The Earth is one

World Union is a non-profit, non-political organisation founded on the 26th November 1958 in Pondicherry, inspired by Sri Aurobindo's vision of carrying forward a movement for Human Unity, World Peace and Progress on a Spiritual Foundation. For the ordinary humanitarian and religious outlook and motivation are inadequate to meet the demands of the New Age which is already in the process of manifesting under the inevitable programme of the evolutionary nature on earth.

The Mother became the President of the first World Council of World Union on 20 August 1964, and since then, 20th August is celebrated as World Union Day. A. B. Patel was the leading figure in the organisation for many years, he was succeeded in that role by M.P. Pandit. The organisation also publishes a quarterly journal with the same title, which draws inspiration from the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, particularly from The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity. At the instance of Surendra Mohan Ghosh, J. Smith and Anil Mukherjee along with other prominent persons formed an Association named ‘New World Union’ on the 26th November 1958 in Pondicherry. A. B. Patel joined in May 1959, and then on April 23, 1960 the name was changed to 'World Union' on The Mother’s advice. The Mother became the President of the first World Council of World Union on 20 August 1964, and Surendra Mohan Ghosh, the Chairman.

Present office-bearers of the World Executive of World Union
Samir Kanto Gupta - Chairman Jagdish Gandhi - Vice-chairman
Ananda Reddy - Vice-chairman Anjali Roy - Vice-chairperson
Suresh Ch. De - General Secretary plus Treasurer
Prakash S. Patel - Asst. General Secretary plus Treasurer
Editorial Board - Samir Kanto Gupta, Ananda Reddy, and Suresh Ch. De
Location - Rue Desbassyns de Richmont, Puducherry - 605002, India. Phone - (0413) 2334834
Select articles from the Journal
Concept of Man in Sri Aurobindo. Indra Sen July-Sept 1968
The Integral Culture of Man. Indra Sen April-June 1970
Integral Philosophy and a New Civilization. Karl Heussenstamm April-June 1971
Unity and Harmony in Practical Prospects. H. Maheswari March 2006
Drive to Higher Integrations. Purnendu Prasad Bhattacharya June 2006

Three days (or two or “really in one” day) of meditation with Vishnu Bhaskar Lele

“Aurobindo’s Spiritual Initiation” [Excerpts from a chapter of Barin Ghose’s book From “Sri Aurobindo (As I Understand Him)”]

After the break up of the Congress at Surat Aurobindo came to Baroda, the capital city of His Highness the Gaikwar. A few months back while searching for a spiritual guide for our political workers I had been to Swami Brahmananda’s Asram at Chandote on the banks of the river Nurbada. At that time there was a dawning sense growing in us — the young dedicated workers — that the deliverance of India was not possible without spiritual power. An idea of a Bhawani Mandir in the hills (a temple dedicated to that aspect of the Shakti which was worshipped by the great Sivajee of Aurangzib’s time) was in the air among the secret workers. I was sent along with another friend1 to Northern India to look for a Guru or spiritual guide who could guide India’s destiny and train us — the future builders of the nation — along spiritual lines.

Deeply imbued with the cult of violence, learnt from the Irish Seinfeinners and Russian secret societies, and equally ignorant of what spiritual power actually meant, we in our blindness wanted to harness Divine power to our dark mission.… It was no wonder then that we wished to take to spiritual means for a holy war against the British, this idea of God helping the righteous even in murder and bloodshed being ingrained in man from his savage days.

The great Yogi Brahmananda of Nurbada had passed away some years before and I found his disciple Keshavananda to be a dry as dust pedant and a mechanical Hatha Yogi knowing no higher yoga at all. But quite accidentally I had met for a few minutes a Maharashtra Brahmin, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele by name, in the Chandote Asram. I did know that this man was a great and real Yogi. While returning to Bengal quite disappointed in my quest. I met Lele again in a friend’s house at Navasari. He made me sit in a dark room with him for a few minutes and as a result three days afterwards I had my first glimpse of spiritual awakening, my first psychic experience.

Aurobindo hearing about him from me had expressed a desire to meet this wonderful devotee of love. As soon as the Surat Congress was over I wired to Lele requesting him to come to Baroda to meet Aurobindo. Crowds with flags and national cries followed us from the station and students unyoked a carriage and putting Aurobindo, myself and a Sannyasi, Sakhariaswami, on it, pulled it for some distance. In the midst of a surging crowd we reached Khasirao’s [sic] Bungalow at 8 a.m. and immediately after Vishnu Bhaskar Lele arrived. I left Aurobindo alone with him for half an hour. When he had left I asked my brother how he found him so far as Yoga was concerned. Aurobindo said in his characteristic cryptic way, “Lele is a wonderful Yogi.”

The next day Lele came again and requested Aurobindo to sit with him continuously for seven days all alone and in silence in a quiet place. At that time nothing was more difficult than this to arrange. Aurobindo had become the idol of the nation and a wonderful halo surrounded him producing a mysterious magnetic attraction for him in the hearts of our young men. Anybody, who was in national work anywhere, needed and sought his advice and guidance. Day in and day out, crowds surrounded our house and programmes of public meetings were being arranged for him.

Lele suddenly spirited Aurobindo away from the midst of all this commotion to a lonely old place tucked away in the heart of the city. There, day in and day out, the two of them sat wrapped in deep meditation facing each other. Their simple needs were looked after by Vishnu Bhaskar’s wife, a matriculate girl of small stature of very subdued nature. I was also there and used to sit in meditation with them morning and evening in my restless and perfunctory way. My mind was divided between my ambitious national work and this inner life of Yoga.

Seven days passed almost in continuous and silent meditation2 while batches of young men traversed the town in search of their newly-found leader who had so suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from among them upsetting all their crowded programmes and arrangements. When Aurobindo was at last permitted to come out and attend a meeting in the famous gymnasium there among his ardent admirers, a great and abiding peace had descended on him which from thence forward formed the basis of all his future Sadhana.…

2 According to Sri Aurobindo he obtained the experience of the Silent Brahman in three days (or two or “really in one” day) of meditation with Lele. See On Himself, pp. 49, 82, 84, 85. He may have remained in seclusion with Lele for some days more before going out to give lectures etc.
3 Not necessarily this day. Barin seems to have been writing under the impression that Sri Aurobindo and Lele parted at the station, but Lele in fact accompanied Sri Aurobindo to Poona and Bombay.

ooooo

SRI NOLINI KANTA GUPTA (A Life Sketch): It would not have been far out to call it an Ashram And it was precisely because of this that Barin got Lele Maharaj down here for our initiation and training in Sadhana, the discipline of Yoga, the same Lele who had been of a particular help to Sri Aurobindo at a certain stage of his own sadhana.

With Sri Aurobindo, spirituality explained politics and politics fulfilled itself in spirituality

Glimpses of Vedantism in Sri Aurobindo's Political Thought by Samar Basu: Published by Sri Mira Trust; Pondicherry, India. Pp 73 (Book Review) International Journal of Humanities and Peace, January, 2002 by Reddy, Ananda

Samar Basu's attempts at bringing out the Vedantic ideals in Sri Aurobindo's political thought only confirms that with Sri Aurobindo "spirituality explained politics and politics fulfilled itself in spirituality". All along his brief political engagement, Sri Aurobindo's life was based on spirituality of which politics was only an outer expression. And the underlying realization of this spirituality was the Vedanfic ideal.

I was completely against "God"

October 16, 1971: You know, the "Cosmic" had a very interesting effect in my life. I was completely against "God." The European notion of God was quite repulsive to me. But at the same time naturally, that prevented me from having any experience. And with the "cosmic teaching" of the inner god (that was Théon's idea, the inner god -- Mother touches her chest -- the one that is inside each of us), brff! (gesture as if walls were crumbling). The experience was fantastic. I am very grateful to him. That's how it happened; I found it by following his instructions and searching within, behind the solar plexus. I found it, I had an experience ... an absolutely convincing experience.
Only people will stumble upon some vital force and mistake it for the soul, so.... You have to be VERY sincere, that is the absolute condition. You have to be VERY sincere, VERY sincere -- not only must you not deceive others, but you must not deceive yourself. You have to be VERY sincere. And then you find it. You find it, it's an absolutely concrete experience.
I had the experience before coming here. Before I came, before knowing Sri Aurobindo, I had the experience. So three quarters of the work was already done, you could say.... I didn't have mental knowledge (the mental knowledge was nothing to talk about), but it's not necessary for the experience. If you're sincere, you have the experience without thinking, you don't NEED to think. But you have to be sincere.
And now that's what my body has, it's having those same experiences. But words are....
In a certain attitude (but it's difficult to explain or define), in a certain attitude, everything becomes divine. Everything. And what is marvelous then is that when you have the experience that everything becomes divine, everything that is contrary quite simply disappears (fast or slow, right away or little by little, depending on circumstances).
That's really marvelous. That is to say, becoming conscious that everything is divine is the best way to make everything divine -- you understand -- to eliminate all opposition. The Mother's Agenda_12

It first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by the mists of the Ignorance

The quest of man for God, which becomes in the end the most ardent and enthralling of all his quests, begins with his first vague questionings of Nature and a sense of something unseen both in himself and her. Even if, as modern Science insists, religion started from animism, spirit-worship, demon-worship, and the deification of natural forces, these first forms only embody in primitive figures a veiled intuition in the subconscient, an obscure and ignorant feeling of hidden influences and incalculable forces, or a vague sense of being, will, intelligence in what seems to us inconscient, of the invisible behind the visible, of the secretly conscious spirit in things distributing itself in every working of energy.

The obscurity and primitive inadequacy of the first perceptions do not detract from the value or the truth of this great quest of the human heart and mind, since all our seekings,—including Science itself,—must start from an obscure and ignorant perception of hidden realities and proceed to the more and more luminous vision of the Truth which at first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by the mists of the Ignorance.

Anthropomorphism is an imaged recognition of the truth that man is what he is because God is what He is and that there is one soul and body of things, humanity even in its incompleteness the most complete manifestation yet achieved here and divinity the perfection of what in man is imperfect. That he sees himself everywhere and worships that as God is also true; but here too he has laid confusedly the groping hand of Ignorance on a truth,—that his being and the Being are one, that this is a partial reflection of That, and that to find his greater Self everywhere is to find God and to come near to the Reality in things, the Reality of all existence.

Document: Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > The Life Divine Volume-19 > The Progress To Knowledge — God, Man And Nature

I will prefer to observe not dumb but deep and respectful silence

Re: Re: Re: 05: Numerology of 365th line of 'Savitri'? RY Deshpande Thu 15 Feb 2007 06:36 AM PST Profile Permanent Link Hi Ron But you want me to handle a difficult situation! In Canto One, The Symbol Dawn of Savitri, we have the following passage on p. 7:

In vain now seemed the splendid sacrifice.

A prodigal of her rich divinity,

Her self and all she was she had lent to men,

Hoping her greater being to implant

And in their body's lives acclimatise

That heaven might native grow on mortal soil.

Hard is it to persuade earth-nature's change;

Mortality bears ill the eternal's touch:

It fears the pure divine intolerance

Of that assault of ether and of fire;

It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness,

Almost with hate repels the light it brings;

It trembles at its naked power of Truth

And the might and sweetness of its absolute Voice.

The 5th line here—“And in their body's lives acclimatise”—is the additional line which occurs in the Revised Edition of Savitri; with it the total number of lines in the first Canto becomes 342, as against 341 in the earlier editions. That would make our line—the line from Canto Two, The Issue we have been discussing, “Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate”—as the 366th line of Savitri. There is a reason to feel somewhat disappointed with it, with this change of count; your question “...why they changed the line count in the Revised Edition?” becomes pertinent. What should be 365, has become 366. Why?

The answer is simple and straightforward: No, their intention was not to change the line count. They have restored what was missed or dropped; they found a line that was missed by the earlier versions, including those which came out before the publication of Part One consisting of the first three Books of Savitri in September 1950, before Sri Aurobindo’s passing away on 5 December of that year; the remaining nine Books came out as Part II and Part III in a single volume in May 1951. This absence—of the relatable line in The Symbol Dawn—continued through the Centenary Edition, 1972, and its subsequent reproductions, until the Revised Edition reinstated it in 1992. So, unfortunately, that upsets our line count.

But is that important? But if there is an occult-hermeneutic connection between 365 days of the year and the appearance of the line “Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate” as the 365th line of the poem, if there is acceptable numerology pertaining to the deeper working of things, then our sensibility has reason to feel disappointed.

The second part of your query is more complex, with a complexity which could also include official as well as editorial approaches. You are asking “…why this critically important line, ‘Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate’, became the 366th rather than the 365th line as in the Centenary Edition? Was this an editorial decision they made on their own, or was it the result of new research regarding SA's actual intention?” A part of the answer is already present in what I have just said.

Regarding “Sri Aurobindo’s actual intention”—what can anyone really say, or should say about it? His “intentions” belong to another domain altogether and his instruments of knowledge are of a different order. We have talked elsewhere in considerable detail about our limitations and the small scope of the possibilities vis-à-vis our post-human destinies. I will therefore prefer to observe not dumb but deep and respectful silence as far as this phrase “Sri Aurobindo’s actual intention” is concerned; it is beyond my capacity.

But if the line was simply missed by the earlier team, and yet what was printed during Sri Aurobindo’s time as the text was a result of having been read out to him at every stage of its composition and publication, then would that not amount to his tacit approval of things as they were presented to him? What does one really do in such a situation? Does one go by what Sri Aurobindo heard and passed, or go by what he wrote or dictated but got left out by others? Each has its own set of uncertainties, and we become helpless with our mental or so-called objective-rational approaches. the dangers are there... Well, before I make my position known in this regard, it will be good to have responses from the readers of this sciy forum. And thanks. RYD 12:45 PM

One is concentric, another is vertical

There are in fact two systems simultaneously active in the organisation of the being and its parts: one is concentric, a series of rings or sheaths with the psychic at the centre; another is vertical, an ascension and descent, like a flight of steps, a series of superimposed planes with the supermind-overmind as the crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the Divine. For this transition, if it is to be at the same time a transformation, there is only one way, one path.

• First, there must be a conversion inwards, a going within to find the inmost psychic being and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature.
• Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for the divine change.
• Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the ascent, there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of this new consciousness into the whole of the nature.
• Thus rising beyond intellect through illuminated higher mind to the intuitive consciousness, we begin to look at everything not from the intellect range or through intellect as an instrument, but from a greater intuitive height and through an intuitivised will, feeling, emotion, sensation and physical contact.
• So, proceeding from Intuition to a greater overmind height, there is a new conversion and we look at and experience everything from the overmind consciousness and through a mind, heart, vital and body surcharged with the overmind thought, sight, will, feeling, sensation, play of force and contact.
• But the last conversion is the supramental, for once there – once the nature is supramentalised, we are beyond the Ignorance and conversion of consciousness is no longer needed, though a farther divine progression, even an infinite development is still possible.

Document: Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > Letters On Yoga Volume-22-23-24 > Planes And Parts Of The Being

Purity of one's adoration and seeking

The personal realisation of the Divine may be sometimes with Form, sometimes without Form. Without Form, it is the Presence of the living Divine Person, felt in everything. With Form, it comes with the image of the One to whom worship is offered. The Divine can always manifest himself in a form to the bhakta or seeker. One sees him in the form in which one worships or seeks him or in a form suitable to the Divine Personality who is the object of the adoration.

How it manifests depends on many things and it is too various to be reduced to a single rule. Sometimes it is in the heart that the Presence with the form is seen, sometimes in any of the other centres, sometimes above and guiding from there, sometimes it is seen outside and in front as if an embodied Person. Its advantages are an intimate relation and constant guidance or if felt or seen within, a very strong and concrete realisation of the constant Presence.

But one must be very sure of the purity of one's adoration and seeking—for the disadvantage of this kind of embodied relation is that other Forces can imitate the Form or counterfeit the voice and the guidance and this gets more force if it is associated with a constructed image which is not the true thing. Several have been misled in this way because pride, vanity or desire was strong in them and robbed them of the finer psychic perception that is not mental and can at once turn the Mother's light on such misleadings or errors.

Document: Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > Letters On Yoga Volume-22-23-24 > Planes And Parts Of The Being

Uinterrupted flow of the Mind of Light in the physical

Re: 04: Now her Life Shared the Cosmic Load by RY Deshpande on Sat 10 Feb 2007 08:06 PM PST Profile Permanent Link

When did this happen? Did it happen on 5 December 1950, at 1.26 am? When Sri Aurobindo withdrew from his physical, there was the uninterrupted flow of the Mind of Light in the physical of the Mother, even as she could feel the friction of its passage. The Mind of Light is the Physical receiving the Supramental and it got established in her at that moment. It became the basis of her luminous and active dynamism ever since.

Is Savitri’s “This was the day when Satyavan must die” the same as Amal Kiran’s “divine Aurobindo died”? Possibly so, but probably not; the answer is less of ‘yes’ than ‘no’. One is designedly set in the Transcendent while the other is a Yogi’s definitive step in the process of working out things. Satyavan’s death is a necessary condition for Savitri’s occult-yogic work to make it sufficient. Sri Aurobindo’s death was not fixed in the Transcendent, though later it became a part of the Transcendent; in an act of supreme sacrifice it was fixed by Sri Aurobindo himself. Who can plunge into the depth of its mystery? But we can aspire to live and grow in it. RYD

Sri Aurobindo himself was magnanimous enough to go through my first and second drafts

Sri Aurobindo - A Biography and a history by K R Srinivasa Iyengar

Paperback - 843 Pages (Year: 2006) Sri Aurobindo Ashram ~ ISBN: 8170588138

The first edition of this book was published on 21 February 1945. When I started work on it late in 1942, I was not slow to realize that the biographer of Sri Aurobindo had himself to be a poet and a prophet, a philosopher and a Yogi; and being fully conscious of my limitations, I knew that the task I had undertaken greatly exceeded my abilities.

Neverthless I persevered, benefiting by encouragement, counsel and criticism from several friends in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, and it was my unique good fortune that Sri Aurobindo himself was magnanimous enough to go through my first and second drafts of February 1943 and November 1943 respectively, rectifying many errors whether of fact or interpretation. In the result, the book was received warmly as a reliable first introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s life and work.

The second edition appeared on 21 February 1950. In preparing it for the press, I had retained the main text of the first edition, but I had also tried to make it up-to-date by introducing additional matter here and there, and supplying a few more footnotes. Although the second edition sold out not long afterwards, and although there were calls for a new edition, for about twenty years I found myself unable to return to this task. During this period a great deal of valuable material came to light and a large mass of Sri Aurobindo’s own writings-prose as well as poetry-was posthumously published.

While I no doubt tried desperately to keep in touch with this growing literature- both writing by Sri Aurobindo and writing on Sri Aurobindo-the idea of a third edition of my biography nevertheless filled me with grave misgivings. It was clear that a casual or piecemeal revision wouldn’t serve the purpose. With each succeeding year, the task only became more and more difficult, and I felt correspondingly inadequate and was afraid even to make a beginning. I realized too that I could look for no respite so long as I consented to be shackled to the arduous tasks of university teaching or administration.

Table of ContentsPREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIONPREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITIONINTRODUCTIONRenascent India and Sri AurobindoPART ONEHUMANIST AND POETChildhood, Boyhood and YouthBarodaTranslationsEpic and RomanceDramas of Conflict and ChangeMusa SpiritusPART TWOPATRIOT AND PROPHETBhavani ManditHour of GodBande MataramThe Nation’s Pace-makerOn the EveSadhana in PrisonKarmayoginPART THREEPILIGRIM OF ETERNITYChandernagore: Inn of TranquillityPondicherry: Cave of TapasyaArya: A God’s LabourThe Supramental ManifestoLights on ScriptureMan and Collective ManGlobal ComprehensionPART FOURARCHITECT OF THE LIFE DIVINELighthouseThe Ten Limbs of the YogaThe Yoga and the AshramPoet of YogaSavitri Identity with GodEPILOGUESri Aurobindo’s ActionREFERENCESCHRONOLOGYBIBLIOGRAPHYINDEX

The satisfied assent of all our being to her workings

The faith in the divine Shakti must be always at the back of our strength and when she becomes manifest, it must be or grow implicit and complete. There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit's omnipotence. All knowledge, all strengths, all triumph and victory, all skill and works are in her hands and they are full of the treasures of the Spirit and of all perfections and siddhis.

• She is Maheshwari, goddess of the supreme knowledge, and brings to us her vision for all kinds and widenesses of truth, her rectitude of the spiritual will, the calm and passion of her supramental largeness, her felicity of illumination:
• she is Mahakali, goddess of the supreme strength, and with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of tapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and the laughter, the attahasya, that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance:
• she is Mahalakshmi, the goddess of the supreme love and delight, and her gifts are the spirit's grace and the charm and beauty of the Ananda and protection and every divine and human blessing:
• she is Mahasaraswati, the goddess of divine skill and of the works of the Spirit, and hers is the Yoga that is skill in works, yogah karmasu kaushalam, and the utilities of divine knowledge and the self-application of the spirit to life and the happiness of its harmonies.

And in all her powers and forms she carries with her the supreme sense of the masteries of the eternal Ishwari, a rapid and divine capacity for all kinds of action that may be demanded from the instrument, oneness, a participating sympathy, a free identity, with all energies in all beings and therefore a spontaneous and fruitful harmony with all the divine will in the universe. The intimate feeling of her presence and her powers and the satisfied assent of all our being to her workings in and around it is the last perfection of faith in the Shakti. The Synthesis of Yoga Part 4: The Yoga of Self-Perfection Chapter 18: Faith and Shakti (June 1920)

Free self-expression in the application and evaluation of a dynamic spiritual message

The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: A Commemorative Symposium Book by Haridas Chaudhuri, Frederic Spiegelberg; George Allen & Unwin, 1960 www.questia.com PREFACE

THE idea of this Commemorative Symposium on the integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo was first conceived while celebrating his birthday anniversary at San Francisco Ashram in August 1957. It was felt that the time was ripe for the message of Sri Aurobindo to be increasingly known to the wider public in different parts of the world. It is a message which silently took shape over a long period of time in the medium of a life such as transcended all geographical and national boundaries, and unconditionally offered itself at the altar of human welfare, or rather at the altar of the Divine in human evolution. The message is one of human unity, and of 'the out- flowering of the Divine in collective humanity'. Occasioned by an intermingling of the two broad streams of culture, eastern and western, it envisages a new world-order of peace, progress and international harmony, broadbased upon a radical change of man's collective consciousness. It indicates the lines along which the unification of all human races is to be achieved through increasing participation in the creative adventure of the world-spirit. It utters forth the secret of collective and co-operative living toward the fulfilment of the ultimate destiny of man.

The present symposium consists of various articles contributed by some eminent scholars of Aurobindonian literature. It cannot possibly claim to cover all the aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teaching. Nor is the list of contributors included herein to be taken in any way exhaustive of the vast and ever-growing volume of scholarship in the field. Different contributors had full freedom in expressing their own interpretation and evaluation of the approach and outlook which has now come to be known as integral nondualism (pūrṇa- advaita). Editors have proceeded on the assumption that truth in its creative aspect lies, not in reproducing a static thought structure, but in the free self-expression of different individuals in the application and evaluation of a dynamic spiritual message.

The symposium has five parts: Philosophy, Epistemology and Psychology, Yoga and Ethics, Literature, and Miscellaneous. The part called 'Miscellaneous' includes tributes to Sri Aurobindo, an outline of the historical setting in which his message was formulated, his political thoughts on freedom and world unity, and a brief sketch of his life.

Dr Frederic Spiegelberg's article 'Sri Aurobindo and Existential- ism' is based upon one of the three talks which he gave at San Francisco Ashram on August 21, 1958, in connection with the celebration of Sri Aurobindo's birthday. Dr Pitirim A. Sorokin article, "'The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo'", is taken from his book, The Ways and Power of Love ( Boston: The Beacon Press, 1954), pp. 371-6. Editors wish to take this opportunity of expressing their grateful thanks to Dr Sorokin and his publisher for their kind permission in this respect. Professor Richard P. Marsh paper, "'The Organismic Psychology of Andras Angyal in Relation to Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy of Integral Nondualism'", represents the essay which won him the first prize in the Aurobindo Essay Contest which was held in 1958 among the students of Indian philosophy in Northern California. Sri A. B. Purani brief life-sketch, 'Sri Aurobindo', was first broadcast from the B.B.C., London, in December 1955, and has been incorporated here by courtesy of the B.B.C.

No words would be adequate to express the gratitude of the editors to the eminent contributors who have most graciously co-operated with them by joining this symposium. Editors are also grateful to Cultural Integration Fellowship, San Francisco, for sponsoring the symposium. Finally, sincere thanks are due to Bina Chaudhuri, Esther Weissman, Bernice Littlewood, Myrtle Vepsala, and Blanche Beat, who have assisted in various ways in the preparation of this volume, and to the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram of Pondicherry for permission to quote extensively from the works of Sri Aurobindo.

HARIDAS CHAUDHURI
FREDERIC SPIEGELBERG
San Francisco October 15, 1958

Since no one culture has a monopoly on truth-seeing

Re: Post Human Variations by Richard Carlson
by RY Deshpande on Sun 28 Jan 2007 06:54 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
I understand what you are trying to say, Deba, but even there I will take a different stand. It is the power of truth-seeing that uses the faculty of imagination, like any other well-developed human faculty, and not the other way around. The Vedic poetry is all that, and everywhere so; so of course is Savitri. RYD

by Rich on Sun 28 Jan 2007 08:38 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
Actually if you boil it down, the "power of truth-seeing" proceeds from the organ of meditation e.g."imaginito vera" at least that is my interpretation after some twenty odd years of studying Corbin's esoteric Sufism . I should also add that since no one culture has a monopoly on truth-seeing, it should not surprise us to find cross-cultural accounts which poet the phenomena by using different metaphors. Interesting also is that 600 years before Edward Said raised the issue of the exoticism of the East by the West in his book Orientalism that the Persian Sufis were referring to the journey to the "Orient" as a mystical journey toward the soul, and contrasting this with the profane journey to the "Occident" as leading to the surface world of sensory experience. Although I am mostly sympathetic to Said, obviously this metaphor of the "Orient" is much more complex than certain post-colonial accounts of cross -cultural differences ascribe. rc

by Debashish on Sun 28 Jan 2007 09:13 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
Both these comments of RY and RC are profoundly interesting to me. I agree with you RY that Truth-seeing uses the imagination. Truth-seeing in the Aurobindian corpus is an aspect of the Divine Sense (see the posting on Instruments of Knowledge and Post-Human Destinies), an impersonal and supramental power which can act directly but this may act also through various forms of individualized imaging - here the psychic imaging. Cultural differences, as for example the variations in function, symbology and iconography between Greek and Vedic gods may also be due to such individualized receptions.

Rich, I find particularly interesting your comment on the history of Sufi "Orientalism" vis-a-vis Edward Said. Perhaps one strand of colonial Orientalism can be traced to this Sufi history though what complicates the Orientalism of 18th/19th c. Europe is its co-existence with colonial mercantile/religious/political hegemony. Said's "Orientalism" has been criticized for its homogenizing of the phenomenon. In my own approach, I have seen these two strands, the mystical and the predatory, as a dialectical pair generating the productive force of European Orientalism. DB

by Rich on Sun 28 Jan 2007 11:09 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
Let me also briefly post a quote taken from an important essay by Ashram archivist Richard Hartz which I hope to post on SCIY soon. The quote is from Ibn' Arabi one of the most important figures in Corbin's medieval Sufism and one whose method of illumination was in cultivating imaginito vera. Corbin has written an important text called "creative imagination in the Sufism of Ibn' Arabi" Speaking of the experience of Divine that transcends mere belief Ibn' Arabi says: * "It is He who is revealed in every face, sought in every sign, gazed upon by every eye, worshipped in every object of worship, and pursued in the unseen and the visible."

This is why I suggest that while it is important to parse differences in approaches to spiritual experience -which I have attempted to highlight in Sri Aurobindo and Mothers experience of evolution - it is also essential that we recognize the affinities of inner experience across cultures and epochs.. * (In Hartz the Forgotten 9/11 and the Clasp of Civilizations: Ibn ’Arabi, Futûhât al-Makkiyya, cited at http://ibnarabisociety.org/. rc

Top Ten books on Sri Aurobindo

Aspects of Sri Aurobindo
Consciousness and its Transformation
Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo
Integral Psychology
Integral Yoga Psychology and A. Maslow
Meeting of the East and the West
Patterns of the Present
Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx
Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy of Evolution
The Destiny of the Body

[in alphabetical order - TNM]

A solitary mind, a world-wide heart

Re: 03: The Foreknown and Fatal Morn RY Deshpande Sun 28 Jan 2007 01:47 AM PST
A solitary mind, a world-wide heart, To the lone Immortal's unshared work she rose. Savitri is the incarnation of the divine Shakti which took place in “far past times when the whole thing had to be opened so as to hew the ways of Immortality,” says Sri Aurobindo in one of his early letters on Savitri. She has taken the mortal birth to do “the lone Immortal’s unshared work”. The Mother herself once declared: “Since the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there.” When the “earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs, forgetful of her spirit and her fate,” it was necessary for Savitri to come down. She came down as a link between the two Nothingnesses, the Superconscient and the Inconscient, the Non-manifest and the Un-manifest. She is the golden bridge joining the two extremes, of Existence and Non-existence; she is the mediatrix between God and Nature; she is the executrix of the sanction of the Supreme when the call of the individual soul rises to him; she by her sacrifice gives sense of Infinity to this world as much as persuades the Infinite to live in the finite, in the spaces of Time and the moments of Space. But before all that happens, she has a lot to do. The greatest she has to do is to remove the stone-block present across the path of the divine Event.

Was the “lone Immortal” supposed to do all that, without sharing it with anyone? Perhaps he was doing it already, as the Inconscient Purusha and the Somnambulist Prakriti in one. But in order to hew the ways of immortality, it was necessary for the divine Shakti to step into the process. She came down in far past times. At first nothing seemed to take place, nothing seemed to happen. Not even did the grief awake in her. Insensitive like a rock and kind of cold like the unawakened star, she lived. The hammer-beats of pain and the cutting-saw of anguish would not bring to her the imperative of what she had come to do. She was not even aware that death would come to her lover sooner than later. “Inert, released into forgetfulness, prone she reposed.” But slowly things started happening. The work of millennia started acquiring sense and significance. Life came, but she carried the ancient ache in her dim breast. She touched her bosom and felt that it had become a nest for pain. The purpose of this pain she could not yet understand. In fact, she did not know whence it had come. The powers of mind were yet fast asleep, and the instruments of knowledge, sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, remained obtuse and obscure, the torch unlit—because the primary sense, manas, had not come into operation. “Only a vague earth-nature held the frame.” But suddenly Savitri came to know that the day of Satyavan’s death had arrived. Decisive progress had been made. When Savitri awoke, everything changed. She prayed: “O Lord, awaken my entire being that it may be for Thee the needed instrument, the perfect servant.” The Lord had commanded her: “Plunge into Matter and identify thyself with it: it is there that I would manifest.” And she did it. A great advance was made. She had awakened fully. Once the Mother was asked: “When the Supreme Lord told you to make the world, how did you know what had to be done?” She answered: “I had nothing to learn for that, because the Supreme Lord contains everything in Himself: the whole world, the knowledge of the world and the power to make it. When He decided that there should be a world, He first brought forth the knowledge of the world and the power to make it and that is me, and then He commanded me to make the world.” On which day did she get that knowledge? “This was the day when Satyavan must die.” RYD

Fourfold manifestation of the purusottama

fourfold iı¯s´vara (ishwara)— the ı¯s´vara in his four personalities, usually referred to in the Record of Yoga as Mah¯ av¯ıra, Balar ¯ama, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, to whom correspond the four aspects of his ´sakti and the four psychological types of the c ¯ aturvarn. ya; each of these personalities is not a separate deity, but an aspect of the ¯ı´svara or Kr.s.n.a, “Four who are One, One who is Four”, often combined with one or more of the other three aspects.

Sri Aurobindo adapted the Vaishnava tradition of the caturvyu¯ ha (fourfold manifestation of the purus.ottama) in giving to the four aspects names associated with Kr.s.n.a as an avat ¯ ara.

Mah¯av¯ıra (“the great hero”) designates ´ Sr¯ıkr.s.n.a himself, Balar¯ama was his elder brother, Pradyumna his son and Aniruddha his grandson; they figure together in the legend of Us. ¯a and Aniruddha told in the Bh¯agavata Pur¯an. a.Other names that are sometimes used in the Record of Yoga for these aspects of the ı¯s´vara are Mahes´vara or S´iva for the first aspect (Mah¯av¯ıra), Rudra2 for the second (Balar¯ama) and Visn.u for the third (Pradyumna). http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/research/archives.php

Phenomenological properties are distinct from physical properties

At Sun Dec 10, 01:31:00 AM PST, Eric Schwitzgebel said...

Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed reply, Dave!

First, one minor point: I'm not sure what metaphysical inquiries you have in mind that don't concern modality. Aren't metaphysical claims in general supposed to hold with some modal force stronger than natural necessity? And if an inquiry yields a judgment construed as having that type of modal force, doesn't it concern modality?

On the main point, my basic confusion/disagreement remains: How can we get at "the fundamental structure of reality" by armchair inquiry? Here's my alternative take: When we reflect on a priori necessities, we're reflecting on the structure of our concepts. We may thereby discover what is more fundamental than what in a certain conceptual scheme. But whether that scheme matches up well with the universe is a separate question, and not one we can answer by a priori methods.

So I'll grant you this: In our conceptual scheme, phenomenological properties are distinct from physical properties. I think your work brings this out nicely. But I know you want to argue for more than that -- you believe that conceptual distinction between phenomenologial and physical reflects a real distinction in the fabric of the universe, and not just in the fabric of our conceptual scheme. And that's what I can't see discovering through a priori arguments of the sort you develop.

I think this point is at the heart of many of the criticisms of your work -- but most critics can't develop the point entirely convincingly and self-consistently because they don't reject, in general, the existence of subtantive (i.e., not merely conceptual) metaphysical truths -- so they find themselves committed, as you point out in your replies to them, to awkward notions of strong metaphysical necessity and the like.

The arguments are in The Conscious Mind are so tight, I think, that the only plausible way to reject them is to reject the basic conception of philosophy on which they're built; and few philosophers are willing to do that. It means going back to something startlingly close to Carnap -- to, that is, a very deflationary view of metaphysics. Fragments of Consciousness and David Chalmers's list of philosophy blogs

That dire hour itself brought that strength out most wisely and most convincingly

by RY Deshpande on Wed 24 Jan 2007 06:39 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
Unhelped she must foresee and dread and dare Savitri was living in love’s union, as would a young and newly married couple would. But even as the summer of this union was coming to a close, (Savitri, pp. 468-69)
…listening to the thunder's fatal crash And the fugitive pattering footsteps of the showers And the long unsatisfied panting of the wind And sorrow muttering in the sound-vexed night, The grief of all the world came near to her. Night's darkness seemed her future's ominous face. The shadow of her lover's doom arose And fear laid hands upon her mortal heart. The moments swift and ruthless raced; alarmed Her thoughts, her mind remembered Narad's date. A trembling moved accountant of her riches, She reckoned the insufficient days between: A dire expectancy knocked at her breast; Dreadful to her were the footsteps of the hours: Grief came, a passionate stranger to her gate…None was there to help her and, not knowing what could be the way out of this dire predicament, silently, helplessly she awaited the fast-approaching doom. No help came to her from any quarter. True, she did not disclose her psychological plight to anyone, not even to the great accomplished rishis and tapasvins of the forest; true, also that she did not speak of Narad’s prophecy to anybody; but, then, she was absolutely sure that none would be able to provide her the needed conquering strength. For her, with the kind of stuff she was made of, there was no other alternative but to win the battle against the inveterate and hardened death, the irreparable habit born of Inconscience. Who would wage a battle against him? and win it? Spiritual history of the earth tells us that all, everybody had accepted death as a fact of life here and had found other ways to escape from it. Savitri would not go by it. And yet the question will continue to trouble us: Why did Savitri keep the prophecy only to herself, instead of sharing it with others, with the dearest ones, with the wise ones? They would have at least spoken to her soft comforting words of sympathy, given her consolation, provided some kind of moral support, assuaged her sad deep feelings. Caving in of the vital causes depression which can be dangerous, suicidal, and it is wise to speak out heartrending and sorrowful things. But Savitri was Savitri; and there was always, and everywhere, something luminous about her. She knew perfectly well that her strength would come from God only, and from none else, and that it is that strength alone which would give her true help in her dire hour. She had that inner conviction, and inherent inborn wisdom, and she knew that she could fully depend upon it. Indeed, that dire hour itself brought that strength out most wisely and most convincingly. In answer to her mother’s pleading to choose another youth as life’s partner, Savitri tells: (Savitri, p. 435)

My will is part of the eternal Will, My fate is what my spirit's strength can make, My fate is what my spirit's strength can bear… If for a year, that year is all my life. And yet I know this is not all my fate Only to live and love awhile and die. For I know now why my spirit came on earth And who I am and who he is I love.This awakening to her own spiritual reality came to her with the newly awakened power of love. She has not yet done any conscious yoga but the kindled soul at once saw what was hidden behind the prophecy and she held on to her decision firmly. With the disclosure of Narad, of Satyavan’s death, Savitri at once awoke to the purpose of her birth itself. With it her missioned work must begin; Narad had cast the seed for that to happen and she received it rightly. Equally significant, in the context, is Savitri’s capacity to hold only to herself the foreboding as well as mysterious prophecy, without divulging anything to anyone around. It indeed needs enormous strength of character, almost amounting to the superhuman. The mystery is, Satyavan’s death had to take place in total isolation, without the knowledge of anybody; it had to take place not in the hermitage, but in the forest where none else, apart from Satyavan and Savitri, were present. This aspect of the episode is luminously charged with the occult. By holding the prophecy to herself only, she kind of strengthened her will-power to face the event; everything got firmly quintessenced in it, without the possibility of any dispersion. Like spiritual experiences taking wings when made public, getting lost, this would have lost its effectiveness had she divulged it to others. When Savitri discovered her soul and when the Consciousness-Force descended, centre below centre, in her body, she was told not to bare her kingdom to the foe, she was told to hide her royalty of bliss (Savitri, p. 536)

Lest Time and Fate find out its avenues And beat the thunderous knock upon thy gates. Hide whilst thou canst thy treasure of separate self Behind the luminous rampart of thy depths Till of a vaster empire it grows part.Savitri’s dhāraņā śakti, the power to hold what was given, is absolutely marvellous, absolutely yogic in the superlative, and it is that which became the basis of her success. So also is the power to hold the secret prophecy in the deeps of her soul where no assault is possible. Because Savitri has that dhāraņā sāmarthya, capacity to hold it, that Narad made his eventful prophecy. Narad knew who Savitri was, and he knew that human Savitri had to be set on the path of yoga; no wonder, in the joy of his Vishnu whose glory he ever sings, he rushed to earth. His visit is an epochal visit. In it are the elements of the new unfolding destiny of the evolutionary earth. Savitri’s keeping the word of fate is an aspect of that momentous possibility. Savitri has found her soul and she is told to keep its kingdom hidden from the foe. Savitri has come to know the death of her husband after the marriage and she understands well that she must keep its knowledge as a secret even from him. Savitri is indeed a Yogini par excellence. RYD

Many scientific principles, concepts, or discoveries need not be understood by the public

Roderich Tumulka Researcher in physics at the Mathematics Institute at the University of Tübingen Thursday April 7, 2005 Guardian by rjon on Wed 24 Jan 2007 06:22 PM PST Permanent Link

Paranormal phenomena do not exist. Magic, witchcraft, mind-reading, clairvoyance, faith healing and similar practices do not work and never have worked. It makes a crucial difference whether we imagine ourselves surrounded by supernatural beings and happenings or whether instead we see ourselves in a world that science can help us understand. Many scientific principles, concepts, or discoveries need not, despite their importance, be understood by the public, but just by the experts. The question of the paranormal is different in this respect.

The human being can project himself partially into these higher planes

Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo >

The Life Divine Volume-19 > The Order Of The Worlds

Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these planes.

We see that they are, practically, different harmonies from the harmony of the physical universe; they occupy, as the word “plane” suggests, a different level in the scale of being and adopt a different system and ordering of its principles.

We need not inquire, for our present purpose, whether they coincide in time and space with our own world or move in a different field of space and in another stream of time,—in either case it is in a more subtle substance and with other movements. All that directly concerns us is to know whether they are different universes, each complete in itself and in no way meeting, intercrossing or affecting the others, or are rather different scales of one graded and interwoven system of being, parts therefore of one complex universal system.

The fact that they can enter into the field of our mental consciousness would naturally suggest the validity of the second alternative, but it would not by itself be altogether conclusive. But what we find is that these higher planes are actually at every moment acting upon and in communication with our own plane of being, although this action is naturally not present to our ordinary waking or outer consciousness, because that is for the most part limited to a reception and utilisation of the contacts of the physical world: but the moment we either go back into our subliminal being or enlarge our waking consciousness beyond the scope of the physical contacts, we become aware of something of this higher action.

We find even that the human being can project himself partially into these higher planes under certain conditions, even while in the body; a fortiori must he be able to do it when out of the body, and to do it then completely, since there is no longer the disabling condition of the physical life bound down to the body. The consequences of this relation and this power of transference are of immense importance. Page 788

There is Law, but there is also spiritual freedom

Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo >

The Life Divine Volume-19 > Rebirth And Other Worlds...

It is indeed held by many that all is Law and Process and there is no conscious Being or Will in or behind the cosmos; if so, here is a Law and Process that satisfies our human reason and our mental standards of right and justice and it has the beauty and truth of a perfect symmetry and a mathematical accuracy of working.

But all is not Law and Process, there is also Being and Consciousness; there is not only a machinery but a Spirit in things, not only Nature and law of cosmos but a cosmic Spirit, not only a process of mind and life and body but a soul in the natural creature. If it were not so, there could be no rebirth of a soul and no field for a law of Karma. But if the fundamental truth of our being is spiritual and not mechanical, it must be ourself, our soul that fundamentally determines its own evolution, and the law of Karma can only be one of the processes it uses for that purpose: our Spirit, our Self must be greater than its Karma.

There is Law, but there is also spiritual freedom. Law and Process are one side of our existence and their reign is over our outer mind, life and body, for these are mostly subject to the mechanism of Nature. But even here their mechanical power is absolute only over body and Matter; for Law becomes more complex and less rigid, Process more plastic and less mechanical when there comes in the phenomenon of Life, and yet more is this so when Mind intervenes with its subtlety; an inner freedom already begins to intervene and, the more we go within, the soul's power of choice is increasingly felt: for Prakriti is the field of law and process, but the soul, the Purusha, is the giver of the sanction, anumanta, and even if ordinarily it chooses to remain a witness and concede an automatic sanction, it can be, if it wills, the master of its nature, Ishwara. Page 808

Mitra and Varuna are possessed of the law of Truth in the supreme ether

Re: 02: Hard is it to Persuade Earth-Nature's Change by RY Deshpande on Thu 18 Jan 2007 03:06 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

The Assault of Ether and of Fire Earth-nature fears the assault of ether and of fire; it trembles at the naked power of Truth; it cannot bear the might and sweetness of the absolute Voice. When the Divine Mother stood in front of Aswapati, to give him a boon, she spoke in a voice “absolute and wise”, addressing him as “the Son of Strength”.

Aswapati’s was no longer the frail earth-nature to give way to her Presence; he could stand there firmly and resolutely, even insisting on what he wanted from her. But for us it will be an assault of fire and of ether; under it we will easily crumble or get crushed. Too great her presence for mortality to bear,—“too immense my danger and my joy,” as she tells Aswapati. Man is too weak to bear the Infinite’s weight and truth born too soon might break the imperfect earth.

Such is the danger she herself indicates. But there is something wonderful about the phrase “the assault of Ether and of Fire”. Very often in Savitri the Unseen becomes mantrically visible and the Unspoken rapturously audible, in a mystically charged manner. The Word, dynamic in its power of expression, is seen and heard with the sight carrying the creative sound and the sound the large and luminous form presenting itself in its rhythmic movements. In the Rig Veda we have a Rik which says: “By the Truth they uphold the Truth that holds all, in the power of the Sacrifice, in the supreme ether, even they who by the godheads born in them travel to the godheads unborn, to the Powers who are seated for ever in the Law that upholds the heavens.” (The Secret of the Veda)

It speaks of the supreme ether, parama vyoma; in another place we have the supreme ocean of light and expanse of the highest superconscient ether; and then, Vishnu takes the supreme step in the highest ether, the Transcendent. There awaits us the Truth that is hidden here by the lesser truth. Mitra and Varuna are possessed of the law of Truth in the supreme ether and it is the bliss of Mitra and Varuna that has to increase in us. The Gods who are the Guardians of the Truth ascend to the supreme ether which is the infinity of the superconscient being.

Another Rik says: “With blows that slay cast from our path, O thou Flame, the powers that stammer in the speech and stumble in the thought, the devourers of our power and our knowledge who leap at us from near and shoot at us from afar. Make the path of the sacrifice a clear and happy journeying.” And: “Burn away from us the sin, flame out on us the bliss. Burn away from us the sin! apa naĥ śośucadaghamagne śuśugdhyā rayim, apa naĥ śośucadagham.”

Only when the Will in man becomes divine and possessed of the Truth, amŗto ŗtāvā, can the perfection towards which we move be realised in humanity. When this happens no more earthnature will shudder to the divine assault, the assault of the Majestic and the Imperious.

“Agni is, preeminently, the Immortal in mortals. He is the divine Will which in all things is always present, is always destroying and constructing, always building and perfecting, supporting always the complex progression of the universe. It is this which persists through all death and change. It is eternally and inalienably possessed of the Truth. In the last obscuration of Nature, in the lowest unintelligence of Matter, it is this Will that is a concealed knowledge and compels all these darkened movements to obey, as if mechanically, the divine Law and adhere to the truth of their Nature. It is this which makes the tree grow according to its seed and each action bear its appropriate fruit. In the obscurity of man's ignorance,—less than material Nature's, yet greater,—it is this divine Will that governs and guides, knows the sense of his blindness and the goal of his aberration and out of the crooked workings of the cosmic Falsehood in him evolves the progressive manifestation of the cosmic Truth.” (See The Secret of the Veda)

The Divine Dynamism, Kali’s Work in the Cosmos begins in the wake of the assault of the Ether and of the Fire. When she is thus active can in the creation rush the Divine Ananda, can the Flute-Player’s Joy prevail here. Far beyond Coleridge’s “happy valiancy”, the phrase “assault of Ether and of Fire” reaches the wonder that is the spirit of the sheer Overhead Poetry. We are seized entirely by it, as if nothing else should now count. RYD

by RY Deshpande on Fri 19 Jan 2007 01:10 AM PST Profile Permanent Link The cross their payment for the crown they gave: The image of cross appears in several places in Savitri. But Savitri’s cross is also the sign of her complete surrender to the Supreme, she going by the Will of the Lord whatever be the difficulty. Sri Aurobindo writes:

“All true Truth of love and of the works of love the psychic being accepts in their place: but its flame mounts always upward and it is eager to push the ascent from lesser to higher degrees of Truth, since it knows that only by the ascent to a highest Truth and the descent of that highest Truth can Love be delivered from the cross and placed upon the throne; for the cross is the sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns it into a stake of suffering and misfortune. Only by the ascent to the original Truth can the deformation be healed and all the works of love, as too all the works of knowledge and of life, be restored to a divine significance and become part of an integral spiritual existence.” (The Synthesis of Yoga p. 157)

One may acquire a kind of divine equality in all circumstances of life, including even the extreme of deathful anguish; but there must yet come a degree of perfection surpassing everything. The key for this perfection could be in accepting in all gladness the circumstances as they are, as a god-given opportunity to remain untouched by them. But the truer way is the way of surrender, surrender to both the divine Will and the divine Wisdom. That is the perfect way to bear the weight of the cross, recognising in it the way of the divine Love. That is the way Savitri follows, the way of perfect surrender to the Supreme. She carries the cross of suffering and pain, not just submitting but surrendering herself to the Will and Wisdom of the Divine. RYD

The Dark Foreknowledge

Re: 02: Hard is it to Persuade Earth-Nature's Change by RY Deshpande on Tue 23 Jan 2007 02:53 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

After the discovery of love Savitri must discover death. She has met Satyavan in the distant Shalwa Woods one fine summer morning and, at once, they have decided to be together. It was love at first sight and all was settled in that significant moment. It was in fact a multiply significant moment, not only for Satyavan and Savitri, but for the entire evolutionary creation. They did not fall in love, rather they rose in love; they rose to another splendour, godheads greater by the fall; it is we who in love fall, in love we fall. Their united life began again in human forms, their coming together marking the arrival of “a greater age”. Young and beautiful and reddened with a bride’s joy, dreamy Savitri returns to the palace to disclose to her eager parents the discovery she has made in the far-away secluded land. But she already finds in the palace-hall Narad the heavenly sage in their company, he singing the song of creation to them. (Savitri, p. 417)

He sang to them of the lotus-heart of love

With all its thousand luminous buds of truth,

Which quivering sleeps veiled by apparent things.

It trembles at each touch, it strives to wake

And one day it shall hear a blissful voice

And in the garden of the Spouse shall bloom

When she is seized by her discovered lord.

But soon Narad is going to announce something apparently ominous, the foreboding deep-rooted evil indeed. However, he announces it perhaps with a grave serious concern. Savitri has come to know love; it is necessary that she must also know death. Eventually Narad discloses that Satyavan, whom Savitri has chosen for a husband, is doomed to die exactly one year after the marriage, samvatsaréņa kşīņāyurdéhanyāsam karişyati, or as we have in Savitri:

Twelve swift-winged months are given to him and to her;

This day returning Satyavan must die.

Savitri yet remains firm in her resolve and starts living in her new home. She adapts herself to the life of the hermitage and looks after the physical needs of her parents-in-law, speaking always to them with a sense of humility and reverence. She also performs, with noble composure and grace, the various household routines, of attending to the kitchen-fire and using broom and jar. In a like manner, and always remaining calm and contented, employing soft and sweet language, mindful of her husband’s wants and desires, in their community life and in their privacy, she keeps Satyavan happy. This way, and absorbed in tapasya, a lot of time goes by. But about the prophecy of Satyavan’s death no one knows, neither Satyavan, nor his parents, nor the ministers in the court of her father’s kingdom, not even the rishis in the hermitages though they might have felt something of the sort; it remains a secret of the palace, known only to her and her parents. “A dark foreknowledge separated her from all of whom she was the star and stay; too great to impart the peril and the pain, in her torn depths she kept the grief to come.” The secret was meant to remain the palace secret only. Just imagine if Satyavan had come to know about it! But, then, it also reveals the tremendous power of the woman who in her heart could keep such a calamitous possibility secret from her intimate ones, including her husband. That itself is the yogic preparation of Savitri and a great deal of her success rests on it. The human instrument did not fail in the hour of reckoning.

But, within, the virtuous woman suffered greatly. With each rising sun, or while sleeping in the night, at every passing moment, she remembered Narad’s words and felt the cruel day approaching closer. When she counted that only four days were left, and Satyavan would be living no more afterwards, she resolved to perform the three-night vow, trīrātra vŗta, of fasting and standing at one single place through the entire period. Another Shakti living beyond the domains of the three nights,—of the physical, the vital, and the mental,—entered into her soul and she was now ready to confront the firm and uncompromising God of Death, Yama. The mystic truth is that the balance between Fate and Freewill can be reversed by the greater spirits. By doing yoga Savitri must rise to the greatness of her own spirit. That certainly is the merit, the purpose, of Narad’s disclosing the death of Satyavan. RYD

The physical itself will then be a wonderful expression of harmony and beauty of the spirit

Re: Re: 02: Hard is it to Persuade Earth-Nature's Change by RY Deshpande on Mon 22 Jan 2007 04:16 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

Godhead greater by a Human Fate It must have been pretty cruel of the godhead to await Savitri’s hour of ordeal. That would almost look rather nasty-spiteful of him. In any case, there is no escape for Savitri from the painful tribulation. She must meet Yama, the God of Death. He is the formidable Spirit of Antagonism born from Inconscience in response to the arrival of Life upon Earth, one who in his dark and terrible, hostile-repulsive form nullifies all the wonderful gains that come in the soul’s progress. As long as Death is present, things will always go wrong,—says the Mother.

Sri Aurobindo’s aphorism puts it as follows: “Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. If there were no siege of death, the creature would be bound forever in the form of an imperfect living. Pursued by death he awakes to the idea of perfect life and seeks out its means and its possibility.”

Death is therefore, negatively, the helper on the way, a remover of imperfection. That is the utility of Death. But, now, a moment has come when it is no longer necessary for him to be there, as progress should commence from perfection to perfection. Death the Adversary has to disappear. But Death is not going to walk away simply like that, of his own free choice, his volonté. In fact, he will confront fiercely if he is going to be challenged at all. Death’s challenge,—that is the frightening Portal of Death Savitri has to pass through. Unless she passes through it, through distress and suffering and hardship of mortality’s last portal, Death cannot be left behind. It is for that moment that the godhead is waiting. But who is this godhead waiting for such a harsh severe ordeal of hers? But it is this godhead himself who has taken a human form and is present as Savitri. By such a human fate he will rise to yet another greatness; in it there will be the Law of Immortality guiding the Soul of Evolution in the terrestrial scheme of things.

Well, but what the removal of Death should actually imply? If, as the Mother tells in a talk, “death is the phenomenon of decentralisation and dispersion of the cells which make up the physical body,” then it is that decentralisation and dispersion which will stop when Death is removed; decay disintegration and inevitable death will cease. In another talks she says:

“…the whole of humanity believes firmly in death; it is, one might say, a general human suggestion based on a long unchanging experience. If this belief could be cast out first from the conscious mind, then from the vital nature and the subconscious physical layers, death would no longer be inevitable.”

The physical itself will then be a wonderful expression of harmony and beauty of the spirit in an ever-growing fullness of manifestation. There is the fear of death in the present body and that will disappear; it will open itself to the adventure of new consciousness full of light and sweetness and joy, of love and beauty, within and without.

Aswapati the Yogi is standing in front of the Divine Mother and is arguing for her to incarnate herself here and conquer Death. He even tells her that god does make progress by coming down, by the fall, by stepping into birth. Human fate makes the godhead greater and therefore the godhead awaits the ordeal’s hour. Shiva did not opt to take human birth and therefore he is perhaps going to miss something remarkable in that respect. Gods do get disfigured by the pangs of birth (Savitri, p. 677), but there is also the marvel of the new birth. Savitri, although standing beneath the eyes of Fate, has the confidence that nothing, nor Fate nor Death nor Time, has the power to dissolve the diamond-scripted signature of her soul. She is willing to pass through the ordeal, and that is her splendid sacrifice in the Will of the Supreme. RYD