Mirror of Tomorrow

RY Deshpande — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:25:00 +0530

Mirror of Tomorrow—The Human Aspiration
The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened thoughts and... his inevitable and ultimate preoccupation... is also the highest which his thought can envisage. It manifests itself in the divination of Godhead, the impulse towards perfection, the search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss, the sense of a secret immortality. The ancient dawns of human knowledge have left us their witness to this constant aspiration; today we see a humanity [with its] victorious analysis of the externalities of Nature preparing to return to its primeval longings. The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its last,—God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.

Sri Aurobindo

Our Vision
It will be the endeavour to seek and express all that ennobles the human spirit in its quest towards perfection, towards truth and beauty and joy and sweetness and love, towards fulfilment of the sense of immortality present in its deeper soul, its ceaseless aspiration for the higher manifestation even in the material creation. The Mirror shall reflect and reflect upon things of tomorrow, bring closer the human destinies by approaching the future as much as by beckoning the future to enter into its thousand possibilities.

The Sunset Marvel

RY Deshpande — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Shandilya arrived at the sunset of the four cities, of the great quarters,
And above the Lake of Mind speeding in the sunset chariot, tranquil,
Crossed the wide regions of Indra and Yama and Varuna and Soma:
With the earth-rise his paean-song soared high like a firm sunset hymn.

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Once I Looked into the Mirror of Elea

RY Deshpande — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Blind Homer saw flames of Troy rising from the pyre of Patroclus,
It was epochal beginning of clatter of the hooves of Eohippus.

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Why am I thus made to feel the uselessness of death?—The Mother

RY Deshpande — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

And curiously, everything comes and presents itself as images and possibilities; so I say to myself, "But if after a time all this suddenly stops functioning, what will have been the use of doing all this work?" And there is always something—something that comes from a very absolute region—which makes me feel or understand or grasp the uselessness of death.

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What a Sari!

RY Deshpande — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

It took 30 weavers around seven months to make the sari; a group of consummate workers took nearly 4,680 hours. This will be the first silk sari that required during the weaving process the use of 7,440 jacquard hooks and 66,794 cards which are punched to create a specific design using CAD software.

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058: The Yoga of the Cells by the Mother

RY Deshpande — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

He said (it was translated into words: I heard them, in what language I don't know, but I understood very well), I heard the words and he said to me: "Through you, I am charging...." I am charging, as if he were launching into a battle against the world's Falsehood. "Through you, I am charging ...," that's perfectly clear, and it was against ... I saw little aggregates of black dots being scattered.

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Spiritual Evolution in Brahman—by Sri Aurobindo

RY Deshpande — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Creation has been a downward evolution which has for its object to create a body fit for an upward evolution into the region of pure spirit. It is in this direction that the future of human evolution lies. When man has mastered the physical world and its forces, when the earth is his and the fullness thereof, he must turn his efforts towards mastering the world within himself. Instead of allowing the soul to use the body for its own ends, he must learn to master both soul and body and use them consciously for the purposes of the spirit, that Eternal Will and Wisdom which at present operates in secrecy, veiled with darkness within darkness and seeming even to be blind and hidden from itself. In the end he will be master of spirit, soul and body, a Jivanmukta using them at will for cosmic purposes or transcending them to feel his identity with the Self who is pure and absolute existence, consciousness and bliss.

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Poetry Time: On the Manner of addressing Clouds by Wallace Stevens

RY Deshpande — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

So speech of your processionals returns
In the casual evocations of your tread
Across the stale, mysterious seasons. These
Are the music of meet resignation; these
The responsive, still sustaining pomps for you
To magnify, if in that drifting waste
You are to be accompanied by more
Than mute bare splendors of the sun and moon.

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Scansion of the Opening Section of the Book of Yoga

RY Deshpande — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Here is a possible scansion of the opening section of the Book of Yoga...

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“India has to reorganise herself”—Submitted by Kittu Reddy

RY Deshpande — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

India has to guard her independence
India has to defend herself
India has to reorganise herself

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Snow Leopard

RY Deshpande — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

The recent sighting, or re-emergence if you will, of a snow leopard in the forests of Chitral is a heartening development. It could possibly mean that the species is on a rebound and is returning to its traditional hunting grounds.

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His Mind of Knowledge

RY Deshpande — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:38:00 +0530

We invoked Agni and he demanded the gifts of the high sacrifice,
Then from the ruby of the heart leaped up the splendid-will-to-be;
We invoked Vayu and he demanded the Horse of the strength of God,
Therefore it is through the nostrils of the Supreme that Life breathes;
We invoked Indra and he gave his thousand-pearled necklace to the One,
And in an outburst of Light streamed earthward the shining herd;
We invoked the original Word quivering in the luminous substance,
And his Mind of Knowledge kindled ecstasies of the unborn Day.

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It is the Divine Fire

RY Deshpande — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:30:00 +0530

The fire that jumps in mid-air from world to world is heaven’s messenger,
It is the heaving of the withheld sea for the noble fire of the vast sky,
It is the downpour of illumination’s ocean flooding the valley’s silence;
The fire that dwells above the head joins the fire underneath the feet,
It is the blazing tongues that gather speech in infinity of the Ineffable
It is the lotus-name, imperial, on wide Waters of Truth-Consciousness.

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Light to Superlight—Sapta-chatustaya of Sri Aurobindo (D)

RY Deshpande — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:52:00 +0530

Samadhi—Samadhi is the power by dwelling fixedly of the chaitanya on its object to extend the range of knowledge and consciousness through all the three states of waking, sleeping and dream, to the realisation of those tattwas of the Brahman, to which the ordinary waking consciousness is blind and to the experience either in reflected images or in the things themselves, of other worlds and planes of consciousness than the material earth or this waking physical consciousness.

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Nominated for the Best E-mail of 2011

RY Deshpande — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

You want me to do all this and then you tell me. .. . I Can't Pray!

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057: The Yoga of the Cells by the Mother

RY Deshpande — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

... to what extent does the presence of a physical body, in the world as it is now, act on the Work that is being done? To what extent? ... Is it indispensable? Is it really indispensable? And if it is, what is the effect and the extent? In other words, are there things that one can do only in a physical body, or can the same things be done anyway (except we don't have the opportunity to chat about it, so! ...)?

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Light to Superlight—Sapta-chatustaya of Sri Aurobindo (C)

RY Deshpande — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

The quality of veerya has its hold on the first four koshas or sheaths. Man generally plays his part in the world through these four-sheath instruments. The play through the anandamaya or spiritual happens in the lives of rare persons alone. The swabhava-shakti or self-nature of Prakriti indwelling as veerya in the four-fold sheaths causes man to live and work as its play-instruments. Man has no hand in this working—he is a mere instrument. This veerya-quality inhering ever in the fourfold koshas, displays a divergence in its active manifestation in life. So, when Shakti presses upon a particular sheath of a living man with a special stress, special chara¬cteristics and activities, peculiar to that sheath find expression in that man's life and character.

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Poetry Time: Personal Poem by Frank O'Hara

RY Deshpande — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Now when I walk around at lunchtime
I have only two charms in my pocket
an old Roman coin Mike Kanemitsu gave me
and a bolt-head that broke off a packing case
when I was in Madrid the others never
brought me too much luck though they did
help keep me in New York against coercion

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The Fallacy of Interfaith Dialogue—Apropos of Rajiv Malhotra’s Being Different

RY Deshpande — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

The point is, we are writing with a pointless pencil. Instead of engaging ourselves in futile and frustrating debates, we must develop capacities to raise right questions. We must know, for instance, what is it which constitutes the materiality of matter, we must know why at all life should be accompanied by death. Whether we get answers to these questions or not, it is another matter; we will have the satisfaction of having tried. That is reward by itself. You dance though you can’t hear the music—and that is Hope. That is the Reward. We will be else wasting our time in puerile dialogues, keeping ourselves busy with non-essentials, with inconsequential subsidiary issues.

During the World War Two Winston Churchill was asked: “What is your aim in the War?” He simply replied: “Victory.” In that one word is the quintessence of time that shaped history. Some other power had entered into operation and it seized the ready instrument. It is some noble force of that kind which must enter into our reckoning.

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Light to Superlight—Sapta-chatustaya of Sri Aurobindo (B)

RY Deshpande — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

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.

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A Letter from Kittu Reddy to the Mother and the Reply

RY Deshpande — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:44:00 +0530

The Mother: "I consider your work as professor in the School far more important than to become a Chartered Accountant. Blessings."

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Vamadeva had Immortal Births

RY Deshpande — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

He drank the great fire that flows from blazing nipples of heaven,
And as if it were a dream his second mother gathered his hair;
A soul that burns up on its own tail is climbing the Unknown,
And into the hollow plunges the chariot of the flame-wheel;
He clapped his hand as though ensued lightning from the clouds,
But the birds were young and who would nestle them in the winter?

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Of the riven Moment

RY Deshpande — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Indeed, there’s no horse-race without the horses, there’s no betting,
There is no red of the ruby, nor the winter-wine’s effervescence;
There is without earth and heaven no roseate flutter of angel-wings:
It is the drumbeat that creates the drum, the twinkling the stars;
It is the mantra that ascends to Silence, and sky to the seed-sounds;
Hence I am the mango-blossoms call between sweetness and the mates,
Between the battle and the loud victory the warrior’s shining strength,—
Between the Unknowable and the Known I am the Unknown’s link.
It is the indivisible Word, and I the form-force of the riven Moment.

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Scientists confirm rocks fell from Mars

RY Deshpande — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Scientists are confirming that 15 pounds of rock collected recently in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower last July. This is only the fifth time in history that scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks were not discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December. This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars` potential for life.

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056: The Yoga of the Cells by the Mother

RY Deshpande — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

In the realm of ideas, there aren't any problems, everything was resolved long ago—the problem is in the fact, in the material fact of the body.... It is beginning to learn its lesson. It's beginning to learn. ... Instead of the old problem—rejection of life, rejection of the difficulty, rejection of the disorder and the flight into Nirvana—it's the acceptance of everything—and Victory. This is really the new thing Sri Aurobindo has brought. Not only the idea that it's possible, but that it's the true solution, and the idea that we can start now. I am not saying we'll reach the end now, I don't know, but the idea is that we can begin right now, the time has come when we can begin, and it's the only true solution, the other solution is no solution—well, it was a necessary experiment in the universal march, but flight is no solution: the solution is Victory. And the time has come when we can try. ... It is a rather obscure labour that's going on at the moment. ... I remember the day when Sri Aurobindo told me, "Yes, you are doing an overmental work, a creation of the Overmind, you will work heaps of miracles and the whole world will admire you! ... But that is not the Truth we want." Well, this memory very often comes to my aid.

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The Mother vis-à-vis Numerology by Anurag Banerjee

RY Deshpande — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

In relation to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo we should accept large numerological significances without making a fetish of numerology.

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I Hear the Primal Phonon’s Hum

RY Deshpande — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:11:00 +0530

I hear the primal phonon’s hum deep in the superconscient womb:
Outcurving into the region of Sound I chant the glory of the Name,
Incurving I am the Silence poised on wings of eternal seeing;
I’ve become a Bird of Fire zooming on breath of my own Shadow.

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Poetry Time: The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens

RY Deshpande — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

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The beauty of simplicity: Cambridge Letter from Bill Kirkman

RY Deshpande — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0530

Another very common tendency, which also reflects the desire to impress rather than inform with clarity, is the use of some key words which sound as if they have a deep meaning even when they do not. “Logistics” is a good example of this. So is “solutions”. We passed a commercial van a few days ago displaying the words “Manual solutions”, and my wife and I wondered what on earth that could mean. We felt that it ought to mean “hands”—but I suspect that this was not the intention.

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A Poet’s Stammer by Amal Kiran with Sri Aurobindo’s Comment

RY Deshpande — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:44:00 +0530

My dream is spoken
As if by sound
Were tremulously broken
Some vow profound.

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