Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

Q: Sweet Mother, How should one spend the Darshan days, December fifth and ninth, and one’s birthday?

The Mother: In search of a knowledge truer than ordinary knowledge.
The fifth and ninth in understanding what death is.
The birthday in finding out the purpose of life.
Blessings.’ [CWM 16:415]

These words of the Mother are a clear reminder, a luminous guideline given to us as to the way we should approach these special days.

True knowledge is the knowledge that transcends the knowledge gained by the senses and the surface mind. This surface knowledge gained through outer means has its own place in our everyday life as we navigate through the physical world. It tells us something about the appearance of things which the physical mind organises, classifies and categorises for ease of understanding and dealing with life and its different scenes through which we pass. But this knowledge, for all its immediate practical utility is not enough to tell us about the meaning and purpose of our existence. It is unable to tell us about the origin of creation and the goal, if any, towards which it moves. In fact it is not even enough to tell us about the thing in itself in all its aspects and qualities, powers and possibilities, the forces that weave the form giving shape to a formless energy to which the mind attaches a value and a name. That is why this surface knowledge of the appearances of things is called as the lower knowledge from the higher spiritual standpoint so to say. On the other hand the higher knowledge reveals to us the Divine Reality that stands behind the appearances. A still higher Supramental Knowledge reveals to us not only the Divine Reality behind appearances but Its relation with the temporal, phenomenal appearance. It gives us a complete and comprehensive, an Integral Knowledge so to say.

The Darshan days should be spent in contemplating upon this truer knowledge that takes us deeper into the heart of creation and its mystery. This truer knowledge not only gives us a better understanding of the goal of life which otherwise seems a meaningless struggle for existence but empowers us to respond to events and circumstances in a better way, keeping in mind the goal of our human journey but also, at its highest, a comprehensive understanding of the thing in itself, the true law of each in itself as well as in relation to the whole.

When we try to understand death from this standpoint then we can see it in the form of an ascending hierarchy of truths until all of these reconciled in the All-comprehending Supramental Vision and Knowledge. To the material senses and the surface physical mind of man, death is not only real but almost like the sole reality that lets life emerge from beneath its giant paws and flourish awhile under its shadow. The little plot of mortal life and the brief play ended, life is absorbed back into the jaws of death.

But there is another way of looking at Death. Climbing beyond the first surface view, recovering from the shock of the senses, our thought stretches its wings to climb towards eternity. Using the transient body as a pedestal our mind seeks the Wisdom, the Light of a Truth that does not fade away with Time. In-between life living under its shadow and chased by death does some remarkable things as if to defy and even challenge it. While the man passes away he or she may leave behind an immortal work, thoughts that inspire generations to come, deeds that outlast the hurrying feet of Time. It is as if Death has acted as a spur to goad the human soul to stamp its immortality on the pages of passing Time. It is as if, paradoxically so to say, Death has acted like a whip to hasten man to the discovery of his deathless state.

Legends speak of the three strides of Vishnu. The first two strides cover the sky and the earth. Yet, these two outer conquests remain incomplete without the third stride. It is the stride of God that conquers man. Or shall we say, fulfils God in man.

The last three decades have seen man’s growing conquest over material nature and the biophysical forces that move him. His gaze has extended far and wide into outer space. He can determine the lifespan of a star. Yet what eludes him still is his own destiny. What escapes his grasp are the unseen forces that possess and move him. What remains for him to explore are the inner spaces of his soul.

We have learnt the power of the spoken word. But the unspoken word still eludes us. The mystery of the silence behind life lies hidden by the clamour and noise of our surface mind.

We have learnt the science of defining things but not the art of experiencing them. We have amassed information but missed the wisdom that truly knows. We have craftily manipulated the surface of man but his depths remain unfathomed. We have been taught about the maladies that afflict his body but know little about the fevers that rage in his mind and ravish his soul.

Our textbooks are satisfied with defining health and normalcy but who will give us the experience of health? There is an abundant description of the normal and the abnormal. The supernormal is still a fantasy and a myth, because it is not common. Just as an ape would not have recognized himself in the forthcoming man so too, in man the superman lurks unseen. The greatness of man is not in his superiority over other animals. It is in his capacity to surpass himself.

It must be remembered that this yoga is a long journey, sometimes smooth and at other times a battle against seen and unseen forces that rise up in revolt to obstruct and block the path and deter and discourage the aspirant. Revolt, doubt and depression increase the hold of these forces, whereas faith and surrender, sincerity of aspiration and self-giving to the Mother clears the passage. All impatience, especially born of a spiritual ambition to be a yogi or a guru, all hankering after other-worldly experiences can be very dangerous and lead us straight into the hands of the adversary. The only experience worthwhile to have in the beginning and as a base is the contact and identification with the psychic being within us. All else grows spontaneously as a flower blooms under the sun. This is the straight and sunlit path as shown by Them, and it is enough to turn towards Her as a child ever new born in the flame of one’s aspiration.

As Sri Aurobindo warns us,
One may practise Yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical siddhis; but if the true soul-power behind does not manifest, if the psychic nature does not come into the front, nothing genuine has been done. In this Yoga, the psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. Mind can open by itself to its own higher reaches; it can still itself and widen into the Impersonal; it may too spiritualise itself in some kind of static liberation or Nirvana; but the supramental cannot find a sufficient base in spiritualised mind alone. If the inmost soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this Yoga can be done; otherwise (by the sole power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible. If there is a refusal of the psychic new birth, a refusal to become the child new born from the Mother, owing to attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas or to some vital desire, then there will be a failure in the sadhana.
[Letters on Yoga CWSA 30: 337-338]

Prayer, worship can be and are very much a part of this yoga, but their method is different from the traditional processes. Traditional practices rely too much on outer rituals such as beads and fasting, outer withdrawal and such. But the communion in the Integral Yoga takes place in an inner ground of consciousness. The prayer is not a repetitive mechanical prayer remembered from a prayer book but one that rises spontaneously from the heart. Worship is not an external ritual but an inner state of adoration and humility before the Divine. Needless to say that things like fasting and other extreme forms of religious and ascetic practices have no place here. Balance, moderation, an invocation and aspiration to create a solid foundation of calm, peace and equanimity are the ways forward. This can be greatly helped by living in a place that has a touch of infinity upon it, but this or any other practice is not indispensable. The only indispensable thing in this yoga is to keep oneself open and turned towards the Mother. Sometimes the company of other sadhakas endowed with devotion towards Her, or those in whom the flame of aspiration rises high and wide, acts like a living fire to light up or increase a low-burning flame. The same purpose is served through study circles or a satsang, a coming together of sadhakas in a common uplifting aspiration. Conferences, seminars and discussions that are mostly mental activities do not help much if any at all.

The Mother has created spaces charged with Her Consciousness so that those, who wish to remain enveloped in Her atmosphere and breath Her air, can go there, ‘recharge their batteries’ and return back rejuvenated. Herein we find the significance of the Ashram with the Samadhi, charged with the supramental vibrations, a fact to which countless sadhakas would testify. There are other places as well, such as Auroville and Centers, especially Relic Centers that provide a luminous divine ambience for the sadhaka to practice the yoga. It is up to each of us to use them to strengthen our core that is turned towards the yoga through faith, devotion and aspiration. It is a great mistake of the modern mind to regard these places as some kind of a cult or sect. Cults and sects exist in the mind of man, and a person living alone may live under a sectarian belief, whereas one engaged in constant prayer and worship turned towards the Master may be freed completely from all man-made and mind-made bonds of ignorance, including limitations of belief and practices. His sheer love for the Master that has drawn him even outwardly, converts his limited human consciousness into a communion and consequent union with the Divine Consciousness of the Master.

Here it must be understood that this yoga was never given through instructions and physical nearness. If anything, the disciples were cautioned not to mistake the physical nearness with a sign of inner progress. True, it could be of tremendous help if someone had an external contact and used it rightly, but human consciousness is seldom ready to use this rarest of Grace. To be too close physically to the Divine often increases the hidden resistances. The sun that gives warmth and light from afar burns and scorches when it draws very near. Rare is the man who knows that the ego must indeed be burnt away and the desire-self destroyed for the Divine Consciousness to find enough room. Most want to have a physical nearness to the guru for receive help with their worldly and spiritual needs. What they forget is that this instant help does not depend upon physical nearness but on psychic intimacy and closeness with the Divine. All who have walked the path through the psychic door, testify to this fact that the Divine Mother is as accessible, Her help is as constant and instantaneous now as it was before, when She was in Her physical body. Still to satisfy this need of Her children She has left not only Her numerous photographs but signed cards and books, pieces of Her sarees and Relics, flower petals touched by Her and many such sweet little things that not only serve as a reminder but help the physical consciousness to come into contact with Her.

The central element of this yoga is not any intellectual or other knowledge or experience, but a turning and eventual giving of all one is and does to the Divine Mother. Nothing else is then needed. All the readings and writings, all meditation and prayers and other practices and disciplines must center and converge around this one single focus of opening oneself to the Mother more and more in a spirit of faith, devotion and sincerity. In this yoga the key is to remain psychically open to the Mother and to no other, not even to the Force but to the Mother alone. By turning towards someone else who claims to be a guru of Integral Yoga or an appointed successor of Their Divine legacy, one actually comes into contact with their consciousness, whereas one should go directly and straight towards the Mother. And for this turning and opening to the Mother one needs no other person or aid, save a faith and receptivity born out of love and devotion towards Her. Sometimes it is enough to merely call Her Name or meditate upon Her luminous form within or on Her photograph. She has left a host of aids for a physical contact with Her Consciousness. Her symbol, photographs, voice and music are among such concrete aids that help the sadhaka come into contact with Her Consciousness through outer channels. One needs no one else. Even one of these aids is enough, while there are many of them to help us on the Path.

Many if not most of us still live in the outward nature and feel as real only that which we can see and know through our external senses and do visibly and tangibly. When such a humanity is sometimes drawn by the yoga, it seeks some kind of outer support and an external practice. Such outer practices exist and we can find them abundantly in the vast literature of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. But the outer man is not satisfied with this. He wants someone to prescribe it for him, give him the yoga externally, perhaps even make him sit and do the practice almost as a ritual. It is here that one runs the risk of falling straight into the hands of those who come imitating the Master or claim to intercede between Him and us as a special channel or manifestation of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. While the need in an intermediary has its own reasons to exist, the way to satisfy it is not to run after some neo-Aurobindonian Guru who claims to be continuing His lineage or receiving transmissions from Him to guide humanity. Most such claimants are either imposters or are caught up in an Intermediate Zone where truth and falsehood are mixed inextricably. They may see visions and hear voices, some of which can be very engrossing and convincing. A display of lights of all kinds can impress the neophyte or cause an unchaste feeding upon the vanity and ego. The vital is capable of staging a super show and often not only those who follow such masters, but also the one claiming to be such a master is himself unwittingly caught up and becomes a victim of his own pretense. To get into their leading is actually to be misled; it is to be caught in a web of falsehood where ‘Death walks wearing a robe of deathless life.’ Unfortunately, those ‘masters’ seldom recognize the fatal error of their misgiving, and their disciples too often remain oblivious of this deep folly and refuse to recognise that they have actually gone astray.

It may be important to note that the spiritual literature left for posterity by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother cannot be compared with other books even they claim to carry Their work forward. First of all, the answers from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are not only comprehensive in terms of the spiritual knowledge and wisdom, but are also loaded with the power of their consciousness. They not only instruct but awaken, not only advice but inspire, not only tell us what should be done but give us the power to do it. Such books take birth once in thousands of years and cannot be replicated even by the best of disciples. This is especially true for Savitri and Prayers and Meditations, which are imbued with the occult power of the authors and mere reading of them means engaging in the yoga. Nothing else is than needed, and these books alone can become living guides to take us through the tremendous journey of yoga. They create in the seeker a ground of consciousness like the mantras of old, that draw forces of transformation into the consciousness of the sadhaka while keeping away all that comes to deform, pervert or distract him or her away from the path. In fact, they are a living mantra and to read these books with quietude and trust and conscious aspiration is to practice mantra sadhana which is indeed regarded as one of the highest and simplest forms of yoga. Books like the Gita, the Upanishads, the Vedas continue to awaken and inspire the seekers thousands of years after they have been written. One can imagine the long-lasting impact of books like Savitri, that have been given to humanity to help in the transformation. Savitri is the mantra of transformation as the Mother puts it. It is surely not only a non-replicable but also an irreplaceable scripture, if scripture we can call it. This Word-Sound body of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that contains their dynamic consciousness is enough to take us through the ocean of life in the ship of yoga.