Excerpt from "Sujata Nahar - Loving homage" edited by Nirmal Nahar & Anurag Banerjee

Satprem took upon himself the challenge of attaining the Unattainable. Firstly, he ventured to ascend the layers of the consciousness to reach the Supermind - the region of the absolute Truth-Consciousness. His next task was to fix the Supramental consciousness into his physical body. This rare feat too was achieved by him. A close collaborator of his has recalled that his hand felt like molten lead; after all it was the body whose every cell was bursting with consciousness. The only task that was yet to be done for was the completion of the transformation of the physical which in tyurn would lead to the conquest of death. He worked tirelessly to find the key to solve this mystery and perhaps he found it for it was reported that he had informed in writing to a dear associate of his: "I have reached the end." Years ago in 1970 the Mother had prophesised that Satprem would reached the end and it took around three decades to fulfill the prophesy. In the morning of 17 December 2006, Satprem told Sujata: "This is the victory, a victory, the victory of our Mother, the victory of Mother for the earth. There will be no more death." He proved himself right when in the early part of April 2007 he died by descending into death but eventually resurrected. (He had repeated a feat which the Mother had done in Avril 1962.) He was then taken to the apartment of Sujata who was quite ill at that time. He held her hands and said: "Ma Douce" - a final farewell to the one who had been his constant companion in life, sadhana and death. So when he left his physical body on 9 April 2007, it was not "death" in the ordinary sense. He probably had prepared for himself the new body and just walked into it without dying, that is, without the gap in consciousness and maintaining the continuity of his personality. And so there was no question of the revival of the old, material body. And when such a thing is done, the old body perishes. He had already fixed the Supramental consciousness into his physical body, but we must understand that he did not supramentalize his body. That's why he, like and the Mother, had to leave his physical body. A man-human cannot become a man-divine directly. The Superman would come from the intermediary beings whom the Mother had called the Surhomme. Satprem's impossible yogic mission was accomplished because he had Sujata as his collaborator. Just as Sri Aurobindo could ascend towards his siddhi due to the Mother's constant collaboration Satprem too could achieve the rare yogic feat of drawing Supramental light in his body because of Sujata who herself was a sadhika of the highest order. She was Satprem's support-system. On the physical plane Satprem was almost helpless without Sujata. The famous declaration of the Mother about Sri Aurobindo: "Without him, I exist not; without me, he is unmanifest" is appropriately applicable in the instance of Satprem and Sujata as well. Unlike Satprem, Sujata did not reveal much about her inner life but whenever she shared her occult visions and spiritual experiences, it was evident that she too had reached an enviable level in the hierarchy of spiritual consciousness. She had a lot of work to attend to on the material plane and she managed the activities of both the worlds (the inner spiritual and outer material) with utmost perfection. She was the Shakti behind Satprem's sadhana. They have been rightly addressed as the "twin souls". Even death could not sunder them for a long time as Sujata chose to follow Satprem to the other world within three weeks of his physical departure.

On Satprem and Sujata: Excerpt of an interview with Nirmal Nahar (elder brother of Sujata) by Anurag Banerjee

... Tell us about their life from 1978 onwards, that is, after they settled at Kotagiri.

Initially, we had no contacts for several years. I started visiting them after many years. Sometimes I used to receive Sujata's letters. Satprem didn't write. Only when he sent me books did he pen a line in them. I started visiting probably from the 1980s or 19990s... In those days Satprem used to tell me about his sadhana and the difficulties he was facing. He was very much perturbed to see the deteriorating political scene of . And he always insisted that this has to be broken completely, shattered like this (gesture of hitting the left palm with the right fist). Three or four years before his passing away, since he was not keeping well we were advised not to go there because Sujata used to look after him and she could not assign any time to anything else. The family members of Monsieur Baron used to come to meet Satprem. He was held in high esteem by them. He was highly respected in France. After his leaving the body, France and other European countries gave a lot of publicity to him but no publicity was given in India...

How did you witness the development of Satprem's sadhana ?

He was always in deep concentration. Sometimes he would walk with his hand resting on my shoulder for support but most of the time iut was Sujata who supported him. This was because he was unable to take care of himself. He was not aware of his physical well-being. And sometimes he used to sit on the doorstep; we used to sit there and he used to talk or simply meditate. Near a bush in the lawn of their house was a small Shiva-lingam which he used to worship regularly. And there was an idol of Nandi (the bull, vehicle of Shiva) at the entrance; every day in the morning he used to go and offer some flowers to it.

In 2006 satprem had sent a note to Kireet Joshi in which he wrote: " I have reached the goal." What was the goal that he referred to ? Was it the completion of the process of physical transformation or fixation of the supramental consciousness into his physical consciousness ?

That I don't know. Previously he wrote to me that he had achieved the goal. What I know is that the supramental Light had come into his body. In his entire body there was a peculiar radiance. That I've observed. The way he used to walk showed that he had no physical knowledge of his own body that's why Sujata had to look after him.

Tell us something about Sujata-di's sadhana.

Sujata was very silent about her sadhana. She had reached a very high level in sadhana. But she never revealed it except what she had said in her private conversations. She would narrate some of her experiences and those revealed that she had reached a very high level. We could understand that her consciousness was on a very high level. The supramental consciousness was present in her but she used to live in such a simple manner and she could adjust herself so well that it had to be seen to be believed. She had profound compassion and that used to come out.

In November 2006 I had received a letter from Sujata-di in which she wrote about Satprem: "He is deep in his new experiences... as he follows the footsteps of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother." But within five months we learned about the passing away of Satprem followed by Sujata-di. Please tell us about what you know about their last days.

Satprem did not fall ill. He had completely lost consciousness about his physical being. He himself didn't know what he was doing. That's why Sujata had to look after him day and night because the condition was very intense for the last six months before he passed away. Sujata didn't have even a wink of sleep. If she had gone to bed at night, suddenly Satprem called out "Ma Douce" (My Dear) so naturally she had to look after him constantly. Gradually her health deteriorated and she too became bed-ridden. According to my nephew Pratip who saw her before her death she was not in a condition even to be removed to a hospital and she was not very conscious. My sister Suprabha and Pratip were the last ones whom she spoke to.

Didn't you talk with her ?

No, we didn't have a talk. Almost a month and a half before Sujata passed away, when I had rung her up accidentally she had answered the phone. That was the last time we spoke to each other. We just exchanged plesasantries. Before she left her body she was in a semi-conscious state for several days. I was in Palitna at that time. I used to ring up every day and enquire about her health. I returned to Calcutta on 3 May 2007. Next day in the morning Suprabha told me that Sujata had left.

What happened to the mortal remains of Satprem and Sujata ?

In Land's End, that is, in the lawn of their house at Kotagiri, both Satprem and Sujata were buried side-by-side near the bush where the Shiva-lingam was placed.

Tell us something about the role Sujata-di had played in the sadhana of Satprem.

In one sentence I can say: Without Sujata Satprem was incomplete. And without Satprem Sujata would not have perhaps achieved so much. Basically Sujata had a beautiful soul since her childhood which developed under the Mother and and then it bloomed in the company of Satprem.

Addendum What follows is a brief description of the last days of Satprem and Sujata Nahar that was reported to me by Shrimathi Suprabha Nahar, youngest sister of Sujata Nahar and by Shri Kireet Joshi. Two months before Satprem left his body he had said: "The work is done." His end came on the morning of Monday 9th April 2007. The last word he uttered while taking his breakfast was: "MA." He was helped by the lady who looked after him to get up from the bed and sit on the sofa kept near the cot. When she went to remove the curtains so that the light could enter the room, she heard two guttural sounds. She came to Satprem and saw that he had left his body in the sitting position with one eye closed and the other eye looking at a photograph of Sri Aurobindo. The following night his body was laid to rest in his garden. Sujata Nahar was already bed-ridden when Satprem left his body. She had stopped talking and would only indicate whether she would take the liquid food or not that was given to her. Occasionnally she called: "Ma, Ma." On 4 May 2007, exactly twenty five days after the physical departure of Satprem, the lady was reading a passage from Mother's Agenda (20 April 1966, re: Anousouya's demise). Afterwards she was given some water to drink which she took and soon after she left her body.