Connected with the ancient Sankhya
System is the all-encompassing
aspect of physical transformation as envisioned
by the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. If the present material
formation given by it has the origin in the faculty of Samjnan, the
comprehending consciousness, it also carries in it its seeds of incompleteness.
But completeness can come only in the luminous dynamism of the Supermind or
Vijnana and it is that they were busy with, to make it operatively a part of
the great terrestrial evolution in the growing faculties of the Spirit. We have
on the Mirror a few related postings
and perhaps it is appropriate to bring them together to get an idea of the
entire process as far as possible for us to figure out and grasp or realize.
These might also suggest the direction in which we should move in this rich and
rewarding field to make genuine progress in the Spirituality of the Future
given to us by Sri Aurobindo.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2009/1/21/4064201.html
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/11/22/3989088.html
Integral Yoga of the Future
Sri Aurobindo wrote the following to
Motilal Roy sometime in the middle of 1913: “Tantric Yoga is not yet of the
first importance for us, the perfection of the basis of Vedanta is the one
thing supremely important; for that cannot be perfect until this has been
developed at least to a certain point.” Sri Aurobindo’s “not yet” is significant.
His own focus was on Vedic-spiritual approach: His was the Purusha Yoga. But it
is also true that control over the occult gives a definite precision to the
spiritual. While the Mother herself acquired those perfections or Siddhis of
the occult in the earlier phase, her own approach was towards the psychic
coming forward and taking charge of the yogic pursuit. Later, in the deeper
context of the physical transformation, the luminous occult had to be dealt
with when the spiritual siddhi could provide the needed support or ādhāra.
Ultimately it is the Shakti, the Divine Power who is going to do the alchemic
miracle of the physical transformation; it is her work. She has to be allowed
to work in us. That indeed is the entire thrust of the Integral Yoga.
As the tapas-yajna grows in intensity
we gain more and more faith in the divine Shakti herself working in us. When
this happens in a settled way, the Spirit's omnipotence finds a wider
expression not only in us but also in the world. Even as the supramental
Mahashakti “brings pouring down her luminous transcendences from the ineffable
ether”, the human nature changes into dynamic divine nature. Our tapas-will
becomes a part of the Divine’s Tapas-Will in which takes birth a new creation.
That is the truth-content of the Integral Yoga of the Future.
When the Mother’s Sadhana entered the stage of
awakening consciousness of the body’s cells, she found that they started
chanting constantly the name of the Lord. They were all the while imploring the
Lord for the strength and the beauty, for the harmonious perfection needed to
be the divine instruments upon earth.
To make the body’s cells awake to the
divine reality was an unprecedented task and the Mother had to discover the
means for accomplishing it. It is here that she found the power of the Mantra
coming to a definite aid, aid in fixing the higher subtle-luminous in the dark
crude-gross. She was actually invoking “the Lord of Tomorrow”.
“The supramental change is a thing decreed
and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness,” wrote Sri
Aurobindo in 1928. The supramental change was decreed by him, and he and the
Mother had set themselves to work out its inevitability. But to realize it in
us there is needed the call and there is needed the answering grace from above.
Tapahprabhava and Devaprasada, as the Upanishad says, together can bring the fulfilment
to our longings, to our soul’s aspiration. To be engaged in that spiritual
growth, to live and work and enjoy divinely in the Divine is the Integral Yoga
of the Future.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/28/4037619.html
The Significance of the Mother’s Passing
Away—
A Talk at the Sri Aurobindo LA-Center on 17 November 2008
In the Mother’s Prayers and Meditations
there are a few themes which constantly recur. Her one concern is the Soul of
the Earth. She invokes peace and in it entrusts everything to the Will of the
Lord. She says: “May Thy peace reign over all.”
Soon the Mother met Sri Aurobindo and a
resplendent change took place in her, a transformative change. It was the
direct contact with him that had brought it about. She says she was born to a
new life. And Sri Aurobindo? He saw that surrender to the Divine to the last
bit of the physical is possible and it is that surrender which shall be the key
to the work of manifestation. The first meeting took place on 29 March
1914.
Then a great thing happened, just within
six months of that meeting. In her diary the Mother had written, on 25
September 1914, that a new Light would break upon the earth, a new world be
born, and the things that were promised fulfilled. The promise was fulfilled on
29 February 1956: A new Light broke upon the earth, a new world was born, the
things that were promised got fulfilled. Then the Supramental Light and Force
and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow. The Mother
said: “A new world is born, born, born.” It was not the old world transformed,
but it was a new world that had taken birth. Her task was done but she was
preparing us to receive the Divine’s Grace.
The
Supermind descended, making the earth’s subtle-physical its operating station.
In fact it was a manifestation. All this happened just within six years of Sri
Aurobindo’s yogic action of withdrawing from the physical. When Sri Aurobindo left his body the Mother
rushed to his room and stood by his bed. In that
tremendous hour the supramental Light and Force flowed into her
uninterruptedly. She even felt the friction of the passage. What he had
established in him was passed on to her. One definite result of the withdrawal
was that the Mind of Light got fixed in her. This Mind of Light is the mind of
the physical, the body’s mind, receiving the supramental. Unless that is
established, complete transformation down to the physical is out of the
question. The physical’s mind must open to the supramental. Sri Aurobindo saw
its necessity, of this Mind of Light governing what he called the Intermediate
Race.
In the course of time, the Mother obtained
the consent for collaboration from the material Nature. That was a great
advance in the evolutionary process. Nature saw the distinct possibility and
gained confidence in the work, as if she knew that this time she will not be
duped, hoodwinked again; she discarded her earlier frustrating reservations.
The Mother experienced the Divine acting in the body, the Divine alone. In fact
the Divine had become the body, with the power of omniscience and omnipotence operating
in it. She was busy with the formation of the new body. She was trying to fuse
this material body with that new supramental body. The Mother would simply walk
into that body, walk without dying. This happened on 17 November 1973. She
walked into the New Body.
A golden light, transparent and benevolent,
very strong, very powerful filled the body’s cells. It is said in the Veda that
the body of Agni is made of gold, hiraņya tanu. In the psychic’s materialization the Mother did
it as a part of the evolutionary process.
The Mother’s main work was to bring down
the supramental consciousness in the material world, so that the physical
transformation of the body could take place. She did it. Now it is this
supramental consciousness which will go on acting supramentally; it will bring
about the transformative change. That is the absolute certainty of the expected
result. That is the significance of the Mother’s passing away, justifying also
the significance of Sri Aurobindo’s passing away. The Supramental Presence is a
sufficient, a necessary and sufficient basis for the transformation. That is
what which has been achieved.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/11/20/3987292.html
Towards the
New Body
Materialization of the psychic being gives continuity
to evolution. Thus immortality in the material world means the materialization
of the psychic being. The New Body makes it possible. Perhaps that is the
process. Now it is the New Body which will do whatever is to be done. It is not
an inert lump of matter, but is charged with luminous dynamism of the
Truth-Force itself. In the evolutionary process it is going to exert pressure
upon the physical. Sometimes people ask if the Mother really succeeded in her
work. Did she complete it? It is said that she did not achieve all that she was
to achieve. They even say that her work of physical transformation has been
postponed. But the statement that the work has been postponed is an incomplete
statement. These people must also tell us when the “postponed” work will be
resumed. But if the work of physical transformation has been postponed in the
Will of the Lord, then that becomes a yet greater achievement for the Mother,
that now whatever has to happen will happen in the Will of the Lord. Isn’t that
outstanding? The Supramental Presence is a sufficient, is a necessary and
sufficient basis for that to happen. That surely is a greater gain than perhaps
the transformation itself—the working of the Will of the Supreme in this
Creation. What prevails is: “What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest” even in the
physical. It is in it that that all is achieved, achieved by the
Mother…
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/3/4005379.html
Physical
Transformation—the Early Beginnings
In July 1938 the Yogi-Poet had an assignation with the
primordial Night, the Night of Creation. He went to meet her, carrying “God’s
deathless light” in his breast. He was aware that this was going to be a very
bold and hazardous, a very treacherous rendezvous; it was going to be an exceptional
and most decisive affair also, fraught with possibilities. His fate and hence
the fate of the world remained locked in them, in the possibility leading
towards earthly deathlessness. So, he the pilgrim-soul made an assignation with
the Night. But what was the outcome of that bold and dangerous rendezvous in
the possible treachery of the Night? What did actually transpire in the course
of the meeting? But apart from dropping some broad hints, no communiqué was
issued. If at all, it seemed that the way was lost and that there was no end to
the “weary journeying”. Yet there was hope, there was a conviction and a certitude
that the outcome was going to be a path leading towards immortality. There was
the inalienable freedom, and the Yogi-Poet lived in the Spirit’s calm, and was
in possession of the vast immobile bliss of the Being. Soon his rooms, all his
rooms and the cellars, would get lit up with an endless Light, and rapture
would be coursing through his nerves and through every cell of his body. In a
mute blaze of ecstasy, calm and conquering, and steadfastly preserving the
“living sense of the Imperishable,” even in the bodily existence, he would
proceed towards his goal. That was great indeed, marvellous. If the bodily
existence was set ablaze in this way, it meant that there was the wonderful
realisation or the siddhi of the Mind of Light in him, that the physical had
started receiving the supramental. Sri Aurobindo had definitely moved towards
it, a remarkable event, landmark event in the evolutionary sequence. It is said
that Pythagoras had a thigh of gold, and that Vamadeva, after crossing the
hundredth year, lived in a golden body for sixteen full years. Something golden
had happened in that far past, but now in the collective the Mind of Light has
made the body its permanent base, permanent home…
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/5/4007518.html
It’s the
Psychic Being which will Materialise itself and become the Supramental
The Mother narrates: So, one
understands. One understands: the psychic being materialises itself... and that
gives continuity to evolution. This creation gives altogether the feeling that
there is nothing arbitrary, there is a kind of divine logic behind and it is
not like our human logic, it is very much superior to ours—but there is one,
and that was fully satisfied when I saw this. It is really interesting. I was
very interested. It was there, calm and quiet, and it said to me, “You were
looking, well, there it is, yes, it is that!” And then I understood why the
mind and the vital were sent out of this body, leaving the psychic
being—naturally it was that which had been always governing all the movements,
so it was nothing new, but there are no difficulties any more: all the
complications that were coming from the vital and the mental, adding their
impressions and tendencies, all gone. And I understood: “Ah! It is that, it is
this psychic being which has to become the supramental being.”
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/7/4010681.html
The Divine
Body—by Sri Aurobindo
The new type, the divine
body, must continue the already developed evolutionary form; there must be a
continuation from the type Nature has all along been developing, a continuity
from the human to the divine body, no breaking away to something unrecognisable
but a high sequel to what has already been achieved and in part perfected… New
powers have to be acquired by the body which our present humanity could not
hope to realise, could not even dream of or could only imagine… The body itself
might acquire new means and ranges of communication with other bodies, new
processes of acquiring knowledge, a new aesthesis, new potencies of
manipulation of itself and objects. It might not be impossible for it to
possess or disclose means native to its own constitution, substance or natural
instrumentation for making the far near and annulling distance, cognising what
is now beyond the body's cognisance, acting where action is now out of its
reach or its domain, developing subtleties and plasticities which could not be
permitted under present conditions to the needed fixity of a material frame…
There could be an evolution from a first apprehending truth-consciousness to
the utmost heights of the ascending ranges of supermind and it may pass the
borders of the supermind proper itself where it begins to shadow out, develop,
delineate expressive forms of life touched by a supreme pure existence,
consciousness and bliss which constitute the worlds of a highest truth of
existence, dynamism of tapas, glory and sweetness of bliss, the absolute
essence and pitch of the all-creating Ananda. The transformation of the physical
being might follow this incessant line of progression and the divine body
reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of this
highest greatness and glory of the self-manifesting Spirit.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/2/4004239.html
The Avataric
Work: Towards the Intermediate Race
The Gita reveals that the purpose of the divine
Incarnation, of the coming as an Avatar is to do the divine work, divyam
karma. He comes not only to destroy the evil and establish the righteous
Law; he comes actually to take the progressive evolutionary march to the next
higher stage. Sri Aurobindo came to do that, to bring the Supermind in the
terrestrial play and make the divine manifestation here upon earth a
possibility. We have to see from whatever has been revealed to us, if this is
present in his life and in his work. Representation of that work should be the
genuine concern for any study of his, including biographical. If this is
missed, then that study is a waste of effort and one need not attach importance
to it. Unfortunately that is precisely what is happening in the case of the
latest biography of Sri Aurobindo. However, this article briefly looks into
some of the aspects of the yogic work carried out by Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother, the work having progressed in formulating a link between Man the Mental
Being and the Supramental Race, the Intermediate Race.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/4/4006724.html
The
Possibilities of Man
The formula of God, Light, Freedom, Immortality was
discovered ages ago and many attempts were made for its application. Great
religions came, philosophies sprang up, social institutions advanced the cause
of Man, and esoteric pursuits brought fruits of wonder; however, this transient
and sorrowful world has yet remained sorrowful and transient. Long and tortuous
has been the path on which imperious history marched. Thinkers and saints and
prophets moulded the destiny of mankind and took it nearer, and yet nearer,
towards its far-off unattainable goal. Cycles of evolution turned through rough
and strenuous and recalcitrant times. Have ever the ceaseless strivings been
successful?
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/5/4008326.html
Material
Basis for the Phenomenon of Man
Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point is in no way an
object of scientific study, it cannot be; certainly it is not amenable to the
Cartesian analysis. Actually it is a kind of both within and without, both at
once; it is Within-Without, the originator and the culminator of the entire
becoming that we are. Going a step farther, it is also the endless becoming in
its own new dimensional possibilities. The Omega Point is trans-descriptive and
trans-analytical, yet holding and encompassing all that we are, and all that we
shall be, in its newer and happier truth. If transcendence is one of the
attributes of this emerging and immerging Urge, then it is well understood that
it will escape all scaling up or down, will prevent all quantification of the
mysterious Within-Without. It cannot be described in terms of scientific
measurements that are relative in the Einsteinian sense. Then, even on a lesser
level to make man as an object of measurement and knowledge becomes fallacious.
The notion of “true physics” projecting itself in the phenomenon of man
eventually turns out to be non-scientific if we have to retain the full
connotation and context of the physics proper.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/7/4010488.html
Divine Sight—A Sonnet by
Sri Aurobindo
Each sight is now immortal
with Thy bliss:
My soul through the
rapt eyes has come to see;
A veil is rent and they no
more can miss
The miracle of Thy
world-epiphany.
Into an ecstasy of vision
caught
Each natural object
is of Thee a part,
A rapture-symbol from Thy
substance wrought,
A poem shaped in
Beauty's living heart,
A master-work of colour and
design,
A mighty sweetness
borne on grandeur's wings;
A burdened wonder of
significant line
Reveals itself in
even commonest things.
All forms are Thy
dream-dialect of delight,
O Absolute, O vivid Infinite.
26 October 1939
RY Deshpande