A roaring lion

Once, on the 15th of August, Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, we were all marching, group by group. On that day, the band was playing Bande Mataram. Sri Aurobindo liked Bande Mataram. That became the cry of the whole of India.

There were three groups coming together, and each group had a captain. One captain, Pranab, became the director of physical education. He writes to me and sends pictures. He and I were very good friends. The Mother was standing in front of a map of India. She used to take our salute from that place. The time came for our group to salute the Mother. Behind me there were about thirty people in our group. Because of the formation, some groups were facing the Mother, but I could not see the Mother, because other groups were there.

The Mother said that, while the band was playing Bande Mataram, she saw a lion roaring and roaring on the map of India. She said she saw it and she heard it. This was all happening in the inner world.

I told my brother Chitta, “I saw the lion and I heard it roaring. I can even give the position of the lion.”

My brother brought a small picture of a lion, I think from the newspaper, and he brought a map of India, the same one that was at the playground. We had many, many copies of that map. On the map I put the picture of the lion where I had seen it. I put the tail, the mouth, every part of the lion exactly where it had been in the playground.

My brother used to frame little pictures of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and he would give those framed pictures to the Mother. There were twenty or thirty children at the Ashram. Twice a month or so, the Mother would give the pictures to the children. Now, on this occasion my brother gave quite a few pictures, and he also gave the copy of the map of India where I had placed the lion. In a very casual way he said, “Chinmoy says this is the position of the lion that was roaring. He says that he saw the lion.”

Very, very seriously the Mother concentrated on the position of the lion. Then my brother got a very bright, broad smile from the Mother.

The lion was looking up, toward the Himalayas. I got the exact place very correctly, because it was so clear to me.

My third eye I can keep open, but sometimes I do not open it. Sometimes I do not want to open it because then I may have to solve some problem in the inner world. But sometimes the third eye automatically opens. At that time I was a young fellow in my marching consciousness. I was marching, I stopped and then my third eye opened. I did not have the eagerness to see what was happening at that moment — not at all! Millions of times I do not have the eagerness to know what is happening. I do not want to know, because if I know, I will only have to deal with problems. If for some reason I must open it, I do open it. But as I said a few minutes ago, after running 400 metres, while panting, I just saw that Supramental Light.

It is true, true, true. In my Ashram life, all kinds of things happened.