---

---

Now you vineyard hung like a depth from the High,
Silence of the summits outspreading sweetness,
You leaning flame, your soul oceaning love,
Carry us in your surge to the rapturously tall.
O pour in these limbs your spirit’s felicity!

…   more »

This morning I lived in an absolutely clear perception, of the why and how of creation. It was so luminous, so clear; it was irrefutable. All that Sri Aurobindo had said and also some things that Théon had said were seen as a consequence of the experience: each thing in its place and absolutely clear. This is what I had written in the notebook:

Stability and change
Inertia and transformation
Eternity and progress
Unity = power and rest combined

It was not I who wrote it; it was the vision of the creation—I was in the midst of a golden glory, luminous, dazzling. The earth was there as the centre representing the creation, and there was the identity of the inertia of the stone, of what is most inert.

In the Supreme, it is a unity that contains all the possibilities perfectly unified, without any differentiation; in creation, it is, so to say, the projection of all that makes up this unity by dividing the opposites, that is to say, by separating them. The division of consciousness starts from the unity conscious of its unity, in order to arrive at the unity conscious of its multiplicity in the unity. In the process the Inconscient becomes more and more conscious in beings who are conscious of their infinitesimal existence and at the same time, through what we call progress or evolution or transformation, become conscious of the original Unity. And that, as it was seen, explains everything.

And evil, what we call evil, has its indispensable place in the whole. It will not be felt as evil the moment one becomes conscious of That—necessarily. Evil is this infinitesimal element looking at its infinitesimal consciousness. There was nothing but that! That alone was there, and everything, everything has changed. That must be the supramental consciousness. In it there are no contraries. It is that Unity. There are no words that can explain the magnificence of the Grace, how the whole is combined.

I have already had the experience, partially, that when one is in this state of inner harmony, the body works perfectly well. That which Sri Aurobindo calls “the old man”, the ego-centric imbecility, it is gone.

...   more »

We must remember that no matter how well we do something there has to be a better way! Excellence is not a destination but a journey. Creativity and innovation sometimes need inspiration from other disciplines. It is probably not a chance that Einstein’s interest in music was as much as his interest in Physics. Bertrand Russell was as much a mathematician as a philosopher. Excellence and creativity go hand in hand. … I have found that regular exercise improves the quality of time. … The truth is that stress will increase in a global world, and you must have your own mechanism to deal with it.

…   more »

Certainly it is not easy to get rid of all desires, it sometimes needs a whole lifetime. But it seems to be a very negative way, although at a certain stage of development, it is a discipline which it is very useful, even indispensable to practise. At first you begin by getting rid of the major desires; then come subtler desires that take the form of things that have to be done, that are necessary, and it requires time and much sincerity to discover and overcome them; at last it seems as if you had done away with these wretched desires in the material world, in external things, in the world of feelings, in the emotions and sentiments, in the mental world as regards ideas, and then you find them again in the spiritual world, and there they are far more dangerous, more subtle, more penetrating and much more invisible and covered by such a saintly appearance that one dare not call them desires. And when one has succeeded in overcoming all that, in discovering, dislodging and getting rid of them, even then one has done only the negative side of the work. If at the outset one were to seize the problem bodily, jump into it with courage and determination and, instead of undertaking a long, arduous, painful, disappointing hunt after desires, one gives oneself simply, totally, unconditionally, if one surrenders to the Supreme Reality, to the Supreme Will, to the Supreme Being, putting oneself entirely in His hands, in an upsurge of the whole being and all the elements of the being, without calculating, that would be the swiftest and the most radical way to get rid of the ego. People will say that it is difficult to do it, but at least awarmth is there, an ardour, an enthusiasm, a light, a beauty, an ardent and creative life.

…   more »

---

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eaegThJfCo

---

The wailful sweetness of the violin
Floats down the hushed waters of the wind,
The heart-strings of the throbbing harp begin
To long in aching music. Spirit-pined,
In wafts that poignant sweetness drifts, until
The wounded soul ooze sadness. The red sun,
A bubble of fire, drops slowly toward the hill,
While one bird prattles that the day is done.

…   more »

Recently, a debate played out on the Washington Post's On Faith blog between Aseem Shukla, a physician who heads the Hindu American Foundation, and Deepak Chopra. The argument, which was also reported in Newsweek, began with Shukla's essay, The Theft of Yoga, in which he lamented that the phenomenal popularity of yoga has been achieved at a cost, namely its disconnection from the tradition that gave it birth. "Yoga originated in Hinduism," he wrote. "It's disingenuous to say otherwise. A little bit of credit wouldn't be a bad thing, and it would help Hindu Americans feel proud of their heritage." Chopra countered on historical grounds—which Shukla later refuted—and on the grounds that modern yoga is one response to the need for a secularized spirituality that transcends religious forms.

…   more »

---

---

Plunging into the waters off Alexandria, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago.

…   more »

---

---

They shall cross marshy lands and reach battlefields:
Even as all the king’s men shall blow loud trumpets,
Sounds of atoms, sounds of cannons, of new winds,
And clothe them in quick flaming drapes, and in songs—
They shall climb steeps, up-bound slopes merging somewhere
Into wide skies of the sun-bright Airāvat.

…   more »

For a perfect realisation, the whole being must be illumined; but for the beginning of a realisation, it might be easier for a body without a very developed mind. Generally the body is too much used to obeying the mind, and it loses its own will. A great passivity is needed for the Force to pass through quickly and reach the body which would not happen with the interfering mind. An absolute passivity is the “perfection of inertia”. To receive the Supreme Force, one must have the equivalent of immobility—the immobility of sleep, but absolutely conscious. The body feels the difference between “Immobility” and the opposite of the inertia in immobility. The way is to have active aspiration, complete immobility, and intense aspiration. If the body falls into the state of inertia—immobility without aspiration—it is awakened by an anguish as though it were going to die! It has made it understand the process of creation, an understanding that one lives. It is not at all a thing thought out, it is not a thing felt: it is a thing lived and that is the only way of knowing. It is a consciousness. The experience of the body appears like this: In some way, at some moments it is in the consciousness of immortality, and then to fall back into the consciousness of mortality is an awful anguish. And the other state, the state of immortality, is immutably peaceful, tranquil, like staggeringly rapid waves, so rapid that they seem immobile. To come out of it, the only, the only effective way is just to give up, surrender.

...   more »

---

---

BBC: Researchers in the US have developed the first synthetic living cell. Their work, which many scientists have called a landmark study, is a key step towards the design and creation of new living things. BBC News examines the issues raised by this controversial breakthrough.

V Arvind: A big breakthrough in science has recently been achieved. Scientists have succeeded in synthesizing, for the first time ever, a living cell without copying it from Nature. Which means that the DNA was fabricated from chemicals and the genome was put into a host cell. Thus, the cell's life is controlled by the artificial DNA. This landmark research is bound to have great impact on further research and far-reaching applications. Understandably, there is excitement and fear expressed by scientists and others from various walks of life and sections of the society. Man has dared to play God again? Is he tampering with Nature in a more fundamental way than ever before? Here is a remarkable extract from Sri Aurobindo's longish commentary on the Isha Upanishad.

…    more »

I think it would be better to say that there is a certain state of consciousness—which one can acquire by aspiration and a persistent inner effort—in which joy is unmixed and light shadowless, where all possibility of fear disappears. It is the state in which one does not live for oneself but where whatever one does, whatever one feels, all movements are an offering made to the Supreme, in an absolute trust, freeing oneself of all responsibility for oneself, handing over to Him all this burden which is no longer a burden. It is an inexpressible joy not to have any responsibility for oneself, no longer to think of oneself. It is so dull and monotonous and insipid to be thinking of oneself, to be worrying about what to do and what not to do, what will be good for you and what will be bad for you, what to shun and what to pursue—oh, how wearisome it is! But when one lives like this, quite open, like a flower blossoming in the sun before the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Wisdom, the Supreme Light, the Supreme Love, which knows all, which can do all, which takes charge of you and you have no more worries—that is the ideal condition.

…   more »

---

---

I wonder, can the night go by;
Can this shot arrow of travel fly
Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky
Of a dawned to-morrow,
Without ever sleep delivering us
From each other, or loosing the dolorous
Unfruitful sorrow!

…   more »

---

---

The Goddess of Speech is the mother of language. In the broadest sense of language, as the Word, she is the Mother of the Universe. In India she is called Vāc.

…    more »

---

---

The exhibition which opened this week at the Unicorn Gallery, Karachi, entitled, The golden collection 1947-2010, is simply dripping with jewels. It is not an exhibition in the sense generally understood by the term, where an artist or a clutch of artists exhibit the latest fruits of their endeavour and make a bid for glory. Except for a couple of canvases that had that freshly minted look, the majority of the exhibits were produced a number of years ago, some dating back to the time when the Union Jack was lowered in the subcontinent. As a retrospective glimpse of the country’s artistic past, it was a fairly representative offering, though one wishes there had been an Ahmed Pervez and a Shakir Ali.

…   more »

---

---

Beyond, there stands the sun-luminous Person,
A force golden in tranquil body of trance.

…   more »

The power of Love comes, but one must have the power to keep it! It is here constantly, whatever the body may be doing it is always there, conscious, vibrant. The physical consciousness in most men is very obscure; it is made only of the most material needs, desires, reactions. But what is needed is to awaken in the cells the love for the Divine. It is even much more constant than any mental or vital movement. The cells are all the while in a state of love for the Divine. The physical never forgets a thing it has learnt. The cells, once they have learnt it, this self-giving, this offering to the Divine, this need of self-offering, have learnt it for good. It is spontaneous, it is the consciousness contained in the cells. It is the vital and the mental that are unstable, particularly the vital. Now the cells are wondering how it is at all possible to continue to exist without this movement of adoration.

...   more »

---

---

Come, Revealer of the hero-path. We shall no longer cast thee away. May our entire life become a ceaseless worship of the Mother, all our acts a continuous service to the Mother, full of love, full of energy. This is our prayer, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.

…    more »

Gods are those that are immortal, who are not bound to the vicissitudes of material life in all its narrowness, pettiness, unreality and falsehood. Gods are those who are turned to the Light, who live in the Power and the Knowledge; that is what the Buddha means, he does not mean the gods of religion. They are beings who have the divine nature, who may live in human bodies, but free from ignorance and falsehood. When you no longer possess anything, you can become as vast as the universe.

…   more »

---

---

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

…   more »

---

---

Buddha's understanding of the human mind was unique, both rational and contemporary. He encouraged debate and discourse; raised questions more often than he provided answers; encouraging his followers to think like him, with freedom. He recognised the pitfalls of blind faith, unquestioning belief and intolerance of contradictory ideas. He laid emphasis on empirical verification and on understanding the world, as it is and as it is constituted. Indeed, through his radical empiricism, he laid the foundations of scientific spirit and enquiry 2500 years ago. His was the quintessential rational mind.

…   more »