Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

Our limited receptivity is one issue when we turn towards Sri Aurobindo’s words. There is another issue that arises from the vast and complex nature of the Truth he brings to earth and man. The Supramental Truth is the truth of the Infinite. It cannot be bound or limited by any one-sided formula or understanding of things. Nor even can it be bound by any process or technique for which we may be eagerly looking for. Sri Aurobindo would rather give us the fundamental understanding of how things are and work. He leaves the rest to be adapted by each individual given his or her evolutionary stage. As he points out in the Synthesis itself about the workings of the Divine Shakti:

“In the first place it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga….

What is his method and his system? He has no method and every method. His system is a natural organisation of the highest processes and movements of which the nature is capable. Applying themselves even to the pettiest details and to the actions the most insignificant in their appearance with as much care and thoroughness as to the greatest, they in the end lift all into the Light and transform all. For in his Yoga there is nothing too small to be used and nothing too great to be attempted. As the servant and disciple of the Master has no business with pride or egoism because all is done for him from above, so also he has no right to despond because of his personal deficiencies or the stumblings of his nature. For the Force that works in him is impersonal—or superpersonal—and infinite.” [CWSA 23: Pp. 46 – 47, 61 – 62]

Or else he would give us some luminous and helpful hints, some uplifting strains of divine music that carries us deep and high into hitherto unknown realms of the Spirit. Then mere reading with a quiet concentration and receptivity to the power contained in the words itself becomes a yoga. The word here becomes not just a messenger bringing to us divine tidings from high and luminous worlds but also a vehicle to carry us back to the Source from where the Word has emerged. Ordinarily, we dissociate understanding from doing. Therefore men have a tendency to first read, then reflect, then act in accordance with what is written. This is of course needed since mere reading a Teaching without a sincere will to live it is at best a stage of development prior to the beginning of the yogic journey. Here we read with our active mind and the outer consciousness receives the impacts of the word-meanings as our mind understands. Slowly these multiple impacts begin to create a dent and an opening for the inner being to open up and receive the Light. But once the opening has come then the reading itself becomes a yoga since now it is no more the active external mind but the inner being and the inmost soul that hears and receives the Word. The Word then becomes a representative of the Divine Master, a power and force of the author who created it like the Rishis of yore, or brought it down from a higher Source embodying the higher states and the vibrations of Truth into a rhythmic expression wearing the body of sound and letter and word. Sri Aurobindo reveals this power of the Representative Word in The Synthesis:

“Ordinarily, the Word from without, representative of the Divine, is needed as an aid in the work of self-unfolding; and it may be either a word from the past or the more powerful word of the living Guru. In some cases this representative word is only taken as a sort of excuse for the inner power to awaken and manifest; it is, as it were, a concession of the omnipotent and omniscient Divine to the generality of a law that governs Nature….

But usually the representative influence occupies a much larger place in the life of the sadhaka. If the Yoga is guided by a received written Shastra,—some Word from the past which embodies the experience of former Yogins,—it may be practiced either by personal effort alone or with the aid of a Guru. The spiritual knowledge is then gained through meditation on the truths that are taught and it is made living and conscious by their realisation in the personal experience; the Yoga proceeds by the results of prescribed methods taught in a Scripture or a tradition and reinforced and illumined by the instructions of the Master. This is a narrower practice, but safe and effective within its limits, because it follows a well-beaten track to a long familiar goal.”  [CWSA 23: 23: 54 – 55]

However he also cautions us not to bind ourselves rigidly in a dogmatic manner to the written or spoken word, however great and helpful it may be. The sadhaka is, in his words, ‘not the sadhaka of a book or of many books; he is a sadhaka of the Infinite.‘

Alok Pandey

In an autobiographical poem, Sri Aurobindo reveals the deeper truth behind his own writings:

Seer deep-hearted

Seer deep-hearted, divine king of the secrecies,
Occult fountain of love sprung from the heart of God,
Ways thou knewest no feet ever in Time had trod.
Words leaped flashing, the flame-billows of wisdom’s seas.
Vast thy soul was a tide washing the coasts of heaven.
Thoughts broke burning and bare crossing the human night,
White star-scripts of the gods born from the book of Light
Page by page to the dim children of earth were given.
[CWSA 1: 655]

This very much applies to the words of Sri Aurobindo. They are mantric in nature and their action is not confined to the limits of our understanding. In fact, our human understanding is a double-edged sword. It can clarify the inner sense of the word if the mind is quiet and receptive to the one who has released the word-power. Or it may, indeed very often in normal human life, obfuscate the understanding and even create confusion by sieving the words through the net of our preconceived ideas and opinions about things. This is a common problem that many encounter when they read Sri Aurobindo. When the mind is in a dull state because the mental faculties have not been adequately used, it tends to fall asleep. The idea-forces contained in these powerful words then sink into some subconscious terrains of our complex nature and then work their way upwards from there. There is an action but a slow and one and the reader, living in the surfaces of life may not be fully aware of the occult action of the words going on within. But something else within him knows and therefore returns again and again to the writings even though the mind is unable to comprehend what is being revealed through the words. The soul still hears and if it is sufficiently awake, responds.

Or the mind may be restless, disorganized, filled with all sorts of ideas and opinions gathered from here and there and everywhere thinking that by doing so it will grow in wisdom and knowledge. Little do we know that wisdom is as far from knowledge as knowledge is from information! Wisdom is the light that grows within the soul; in that Light we see our self and the world anew. Knowledge, as it is used in the spiritual parlance (and not a scholarly knowledge which counts for little from the spiritual point of view) is the reflection of this growing Light in the inner being of man. This knowledge frees us from ignorance and bondage to fixed ideas and opinions and rigid dogmas and narrow views of existence. On the other hand, Wisdom leads us to Oneness. As to Information, it is merely a raw data, often inadequate data that conceals more than it reveals (leaving apart the falsifying and distorting action of the limited and imperfect human instruments). It cannot lead us to knowledge. Rather when knowledge awakens and an inner sight leaps out of Wisdom’s eyes then alone we can make the right use of information, understand its true import and the distortion lent to it by our own sensory apparatus. That is why the wise have always insisted on first clearing the obstructions in our understanding, purifying the mental instruments, awakening to the Truth within rather than losing ourselves in the maze and haze of the first raw data that is presented to us through the inadequate senses and the mind.

But even when we have carefully overcome these two difficulties we may still be caught and trapped by an idealized mentality whose shadowy brilliance breaks the Sun into multiple rays adding which we cannot constitute the original plenitude of the Light contained in Sri Aurobindo’s words that are vehicles of the Supramental Truth. Of course, still lower down the ladder of and idealized Mind we have our own ideas of what this World and God and Spiritual thought is or should be. These ideas are most often not the product of any patient reflection but merely the gathering of flowers from the garden of Religious scriptures and musings of someone else plucked from the tree of Philosophical thought. These things, useful aids as they may be in their own domain and at a certain stage of our mental evolution, interfere with the deeper spiritual understanding.

Sri Aurobindo reveals the various kinds of impurity that arise in our instruments of understanding itself. 

“The first cause of impurity in the understanding is the intermiscence of desire in the thinking functions, and desire itself is an impurity of the Will involved in the vital and emotional parts of our being. When the vital and emotional desires interfere with the pure will-to-know, the thought-function becomes subservient

to them, pursues ends other than those proper to itself and its perceptions are clogged and deranged. The understanding must lift itself beyond the siege of desire and emotion and, in order that it may have perfect immunity, it must get the vital parts and the emotions themselves purified….

The second cause of impurity in the understanding is the illusion of the senses and the intermiscence of the sense-mind in the thinking functions. No knowledge can be true knowledge which subjects itself to the senses or uses them otherwise than as first indices whose data have constantly to be corrected and overpassed. The beginning of Science is the examination of the truths of the world-force that underlie its apparent workings such as our senses represent them to be; the beginning of philosophy is the examination of the principles of things which the senses mistranslate to us; the beginning of spiritual knowledge is the refusal to accept the limitations of the sense-life or to take the visible and sensible as anything more than phenomenon of the Reality….

A third cause of impurity has its source in the understanding itself and consists in an improper action of the will to know. That will is proper to the understanding, but here again choice and unequal reaching after knowledge clog and distort. They lead to a partiality and attachment which makes the intellect cling to certain ideas and opinions with a more or less obstinate will to ignore the truth in other ideas and opinions, cling to certain fragments of a truth and shy against the admission of other parts which are yet necessary to its fullness, cling to certain predilections of knowledge and repel all knowledge that does not agree with the personal temperament of thought which has been acquired by the past of the thinker. The remedy lies in a perfect equality of the mind, in the cultivation of an entire intellectual rectitude and in the perfection of mental disinterestedness.”    [CWSA 23: 313 – 315]

That is why the Mother advises us to remain quiet and not try to understand the words but simply wait for the understanding to develop in a receptive state:

“To read my books is not difficult because they are written in the simplest language, almost the spoken language. To draw profit from them, it is enough to read with attention and concentration and an attitude of inner goodwill with the desire to receive and to live what is taught.

To read what Sri Aurobindo writes is more difficult because the expression is highly intellectual and the language is much more literary and philosophic. The brain needs a preparation to be able truly to understand and generally a preparation takes time, unless one is specially gifted with an innate intuitive faculty.

In any case, I advise always to read a little at a time, keeping the mind as tranquil as one can, without making an effort to understand, but keeping the head as silent as possible, and letting the force contained in what one reads enter deep within. This force received in the calm and the silence will do its work of light and, if needed, will create in the brain the necessary cells

for the understanding. Thus, when one re-reads the same thing some months later, one perceives that the thought expressed has become much more clear and close, and even sometimes altogether familiar.

It is preferable to read regularly, a little every day, and at a fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain-receptivity.”   [CWM 12: 203]

The word has power, even the ordinary word releases into the psychological and occult atmosphere certain energies that have concrete and lasting repercussion upon earth. The physical scientists would perhaps even say that the word contains within it certain vibrations that have an impact and influence on the very structure of matter and its behaviour. The biologists would note the influence of sound upon the cells. The psychologists of course know very well the power of words and its impact upon building (or destroying our lives). For the spiritual seeker, it has always been said that one must be careful about not only what one speaks and writes but also about what one thinks. It not only impacts those around us but also the person who uses speech as an instrument for expressing certain states of consciousness. Surely a spiritually realized person can pass on his influence even in silence, but not all are ready to open and receive this silent influence that is often much more potent than words. Man lives largely in the external consciousness and needs something to touch him there and through that penetrate deeper into his inner layers. The word does this work. A word of Wisdom and Power not only penetrates the inner being but also touches the outer surface layers of life with sound impact and moulds not just the inner but also the outer character of man. This was the secret of the mantra that the ancient Rishis knew so well. The mantra was the highest possibility of speech and by its power could unlock an inner door as well as create a powerful outer atmosphere that would prevent the entry of all sorts of forces and energies that are harmful to the seeker of a higher life. Very simply, the word is a vehicle that contains within it the state of consciousness of the person who has used it as a means of expression. It is a capsule of rejuvenating Light or benumbing poison depending upon how it is used, the person used it and the secret purpose towards which it is directed.

The Mother beautifully explains this in one single word, in response to a query:

Q) You put something in Your words which enables us to see the Truth that words cannot convey. What is it that accompanies Your words?
A) Consciousness.
[CWM 13: 27 December 1967]

And Sri Aurobindo has written the following autobiographical poem:

The Word of the Silence

A bare impersonal hush is now my mind,
A world of sight clear and inimitable,
A volume of silence by a Godhead signed,
A greatness pure of thought, virgin of will.

Once on its pages Ignorance could write
In a scribble of intellect the blind guess of Time
And cast gleam-messages of ephemeral light,
A food for souls that wander on Nature’s rim.

But now I listen to a greater Word
Born from the mute unseen omniscient Ray:
The Voice that only Silence’ear has heard
Leaps missioned from an eternal glory of Day.

All turns from a wideness and unbroken peace
To a tumult of joy in a sea of wide release.

We are all aware of the supramental ship of the Mother carrying different beings of the old creation as a prototype towards the New Creation. The beings are representative and at various levels in their individual evolution. Some are more ready; others ready in some parts but not in other parts; still others need to go back and prepare till they are ready for the great transit. Another interesting thing is that this great transit is a collective one. The ship is carrying different types of people from different parts of the world!

How are these different samples of humanity linked to each other in time and space? Of course the central link, the true link is the Divine Mother who is the captain of the ship as well as the mediatrix between the old and the new creation. At least that is the work she has chosen to undertake in Her present avatara. But how are these different samples of humanity interlinked individually and collectively, even as they have gathered together around Her!

Here an image comes to us, the image of the Supramental tree.
The image unfolds itself as follows:

The Mother brought down with Her the mantra of eternal life concealed in the higher hemisphere. It is the word of New Creation, the Real-Idea concealed in the folds of earthly darkness but revealed in the Supramental Truth-Consciousness. This word is the seed of New Creation which she brings down just as Shri Krishna in a previous age brought down parijata, the tree of aspiration for divine life, upon earth at the insistence of Satyabhama, who was herself an aspect or power of the Divine Mother hoping to plant upon earth the heavenly tree. This time, and for this age, the Divine Mother brings the seed of the New Consciousness and hands it over to Sri Aurobindo when she meets Him for the first time, in this embodiment, so to say. But the earth is not ready. ‘The debt to Rudra must be paid before the heart of man can be ready for peace.’ The first Great War follows and it shakes the earth and its nations and it shakes men and nations as if a thunderbolt or lightning strikes a field turning its foliage to ashes. The foliage of old creation is burnt down though the stump remains. The ash from the burning down of the old goes on to enrich the soil. Shiva and Kali dance over the earth; – he smearing the ash over his body and thereby sanctifying it, she drinking the poisonous blood of the old creation thereby purifying it.

The Mother returns in 1920 and for the next few years there begins an unprecedented work not witnessed before in earth’s history. For the soil of our earth – nature will not readily accept this new seed. It is not ready and has to be made ready by tilling and watering the soil. This first phase of the work is the early part of the Ashram. The soil of earth – nature is thoroughly tilled by the twin avatara. The soil is watered constantly by Divine Love so that it can have the right constitution, neither too hard as a rock nor too soft as sand, so to say. When the tilling is complete and the soil can hold the light of the sun and the air from higher regions then the next phase begins.

This first phase is largely over with the siddhi day. Six years of cleansing of the past and six years of ceaseless tilling of the soil brings down Sri Krishna’s Light into our earth-stuff to play freely with matter. This Light itself will now further prepare matter to receive the Supramental Sun necessary for the seed of New Creation to sprout. A great inner rite and ceremony of consecration follows. It is the formation of the Ashram formally, so to say. The digging is done deep into the soil so as to plant the seed. The digging takes long as it must be fairly deep, nay the very deepest. It must go right upto the very heart of inner darkness, the inconscient foundation of the earth. Once dug, the yajna must be performed so that the whole environment is purified and the toxic things kept out of harm’s way. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother light the fire of aspiration deep into the earth nature. The rites of this yajna is simple, – to put all of oneself into this fire of a new aspiration so that the descending Grace may purify the earth further. This is a long painstaking, laborious and thorough work. The Supramental seed cannot co-exist with any impurity. It is the seed of the immaculate truth, the purest diamond of God.

As They dug deeper, there came out from the chasm beings and creatures and forces that had taken shelter in the dark underbelly of the earth, the animal past imprinted in our subconscient nature. And as the descending Truth drew closer to the sap of life embedded within the earth as a hidden treasure, there rose up from earth the resistance of the vital forces that had held it in their sway. The seed cannot be implanted in such an atmosphere. Like Shiva, Sri Aurobindo drank this poison stuff and at once the ground was cleared for the deep sowing. The moment of Death became also the moment of eternal life:

‘A seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour
A branch of heaven transplant to human soil
Nature shall overleap her mortal step
Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.’
Sri Aurobindo

The digging deep in ‘a horror of filth and mire’ enduring ‘a thousand wounds’ in an effort to reclaim the land from the fiefdom of old for sowing the Tree Divine, led, as we know, to the other great war of the previous century. Nevertheless the seed was sown in matter or rather extracted out of it when Sri Aurobindo Himself chose to go down into the ‘bottomless pit’ for the battle with the forces of the Abyss. It would take another six years (29th Feb 1956) before the first rays of the descending Supramental Light touch the seed of Divine Life. The link is established, the higher mystery is joined to the lower, the betrothal of earth and heaven is accomplished and the New Consciousness begins to nurture and nourish the golden seed.

These three phases, the phase of a general preparation of the soil, the digging and the rite of purification, finally the sowing of the seed are accomplished on a small scale in Pondicherry. But now the seed begins to sprout and the earth is a little more ready (because of Their labour) to receive more seedlings. Branches extend themselves out of the plant, some main and others side branches that would serve as conduits to carry the sap of a New Life outwards and offer it through the sun to the earth atmosphere. These are a few of the main branches opened by the Mother after the Great Descent of the New Light upon earth. These in turn gave rise to smaller branches and twigs that are the many centers spread across the world. Once these twigs grew strong enough, and as a natural consequence the leaves came out as foliage covering the branches and the main trunk. These leaves provide an interphase and an exchange with the earth atmosphere. It is through the leaves that the tree absorbs the energy of the earth and releases its own back into the earth atmosphere. This foliage of many colours supported on many a different twigs is Auroville, the first outwardly visible manifestation of the New Consciousness. More appropriately perhaps, it is the precursor to the emergence of flowers and fruits into the arena of the world.

Now the Supramental tree is still small. It is still not fully visible in the forest of this world though more and more of humanity is beginning to take notice of it. The first few phases of the work were not meant to be noticed and could not have been noticed or understood by the world at large, but the later few phases are bound to be noticed and cannot be ignored. And as the flowers and fruits bloom on this tree the seekers of Divine Life will be attracted more and more to it and in an increasing numbers. Some would make one part of the tree or other their home. Of these the most difficult part is the root and the main trunk. It is the largely unseen work wherein one has to be willing to bear the burden of the rest of the tree, to patiently extract the possibilities enclosed in the seed and pass it upwards for the world to manifest it through the touch of the sun and the exchange of forces with the outside world. This work needs an entire self giving, a self effacing spirit of glad sacrifice for the Work, a sincerity that is one-pointed and free of the taint of every ambition and desire, a strong adhara to bear the pressure from below and above without being crushed or broken apart, an unsleeping aspiration linking the seed with the sun and, a deep faith and will to sacrifice everything for this Work and for this Work alone. The Central Influence radiates from here, from this seed sprouting from within; the chief difficulties are represented here, in the roots sunk deep into the inconscient foundations of our nature. The burden is greatest here but so are the peace and delight supporting it. The close proximity with the seed means drinking from the possibilities concealed in It but also going down and sometimes struggling in the darkness below. The branches of the tree serve another purpose in the work of New Creation by freely transmitting the sap to and fro. The foliage serves as a cradle for the fruits and the flowers. The fruits and the flowers are the individual souls that have been prepared through all this labour to realize the Life Divine in some measure. Through these the fragrance and sweetness of the New Consciousness shall spread to all.

The full tree already exists in the subtle worlds and is trying to manifest here upon earth in the physical world. But there are missing pieces or misplaced cells. That is the source of disorder in this world. For the world to be perfect with each thing in its true place where it should be, this tree should also be perfect. For even the tree of Truth-Consciousness has to work itself out in the conditions and circumstances of our material existence that are very different from the Truth above where the Supramental tree exists in its native home. But as the tree grows it will come closer and closer to the Truth that it represents. The Divine gardener is busy bringing the earthly tree as close to its image of truth. Now He shifts this element, plucks away this leaf to put it back into the roots so as to nurture and nourish the whole tree. Now He pulls and draws the sap upwards and throws up the energy of the whole tree into a fresh leaf and a new shoot. And through all this falling and rising, shedding and springing, churning and mixing all is being drawn into a single plan. For a deep oneness is the truth and origin of life and a deep oneness shall be its high culmination as well.

‘O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light
And bring down God into the lives of men;
Earth shall be my work-chamber and my house,
My garden of life to plant a seed divine.
When all thy work in human time is done
The mind of earth shall be a home of light,
The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven,
The body of earth a tabernacle of God.’
Sri Aurobindo: Savitri; p. 699

A moth reached a congregation of fire-lamps that had been lit atop a hill. As it neared the top, it met some fireflies glowing in the darkness below. The moth being an inquisitive one asked the firefly if it had ever seen the sun. Now like the moth the firefly grew blind in the day and therefore knew not of it. But with an air of superior wisdom it declared that there was no sun since it had never seen it. Perhaps the sun was simply a tale told by some to create fear in others. For if there was one then why should not the firefly and the moth see it when they could very well see in the darkness and even light it with its flares. Little did it realise that its eyes endowed to see in the dark and accustomed only to the night cannot see the blazing Light that comes up every day. And what to the moth and the firefly is a night is to the earth at large the light of day.
The moth proceeded further and as it came very close to the fire-lamps it met a few sparks that flew out of the flames by the action of the winds. The moth repeated the question again: “Is there a sun?” And the sparks in all humility replied: “We know not of that, but we do know from where we came. It is those flames that you see out there. Perhaps they may know.” So saying they vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. Soon, guided by the sparks, the moth reached the hill top and stood close to the little lamps. One nearest to it was a small little flame that did not burn long enough to endure the night and glimpse the day. The moth repeated its question. The flame replied as if one with superior wisdom: “The sun I have seen not. I know only the stars and the moon. Perhaps it is this that they call sun or may be the sun is simply a myth, a kind of super-flame much like me, a little bigger perhaps as I may be one day.” One nearer to it that had felt the dawn but seen not the sun responded more hopefully: “I think there is something called the sun because I have felt its light and warmth spread magically over the earth. But soon after this rare glimpse, I fainted and faded till some unseen hand lit me again tonight. But I Think there is a sun since I have felt its glory and its touch. May be none can see it or know of it, yet one can feel it and sense it.”

All this while there stood amidst them a flame, erect and silent like a concentrated mass of energy and force. When the moth approached it the fire spoke not for a while. But seeing the moth’s insistence and the flames around it stand in silent expectation, it addressed the whole group thus: “Yes I have looked upon the sun since the fuel in me could withstand the burden of the long night as al do see who can thus endure. But I have learnt another secret, that what burns in the sun also burns in me, that the sun and fire are the same, one in essence, two in appearance.” Thus saying these deep words pregnant with Truth born of experience, the fire was quiet again. The little flames around lifted their arms in adoration and worship to the great fire that had revealed this great secret to them. But the moth felt an irresistible urge to jump and loose itself into the fire and thus loosing itself find the sun by seeing through the eyes of the fire. For only they who are willing to loose their self who find the Self. Only they who can die to the ego find God.

And as it leaped into the great fire one more spark jumped upward into the sky and the night began to recede as a glow lit the eastern sky.

Guru is the giver of Light. But just as there are several sources of Light so also there are several types of Gurus. There are those unconnected with the earth like distant constellations or stars. They point the path to us that we may follow but neither give light nor warmth. Others are like the moon, close to the earth yet not intimately linked to its life. They shed light and shower coolness of their grace in the human night. They show the way of escape out of the human night of Ignorance to the silent heart of endless Space.

Yet others are like fire that give us warmth and close comfort. They light up aspiration in our hearts and protect us from the animal stalking around us. They are like brief visitations of heavenly light clothed in forms more familiar to us. Of course there are many pseudo gurus who thrive on borrowed and artificial light like the bulbs and tubes. But they too serve a purpose in God’s plan to make the night a little more bearable.

But seldom one finds the guru as the sun, the Divine avatar shedding His light upon earth. He not only sheds Light but changes the seasons and the flow of time. He sustains and supports the cycles and the evolutionary journey of life upon earth by His mere Presence. Not many can bear His closeness and the intense pressure of Heat and Light. Hardly anyone can even gaze at him accept when he chooses to eclipse himself with a human cloak. All feel His warmth and share his light and benefit by His power and splendour. Nothing is hid from his sight and he knows all paths and every law since they originate from him. But none knows Him or can reach Him. Such a Master is born once in a thousand years or even less often. Such is our Lord and Master Sri Aurobindo, whose mere Presence is enough to change the earthly season and who shines deathless in the eastern horizon revealing Time’s secrets to earth and men.

Prayers are like birds that climb from the earth to rise to the sky. But some are weak and stay near the ground. Others climb really high and travel far and wide to distant lands of Light and Truth.

Some prayers are like parrots. They are simply learnt and mechanically repeated without their meaning stirring our soul depths. They look neat and nice but stop at that. They cannot fly far nor reach high. Others are like the crow, restless and doubting, full of fear and suspicion. They arise from our petty surface desires for this or that small object of life. These prayers have neither strength nor trust. They too do not reach high or far but sometimes they do get fulfilled due to sheer persistence since nature rewards every effort that involves perseverance.

Still other prayers are like the pigeon and the dove. They are not strong but full of peace born of trust. Hence they call forth the bounty of nature for the fulfillment of what they seek. Yet others are like the eagle. They are precise and clear about their object and strong in their spirit of seeking. They rise high and far on the wings of concentration and arrive at their object speedily and fast. Yet though they climb high their object is low, the fulfillment of some earthly wish or desire.

Rare are the prayers like a swan. Pure and clear they ask for nothing but the very nectar of the gods. These reach farthest to distant horizons, far above the clouds to the very abode of Shiva, the great god Ashutosh, the dispenser of all boons.

But the rarest of all is the prayer that resembles the phoenix. Such a prayer arises once in a thousand years. Paradoxically it descends from the heavens and enters the bosom of the earth stirring it with sublime impulses. It is the prayer that the avatar does for the earth and men. Such are the prayers of the Mother for the earth as recorded in Her prayers and meditations.

The Master was taking a stroll in the garden. The group of disciples surrounded him like bees around a flower that had turned the Light and Power of the sun into a sweet and strengthening nectar for their thirsty struggling souls.

Feeling the mood of the moment, one among them asked as to how come in this world of beauty there came to dwell evil and suffering. The Master became pensive and took them to a nearby place where the gardener had just thrown some seeds into the ground. Pointing to the soil and the seed below it he asked them why must the seed of this beautiful flower destined to partake of the sun be put underneath the soil into a dark space and breath the waste and the mire and rot on the surface and struggle to reach the top against the heavy resistance of the earth.

‘To throw its roots deep’, said one. ‘To cast off its hard shell’ said another.

The Master smiled and exclaimed ‘That’s the answer to your question. Suffering is like the waste and the mire and Evil like the darkness and the resistance that man’s soul must face so that it can also throw its roots deep into the earth and its surface crust soften in due time. The surface crust is the ego-self, that source of all evil and suffering, when inner being is ready by the pressure of the world forces, when it has cast its roots deep and strong, then the ego-self slowly dissolves and the deeper soul emerges into Light and Freedom. It is delivered out of the womb of darkness and is ready for a new adventure into Light and its climb towards the sun. But if the seed is stripped bare of its hard crust prematurely and exposed too early to the light of the sun and the immense freedom of space then it may simply burn off and be blown away by the strong winds before its roots have steadied it. So also what we call error and evil and suffering are simply necessary intermediary steps and stages in man’s ascending growth towards Light and Freedom.’

‘What then is sin and what then is virtue and good’, enquired another.

The Master observed as he moved from one flowering tree to another: ‘Look at the buds, their petals closed upon each other, their fragrance trapped inside. That is the first stage of the flower. It is as if it was trying to not only feel and hold but also to capture and possess the light it so badly needs and to keep the fragrance to its solitary self that is meant to be its gift to the world. So also with man. Selfishness is the only sin since it induces man to try and appropriate things for its solitary self and give out nothing in return to the world. The result is that it remains dark inside and closed outside. But a time comes when the bud begins to trust the Light that it feels and opens out to it and all that surrounds it in a spontaneous gesture of self-giving. And, lo and behold! – its self-giving is instantly rewarded by the fullness of its bloom and its generous uncalculating gift of fragrance turns into sweet nectar inside. Man is selfish in his early stages of growth but soon he must realise that selfishness is a trap since it prevents him from getting the very thing that he most needs and wants. With this awakening and the pressure of Light and its own secret nature there comes in him the trust and the confidence to open out and reach out and give itself first to the world around it which alone he sees with his half open eyes and then to the sun that it begins to perceive as its eternal source, the secret master of its journey, the fosterer who turns all things to honey within him. Then man becomes a link between the earth and the heaven.’ Then with a mystic pause he added, ‘Selfishness too, that origin of all sin, is a preliminary stage in human growth. This too must pass away as man begins to trust God within and His play around and gives himself freely to both or rather to God and His play in the world.’

The Master sat down quietly on a little rocky promontory in the garden, his gaze as if fixed into infinity, his look encompassing the whole of space in a single glance, his heart one with all things in their eternal essence. And the disciples sat around him wondering whom to admire, the sweet fragrance of the flowers that gave themselves generously to everything around them or like the earth that shared the joy and the struggle and the sorrow of all things giving shelter and place to each thing that must wait for its season to turn ripe and to blossom emerging out of the darkness into the Light, or like the sun that gave itself to the creation and though far and high beyond the reach of earth and its creatures yet was the secret source and support of all. And as they thus contemplated their inner and outer gaze was fixed upon the Master who was to earth and men, at once the flower and the earth and the sun.

Alok Pandey

‘What is love?’ – asked a disciple of the Master.

The Master replied: “Tell me what is not love?”

And then to make it clearer he took them to the nearby fields where a farmer was tilling the soil while another was sowing seeds. Yet another was watering the plants while someone else was plucking them. 

“Here look,” said the Master. “The farmer who is tilling the soil is doing a labour of love even though the soil may not like this touch of hardness that it must bear, the upsetting of its layers of sand that has settled over the centuries.” He continued, “And the farmer who is putting the seeds in the womb of darkness and pouring over it the waste of earth is also doing a labour of love, for the seed is still hard and must soften through all this darkness and waste till it is ready to receive the Light.”

“And when it sprouts, the farmer puts a fence around it and prunes and limits its freedom lest it is not eaten away by the animals that sprawl around. The delicate and tender plant may find it hard to bear the touch of his scissors but this too is love.”

“And when the plant has grown and the fruits and flowers are ready, he carefully selects them and sends them away so that the flowers and fruits of his sacrifice reach out everywhere and bring new blossoms and more fruits and flowers. This too is love.”

‘But what about the plants and the earth’, – asked another.

The Master stood silent awhile as if lost in the wonder of love that he found everywhere. When he came out of his reverie, he spoke again: “The earth holds these and many other countless possibilities silently in its bosom. It waits for the right farmer and the right season, it bears the hard touch of the farmer’s plough so that one day the flowers and the fruits that it hides in the mud may emerge out of its dark womb and be offered to the sun. What else is this but love?”

“And the seed lets go of its hard crust, the plant of its shelter under the earth, its sap rising upward as an invocation to the sun and its fruits and flowers give themselves freely to the bird and the bee so that through their droppings more fragrance and more sweetness can arise out of the earth. What else is this but Love?”

And the disciples stood speechless in wonder and a fresh waft of air moved amidst them, – the wind that gives life force to the plant, dries up the farmer’s sweat, brings about the seasons by following the paths of the sun and carries the pollen far and wide for fresh blossoms. And the Master spoke not but the disciples heard in the winds a hymn of love whisper softly a song of hope in their hearts and a renewed joy in their souls.

Alok Pandey