The Existence of God

"They proved to me by convincing reasons that God does not exist; Afterwards I saw God, for he came and embraced me. And now what am I to believe- the reasoning of others or my own experience? Truth is what the soul has seen and experienced; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion."

Sri Aurobindo

From the Mother's anecdotes

"Madame Théon was born on the Isle of Wight and she lived in Tlemcen with her husband who was a great occultist. Madame The on herself was an occultist of great powers, a remarkable clairvoyant, and she had mediumistic qualities. Her powers were quite exceptional; she had received an extremely complete and rigorous training and she could exteriorise herself; that is, bring out of her material body a subtle body, in full consciousness, and do it twelve times in succession. That is, she could pass consciously from one state of being to another, live there as consciously as in the physical body, and then again put that subtler body into trance, exteriorise herself from it, and so on twelve times successively, to the extreme limit of the world of...... I shall speak to you about that later, when you can understand better what I am talking about. But I am going to tell you about some small incidents I saw when I was in TIemecen myself, and a story she told me I shall also tell you.

The incidents are of a more external kind, but very funny.

She was almost always in trance and she had trained her body so well that even when she was in trance, that is, when one or more parts of her being were exteriorised, the body had a life of its own and she could walk about and even attend to some small material occupations.... She did a great deal of work, for in her trances she could talk freely and she used to narrate what she saw, which was noted down and later formed a teaching - which has even been published. And because of all that and the occult work she was doing, she was often tired, in the sense that her body was tired and needed to recuperate its vitality in a very concrete way.

Now, one day when she was particularly tired, she told me, "You will see how I am going to recover my strength." She had plucked from her garden - it was not a garden, it was a vast estate with ancient olive trees, and fir trees such as I have never seen anywhere..., it was a real marvel, on a mountain-side, from the plain to almost half way up - and in this garden there were many lemon trees and orange trees... and grapefruit. Grapefruit has flowers which have an even better fragrance than orange blossoms - they are large flowers and she knew how to make an essence from them herself, she had given me a bottle - well, she had plucked a huge grape- fruit like this, (gesture) very large and ripe, and she lay down on her bed and put the grapefruit on her solar plexus, here, (gesture) like this, holding it with both hands. She lay down and rested. She did not sleep, she rested. She told me: "Come back in an hour." An hour later I returned... and the grapefruit was as flat as a pancake. That meant that she had such a power to absorb vitality that she had absorbed all the life from the fruit and it had become soft and completely flat. And I saw that myself! You may try, you won't succeed!"


The Mother, Questions and Answers, 1957-58, Centenary Edition, vol.9, pp.58-63

"Occult knowledge without spiritual discipline is a dangerous instrument, for the me who uses it as for others, if it falls into impure hands. Spiritual knowledge without occult science lacks precision and certainty in its objective results; it is all-powerful only in the objective world. The two, when combined in inner or outer action, are irresistible and are fit instruments for the manifestation of the supramental power. "

Mirra Alfassa (Mother)

Into the New Body

Posted by Barindranath Chaki

The Mother, Mira Alfassa, walked into the New Body on the 17th day of November 1973. She left Her physical body and walked and entered into the then newly formed Supramental Body. The World knew and told that She has passed away.

It is said that The Mother withdrew Herself on the 17th day of November in 1973. However, we will see that in reality, in the highest meaning and sense of the term ‘reality’, The Mother continues eternally — in a NEW BODY.
She wanted to walk into Her new supramental body along with Her old body. But that did not and could not happen. The cooperation and preparation that She deserved from the fellow human beings was not received.

Medically, The Mother was ill. It was said that She was sick. Though, She was really at the concluding stage of preparing and entering into a New Body, the Supramental Body. Many others heard of it — some believed it. Some could not believe it — some did not believe it.

On 24-03-1972, The Mother told Sujata on the New Body :
For the first time, early this morning, I saw myself: my body. I don't know whether it's the supramental body or ... (what shall I say?) a transitional body, but I had a completely new body, in the sense that it was sexless: it was neither woman nor man.

It was very white. But that could be because I have white skin, I don't know.
It was very slender (gesture). Really lovely, a truly harmonious form.
That's the first time.
I hadn't the least idea, the faintest notion what it would look like, nothing, and I saw - I WAS like that, I had become like that. I thought Satprem should know, so he can note it down.
I don't know if I'll remember, that's why I am telling you. Because today is Friday and I won't see him till tomorrow. This way, I am sure I won't forget. You'll tell him, won't you?


Sujata: Yes, Mother.

The next day, the 25th March 1972, Satprem had asked The Mother about the new Body:

Sujata told me about the experience you had the other day, that vision you had of your body, the transitional body.

The Mother replied:

Yes, I WAS like that. It was me; I didn't look at myself in a mirror, I saw myself like this (Mother bends her head to look at her body), I was ... I just was like that.
That's the first time. It was around four in the morning, I think. And perfectly natural - I mean, I didn't look in a mirror, it felt perfectly natural…… [Mother’s Agenda, vol. 13]
The Mother revealed Her Agenda and Her Work before Satprem and Sujata, and they were told by Her of Her programme of creation and preparation of the New Body as a very important step in the Supramental Manifestation.

OOOOO

K D Sethna has said in this matter:

We are aware that the Supramental Body was already with Her, waiting to fuse with the human form She had worn for our sake. We are aware also that the lengthy struggle she recently went through was only the Yogic endeavour of the human form to open completely to the Supramental Body. Perhaps this form did enough and its exalted agony was needed no more to enable the Supramental Body to manifest. Perhaps that Body having assimilated the achievement of the other and thereby gained sufficient density for its subtle-physical substance, can now materialize itself on its own in a not too distant future.

OOOOO

What M P Pandit said is highly relevant :

A new body was under formation, the supramental body, in which She was to take Her embodiment as the end-result of the transformation of this body. The body was being prepared. She gave in “Notes on the Way” descriptions of this body, described how it looked. And about a year ago, She told someone, “I am trying to fuse this material body into that body but I have not been able to get the clue.” She said, “Nobody on earth has tried this, the secret is not given to me. On that point, She said, there was no help from above. She was searching.


Thereafter ……… one day it flashed to me that as soon as that luminous body was ready, the Mother would just walk into it without dying, “without dying” means not necessarily keeping the body, but without the gap in consciousness; keeping up the continuity of the personality, She would just cross in to that luminous body. It just flashed, and the way it came I thought it was more than just an idea: I noted it down in my diary. I looked up it the other day, it was dated the 24th of July 1973. I did not think it wise to speak of it to people except in my closest circle, which I did… …


Then on the morning of 17th November at about nine o’clock, a particular friend of mine — he has a certain grounding in occult experience, occult knowledge, and normally when we meet we exchange notes — told me, “I have seen the Mother’s body of light.” I got interested. “The new body is full of light but it is not dense enough to function is earth conditions. It is there, and as I was looking at it I got the feeling that the Mother would enter this body the moment it became dense enough to stand and function in the earth atmosphere, seen or unseen. But there is no question of revival of the material body.” And he added, “Those who are capable of seeing the Mother’s halo, aura, they will be able to see that luminous body.” It confirmed what I had perceived some four month’s earlier; I told him as much.


That evening at 7-25 p.m., as you all know, the Mother withdrew from her body. They say the cause was heart failure, but let me tell you the heart failure was not the cause, the heart failure was the result of her withdrawal. She had decided, the moment things were ready she walked into that body.


She has not passed away, She has just changed her body. Not changed in the manner of the Gita — soul changing bodies — consciously ; keeping the full personality she has gone into that body. And, as it was revealed to me.…, she will function in that body, work through those instruments who are open to her, expedite the remaining work — the working out of the consequences — but her activity will not be confined to the Ashram or to Auroville; for her the whole world is her Ashram. As I was led to put it on radio the next day, "The sea of Love that is the Mother swells into an ocean": not a perception, not an idea, not an image, but an experience.* [Underlines are mine]

A divine possibility had to change its course due to the lack of preparation and consequent non-co-operation on the part of Man. The negative force and will prevailed for the time being and the Destiny of Mankind and the Evolution had to have a different Course. When the Old Form could not walk into the Supramental Body, a New Course was taken by the divine possibility — The Mother entered into the New Body.

The Mother, in Her subtle body, walked into the New Body. That was the triumph of which the mankind did not know. She is continuing Her work of the Supramental Manifestation and Transformation through those instruments who are open to Her, throughout the world and Her activity or Her Presence will not be bound by any spatial limitation. Her work is now for the entire world and for the entire humanity and is to be carried out throughout the world.

OOOOO

Satprem had a great experience on the next day, on 18th November 1973, which assured him that Mother’s Work is done, and the inevitable New World is now, here, on earth. He experienced: The whole world was ringing in a torrent of rapturous, irresistible, triumphant joy.  And NOTHING can stop the Coming of the New World.

Satprem narrates his experience:

On that November 18, 1973, she said something. I was stunned, aching from head to toe amid those hundreds and thousands of people staring at a "dead body." The fans were droning, the neon lights were glaring; there was a scent of incense and jasmine in the air; they were making her coffin with all dispatch. But my heart was filled with such an enormous "This-is-not-possible," as if the entire earth and all the sorrowful men of this earth were crying out in my heart. So then, this was the "end," as it always was - as at Thebes and Babylon and Buchenwald. It was the end. And we start all over again. It was so overwhelmingly not-possible. Never, ever will I go through it again. Never, ever will there be "another time" with its sorrow and prayers and fruitless pain of being. There were a thousand men in my heart, all alike, who had waited and waited for THAT MOMENT. And there was no moment. We will have to come again in another life and learn again about Euclid and the law of gravity, and sorrow and "happiness" - and end up in a hole again? I was so broken, shattered on that November 18 - there was only a splitting headache and a blank look staring and staring at that procession of dead people. But, suddenly, I had the most stupendous experience of my life. I who had so much complained to Mother of never having any "experience"! I was in no condition to have an experience, or concentrate or pray, or will anything - I was nothing but a headache, an aching body, a kind of frightful nonentity staring at a small white form. An unintelligible masquerade. It was false, screamingly false. A dream. Not real.


All of life was not-real.


Then she lifted me in her arms. She lifted me above my headache, lifted me above that crowd, above all those meaningless little bodies. And I was in a sound-burst. I entered a stupendous peal of bells - vast as the universe, exceeding all universes, all lives, all bodies, and yet WITHIN - A colossal ringing that swept away the worlds, swept away the pains, swept away the whys and the hows; I was one with that formidable SOUND ringing over the universe:


NO OBSTACLE, NOTHING WILL STOP
NO OBSTACLE, NOTHING WILL STOP
NO OBSTACLE, NOTHING WILL STOP ...
... ringing and ringing. The whole world was ringing in a torrent of rapturous, irresistible, triumphant joy. NOTHING WILL STOP.... It was the inevitable new world.


Here.
Done.
My whole body was trembling. [Mother’s Agenda, vol. 13]

OOOOO

The spiritual journey of Man has a revolutionary and evolutionary turning since Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. They have given Spirituality a completely new turn and definition, a completely new purpose and value.
Sri Aurobindo and The Mother came to earth in order to lead the earthly Evolution beyond Man, beyond all the imperfections and incompleteness of Man, beyond all the sorrows and miseries of Man, beyond Death : and They have, jointly, advanced and almost completed Their Task to a very great extent. Only what They have done has to be finished — this is the Task that has to be taken up by some of the followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and it will surely be further taken up and advanced by some. What They have done in Their individual lives has to be extended to the collective life.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A divine life in a divine body is the formula of the ideal that we envisage. But what will be the divine body? What will be the nature of this body, its structure, the principle of its activity, the perfection that distinguishes it from the limited and imperfect physicality within which we are now bound? … … …
The process of the evolution upon earth has been slow and tardy– what principle must intervene if there is to be a transformation, a progressive or sudden change?


It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence, free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit … … …


Into that truth [supramental] we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit… … … [Supramental Manifestation]
The most essential aspect of the Work of the Supramental Descent and Transformation has been realized and advanced by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother aimed at and worked for a Descent, on earth, of the Supramental Consciousness, what He otherwise named as Truth Consciousness. They declared that Their main aim and objective was to manifest on earth the principle of Truth-Consciousness, of the Supramental Consciousness on earth, and set it on earth as a basic principle that will operate and function here and transform the human life into a divine life, progressively and step by step. And the divine life is defined by Them as a life where the main principle in function and operation is the principle of Supermind, while at present the main principle is Mind. They pointed out that no other power can bring the transformation except the Supramental Consciousness and Force. For more than fifty thousand years man has endeavoured to make perfect and flawless himself, his life and existence and his environment, but he has failed for the reason that all his endeavours came from an inferior power, the power of Mind. Mind is not a power of Truth — it is an indirect derivation from Truth, covered by pulls of flesh and upheavals from the vital forces and the smokes of the inconscience.

In the course of earthly evolution of Man, there were previous manifestations from the Supreme consciousness in order to cause from the Highest heights the Descent of the highest power suitable for the mankind at those times, and establish them on earth. Sri Rama came with the ideal of the enlightened mind, and Sri Krishna manifested the Overmind consciousness and revealed for us the aspect of Ananda of the Supreme. Thereafter, we find the Buddha who taught us the Way of Nirvana to transcend beyond the mental consciousness. And then, the next step required was / is the descent and manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness and Force. Sri Aurobindo took the Leadership, and along with The Mother, He did all that He had to do. With the Sacrifice of His body, He caused to get manifested the Mind of Light in The Mother, which the first effect of the Descent of the Supermind. This has to be done not for a course of an individual realization and perfection, but the whole earth and, at least, especially for a community open to the Supreme Consciousness. And Sri Aurobindo and The Mother wanted us to make efforts to progress towards the Supramentalization.

OOOOO

Sri Aurobindo told The Mother that She had to stay and complete the Work. Indeed, the entire responsibility of the Supramental Manifestation and of the Work for having a Divine Body came upon The Mother, when Sri Aurobindo passed away and the Mind of Light manifested in Her.

As we know, due to The Mother’s unique, intense and unparalleled Endeavours, the Supramental Consciousness finally descended on earth on 29th February 1956. I am again quoting below the oft-quoted declaration by The Mother :

First Supramental Manifestation
(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 29th February 1956)
This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
And then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

The Mother spoke of the New Body. It was around 1972. The New Supramental Body was already there. Only, The Mother was trying unveil the Way for entering that Body. She expressed that She will walk into That Body and merge the gross physical body into That Body. She said: I am trying to fuse this material body into that body but I have not been able to get the clue. … Nobody on earth has tried this, the secret is not given to me.
But Events were different, and Her entire Being had to leave the physical body. And then She has entered the New Body, which is eternal and immortal, which is very near to earthly consciousness.

OOOOO

The Eternal Mother shows Her example before all of us — the human race — and given us the Task and the Aim : the Supramental Transformation.

Out of Man, the Superman is to manifest. And Man is the basis for the advent of the Superman. He shall have to become the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled. Man must surpass himself for that. Man has to collaborate with the Eternal Mother and the Master for the new Evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. … … …


The first gleamings of the new Light would carry in themselves the seed of its highest flamings; even in the first beginnings, the certainty of their topmost powers would be there; for this is the constant story of each evolutionary emergence: the principle of its highest perfection lies concealed in the involution which precedes and necessitates the evolution of the secret principle.

The Mother is waiting for us. In order to complete the Task of the Supramental Change and bring in the Supramental Race, there should be, at first, a “new humanity” — in the Words of Sri Aurobindo. That is the Aim now, before all of us.

The Mother is presiding over the entire Wrok of the Transformation. Of the birth of the New World, of the Advent of the New Species, the Supramental Race.


Barindranath Chaki


17-11-2009

Posted in:
http://newreflexions.ning.com/profiles/blogs/into-the-new-body-1

Jump

All our mental conquests seem nothing compared with That.
One can penetrate the secrets of nature; one can understand what science tells us about the first moments of the physical creation. But that is nothing, or almost nothing. One is left speechless when the first glimmerings beyond of mind are present, beyond any doubt. Then, the walker seems to fall into a kind of paralysis that prevents him living the normal life.
All the old certainties crumble and the abyss opens before you.
You can not go back. You can not because you have seen.
You have to jump.

Sri Aurobindo and Avatarhood 1

By Barindranath Chaki

Sri Aurobindo was the last Avatar in a human body.

That is what The Mother has said.

She has also said that Sri Aurobindo would return, but NOT in a human body — NOT in a body born as a human being or of a human being. And His return may even be as late as five hundred years from his departure.
I have said earlier also that according to The Mother, Sri Aurobindo was an emanation of the Supreme. He was / is an Avatar of The Supreme. He came to transcend the Overmind consciousness and to cause the Descent of The Supramental Consciousness. He is beyond the Overmental Godheads.
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are the trinity — three aspects of the Supreme. Just to represent one of them would mean that Sri Aurobindo’s coming was partial. His process is synthetic and integral. He thus represented the Supreme integrally and entirely. And He came here on earth to manifest the Supramental Consciousness, not to repeat the Overmind Consciousness.

Let us see what Sri Aurobindo speaks of two other Avatars, two other great Spiritual Personalities:

What was Ramakrishna? God manifest in a human being; but behind there is God in His infinite impersonality and His universal Personality. And what was Vivekananda? A radiant glance from the eye of Shiva; but behind him is the divine gaze from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding.

Similarly Sri Aurobindo, too, manifested the Supreme Divine in all His aspects, entirely, integrally behind Him. And His purpose was a completely new Thing: to transcend the human consciousness on earth towards a New Creation.

Sri Aurobindo totally revolutionized the spiritual world, the spiritual traditions, the spiritual manifestations. The Transformation They have intended to bring in beyond the spiritual Transformation — it is the Supramental Transformation. He and The Mother have done something which nobody else have ever thought or attempted. So it is not a wise thing to shut up Sri Aurobindo and The Mother into some old systems. We cannot forcefully ask Sri Aurobindo to remain limited in an old concept of Dashavatara of Vishnu.

The Mother has said:
One who truly follows the path given by Sri Aurobindo, as soon as he begins to have the experience of this path, will find it impossible to confine his consciousness to the worship of any god or goddess or even of all of them together.

Our purpose is to go ahead towards the Supramental Becoming and Progress. We are not here to confine ourselves to the old tradition, which is not correctly the Vedic tradition, but a tradition which grew much later than the Vedic period. We do not find all the Ten Avatars being mentioned in the Vedas.

Further, it may be repeatedly mentioned what Sri Aurobindo said about the last three Avatars:

Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development – Krishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively the evolution; Kalki is to correct this by bringing the Kingdom of the Divine upon earth, destroying the opposing Asura forces.

These are the Words from Sri Aurobindo — and therefore these words make up one of the most confirmed proof that Sri Aurobindo himself is NOT among the Ten Avatars. Indeed, He is beyond the Ten Avatars.

If the Words from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother are not presenting confirmed and solid proofs, then what else can? Words and books and chronicles from a person, who says that she follows Them but refutes and ignores what They have said and also presents them in a way that suits her, has no meaning and cannot stand against the Words of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

OOOOO

On 8th December 1950, after the departure of Sri Aurobindo, The Mother said:

When I asked Him (December 8, 1950) to resuscitate his body, He clearly answered: “I left this body purposely. I will not take it back. I shall manifest again in the first supramental body built in the supramental way.

Can anyone say that this message of The Mother has no strength in it as an evidence of the Fact that Sri Aurobindo IS not reborn in a human body, after His departure on the 5th December?

About the Return of Sri Aurobindo The Mother has further said as follows:

“The return of Sri Aurobindo very soon is not likely. His going was connected with world conditions. If world-conditions had been such as could so soon change and be suitable for his presence amongst us, his going itself would have been unnecessary.

“Also, the return cannot be in a startling miraculous manner. That would not be consistent with Sri Aurobindo’s method and our work. A more probable way of return would be: the present occasional visions of Sri Aurobindo which some people see — the almost material appearance he now makes to some people at certain times — may increase; the manifestation may be more frequent and more general, until one day a permanent reappearance takes place.

“One cannot fix the precise time of his return. It may even be five hundred years later. I can’t say anything, since the knowledge has not come to me. I only say things when I get them. This much I have said: Sri Aurobindo will be the first to have the supramental body.

“People keep asking me: ‘When Sri Aurobindo comes back in a supramental body, will he need to eat or drink or do other usual things?’ All these questions are silly.’

“Sri Aurobindo’s leaving the body makes no essential difference. Sri Aurobindo is after all a certain consciousness, the divine consciousness, and this consciousness was there even before the earth came. The question of his ‘absence’ has little meaning.

“A world war may destroy the civilization, but it won’t destroy the Divine’s work. Sri Aurobindo once told me that he had so arranged things that nothing would interfere with his work.” [Mother India, December 1974]

OOOOO

A handful of quotes from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, I repeatedly say, is definitely more powerful and convincing that any endeavour to misrepresent facts regarding Sri Aurobindo and His Avatarhood or Return. To a true and sincere follower, there is nothing more convincing and forceful except what They have said. Today I have laid down, more clearly, more about Sri Aurobindo’s Avatarhood and Return, what all Their true followers throughout the World DO definitely accept what The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have said in these matters.

In presenting these sayings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, in saying that Sri Aurobindo is the Avatar of the Supreme, but not the Avatar of a particular aspect of the Supreme, in saying that Sri Aurobindo will never return in Human body, I have quoted authentic and forceful and highly convincing sayings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

I also hold that Sri Aurobindo has not been reborn as a human being of a human mother in a supramental body.
And I have no vested interest in this matter. I only serve the Truth.

And I am not pretending to be a follower of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother know the best what I am, and many of Their followers also know me. By using these words, none can stop me from telling the Truth, as said by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

I refer to these points as these things are said about me by Lori Tompkins, a follower of Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, in one of her articles in Circumsolatious**, in a very aggressively attacking way, challenging what I have written in an article of mine, Sri Aurobindo and Avatarhood, published on in All Choice and Sulekha* and in Savitri Era Open Forum of Tushar Mohapatra.

In Sri Aurobindo and Avatarhood, I have said, in short, that Sri Aurobindo need not be one of Dasavatara of Vishnu. Because, He has never said so; The Mother, too, has never said so.

Though He is not less in that level and in fact higher. Indeed, I said, following The Mother, that He is the Avatar of the Supreme. And I also said that Vishnu is only an aspect of the Supreme.

Barindranath Chaki
22-10-2009

Simultaneously published in ASPIRATION, All Choice and Sulekha.

Links of the articles referred to :

*http://barinchaki.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/06/sri-aurobindo-and-avatar-hood.htm

**http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2009/10/sri-aurobindo-lotus-and-avatar.html

Misery

Whenever any sublime teaching appears on earth, there are emerging new sects appropriating of them. Appear crackpots claiming to be the reincarnation of the great Masters and, as always, are often surrounded by poor dupes who blindly believe their delusions. And those who, seriously, study and follow these teachings, are labeled as liars by them.

Yes, certainly, human misery knows no bounds.

What now?

There comes a time in which books tell you nothing because they have already told you all they had to tell you.

The path has led you to your own inner abyss.

The Adventure of Consciousness begins.

Lord, hear my plea

Lord, hear my plea,
For the night is dark
And the springs dry.

Lord, yet I do not hear the sea,
Lord hear my plea.

The Descent into Night

A mind absolved from life, made calm to know,
A heart divorced from the blindness and the pang,
The seal of tears, the bond of ignorance,
He turned to find that wide world-failure's cause.
Away he looked from Nature's visible face
And sent his gaze into the viewless Vast,
The formidable unknown Infinity,
Asleep behind the endless coil of things,
That carries the universe in its timeless breadths
And the ripples of its being are our lives.
The worlds are built by its unconscious Breath
And Matter and Mind are its figures or its powers,
Our waking thoughts the output of its dreams.
The veil was rent that covers Nature's depths:
He saw the fount of the world's lasting pain
And the mouth of the black pit of Ignorance;
The evil guarded at the roots of life
Raised up its head and looked into his eyes.
On a dim bank where dies subjective Space,
From a stark ridge overlooking all that is,
A tenebrous awakened Nescience,
Her wide blank eyes wondering at Time and Form,
Stared at the inventions of the living Void
And the Abyss whence our beginnings rose.
Behind appeared a grey carved mask of Night
Watching the birth of all created things.
A hidden Puissance conscious of its force,
A vague and lurking Presence everywhere,
A contrary Doom that threatens all things made,
A Death figuring as the dark seed of life,
Seemed to engender and to slay the world.


Savitri, Book II "The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds"
Canto VII "The Descent into Night"

Sri Aurobindo

Desert

The first lights seem to have disappeared.
Now, I have the impression of traversing a vast and barren desert.
Only my faith in Her-Him allows me to keep walking.

I shall continue, although the darkness of the night is around me and the stars have disappeared from the sky.

Always at His-Her feet and under Her-His protection.

Rabindranath Tagore

The year was 1907. The freedom movement in India was gathering momentum. Its leader was detained by the police. The poet Rabindranath Tagore paid him a visit and wrote the now famous lines:

"Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul....The fiery messenger that with the lamp of God Hath come...Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee."

The year was 1928. The leader had now left politics and had gone to Pondicherry where he had plunged himself into the practice of yoga. The poet Tagore once again paid him a visit and declared: "You have the Word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice to the world, `Hearken to me!'...Years ago I saw Aurobindo in the atmosphere of his earlier heroic youth and I sang to him: `Aurobindo, accept the salutations from Rabindranath.' Today I saw him in a deeper atmosphere of a reticent richness of wisdom and again sang to him in silence: `Aurobindo, accept the salutations from Rabindranath! 'How does one describe or speak about such a personality? Sri Aurobindo has been called a scholar, a literary critic, a philosopher, a revolutionary, a poet, a Yogi and a 'Rishi'. He was all these and much more. To have even a glimpse of the true Sri Aurobindo we have to turn to the Mother: "What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme" Therefore Sri Aurobindo declared, in no uncertain terms that nobody could write his biography: "Neither you nor anyone else knows anything at all of my life; it has not been on the surface for men to see" But he was not altogether averse to this effort and even made corrections when some biographers made the attempt. In the process the veil that hid the divine mystery was lifted a little.

from: http://www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/sriauro/aurolife.htm

Stones...

Q: Are these forces of any use when they come out from the stones?

A: Certainly, yes! The stone can preserve the force almost indefinitely. There are those stones, which can serve as a link; there are stones, which can serve as a battery. There are stones, which can hold a force for protection. That indeed is remarkable, my child. One can accumulate in a stone (particularly in amethysts) a force for protection, and the force truly protects the one who wears the stone.

It is very interesting. I have experienced it. I knew someone who had a stone of this kind, charged with the power of protection, and it was wonderful when he wore it…There are stones, which can be used to foretell events. Some people know how to read in these stones events, which are going to happen. Stones can carry messages. Naturally, this requires ability on both sides: on one side, a sufficiently strong power of concentration; on the other, a power to see and read directly, without using very precise words either. Consequently, because they can serve as
batteries, it means that they carry within them the source of the force itself; otherwise they wouldn’t be receptive. It is a force of this kind that is at the origin of crystallisations, as in rock crystals, for instance, which form such magnificent patterns, with such a complete harmony, and that comes from one thing alone, this Presence at the centre. Now, one doesn’t see because one has no inner sensibility, but once one has the direct perception of the forces of love behind things, one sees that they are the same everywhere. Even in constructed things: one can come to understand what they say.

Mother’s Agenda 10

20th September 1969

The Lenses

From the observatory I can see the depths of the Cosmos.

I see how the matter obeys (or seems to obey) the laws of physics. But I see in the night through two lenses: the lens of the telescope and the lens of my own mind. I observe the Cosmos from the division, from the part. I realize that the laws made by mind only serve to explain a small portion of the spectrum of existence.

And I wonder how will be the perception of a Supramental Being...

I wonder how will be the rhythm of a Being who has subdued the laws because he himself is the law.

I realize how wrong we are when we think immortality inside the rhythms of time.

Supramental Being is inmortal. He is immortal because he is, and he is because he is beyond time.

Time and its rhythms is only a mental concept.

"I used Savitri as a means of ascension..."

Q: We have been wondering why you should have to write and rewrite your poetry (for instance, "Savitri" ten or twelve times) when you have all the inspiration at your command and do not have to receive it with the difficulty that faces budding Yogis like us.

A: That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began with it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from that level. Moreover I was particular -- if part seemed to me to come from any lower levels I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All had to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one's own Yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of God or the sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the moment.

From Volume 26, p.239. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, "On Himself"

The Second Law...

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the disorder of all those systems which are isolated of the universe always increases (it is curious: the entropy increases only in those isolated systems from the rest of the Universe. For those not isolated systems, entropy or disorder does not increase*) In fact, this law is so incontestable that, based on it, we say that exist one thing called "arrow of time", that is, the time pass always in the direction in which the entropy (or disorder of the system) increases. In this way, it is not possible for a physical system goes backwards in time, because such a thing would lead to a decrease of entropy (or a decrease in its internal disorder)

For example, if we drop one glass full of water on the floor of our kitchen, we can be sure that it will be broken into a thousand pieces and water will be poured on the floor. We can ensure that the opposite event will not happen in a natural way: the glass will not fill with the fallen water, neither will be rebuilt again nor will jump suddenly from the floor of the kitchen towards our hands. Science says that this situation would violate the second law of thermodynamics because would reduces the disorder of the system.

Now we may consider the "living systems" and its slow but sure evolution towards forms more and more complex, that's to say, towards more organized forms through which consciousness can express herself more effectively. It seems clear that an increase in the complexity of the nervous system is against of an increase in the disorder of the system. And so, we have a problem with the second law of thermodynamics...at least if we do not introduce an inner force that compels the physical system (or living system) to go in a direction of increasing complexity beyond their natural tendency towards chaos, disorder and dispersion (We need only contemplate what happens to the human body over the years)

Science says that this strange occurrence is due to a mysterious "adaptation to the environment" But that assertion offends reason and common sense. Only consciousness, referred to as a force in action and not as a mere effect of the matter, can satisfactorily explain this apparent contradiction...And Sri Aurobindo saw the Ariadna's thread that allows and is beyond the same physical laws.

In another post I will try to explain briefly the theory of dissipative structures of Illya Prigogine.This theory attempts to resolve the contradiction to which I have referred...from the Science, avoiding any allusion to the Divine, but, curiously, pointing to its existence and necessity from the beginning.

(*).: One of the essential features of Supramental consciousness is the disappearance of the consciousness of separation. Supramental consciousness, as Sri Aurobindo and Mother have told us, is a consciousness of Unity in which have disappeared the "viewpoints" and have been replaced by a kind of spherical vision. A Conciousness like this, would have broken the premise of "isolated system from the rest of the Universe" and therefore would not be affected by an increase in entropy (or disorder). Death would be then ancient history.

15-08-2009

I will be brief, in fact, only a few words are necessary.

Sri Aurobindo came upon the Earth to give a boost to the slow march of Evolution. However, many of disciples believed that immortality had already been conquered by Him. And not only in his own body (or in the Mother's body) but in their own bodies too.
Yes, many of them watched the Work of Sri Aurobindo through mental eyes, indeed through a infantile look. Only a few of them knew (or were aware) that immortality was not the beginnig of the path, the first conquest, but the effect of a long and slow path that Sri Aurobindo and Mother had came to open to Humanity.

The slow march of Evolution was accelerated by Sri Aurobindo and Mother, this was their labour like Avatar...And our main contribution to their Work is to try to be aware of the new world into ourselves and through ourselves. This is our better homage to Them...to Mothersriaurobindo (And do not see them as leaders of a new, strange and exotic religion).

On Himself II

"But what strange ideas again! -that I was born with a supramental temperament and that I know nothing of hard realities!- Good God! My whole life has been a struggle with hard realities, from hardships, starvation in England and constant and fierce difficulties to the far greater difficulties continually cropping up here in Pondicherry, external and internal. My life has been a battle from its early years and is still a battle: the fact that I wage it now from a room upstairs and by spiritual means as well as others that are external makes no difference to its character. But, of course, as we have not been shouting about these things, it is natural, I suppose, for others to think that I am living in an august, glamorous, lotus-eating dreamland where no hard facts of life or Nature present themselves. But what an illusion all the same! "

Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, "On Himself" (Volume 26, p.153-4)

On Himself

"You think then that in me (I don't bring in the Mother) there was never any doubt or despair, no attacks of that kind. I have borne every attack which human beings have borne, otherwise I would be unable to assure anybody "This too can be conquered." At least I would have no right to say so. Your psychology is terribly rigid. I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is the same thing in essence even if greater in degree, that there is behind others -- and it is to awaken that that he is here.
The psychic being does the same for all who are intended for the spiritual way -- men need not be extraordinary beings to follow it. That is the mistake you are making -- to harp on greatness as if only the great can be spiritual"

Sri Aurobindo.
On Himself, p. 154 (8-3-1935)

The wonder

The marvel has already been done, at least as the wonders of creation are done. Because the processes by which consciousness awakens from its slumber has never been quicker or immediate.
Yes, the feat has already been done, because He was knocking at the golden door and the golden door was opened. And the golden vibration of truth flooded the Earth’s atmosphere.
Yes, the marvel has been done, though our eyes has still not seen the wonder, though our ears has not still heard the eternal symphony, though our hands has not still touched the immortal matter.
Alas, mental knowledge is weak and slow. Yes, the wonder is denied by him if the wonder cannot be seen, herad or touched.
But the golden door was opened by Him and the golden vibration already runs through the basements of the matter.

I Have A Hundred Lives

I have a hundred lives before me yet

To grasp thee in, O Spirit ethereal,

Be sure I will with heart insatiate

Pursue thee like a hunter through them all.

Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way

And with awakened vision watch me come

Smiling a little at errors past and lay

Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home.

Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness

I shall approach thee in things and people dear,

And in thy spirit's motions half-possess,

Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near,

Until I lay my hands on thee indeed

Somewhere among the stars, as 'twas decreed.

(Sri Aurobindo)

A great seeker has left us

Recently has left his body a great seeker.

His writings had the fragance of the divine love and a deep knowledge of the works of Sri Aurobindo and Mother.
I have no doubt that the Master will guide his steps towards the light and their devotion will allow him to see the face of God.

Dear Debabrata, I'm sure that your consciousness will guide you trough green pastures of the hand of Sri Aurobindo and Mother.

I will always remember you.

"Death's grip can break our bodies, not our souls;
If death take him, I too know how to die.
Let Fate do with me what she will or can;
I am stronger than death and greater than my fate;
My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me
Helpless against my immortality"

(Sri Aurobindo. Savitri Book VI: The Book of Fate Canto I)


Peace.

The Ariadne thread

Physics has always looked at the matter (or energy) as the source of everything that surrounds us. But when it confronted with the origin of the cosmos, the first moments of creation, begins to assume a range of issues beyond itself.

Indeed, even the modern cosmological theories face the abyss of the original zero. Physics tells us that space and time are products of that first explosion, says us that even non-physical dimensions of existence have been created from that mathematical zero. And when we ask about the origin of that zero simply warns us that the question is meaningless.

But the question strikes our mind and strives to make itself heard.

Our intuition and the knowledge of those people who have seen beyond the phisical senses tell us the opposite: matter and energy are the effect (not cause) of other dimensions that existed before them.

Sri Aurobindo said us that consciousness is the Ariadne thread that runs through these dimensions and that allows their existence. He talked us about Sat-Chit-Ananda...

Yes, consciousness is the beginning and the first motor.

Consciousness, that's to say, God Himself.

In the beginning

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

(Saint John, 1, 1-4)


And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

( Book of Revelation 20, 14)


Death's grip can break our bodies, not our souls;
If death take him, I too know how to die.
Let Fate do with me what she will or can;
I am stronger than death and greater than my fate;
My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me
Helpless against my immortality.

( Sri Aurobindo. Savitri Book VI: The Book of Fate Canto I)

ANANDA REDDY VISIT TO BARCELONA

Dr. Ananda Reddy has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chennai with the thesis "The concept of physical transformation in the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo" He has been Associate Professor at the Research Center of the Department of Ethics and Religion of Assumption University in Bangkok and has chaired various institutions. His specialty is the philosophy and yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Currently directs the Center for Advanced Research in Pondicherry, that aims to deepen the analysis of vision and yogic experience of Sri Aurobindo and Mother.


On August 31.
Conference: The psychological foundations of integral yoga
Centre Integral de Salut
Gran Vía Carlos II, 50 L (Esquina Travessera de les Corts, entrada por calle les Corts)
Metro Línea 3 (Verde) Estación Les Corts
Bus 15, 43, 54, 59, 70, 72


Please you can contribute to the costs of the event wiht 5€.
Please confirm attendance at the Foundation:
mail: aurobindobcn@fundacionaurobindobcn.com

We have never come to understand...

In the West Spirituality is perceived as a fad. We are talking about a fashion that generates a lot of money. And we also talk about a fashion that generates hundreds of thousands of disillusioned people, hundreds of thousands of people who, after a journey full of fireworks, perceive spirituality as a big lie wich people should move closer when life becomes difficult or when the powerlessness of their intellect leaves them into an atrocious desert full of doubts...or when their life ends.
We could say that West have lived and lives in the illusion of spiritual progress but not in the same progress.
Because progress requires the destruction of the Ego and its products, requires a deep look inside the human being, and unfortunately, West is still very far from such a feat.

Unfortunately, West has put all its effort in external conquests, may have discovered the atom's secrets and may have traveled through the solar system. Yes, perhaps we have seen infinitely distant celestial objects...But Western man remains a stranger to himself.
And perhaps that is why the West has always seen in India a lighthouse in the dark, its own dark.
But this is what I think: Western man has never come to understand the commitment with himself that this golden light requires.


But...What have not come to understand East?

I have seen them

I have seen them
children with smiling faces
without fear,
without hatred.

I have seen them on the horizon,
on an island of golden hope.

I have seen his eyes and his eyes have stripped my soul,
eyes like suns...
windows of pure consciousness.

I have seen them...
breathing a immortal breath.

And they smiled at me,
from a near future.

The light of lost sailor

Faith is like a light on the horizon,
In a dark night,
Without moon, without stars...

Faith is the lighthouse of lost sailor,
The lamp wich shine within us
In the deeps of our being.

Without faith,
I am nothing,
A dead man.

Become aware...

"Each plane of our being (mental, vital, physical) has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience, they are all confused together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any mental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body-consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. It is part of the yoga to become aware of this separate consciousness of the body, to see and feel its movements and the forces that act upon it from inside or outside and to learn how to control and direct it even in its most hidden and (to us) subconscient processes. But the body-consciousness itself is only part of the individualised physical consciousness in us which we gather and build out of the secretly conscious forces of universal physical Nature"


Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, pp.347-50 (Extract)

Bridges of conciousness

If after one night we hardly ever remember our dreams...What will happen after death with our bodies completely destroyed?

Learning to be aware of our nights, this is one of our first challenges.

This is one of the first things that Mother taught me: build conciousness bridges within us.

Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls;

Earth is the heroic spirit's battlefield,

The forge where the Archmason shapes his works.

Thy servitudes on earth are greater, King,

Than all the glorious liberties of heaven.

(Sri Aurobindo. Savitri, Book XI, Canto I p. 686)

Waiting for the fireworks

Many disciples of the Ashram were eager: they expected to see the Master becoming a kind of God, perhaps with a luminous and immortal body. Certainly, people were waiting for a miracle.
But the Master was working tirelessly within itself and within the body of the Earth trying to illuminate the dark basements of the life. The work was arduous and thankless. He knew that the transformation would require many years.
But the disciples did not understand anything. Only a small number of them were aware of the big work undertaken by Sri Aurobindo and Mother. Others were just waiting for the fireworks.

Sri Aurobindo on Psychoanalysis

"I find it difficult to take these psychoanalysts at all seriously. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analyzing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above"



Sri Aurobindo

Once upon a time...

I was young.

After some years of intense intellectual activity I realized the limits of intellect and its limited power to change the depths of the human being. Because the heights can't be reached by the power of reason, all of them seem poor and grey, dry and lifeless.

That was how I put my feet on a path of Yoga.

In the beginning, the way was full of promises, hope and golden lights. Sitting in my place of peace and stillness, the world could collapse around me...nothing mattered.

But time was passing...and the initial euphoria was giving way to routine and boredom. If the intellectual effort could not change my life, this artificial peace was far from reaching it.

I began to realize the problem: I was a mortal that sooner or later, would leave this world to fall into a black hole.

Death was the problem.

Tired and disappointed with myself and with life, I fell in the most atrocious skepticism.

And years were passing...

Once, accidentally, I walked into a bookstore of my town. The shop was full of incense, quartz stones, talismans, and some books. And one of these caught my attention...by their colour. It was a book of a beautiful purple colour that was entitled "Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness" by Satprem. I read its pages: this book spoke to me of things that I had always felt in the depths of my heart...and spoke to me about Sri Aurobindo and Mother, about their work to defeat death and to change our slaves condition.

"We can't both remain upon the Earth"

(Sri Aurobinto to Mother)

Difficulties along the way

When I started my practice of Yoga, this is what happened to me:

I sat in a quiet and lonely place. I experienced a great peace and joy...but when I came out of meditation, Life was swallowed me like the jaws of a tiger, without any compassion.

But that was not Yoga. Sri Aurobindo showed me through his golden writings.

Yoga has to embrace all life, not only the lights of the nice moments: also our deepest miseries

Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom's occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame.

Thy golden Light came down into my throat,
And all my speech is now a tune divine,
A paean-song of thee my single note;
My words are drunk with the Immortal's wine.

Thy golden light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only thee.

Thy golden light came down into my feet:
My earth is now thy playfield and thy seat.

(Sri Aurobindo, The Golden Light)