Daily Offerings
Comrade of Heaven
Earth-nature stood reborn, comrade of heaven.
A fit companion of the timeless Kings,
Equalled with the godheads of the living Suns,
He mixed in the radiant pastimes of the Unborn,
Heard whispers of the Player never seen
And listened to his voice that steals the heart
And draws it to the breast of God’s desire,
And felt its honey of felicity
Flow through his veins like the rivers of Paradise,
Made body a nectar-cup of the Absolute.
In sudden moments of revealing flame,
In passionate responses half-unveiled
He reached the rim of ecstasies unknown;
A touch supreme surprised his hurrying heart,
The clasp was remembered of the Wonderful,
And hints leaped down of white beatitudes.
Eternity drew close disguised as Love
And laid its hand upon the body of Time.
A little gift comes from the Immensitudes,
But measureless to life its gain of joy;
All the untold Beyond is mirrored there.
A giant drop of the Bliss unknowable
Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became
A fiery ocean of felicity;
He foundered drowned in sweet and burning vasts:
The dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh,
The rapture that the gods sustain he bore.
Immortal pleasure cleansed him in its waves
And turned his strength into undying power.
Immortality captured Time and carried Life.
[Savitri: Book Two Canto 9]
Calm Sunrise
March 8, 1914
In front of this calm sunrise which turned all within me into silence and peace, at the moment when I grew conscious of Thee and Thou alone wast living in me, O Lord, it seemed to me that I adopted all the inhabitants of this ship, and enveloped them in an equal love, and that so in each one of them something of Thy consciousness would awake. Not often had I felt so strongly Thy divine power and Thy invincible light, and once again total was my confidence and unmixed my joyful surrender.
O Thou who relievest all suffering and dispersest all ignorance, O Thou the supreme healer, be constantly present on this boat in the heart of those whom it shelters that once again Thy glory may be manifested!
[Prayers and Meditations of the Mother]
The Force and Movement of Love
The force of love in the world is trying to find consciousnesses that are capable of receiving this divine movement in its purity and expressing it. This race of all beings towards love, this irresistible push and seeking out in the world’s heart and in all hearts, is the impulse given by a Divine love behind the human longing and seeking. It touches millions of instruments, trying always, always failing; but this constant touch prepares these instruments and suddenly one day there will awake in them the capacity of self-giving, the capacity of loving.
The movement of love is not limited to human beings and it is perhaps less distorted in other worlds than in the human. Look at the flowers and trees. When the sun sets and all becomes silent, sit down for a moment and put yourself into communion with Nature: you will feel rising from the earth, from below the roots of the trees and mounting upward and coursing through their fibres up to the highest outstretching branches, the aspiration of an intense love and longing,—a longing for something that brings light and gives happiness, for the light that is gone and they wish to have back again. There is a yearning so pure and intense that if you can feel the movement in the trees, your own being too will go up in an ardent prayer for the peace and light and love that are unmanifested here. Once you have come in contact with this large, pure and true Divine love, if you have felt it even for a short time and in its smallest form, you will realise what an abject thing human desire has made of it. It has become in human nature something low, brutal, selfish, violent, ugly, or else it is something weak and sentimental, made up of the pettiest feeling, brittle, superficial, exacting. And this baseness and brutality or this self-regarding weakness they call love!
[The Mother: CWM 3]
Songs of the Soul: October 02, 2024
Mother Divine,
as the sun rises and its glory spreads over the sky cleaving all darkness and clouds, filling the earth with renewed hope and purpose and joy, so too many the sun of Thy Truth and Love rise within our heart freeing us from all ignorance and doubt.
May Thy Peace and Joy fill us with new effort and hope and all in us may turn towards the ocean of light that beckons.
May we be no more confined to smallness and pettiness and meanness and selfishness.
May we grow in vastnesses and unity and light and peace and love.
Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa
Ways of the Master
The disciples sometimes wondered about the Master’s behaviour. He would gather all kinds of people around him even those who seemed worse than ordinary men. One voiced his doubt. The Master smiled as he replied: “Wouldst thou measure the worth of a seed by the thickness of its casing, the height of a man by the size of his shoe, the dimensions of his inner being by the girth of his belly? So too judge not the inner truth of a man by his outer behaviour nor measure his soul’s aspiration by his outer virtues. A great light may throw up a great shadow behind it. And a most ordinary looking shell may hide beneath its wings a rare invaluable pearl.”
The sceptics wondered why some disciples progressed faster than others. The Master pointed at a rich harvest and answered: “The souls that come to me are like a seed. I am the farmer who ploughs the soil and sows the seeds giving an equal opportunity of the light of sun and the rain of Grace to all. Some seeds however are afraid of the Light and fail to burst open. Other are over eager to draw the sun to themselves and get burnt out. Some, the rare few, trust my hands and the time taken for fruition and do not cling to the dark womb of safety. They are the happiest and the luckiest ones that throw the richest harvest.”
“How does one know that the soul has awakened?” asked another. The Master pointed at the early morning sun and observed: “How does one know that the sun has arisen? By a light that illumines our sight driving away the grey phantom shadows of the night; by the song of the birds that greet the dawn. By the rush of a joy that is full of glad peace and a stillness that carries happiness in its bosom. By the silver lining of hope that begins to appear from behind the clouds. By a scattering of the fog and mist and the warmth of a glow within the heart. By the feeling of an urge to grow and an invitation to work and progress. By discovering the love that binds the sky to the earth and all that exists upon it. By seeing the Fire and Light ascend to higher and higher skies. So too with the awakening of the soul one feels a growing peace and joy within the heart, one begins to see hope behind even the darkest appearances, there is birth of faith and aspiration and prayer. A warmth and sweetness and enthusiasm for Godward effort and the urge for progress. Most of all love is born, true love, in the human heart and there is a smile in every circumstance.
What is the Best Way to Help Suffering Humanity Around Us?
Alokda: The issue of helping humanity can be seen at various levels. In a certain sense we all help each other, knowingly or unknowingly, we take care of those close to us physically or emotionally, help those in distress, express our gratitude towards some others through some means of help we may render. Thus seen, the urge to help is one of the impulses that characterises the nobler side of our humanity. It is also a first corrective to our grosser forms of egoism and reminds us that we are neither isolated nor alone. It is the very basis of any society, including a spiritual commune. The mistake that we however make is to believe that this kind of help is akin to leading a spiritual life. Helping humanity is directed towards human beings whereas true spiritual life is directed towards the Divine. This is the first point of divergence. Of course, the former can be a preparation for the latter. An altruist sacrificing his life at the altar of humanity or an ideal is getting ready, in this life or another, to sacrifice his ego-self at the altar of divinity. Yet the two are not the same nor always simply one step away. People who help others may be quite satisfied with this activity and may not feel the urge to go deeper within themselves to at least see the motive-forces behind their urge to help. They may even feel puffed up by their ‘helpfulness’ especially when ego-self is fed with praise from others for their helpful nature. Others may be doing it for cruder motives such as securing a seat in some higher world through altruism, or to be remembered by others for their philanthropy. It is then simply a kind of ambition for name and fame which is obviously a big stumbling block towards true spiritual life.
Does it mean that a spiritual man should not be helpful or that he must remain absorbed in his narrow spiritual goal which may be just another kind of selfishness? Then what about the Gita’s famous dictum that a spiritual man is engaged ever in the good of all creatures, sarvabhutahiteratah? Well, it all depends upon the motive that drives one towards spirituality? There is no doubt a spirituality often tainted by the selfish urge to have experiences, or being regarded as some kind of a yogi or siddha or at best to merge into nirvana and be freed from the chaos and confusions of worldly life. But there is another kind of spiritual life epitomised in the life and teachings of Sri Krishna and Sri Aurobindo. According to this line of spiritual self-evolution we must first and foremost concentrate on one’s own spiritual progress which runs for a while parallel with all our human activities but the central motive must change. Thus, even while we may be seemingly engaged in helping others it should not be a service of human beings, Nara-Sewa, but a service of the Divine through this, Narayana-Sewa. Though seemingly a small inner change it makes a vast difference for the growing spiritual life within us. In the latter we remain inwardly detached to our action and slowly the sense of doership and ownership which are the natural offshoots of rajasic egoism pass away from us. Then our – helping others’ no more binds us. Nor are we moved to help merely by pity or with the sense of moral superiority or sense of righteousness but simply as a natural expression of the Divine impulsion within us. In fact, when we are in that state then the valuation of things changes and we may well recognise that distributing blankets to the poor may be simply encouraging tamas whereas fighting a battle as Arjuna did may be a great help to propel humanity forward. In fact even the same activity such a feeding the poor may stem from either a very human motive or else by a deep spiritual angst and compassion towards suffering humanity. Much depends upon the inner motive that drives us to action. That is the second important thing in yoga. From the spiritual point of view it is not the action but the force that drives us to act, the motive and the state of consciousness behind it that gives determines whether it is spiritual or not.
Finally, what is the highest help that we can render to humanity? Isn’t it the gift of Light and Hope and Peace, to bring them into contact with the spiritual forces that would pull one out of Ignorance? Distributing blankets or feeding the poor may help the body in a certain limited way but awakening someone to the need of a spiritual change is a help that endures the rub and change of time and extends beyond a single lifetime of this body. But how are we going to do it if we ourselves have not directed our energies sufficiently to gather these spiritual forces or surrendered enough to be Her luminous channel freed from the ego-sense of ‘me and my-ness’.
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