Daily Offerings
Lost Spiritual Home
As one drawn to his lost spiritual home
Feels now the closeness of a waiting love,
Into a passage dim and tremulous
That clasped him in from day and night’s pursuit,
He travelled led by a mysterious sound.
A murmur multitudinous and lone,
All sounds it was in turn, yet still the same.
A hidden call to unforeseen delight
In the summoning voice of one long-known, well-loved,
But nameless to the unremembering mind,
It led to rapture back the truant heart.
The immortal cry ravished the captive ear.
Then, lowering its imperious mystery,
It sank to a whisper circling round the soul.
It seemed the yearning of a lonely flute
That roamed along the shores of memory
And filled the eyes with tears of longing joy.
A cricket’s rash and fiery single note,
It marked with shrill melody night’s moonless hush
And beat upon a nerve of mystic sleep
Its high insistent magical reveille.
A jingling silver laugh of anklet bells
Travelled the roads of a solitary heart;
Its dance solaced an eternal loneliness:
An old forgotten sweetness sobbing came.
Or from a far harmonious distance heard
The tinkling pace of a long caravan
It seemed at times, or a vast forest’s hymn,
The solemn reminder of a temple gong,
A bee-croon honey-drunk in summer isles
Ardent with ecstasy in a slumbrous noon,
Or the far anthem of a pilgrim sea.
[Savitri: Book Two Canto 14]
Thy Life, Thy Light, Thy Love
May 22, 1914
When we have discerned successively what is real from what is unreal in all the states of being and all the worlds of life, when we have arrived at the perfect and integral certitude of the sole Reality, we must turn our gaze from the heights of this supreme consciousness towards the individual aggregate which serves as the immediate instrument for Thy manifestation upon earth, and see in it nothing but Thee, our sole real existence. Thus each atom of this aggregate will be awakened to receive Thy sublime influence; the ignorance and the darkness will disappear not only from the central consciousness of the being but also from its most external mode of expression. It is only by the fulfilment, by the perfection of this labour of transfiguration that there can be manifested the plenitude of Thy Presence, Thy Light and Thy Love.
Lord, Thou makest me understand this truth ever more clearly; lead me step by step on that path. My whole being down to its smallest atom aspires for the perfect knowledge of Thy presence and a complete union with it. Let every obstacle disappear, let Thy divine knowledge replace in every part the darkness of the ignorance. Even as Thou hast illumined the central consciousness, the will in the being, enlighten too this outermost substance. And let the whole individuality, from its first origin and essence to its last projection and most material body, be unified in a perfect realisation and a complete manifestation of Thy sole Reality.
Nothing is in the universe but Thy Life, Thy Light, Thy Love.
Let everything become resplendent and transfigured by the knowledge of Thy Truth.
Thy divine love floods my being; Thy supreme light is shining in every cell; all exults because it knows Thee and because it is one with Thee.
[Prayers and Meditations of the Mother]
Sign of the Vital Conversion
Another remarkable sign of the conversion of your vital, owing to Agni’s influence, is that you face your difficulties and obstacles with a smile. You do not sit any more in sackcloth and ashes, lamenting over your mistakes and feeling utterly crestfallen because you are not at the moment quite up to the mark. You simply chase away depression with a smile. A hundred mistakes do not matter to you: with a smile you recognise that you have erred and with a smile you resolve not to repeat the folly in the future. All depression and gloom is created by the hostile forces who are never so pleased as when throwing on you a melancholy mood. Humility is indeed one thing and depression quite another, the former a divine movement and the latter a very crude expression of the dark forces. Therefore, face your troubles joyously, oppose with invariable cheerfulness the obstacles that beset the road to transformation. The best means of routing the enemy is to laugh in his face! You may grapple and tussle for days and he may still show an undiminished vigour; but just once laugh at him and lo! he takes to his heels. A laugh of self-confidence and of faith in the Divine is the most shattering strength possible—it disrupts the enemy’s front, spreads havoc in his ranks and carries you triumphantly onwards.
[The Mother: CWM 3]
Songs of the Soul: November 16, 2024
Mother Divine, may our life be meaningful and purposeful, true and high and noble and beautiful, dedicated to Thy service.
May we be generous givers to all and everything around us as the river, the sun, the trees, the flowers.
May we support the growth and blossoming of all creatures as the earth.
May we be as the sky, vast enough to include and accommodate everything, yet arranging it all according to the law of Truth and the vision of the highest Light.
May we become Her radiant torches in the world of darkness, Her lamps of Light on the pilgrim path through which men pass, Her sweet nectarous streams for tired thirsty souls, Her healing hands to comfort and succour.
May our life be no more spent on personal satisfaction nor wasted on vain self glory and idle pursuits.
And when we pass to higher spheres to rest with Thee, may we return stronger and wiser, better equipped to serve Thee, better able to love Thee and do Thy Work.
May we see Thee in all things and everywhere.
Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa
A River
Look at a River. Watch it flow through varied landscapes, hills and valleys and plains and forests, through boulders and rocks and yet, it always finds its way.
Three things the river teaches us. First to remember the Origin, to stay connected with it. This is the secret of its force and strength. It is the power that impels it from its source filling it with fresh energy and the joy of constant progression.
Second, to remember the Goal. It must flow towards the ocean becoming a beautiful link between the silent snowy summits mating with the vast sky, and the deep blue sea, the vastness of earth upholding a million forms of life.
It knows where to go and the path opens up and forms of itself. It does not flow along a prefixed pre-determined path, but impelled by the power of the Origin and the knowledge of the Goal, it moves forward. As it thus moves, it turns everything into a path, now carrying them along, now skirting around them but always at the end finding its way to the goal, enriching itself, in the journey.
Everything becomes for it a stepping stone on the way, for it never forgets the Goal. Finally, it never dries up for it gives as it goes and always remains connected to the inexhaustible source from which it is born.
Not limited, self-centred and contained like the pond, it never dries up, nor does it become dirty or stale, since it has learnt the secret of constant progression and through it a constant renewal of forces and energies.
What happens after death to a disciple of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga?
Q: If someone pursues this path will he have to take birth again? Will this be his last lifetime? What is his path after death? Does he attain the spiritual abodes like Vaikuntha / Goloka which is the destination for Vaishnavas or does he merge into Brahman or does he attain these realms and continue the work from there?
ALOKDA: In the traditional conception life is seen as an illusion, Maya, a field of suffering or more correctly pleasure and pain in which the soul is caught due to Ignorance. Therefore to escape from life into Moksha by various forms of Yoga is seen as the highest goal. One cuts the web of karma and the individual soul dissolves in the Supreme Reality.
In the Vaishnava and other bhakti traditions, life is a Lila of the Cosmic Creator. The soul or the jiva though his portion is tied to Ignorance due to Maya and hence to pleasure and pain. The Maya is not a creator of illusion but a cause of bondage. By praying, worship and bhakti one draws the Grace of the Divine Being through whatever aspect one seeks, Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Devi etc. The Divine Being or the Godhead once pleased with the bhakta makes the devotee ascend to his divine abode and stay near the Godhead in an ethereal body, chinmaya deha. At the end of kalpa, his soul withdraws into the Supreme Transcendent Source, Parabrahma along with the Godhead.
In Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga the world is seen as a half finished progressive manifestation of the Divine. Here the meaning of mukti is to discover the Divine Presence within and live and act in the world in tune with the Divine Will. Since this means a cessation of the egoism of the doer, the Jiva lives and acts in the world as a free soul, jivanmukta. He is neither willing for dissolution of his individual soul nor afraid of returning to the world through Rebirth. He comes back to do God’s work in the world, in humanity, lokasangrahartha, to help mankind evolve further.
This is the ideal of the Gita. Now Sri Aurobindo reveals what that further is. He says that man is a transitional being and is destined to evolve into a fully conscious divine superhumanity by embodying higher and higher levels of consciousness than the present human mind. The disciples of Sri Aurobindo are freed through this Yoga, at first into the jivanmukta state. Then they consciously become parts of the original Divine Plan and collaborate in the creation of the future superhumanity. For this they are free to come back into a human body and participate more directly in this new Divine Project, creation of the supramental being. Or else after withdrawing from the physical body, dwell in Sri Aurobindo’s abode in the subtle physical world waiting for the New Creation to crystallise and then take up a new supramental divine body for the earthly life.
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