Daily Offerings from Alokda Archives - Page 11 of 34

My negative thoughts are intense and prayers don’t help, what can be done? done with negative thoughts?

Q: I have been tormented by tremendous negative thoughts. I have been praying to both the Mother And Sri Aurobindo intensely with a zero result. The negative thoughts are intense and are causing tremendous harm. I understand that it takes a while for Her Grace to respond but the situation is dire here. What can be done? Please help.

ALOKDA: Dear A., surely prayers will help, yours as much as mine. An ardent sincere prayer is always responded to. The problem is that we go back to our old ways and hence the help is nullified and things that we do not want return.

At the same time there are few ways that you may try to help countering negative thoughts:

First, you can always try to deliberately give yourself positive thoughts and suggestions. Say for example you can say to yourself that ‘All will be well” and so on and so forth.

Secondly, spend your time reading good and beautiful things that uplift us rather than being drawn towards things that pull us down. For example you can make a choice either to watch the TV channel which is all the time busy showing the most pessimistic possibility or else a Health channel that is showing you how we can strengthen our immune system and remain happy and cheerful amidst all circumstances.

Thirdly, especially when negative thoughts arise then turn your mind away by doing something constructive such as arranging your cupboard neatly or tending some plants.

Fourthly, you can learn to witness the thoughts and feelings without indulging or flowing with them in a non-judgmental attitude. However, this self-watching itself should not into become an obsession but a means to separate yourself from the thoughts and know that you are not these thoughts and feelings.

Finally, one can offer these thoughts to the Divine Grace either by writing them in a notebook with a prayer to remove them. Later one can burn the notebook or destroy it by tearing the pages with a forceful will to be free from these things.

At the same time, it is important not to be too obsessed with this negative side of life. Rather spend your energies cultivating inner Peace and Light and Wideness and Joy. As the Light grows the darkness will slowly this out and eventually disappear. This is much more effective and a long term solution than fighting with the darkness while being still oneself in darkness.

Affectionately
alok da

2024-10-24

The Breath of the Spirit

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.

2024-10-24

Songs of the Soul: October 24, 2024

Supreme Mother,
may all misery and suffering be washed away in the purifying rain of Thy Grace.
May all be healed, filled and fulfilled with the waters of Thy Divine Love. May the fire of sacrifice be lit up in human heart and the day become a happy pilgrim march towards Thy Home of Beauty and Light. May the ways of Truth be found and shedding the dark attire of ignorance, may our souls breathe Thy infinite Force, drink the sweet invigorating nectar of Thy Divine Love, grow stronger by Thy Delight and the human world be filled with Thy Harmony and Peace.

May we live no more by appearances but by the vision of Truth, no more by the fanciful play of desires but by the law of Truth, no more by the ignorant ideas of self and world but by the knowledge of Truth.

Om Tat Sat

Om Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa

2024-10-24

Why so many masters are considered ‘the last avatars’ in their tradition? It is a matter of disciple’s ego?

Q: You say Sri Aurobindo is the last avatar and Savitri is the ultimate scripture, but for Mussulmans Mohammad is the last prophet and the quran is the only book, while sikhs say Guru Nanak is the all time greatest. Is it not the disciples ego to declared this without knowing declaring who is the greatest?

ALOKDA: It is perfectly fine for a disciple to see the Supreme in one’s own Master as this helps him to go beyond the physical and other limitations of his Guru. That has been the wisdom of the Ages endorsed by all who have gone before us. It is rather the sign of the disciple’s ego that refuses to acknowledge the Master through whom he has been called to the path as the representative of the Divine and chooses instead his own mental yardsticks and standards to either judge the Master or else to go Master hopping. To each his own ego.

But the comparision drawn between the followers of the Quran and the Bible is incorrect since they add that this alone and no other. It is this exclusivity that opens the doors to fundamentalism and even fanaticism leading to all kinds of evil in the name of one’s Master. It is perfectly fine to see one’s own Master as the Ultimate for oneself but to impose this upon others, worse still try to convert others by force or lure or for that matter even look down upon them condescendingly for out of superior pride is surely the sign of the ego. But to impersonally look at the merits and demerits of a book and a religious movement is a step to go beyond it. That kind of blind indiscriminate and undiscerning equality that assumes all Masters and Books to be the same and equal is only another kind of blindness.

That apart as to the place of Sri Aurobindo and Savitri in the history of spiritual evolution, it is something that can be easily ascertained by an impartial view of things, of his life and works and teachings. Sri Aurobindo and Savitri does not need anyone to reveal who they are. All that is needed is sufficient unbiased discernment even as an outsider to see what they stand for.

2024-10-23

The Question of Questions

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.

2024-10-23

Songs of the Soul: October 23, 2024

Mother Divine, there seems to be not one destiny but several destinies that chase us as we move through life. Each of these pulls some part of us in a direction that would open doors to one set of events and experiences. Each of these pulls, if accepted, puts us in the corresponding network of forces leading to a certain result. Each of these is an unfinished curve of our evolutionary journey, an unfinished tale whose threads are lost in some deep crypt of nature. Ultimately all these several destinies eventually lead us to Thee, for Thou art there at the core and circumference of everything, Thou art the eternal wayfarer who walks on every path as well as the goal of all our journeys. Yet when we choose to be pulled in one direction and then another, we go through the crisscross chequered board of life, a crablike crawl with an endless list of pleasure and pain. Desire and pleasure are the hooks through which nature pulls us along the long serpentine roads of Time. The experience gained, she uses pain to put us back on the straight and sunlit road that leads us to Thee through the broad and beautiful spaces of the soul. Thus, we move until one day we hear Your call and heed it.

Then all other distracting destinies begin to close, they drop off like dust from our feet when we reach home and bathe in the purifying streams of Your love. We receive whatever experience we still need through certain events and circumstances, people and situations, either in our subjective self or, if the pull is too strong, through a brief brush with them, yet held safe in Your hands ensuring that the road to the highest destiny is never lost. In fact, every experience turns into a feeder to progress fast and grow closer and closer to Thee.

Oh, what a supreme assurance it is, what a blessing and a blessedness to turn to Thee and walk smoothly, held by Thy hand, or carried in Thy arms upon the broad and clear highway that leads straight to Thee. For he who has found Thee there is but one destiny, – to be one with Thee, everywhere and in everything, in every state of being, at every level of consciousness, in every domain of being, Thee only Thee.

Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa

2024-10-23

Can you please suggest a daily routine to connect to the Mother?

Q: Can you give me a simple daily routine which is as practical as it is spiritual so that we can connect to The Mother and start her work of purifying us and making us receptive to her influence?

ALOKDA: Connecting with the Mother has more to do with attitudes and aspiration than with a routine. However a routine can be helpful because it helps us organise our life and time. It also instills some kind of a discipline which is helpful to channelize and focus our energies rightly. Of course anything, any routine or practice becomes counterproductive if followed too rigidly. It takes away the plasticity needed for a natural organic growth towards the Divine and can sometimes hinder the suddenness of the divine disclosure in our life in unexpected moments. Also we need to understand that each one is different in their constitution, temperament, life situations and circumstances and one routine that may work for someone may not do so for another. Even the practices (not the fundamental attitudes and approach) differ from person to person. Given this proviso, a basic daily routine that may be good for most practitioners should include the following:

1. About half an hour to one hour at least for the study of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s books. The book to be read first depends upon one’s temperament and seeking. My favourites have been ‘Savitri’ and ‘Prayers and Meditations’. I have also found writing down select passages from these two books very helpful.

2. About half an hour to one hour of meditation / concentration with an aspiration to find the Divine. This period is best divided into two or three sittings at different times of the day, for example 20 to 30 minutes in the morning and another 20 to 30 minutes in the night with another spell of concentration during mid-day. This can be a period of concentrated Japa with one’s consciousness focused on the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the heart center or above the head.

3. About one hour of selfless work for the Divine. This could be done either by giving time to offer services at one of the Sri Aurobindo centers or else some other online work that is associated with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and Their teachings. If neither is possible then one can offer whatever work one is doing to Her and do it in a spirit of selfless service to Her in a state of Remembrance.

4. About half an hour to one hour of exercises daily split into 15 to 20 minutes of stretches and breath focusing and another 40 to 45 minutes of walk.

5. It is helpful if one can write a dairy in the form of a letter to the Mother about all that is going on in one’s life with a prayer to open oneself to Her Light and Love and Peace and Joy and Grace.

Apart from this one should basically lead a balanced life of moderation in food and sleep, avoid excesses of any kind and stop indulging in smoking and alcoholic drinks. As to sexuality, the attitude should be to gradually get it off one’s system. This takes time, sometimes really long but eventually one succeeds if the aspiration is persistent and one keeps calling Her Grace for help. This effort again should not be some kind of a forced and sudden suppression, especially if one continues indulgence in the mind. One has to first practice samyama (regulation) with an eventual will towards mastery and conquest.

It is important to remember that in yoga it is not just what one does but equally what one does not do that is important. Thus it is best to avoid social interchanges with all kinds of people, especially partying or marriage or gathering together for gossip. A healthy friendship is one thing and having a host of social circle with all kinds of people, especially those whose life and thoughts are not at all aligned with the goal and the path one has chosen.

It is important for the seekers of this yoga to make a visit to the Ashram once or twice an year to recharge themselves with the intense vibrations that radiate from their Samadhi. It gives an extra push towards the goal. Even few moments spent near the samadhi in this place which is the seat of Their tapasya is more than worth the effort and time taken to reach.

As I said, this ‘routine’, if it can be so called, should not be turned into a universal ritual. Eventually each one must find one’s own inner rhythm and outer means for connecting oneself to the Divine Mother. What is most important is not what one does but why one does it. any or even all of these things done as a soulless ritual or for some covert ambition or desire for some kind of fruit of one’s effort takes away the real thing. Even japa if done for getting power or satisfying some kind of spiritual or other ambition closes the doors to Light and Truth. The inner attitude is thus the most important. The outer derives its value from that and not vice versa.

2024-10-22

The Golden Key to Integration

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.

2024-10-22

Songs of the Soul: October 22, 2024

Maa, Beloved Supreme, may our hearts, fully enamored by Thee, be bound to Thee with chords of faith, devotion and love. May this love translate itself not only in outer worship, not only in feelings but in concrete acts of Thy service and submission to Thy Will.

May Thy sacred fire burn in each corner of our being, may its radiance enter each cell, may its power express in every act, may its beauty glow in every form unhindered and unobstructed by this hard and dense material cover.

May all the quarters chant Thy Name and every heart sing Thy Glory. May all be resplendent by Thy Light, filled with Thy Peace and in harmony with all existences.

May all be full of Thee, moved by Thee towards Truth and Beauty and Bliss, O Wonder of wonders, Glory of glories, O Marvellous One.

Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa

2024-10-22