with Sri Ganesh

come to some degree of closure at the end of 2014, 10 years after Kusum’s passing, with the elder son making a formal and official statement of apology… Here the reasons for me to include in these records that particular episode are, I should think, quite obvious: Kusum had served Sri Ganesh loyally and faithfully and conscientiously for over thirty years of her life till the very end and she had expressly chosen me as her successor in this service; and yet her own sons went against her wish and tried to have me removed and my name blackened, out of spite and jealousy. Kusum herself suffered greatly in her last days and one would have perhaps expected her to be more protected – yet again the ones who took her out of the protection were her own and, from some remaining confusion in her heart, she let them do so. But she had been all her life a model of goodwill, probity, rectitude and integrity and one way or another her sons would have had to honor her in making amends for their own mischief – and better it was done in their lifetimes. And step by step, the process of coming to terms with one’s own betrayal, at least where the elder son was concerned, was marked out in Sri Ganesh’s presence. For in this domain one is more often than not faced or confronted with unresolved issues which date from other times and circumstances. It is one of the noticeable effects of an acceleration of the yoga that such issues may reach closure within the same lifetime. I think the particular blow I refer to now is in this range – it goes very deep and touches the entire being and is, despite the terrible duplicity it illustrates, steeped in the emotional reality of something closer to love than many human relationships usually are. And as the two individuals involved are engaged in service to Sri Ganesh, albeit in different degrees, this specific issue is naturally of concern to Sri Ganesh… After all Lord Ganesha is not small among the gods but the representative of them all and the first one to be addressed and Auroville is no ordinary project but an attempt of great import and relevance for humanity as a whole and blessed by the Supreme, and the Mother, who is the Doer, the Shakti of the entire experience, is no mere yogini but She who manifests Sri Aurobindo’s vision and evolutionary Yoga for the earth. Fourthly, this human tale is also, simply, human…! Auroville is often likened to a laboratory and this is indeed an instance of what may happen when, through some exceptional intervention, elements which normally would never have come into contact are brought together and made to undergo extreme physical and emotional ordeals… And in

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