Search

Monday, February 29, 2016

29th February


29th February

The spiritual journey of Man has a revolutionary and evolutionary turning since Sri Aurobindo. He and The Mother Mira Alfassa have given to Spirituality a totally new turn and meaning, a completely new purpose and value.


Owing to the special and unique striving of The Mother, unseen ever earlier on earth, on the 29th February, 1956, the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness descended upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

A true spirituality does not any more mean fleeing from the world and life. We need not go to the forest, forsaking the social life and ‘renouncing' everything, and become a recluse or a monk or a sannyasin, after you attain the fiftieth year of your life, or even earlier, and then strive to attain nirvana or moksha and be free from the cycle of birth and rebirth for ever. Thereby by doing so, we allow the world and creation to go on, as it is going on now, in spite of the attainment of nirvana or moksha by several yogis, seekers, and saints. The world continues to remain as it was, in ignorance and darkness, in suffering and struggle and death. By attaining nirvana or moksha, we still allow the Divine, the Supreme, to incarnate in human form on earth several times, but we may still regard the coming back of ourselves as a bondage of ignorance.


As the principle of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, the Divine, is Truth, then this Creation, which is but a Manifestation of the Divine, cannot be false. When we are a part of the Manifestation of the Supreme Divine, there is no reason why should we withdraw ourselves from the Manifestation.

Here on earth, the Divine is manifesting Himself - through Evolution - from Matter to Mind, and then onwards towards the supramental race in a supramental world. This is Evolution. As Mind has evolved and is evolving, the principle of Supermind is scheduled also to surely descend on earth and be evolved.

According to the Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Evolution aims at ultimately manifesting That which is the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages, Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda), the Divine. This principle of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss is involved in Matter. That has become Matter. What is involved in Matter, is being evolved.

The aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is not the attainment of nirvana or moksha, not a freedom from the world and the cycles of birth and rebirth. The aim is not spiritual selfishness. The aim is not to say that others may continue to suffering, but we will leave this whirlpool.

OOOOO

This march onwards towards the Supramental Manifestation on earth is not only an Idea or Ideal only. This is not an abstract ‘spiritual' teaching. It is a practical Truth, a practical necessity. 

The Ascent to Supermind and the Descent of the Supramental Consciousness on earth makes the Evolution from Man to Superman possible.

Sri Aurobindo said:
"The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above."  

Supermind is out of reach of the common ordinary mind. But when Man reaches the higher regions of mind, namely the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then finally the Overmind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo, he can have the glimpses and the touch of Supermind. It may be very difficult, even appear to be impossible. But when the Supramental Consciousness is present on earth, things should be now easier, much easier.

Now the Supermind is actively present on earth. Let me quote the oft-quoted message of the Mother from Mother's Agenda Vol.1:

First Supramental Manifestation

(During the common meditation on WednesdayThe 29th February 1956)

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.As I looked at the door, I knew and willed in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.

And then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

The Mother has said in this connection:
The Manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.

OOOOO

However, we know that the mankind, along with this earth, is at present in a great turmoil and chaos and disharmony. There is unrest, struggle, warfare and violence everywhere. 

Yet, man has the inborn capacity to conquer and master and transform all his imperfections and all darkness and ignorance around him, to grow into a creative, constructive, perfect and divinized higher being. The human society may also grow accordingly, conquering all darkness within and without, surpassing all racial, religious, linguistic, political and other artificial barriers, divisions and differences.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother do not only speak of the Realisation of the Divine, of the Soul or the Psychic being, but also of an integral transformation of the entire human personality - his mind, and life and body, also of his ascent to the several planes of the Superconscient and to the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother aims at the total transformation of the human existence and the world. They want to change the world, the human lot. They know the bright and joyous future that the Divine has designed for this earth. They told us : don't leave this world, change this; don't give up yourself, transform yourself. 

This is the Truth. We must participate in this Truth. We must cooperate with the Divine. We must march onwards, by transforming ourselves, towards becoming the supramental race in a supramental world. That is the only Way now left for us, for the human beings. 

Sri Aurobindo has said that the time has come when man must surpass himself. Man is not perfect. He is not complete. But he has the aspiration and dream for attaining perfection and completeness.

Out of Man, the Superman shall manifest. Man has to become the basis for the advent of the Superman. He has to become the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled. Man's surpassing himself will do that. Man has to collaborate with the new Evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

If we do not accept the Truth, if we do not try to change ourselves and the World, if we choose to continue with Old World of ignorance and darkness, of suffering and struggle and death, then result of our choice will be the Abyss.

The Mother has told us :

Men, countries, continents!The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.

Barindranath Chaki
25-02-2016 

[ Revised from a previous writing by myself, published on 29-2- 2008, after adaptation from a previous writing by me, published in Zaadz even earlier.] 

 [ The readers are requested to visit The Next for finding a new variance of the Essay "29th February" at the following link : 

https://barindranath.wordpress.com/2016/02//29/29th-february-1956 ]


Sunday, February 21, 2016

Mother Mira

Mother Mira

The 21st day of February 2016 is the 138th  birthday anniversary of The Mother, Mira Alfassa, the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo. The Aspirants for the Supramental Manifestation on earth will surely ascertain and reinforce their aspiration on the birthday anniversary of  The Mother. Today is the auspicious Day this year : 21-02-2016.

Sri Aurobindo, whom millions throughout the world have regarded as an Incarnation of the Divine Consciousness, had specifically pointed out that  'the One whom we adore as The Mother is the Divine Conscious-Force that dominates all existence' also descended and became manifest before us on earth. He referred to Mira Alfassa, and millions on earth adore Her. She is the Consciousness and Force of the Supreme.

Sri Aurobindo has said:
"Her embodiment is a chance for the earth-consciousness to receive the Supramental into it and to undergo first the transformation necessary for that to be possible."

That is why She is so valuable for the mankind and for the earth. "She is the golden bridge ," [ Sri Aurobindo : Savitri ]. She is the Force that enables Man and the earth to leap beyond and pass over the gulf of difference between Mind and the Supramental Consciousness, between Darkness and Ignorance and Falsehood on the one hand and on the other hand Light and Wisdom and Truth.

She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,.....
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.
[Savitri :
Sri Aurobindo]

OOO

The Mother said :
Throughout all this life, knowingly or unknowingly, I have been what the Lord wanted me to be, I have done what the Lord wanted me to do, I have done what the Lord wanted me to do. That alone matters.

She has also said :
Since, the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of Consciousness, I was there.

And She has also shown us the Way, the most sublime Way of the Child in us, in all of us:
You have to aspire, you have to reject; but the best is if you can keep me in your heart, if you love me, then you will have to do nothing. I shall do all for you.

That is the best Way.
And let us remember always what She has told us to march ahead towards the Goal, towards The New Horizon :
"Let us advance always, without stopping, towards an always more complete manifestation, an always more complete and higher consciousness."

OOO

Sri Aurobindo has told:
"The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-Body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally, too, she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she convert it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstacy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.”  

The Mother told us about Sri Aurobindo : 
Sri Aurobindo came on earth from the Supreme to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world, the Supramental.

She also said about Sri Aurobindo :
Man is the creation of yesterday. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow : the coming of the supramental being.

And for this advent of the supramental being, Sri Aurobindo says that Man has to ascend from Mind to various higher levels of Mind, and then to the Supermind. Man has to go through the ways of Transformation. And when the human aspiration rises to a height, then only Supermind can be approached.

OOO

The Mother is the Hope of Man, as Sri Aurobindo is. And with Their Advent on earth, the new Possibility of a divinized human race on earth has originated, the new Hope has been created. And They have given us, the human beings, the Task for the Progress towards the fulfillment of the possibility, of the hope — certainly with the guidance and enlightenment from Them.  

To eternal light and knowledge meant to rise,
Up from man's bare beginning is our climb;
Out of earth's heavy smallness we must break,
We must search our nature with spiritual fire:
An insect crawl precludes our glorious flight;
Our human state cradles the future god,
Our mortal frailty an immortal force.

OOO

A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal man's world.
On Nature's luminous tops, on the Spirit's ground,
The superman shall reign king of life,
Make earth almost the mate and peer of heaven
And lead toward God and truth man's ignorant earth
And lift towards godhead his mortality.

[Sri Aurobindo: Savitri]


OOO

The Mother, Mira Alfassa, the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, has Her Work for all of us, the mankind, and for this earth, the abode of ours - the Advent of the supramental consciousness, of the supramental beings on Earth. That is the Work to be done here on Earth - the Work of the greatest importance - furthering the earthly Evolution beyond the humankind, beyond the human imperfection and ignorance and sufferings, bringing in a total transformation of the human beings into the gnostic beings, the supramental beings.

The Earth is a field of Evolution. The Earth has seen an Evolution from the cell, that was the first manifestation of life, to the human beings, the Homo Sapiens; and it is now becoming the field of an Evolution from the human beings to the supramental beings. About this, however, the human beings in general may not be as yet aware or conscious. Evolution, at first, was the manifestation of Life in Matter, and then it manifested Homo Neanderthals and the Homo Sapiens - the human beings, as Mind descended into Life and Matter, into the earth-atmosphere. Time has come now for going beyond Mind.

Man is conscious, but to a very small extent. Of course, in Man, the dreamer and the seeker is there; the further possibility is there in him. There have been a few Leaders among us and they are regarded as the Manifestations of the Divine among us: They have spoken of Nirvana, Moksha, Liberation and the Kingdom of God. They have also accepted death and decay and sufferings like all of us, out of Their Love for us. The Way They found for us was the way of escape from this worldly manifestation. A few individual's nirvana or moksha or journey to the Kingdom of God could not solve the problems of the remaining billions of human beings that remained on earth. As a whole, the humanity has remained far away from Light and Joy and Peace and deathlessness, from Perfection and Consciousness that can give Victory and Conquest.

Man is not the last thing in Evolution on earth. He has to surpass himself and grow and become a higher being. This is the message of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo has said:
Man is a transitional being; he is not final....The Step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in earth's evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner Spirit and the logic of Nature's process. [The Hour of God, page 7]

So far, the earth has been a vale of tears, a vale of owes and sorrows and sufferings, and also a vale of bloodshed and cruelty, of destructions and devastations and Death, of falls and failures and frustrations, of fights and feuds, of fears and foes. We are all sitting upon a heap of bombs - atomic or non-atomic, real or virtual. Human beings have become absolutely selfish and egoistic. Religions have turned into the reasons for battles, group-wars and terrorism. Political institutions and activities are grossly infected by crimes and corruptions. Love is lost. Truth is lost and hidden. Light is engulfed in Darkness.

This cannot be the Earth that the Divine, the Supreme, has designed and dreamed to manifest. The earth can be and has to be transformed into Abode of God. Man has to change himself and the earth atmosphere. Man has to change this world, in all aspects, in totality, integrally.

Sri Aurobindo has said:
Man in himself a little more than an ambitious nothing. He is a littleness that reaches to a wideness and grandeur that are beyond him, a dwarf enamoured of the heights. His mind is a dark ray in the splendours of the Universal Mind. His life is a striving, exulting, suffering, an eager passion-tossed and sorrow-stricken or a blindly and dumbly longing petty moment of the universal Life. His body is labouring perishable speck in the material universe. This cannot be the mysterious upward surge of Nature.
[The Hour of God, page 8]

The base of this worldly manifestation, as we know, is Matter, which appears to us to be inconscient, gross, inert, without Life or Mind. However, Matter, as Sri Aurobindo has stated, is the self-willed involution of the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, the Superconscient Spirit, the Supreme. The Divine has Himself become Matter, as the ultimate process of an Involution. Evolution is the urge, ‘the upward surge' of the involved Divinity in Nature - to express and manifest Itself in this and as this evolving world.

Sri Aurobindo has further said:
In every particle, atom, molecule, cell of Matter there lives hidden and works unknown all the Omniscience of the Eternal and all the Omnipotence of the Infinite.
[The Hour of God, page 14]

He has also said:
Involution of a Superconscient Spirit in inconscient Matter is the secret of this visible and apparent world and the evolution of this Superconscient out of inconscient Nature is the key-world of the earth's riddle. Earth-life is the self-chosen habitation of a great divinity and his aeonic will is to change it from a blind prison into his splendid mansion and high heaven-reaching temple.
[The Hour of God, page 17]

Thus, it is an inevitable conclusion that the earth-nature and the circumstances on earth must change. Evolution cannot stop and be finalized after creating a being, the human being, whose nature is quite insufficient and insignificant and contrary to what is involved: the Superconscient. So, Man has to grow as an expression of the Divine. Man has to grow into something that is beyond his present state : half-conscious, ignorant, mortal and enslaved to the lower nature.

Sri Aurobindo has again said :
There is something beyond, something that mankind shall be; it is seen now only in broken glimpses through rifts in the broken walls of limitations that deny its possibility and existence. An immortal soul is there somewhere within him and upholds the soul-continuity if his nature. But this greater Spirit is obstructed from descent by the hard lid of his constructed personality; and that inner luminous soul is wrapped, stifled, oppressed in dense outer coatings.
[The Hour of God, page 8]

Sri Aurobindo has further said:
The earth-law has to be changed and a new atmosphere has to be created.
[Evenings talks with Sri Aurobindo by A B Purani, page 148]

Body has been seen, almost always, as a barrier for spiritual sadhana and progress. Sri Aurobindo has spoken of this as follows:
In the past, the body was regarded by the spiritual seekers rather as an obstacle, as something to be overcome as discarded, than as an instrument of spiritual perfection and a field of spiritual change. It has been condemned as a grossness of Matter, as an insuperable impediment, and the limitations of the body as something unchangeable, making transformation impossible. [The Supramental Manifestation, page 7]

But now, in the New Way of the Supramental Transformation, the role of the body is essential and of high importance. The secret of the Change lies here, in the body. Man has to surpass all his imperfections and shortcomings and become the supramental being. The earth shall grow into an abode of the supramental consciousness. That way only, the humankind can conquer all his sufferings, fears and shortcomings, all his imperfections, inconscience and ignorance, and even Death. That is the Task ahead. That is the Work to be done. Conquest of Death - that is the Aim. "Even the body shall remember God," said Sri Aurobindo [in Savitri], and thus shall body conquer Death and Darkness and Ignorance.

OOOO

Should we continue for ever to be as imperfect and ignorant and mortal as we are now? Should we ever remain enslaved to Tamas and Darkness and Inconscience, to Death, to division and disorder and chaos? Should our existence for ever be meaningless, purposeless? Should our cycles of birth and death be aimless, meaningless? Should our existence remain for ever subject to sorrow and sufferings? Should always there be the continuance of the problems of warfare and battle, terrorism and bloodshed, of the innocent killings of the religious intolerance and atrocities, of the false and narrow and ignorant social rules, regulations, thoughts and ideologies on earth?

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have answered with an emphatic no. There shall come a change - as certain as the sunrise. And there is a Way - as true as the sunlight. And there is a Hope - as sure as the Dawn - for all of us who are willing to collaborate and cooperate with the Divine, with Truth.

As we know, Sri Aurobindo departed after effecting the Descent of the supramental consciousness and force on and in His Person. The Mother took up the thread by bringing down the supramental consciousness on earth. She continued with after the Descent on earth for a progressive realization of the supramentalized manhood - supermanhood - by Man.

The Teaching of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo has the clues of the Transformation of man into superman, of the manifestation of the supramental consciousness on earth.

The Eternal Mother holds the secret, the key.

OOO
The Mother Mira, who manifested the Mahashakti, was the Person who caused the Descent of the Supramental Principle on earth on the 29th February 1956. The purpose of this Supramental Descent was to make possible the ascending journey of Man to Supermanhood.
I seek to quote the oft-quoted statement from the Mother:

FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION

(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 29th February 1956)


This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine. As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces. Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.
This was, and is, the purpose of the coming of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on earth : the Manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness on earth, so that Man can progressively change himself into the Superman, the Supramental Being. By the half-lit and diminished principle of Mind, Man can rise from the animalhood to a great extent, but cannot attain Perfection, nor can he become the Supramental Being and cause an end to his miseries and his ignorance, inconscience, incapacities and death.

OOO
 
In interpreting the message “Truth or Abyss,” The Mother further said :
The message is only for those who are still asleep and quite satisfied with their sleep.

The majority of the mankind is still asleep, asleep in darkness and ignorance with satisfaction. Man is still imprisoned with the ignorant senses and the blind and limited thoughts and ideas, with no aspiration or hope, no light or vision, no seeking, satisfied with the animal  indulgences and the limited ego, with death and darkness and division.

We shall have to aspire and endeavor and prepare ourselves for the Ascent. We should no more remain satisfied with our present state of being immersed in gross indulgence and inner blindness and blocked consciousness, of being involved with hatred and jealousy and greed and violence, of being conquered by darkness and ignorance and death. This is the Truth for us.

Let us accept the Truth and thereby open the gates of great possibilities.
The Mother says : This wonderful world of delight waiting at our gates for our call, to come down upon earth…  

We must accept this Truth. Or else, the Abyss is sure.  To stop remaining the gross animal man, immersed in darkness and falsehood and hatred and violence, this Truth is the desireable way. Our Aspiration should be for the Ascent.

Let us remember The Mother and march towards the Goal — the Ascent, the Supramental Becoming.

Barindranath Chaki
21-02-2016