Sri Aurobindo's Samadhi Day in Delhi Ashram

Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s mahasamadhi Day in the Ashram was observed on 5 December, 2023, beginning by invocation for the divine Presence in the morning in the Meditation Hall by Km. Srila Basu.

In the forenoon students and staff of The Mother’s International School (MIS) along with the Ashram community, and visitor-devotees gathered on the Samadhi Lawn to pay homage to Sri Aurobindo. As the host of students, teachers and devotees sat in meditative silence, the serene verdure of the Ashram resonated with the strains of melodious shlokas and bhajans sung by the MIS Choir, interspersed with commentaries and passages from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s works.

The program began with the bhajan with Nikhil Jyoti... Sri Arvindah Mam Sharanam. Sri Aurobindo’s divine calling was to realise the manifestation of the supramental world and He embodied in part, the supramental force. His consciousness was greater than his material sheath and to his spirit, both life and death were small masks in the limitless being of the Divine and the Eternal.

“I have become what before Time I was.
A secret touch has quieted thought and sense:
All things by the agent Mind created pass
Into a void and mute magnificence...
A momentless immensity pure and bare,
I stretch to an eternal everywhere.”
[The Self’s Infinity by Sri Aurobindo]

The events that followed the Mahasamadhi of the Master in Pondicherry were recalled by reading of an excerpt from Nirodbaran’s recollections:

“The sadhaks came one by
one and saw the Marvel and the
Mystery, the body of the
Golden Purusha in eternal
sleep... The entire body was
suffused with a golden crimson
hue, so fresh, so magnificent.
It seemed to have lifted my pall of gloom...”
[Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo by Nirodbaran]

And recitation of lines from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri:

“The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone
Has entered with his silence into space;
He has fashioned these countless persons of one self;
He has built a million figures of his power;
He lives in all, who lived in his Vast alone,
Space is himself and Time is only He.”

A calmness engulfed the premises as leaves gently rustled in the winter breeze. The program ended with reverent homage to Sri Aurobindo with the singing of Hey Chiro Diner Shurjo, Tomay Pronam Kori.

In the evening, after the devotees had kindled lamps of aspiration near the Shrine, a musical offering was made in the Meditation Hall by the Ashram choir led by Premsheela, Srila and Jayanthy, and reading by Tara Didi of the events around 5 December 1950 as recorded by Nirodbaran. As the devotees exited the Meditation Hall, they received Prasad and a message card.

Sri Aurobindo is constantly among us and reveals himself to those who are ready to see and hear him.

—The Mother
Message given by the Mother on 28 August 1962