disappeared.

Another incident that he narrated to me was connected with his excursions into the vital world after coming out of his physical body. He said that on one occasion, when he came out of his body, he was attacked by some vital beings. To escape from the attack, he came back to the body, but before he could enter the body, he was already hit at the back. Consequently he felt the pain of the hit even when he entered into the body. Once again he took up Savitri and read a certain passage. Immediately thereafter his pain had disappeared.

He then told me of the worlds of the vital being and mental being, and he widened my awareness through his narration of supraphysical worlds.

All this was thrilling but this was not the end. He further narrated to me of the experiences of some of his poems, which he had seen before his open eyes and he had just to copy them out. I think that some of these poems are in his book, The Secret Splendour.

The interview lasted for more than an hour, and when I came out of his room, I felt myself greatly widened and deeply happy. I regard therefore Amal to be my first teacher in regard to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Later on, it was in 1956, I met him again after he had come back to the Ashram. Just prior to that I had been graced by the Mother and she had granted me admission to the Ashram. Since we were both at the Ashram, I used to go to his residence from time to time and everytime I met him I felt a tremendous freshness and delightful impact of his humour. As we all know, Amal’s sweep of scholarship was very wide and his research in literature, philosophy, history and science was greatly painstaking and I always benefited by his conversations. He once spoke to me of his struggles with the problem of free-will. His struggle was so great that he had actually felt a kind of intellectual pain. He told me that when he could not bear the pain he went straight to the Mother and asked her to tell him without any argument whether really human will is free. The Mother replied to him, “Yes”, and that was the end of his struggle. Thereafter he wrote an article on free-will which he sent to Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo in his reply said that it was an excellent paper. Indeed that paper is exceedingly illuminating and metaphysically most acute and perfect. I think that this paper will stand out in the realm of metaphysics as an outstanding contribution to the knottiest problem of free-will.

I was also greatly interested in Amal’s research in ancient Indian history and the book that he wrote subsequently reverses a number of assumptions which have never been challenged. Amal’s book lifts us up into the intricacies of the ancient genealogies and sheds a new light and shows with convincing evidence that we have more adequate and authentic data to place Chandragupta I as Sandrocottus to which Megasthenes referred to in his memoirs. I believe that his book will receive in due course of time a large acceptance among the scholars of History, both Indian and Western.

When I was the Registrar of the Centre of Education (1958-76), Amal was one of the luminaries among the Professors of our Centre. His talks on English Poetry were extremely stimulating and one could always hear roars of laughter as one passed by his classroom. Fortunately his talks on Poetry have come out in book form and one could revisit those talks at leisure and derive from them both instruction and taste of the highest level of humour.

In 1961, our Centre of Education wanted to bring out a handbook describing the history of our Centre of Education as also a detailed account of our courses of studies. We also thought of including in the handbook some essays written by our Professors. In this connection I approached Amal and he gave me a lengthy essay which stands even today as a most competent introduction to the theme of Intuition in Science and the justification of the development of Intuition as a part of our educational programme. Subsequently the handbook turned out to be quite voluminous, and Amal decided to reprint that entire handbook as one of the issues of Mother India.

During these last months, in June 2011, I had a rare opportunity to meet Amal at the Nursing Home. Even though he had crossed 106 I found him to be as cheerful and jovial as ever and even at that moment my memories of his conversations with me crowded my mind and I made my salutations to him in my heart.

After his demise, when I went to the Nursing Home to have his last Darshan, I found him at rest but brimming with life.

My salutations to Amal, who will always remain for me unforgettable as my first teacher in regard to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

First published in Mother India, December 2011.