Daily Questions

Q: Are free will and surrender to the Divine two contrary aspects or inclusive of one another?

ALOKDA: The sense of free will that we have is a needed instrument designed by nature to facilitate our progress. In reality however the only free will (if we may so) is that we can choose between different forces that at any given point of time enter into us and we have to observe and choose or sanction. But even our choices are influenced by many factors beyond our reckoning let alone control. Given such a state of affairs what is the best thing to do is to let the Supreme Will (the Divine Mother’s Will) decide for us and from our side we align and choose what She in Her Supreme Wisdom chooses for us. In any case even when play at cross purposes with Her Will, still it is Her Will that will prevail through all the oppositions that we and the world forces may offer. Hence the wisest thing to do for us is to surrender our individual will to Her. One may ask then why not the Divine simply forces His Will upon us rather than go through the process of freedom and surrender. Well this is so because it is only when we consciously choose and surrender out of our own free will that we evolve in a living organic way. Otherwise, it will be a mechanical automaton kind of world. To put it in simple terms we have to choose to surrender out of our own free will then only it helps us evolve through the smooth and sunlit path. But we have also the freedom to play at cross purposes with Her Will. When we do that still Her Will prevails but it is through a long and tortuous path besieged with complexities, complications and difficulties.

Q: I am confused. Sri Aurobindo spoke about surrender even on the path of love. Surrender means I am machine and the Divine Mother is the operator (I am following the Divine Will), right? Then it’s She who is performing devotion too. And if individual will is not there , how can devotion happen? I think path of surrender and devotion can’t go together. Gopis of Vrindavan didn’t surrender to the Divine Will. They were devotees only. Please show me ‘how path of surrender to divine will & path of devotion towards divine mother’ acts together?

ALOKDA: Love or devotion without the urge to give oneself and surrender one’s will to the Beloved would be anything but love. In fact I am confused to hear that the Gopis had devotion but no surrender! Radha is considered as the epitome of surrender and so is Mirabai who gave up everything in her love for Sri Krishna. Unless we mean by devotion certain ritual actions with hymns done to please the Deity to get favours. That is calculation if we like but not devotion. Devotion implies fidelity, faithfulness, obedience etc..it means a readiness to obey the Divine Will.

Surrender does not mean one is a machine. A machine does not surrender as it has no choice. Surrender is a glad and conscious and willing process. The Divine does not force us to surrender. When complete it makes us not unconscious automatons or blind machines but conscious instrument and willing transmitters and channels of the Divine. The instrument thus given in the hands of the Divine becomes more and more conscious until by the very force of love and self giving one grows in oneness with the Divine.

In the course of time our ego-self gets dissolved like the outer crust of a seed while the inner seed releases from within it’s Divine possibility making the I grow one with the Divine.

Q: Sir, I read somewhere that Sri Aurobindo took a holy lump of clay from the Panchavati of Dakshineswar (where Ramakrishna Paramahansa did his Mahatapas) and had in his Pondicherry room – is that just rumored or true?

ALOKDA: It is true. He had a great reverence for Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa even though Sri Aurobindo’s own yoga went way further.

In many ways Sri Ramakrishna did prepare for the work that Sri Aurobindo undertook later by showing in his life and experience the essential unity of all religions. By doing so he arrived at the synthesis of different aspects of the Overmind experience. Sri Aurobindo went on to build the further synthesis between Matter and Spirit with the help of the Supermind.

Another important thread connecting them is the Kali aspect of the Divine Mother which played a very important role in the life of both.

I agree that Sri Aurobindo is best read directly. I don’t think even an enlightened person is qualified to speak on The Life Divine which goes far beyond what is generally understood by enlightenment. The only perfect example of living the Divine Life are The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. All others, even the most enlightened would have a certain angle of vision, including your great self. In that case any lecture on Sri Aurobindo’s Works including The Life Divine should not be undertaken and people should be left to understand by their own intellect filtering it through their own mind which somewhat amounts to the same thing, an incomprehension if perfect understanding is the criteria.

However as far as I am concerned, I don’t claim to provide a perfect understanding of the subject, in fact I claim nothing at all and my efforts are much more modest. My only purpose, if any, is to be a bridge, if possible, between Sri Aurobindo’s infinity and our finiteness. Even if one person comes an inch closer to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, I will feel blessed. If anyone, yourself included, since you must be enlightened to know who is enlightened and who is not, can do a better work and provide a better understanding, it will be always welcome. Since it is not the person but the work that is important and unfortunately very few undertake this work or shall we say are given this mode of serving Them. Hence the field is full of unenlightened people who will surely make way to better instruments in times to come.

However there is one thing that made me wonder if you would enlighten. What is your criteria of enlightened or of truth and reality? How do you judge whether one is enlightened or not?

Kind regards
Alok

The tale of Ramayana is based on a historical event of crucial importance in far back times when humanity was at one of the critical crossroads of evolution. There was the lineage of solar dynasty kings who were born to lead humanity towards high and noble values. But alongside with them there were two more distinct shades of the human type that had also grown in power and strength. The land of the event was Aryabhoomi where the lineage of Ikshavaku and Raghu ruled with the highest Aryan ideals on the northern side of the Gangetic planes. The mid region was occupied by forest dwellers who were physically strong and mighty, closer to the animal in physique and who wore animal skin as a disguise and a way of life, like the Vanaras and the Riksha (bear). Down south was the Asura kingdom of Ravana who was slowly expanding it northwards with the help of the Rakshasas of Dandakaranya and his lieutenants like Marich, Subahu, Tadaka etc.

Though it was a part of their design, they did not or could not penetrate the impregnable Ayodhya. Sooner or later the conflict had to happen given the growing power and menace of Ravana trying to occupy territory and destroy the hermitages of Rishis and the Aryan culture. It is in the course of testing the Vanaras, to see whether he can overpower them that he had tried to challenge Bali but only to be humiliated. Since then, Ravana had made a pact of friendship with Bali which could have been potentially a deadly alliance for the civilisational values nurtured by the noble Aryans.

Now Bali, king of the Vanara kingdom. He seemed to be moving along the lines of a brute beast where might is right as is reflected through some of his stories and dealings with his brother. Yet, as arranged in the divine dispensation of things, Sugriva and Hanuman are part of the Vanara kingdom almost challenging Bali’s ways of life. In other words, the evolution of Vanaras was at juncture wherein they could either go the Asuric way through Bali and Ravana or else go the nobler humane ways through Hanuman and Sugriva. By removing Bali, Rama secured not only Kiskindha from becoming a menace or a vassal state of Ravana and his type but also secured a better and higher evolutionary possibility for the Vanaras.

This is the gist. The rest of it is incidental which I have already explained in a talk “श्री अरविंद और मानव भविष्य | TH 499”. Bali had to go for India to be secured against the Asura and to keep the flame of dharma growing in Aryavarta. The friendship with Sugriva, the method of killing Bali whom one could not defeat in frontal combat due to his capacity to draw half the opponents’ strength into himself, yet giving him an equal match by shooting through the seven palm trees as a sign that strength for strength Bali was still no match for Lord Rama are simply the outer conditions of the Divine Play.

The core was that Bali had to be eliminated for establishing the reign of dharma in Aryavarta.

The sign that one is on this path is either one is drawn towards the Mother and Sri Aurobindo with or without reason, or else, one feels within oneself the calling to walk the way, urge to take up this yoga, aspiration for the Divine provided it is not driven by any personal ambition.

Even before that one may be reasonably sure that he/she is preparing to enter this path if one is attracted towards the teachings and writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Walking on the path makes one humble because the more one comes in contact with the Divine, the more one understands and realises that one is nothing, one can do nothing without the Divine Mother’s Grace.

Q: Where and how thoughts are formed, do they come from the subtle body?

ALOKDA: The origin of thoughts is far above like lightnings in the sky. They are rays of light that come to earth as vibrations to awaken earth and man to consciousness. But just as the rays get mixed with the mud and assume a muddy character so too these thought rays when they enter the cosmic field assume a triple character of good-bad-neutral vibrations. From the cosmic field they enter into all things as a dumb knowledge. In human beings they enter the brain and pick up the language, words and sounds to which the person is conditioned and express themselves through speech. Therefore, by training the speech, by cleansing the thoughts freeing them from all the mud and filth into which these brilliant rays are trapped we can ascend upwards as through a rope, right up to their original Source.

The thoughts therefore can be divided into two types with reference to their origin. First two closely connected to the original vibration of Light are in the higher mental worlds in a subtle form and are called paravak and pasyanti, the supreme word and the seeing word. Then when they enter our realm and get modified by the ignorance they are called madhyama and vaikhari, where vaikhari is the average human though and speech.

The Madonnas are the triple soul forces or the three modes of nature – sattwa, rajas, tamas – through which the soul expresses itself presently in the lower nature.
Savitri encounters each one of them and promises that she will return with the power of transformation and change them into the equivalent forces of a higher Supernature, – tamas into self-existent peace, rajas into luminous Force of the Divine and sattwa into the light and delight of God.

The four aspects are cosmic powers that govern creation and prepares it for the transformation.

Of course, the triple modes of lower nature eventually derive their power from the four cosmic powers just as the individual soul is a miniature representation of the Universal Divine. Thus,
– Mahakali and Mahalakshmi are parents of rajoguna, Madonna of Might that helps us struggle and fight and enjoy,
– Maheswari is the parent of sattwaguna, the Madonna of Light, and
– Mahasaraswati is the parent of the Madonna of suffering that helps us endure suffering and pain.

In the human system these powers get diverted from their true purpose and distorted due to the ego and ignorance. That is what is revealed to us through the echo in the abyss.

Q: Where did God come from and why? Where did his power come from? Why did he create a world in which there is only sorrow?

ALOKDA: The Divine is called as swayambhu (Self-born) because He/She is the Origin of all origins. It is a way of saying that He is a self existent Reality. There is no why to it except that for the purpose of the manifestation He makes himself somewhat tangible even though in the last analysis Unknowable.
Why manifestation? Well because the Delight of the Divine, the Consciousness of the Divine, the infinity of the Divine seeks to express Itself as a poet expresses what is within him. Manifestation is impelled by Delight. Pain and pleasure are means to prepare us for receiving and expressing the delight. They are stages of preparation just as a mountaineer impelled with the possibility of joy on climbing the high peaks, must prepare himself through hard training or as a child must train and discipline himself to bring out his deeper possibilities so too creation undergoes suffering as a kind of labour pain to deliver the godlike or divine possibility within us.