Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

Knowledge, love and will are the three mystic keys hidden in our nature which can, if applied steadily with faith and in the right way, open the doors of the Supreme Divine Mystery in us. Of these, bhakti is indeed the simplest and the most direct since the Divine Presence dwells in the heart of man and hence is most easily accessed by the power of love. In fact, bhakti is nothing else but the turning of love in the human heart towards its Divine Origin.

Bhakti, very simply is, to take joy in the Divine. It may start with a Name, a Form, a Manifestation of the Divine. The bhakta finds joy in It. But slowly this universalises until he finds the Divine in all names, all forms and the entire Manifestation. Each element of creation begins to yield the Divine element within it until the Divine Beloved is felt and seen everywhere and in everything. Each name and form become a mask, some beautiful, some terrible, yet nevertheless a mask of the Divine who inhibits It and shines through it. Universal love and compassion, maitri-karuna, become the hallmark of the bhakta. Even as the Divine whom he adores, the bhakta is a friend to all creatures and hence he is ever engaged in doing good to all.

The core of bhakti is love, its master movement is love and surrender. Love may start with longing bearing the stamp of the ego at first with all the movements to which the human vital is prone including pride and possession, joy of union and the pain of separation or even dark emotions such as fear and jealousy and anger thrown upon the Divine. But sooner or later these get purified by the Divine touch and a sacred longing that waits upon the Lord, an adoration, the wish to serve the Divine begins to replace the lower emotions. Love changes into sweet intimacy, a constant nearness and eventually a growing union and identity with the Divine.

Surrender may start with the will to offer something of oneself, – money, work, life to the Divine. It may start with offering that which one has in excess, with the desire self-eyeing upon the fruits of this offering or else the ego diluting and polluting the offering by making claims and demands from the Divine, or tainted with pride and ambition of being an instrument or someone special to the Lord. The Divine touch purifies these too until the giving and offering is for the joy of giving with no other demand except the nearness of the Divine and the joy of His service. Eventually all life becomes a ceaseless worship and all one is and has and does is given to the Divine, for His joy, for His work and service.

The actual method of bhakti is cannot be systematised just as love cannot be turned into a mechanical routine or a soulless ritual. Yet in the early stages of the soul’s contact with the Divine these outer forms of rituals and worship, bahya pooja, may have its place. But as the soul grows and our consciousness deepens and we become aware of our subjective self through the inner being, then the flame of bhakti grows quietly in our inner self, often unseen and unrecognized to the outer eye of man until one day the flame bursts through the mask, burns the covering and trappings of the ego and all all discloses the unseen Beloved. It finds joy in taking and hearing the Name of the Lord, reading and meditating upon Him, speaking and listening about Him, thinking of Him, serving Him, living for Him and according to His Will.

Bhakti is all about love for the Divine, the joy of the love, the self-forgetfulness and the new self-finding of oneself in the Divine, the union that comes through the force of love and as a consequence of this union, a progressive transformation of the bhakta into the being and nature of the Divine, samipya, sayujya, sadharmya gati. But unlike the path of knowledge, love is not a monotone of self-absorption in the Self, nor like the path of works, a simple and single-hued relationship with the Divine of the servant and worker with the Divine as Master. Instead, we see here a manifold relationship with the Divine that breaks every barrier of distance until all in us belongs to God and exists only for His joy and His service and His sake. Sri Aurobindo reveals to us:

‘Discipleship to God the Teacher, sonship to God the Father, tenderness of God the Mother, clasp of the hand of the divine Friend, laughter and sport with our Comrade and boy Playfellow, blissful servitude to God the Master, rapturous love of our divine Paramour, these are the seven beatitudes of life in the human body. Canst thou unite all these in a single supreme and rainbow-hued relation? Then hast thou no need of any heaven and thou exceedest the emancipation of the Adwaitin.’

Since love and surrender to the Divine Mother are the central keys to the transformation in the Supramental Yoga, therefore true bhakti and self-giving are its master movement. Love is indeed the key, the crowning movement, the swiftest way and the easiest means to the fulfilment of the integral yoga. The easiest means to develop it is to open to the Mother, call the Mother, pray to the Mother, love the Mother, think of the Mother, serve the Mother, read and dwell upon their books especially Savitri along with Prayers and Meditations. For indeed, as the Mother says, ‘Consciousness has built the worlds but Love is its saviour’.

Alok Pandey

A New Age has dawned upon the horizons of humanity and few will deny it. Yes we can debate whether it is the newest of the new or simply a repetition of the old ‘new ages’ that have repeatedly dawned upon man, only to end in yet another twilight and the ambiguous Night. We may also argue whether it is something ‘positive’, a turn of humanity for better or it is something that is evil, a loss of degradation of values for the worse. Of course, each age of humanity brings its own set of values and is conditioned by it. These values, the ways of living peculiar to an Age become a sort of comfort zone for the society conditioned by it. The more strongly we are conditioned as in a certain rigid and narrow doctrine, religions and ideological groups, the more there is the tendency to regard change as evil. Similarly, the more a society is governed by purely external frames of behavior and less by the spirit behind it, the more it resists change. When the focus is on the spirit, then we can understand that the same spirit can clothe itself in different forms and yet remain alive and a vibrant dynamic influence on humanity. But when the focus is only on the form, the externalities, the conformism of common behavior rather than conformism of ideas and still deeper of the divine essence in humanity that clothes itself in different ideas, then the change is shunned, denied, opposed or forcibly suppressed and violently crushed.

But the change imposes itself for the change is again not just a change of external way of living, – which is incidental, but a change of poise of the spirit that governs humanity. It finds its way as a river its path towards the sea. And if we have to look somewhere for the change then it has to be found in this spirit of humanity rather than in outer behavior and patterns of life. The change in outer patterns is an after-effect, the result and not the cause, the rearrangement of things on the shore or the land after a giant tidal wave or massive winds have flown past. The winds break many old structures, the giant wave takes back into the sea many shells lying on the shore and give back some new ones. So too after the tornado has passed away, a clearing of the debris follows and then, new colonies of plants and people, new arrangements of relationships emerge. Until the whole process is over, there is confusion, the blinding of our vision, the breakage and the wreckage, rather than buildings and institutions of a new hope. But meanwhile there is often a rainbow phase that colours our vision, makes us momentarily forget the fury and fills our eyes with hope and renewed charm. But the rainbow is only a sign of the gods, the change upon earth comes afterwards through much labour and effort. We seem to be passing through such a rainbow phase now. Like the honeymoon of the newly wed it is full of happiness and charm and dreams of the new creation yet to arrive. Nevertheless for the new relationship to endure and succeed a phase of evolutionary struggle must follow, a phase where past atavism, subconscious habits, the pull of the old will assert itself until the new equation between heaven and earth has been discovered and humanity settled in the new poise. Such is the phase of evolutionary struggle that we are now going through and will go through for quite some time until the New has definitively conquered, transformed and integrated the old.

Yet, it is precisely here that a word of caution is needed.

None can deny that something has changed and fundamentally changed in the earth and humanity since 1960. A seeking for new things, for a new adventure, for new experiments has begun. The old, stable theories, paradigms, systems, constructs, institutions are being broken and set aside or are undergoing an enlargement and change so as to accommodate and prepare for a new kind of thought and a new way of life. But it is precisely here that a word of caution is needed. All that is off-beat and in-fashion is not necessarily ‘new’ even though it may indirectly help in ushering the New Age. Very often it is like a distraction that helps to dislodge the mind from being glued to past formation. But the passage can be perilous too for the mind loosing the safe anchor of the old may suddenly sink into a bog and mire worse than the immediate darkness of the past. Renouncing the human way it may gravitate towards animality instead of swimming upwards towards divinity. The prison bars of Reason removed and the light of intuition not yet dawned, it may rush blindly towards the precipice driven by infra-rational forces that may imitate the supra-rational.

Nor is the New Age served on a platter, ready to eat as some fast food. It is not a rainbow dream sold to us for a shilling. There are many such dreams which are flooding the market in times of transition that we live in. These dreams come as various products as well as various ready-to-satisfy inner experiences. Momentarily, some of them, may serve as a bridge between the Earth and the Beyond. But soon enough they fade away under the debris and smoke of the old world whose destruction is still under way. When this happens there is a disillusionment, a disbelief in the New Age itself. There is then a tendency to fall back on the ‘old, tried and tested’ ways.

The real cause of the confusion is that we are in transition. The old ways do not work well any more since their time is over. And the new is yet to be discovered. Meanwhile our mind and heart rush at every glimmer and mistake it for the New Light. What we forget is that even when the Light has dawned we still have to emerge out of our prison-homes, remove the thick draperies of Ignorance, cleanse our eyes of the debris that is flying around and then dare to step out into the vast to discover the true and the Beautiful.

The New Consciousness is not ready-to-eat dish. It is a new ingredient, a new element that has been added just as fire was one day discovered and added to man’s life. This discovery did not automatically lead to an application of the presence of Fire in many ways that have changed our life. The first humans probably simply felt ‘awe and fear’. The Fire was there, born amidst man, but its meaning and power and full possibilities were yet unborn, waiting for our effort.

So too, now, the New Consciousness, the Supramental Force is there upon earth and activated in humanity. Now we have to slowly learn to receive it rightly. Perhaps some may get burnt in the process as the discoverers of fire might have been. But slowly as man grows in this new experience he will be led and guided over a period of time wherein he will learn to change his individual and collective life, to reorganize his dealings with himself and the world, to readjust the balance and equation with inner and outer nature. This is what’s being worked out slowly but steadily and assuredly in the Divine laboratory called Earth and within the ‘Divine reactors’ called man. The Divine experiment is meanwhile going on and extending itself so that more and more bodies and souls open to this ‘New element’ and integrate it with their life.

Till then the labour and the effort, the struggle between the old and the new will be there. It is only when the price is fully paid and our ego-bound individuality drops off and desire driven nightmare cease, to be that we shall truly see, live and be the Dream Divine.

Alok Pandey

The Mother’s Presence is often first felt as a warmth and sweetness in our heart, also as a growing Peace in all our members spreading from the heart.

Later it changes into Joy, the Joy of loving Her and Serving Her, the joy of simply belonging to Her, the Joy of surrender to Her, the joy of knowing a little of what She chooses to reveal of Her infinite Mystery, the joy of Her countless wonders disclosing before our eyes, the joy of simply reading and writing about Her and many more things that surpass our thought and feelings.

I am sure She grants all sincere prayers, and for each one of us a time is marked when Her Presence will draw near and close and intimate until She makes us one with Her Being and one with Her Substance.

Personally I have found it much easier to be in contact with Her through Service offered at Her Feet, reading Savitri and Prayers and Meditations, loving Her in my heart.

When you feel an aspiration for closeness, and a flower of Love to Her has blossomed in your heart, it is itself a sign that She is close, very close, even when our outer consciousness does not necessarily feel Her.

Alok Pandey

It has been said in spiritual traditions that success is often a harder test to pass than failure. Truly, if we compare the effect that the two have upon us, we can see why it is so.

Success can make one dizzy, haughty and even arrogant. Men drunk with success often forget the great Power working from behind that has pushed them to victory. They begin to believe and sometimes even delude themselves that they are someone special and extraordinary. Very soon their confidence passes into an overconfidence that loses contact with earthly realities. Flying upon the wings of vanity they presume, like Daedalus & Sampati, that they can touch the sun with their beaks. Success is indeed a heady wine that one enjoys in the beginning but ends up by being swallowed by it.

Failure has another effect, if one can endure and bear and go through it. While success hypnotizes you and gets you stuck to one option, failure dehypnotizes and unstucks us. It forces you to humility and makes you aware of the realistic limits, so that you may work steadily and patiently to exceed them. Success creates the illusion of power and control except in exceptional cases and even there one can easily fall into trap of confusing a limited and ignorant power for a genuine and supreme one. Failure strips us of all shows and shams, those facades and images that men hang on their outsides to deceive themselves and the world. It teaches us how to distinguish the real from the artificial, the genuine from the imitation by robbing of the sheen and shine and the glitter and glamour that falsehood uses sometimes as a cover and a cloak to hide its ugliness. Failure bares us all, so that we can confront us in our utter nakedness and walk, even if slowly, in the light of truth. Indeed failure has a much greater potential than success to bring us closer to truth… and open new doors for us.

Indeed when all outer doors close upon us one by one, we have this one rare chance to open the inner door and find ‘the One’ who never fails us; ‘the One’ who is the source of all security, satisfaction, strength; ‘the One’ whose touch upon our lives brings such a peace and joy that no outer success can ever bring. Success often depletes us by expending our energies over perishable goods and toys that break and by crowding our life with flowers that are scentless. Failure increases us by teaching perseverance and endurance and helping us discover our own inner strength. It allows us the possibility of new perspectives, and invites us to fresh goals, different aims; alternate life-views that are more complete an enduring. Indeed, he is most unlucky who has never known failure for such a one has never known God and His Grace. And fortunate is he who has weathered the storms of failure that toss against his boat. He has seen through the mask of night and when the storm and the dust settles he is ready to receive wider horizons & the light of wisdom. Success creates a zone of artificial light within the dark night. Failure ventures into the heart of night and pucks out of its folds of secrecy the jewels that hide within the darkness’ caves. Indeed, blessed is misfortune for through it one can see the face of God.

This does not mean that we should seek for failure. We should seek neither for failure nor for success for they are two sides of the same coin. As we have seen every success carries in itself the seed of failure and every failure hides within its crust the fruit of success. Yet we should seek neither but simply do the deed that God has put into our hearts, to fulfill the purpose for which we are born, to be in tune with the ‘Will’ that moves the world. And this indeed is true success, the sign of a life well-lived, a life worthy of man. To go ahead and do what we must and are meant for without caring for success and failure, victory or defeat, the jeers and cheers of the crowd, the praise and insults heaped by demons or the gods. Better it is to fail and fall fulfilling one’s true calling rather than succeed while following what may come natural to another but is alien to our own deepest self.

The Mother has written the following: “Our Path To walk on the path you must have a dauntless intrepidity, you must never turn back upon yourself with this mean, petty, weak, ugly movement that fear is.

An indomitable courage, a perfect sincerity, a total self-giving to the extent that you do not calculate or bargain, you do not give with the idea of receiving, you do not offer yourself with the intention of being protected, you do not have a faith that needs proofs, – this is indispensable for advancing on the path, – this alone can shelter you against all dangers.”

In the above message vis a vis our need for protection She is not saying that we cannot ask Her protection when in difficulty or danger. All that She is saying is that we do not take to the Path in the spirit of bargaining or calculation for then it would mean that the sadhaka was motivated by purely outer and worldly gains rather than seeking the Divine for the sake of the Divine.

Secondly, She is asking us to keep fear as far away from us as we can since it shuts us in a very narrow hole, a weakness that closes us to the Divine working. On the other hand if we walk with courage and faith we are actually truly safe since we thus create the best conditions for the Divine Grace to act and protect us. Fear, on the other hand invites the danger. She is in fact giving us the perfect recipe for safety. She is not telling us not to call Her when we are in distress. Whom else will the child call but his mumma? But this call should be full of trust. Besides, the reason for our undertaking the journey of yoga should not be out of calculation about what we will get out of it. That puts the cart before the horse. When we give ourselves to the Divine with the complete trust of a child as Dhruva and Prahlad did, the Divine takes full care and protects us from every danger. But if the seeking is done with this or other ulterior motives then it comes in the way of the full workings of the Grace.

The self giving should be an act of love and done freely without any other motive except the joy of self giving. We can equally say that a giving which is accompanied with a hidden agenda of personal gain is really not a giving but a calculated move which cannot deceive the Divine who knows the truth behind our seeking. 

Equanimity is not a dispensable element but the very foundation of yoga. It is the bedrock on which all later genuine yogic development stands. First of all it liberates us from the touches of outer nature, the shock of the senses, the waves of anger and desire and grief that besiege all of us. Thus by its liberating influence it prepares a suitable and strong ground for the awakening of spiritual experiences. But its role does not end here but extends itself far even when we begin to climb the inner peaks and receive touches from the subtler domains. In the absence of equanimity the sadhaka is often carried away by the experience rather than containing it as one more useful link in his spiritual progress. He often exaggerates it or sometimes doubts it rather than studied and observing it with a calm and equal vision without prejudices or hasty jumping to conclusions. For there is always the vital in us hiding in a little corner that is enamoured of experiences for their own sake and often, most often unconsciously adds colour and flavour to what transpires within and thereby not only distorts and falsifies what was coming but also looses its true utility. Thus equanimity has a double utility, one practical in facing the painful trials and tribulations as well as the blinding and misleading pleasures of outer life. It helps us to keep our head on the shoulders in the face of contrary appearances and the crest and troughs of life. But also in our inner life it helps create a suitable field for the descent of truth and to maintain our balance in the wake of the new experiences whose origin and meaning we do not know to begin with.

In other words equanimity has two sides to it. First the passive side that receives the touches and gifts and shocks of life without an undue reaction, or better still with an enlightened and calm passivity to the Will of God for the moment in the universe. But it has a dynamic side too. It consists in the right evaluation of men and events and forces and circumstances without undue exaggerations and aberrations that arise by the interference of our personal emotions and reactions in any judgement.

Equanimity is not indifference, nor is it a courageous stoic affront. Even a philosophical outlook and vairagya do not strictly qualify for being termed as equanimity though all these can lead us towards them. But most of all one should not make the mistake of confusing an inert and unenlightened passivity born of weakness and ignorance with equanimity. Equanimity is a great power and immensely extends our mastery over life. It is born from the Knowledge of the soul, from recognizing the truth that a deep wisdom works in this world with its inscrutable ways. As we begin to grow in the knowledge of Its ways and appreciate the relative utility and place of each and every circumstance of life and see how it is leading us to the grand goal, so do we begin to grow into an enlightened equanimity that is full of wisdom and therefore also full of force. For the force of equanimity comes from a growing stillness and Peace, from the Impersonality that lets the Divine do His Will freely in us and through us as well as in the world making us His conscious and plastic instruments. Finally true equanimity caries in itself a sense of joy and surrender rather than being a labouring and painful achievement. Knowledge, Impersonality, Universality through the growing vision of God and His Working, and its resultant Peace and Joy and detachment from all that is not yet recognized as the Divine are the edifice on which equanimity rests.

Finally equanimity is not something sudden and instantaneous. Just as most true spiritual experiences this too grows as we grow in our soulfulness and Godward aspiration and sincere surrender. It gradually extends itself to other and vaster fields than that of our limited present limited zone that we now call ourselves. And as it grows it prepares and helps grow other diviner elements in us. Then we find how beautifully God’s Grace has been leading us despite ourselves, we begin to see with open eyes God’s play and His method in the world. We recognize the utility of each stumble and failure and the marvelous Grace that works even when all seems darkest. And our hearts are filled with an ever increasing gratitude and love for Him who is the very core and essence of our and the world’s existence.

One of the big challenges of modern times is to find the right balance between Discipline and Freedom. A generation or two earlier the limits of freedom and the needed discipline were defined externally by the social and cultural milieu in which one lived. But since the late nineteen sixties the old matrix of socio-religious and cultural formulas have been more or less broken down the world over. The breakdown had of course started much earlier as the social-cultural and religious forces had slowly become hardened and rigid, narrow and stifling to man’s innate urge for freedom. An inner revolt was already simmering below the surface which found expression as the two great wars in the previous century rocked humanity and the scientific-industrial revolution focused increasingly on individualism. Now the surviving relics of this past stick either in rigid fortresses full of darkness with cobwebs of unenlightened thoughts surrounding them or else remain a lip-service to decorate a crumbling building, a hypocrisy and a façade. The younger generation is bound to reject both and they are doing it everywhere.

But the urgent question is what next? The old bases have been demolished and the new is yet to be established. This is a perfect moment for confusion, aimlessness and meaninglessness to step in and fill the old gap. That is where the danger lies. We cannot bring back the old and we cannot witness with unmoved eyes as the angels may do, the demolition of the cherished ramparts. Here we believe that parents and teachers, or in one word educators have big role to play.  However in our enthusiasm to cure the malady we should be careful not to make the disease worse. That is what we end up doing when we try to enforce old belief systems and patterns of life by force. Gone are the days when children would dutifully obey the parents simply because ‘they are elders’ and ‘supposedly wiser’. Blind authority by age or relationship is gone. That has been done away with by the Age of Reason itself. For everything, the children need reason, reason to follow a rule, reason to study, reason to do this and not do that. Mere authority of a religious book or holy scripture no more works. And where it works it is even worse. For then it is read with a blind eye and not with an enlightened heart. The first thing therefore for parents and teachers is to respect the spirit of the Age which demands a thorough enquiry and not blind belief. It is an exacting process since most of us are not equipped or trained to exercise our logical and analytical faculties beyond the sphere of our work. We need to catch up with these inner faculties that we have lost largely through disuse, simply because we took things for granted or accepted them without questioning. Blind belief is to be replaced with an enlightened understanding and enforced discipline with a rational control over our impulses.

But there is more to it. Given a choice children more readily opt for freedom. They see the two, freedom and discipline as being opposed to each other. But in reality the two are complimentary if we understand rightly what freedom is and what discipline is? Freedom is not doing what we want to do? It is the ability to master and control ourselves so much so that we can be free of al external influences and be our own master. Right now we are slaves, slaves to every passing fancy and impulses of the moment, slaves of every suggestion that strikes our brain, even slaves to all that we read without giving a thought and applying ourselves. Discipline, on the other hand gives us true freedom, the mastery over ourselves and our environment. But that is not how we understand it at the moment. Discipline gives us knowledge and power which set us free. Discipline also gives us joy, a subtler and greater and enduring joy which is other than the momentary thrill of a passing pleasure.

However, Discipline, as we generally understand is something external, a forced control over ourselves, a deliberate act whereby we obey someone else because that is what we are told to do or that is what is demanded or expected of us. This is of course one facet of discipline but it does not carry us very far. Such externally driven discipline breaks down at the first opportunity. Our everyday life is full of examples of people who were very well-behaved so to say outwardly, but were discovered to be giving expression to dark impulses in private life. Such a ‘well-behaved’ exterior may be satisfying to our superficial idea of goodness but it does not carry us very far in life. Discipline, like everything else has to be a conscious choice, made in freedom, a choice of our enlightened parts imposed upon our lower instincts and impulses. The parents and teachers have failed if they have not been able to uncover and ignite this enlightened part that is hidden in everyone of us. While in the beginning the educators are the substitute of these higher parts of humanity (a tough role to play) but their role is to awaken the inner teacher that is there in every child. It is the difference between someone else showing you the light always and igniting the light within you. The former can only be a temporary substitute for the latter. And there is nothing better to do this than the silent example and the occult influence of the educators upon the child. A teacher who has mastery over oneself spontaneously helps the students to gain mastery over themselves without as much as speaking a word. A teacher or a parent, who loses control over himself, lets off easily in an outburst of anger or fit of agitation is a poor example and unknowing to himself and even with best of intentions, he infects the child with the virus of anger and revolt, agitation and restlessness. The dictum physician heal thyself applies here too as teachers and parents control thyself first!

Discipline in its truest essence is the art and science of channelizing one’s energies and efforts in a desired direction. It is an internal process and applies as much while playing football as during our studies. In fact one of best and simplest of ways for disciplining a child is to engage him in some regular and methodical physical education. He will enjoy it and through this activity he will learn the art of mastering himself. Similarly simple exercises of concentration taught in an interesting and engaging manner, possibly coupled with some simple rewards can go a long way in training the mind to channelize the energies. Simple games such as Mikado and Carrom can be very helpful. Vigorous exercises and workouts also help by throwing away accumulated energies of anger and such impulses in a healthy sublimated manner. They create an alternate and healthy means for expression and thereby diminish revolt and anger, sex and violence. To sum it up we may well say that discipline is best practiced through outdoor games rather than within the confines of a restricting classroom or through big and boring lectures.

There is also the big role of stories that shape our young and impressionable minds, especially at a younger age. A careful selection of stories, a proper story time in class and at home would be helpful provided we make a careful selection. The stories should be interestingly given and engaging, not those overtly moral ones that do not engage the child’s attention. The moral of the story should run as an undercurrent, something covert and not too explicit. As the child grows up and outgrows the fantasy world the stories should also be more realistic or better still real life events should be made a subject for open, free and frank discussion. We have a tendency to keep certain subjects as taboo and out-of-scope for discussion. But the dharma of this Age demands that we discuss everything under the sun but logically, coherently and dispassionately as an enlightened observer and not a passionate evangelist preaching one particular way of life or trying to convince and convert the student by all kinds of jumbled up and incoherent thoughts. Children see through it very soon and even if they nod a ‘yes’ at the moment simply to avoid ‘wasting’ more of their time, in their heart there is a ‘no’. In real life however, it is only what the heart has accepted and the mind has understood that brings an authentic change.

Matri devo bhava, pitra devo bhava, acarya devo bhava, be unto your mother as unto god, be unto your father as unto god, be unto your teacher as unto god. This was the word prevalent in the Indian ethos till at least a few decades back. Thus interpreted, it was a sound practical advise since if we wish to learn and receive anything worthwhile from our parents and teachers, we must treat them as we would a god. That is to say, we must look upon them as a channel and messenger of God who is made visible and nearer to us through the persona of the significant figures in our life. This was the old ideal, an ideal meant to preserve the collective wisdom of the race by transmitting it passively to the younger generation. The student, the child was supposed to receive this ‘collective wisdom’ without questioning and with reverence towards the teacher. This was meant to ensure a sound pedigree, a well-rounded life harmonious in all aspects, a life relatively free from error and extremes. Whether it succeeded in achieving its goal or not is difficult to say. But if one has to go by the records, then it did possibly create a small nucleus of a cultured humanity, an elite class, sound in habits and noble in temperament. This highly cultured and enlightened group became then a beacon light for the race, so much so that the king himself listened to them and obeyed their command. Thus was preserved a great ancient culture transmitted through passive memory and isolation of a section of humanity dedicated to this higher learning. It went as far as it could, till all came back with a great reversal and a setback.

The setback came for two possible reasons. First, the isolation of a group made them progressively ineffective in dealing with the mundane side of life that unfortunately always forms the bulk. Secondly, and more importantly, the taste of power and respect led to a certain arrogance and sort of inner complacency that sets in men when they inherit success or find fortune lying at their doorsteps. These were men of knowledge no doubt but even the highest knowledge remains theoretical unless it is able to apply itself in every possible sphere of life and action. When the hour of application came, then the contact with the rich and many-sided expression of the life impulse proved too difficult to be handed by a knowledge that one arrived at by a process of passive learning and an exclusive concentration. Finally, and most importantly, the system failed because of an inherent defect. The very same thing that helped the system preserve the collective wisdom became the cause of its slow but inevitable decline. It is the method of passive learning based on reverence and obedience to the external authority of the parent and the teacher in whom one was supposed to see God! Such a method, leads over a time to a stagnation, a blocking of the fresh springs of creativity. It leads to a gradual sinking of the life-force due either to a lack of challenge as the external authority is taken for granted, or else because one keeps applying the old solutions to new problems that Nature keeps presenting before us so as to tease us out of inertia and somnolence. Over a period of time, the old solutions, even the authentic experience fades in its spirit and becomes a convention, a formal ritual, a church or a creed. The last nail on the coffin comes when the empty throne of a receding truth is usurped by the powers of falsehood and its ignorant ministers. The ācarya and the parent, once revered and worshiped, obeyed and followed blindly, become a tyrant themselves. Their eyes are no more on some high inner Truth but on the material gains they can derive from their pupil and the child. They think low, feel low and live for lesser aims and yet, — and that’s the irony of it all, — expect the children to follow the old dictum, no more as a happy expression of an inner feeling but as an externally imposed dictate.

Therefore has the Time-Spirit broken the old sāstra, for indeed, the old rule had become a misrule. But out of its scattered pieces a new truth must be discovered, or rather the old truth seen in a New Light. This rejuvenating mantra is contained in the old formula itself. Only we have read it the other way. Matri devo bhava, Pitra devo bhava, ācarya devo bhava, is a call to the parents and teachers much more than to the students for without the one the other is an incomplete and a half truth that easily turns into falsehood. The call goes forth, ‘O! ye mother, be as a God, O! ye father, be as a God, O! ye teacher, be as a God!’ In other words, the parents and the teachers alike must know that they are mere trustees of God and their true worth lies in how far they can be a good instrument and a channel for God’s work. Now that is not an easy task, for it means literally being on the summit of one’s consciousness. It means to be full of a fundamental humility that knows how little do we really know and is therefore always keen to progress and arrive at fresh vistas and vision of knowledge. It means to have a subtle and plastic consciousness that knows how to adapt the means to the end and is not rigidly stuck in a fixed groove of a particular method. It means also a deep inner freedom and vastness that can see all things calmly and discern rightly by seeing hidden aspects and powers that move us and the relation of each to the whole. It means a total vision and not one cabined in narrow and fixed frames of customary ideas and thoughts. It means to have all the love of the Divine as mother and all the wisdom and patience of the Divine as father.

Nature is breaking these fixed frames. Through our children and our circumstances she is throwing challenges at us or rather calling us to grow up. Today’s children live in a larger inner space and invite us to join them in the sublimest of all adventures, — the adventure and the joy of a constant self-finding and self-exceeding. That is what is required now for parents and teachers as well as for the students, for the vistas of an unending progress have been opened for man and the roads to an infinite journey laid down and made ready for his tread. Those alone will help most in this process who see this godlike possibility in the child and in the man; and not only in thought and idea and feeling but in life and in action, not only in speech and words but as a living example reveal what it means to be as a God, — matri devo bhava, pitra devo bhava, ācarya devo bhava.

Dr Alok Pandey

Freedom, Equality, Fraternity are the dreams man has nurtured since long. How can we realize them?

Freedom first, – but can Freedom be realised simply by doing whatever one feels like? Such a freedom would be limited by its impact upon the freedom of others. It is like the freedom of the animal which has no social restrictions or moral norms and yet is the most bound of all. True freedom therefore is the child of self-mastery of which even the most developed mind is inherently incapable. But what the mind cannot do, the Spirit accomplishes with a masterly ease. Therefore this dream of man cannot be fulfilled until he takes to the spiritual curve of his evolution and traverses it fully.  

Equality next, – but no parliament, government or rule of law can ensure. At best it will pay a lip-service, at worst it will commit the greatest inequalities in the name of ensuring Equality. For equality is not a flattening of all before the State machinery. Humanity is not only variegated in its constitution but also stratified in terms of its inner evolution.  To treat all identically is not equality but a standardisation. Even at the most basic level of material creation standardisation fails for various reasons. The problem only becomes more and more complex and acute as creation climbs through the ladder of evolution towards man. Man cannot be standardised, he can only be ennobled and lifted towards the heights of an ideal. True equality therefore would be to provide equal opportunities for growth and evolution rather than putting all in the same slot. This too cannot be achieved without engaging in conscious spiritual evolution where alone shines the light of the Ideal untarnished by the mind and its limited vision. 

Fraternity is the key to achieve both in a mutual harmony.  But all our efforts to create fraternity on religious, ideological and other grounds have failed so far. For here too the key lies in human ascension out of the limiting and dividing mind into the oneness of the Spirit. The great difficulty here is religion when it focuses on the outward aspects identifying God with a set of outer rituals and external marks. The secular ideologies that seek to create brotherhood fare no better. They dispense with outer marks but cannot bridge the inner divide of mental views and opinions and fixed beliefs where the problem lies. They either try to appease different sections or else blur their distinctions in a standardised uniformity giving rise to worst intolerance. The answer does not lie either in uniformity nor in a blind accommodation of diversity without discovering the true basis of Unity in diversity. Especially Fraternity is not something that can be imposed from outside or accepted as a cult by the mind. It is a thing of the heart and it is only by awakening the heart to the oneness of the Spirit that this can be realised.  

The one hope of man, if he ever must realise this dream, lies in our spiritual ascension, the ascent of our consciousness beyond the Mind. Without this these ideals will either remain sterile dreams to goad us without any power to realise them or mere euphemism to cover up our inability or a lip service to fool others. Something in us perhaps understands this, something in us is perhaps even ready to engage in this higher ascension beyond Man. The fulfilment of our hope lies there and not in an enshrinement of these words as a Holy grail in the constitution or in using them as slogans to deceive the world. And since something in man wants it, it will be so one day sanctioned by the forces that weave the web of Fate.

‘Earth’s winged chimaeras are Truth’s steeds in Heaven,
The impossible God’s sign of things to be.’ [Savitri:52]