Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

Man needs miracles. This need when deeply observed, is the expression of a hunger for power, a need to break free from his countless limitations. But superficially, it expresses itself in the need to witness the dazzlingly fantastic and seemingly impossible.

But what exactly is a miracle? It is the occurrence of a phenomenon which defies the normal processes through which Nature seemingly operates. Magic is different. It is a tricking of the mind and senses, an illusion created by carefully applying the normal laws of Nature to create an illusion e.g. sleight of hand. It works even with the mind. The mind can so concentrate on one object as to become oblivious of others. Used differently, this faculty of concentration creates the magic of mind-games.

Miracle is not a trick or illusion. But neither is it supernatural. It is supernormal, in the sense that it does not work through the normally known operations of Nature. It does not displace normal operations. It really brings out into the normal world another play of forces and fields. To one who knows them, these forces are perfectly normal and natural. But to one who does not know how to handle them, they appear miraculous and supernatural.

Sadhana in its deepest sense is independent of all outer circumstances. It is our ideas of circumstances and attitude towards the daily events of life that make them more or less favourable. The medical profession is no exception. Take for instance the very first brush that a doctor has with the medical profession, in his study of the human body. Looked at in one way the young medico regards the body as a fantastic machine. Overawed by the workings of this wonderful machine, he is easily led to conclude that our finest thoughts, our deepest feelings, our sublimest experiences are nothing more than the body. However seen in another way the same body appears to be permeated with a conscious intelligence. One wonders whether such a marvellous creation can be simply explained by chance evolution and random mutation. One begins to feel that there is more to it than meets the eye. It is like a reaffirmation of faith that existence could not be without a vast and unified conscious intelligence standing behind the works of Nature as its unobserved observer. It is therefore our basic faith, shraddha, that determines our understanding of what we see and experience rather than the object of experience itself!

Moving through the mazes of the human body, we marvel at the intricate perfection of Mahasaraswati’s work. So too in the many circadian rhythms of the human physiology and biochemistry, we begin to see a pattern that reminds us of the great cosmic rhythms. One can see how the universe reproduces itself in the individual at all levels as if all were the workings of a single dance of creation; from the spinning of the nucleus to the movement of molecules through the minute pores of a cell.

So far the learning remains impersonal. But with the beginning of the personal side of medical education, the fresh medico has to confront many existential dilemmas. His rendezvous with death, the great annihilator, becomes frequent enough to raise uncomfortable questions about life itself. He also meets life wearing the mask of death or hiding its sting behind glamorous appearances. Or else he begins to learn that the only thing predictable about life is its unpredictability. The neat and perfect world of cellular physiology is challenged and ruptured by the sight of human pathology. The rub of human pain awakens compassion more readily but can also desensitize one to it. Some doctors instinctively begin to carry this pain in their own consciousness through sympathy and empathy. Others begin to regard pain as a routine transaction between life and death as if pain were an inevitable price that life must pay for its will to live. The philosophical side of the doctor has to reconcile with the existence of pain in God’s world, while the practical side has to discover the many possible solutions to it, — only to discover the impermanence of all such solutions. Thus we see that medical training itself can serve as a useful preparation for spiritual life.

The human body is a meeting-point for all the forces manifested so far. A study of human beings therefore can be an interesting gateway to the understanding of the cosmic forces. True, modern medical science, basing itself largely upon material and sensory evidence, often ignores the role of many insensible and supraphysical forces in health and illness. Still most doctors, unless they are totally blinded by reductionism, do begin to acknowledge the role of deeper forces in healing. This recognition may come early or late, it may come when confronted with the anomalous or the unpredictable but it does come to most. Even as a discipline, general medicine is beginning to recognize the role of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and emotional states in the causation and cure of diseases. What else is this but a backdoor entry into domains higher than the mere physical? In addition, the need for compassion, patience, perseverance in the face of inevitable failure; faith, goodwill, generosity, kindness, courage in the face of death; can be born naturally in a doctor, since they are so much more needed in this profession than many others. What else is this but a preparation for a higher and deeper life? For only the touch of the inmost soul can create in us faith, courage, charity, compassion and the will to help the struggling race:

Through this she sends us her glory and her powers,
Pushes to wisdom’s heights, through misery’s gulfs;
She gives us strength to do our daily task
And sympathy that partakes of others’ grief
And the little strength we have to help our race,
We who must fill the role of the universe
Acting itself out in a slight human shape
And on our shoulders carry the struggling world.
[Savitri: 527]

Of course, any profession can become a means for entry into a deeper and a higher life if we pursue it with the right inner attitude. Done in a spirit of offering and selflessness, asniskama karma, it can prepare us for a powerful Yoga in the world if not actually become a means of Yoga itself. But the fact that the medical profession needs a combination of the heart, head and dynamic will makes it specially useful as a means of preparation for an integral Yoga. The physician needs to deliberately reconcile in himself reason and faith, practical sense and idealism, the attitude of a fighter and the approach of calm wisdom, in a harmonious synthesis for useful action. Above all, he is called upon to become not just an instrument of light, strength, peace and love but most importantly, an instrument of Grace. On the other hand, he is also called upon to supply the deficiency of faith in illness-bound people. For in the final analysis it is not the physician or his drugs but the action of Grace supported by the patient’s faith that can victoriously conquer disease, suffering and death.

Alok Pandey

In its pursuit of Truth humanity has followed several routes. Each of these routes took lead from something within him, some faculty or capacity with which mankind has been endowed. Philosophies, cults, sects, religions sprang up based on these routes and paths that humanity took to find the Truth of who he is, what is this universe around him and what is his relation with the world. Thus humanity began to group itself not only geographically but also ideologically and psychologically.

This intra-species differentiation and the subsequent conflicts over it are part of our collective history. It is, in a way, an extension of our animal past wherein sub-species of the same type fight for spatial domination. With the coming of man this became a fight not only domination of outer physical space but also of subjective inner space. It is true that the resultant clash and conflict have been far more severe than within any other species and threaten our very survival as a race. At another level, Nature has used even this clash and conflict for the coming together of different groupings and an eventual understanding and assimilation of each other.

The question is could there be another way, a different process that may lead to a mutual understanding and a growing harmony between what now stands at different poles? Tolerance is clearly not enough. Something else, something more is needed! Perhaps a re-kindling of the ancient fire that burns within man’s heart and compels him to seek further and further. Perhaps a stepping out of the boundaries and comfort zones of our beliefs and non-beliefs and stare with the wonder of a child into the far avenues of the Beyond! And for that we the first thing we need is humility, the acceptance of our present limitations of knowledge, the acceptance that what we call as Truth is but a shadow of what yet awaits us in the distant horizons. Our present accomplishments are mere playthings before what is yet to be discovered and accomplished. Our present faculties and capacities are but nothing compared to what is yet to emerge from within man through the process of evolving Time.

Our seeking for Truth is not yet over. The nomad within us still wanders in search of the Light that can give us the ultimate security in the wisdom that sets the spirit free. The hunter within us still hunts for the ever-elusive Peace and Bliss. Our hearts still wait expectantly for the transforming power of that alchemist energy called Love.

Alok Pandey

We are too busy counting and documenting the little waves upon the surfaces of life and are therefore unable to perceive the immense forces that drive creation from behind. We read its syllables in isolation but miss the words and the sentences thereby missing the secret sense and purpose behind all the motions and movements of nature from the shift within the atoms to the gigantic galactic drifts of the constellations. We look for immediate causes for our ills and their remedies, at best for intermediate causes but there is a larger plan, a larger drift that influences us as well. Our smallness before the immensity of the universe is but one fact.

The other equally important fact is our interconnectedness with this immensity, an interconnectedness of Knowledge and awareness, an interconnectedness of Power. What is even more important but seldom explored by modern sciences is not only how this interconnectedness influences us but also how we can actually plug into this totality and immensity and become conscious of this tremendous and enormous Energy that drives the wheels of Time and determines the stir of the stars.

We can become this Knowledge and this Power says the ancient Science of yoga and becoming discover that we are not just this momentary, temporary and fragmented formation of personality, a transient and unsatisfactory product of the sperm and gene and gas but the repository and reservoir of the very Energy and Force I Creation. We are the secret Source of creation. It is we who burn yonder in distant stars; it is we who extend into various names and forms and qualities that determine the diversity of creation; we are the Breath of the Spirit that bloweth where it listeth. It is just that caught in the turns and twists of the wheel we are not aware of the hub and the center. Yet we are That, the core as well as the surface movement, the hub and the spokes, masters of Destiny, determinants of our Fate.

After we have answered all other questions, the question of questions awaits us. For based on our answer to this one question will depend the validity of all our other answers. It is the first and the last question that confronts man. It is the first question when he comes to birth. It is also the last question when he prepares to exit through the gates of death. But also, from time to time this question repeats itself perennially, especially in moments of crisis when all our planks of support including our own strength is taken away. Therefore it is the question of questions: ‘Who am I?’

Simplest of all yet the profoundest of all is this question. We take our existence for granted and hardly ever question it. We are born in a certain family and country and we adopt that as our identity. We are born in a certain religion and culture and we assume that identity. We strive and succeed or fail; we go to work and assume a title; we study and attach a degree to our names; we get married and have children and we attach ourselves to all these identities. We even make an identity of our dress and the home we live, the name we have and the surname we carry. But we hardly even question who is this ‘I’ behind all these changing appearances? Who is this ‘I’ that was once a child, then an adult and next an old man? Who is this ‘I’ who works and then retires, wakes up and sleeps, is born and dies?

Are we merely mud and clay as we are told by material scientists or a bundle of nerves and genes and chemicals as the biologists or simply the thought and cognition as the psychologists tell us? If so what is the validity of our answers from the simplest and personal questions to the most complex and cosmic ones?
As we grow into a greater and greater awareness, our understanding and our answers change. They do not necessarily invalidate our other answers but add a new dimension to our understanding and that changes the way we relate and connect to the answer, which depends upon where we stand on the scale of self-awareness. As we change and grow, our answer also changes.

Supermind is the key to integrate Earth and Heaven but it is too much beyond the range of our present human nature. Though the tapasya of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo has brought this rather inaccessible Power closer to us yet it is not easy to apply this Key to unlock the mysteries of our Earth nature. The locks of nature that shut the free play of Spirit out are too rusted and stuck in fixed grooves to easily allow the action of the Supramental Force without much damage. For if the Supermind applies its full Force then nature may well break down under the pressure rather than transform. That would leave the work unaccomplished. Therefore, we have to first apply that other key which is close within our reach, – the psychic being, so that nature can be purified to an extent and be made ready to bear the Supramental Force. But though it is within our reach it is yet not easy to find this key. The discovery takes long and is itself fraught with dangers as we pass through intermediate zones between our surface nature where we are locked by the sense-mind and the depths where the soul dwells hidden from our surface nature’s routes. The path to this discovery is long and needs great patience and courage, an unflinching perseverance unwilling to give up the search in the face of contrary appearances.

And yet the far can come near and the difficult become easy! But for this we have to hand over our life and our works, our actions and our emotions, our thoughts and impulsions in the hands of the Divine Mother with a prayer and aspiration to mould us into the divine way of living. Then the Mother becomes at once like a shield that protects us from our weaknesses and resistances that rise up from the unseen parts of our nature against the envisaged change. She holds our hands and carries us safe in Her heart of boundless Compassion and fathomless Love, dealing with our nature with the utmost patience of a father and the utmost care and love of a mother. She leads us each according to our natures and knows when and where to put pressure and when and where to hold back the fullness of the Supramental Glory. Not only that, She prepares us for receiving the Light and Truth of the Supramental Consciousness. At Her very call, the hidden soul in us rushes to step forward and greet Her as a child rushes on hearing its mother’s long-awaited voice. All efforts and methods and techniques then fuse into one single thing. It is to open oneself more and more to the Mother, to live for Her sake, to love Her more and more and to serve Her more and more. Nothing else and nothing more is then needed and the hoped for, longed for change draws near faster than imagined as base metal changes into gold by the alchemist’s touch.

This is the great Secret. The secret of Divine Grace and when that Grace, that Love embodies Itself in a human body as the incarnate Divine then this secret wears a more approachable Face. To do the integral yoga by one’s own efforts or even a superhuman tapasya is near impossible. It is trying to fly straight into the heart of the sun with wings that are mortal and yet hope to survive! But there is a way, a sweeter and safer, even simpler way. It is to let Her carry us under Her wings that take upon Herself the intense heat but let the warmth pass on to us in regulated dosage until we can bear more and more. That needs another kind of effort if we like. It needs trust and surrender, a call from the heart and love and devotion, faith and sincerity, above all the openness and candour of a child that hides nothing and turns to the Mother for everything with the full confidence that the Mother knows best and will do what is best for him.

And indeed, it is so. Soon he discovers that his life takes on a different hue when he thus gives himself to the Divine Mother and with confidence in Her leading walks the path She carves out for him. Handing over the entire responsibility of his destiny into Her safe and strong hands, he walks from freedom to greater freedom, Light to greater Light, joy to greater Joy. To him nothing is impossible since he has yoked his limited strengths and faltering will to the limitless and the infinite.

What really is Yoga? Literally it means a state of union, – a union between what we are and what we could be; a union between our external consciousness now driven by a thousand forces of ignorance and our depths so that our inmost soul and the Divine becomes the true Master even of our most outer being and all its movements; a union between the dark half of existence in which we right now labour fruitlessly and with much suffering and struggle and, the bright half that remains hidden and unclaimed where Peace and Bliss are the very law of life; in other words a union between Soul and Nature, God and the World, Man and the Cosmos.

This union cannot come until we have found the central key hidden behind the multitudinous appearances of nature. This key cannot be found in our present egoistic state which only keeps up the division and walls us apart from everything and everyone else. This key cannot be found even by merely a universalization of our being, even if it extends as far as the universe and beyond for the reconciliation will still be missing between the diverse and different elements of nature, their right law of arrangement with respect to each other, termed the Rta of the Vedas. Beyond the ego-ridden individual consciousness and the fields of cosmic ignorance there exists a transcendent Truth whose countless Rays reach out and embed themselves in each and every atom of existence. It is the original Truth, the very Source of all that is. Even though it transcends all, it is yet hidden in all and holds all creation in its vast embrace. It is, to use the image of the Upanishad, the Speech of our speech, the Intelligence behind all intelligence, the Power behind all manifestations of power, the Mind behind our mind, even the Sense behind our sense. It is the state of constant and dynamic Perfection, a state of perpetual Harmony at rest and in movement. It is this transcendent Supramental Sun that is the key to a perfect union. Short of it we can have various degrees of union with different levels of the higher consciousness but it will always be incomplete and therefore unable to change earthly life into the mould of the eternal Perfection that ever exists beyond creation and within its very depths as its secret core and base.

If there were not this bud of eternal perfection enclosed within us we would not seek perfection at all. But one of the signs of human evolution is this relentless seeking for perfection in countless ways and in every sphere of life. Indeed there are a thousand ways that we strive for perfection and a thousand ways that men can and do approach the Source, the Divine Perfection within them. Helplessly we are driven towards It, attracted as it were and in the end no resistance can stand in the way since that is our core and our Destiny that cannot be denied for long. However There is a key within man, a secret ‘something’ hidden in the very depths that can directly respond to this Supramental Truth now beyond the reach of our mind and senses, beyond the grasp of our emotional being and a will maimed by ignorance and desire. It is this hidden key that can put us directly in contact with the supreme Truth and help our nature receive and bear the Rays that may otherwise find the Divine Touch unbearable and scorch in the Presence of that Sun of Truth. That entity within us is, in fact our true identity, it is a part and parcel of the Divine, a fiery portion of the Wonderful, a spark of That which burns yonder in Space and guides and flow and flux of Time. That key is the psychic being, the secret soul in man.

It is the psychic being that can open the rest of our nature to the Divine Influence and carve a temple of eternity out of the transient mud and water constituting this body. It is the psychic being that can orient our nature to the Right and the Light so that all its movements begin to flow swiftly and smoothly towards the Eternal rather than in a crooked and deviant way as they now do. It is the psychic being that can put us back on the straight and sunlit path that the mind has lost and hence struggles and gropes in the darkness of terrestrial nature. But for that the psychic being itself must first disengage itself from this deviant flow, extricate itself out of the thorny bushes of a fallen nature, retrieve its powers now covered by unconsciousness and falsehood, recover its truth and reclaim its immortality. That is the first and immediate task of this great journey that should preoccupy us for the rest very much depends upon how much we succeed in this. Once this is done the rest is a matter of time. This is the key to the golden temple door of things beyond.

Being Human is to be vulnerable but being human is also to be mighty. The best in us emerges only when we face the greatest vulnerabilities of our nature. That is why God created humanity so that through our vulnerabilities we may carve a path towards greatness. Greatness is not what men ordinarily think it to be. It is not about success, not about fame or money or any other such material gifts of life. It is not about recognition by other men or even unusual capacities and talents gifted to us by Nature and God. These things are simply exaltations of the great Creatrix Energy in us, moments in time when the eternal fills us with abundance and leaves it to us to use them rightly or misuse them to our own peril.

To use them rightly is to further increase them. To misuse or waste or misspend these gifts is to lose them. And it is the worse for us since when we do not have something, Nature expects little from us. But once she has showered her gifts, – whether material or psychological, then to waste them is to commit a travesty against her great purpose. But that is a different matter. Men may regard such gifts as greatness but there is nothing great about it from the perspective of the man who has been endowed with these. Even if he has acquired things for himself through the utilization of inborn capacities, it is nothing much since it is for himself that he has increased them. Such a selfish utilization of the materials offered to us by Nature may look great in the eyes of others but is in fact not the best utilization of our capacities since no man is an island and we live poorly if we live for ourselves alone. To have everything but for ourselves or, for our little circle of family and friends, is to acquire little and a poverty of another kind. True greatness lies in facing the impossible within and around us. True greatness emerges out of the shadows that we confront within and conquer.

It is out of our weakest points that the seeds of mightiness can be born. And therein lies the true greatness of man, a greatness that all can share, nay even more so those who consider themselves deprived and weak for it is to them is given the challenge and the possibility and the opportunity to rise out of the ruins and build out of the ashes the glory of a yet-to-be glimpsed future. Therefore, we must never get disheartened by life, never feel discourages, whatever our present ills and adverse fate for out of our adversity is born the greatest of force that the Divine Wisdom uses to push open an unseen door within us. For one who can face adversity without breaking down, for someone who can take on the great challenge of nature the very adversity helps to catapult them towards the summits of nature. Man’s greatness is not in what he is for what he is is but a gift of Grace or a mask of nature. His real merit lies in what he makes of the materials given to him. It is easy to build something beautiful when all the material is provided to us but far more difficult to create something lasting and enduring out of little. Therein lies our true challenge, – the challenge of being human, the path of our ascent towards supermanhood. Not simply by exalting and aggrandizing nature but by chasing the shadows out of the corners and recesses of our being and filling these gulfs with Light and Peace and Love and Beatitude and Bliss.

The Great Mother reminds us of Her constant Help is this process. She is ever with us holding our hands and carrying us in Her wonderful heart of untiring Love and infinite Grace. To those whom She has blessed outwardly are no doubt among Her loved ones but those whom She has Blessed inwardly, with the strength to climb towards the summits not yet won, whom She has even seemingly deprived outwardly so that their strength can rise up to the challenge, these are Her favourites, Her closest and chosen ones in the great work She has descended here to do amidst the dark and bright, dangerous and delightful appearances of the world. The first type are Her children who are still laboring in the early years of schooling wherein the Mother cares and provides all that they need and also gives them enough opportunity to learn and grow through the school of ordinary human experience. But those whom She loves most and works to carve true greatness out of our frail and human stuff, She casts them into the midst of the battlefield of life, takes upon Herself to train and educate them right here in the midst of the great battle of life where truth and falsehood, light and darkness are locked in a deadly combat. And yet they are never alone for not even for a moment the Divine Mother and the Divine Teacher leaves them unattended. Always She holds the rein of such lives and the destiny of such souls in Her safe hands turning all the sweet-bitter experiences of life into the honey of divine living. For such is the work She has undertaken and such is the work She will accomplish, – to build immortal things out of our transience and mortality, to open and take us through some hidden narrow passage in the darkness of ignorance towards the Light eternal and the Love Supreme. This is the knowledge we must shelter in our hearts as we move through the different appearances of life. The ignorant mind may give them values of good and bad, pleasant or painful but in reality, in their true essence they are neither of these dualities but only the hands of the Divine Architect and the Artist shaping out of our crude stuff eternal Good and unfailing Bliss and the Harmony that is built by Beauty and truth and Love.

Alok Pandey

The idea of ‘Integral Health’ goes beyond healing. It goes also beyond keeping a body free of diseases and physically fit. Mere physical fitness without a corresponding fitness of mind and vital parts, of thoughts and feelings is an animal-like fitness. Even worse, since physically strong and fit body with a crooked and deviant mind may well become an instrument to wreak havoc upon the world. That is far from being the ideal of Integral Health. In the vision of Integral Health, the mind and the body as well as the vital energy has to become instruments of a Higher Consciousness, of the Spirit hidden in Matter.

In this view, the body itself is evolving and has to evolve further so as to accommodate and adapt to the higher ranges and levels of Consciousness that seek to express in earthly life. The process of this adaptation and change of the body-mind instrumentality is called transformation. This change or transformation is a two-fold process. On one side, the human being puts in effort through aspiration, rejection and surrender; on the other hand, the Higher Consciousness descends and changes the body-mind complex and their capacities and functioning. But before the Higher Consciousness can descend and act, a fundamental preliminary change is needed, which is called the psychic change.

The psychic change means that instead of the body and mind being at the mercy of desires, they should become expressive of the soul, our inmost truth. Presently, our mind and body habitually respond to rage, fear, lying etc. All these dark mixtures have been poured into the vessel called the body by our past evolution. Our cells respond to these forces habitually, strongly conditioned through millenniums. Our tongue automatically lies without any necessity, our hands and feet habitually move, restless as a monkey, or slip into inertia. In fact most of the things we do or think are habitually, mechanically, automatically driven by the past impetus of Nature. We have to slowly replace this by a higher intelligent-will called ‘Buddhi’ and then orient the instrument to respond to the soul-impulsions, the deeper, truer will in us. Our actions have to become more conscious and deliberate. This would apply to everything and every area of life. Our relationship with others and the world; our thoughts, feelings, motivations; our work and rest, exercise and walk, sleep and dreams, speech and silence, eating and enjoyings all must be impregnated with an aspiration for Light, Peace, Harmony, Strength, Joy. We may do the same exercises and eat the same food as any other health-regime may suggest but behind it there will be another will and aspiration and it is that which brings the difference.

In essence it would mean a double labour. The first is to engage in daily activities with moderation and balance, most of all with a conscious aspiration. Secondly, to take out some time every day to reflect on the true purpose of life; to practice interiorisation through meditation and concentration and, to practice quietude, peace and equanimity in every sphere of life.

Alok Pandey