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LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER |
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33. LESSEE When I decided to buy a cashew garden on the hill-top known as Caper Hills, my studies concerned the soil, climate, variety of cashew, the characteristics of the cashew plant, its present yield, its greatest capacity to yield, etc. These were all studies in cultivation of a crop. My friends and relatives were constantly reminding me that scientific studies of a crop may be important, but there was something more important, viz. the human factor. I was proposing to buy a piece of property officially described in the government records as forest. Wolves and jackals still lived there in good number. One has to carry drinking water from outside as there was no possibility of finding water anywhere on the whole property. Leave alone drinking water, life was not safe. The physical safety of a person was in danger in those places. All of them constantly asked me how I was going to feel safe and secure in such a place and how I was going to protect the property in such an atmosphere. I was well aware of these dangers, especially after I paid a few visits there before purchasing it. As I had in mind an idea of founding a modern farm, I was planning to create an organisation there in the coming years. When dozens of people were trained and employed, several supervisors recruited working under a farm manager and a crew of watchmen going around, the dangers described by the well-wishers would be overcome. Until then, it is surely a risk and an adventure. And no success can ever be gained without risks. Therefore, I overlooked the good advice given by many and purchased the garden. The very first thing I did there was to appoint the man who was in charge of that garden for the last 20 years as my lessee. Before I took the effort to contact this man, he was on the look-out for the buyer and tried to explain to me the advantages of keeping him in continued charge of the garden. I spoke to him at length of my plans to found a modern farm there. Promptly he reacted to the idea saying that nothing of that kind would work there, as property of any description—equipments, sprayers, etc.—or, for that matter, anything of value could not be kept safely. My original plan was to clear the jungle, level the land, put up bunds in every place that needed them, plough the fields as often as necessary and saturate the soil with manure. All this work needed a great deal of investment and a long wait of three to four years for results to show. I was prepared for the effort, investment and long wait, as I had calculated the income of the garden would rise several fold in four years, dwarfing the effort. Those were days when an acre of cashew was giving Rs.50 return collected as jungle produce. No one ever spent any money on cashew trees, except the wages for collecting the nuts. Even for groundnut cultivation, only Rs.250 was spent, while my planned expenditure for modernising cashew cultivation was Rs.300 to 400 per acre. If only I succeeded in completing all the improvements, the rewards would far outstrip my investment. But that was four years away according to my calculation. My work started as planned and proceeded season after season to greater heights of success, confirming at every stage the calculation of results I expected. Two full years had been completed. The same lessee continued as my manager. He did all the work and spent all the money himself. I visited every morning to check the work. The lessee, who was the manager, contrary to all warnings, proved to be loyal. He was interested in the progress of the work; rather, he was excited about the future prospects for the garden and for himself. He almost identified himself with the work. My friends quipped that I was lucky to get a good man as lessee, as otherwise their fears would have come true. Though the lessee was very good and honest, our relationship was not without those subtle moments when he would hint that my safe operations on the field were only because he was there. Often visitors would allude to the fact that I was lucky in my lessee. But I had seen occasions when the lessee would put me face to face with field situations that only local people could overcome, whereas I, as an outsider, could not. That he did very rarely to drive home to me his importance for me. Once in a threatening situation I took the lead and decided to handle the situation myself and the situation did come under my control. In a flash the Rudra in him came out and he asserted himself against the pilferers. By and large he was a good man. My third year arrived with the third season for me in the garden. The trees were fantastic, with flowers as no other garden around looked. People commented that my expected results came a year or two earlier. They said my three years investment, including the original purchase value could be retrieved in that one year. The flower laden trees spoke for themselves, and it looked as if everyone had spoken the truth. Before I could lay the foundation for a modern farm, create an organisation, put up a few buildings, appoint an educated manager, I felt caught unawares by this prospect of a great yield. Had the yield waited another year or two, I could have prepared myself to handle it all with an organisation at my disposal to handle the collection of nuts, ward off intruders, drive away cattle, etc. Now I entirely depended upon the goodwill of my lessee. If he continued to be good, there would be no problem. He suddenly showed signs of greed. He knew I was at his mercy. As the enthusiasm all around was great because of the success of the work sooner than expected, this issue did not occupy my mind more than as an information. Just then my jutkawalla, who was close to my lessee, brought the news that the lessee had changed his attitude. It seemed he had told my jutkaman, “Give the garden to me on lease. Ask him to sit at home. Let him not worry. I shall give the lease honestly at the end of the season.” It came to me as a jolt. What everyone warned me against had come true for no fault of mine. Had the success waited longer, I would have been right. It was well known in the ten gardens around us that no lessee gave the owner more than half the lease amount and there was no way of collecting it from these poor people. Mine was a new situation. It was not easy to fix the lease amount as the yield expected was five to ten times. No one in the village was able to assess the yield because it was new to them. The only reasonable course would be to collect the produce and at the end of the season to reward the lessee suitably after realising the real extent of produce. If I gave in now, even if I succeeded in creating an organisation later, the lingering results of having given in to the lessee would be there. Perhaps my giving in might stand in the way of creating an organisation. The lessee seemed to be actuated by greed and the trump was in his hand. It weighed on my mind heavily. In those days, I never used to pray to Mother for any particular reward or results. When faced with a problem, I used to meditate. The weight would be lifted from the mind and the problem would melt away. In fact, in the early years of my coming to the Ashram, there were very few problems at all in my life. This time I meditated, but the weight did not fully lift itself from the mind. I went to the Samadhi and meditated again. There was greater relief, but not full relief. This was a new experience for me and I had to solve this problem before I met the lessee again. As I was visiting the garden every day the time left was short. In those days Mother Herself was issuing passes to a few people to visit Sri Aurobindo’s room. I obtained one and visited the room. I meditated and came out. Champaklal, who had attended on Sri Aurobindo for 25 years, called me and asked if there was anything important at home that made me visit the room. In trying to answer him, I recollected that I had a problem with my lessee which had gone out of my mind till then. The next day I met my lessee. He had lost his usual smile and appeared serious. We retired to a secluded spot. I began the conversation asking him for news. Quickly he answered it was I who should bring him news. I started an explanation of what I had done in the garden and came to the harvest. I said we must settle between ourselves the terms for that year’s harvest. He stopped me short and burst out, “You have spread thigh high manure in this place. You have spread knee deep currency notes here. All the money I spent with my own hands. And now when the results come, it should go entirely to you. I am not one who will ask for more than my due. Give what you please. No one will give more than you. I am not one who will lay hands on your share.” I felt he was speaking my thoughts and was moved to see tears in his eyes. I proposed a rate per bag. He readily agreed and jumped up laughing. He said, “Come, let’s go. There is a lot of work to do.” Om is a North Indian businessman. He is a craftsman par excellence. He carves out of soft stone very attractive artwork in the shape of boxes, vases, etc. His goods sell like hotcakes all over Europe. Buyers come to him, pay the price in advance, sit in his factory for the order to be produced and take it with them. Otherwise, if they ordered from their own countries, they may not get the goods in time or may not get them at all. Such is the demand. Such is its beauty. One of our Society’s American members bought a small shipment of goods from him. Later he visited Om in his place. Om was nice, friendly, cordial and treated our friend as if he were an old friend or family member. Our American friend bought occasionally and in small quantities. Naturally, as a business contact, we were of little value. After a few months of our member’s visit, Om wrote saying he was going to visit us in Pondicherry. Strange! We are absolutely of no business significance to him. He has no other friends here. Why on earth should Om call on us here, we all wondered. He came. He was very pleasant. He had not heard of the Ashram or the Mother up there in the North. Now that he had come, our friends spoke to him about Mother, suggested that he could visit the Ashram. He paid his visit to Sri Aurobindo’s room and made an offering of Rs.1,000. Just before he was about to leave, he asked our American member if he could meet me. When I met him his face looked sad for some reason. I spoke briefly to him about his future life and business. I told him great things were in store for him, perhaps things he could never believe. He was happy and took leave. On reaching Madras before he took the plane, he called his office in North India on the phone. To his great disappointment, he learned that the tax officers had visited his office for some enquiry. From there he sent word to me asking why this disturbance should come to him just after a visit to the Ashram. I explained in a letter that I had expected great things for him, but this incident shows even greater things await him. I continued, “Mother lays great importance on keeping accurate accounts, because that helps more money to flow in. Perhaps you can improve your accounting system. Only when greater things are in store and Mother wants the devotee to be better organised, such things happen.” Two years passed. He again visited us here in Pondicherry. This time the sadness on his face was not there. For him it was an important visit because a shipment of Rs.50,000 worth of goods sent to us had arrived in America all damaged due to poor packaging. We had earlier written to him about this. We sent our purchase officer to his factory to inspect the packaging. In spite of this, a lot of breakage took place. Om was disturbed at this happening and came here to settle the matter. He said to our friends, “I send shipments all over the world without the buyer’s inspection and they are all right. Because your officer was there, I left it to his care. But this has happened and I am sorry. I offer to reimburse the entire Rs.50,000.” Om was not at all responsible. It was entirely the fault of our officer. This attitude of Om’s cannot be seen anywhere in business. He had come 1500 miles to explain this to us and make this offer! I am sure he is a rare individual. We owned the fault entirely and it was a job for our friends to refuse his return of money. He was firm. Now that he was firm, my friends came to me and told me. I went to meet him. He explained to me, “I was a successful businessman earning ten lakhs a year, but I lived the life of a businessman. Your member visited me. After that my business expanded very much. Now I believe great good has come to me after his visit. Therefore, I do not want him to suffer any loss from my shipment. Two years ago you said great things awaited me. All that has come true since then.” I was amazed at this young man, his gratitude, his attitude of friendliness to us, whom he knew very little of. This time I spoke to him at length and finally summed up, “It is excellent of you to return Rs.50,000 for the breakage. Truly it is not your fault. It will be equally nice if we do not accept the money. I shall accept your good will but please withdraw the offer of money.” He was happy and reconciled. After he left I explained to my friends that Mother reaches devotees in the measure of their receptivity. Om’s feelings of gratitude were noble. Surely Her blessings would reach him in a large measure, even if he did not actively think of Her. Three more years passed. Now our friends in USA suddenly received a special order for Om’s goods. After placing the order, another American friend visited him in his office. I give below the story he brought in Om’s own words: Om said, “I am very sorry your company in America does not buy much from me. My goods are in great demand. People from Holland, Australia, and America constantly come here for goods. They pay cash on delivery. They pay any price I ask. It is enough they get the goods. In your case, you buy rarely and in small quantities. I wish you constantly buy at least a small quantity to keep in touch. None of you ever come here, whereas every other buyer constantly comes here. I would like to sell to you. When I take your invoice and change the prices to ten percent lower, everyone in the office is intrigued. My son, who is now in business with me, often asks why I do that. I believe good things started coming to me in life ever since your friend first set foot into my factory. Later in Pondicherry I was told that great, unbelievable things awaited me. At that time, I could not imagine at all what those things could be. It has happened to me just now this year. My goods are made out of a special stone, which is not easily available. I spotted a very good source and applied for quarry license. To my great dismay Tata and Birla companies entered the competition. The license became a hot issue and went from one office to another. Finally the issue entered the courts and went up to the Supreme Court. Am I a match for these industrial giants? I won, of course, after a great struggle and expense. I firmly believe I could win against these industrial houses only because I carried Mother’s Blessings with me. To tell you the truth, I will earn a net income of one crore a year from these new mines allotted to me.” Balaraman is a mirasdar living in his native village. He is devoted to the Mother. His entire family is devoted to Mother. His thoughts come to him as images; rather, he thinks in images. Whenever he meets me he used to describe the many visions he had. Some are of Mother and others are of life. I used to think the Rishi was in him. One day late in the evening he came out of his village house and he was struck by a vision whose immensity immobilized him. Standing on the edge of the road outside his house, he saw a huge light (Brahmanda jyothi). To his great surprise, it fragmented into a million bits of light that spread all over the world, and each bit lodged in one human being. He was overwhelmed by the vision, but by itself it explained nothing to him. The next morning the All India Radio announced that The Mother of the Ashram had attained Mahasamadhi and She had left her body at 7:30 p.m. the previous day. This news and the time of Mother’s departure immediately helped him understand his previous day’s vision. It showed that Mother had not merely left the world but was enshrined in every human heart where a soul lodged. A trader used to visit his house periodically to sell cloth, particularly sarees. This man was known for a long time to Balaraman. Once the trader brought his son, named Tirumoorthy, who was reading in PUC and introduced him, saying the son would continue his trade from then onwards. The son was attracted by the picture of Mother in Balaraman’s house. After some time Tirumoorthy evinced greater interest in Balaraman as a devotee than as a customer. He became a devotee too and started visiting the Samadhi and attending Darshans. Tirumoorthy is one who sees visions very often. This common faculty brought Tirumoorthy and Balaraman nearer. Tirumoorthy was an ardent young man who desired to know everything about the Ashram, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and yoga. He spent a few years listening to devotees, particularly to Balaraman, and avidly reading all available literature. He began to talk about Mother. Soon people found him talking only of Mother. A large contingent of young men gathered around him, feeling the same devotion to Mother. Tirumoorthy brought people to the Ashram quite often. They were men and women, young and old, from far and near. People saw that he devoted his entire time with others speaking of Mother in great admiration and in utter devotion. God knows what happened to his business. Some felt Tirumoorthy had abandoned his business and devoted all his time to visiting the Ashram. But the facts were different. His business multiplied several-fold. His standing in the profession rose considerably. He had by now earned a good bit of savings too. He shifted to Bangalore, collected a few lakhs of capital from friends and relatives, and started something like a wholesale business, supplying cloth to men like himself who sold in the villages. His income too rose considerably. Among his friends whom he brought to the Ashram were college students, traders and college lecturers. Tirumoorthy was anxious to do service to Mother. When he came to know a devotee from Madras was sending rose flowers for the Samadhi on Darshan days, he too offered to send flowers from Bangalore. Mother had a special liking for good roses and white lotuses. Once Tirumoorthy came to know this, he started collecting the best available roses in Bangalore and carrying them himself to the Ashram one day prior to Darshan. These flowers were offered to Mother’s room, Sri Aurobindo’s room, Samadhi, mediation hall and other places of importance. Not content with this flower service, he bought lands in Pondicherry to cultivate flowers for the purpose of offering them to the Samadhi and Ashram. He once suggested he could bring a team of young people and offer service to Mother Estates during a cashew season. When his offer was accepted, he brought more people than the work required. Among the group was an M.A. who was unemployed. This unemployed young man had applied to Canara Bank and UCO Bank for a clerk’s post a year earlier. At that time he wrote a long letter to me explaining his position. He sent offerings to the Ashram and received the blessings. He was very well qualified, intelligent and stood every chance of being selected as a bank clerk. He used to write quite often, that is, at every stage of his application. He was very anxious and impatient. But he was selected by neither of the banks and was sorely disappointed. In cases like this there is always a hidden factor, a higher factor. Man has not learned to appreciate disappointments. How can a young man whose application for a clerkship was rejected console himself that it is all for good, and that, maybe, greater things awaited him because he is a devotee of Mother? It goes against the grain. In this condition he too offered to come to Mother Estates for a brief period of service. There he met another young man who had just finished his B.Sc. and had come there for service like himself. On enquiry he learned that the man was preparing for the IAS examination. This put an idea into his own head, as he was an M.A. and was very intelligent. On returning to his home, he waited for the IAS examination, preparing very thoroughly and with great care. He took the exam with confidence and passed it. This man, who had been sending me long letters the previous year during his hunt for a bank’s clerk post, now started sending me telegrams announcing every stage of his progress. In the interview he was not selected. But this time he was not fully dejected or completely disappointed. He gathered courage and decided to seek a job better than that of a clerk in a bank. The State Bank invited applications for the post of Agent. He applied for it and was easily selected. The last I heard of him was his telegram informing me of his selection and his joining duty. It was the first time he met me and he was talking with great interest of many things. His manners were pleasant and his bearing cordial. His face was clear and calm. In the course of his talk he mentioned that he was employed as a car driver, which was difficult to reconcile with his poise, manners and appearance. Sensing my surprise, he explained, as if to clear my doubt, that his family had been a well-to-do one and later went bankrupt. They had owned lands, houses and two lorries. Now everything was lost, except the house where he and his elder brother lived with their families. I was sorry to learn of the family's misfortune and was contemplating whether I could offer any helpful suggestion to him that could restore him to prosperity. Unaware of my thoughts about his life, he continued to ramble on, in the course of which he said he had chosen to employ himself in a workshop of the Ashram, as it was a good place to work. That clue gave me an idea. If he had been working for the Ashram as it was a good place to work, then it must be possible for him to regain his lost wealth. With this thought in mind, I began to scrutinise his conversations with me to discover what opinion he had of the Ashram, Mother, etc. To him, the Ashram was just an employer, nothing more. “Maybe Mother and Sri Aurobindo are great, but I have nothing to do with all that,” was the attitude he took. He had reverence for them as great people, but could not understand that his indirect service to them was collecting punya in his being. The punya was only collecting in his soul, but was not showing itself on the surface of his life as prosperity. It is my personal observation that people who directly or indirectly serve Mother with or without conscious intention rise in their level of prosperity continuously. They may not even know that ultimately the work they had done for someone would reach Mother. Still Mother's Grace reaches them. The Ashram runs more than fifty departments and the inmates live in about 400 houses all over the town. Naturally, services of all descriptions are required from almost every profession. For several years in the beginning, I missed this aspect of Mother, the aspect of Her Grace reaching everyone indirectly related to Her. In later years when I began to see more of the Ashram activities, several phenomena explained themselves to me, of which this too was one. I would like to refer to an observation from my own work. The villagers who came to our garden for work did not even know of the Ashram in Pondy, but if any man started working there, after a week his face acquired a shine. Constantly we heard of good news to his family. After a few years LUCK was thrust upon the village by the bank and overnight field incomes quadrupled. An engineer bought a drilling machine and was hunting for customers. He drilled a well for us. After a year I happened to meet him with his bank agent and asked how he was doing. The agent answered on his behalf that in four months the engineer had paid ten monthly installments! A contractor leased out the pressmud of a sugar factory to be sold to the farmers as manure. He sold us a great quantity over a year's time. He used to tell me that it was not a lucrative business, as he was compelled to sell his pressmud on credit to the farmers and they always left a good bit unpaid. He showed me once a bundle of almost 200 promissory notes due for the past 17 years. After his supply to us for the year was over, he came to settle his accounts with me and said, “This is a lucky year for me. For one thing, I was able to collect all arrears outstanding for the last 17 years. During the latter part of this year, I sold only for cash. The era of credit is over for me. I purchased my own lorry for this year's work and after a few months added one more.” Another man was managing our gardens. He would never evince any curiosity as to what the Ashram was about. He would confine himself to the work in the garden. He had on his own a few acres of land and had dug a well there some years earlier. It turned out to be dry. There was no water spring inside. His was dry cultivation. His one ambition was to strike water, but that failed. After two years of working on the garden, one day he came with a beaming face and said, "Not being able to give up my well project, I once again tried to deepen the well this week. Fortunately I hit upon a big spring. It is a fulfillment of a lifetime's ambition for me. I wish you visit my fields once." An agriculture income tax officer once levied Rs. 2,000 as tax on our lands. A sadhak went to his office to remit the amount. The officer said, "I know your institutions are working for the public. I was sorry to levy the tax, but it was my duty. Since I levied the tax, I was looking for some rule that speaks of exemption for people like you. Only yesterday I came upon that rule. Now I am happy. You do not have to remit this amount." A few months later someone who came from his office told me that that officer had been promoted as deputy collector and transferred. He added that as the officer was old, he had been expecting no further promotion in service. A bank agent who took personal interest in our village schemes was given three promotions in three years, whereas normally one gets one promotion in three years. To go back to my visitor now: I told him if he would try to regain his wealth, he would succeed. He replied that as soon as they had lost it, for several years they tried to regain the lorry service. Each time they tried, they failed and each subsequent time it became harder. He had lost hope once and for all. Without touching upon spiritual things, I spoke for ten minutes and said it was worth trying again. Towards the end, his interest seemed to have been sparked, but it was not supported by hope or experience. About ten or twelve days later, when I was just entering the Ashram, someone rushed towards me in great excitement, walking briskly on the pavement, as if he were going to physically prevent me from entering the Ashram. It was he. I was interested. Without going inside the Ashram, I moved to one side of the pavement to listen to what he had to tell me. He burst out, "You asked me to try last week. It all worked miraculously." He explained he had been trying to meet me and convey this news for a few days, but had missed me. After leaving me the other day, he had gone home and spoken to his elder brother about taking one more effort to revive the lorry service. The brother was equally dejected and would not agree. Two days later someone who wanted to sell a lorry approached them with a request to buy. The conditions of the sale were favourable, the party was known and reliable and, particularly, the terms of the sale were such that he took over a credit on the vehicle and had to pay very little cash. The deal was closed. The lorry was on the road in another week. A year later they had regained their original position, put two lorries on the road, and added one more wholesale business for the family. |