Daily Offerings
A Being Lived, a Presence and a Power
An incense floated in the quivering air,
A mystic happiness trembled in the breast
As if the invisible Beloved had come
Assuming the sudden loveliness of a face
And close glad hands could seize his fugitive feet
And the world change with the beauty of a smile.
Into a wonderful bodiless realm he came,
The home of a passion without name or voice,
A depth he felt answering to every height,
A nook was found that could embrace all worlds,
A point that was the conscious knot of Space,
An hour eternal in the heart of Time.
The silent Soul of all the world was there:
A Being lived, a Presence and a Power,
A single Person who was himself and all
And cherished Nature’s sweet and dangerous throbs
Transfigured into beats divine and pure.
[Savitri: Book Two Canto 14]
Thy Love is Vaster Than the Ages
May 23, 1914
O Lord, Thou of whom I would be constantly conscious and whom I would realise in the smallest cells of my being, Thou whom I would know as myself and see manifested in all things, Thou who art the sole reality, the sole cause and aim of existence, grant that my love for Thee may grow ever greater so that I may be all love, Thy love itself, and that, being Thy love, I may unite integrally with Thee. May this love grow more and more intense, complete, luminous, powerful; may this love become an irresistible urge towards Thee, the invincible means of manifesting Thee. May everything in this being become pure, profound, disinterested, divine love—from the unfathomable depths to the outermost substance. May the God with form who manifests in this aggregate be entirely moulded from Thy complete and sublime love, the love which is at once the source and the realisation of all knowledge; may thought be clarified, organised, enlightened, transformed by Thy love; may all the life-forces, solely impregnated by Thy love and moulded from it, draw from it irresistible purity and constant energy, power and rectitude. May this weakened intermediary being, take advantage of its weakness to reconstitute itself with elements entirely moulded from Thy love, and may this body, now a burning brazier, radiate Thy divine, impersonal, sublime and calm love from every pore…. May the brain be reconstituted by Thy love. Lastly, may Thy love overflow, flood, penetrate, transfigure, regenerate, animate all things, with the power, the splendour, the sweetness and force which are its very own. In Thy love is peace, in Thy love is joy, in Thy love is Thy servitor’s sovereign lever of work.
Thy love is vaster than the universe and more lasting than all the ages; it is infinite, eternal, it is Thyself. And it is Thyself I want to be and that I am, for such is Thy law, such is Thy will.
[Prayers and Meditations of the Mother]
The Transformation is Going to Be
The converted vital feels also a joy in the process of realisation. All the difficulties implied in that process it accepts with gusto, it never feels happier than when the Truth is shown it and the play of falsehood in its lower nature laid bare. It does not do the Yoga as if carrying a burden on its back but as if it were a very pleasurable occupation. It is willing to endure the utmost with a smile if it is a condition of the transformation. Neither complaining nor grumbling, it endures happily because it is for the sake of the Divine that it does so. It has the unshakable conviction that the victory will be won. Never for an instant does it vacillate in its belief that the mighty work of Change taken up by Sri Aurobindo is going to culminate in success. For that indeed is a fact; there is not a shadow of doubt as to the issue of the work we have in hand. It is no mere experiment but an inevitable manifestation of the Supramental. The converted vital has a prescience of the victory, keeps up a will towards progress which never turns its back, feels full of the energy which is born of its certitude about the triumph of the Divine whom it is aware of always in itself as doing whatsoever is necessary and infusing in it the unfaltering power to resist and finally conquer its enemies. Why should it despair or complain? The transformation is going to be: nothing will ever stop it, nothing will frustrate the decree of the Omnipotent. Cast away, therefore, all diffidence and weakness, and resolve to endure bravely awhile before the great day arrives when the long battle turns into an everlasting victory.
[The Mother, Questions and Answers (1929 – 1931)]
Songs of the Soul: November 17, 2024
Mother Divine, as we contemplate upon this very special day, words, feelings, all fall short before the profundity and solemnity of the moment. Nothing seems adequate. All that we can do is bow down before Thee with all our being surrendering all that we are conscious of and all that we are not yet conscious of, all that we are and all that we yet shall be. In that state of complete surrender, as complete as possible, we offer at Thy Feet all our life and lives to come in Thy Service, in Thy Love, in utter gratitude.
May all in us be full of love for Thee. May each cell of our body be a hearth of Thy flame of love. May each feeling be a winged hymn carrying Thy Love everywhere. May each thought be a burning shaft of Thy Love filling the quarters with Thy radiance and bliss. May our heart beat with Thy Love and each breath be a cry of Love for Thee.
O Supreme Mother May we be always conscious of Thee, everywhere and in every being. In each voice may we hear Thy Voice. In each form may we behold Thy Form. In each contact may we experience Thy thrill. In each embrace may we discover Thy Sweetness and Joy. May all things unfold Thy working and all become means to touch Thee, find Thee, discover Thee.
O Supreme, who would say Thou art not here when Thou art indeed here, there, everywhere. May we have the eyes to see Thee, the heart to feel Thee and the mind that knows Thee and Thy Ways and Thy Workings.
O Love Supreme, to Thee our infinite love and gratitude.
Om Anandamayee Chaitanyamayee Satyamayee Parame.
Maa 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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