Daily Questions

Q: You don’t tell everything about the Asura’s world-game? Why don’t you go into details so that we are able  to distinguish the difference between the truth of the Divine and the lies of the Aura?

ALOKDA: My own take on all this business of the Asura is very simple. The Asura is there no doubt but for us it is much more important to remember that the Divine is there and He is the Lord who will have the final say. If the Asura and his ilk seem to temporarily win or succeed it is only a prelude to a greater divine Victory that is waiting round the corner. Besides isn’t he and his type also part of the grand plan needed for hastening earth’s evolution?

As long as we live in duality we are always surrounded with uncertainties with fear and anxiety and suspicion drawing upon our energies. Is not this undue and excessive fear and suspicion and anxiety itself a weapon of the Asura through which he terrorises man stealing hope and faith from his soul? But as we begin to live in the true spiritual consciousness we see the One playing with all things and everywhere and in various masks, even the most seemingly contrary ones. After all it is His creation and if He has placed the Asura somewhere in the play there must be a deeper Wisdom in this too.

Vigilance against the Asura’s intrusion in our lives is one thing and growing suspicious and paranoid and depressed is quite another. If anything, these are the signs that the fellow is near us. Pessimism especially is the tail of the Devil refusing to leave. What we have to instead remember and focus upon is that the Divine is there and here and everywhere and near and within and around us. With Him being at the helm of affairs everything is eventually safe. He and not our puny human thoughts are the bedrock of safety. Has He not intervened always when the mindless Asura was at his cruelest best and changed the course of history.

Ravana and Kansa and Judas and now Hitler and his tribe have come and gone but it is Rama and Krishna and Christ and Sri Aurobindo who continue to inspire man. So let us leave the Asura aside and being full of faith do what we can to grow closer in identity with the Divine. That is our main job and if we can even attempt it with sincerity then there will be no more need of any Asura to spur our evolution.

Love
alok

Q: When The Divine Mother takes charge of our whole being, which things are being done by the parts of being without choice? Or saying it differently, please give examples how mind thinks and heart reacts when The Mother has taken charge of the parts of the being.

ALOKDA: In terms of the Yoga philosophy and psychology, man has a double nature.

The first is what he naturally inherits due to his evolutionary animal past. It is what we are today. It is referred to as the ignorant lower nature.  It includes not only food, sleep, sex but also all our present normal thoughts, feelings, will, actions driven by ego and desire and its attendant fear, ambition, lust, anger etc.

The second is what he is being prepared for by the Divine. We can call it the Higher Divine Supernature.  It is moved by the Divine Force instead of desire.

As ego self is replaced by the psychic being, the human nature is transformed into the Divine Nature, where it is always a self-existent peace and joy not dependent upon any outer condition, the heart is full of sweetness and universal love that does not expect anything in return since it receives everything from the Divine, the life energy is strong, healthy, luminous, pure, the mind receives knowledge directly from the Divine Source of all knowledge through faculties of inspiration, intuition, revelation. Even the body begins to change in terms of renewal of energy, overcoming fatigue, the power to reject illness and get cured quickly, slow and delay the ageing process.

Q: Bhaya, I have one question – why are you doing this yoga and how have you chosen this path?

ALOKDA: It is not we who chose the Path as much as the Path, or the Goal and the Master who chooses us. But I understand your question since so does it appear from our side as if we are choosing it. The truth of the matter however is that I was not really seeking anything at the time that Sri Aurobindo entered my life or rather took me into His vast infinite life. I was an agnostic since whatever I had read about God and all other philosophies, I could not find my answers in them. I had few experiences also but not sure of what it meant I simply let them slip into some corner of my memory.

My search was for the ultimate meaning of life like many others I suppose. Living life as others do seeking success, fulfilling ambitions, accumulating money and all those things that one normally enjoys and lives for did not attract me. Besides it seemed such a selfish thing to live for, so small and little. Then there was the alternative of spiritual life. But that too seemed selfish since everyone spoke about personal mukti and nirvana or having some kind of bliss or experience by certain practices. All this did not answer my questions about the reason for suffering in this world. It moved me deeply but the standard answer of the karmic theory seemed incomplete. Therefore, having searched whatever I could, I became an Agnostic and thought that best to be a good human being and a good doctor so that I could help those who are suffering. But without any stable Permanent Reality it also seemed a vain thing.

Well it was during this phase that Sri Aurobindo drew me to His heart and I found Him, or rather literally walked into Him in a busy Delhi street, one winter afternoon when I entered a bookstore. There He was in His word body speaking His first phrase to me like a mantra of initiation written in the first page of the book that I opened. He wrote ‘All Life is Yoga.’ Something clicked instantly, like a revelation and I knew I was home. His name kept vibrating lie some heavenly rhythm in my heart and the whole evening, in fact the next two days I was as if in an ecstasy forgetting everything else except to pore through the pages of the heavenly script. It was love at first or shall I say first word. All else that happened was contained in that single phrase whose full meaning and impact is still unfolding before me, – ‘All Life is Yoga’. There was then no calculation, no weighing of options, no looking at advantages and disadvantages, no consideration of difficulties and dangers. In fact there was no option, but to accept all that He said as true, to aspire for what He wanted us to be, to surrender to the New Vision that opened before my soul.

Later the Mother revealed Herself to me and that completely sealed it if there was any other thought ever at all. Once She came or rather drew me to Her then all considerations and questions about the path, the goal everything was gone. Only She remained, at the center and circumference of life, to serve Her and love Her the only joy and purpose of existence.

Affectionately
Alok bhaiyya

Q: When an individual is suffering from his childhood – what can be the reasons behind it, and how and when these difficulties will come to an end?

ALOKDA: A very good question. To understand this we have to understand the field and the knower of the field. The field is the whole gamut and play of forces that comprises the world existence, more specifically the earth nature into which the soul enters. This rendezvous of soul and nature is a win-win situation for both if we see it in the larger perspective for each time nature comes in contact with the soul it receives an impetus to progress and evolve towards Light and Beauty. As to the soul it feels the burden of nature as a load but as it passes from life to life the soul grows stronger until one day it becomes her Lord.

In the first few lives the soul is like a slave held captive to Nature as in a prison. But as it grows it becomes more and more its master and lord. In the first few lives the soul is as if dragged helplessly by the forces of nature. During this phase when the soul is developing out of its infancy towards adulthood it may try unusual things such as take a leap cutting through layers of darkness and even go through a hell of outer suffering to hasten the purifying ordeal. Finally, it is out of the dense dark fields and enters a quieter zone, progressively moving towards freedom away from the school of ignorance and the law of suffering.

Q: I’ve heard people repeating the Mother’s words “The Mother’s protection is with me, nothing bad can happen” even while harming others intentionally. Does it really protect the person even when one says this from one’s ego? How does it work?

ALOKDA: To expect that the Divine will protect someone consciously engaging in evil is in itself a contradiction. Sri Aurobindo has clearly said that there are conditions required to open to the Divine Help such as faith, sincerity and surrender. There is of course such a thing as unconditional protection but it is extremely rare and given only under very special conditions for a very special purpose. Otherwise, no sadhana would be needed. One has to simply say and things will be done magically regardless of the person’s inner state. Well sometimes it can happen but this cannot be made a rule of life or a law of spiritual living.

However we may add that the words of Sri Aurobindo has the power in it to fulfill its promise, the promise of the Divine to man that if he sincerely calls for His help and seeks His Protection, even in His thoughts with faith and trust then regardless of his past, however dark it may be and his present, however evil it may be, the Grace does come and intervene and changes the fixed course of destiny. Not only does it protect him from the hostility around but also from himself and opens the doors for redemption by the Grace. It is similar to the great word of the Gita, the eternal promise of the Godhead in man, his eternal friend and lover, – sarvadharmaparityajya mamekamsharanam vraja. Aham tva sarvapapebhyo mokshisiyami ma suchhah, abandon all dharmas and take refuge in Me Alone, I will deliver thee from all fear and evil, do not grieve.

Q: The old consciousness plays old tricks, and knowing about this yoga while still unable to fully follow it quadruples the guilt – what to do?

ALOKDA: Guilt is the result of the action of adverse forces that make our difficulties seem insurmountable as if there was anything really impossible for the Grace. Where human efforts fail, there a new journey begins. It is the journey of Divine Love, of Divine Grace. It is understood and Sri Aurobindo has very clearly said so that no human power or tapasya can accomplish the change envisaged by the Integral Yoga except the Divine Mother and Her illimitable Grace. But one has to endure the process with faith and complete trust in the Divine and to go on rising up a thousand times or more if need be. The journey is never smooth or easy. But every fall leaves us somewhat stronger and wiser and if we keep the will for progress intact then one day we rise never to fall again. Meanwhile each little step, however small and sometimes even however paradoxical it may seem is a step towards the Goal.

Q: Does physical immortality mean imprisonment in a single form? To me this would be a nonsense.

ALOKDA: Physical immortality surely does not mean a fresh imprisonment into one particular form. The supramental being will be free to leave aside the body and switch over to another without any loss of consciousness as happens now following the process of death. In all likelihood it would have found the occult means to create a new body for itself and switch over to it. This is the general drift.

However there is another aspect of physical immortality that we need to understand. Nonsense or not it is only when we are able to not only prolong life at will, to keep the body free from all disease and disintegration and eventually help it to escape from the law of death can we say that there is a complete conquest over all the forces of darkness that right now govern material existence. Once this conquest is established then the rest is a matter of method and means that the New Being will use.

However if the conquest over all the material forces that weave our bodily life are not conquered then whatever process we may use will remain precarious since earthly body will remain susceptible to death. It will be in that case a partial and incomplete victory. Or else we will have to rest content with a partially supramentalised body, like the ethereal body that does not decay in certain tantric traditions notably the chinmaya body that Vaishnavas speak of or the body of Light. That however is different from the supramental body which will the sign of the complete conquest of the Divine over matter using our humanity as a fulcrum.

There are two views about what constitutes a vegetarian diet. One view which is rather extreme excludes not only eggs but also milk because they are regarded as animal product. A further extreme form excludes even tubers and roots since they are regarded as living as they continue to grow giving rise to many more. Obviously, this view takes its stand upon non-injury to any living form. It is more like a moral principle that is often arbitrary and based on a limited understanding of life itself. From the spiritual perspective life is everywhere even in the atoms and stone.

If we take the consciousness perspective which is more complete and based on fundamental truth of creation, then taking eggs and of course milk is perfectly fine, especially since unfertilized eggs are invariably vegetarian.

The importance of sacred Relics of Divine beings and personalities has always been known. Touch is intimately connected to the earth and objects invariably carry the impression (and the vibration) of the person who has used them. It was this truth that was at the basis of many practices in India. The difference between these and the sacred Relics (hair, tooth and nails) is that while the objects used by a divine being carry the stamp because they have been touched or used physically (it is a contact through the body) whereas in the latter it is the body itself carrying the unforgettable stamp of the consciousness of the divine being directly upon the body itself. With Sri Aurobindo it becomes even more special since unlike other Yogis, Sri Aurobindo specifically worked to transform the body by infusing the supramental consciousness into it. This is a singular example in the spiritual history of mankind. Therefore its immense importance cannot be compared to other sacred Relics.

As to the Ashram, it is and will always remain very special because it is not just Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s physical body lying in the Samadhi but even more importantly their taposthali (seat of tapasya) where everything, from their rooms, the walls and floors and the soil and the very air contains something of them soaked in it very tangibly..