When we lose our dearest ones²¹

When my sister Ahana died at one-thirty in the morning, Sri Aurobindo opened up his crown centre, and I opened up my crown centre from my room. I took my sister up. She did not go through any vital world; she went up, up, up.

Then, at ten o’clock in the morning, I went to see the Mother of the Ashram. When I saw her tears, she took away my job! I did not have to cry. In the spiritual world, there is someone who feels our loss much more than we do.

On the human level, when we lose our dearest ones, how we suffer! Even now, how much I suffer in the human way. In the divine way I can always see my brothers and sisters. At any moment they can come to me. But when the human in me thinks of my sister Lily, there is not a single day when I do not think of which bed she occupied the first time I went to see her in the nursing home, and which bed she occupied the second and third times. Immediately, the very first thing I recall when I think of my sister Lily is which bed she lay in.

If we love someone, the human link remains so powerful, and at the same time so painful and heartbreaking. Then the divine comes to the fore and tries to tell us, “Forget about it! It is all bondage, all bondage!” But as long as we are in the human form, we suffer and suffer if we really love the person.

Our Bhavani is so fond of these two sons of hers! When the mother dies, the whole world dies. The father is all greatness, but the mother is all intimacy. When the father dies, we think of his greatness. When the mother dies, the whole world collapses.

I spoke to my Kaivalya in London, over the phone, for about fifteen or twenty minutes. We consoled each other.