Appendix—(F) to Light to Superlight
Sapta-chatustaya
(Revealed to Shree Aurobindo as index to his "Synthesis of Yoga")
I had heard from Mahaguru Shree Aurobindo that during his silent tapasya in Alipore Prison, a series of mantras was revealed in his spiritual experience, which were felt by him as signals or landmarks of his new yogic consciousness. These were recorded by him as we believe—just after he came out of jail—and this record in several pages of his own hand-writing—an invaluable document, is still in our possession.
This original document along with some other original writings of Shree Aurobindo—essays, epistles, historical impressions and poems—also in his own hand-writing had been received by our revered Gurudeva Shreemat Motilal Roy in February 1910, when Shree Aurobindo came to Chandernagore and stayed in his house in secret seclusion. The writings were copied out by me in my then teen age curiosity as well as under an intuitive urge and intention to keep them with me as a precious possession for later study and deeper contemplation in future. The originals were--so far as I am aware—sent in a bundle by Shree Samgha-gurudeva to Pondicherry after Shree Aurobindo'sretreat to that place.
But it so happened that the original of these "Saptachatustaya" note-records of Shree Aurobindo were some-how left behind, with us here in Chandernagore, and continued to be preserved in my personal custody—as I feel now—as an actual legacy of my latent sub-conscious urge or intuitive intention. They have been subsequently photostated for more lasting conservation.
Shree Aurobindo, however, never called for it, perhaps having taken it for granted as being lost during the period of frequent police-raids and house-searches and other transitional disturbances or uncertainties of the time.
I was however, astonished beyond measure, when ever since the publication of the "Arya" from August 1914, I began to read and study the series of articles appearing in its pages—along with the 'Life Divine' series—under the heading of "Synthesis of Yoga"—a serial presentation of Shree Aurobindo's new thought on Yoga—of equal, nay, as we feel—of even more practical importance—for a follower of his Yoga. This continued feature—month after month—it was amazing enough to be found by , me—to be following on exactly same lines just as outlined in his note-record of his spiritual experiences in jail, we have mentioned above—but without those written records actually with him to help his mind or memory.
It was indeed, a wonder of wonders to me to observe and -realise how his elaborate exposition of the new yoga was proceeding with almost verbatim precision as a faithful expansion of those pre-attained experiences, so much deeply and accurately they must have been imprinted in his inner consciousness as not to lose any the least either in content or sequence of thought-matter, and arrangement also in its consequent methodical presentation.
A page of the original document of "Sapta-Chatustaya" has been found to be missing through the carelessness of one of my fellow-associates. It is a matter of sorrow and regret that this cannot be now at this distance of time actually recovered and replaced.
An article in Bengali Prabartak,—from the pen of my Samghagurudeva, containing the gist and purport of Shree Aurobindo's note-record, centering round the four revealed mantras quoted verbatim in that article, is here reproduced in English translation along with those four mantras that will at least help a little towards the filling up of that missing gap or link.
"The Sapta-Chatustaya" is therefore, felt and termed by me as the index of the Master's "Synthesis of Yoga" volume.
Arun Chandra Dutt
I—Shanti-Chatustaya.
Samata—The basis of internal peace is samata, the capacity of receiving with a calm and equal mind all the attacks and I appearances of outward things, whether pleasant or unpleasant, ill-fortune and good-fortune, pleasure and pain, honour and ill-repute, praise and blame, friendship and enmity, sinner and saint, or, physically, heat and cold etc. There are two forms of samata, passive and active, samata in reception of the things of the outward world and samata in reaction to them.
(1) Passive—Passive samata consists of three things:
Titiksha—Titiksha is the bearing firmly of all contacts, pleasant or unpleasant, not being overpowered by that which is painful, not being carried away by that which is pleasant. Calmly and firmly to receive both and hold and bear them as one who is stronger, greater, vaster than any attack of the world, is the attitude of titiksha.
Udasinata—Udasinata is indifference to the dwandwas or dualities, it means literally being seated above, superior to all physical and mental touches. The udasinata, free from desire, either does not feel the touch of joy and grief, pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, or he feels them as touching his mind and body, but not himself, he being different from mind and body and seated above them.
Wall—Nati is the—submission of the soul to the will of God, its acceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of Man. Nati may be with titiksha, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God's will, or with udasinata, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God's working in the lower instruments, or with ananda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna, and therefore, in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete yogin, for by this continual joyous or anandamaya namaskara to God, constantly practised, we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain &c, the entire freedom from the dwandwas, and find the Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail and experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering—Anandam Brahmano vidvan na vibheti. kutaschana. We may have to begin with titiksha and udasinata, but it is in this ananda that we 'must consummate the siddhi of samata. The yogin receives victory and defeat, success and ill-success, pleasure and pain, honour and disgrace with an, equal,. a sam a ananda, first by buddhi-yoga, separating himself from his habitual mental and nervous re-actions and insisting by vichara on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul, which is secretly anandamaya,—full of sama ananda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary. values of experience; amangala reveals itself to him as mangala , defeat and ill-success as the fulfilment of God's immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical ananda; but this is only at the end, when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges from his subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his, true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara.
(2) Active—It is this universal or sama ananda in all experiences which constitutes active samata, and it has three parts or stages—Rasa is the appreciative perception of that guna, that aswada, taste and quality, which the Iswara of the lila perceives in each different object of experience (vishaya) and for the enjoyment of which He creates it in the lila. Pritih is the pleasure of the, mind in all rasa, pleasant or unpleasant, sweet or bitter. Ananda is the divine bhoga, superior to all mental pleasure, with which God enjoys the rasa; in ananda, the opposition of the 'dualities entirely ceases.
Shanti—Only when samata is accomplished, can Shanti be perfect in the system. If there is the least disturbance or trouble in the mentality, we may be perfectly sure that there is a disturbance, or defect in the samata. For the mind of man is complex and even when in the buddhi, we have fixed ourselves entirely in udasinata or nati, there may be revolts, uneasinesses, repinings in other parts. The buddhi, the manas, the heart, the. nerves (prana), the very bodily case must be subjected to the law of samata.
Shanti may be either a vast passive calm based on udasinata or a vast joyous calm based on nati. The former is apt to associate itself with a tendency to inaction and it is therefore, in the latter that our Yoga must culminate.
Sukha—Sukham is the complete relief and release from dukha, from vishada, which comes by the fulfilment of samata and shanti. The perfected yogin has never in himself any touch of sorrow, any tendency of depression, cloud or internal repining and weariness, but is always full of a. sattwic light and case.
Hasya—Hasyam is the active side of sukham; it consists in an active internal state of gladness and cheerfulness, which no adverse experience, mental or physical, can trouble. Its perfection is God's stamp and seal on the siddhi of the samata. It is in our internal being the image of Srikrishna playing, balavat as the eternal balaka and kumara in the garden of the world.