Pranab was extreme, but an early sadhak had given me the key: “People cannot lie to Pranab, he will detect it immediately.” This is what I felt at his presence and I always took his defense, his being a rare quality that always calls for attacks from those who can’t stand it.

Pranab has been the instrument for my moving to Auroville, twenty-five years ago: he did not accept my small child to attend the Ashram kindergarten because of my relationship with Auroville. Once every two-three years I went to him, praying him to change his decision; yet over the years I learnt to recognize in Pranab the Mother’s messenger. Behind a refusal that changed two destinies, my daughter’s and my own, there was an unfathomable wisdom … When he told me, two years ago, out of the blue, “If you want to become an ashramite I will not object” I replied, bewildered, “It is too late: I can no longer quit Auroville”.

Those words of him were so unexpected, and his role of being the Mother’s messenger, for me, so clear, that it took me months to try to decipher the cryptic meaning. Until I understood that it was his gift to me, the answer to years of prayers to him, letting to me the choice, yet I had to continue with the role that Pranab – not me – had assigned me to play in Auroville. This is my battlefield, to be pursued with the same intensity and uncompromising straightforwardness Pranab had vis-à-vis the Ashram. This necessarily calls for relentless attacks; one’s only protection is to be faithful to the Mother, the one support and sustenance, allowing nothing and no one else in between, whatever happens.

I saw Pranab for the last time two months ago. There were other people waiting but he was told that I had come from Auroville and I was the first one he called. I had come because of a cogent matter and I kneeled at his feet as if I was kneeling at the Mother’s feet. I had taken with me a copy of the six books I have so far published, compiling from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and told him that they were born through him: only because of his decision I moved to Auroville.

All that I have contributed to Auroville for two and half decades comes through Pranab. Working at the Matrimandir construction site. My five years archive research on Mother’s true Auroville (Matrimandir, the town, her guidelines), resulting in stenciled compilations distributed free to the community, and the related exhibitions; this called back the Mother’s architect, Roger Anger, after an eight years absence. The first and only official Auroville exhibition taken to the Ashram after the SAS war: on Matrimandir. Five exhibitions on contemporary architecture, the last two on Roger Anger. Fifteen exhibitions of my own photographs – the first two featuring some great sadhaks of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and the samadhi, taken with a three days special permission from Pranab. And all those books… I am now preparing the seventh one, “Our path to self-perfection: the process of Integral Yoga”, a last tribute to the Mother’s messenger.

May the Mother grant me an unflinching determination to pursue my battle for the undiluted vision of her true Auroville. Whenever I feel quitting, disheartened, hopeless, may the example of that great son of Her command me to remain at my place and pursue the battle, no matter what. Even if it takes a thousand years Auroville will be, the Mother told us: for it is decreed by the Supreme.

No words. Only faith – and surrender.

To Pranab, hail to the Mother!

Paulette

A royal death!

~ RYD

9 January 2010: The body of Pranab was kept inside the Ashram near the Samadhi for a brief while and at 3.30 pm brought out from Garage Gate on the Balcony Road. The white-clad bearers then took it around the Ashram Building when all the Group Members in their Group Uniforms stood in two rows on either side of the roads in silent adoration with a prayer in their hearts. The body was given Agni in a crematorium about 2 km North-West of the Ashram. The Mother’s calm and luminous Presence was visibly there all the while.

Guard of Honour for Pranab on his Birthday 18 October 1951



~ RYD

Dada was our Hero and his departure has left a void in our lives. He embodied Mother's love and touched the lives of many with his unconditional love. I salute him.

The first thing that struck me, when I entered the Ashram compound, was the flowers’ arrangement at the entrance: “life energy” everywhere, tiny “immortalities”, “mental and supramental plasticity”, and a rarely seen plant whose botanical name is Gloriosa Superba. Had Pranab chosen his own flowers’ display to rejoin the Mother? That arrangement was already there, Deshpande told me… In the meditation room there were pink Gerberas under the Mother’s photo, and orange under Sri Aurobindo’s: “frankness”, respectively with the psychic and the supramental color – a flower that more than any other evokes Pranab’s combat. And “frankness”, ivory, the color of the ananda, was a lady ashramite’s last tribute to him.

I saw Pranab twenty hours after his death, rigor mortis was expected to have well set in. His hands, tightened together in a manner that evoked for me the Mother’s Kali mudra, were of an unreal white. His mouth was slightly open, as if he were imperceptibly smiling; no need of a bandage to keep it close. The face, tan, had almost a pinkish hue and an incredible luster, like mother-of-pearl. Pranab was glowing, which is simply not possible with a ‘dead’ man! I have seen other great sadhaks dead, but never did I see anything like this. He even seemed moving, imperceptibly, a few times …

The comments of the four other Aurovilians I met were: “extremely beautiful”, “a great peace”, “he seems sleeping”, “he seems alive” and so on. All noticed the luster of his complexion.

I saw a new being, transfigured, with a glowing benevolent face, and there was no death.

Paulette

Yesterday at 9.30 during the soup recess I was in the School Courtyard as usual, and was agreeably surprised to see Paulette waiting there for me; she knew that she could definitely meet me there at that time. We had soup together, hot fuming vegetable soup which comes from the Dining Room. She had come from Auroville after learning about Pranab’s passing away the previous afternoon. Undoubtedly, she wanted to pay her last respects to the great departed soul to whom she always endeared without any reservation. She took this opportunity to meet me which was after a couple of months since we had met last. Of course, for 15 minutes we talked only about Pranab, about her contacts with him and about the synchronicity of flowers in the Ashram. In her comment above she has mentioned a few of these things. There she also writes, “Deshpande told me...”

Well, let me tell what I told her. This I can summarise now in one single phrase, “the importance of being Pranab.” It comes out most beautifully and forcefully in the silent occult part he played immediately after Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal on 5 December 1950.

About the oneness and identity of the consciousness of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother we already have something from Sri Aurobindo himself. And perhaps it is not difficult for us to intuitively perceive that. But there is more to it: the oneness of their psychic beings. When Sri Aurobindo withdrew in the early hour of 5 December, there was a real danger that she would also follow him immediately—because of that oneness, that identity. And at the same time she was given by him the task of supramental descent and transformation, as she told so to Dr Sanyal afterwards, after a day or two. Had she followed Sri Aurobindo...

But she took precaution also. She instructed Pranab, her young personal attendant, not to leave her unaccompanied even for a moment, not even for a single moment. And sleeplessly and tirelessly he did it during those days and nights. None else could have been able to do it, none of the senior and the accomplished in the Ashram...

His was undoubtedly a special soul who had come to do work for her, to do her work, to serve her. And he did it. He had come, even as he wrote in a letter just a couple of days before his passing away, to do the Supramental Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He was always steadfast in it.

~ RYD

We have, with other related details, the following in What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest: “Sri Aurobindo had withdrawn. There was a danger also in it—the Mother too would do so immediately. Her psychic being was one with Sri Aurobindo’s and that would follow his immediately. It would have been sort of automatic and she had to make a very special effort not allow that to happen. She told Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, her young personal attendant, not to leave her even for a moment. The physical support was provided to her by him.” That is a great occult fact, holding in its charge extraordinary significance. The divine possibilities locked in the evolutionary manifestation are variously connected with it. It was a moment of truth, and he proved himself true to it.

~ RYD

In the Book of Fate of Savitri we’ve the absolutely last dictated passage of 72 exceptional lines (pp. 460-62), dictated by Sri Aurobindo around 15 November 1950, just about three weeks before his withdrawal. The passage fore-visions the difficulties the Mother will experience in her demanding and dangerous work related with the transformation of the physical. It states prophetically that she will be standing on a dangerous brink when all will be won or all lost for man. Apropos of the Mother’s last days which can be related with this extraordinary passage from Savitri, Pranab had told me long ago, in 1990, something significant. I’m reproducing it in the following as The dangerous brink and the Mother’s Work:

In the context of the Mother’s work, and the “dangerous brink” on which she would stand while busy with the physical transformation, we may get some idea from Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya (Dada) who used to attend to the Mother and she had revealed to him some of these aspects: Dada reports: “This time it will be successful; it will not fail, it will not end in a tragedy. A lot of people are waiting for it; the gods are waiting for it too, for the success. She was feeling numbness in the feet. She wanted to walk. We made her walk. Her lips turned blue. She fell down. We put her in the bed again. After a couple of days she again wanted to walk; perhaps she thought that her legs would get paralysed, because of disuse, and that she would not be able to do her work. But we did not allow her, knowing what had happened on the earlier occasion. She said: raise me up from the bed. We used to lift her up now and then. She was getting bedsores. She used to sit or remain inclined in one single posture for long hours. It was difficult to do massage. We did not allow her to walk. She was convinced about the supramental transformation in her present body; otherwise she would not have done all this. She was told by her Lord to try it. She did it even in the face of opposition from some cells, the body’s cells. She was a fighter. She wanted to fight to the end. But numbness in the feet was a sign of failing of the heart. Blood-circulation was not proper. This was the first sign…”

Who else other than Pranab can reveal these things to us? Was he some powerful and brilliant god who had taken human birth to do this great work, had come because the Mother had come here? Who knows?

~ RYD

There is no doubt in my mind. From The Mother: "All the scenes of the earthplay have been like a drama arranged and planned and staged by her with the cosmic Gods for her assistants and herself as a veiled actor". I believe that this is true not only at the cosmic but also at the individual level. We see this principle in action even in the Mahabharata with the Pandavas (and others such as Balarama) manifesting to assist the work of the Avatar. It is also very interesting that even though among all the Pandavas Krishna is closest to Arjuna, the Avatar puts his own faith (so to speak) in Bhima, the embodiment of Vayu, as the one individual who will never back down from the fight. The Mother's yoga was also a battle and a fight and it would seem natural for Her to rely most strongly upon such a powerful assistant as Pranab-da.

This is absolutely beautiful, Govind. It may sound idolization but Pranab’s was a remarkable role in the Mother’s work. On one occasion Pranab wanted to go away from the Ashram. The Mother took him to Sri Aurobindo—and all was over.

~ RYD

YES!!!Dada was in fore front amongst the few mighty choosen ones for the Supramental work of the Divine. No doubt about it!

The Mother wrote on a piece of paper the following to Pranab after Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5 December 1950:

I want to tell you to what point you are what Sri Aurobindo asked you to be when He left His body—the material support of my body, the energy that enables it to face all the ordeals after this sudden and irreparable collapse of that feeling of total and absolute security that gave me thirty years of unmixed happiness.

This is a wonderful revelation and a great tribute to the soul that came as Pranab.

18-10-57
To my beloved child and faithful companion in the building up of the New World

With my love, my trust and my blessings for ever

The Mother

At the age of 25, in 1903, the Mother came in contact with a group in Paris. This group was engaged in occult practices. Soon she was in Algeria, in the autumn of 1905 when she met Théon and his wife Alma who was herself a great occultist. A new phase began in the Mother’s life. Théon used to say: “The righteous will shine like stars, but those who have guided others towards the truth will shine like suns forever.” According to him the present creation is the seventh and the last. It is based on the qualities of equilibrium and progress. Six times the creation was dissolved earlier. There were six pralayas. But Sri Aurobindo told the Mother that with the descent of the supermind it will not happen anymore.

Théon had a remarkable intuition about the coming down of the supermind and about the new race of supermen. But he knew that he was not meant to succeed, that he had come only to prepare the way in a certain way. The Mother learned under him to exteriorise herself. She could go out of the body and move to different places in the occult world. In fact, she would successively leave body after body 12 times, all the way up to the limit of manifestation. She had absolutely no fear and she could explore these regions in detail.

On one occasion the Mother found the Mantra of Life. Théon was watching her during the process. The Mantra was sealed in a case, with the Mother’s name written on it in Sanskrit. She started describing its character to Théon. Théon got interested in it and wanted her to break the seal. But she refused. She was prompted by something in her not to do so. Théon became violent and cut her life cord malevolently. But she returned by exercising her will. She said that she had something on earth to do and hence she would not go away in such a manner. She always had the Divine’s Protection, in all the circumstances. We all know how Sri Aurobindo protected her against a hostile force in 1938, resulting in an accident to himself. Later, the Mother found the Mantra of Life again and gave it to Sri Aurobindo. If Théon was the Asura of Death, then his interest in the Mantra of Life is understandable. It seems he wanted to marry the Mother which, of course, she promptly refused. Just imagine what would have befallen had she consented! What she had to learn from Death she learnt.

She had now to move from the occult to the psychic-spiritual. The occult training had served its purpose. By occultism one can explore the inner worlds, know the working of the forces of Nature in the material formulation of this complex creation. But behind the inner worlds stands the psychic being, the leader to take the aspirant soul to the Divine. In fact without the psychic being coming forward the collective work of Physical Transformation is impossible. The Mother was now led towards this.

For the Mother another phase of life began in 1912, with her prayers to the Lord. These are in fact deep meditative communions with him, ushering in a new era in the spiritual annals. She calls these prayers as her confessions to the sublime Master. But more than revelations of her intimate relationship with him, they are also meant for those who aspire for an utter consecration to the Divine. “I shall be Thou,”—that is the identity she seeks, her first and foremost concern. In it all knowledge comes. In it begins the true sadhana. In it is the beginning of the Yoga of Descent, a beginning made the day when in Pondicherry the Mother met Sri Aurobindo on 29 March 1914. Many remarkable in fact exceptional souls, their age-long companions soon came to be with them again, on this physical plane.

Pranab’s coming was one such significant event. On 3 June 1953 the Mother wrote the following to him:

To that one of my children who has entirely dedicated himself to the realisation of the miracle which for the ordinary eye seems an impossibility.

Your psychic is wonderful in its loving consecration. Your physical is most attentive and careful in its effort towards unselfishness.

Your vital submits and obeys, but unfortunately, could not do it through love, and that is why, until now, it is not happy and feels no joy, in spite of the great psychic achievement and the bliss it procures.

She had offered him if he would like to learn occultism from her. But he had no inclination towards it, and he told it so to her. His spiritual pursuit was of a different kind, of making the physical more and more open for the manifestation of the higher powers Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were engaged in, engaged in their difficult and painful task.


~ RYD

Bonne Fete to Pranab from the Mother

[1]
Our big brother, our good friend. We wish on this day of happiness that you lead us by the surest and fastest path towards the integral Transformation. 18.10.49


[2]
To he who is my physical strength, One in the aspiration, One in the endeavour, One in the endurance, One in the Realisation.

The Mother to Pranab

[1]
To Pranab, the foundation-stone of the edifice of the Future.


[2]
O thou who art the strength of my body, to thee all my love and my gratefulness.


[3]
Today to love Mother; Tomorrow to love Mother and everyday to love Mother who loves me always and for all eternity.


[4]
My beloved child,
Your consecration to the divine work is so total that you have given your life to save mine. With all the mighty ardour that I have, I pray that this offering may not be in vain. My will to overcome all obstacles and to triumph is complete and unshakeable. You can depend on it, it will not weaken.

The Mother

26 January 54


[5]
To thee whom my love selected when the time had come to start my work on the most material level -
I did not see in thee the man, but the human being capable of supramentalisation, the aspiration for physical perfection, the effort towards total transformation, the will to divinise the body and a natural and spontaneous capacity to do so, a physical harmony already partly realised and a growing possibility of expressing materially the psychic consciousness. With the certitude of a final Victory.

16 May 57


[6]
My beloved child,
You are for me the living and perfectly representative symbol of the physical life ready for the transformation and wanting that transformation consciously. In all the plenitude of the Supreme Presence I say to you: "I love you."

The Mother

22 June 58


[7]
I am yours for ever.
I shall lead you to your true action.

26 October 1947

Sketch of Pranab from Champaklal Speaks
22.3.1949
Just as Sri Aurobindo was beginning his meal, Mother brought a sketch of Pranab done by her and showed it to him. She said that she did it when he was resting.

Sri Aurobindo received it with a smile and showed his appreciation more by expression than by words. She looked at me and said: “I am going to have it photographed. Champaklal, I have done this with your pencil; it is very good…”

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Pranab’s Fist from Champaklal Speaks
4.2.1949
When Mother came to Sri Aurobindo’s room in the afternoon she brought the sketch she had done of Pranab’s fist and profile. She showed it to Sri Aurobindo who looked at it, smiled and nodded.

On seeing the sketch, I said it was full of strength.

Mother pointed out the fist to Sri Aurobindo and asked: “The strength is there?”

Sri Aurobindo: “Y-e-s.”

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Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya

Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya was born in Behrampore, West Bengal, on 18 October 1923. A keen sportsman and a boxing champion in his early youth, he came to Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1945 to practise Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga of Supramental Transformation. He became the Mother’s personal attendant in 1947 and remained so till her passing in 1973. As Director of the Ashram’s fledgling Physical Education Department, he established and built up one of the foremost physical education institutions in the country.

Fondly known as “Dada” (elder brother) to young and old, he was a source of strength and inspiration to all who came in touch with him.

After a decade of gradually declining health, he passed away after a brief illness at his residence on 8 January 2010 (2.40 pm).

---

For quite sometime I felt no urge to write anything on Dada, it was almost like Ruru in Love and Death.

My personal relation with him dates back to as far back as 1957. So many small and vivid anecdotes float in front as I deeply remember, love and revere that personality. He was literally a father to me. Even today, tears of gratitude crowd my memory and vision as I look back in that long vistas of time.

The memorable day - 15th August, 1972 was fast approaching. We the teachers and students of our section, ' Amour Ascendant'. were furiously working for four continuous days and nights to finish a painting that we had undertaken to complete. It was on a hand-made paper of 4' X 8'. The theme was like in Bhagavid-Gita a horse-driven chariot. But this actually was depicting a sloka from Upanishad, -
' Atmanam rathinam Viddhi Sharira-rathameva cha, .....'
' the soul is the central being who rides the chariot, the chariot is the body, the horses are the lfe-energy and the mind the charioteer.
Some how we managed to complete it on the 14th of August, 1972 at 6.40 p.m. Quickly we made a roll of 4' and handed over to Dada at about 7.00 p.m. He was in such a hurry to reach Mother, that I could not even explain to him the content of it.
To his utter surprise when he opened in front of Mother it was a scroll of 8' long, extending on both sides of Mother's table. Mother, immediately asked him where she should sign. He was quite unprepared, but he asked her to sign at the bottom of the painting centrally located. Instead of a normal Blessings and her signature, she wrote in big letters , ' Sri Aurobindo's Blessings' and signed it.
So in the morn of 15th August, 1972, our Centre of Education reecived, Sri Aurobindo's Blessings from Her. Normally if somebody asked her to give Sri Aurobindo's Blessings she wrote - 's blessings ' . However, here without our asking she gave the coveted blessings of Sri Aurobindo in full.

This painting today adorns the Silence room of our Centre of Education.

Recently, some 3 months back, I had reminded him of this painting and he mentioned,' Yes it had been confusing and inconvenient.'

A strong pillar of the Ashram life has fallen—a pillar of strength, a pillar of love, for behind the strong exterior of Dada there always flowed a soothing river of love even as fresh streams reside within and flow from a majestic mountain’s heart. This was not the usual thing that men call love, not something weak and sentimental that human beings often romanticise. It was a strong and mighty current, much like his being and his persona, that derived its truth and force from his unflinching faithfulness and love for the Mother. It was, we may say, the Mother’s love, the love She had abundantly poured on him and all whom She drew close to Herself. Of course, Dada was a special recipient of that Love and Glory. And this special Grace, of which he was the recipient and a strong vessel, was not just because of his straightforward nature, his honesty and fidelity to the truth, his courage and fearlessness, not even for his love for Her. These are no doubt admirable and rare qualities, indispensable for the Yoga and the Divine Life. They are the solid elements of human nature, the best that the old creation could provide, to be used as scaffolding for the Future Work, the New Creation of tomorrow. Dada had these in abundance, qualities that would not only mark one as a hero and a leader in any sphere of life, what the Gita calls as śréşţha, the very best among men. But that was not the only thing. The deeper reason perhaps lay in the fact that Dada took upon himself the most challenging field of work. Not the subtle regions of the mind, not even the flowing domains of the heart, which respond more easily to the divine touch. Instead he chose to work upon the most obstinate, the most stubborn of all elements, the physical body—that hard, rock like material, impervious to all Light and which does not allow any Ray to pass through its thick and obscure substance. As we know, the yogis of the past did not even attempt it; most dread this domain that is the very bastion of resistance. Dada consented to enter this dark and dangerous field, dark to any spiritual light, and by Her Grace, with Her as his divine Teacher, did admirable work that will help the coming generations. He established Her fort in the most difficult terrain, the country of fixed dead matter, as we call it. Yet by the power of Her Love, he managed to bring this dead matter to life and awaken it to Her love and compelled it to aspire for Her Light.

Such men never die! Nor does their work go vain. They have inspired the hearts and minds of humanity, they have shaped many lives by their subtle influence and neither the inspiration one has derived from them, nor their occult influence cast upon men by their inner beings cease with their passing on to domains beyond the grasp of our material senses. If anything, freed from the hard grip of the human frame and the limiting cage of embodied nature, they become freer, larger and universal in their action, even as a god bears with his immensity the creation’s load. Their force liberated from the narrow circle of the few and the fortunate reaches out to the many, often even unknown to them. Having done their appointed task, they return to the hill tops of silence from where they came. But what they have gathered within their bodies, they leave behind as a gift to earth. They enrich the earth not only during their life but also through their death. While it is natural that we feel his loss as if some material aspect of our Divine Mother has left us, yet by this very act of sacrifice, if we may say so, this material power universalises itself and enters into hearts and souls that are ready. It even diffuses itself into matter, percolating silently layer by layer and from there awakens it to aspire, increasing and releasing Light from within its dark folds much as the Angirasa sages of old released Light from the caves of darkness by the power of the Mantra. But this is not just the power of the mantra releasing Light from the caves of darkness, but rather converting those very caves into homes of Light, to invade the dark bases upon which the foundations of our earthly life seem to stand. They have been instrumental in establishing upon earth the seeds of the Supramental Truth-Consciousness that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo brought down to earth by Their tapasya.

Indeed it is Their labour, Their Glory, Their Grace and Love that we see fructified in these pioneers that have gone before us in this life. But they needed instruments, earth-natures that are fit and ready or willing to be made ready, surrendering themselves to Her tremendous touch, plastic to Her Force that few can bear or hold. These pioneers and pillars provided that much needed soil to plant the divine seed upon earth. The seeds did take roots and have grown, watered by Her Love and helped by the Sun of Their Grace brooding over our earth. The work done, They withdrew but not before ensuring that the roots are secure. In time to come, many more saplings will emerge out of each of these trees, the seeds of Light will find better and better human vessels, and earth made ready by the Supramental Force ploughing our minds and bodies and life since Its descent on 29th feb 1956....

Alok Pandey

A Salutation and a Pledge to Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya (Dada) – by Alok Pandey

Are you acquainted with this: http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/ma/agenda_13/1973-04-07-01_e.htm
Here you can see how nicely was The Mother treated by Pranab. An even better idea you'll might get by listening to the audio recording.