The Mother has said "What Sri Aurobindo represents in the earth's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation, it is a mighty action direct from the Supreme". In this last year which prepares for what Shri Nolini Kanta Gupta has called the Millenium of Sri Aurobindo, the concealed Presence behind the veil presses closer than ever, with the glorious promise of the Supramental life. But this promise, this invitation is not without its demand, its pressure. How distant we are from even a semblance of the qualitative norm of that existence is brought home to us also as never before, our dullness, doubt, resistance, ill-will and pathetic incapacities, flying in the face of any possibility of a divine life. We recognize the intimate enemy we have harbored within our breast, our cherished fetters that now reveal their malicious stranglehold. But our Guru, our Friend and Beloved is also nearer than ever, His promptings reaching us from within and without, whispering patiently the call for increased equality, receptivity, one-pointedness, surrender. It is His guidance and Her incalculable Action and Grace that alone make it possible and in our more exalted moments we awake to this truth - the sense of the stark human impossibility of our task is replaced by the smiling certitude of being upborne by Their Power, carried by Them. It is the Yoga-Shakti that lives in us as us, They who replace gradually our sense of self. Childlike, we rest in the warm trust and security of Their infallible paces, become the playground for Their delightful interchange in, with and through us. If it is our Mother who takes us by hand, following the successive dizzy ascents and grim descents leading to the unveiled solar splendor of the Supramental Purusha, it is equally the Guru who forms Himself in us, awakening our latent faculties to witness the thousand-rayed ecstatic glory of the Mahashakti. In that consummation, They are the Two-in-One, the Two-in-All, the Two-in-Each.

August 15, 1872 is a date marked in the earth's calendar as the touchdown-day of that "colonist from immortality", that wide gateway to the supramental life that we know as Sri Aurobindo. August 15^th also marks, not fortuitously, as we know, the date of modern India's independence from colonial rule. Each year, we the disciples and devotees of Sri Aurobindo, hold ourselves specially open on this day, when a rupture in the cosmic rhythms announced the birth of a New Age, an age leading to a Divine Life on earth. The occult influence of that Event stirs the inner realms through this period, rendering particularly potent the power of the guru and leading to the revelation of the Shakti with the worship of the principal aspects of the Divine Mother from mid October to early November and the promise of the Collective Realization on November 24^th. Attuned to this, the Themes section of this issue focuses on the birthdays of Sri Aurobindo and of modern independent India. Along with these exalted births, several members of the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles (Prasun and Manjari De, Robert Dane and Amrita Banerji) had their birthdays between June and August and in commemoration of all these, we also include what the Mother has to say on birthdays in the Themes section. Further, that otherwise spiritually neglected domain, food, has been a collective focus of the Center, our first Saturday pot-lucks gaining in reputation and finding pride of place in the L.A. Times Food section in September. We carry what the Mother has to say on food in the Themes section, a copy of the Times review in the Reviews section and some recipes from the pot-luck in the Creative section.

Under Reviews, we also feature a book by Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe, which has gained much prominence lately in academic circles and deals with western perceptions of Indian philosophy, India's own turn-of-the-century revisionings of her tradition based on the needs of nationalistic unification and the contemporary political possibilties, dangerous or otherwise, of such nationalism, particularly in what has been called Neo-Hinduism. Sri Aurobindo appears in this book, as does Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, Ramana Maharshi and others, and the review, by Debashish Banerji, discusses some of the ideas put forward in the book and its commissions and omissions.

In the Creative section, we continue our featuring of Shri Manoj Das's adaptations from the Panchatantra. We also carry four paintings by Lucette Bourdin, an artist of the Southern California region who drawsspiritual inspiration from Sri Aurobino and the Mother and is a long-standing friend of the Center. Two other inclusions of the Creative Section are the recent inner and outer travels through Greece, the western abode of the Overmental Gods, by Michael Miovic; and the above-mentioned recipes from a First Saturday pot-luck.

In keeping with our theme of the human/divine enigma of Sri Aurobindo, we are faced with the question "Who is Sri Aurobindo?" In answer, the Articles include a reflection by Nirodbaran on "knowing" Sri Aurobindo. In this section, we also carry a transcript of a talk by Jyotipriya, telling of how she came to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and some of her experiences with Them. Attuned to the Psychology Conference of Boston, among the Articles we also include a scholarly exploration by Paul Edmonston on Planes and Parts of the Being as delineated by Sri Aurobindo. As the birthday of Free India is one of our Themes, we recollect Sri Aurobindo's address on the occasion of 15^th August, 1947. Here, the Master deplores the division of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, considering the political unity a necessity for the spiritual fulfillment of India's true role as the guru of the world. He says of the division that it "must and will go". We carry the transcript of a most illuminating talk by Shri Kittu Reddy of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, delivered on the occasion of the recent Indo-Pakistan skirmish concerning Kargil and exploring the dimensions of Indo-Pakistan relations in the light of Sri Aurobindo and His and the Mother's Action. Over the last two years, Debashish Banerji has been involved in a distance-learning program on Consciousness Studies, where he teaches a course on the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, both in the light of Sri Aurobindo. Among the Articles, we also include an inspiring Prayer to the Brahman by one of this year's students, Howard Rubin.

In the Studies section, we carry summaries of the study groups on Savitri and On Education, held at the center on Saturdays and Mondays respectively. With Savitri, at the conclusion of Ashwapathy's yoga with Book III, we await the Divine Intervention with Savitri's Birth from Canto I of Book IV, The Birth and Childhood of the Flame. The continuing music programs, special events, guests and celebrations at the Center find expression in the News, Events and People sections. Circulations continues to be the spiritual market-place of community exchange and Projects outlines the continuing collective operations of the Sri Aurobindo Center of L.A. Apart from the ongoing projects, this issues features the Center's physical renovation drive.

We look forward to your emailed comments. As before, Issue 2 is being removed from the site, but will be available to anyone interested on a disk or as email attachment in .zip form for $5 (include an additional $2 if you prefer snail mail). Once again, happy reading!