On Friday August 2nd, Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center, located on 50 acres outside of Woodstock, NY, turned 56. Founded by two artists and a writer in this Arts Colony, the name Matagiri was blessed by the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Sam Spanier was an accomplished painter who met the Mother of the Ashram in Pondicherry in 1962. She told him he "would be a bridge between East and West".

The current trustees include devotees who have decades of association with Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga. The center hosts regular performances of Indian classical music as well as lectures and zoom study circles.

India achieved its independence from the British on August 15th, 1947 which was Sri Aurobindo's 75th birthday. He wrote," I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading position."

The Center's activities are listed on the website www.matagiri.org. They will observe Sri Aurobindo's birthday on Thursday August 15th with a noon meditation and talk by scholar Dr. Martha Orton.

|