She is the golden bridge

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]


On this 21st day of February 2009, which happens to be the birthday anniversary of The Mother, Mira Alfassa, the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, let us remember Her and The Master, in Silence and in utter sincerity and faithfulness.

As we know, born in Paris on 21 February 1878, She spent the first part of her life in Paris with Her parents, who had settled down in France a year before Her birth.

In her early years, She was conscious of the special purpose of Her life, of Her mission on earth. From the age of five She became conscious that She was not of this world and did not have a human consciousness.

Around 1905-06, She came in contact with Max Theon and Madame Theon, who lived in Tlemcen in Algeria around 1905-06. Max Theon was an Occultist of the highest and rarest order. She met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry on 29th March 1914. She left Pondicherry in February 1915 and proceeded to France and Japan. Later, on 24th April, 1920, She returned to Pondicherry for ever. Thereafter in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram was formed and She became known as The Mother.

OOOOO

Sri Aurobindo, whom millions throughout the world have already hailed as an Incarnation of the Divine, had specifically said that 'the One whom we adore as The Mother,' has also descended and became manifest before us on earth. He referred to Mira Alfassa, and millions on earth adore Her as The Mother.
Questions may be, or rather, have been asked : Who is this Mother? What is this Principle of The Mother? How is this Principle related to the Supreme, to the Divine?
The Ultimate Reality is the Infinite and One Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, whom we have termed as the Brahman, the Divine, the Supreme. The Supreme Divine is the One, Indivisible, Infinite and Pure Existence, who has three aspects, the Transcendental, the Universal and the Individual. In the Transcendental mode, He is the Source of and is also above all manifestation, all the Universes, all the worlds. As the Supreme, He bears the eternal consciousness in Him, above all Time and Space. He is described as the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, as it is already stated, as sachchidananda. He is Existence, eternal existence, and can even become Non-Existence, beyond the apprehension of any manifested existence.

In the Universal mode, He is one with the Universes, though He is above them and is their Creator and Origin. As the Supreme, who is both Impersonal and Personal, He is the Source and Origin of all that is, of the Universe, or rather the Universes. Though He has no form and no shape, He is the Source and Creator of all forms and shapes. He has become all this Universe, or rather all these universes. He is the Manifestation and the One who manifests. It is His Will that manifests and is manifested. He is the entire Manifestation. And it is His Leela, Play. He is beyond it, and also within it. He is in each atom, in each living being. And He is also the Individual, Personal God. All the Avatars are but His Individual Manifestations.
The Supreme is with His Creative and Conscious Force, the Mahashakti, who is the Divine Mother. They are One and Indivisible, and yet They are Two in Manifestation and even above and beyond Manifestation.

OOOOO

As we have discussed, Sri Aurobindo has said about The Mother :
"The One whom we adore as The Mother is the Divine Cobscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence."Sri Aurobindo has also 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."She is, therefore, so highly and uniquely valuable for the mankind and for the earth. "She is the golden bridge ...," says Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. In fact, She is “the golden bridge” which will enable us, and is enabling us, Her children, to cross the difference and the distance between Mind and Supermind. 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, and The New Creation. She is enabling us to walk on The New Way. She is enabling us, Her children, to walk towards The New Horizon.

OOOOO

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:
"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.

She has given us the Hope, She is the Hopr for us all.
And let us remember always what She has told us to march ahead towards the Goal:
"Let us advance always, without stopping, towards an always more complete manifestation, an always more complete and higher consciousness."

The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have been carrying on the Evolution. They were here — and They are here — in order to carry on the Evolution. Evolution is now at a new and decisive stage, at a turning point, when there will come the end of the reign of Darkness and Ignorance, with the emergence of the Light, of Truth-Consciousness.

As narrated by Sujata in Mother’s Chronicles, Book One, a question asked to Sri Aurobindo about what He and The Mother were doing in Their many births on earth. Sri Aurobindo had replied : “Carrying on the evolution.”

OOOOO

Out of ignorance, disbelief and blasphemy, someone has asked about Sri Aurobindo:

“How many dead people did he raise back to life, and how many blind did he heal, And how many demons did he cast out, and how many people did he die for to pay for their debt of sin? Please inform us of all his good works and powerful supernatural miracles.”

My answer is as follows:

The entire mankind lives in death — the people all around are in death. They are born in Death, in unconsciousness, or at best in very partial half-consciousness., in ignorance. We are asleep in Death, at best half-awakened. And Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have lived for bringing for us the Life Eternal. They have endeavoured for leading the mankind beyond Death, in the Way of the Supramental Transformation. They have made everything ready, so that Man will conquer Death, physically, really, for ever, in a new consciousness, in a transformed existence. The reign of Death will be over. And the Journey to the new deathless Horizon has already started. For the First time in the history of earthly Evolution, there has been a real Step taken in order to conquer and transcend Death. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother taking us with Them beyond Death. They are raising us to a deathless existence and a deathless consciousness. The Mind could not conquer Death for us, but now the Hope is there, for we will reach the Supermind, in our journey on the New Way, and the mankind will raised out of Death, really.

The entire mankind lives in blindness — the people all around are in blindness. They are born in Darkness and Tamas. There is no Light, or at best, there is only very partial half-light. And Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have lived for bringing for us the Eternal Light. They have endeavoured for leading the mankind beyond Darkness and Ignorance and blindness, in the Way of the Supramental Transformation. They have made everything ready, so that Man will conquer Darkness for ever, in a new consciousness, in a transformed existence. The reign of Darkness will be over. And the Journey to the new enlightened Horizon has already started. For the First time in the history of earthly Evolution, there has been a real Step taken in order to conquer and transcend Darkness and Ignorance, without going into Nirvana, without passing onto the Heaven. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother taking us with Them beyond Darkness and Ignorance. They are raising us to an enlightened existence and an enlightened consciousness. The Mind could not conquer Darkness and Ignorance for us, but now the Hope is there, for we will reach the Supermind, in our journey on the New Way, and the mankind will raised out of Darkness and Ignorance, really.

The entire mankind has been living with demons — the demons of death and darkness and division and ignorance, of cravings and desires, of disbelief and doubt, of envy and greed and hatred, of jealousy, of lust, and so many other demond. The Mind could not conquer these demons, could not cast them out. Now that we will reach Supermind, in our journey on the New Way, these demons will evaporate, really. And the Leaders for our journey on the New Way are Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

And all these Works that They have done for us and now doing for us are the greatest of all miracles, ever shown here on earth.

Barin
21-2-2009
[Written on 21-02-2009]


Tagged with: Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, Mira Alfassa, Evolution, Supermind, Mind, The Way, The New Horizon

The Descent on 24th November

Prefatory:

I came across a web application named Conspirama [http://conspirama.com/], wherein there has been published an article named “PROPHECIES COMING TRUE: BIG BANG VS SPIRITUAL SCIENCE EXPERIMENT ... “” written by one Shankarlal. What interested me is a reference to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, or rather, the misrepresentations about Them.
Let me quote what have been the misrepresentations :

“Both Sri Aurobindo and Mother, fired by altruistic zeal to save mankind from imminent annihilation, dedicated themselves to most arduous practice of yoga for years to prepare spiritual environment conducive to such descent. Their dedication bore fruit. On November 24, 1926, the Mother announced to a small group of Sri Aurobindo’s disciples, that, Krishna’s supramental force had descended on earth and assumed a human form. It was the day on which Guru Siyag was born.

“Sri Aurobindo and Mother were convinced that the person, who was thus chosen for the manifestation of the Krishna consciousness in the physical world, would himself undergo the last three stages of ‘Anand’, ‘Chit’ and ‘Sat’. The chosen one’s mission would be to bring about the kind spiritual evolution that he has undergone himself. Sri Aurobindo and Mother were also convinced that if one man on earth underwent complete spiritual revolution, it was practically possible for millions of others to experience this divine transformation, by following the same method. They were aware of the evolution of the Chosen one to be subject to all the trial and tribulations that are part of every human life.”

͸͸͸͸͸

“They knew that eventually the chosen one would be made fully conscious of his real mission on earth. This happened in 1969 when Guru Siyag achieved the Gayatri Siddhi in the wee hours of a winter morning in a Rajasthan town. He was engulfed in the divine light of the supramental force, changing his life forever. In the distant coastal town of Pondichery in southern India, Mother, who was always connected with cosmic consciousness, instantly received the vibrations of this momentous happening. She simply said her own mission was complete, as Krishna’s supramental force had become active that day.

“Given below is an excerpt from Mother’s writings of the vision she saw: “November 26/27, 1968: Powerful and prolonged infiltration of supramental forces into the “body” everywhere at the same time, as though the whole body “bathed” in the forces that entered everywhere at the same time with a slight friction, the head down to the neck was the last receptive region. In 1969, on the 1st January 1969 at two o'clock in the morning a consciousness descended into the earth's atmosphere and “settled” there. It was a most marvelous descent, full of light, force, power, joy and peace and suffused the ‘whole’ earth.”

A perusal of the above quotes will be sufficient to see how the reference are being made to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in order to prove and enhance the credibility of the so-called spiritual greatness of someone else, about whom none of the followers and devotees ever heard as long as they were physically and visibly present on earth.


OOOOO

The Day of Victory : 24th November 1926

Indeed, Sri Aurobindo had a very great Realization on the 26th November 1926. It was declared as the Siddhi Divas, the Day of Victory. The Mother [Mira Alfassa] said in this regard :

The 24th November is called the day of Victory in remembrance of a very important spiritual event which took place in 1926.

In this regard, Sri Aurobindo stated:
It was the descent of Krishna into physical.

Sri Aurobindo further stated in this matter:
“Krishna is not the supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards the Ananda.”

On 24th November 1926, in the evening, Sri Aurobindo came out from his room, which was seen by the Mother. She could immediately know that ‘something important has happened in the History of the Earth and Universe’. She called and asked for all the sadhaks to assemble in the upper verandah of the Library House of the Ashram building. By 6 PM, there were all the twenty four Sadhaks assembled there including Barin, Nolini, Champaklal, Amrita, Pavitra, Purani, Datta.

Purani has described the event as follows :
“There was a deep silence in the atmosphere after the disciples had gathered there. Many saw an oceanic flood of Light rushing down from above. Everyone present felt a kind of pressure above his head. The whole atmosphere was surcharged with some electrical energy. In that silence ..... the usual, yet on this day unusual, tick was heard behind the door of the entrance. Expectation rose in flood. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother could be seen through the half closed door. The Mother with a gesture of her eyes requested Sri Aurobindo to step out first. Sri Aurobindo with a similar gesture suggested to her to do the same. With a slow dignified step the Mother came out first, followed by Sri Aurobindo with his majestic gait.... The Mother sat on a small stool to his right.

Silence absolute, living silence- not merely living but out flowing with divinity. The meditation lasted about forty-five minutes. After that one by one the disciple bowed to the Mother.
She and Sri Aurobindo gave blessings to them. Whenever a disciple bowed to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo's right hand came forward behind the Mother's as if blessing him through the Mother. After the blessings, in the same silence there was a short meditation.
In the interval of silent meditation and blessings many had distinct experiences... it was certain that a Higher Consciousness had descended on earth...

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother went inside.

Immediately Datta was inspired. In that silence she spoke:
‘The Lord has descended into the physical today.’
Datta evidently spoke in a mood of ecstasy. But what she said has been recorded in different ways by some of those present there.”

OOOOO

Misrepresentations:

Thus, it is not a fact that on 24-11-1926, Krishna’s supramental force had descended on earth and assumed a human form.

As Sri Aurobindo has told, Krishna’s force that descended on earth on 24-11-1926 was not a supramental force; it was the descent of the Overmind force. Its purpose was preparing the earth and the atmosphere for the Descent of the Supermind, which took place on 29-02-1056. The force of Krishna was NOT and NEVER the supramental force, as claimed by writer of the article, Shankarlal, a follower of Guru Siyag. That is the first misrepresentation.

Secondly it has been told in the concerned article that on 24-11-1926, Krishna’s force assumed a human form. However, Sri Aurobindo stated: “It was the descent of Krishna into physical”.

Neither He nor The Mother, nor any of the disciples did ever state that Krishna’s force assumed a human form. None of Them did ever state that Krishna was reborn in a human shape. And that was never necessary for Their Work : The Supramental Descent and Transformation. The descent of Krishna into the physical does not mean the assuming of a human form; it means the descent into the physical consciousness on earth, for it’s preparation for it’s further evolution.
In fact, virtually the work of the descended overmind consciousness of Krishna was over, when the Supramental Consciousness descended on earth on 29-02-1956. Thus, that Sri Aurobindo stated that Krishna’s consciousness assumed a human form was the second misrepresentation.

Thirdly, neither Sri Aurobindo nor The Mother had ever said that Their endeavour would cause the descent of any Chosen One on earth. They aimed for the Supramental descent and transformation and creation, after which Sri Aurobindo himself will be born as the first supramental baing in the first supramental body. And in the mean time there wil be no Chosen One. In Their entire literature, there is NO such statement. Thus, speaking of the Chosen One is the third misrepresentation.

With reference to The Mother’s experiences on 27th November 1968 and the 1st November 1968, what the writer has stated we will see below.

It is said that on the Ist Janusry 1969, Guru Siyag “was engulfed in the divine light of the supramental force, changing his life forever. In the distant coastal town of Pondichery in southern India, Mother, who was always connected with cosmic consciousness, instantly received the vibrations of this momentous happening. instantly received the vibrations of this momentous happening. She simply said her own mission was complete, as Krishna’s supramental force had become active that day.”

The Mother has never said so — never has She declared that Her mission was complete. Her mission will be complete only when the Supramental Manifestation will be visibly realised on earth. And that will be, for She has assured us of that. To say that The Mother’s mission was complete, because of some realization by Guru Siyag, is a statement unsupported by any saying or writing by The Mother or by any of Her closest disciples like Nolinida, Champakla, Amalkiran, Madhav Pandit, Satprem or any body else. It has no basis at all. I am not stating Guru Siyag did not have the experiences — he might have the experiences, but their relationship with The Mother’s experiences is unfounded.

And the Supramental force became active on 29th February 1956 and not on ISt January 1969. A new consciousness — the Superman Consciousness — desended on that day. What happened on that day was that the suparemantal force — not the One that descended on 24-11-1926 — came closer to us , through The Mother. What happened on 1st January 1969 was not the Last and Final step taken by The Mother — and we refer to Her sayings or writings, NONE ELSE had spoken of coming face to face with the Superman Consciousness at that time.

Thus, to say that being conscious of some experience by Guru Siyag, The Mother said that Her mission was complete, is the fourth misrepresentation.

It is said that on the Ist Janusry 1969, Guru Siyag “was engulfed in the divine light of the supramental force, changing his life forever. In the distant coastal town of Pondichery in southern India, Mother, who was always connected with cosmic consciousness, instantly received the vibrations of this momentous happening. instantly received the vibrations of this momentous happening. She simply said her own mission was complete, as Krishna’s supramental force had become active that day.”

OOOOO

One Man’s Perfection

Even if the struggling world is left outside
One man's perfection still can save the world.
There is won a new proximity to the skies,
A first betrothal of the Earth to Heaven,
A deep concordat between Truth and Life:
A camp of God is pitched in human time.
[Savitri: Bk VII, Co V]

“One man” does not mean the so-called Chosen One. It refers to anyone, who can attain perfection. Sri Aurobindo or The Mother did not refer this line for any Chosen Guru. In fact, in Their system of spirituality, there is no other Guru — there is no traditional Guruvaada.
Sri Aurobindo has promised here — every human has the inherent capacity to rise to a spiritual height and integral perfection, by which the world at large — this struggling world — will be saved.

OOOOO

No Prophecy

Sri Aurobindo’s declaration on 24th November 1926 about the descent of the Consciousness of Krishna , the Overmind Consciousness, was NOT a prophecy. It was a statement of a spiritual fact, which occurred on that day. The descent of the Consciousness was in Himself. He, or The Mother, or any of the twenty-four disciples present there, did never make any prophecy about the birth or re-birth of Krishna in human form.

OOOOO

Another similar claim

Even some followers of Satya Sai Baba had a similar claim. Let me quote from what was written by one by H.H. Swami Saiexposedananda :
Unsurprisingly, Sai devotees have seized on this as proof of Sai Baba's divinity and identity with God (Krishna) with no exception, given their belief that Sri Aurobindo was referring to the Baba who was supposedly born on the previous day (Nov. 23). The main problem with this idea is that the followers of Aurobindo widely believe that he was referring to the descent of "Krishna consciousness" into himself, being that he had been in a meditative trance for a long while and had emerged out of said trance on November 24 to inform his followers of his revelation. As an interesting aside, Aurobindo largely retired from public interactions from that date onwards and preferred to spend long periods of time in seclusion while communicating with his followers via letters. Incorrigible Sai devotees seize on that too, presenting it as an example of Aurobindo's taking of voluntary retirement after handing the reins over to "God incarnate"!
[Posted by H.H. Swami Saiexposedananda # posted by Tusar N Mohapatra in Auroramirabilis on 20 October 2006.]

[In this connection, the reader may have a perusal of The Day of Victory, an article written by me in All Choice.]

In my article The Day of Victory, I tried to successfully reach the conclusion that the Descent of Krishna’s Consciousness has nothing to do with the birth of Satya Sai.

Similarly, it is utterly wrong and false to connect the happening of the 24th November 1926, as declared by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, with the birth of Guru Siyag. I have nothing to say against Guru Siyag and his spiritual programmes. However, I am completely assured that the sincere followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother do not have any necessity to delve into and dwell on such absurd claims one after another!

Falsehood will finally give place to Truth.
May the Day of Victory remain victorious for ever!

Barindranath Chaki
05-02-2009

[Simultaneously published by me in ASPIRATION, All Choice and Sulekha.]

On The Mother

James Tse, my friend in ASPIRATION, has sent me a message on Aspiration

Hi Barindranath

Will you please tell me that if The Mother’s energy is the same as The Brahman? If The Brahman is the original creative force that created the entire universe, Did Brahman created The Mother and all others Avatars? Is The Mother the same as Krishna, Christ, Rama, Buddha?
Or The Mother above all Avatars?

OOOOO

The Mother is the Force of the Brahman, that is, What is known as the Supreme, as Existence-Consciousness-Bliss [Sat-chit-ānanda or sachchidānanda]. She is the Personification of the Conscious-Force of the Supreme.

Sri Aurobindo has said to us about The Mother :
“The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence.
The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.”

OOOOO

Let us see the same Supreme in all the Avatars — and let us understand that The Mother is the Mother of ALL THAT IS. She is the Force that executes everything in existence, and She was there prior to Her birth as Mirra Alfassa and even after Her so-called passing away on 17-11-1973.

The earth is a phenomenon of Evolution — the Evolution of all that is involved in Matter. And what is involved? It is the Sachchidānanda. He became Matter only to manifest Himself. It is the Supreme that created the Manifestation. He thought, as per the Upanishadic saying: Eko
One Divine Being has became Many and that is this Manifestation. The Aim is the Manifestation of the Sachchidananda in each of the evolved being. The Goal of the Evolution is Manifestation of the Sachchidananda. Thus on earth there will be the Manifestation of Higher Consciousness, higher than Mind, higher than Life, Higher than Matter. But the said Consciousness will have a basis in the being that has manifested Mind and Life and Body — obviously the human being.

The Avatars —Krishna, Rama, Buddha, Christ — came as the humanity grew through the millenniums, grew in civilization and in consciousness and action and manifestation. But Man emerged in the lap of the vital animalhood, though together with mind and reason and intelligence and also with a psychic being not yet openly manifest in the race. He had and has an inner urge to grow towards the Goal, but there was only half-light, there was more of darkness and more of the possibility of Errors. So, the Avatars had to descend and lead the humanity, or even a part thereof, one step ahead.

There are traditions that say that this earth or this universe had to face Apocalypse or Pralaya six times, and this is the seventh chance. Traditions, including that of the Ancient civilization of Maya, also say that the next or the seventh Apocalypse is approaching. There are thoughts and fears that the human world is coming to an end very soon.

It has also said that we will be saved from any such apocalyptic turmoil and destruction only if grow ahead towards the Supramental Manifestation. Or the end becomes inevitable. We must seek and find and grow with the Truth — the Supramental Becoming — or else we must have to yield, so that the Supreme may take another new beginning, for He has to manifest as the Many.

Let me quote Nolini kanta Gupta here :
“As the world progresses what He expresses of Himself in the world becomes more and more the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo has used the word Supramental in order to be clear to people who live in the evolutionary external consciousness and who are aware of the way in which the terrestrial world has developed, telling them that it is something greater than the creation of man whom he always calls a mental being. He calls it Supramental to say that it is beyond mind.
But we can also say that it is something more divine than what has been manifested before. For the Infinity is there; that has no limit. Thus there will always be a growing perfection. What appears to us as imperfect today must have appeared as something perfect to which certain epochs of history yearned and aspired.
And there is no reason why the movement should stop. If it stopped it would mean an end of things – a new pralaya.” [Divine Living : Nolini Kanta Gupta]

The Mother has come to us so that we can be conscious and alert, so that we can step toward the right direction. She comes with Hope.

The Mother has said :
“Traditions tell us that a universe is created, then withdrawn into Pralaya, and then a new one comes; and according to them, ours is the seventh universe, it is the one that will not return to pralaya, but will go on progressing, without retreat. This is why, in fact, there is in the human being the need for permanence and for an uninterrupted progress — it’s because the time has come”…. … … [Mother’s Agenda, Vol.4]

The Mother came to us the time as come. There is a Hope, but also there is warning : Truth or Abyss.

If we continue to use our existence only for futile and superficial and ephemeral purposes, without looking and striving for the Next Step, if we do not yearn and strive for the Supramental Transformation, if we sleep over the golden opportunities brought to us by The Master and The Mother through the Supramental Manifestation, what waits for us is the Abyss.

Thus, The Mother came on earth with the Word that Man must transcend himself and grow into a higher being, who will no longer live with Darkness, Division, Death or Dissolution.

OOOOO

Let us know The Mother as The Mother of all that is manifested, as said by Sri Aurobindo. As we have seen and discussed, The Mother has come to us at a time, when the Supernature wants the mankind to transcend itself to bring upon earth a higher race of beings. And the Advent of the New Race is inevitable and the only course left to us. And to realize this Goal, She is the only Way. She is The Mother of the New World.

Barindranath Chaki
12-01-2009

[Originally published today in ASPIRATION.]

The Withdrawal of Sri Aurobindo

[A page from The New Horizon]



The Withdrawal

A voyager upon uncharted routes
Fronting the viewless danger of the Unknown,
Adventuring across enormous realms,
He broke into another Space and Time.
(Savitri)

On 9th December 1950, the Body of Sri Aurobindo was finally kept inside the Samadhi in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram premises. As is known universally, He passed away, medically, on 5th December 1950. Many, including The Mother Herself, experienced a Supramental radiance from His Body from the 5th to the 8th of December 1950.
A few days prior to 24th November 1950, specially from 17th November 1950, an ailment from which Sri Aurobindo suffered earlier but within limits, uremia, recurred in a way that caused heavy and definite anxiety. In spite of it, the daŕsan of 24th November 1950 had taken place. Hundreds of people had His daŕsan and passed by Him, but they did not have the least suspicion that anything was wrong!

Of course, a few persons, besides The Mother, knew about His illness. Nirodbaran, an eminent surgeon and a close disciple of Sri Aurobindo, looked after Him. On 30th November, Dr Sanyal came from Calcutta to look after Him.

On 4th December 1950, at His request, He was helped out of His bed. He was able walk to His arm-chair and take His seat. The disciple were very happy, but their joy did not last long!

Later, at night it was clear that Sri Aurobindo was withdrawing Himself. At 1.26 AM, on 5th December, Sri Aurobindo withdrew Himself finally, in presence of The Mother there in the room. Earlier, She told Dr Sanyal: “He is fully conscious within, but he is losing interest in Himself.”

Two hours after His passing away, The Mother announced the news to the Ashram inmates. The news spread rapidly and was transmitted throughout the world immediately.

Not only Pondicherry, but the whole of India and the world at large were stunned at the news of His departure.

Sri Aurobindo’s Body was to lie in state, all the Ashram gates were thrown open, so that all could pay their homage to Sri Aurobindo.

One of the disciples, Dara (Aga Syed Ibrahim), who paid his homage to Sri Aurobindo on the 5th December, stated :
I found myself in Sri Aurobindo’s own room by the side of his cot. He seemed so peaceful and happy, and the flesh shone with a new luster which I failed to see at the daŕsan time on 24th November. Why could I not see it before?... I could not take my eyes off his face and arms. It seemed to me he was alive. It was certain that he was in a condition of a deep and upward soaring trance just then.

The Mother had announced on 5th December :
The funeral of Sri Aurobindo has not taken place today. His body is charged with such a concentration of Supramental light that there is no sign of decomposition and the body will be kept lying on his bed so long as it remains intact.

By the evening of 5th December, more than 60000 people filed past “the sublime Master.”

“For everyone — for almost every one of the sixty thousand — it was a unique moment, a moment abstracted out of the stream of time when eternity was made out of the moment. Each took the burden o of his (or her 0 personality, carried his own inner climate of the soul; and the figure of the Purusha lying in the ananta-sayanam posture affected each a little differently perhaps, yet it was also on the whole a cleansing, cathartic and chastening experience for more.”
( Sri Aurobindo: K R Srinivasa Iyyengar)

Sri Aurobindo’s Body lied in state till 9th December 1950. On 9th morning, the first signs of decomposition were noticed. As such the Body was interred in the evening. It was carried by the Ashram sadhaks and placed in the cement concreted vault prepared in the Ashram courtyard under the Service tree. The place is now called the Samadhi, where devotees from all corners of the world offer their respects and prayers. As is known by all concerned, The Mother’s Body was also interred on 20-11-1973 in the same Samadhi in the upper chamber, after Her withdrawal on 17-11-1973.

OOOO

Sri Aurobindo’s departure was no ordinary death of a mortal man. And this is not a matter of Faith only. When seen by an understanding, visionary, mystic and open consciousness, not blinded by darkness and ignorance of an ordinary consciousness, one may realize that His Withdrawal was a turning point in the history of Evolution. It was the first step of human victory over Death.

Sri Aurobindo knew of the Supermind in 1910. Satprem says :
It may be worth stressing that Sri Aurobindo made His spiritual discovery in 1910, even before having the read the Veda, at a time when nuclear physical was still at a stage of theoretical conjectures.

Sri Aurobindo’s Supermind is not a completely new discovery. In the Vedas, there is a reference to it as Satyam Ritam Brihat — The True, the Right, the Vast — and it was symbolically described as the Sun of Knowledge. But it was perhaps experienced in a yogic condition of deep trance, or perhaps what was experienced was the reflection of the Supramental Light and Consciousness in the mind or in the levels termed by Sri Aurobindo as the different levels the Superconscient —the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, Intuition, and Overmind — without having any knowledge about these different planes.

Even in some references in the Veda, it had been stated that if this level of Consciousness realized, the body will be destroyed within a period of forty days!

Sri Aurobindo was in contact of the Supramental Consciousness for a period of forty years. What happened on 5th December 1950, was the Descent of the Supramental Consciousness in a wider and larger scale, not for His transformation only, but to bring an earthly transmutation. It became necessary for Sri Aurobindo to receive the full force of the Supramental Light and Consciousness, so that the Supramentalization of the earth and the mankind will become assured! This was act of the greatest possible Sacrifice, comparable to the act of Lord Shiva accepting halāhala (poison) at the time of amŗta-manthan, as in the Indian mythology.* Had the humanity remained prepared and receptive, He perhaps would not embrace death!

Towards the last days of his earthly existence, Sri Aurobindo got realized what He termed the Mind of Light**. A mind of Light is a ‘mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge.’ It is a mind that would be an instrument of the Light, the Supramental Light and Consciousness, and no longer of the Ignorance or of any plane from the Higher Mind to the Overmind.

When Sri Aurobindo withdrew, the Supramental Consciousness and Force got also realized in The Mother and She had in Her descended the Mind of Light. And the Process of began and continued, we find the consequence if the Supramental Manifestation on the 29th February 1956. I am again placing below here the oft-quoted declaration of 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.
OOOO

And now the Supermind is on earth, actively present on earth.

The Mother has stated :
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 recognize it. [Mother's Agenda Vol.1]

When the Supermind will start functioning in the full swing, many things will change, more or less. However, even when supramental beings will be there, there still may be human beings. And everything need not change for them, but still there will be improvements in all their circumstances also.

We know that all apes have not become human beings. Even all kinds of apes were not evolved as human beings. Apes are present very well now also. All ape laws are still applicable to them, like jumping from one tree to another.

So, human beings may still reside on earth, in a better society, in a better life, when the supramental race will manifest, as they will be directly influenced by the Supramental Consciousness.

And we have been observing several changes on earth, in the human circumstances, after the 5th day of 1950, and specially after the 29th February 1956.

The first thing is gradual globalization. Now the entire earth has become, and is still becoming more and more, one place, united and unified. Men and women are becoming more and more free and emancipated. Darkness is leaving our social and political lives and evrything is coming to an openness. Wrong social customs and inhibitions and prohibitions and superstitions are becoming less and less active. The iron curtains of Soviet land has been broken and China has also opened the Door to the outer world. Autocrats have diminished in number, and it is hoped that they will leave for ever soon.

It may be recalled that the Mount Everest was conquered by Tenzing and Hillary after 1950 only; the confirmed ascent (and of course, safe descent) of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay took place in 1953. [Ref : Wikipaedia]

Colonel Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, became in 1961 the first human in space and the first human to orbit the Earth. And thereafter there have been enough progress in space adventures and space technology by the humans, which all of us more or less know.

Next, we find that there have been sufficient progress in medical and biological sciences. The life expectancy have increased and is increasing more and more. Now Medical Science is changing our concept of Old Age. “While many agree that our human life span has an upper agelimit of 120 years, it now looks like we may be able to grow older as our bodies may be kept artificially young.”[The End of Aging : Carol Orlock]

Carol has further referred to a process of selective breeding, which may increase the average of life-span of a human being from 150 to 160 years. He says : “In human terms, that would mean an avrage life span of 150 to 160 years —assuming, of course, that any human population would accept the prospect of selective breeding for 1400 or so years.”

The goal of life is to die young — as late as possible. [Ashley Mantagu]

We have also seen that two of the disciples of Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran and Amalkiran — have lived for more than a century each.

It is not possible here to make an exhaustive list of the changes and progresses made by and occurring to the human society after 1950. But any onlooker will admit that there have many progressive changes and many more will be. And these changes will be there, so that Man can progressively prepare Himself for the transformation into the New Man, so that the New Race, the Supramental Race may have an advent on earth.

Let us always gratefully remember that all these progressive changes on earth are the result of the Descent of the Supramental Consciouness and the Supramental Manifestation.

The basis of the Supramental Manifestation on earth on 29th February 1956 is the Sacrifice made by Sri Aurobindo on the fateful day, the 5th December 1950.

Barindranath Chaki
9-12-2006

N.B.~

*Amrita or Amrit (Sanskrit: अमृत) is immortal nectar or ambrosia (of which it is a cognate). It is the drink of the gods, which grants them immortality. In Sanskrit the word amrita literally means "without death", and is often referred to in texts as nectar.
Amrit features in the myth of the Samudra manthan, where the gods, because of a curse from the sage Durvasa, begin to lose their immortality. With the help of the asuras (demons), they churn the sea in order to find the nectar of immortality: amrit. Drinking it, the gods regained their immortality and defeated the the demons.[Samudra is sea, and manthan is churning.]

**A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the Supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the Supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. [Sri Aurobindo]

Barindranath Chaki
9-12-2006
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The Withdrawals 1

My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God’s happy living tool,
My spirit a vast Sun of deathless light.
[Sri Aurobindo]


They say that Sri Aurobindo passed away on 5th December 1950. Even, it is said that it was His withdrawal. Did He really pass away, away from us, from the Humanity and the World? Did He pass into ignominy and ignorance and Darkness, into Death? Did He really withdraw Himself from the Mankind, from His Work of the Supramental Manifestation and Transformation?

In 1956, one of my teachers, son of one who closely knew Sri Aurobindo and remained in the Ashram, asked me the question: why did He die? At that time, I could not explain the matter or meet the challenge thrown to me. But the question lived in me and forced me to find the answer in course of time.

Majority of the people, now and then, took it and believed and knew it as a great withdrawal of a great Person, of a great Divine Person, who endeavored to cause descent of the Supermind and Manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness and Force. Indeed, the very event was beyond human words. Sri Aurobindo’s “Withdrawal” was a necessity for the Supramental Descent on earth.

Prior to that, Sri Aurobindo was ill. His illness continued and it caused a deep concern in the Ashram. Dr Nirodbaran and Dr Sanyal looked after his treatment. The illness prolonged. The Mother told Dr Sanyal: “He is fully conscious within, but he is losing concern in himself.” Champaklal, however, asked Sri Aurobindo : “Are you not using your Force?” The Master replied : “No.” Dr Nirodbaran asked then: “if you don’t use you Force, how is the disease to be cured?” The reply was: “Can’t explain, you won’t understand.”

The reply, if possible for us, to the human question about the Withdrawal would have also been—“You won’t understand.”

As K D Sethna puts it, Sri Aurobindo was both a Pilgrim of Day and also of Night. He went to the Highest height of Consciousness and, as well, he went to the lowest of the planes of Darkness and Inconscience, in order to kindle the Light there and accelerate the Transformation of the Earth and the mankind. He had to combat with Death, so that in due course, in the Next Evolution, Death comes to an end.

I made an assignation with the Night;
In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous:
In my breast carrying God’s deathless light
I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo.
I left the glory of the illumined Mind
And the calm rapture of the divinised soul
And travelled through a vastness dim and blind
To the grey shore where her ignorant waters roll.
I walk by the chill wave through the dull slime
And still that weary journeying knows no end;
Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time,
There comes no voice of the celestial Friend,
And yet I know my footprints’ track shall be
A pathway towards Immortality.
[A Pilgrim of Night : Sri Aurobindo]
The Mother wrote on 9th December, which is for the mankind the mantra of rejuvenation and of starting anew from the stupefaction that resulted from His “Withdrawal”:
To THEE who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to THEE our infinite gratitude. Before THEE who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before THEE who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us,
before THEE we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to THEE.

As everybody knows, this has been inscribed on the Samadhi. This inscription has been addressed to “the material envelope” of Sri Aurobindo, but not to Sri Aurobindo himself.

Sri Aurobindo is a Being and a Consciousness and a Force that cannot die. His coming to earth was, and is, a Hope for the Earth and the Mankind, a Promise by the Supreme for the conquest of Ignorance and Darkness and Death on earth, a Dream to be fulfilled.

Sri Aurobindo did never leave us. His Presence is always with us here on earth. His “Withdrawal” was simply the act of leaving the body.

The Mother wrote on 7th December 1950:
“Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistaken terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this Presence and henceforth everything in us be concentrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime work.”

The Mother has even said that "Sri Aurobindo has come to announce to the world the beauty of the future that will be realized. He has come to bring not a hope but the certainty of the splendour towards which the world is moving. The world is not an unfortunate accident: it is a miracle moving towards its expression."

Thus, Sri Aurobindo is not only a Hope, He stands for a certitude — the certainty that through further Evolution and Progress, there will come the conquest of Ignorance and Darkness and Death. He embraced Death, so that Death and Darkness and Ignorance shall be conquered on earth. The Dream which Sri Aurobindo has bought for us is positively a Future Reality.

He dies that the world may be new-born and live.
[Savitri]

He is a turning point in the Evolution, in the Next Evolution. With his Descent on earth, the New Evolution has begun. He came to earth and is here to change the Earth and bring in Joy and Life and Light and conquer Death. He made a supreme sacrifice and left His Body, so that the Way is open to conquer Ignorance and Darkness and Death on earth.


He who has found his identity with God
Pays with his body’s death his soul’s vast light.
His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death.
[Savitri]

Sri Aurobindo’s sacrifice has been sufficiently and greatly fruitful, as The Mother continued His Work, which is also Her Work, and then there was the Supramental Descent on earth on the 29th February 1956. And then began the Supramental Manifestation on earth. The Mother walked into the New Body on 17-11-1973.
[Ref: The Transition— The Seventeenth November, by Barin Chaki].

There has been some progress, in the meantime, in the transition from Man to Superman. The Mother has said on 15 April 1972:
The transition from man to the supramental being is accomplished through the overman. There may be a few overman - there are - who will actually make that transition. [Mother’s Agenda]

Barin Chaki
8-12-2007

Written on 5th December 2007

[ This is a page from the website The New Horizon, published here in ASPIRATION, and also in All Choice, in reverence to The Master, on the anniversary of His Withdrawal.]

The Eternal Mother

It is said that The Mother — Mirambika, who was born as Mira Alfassa — withdrew Herself on the 17th day of November in 1973. However, we will see that in reality, in the highest meaning and sense of the term ‘reality’, The Mother continues eternally — in a NEW BODY.

The spiritual journey of Man has a revolutionary and evolutionary turning since Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. They have given Spirituality a completely new turn and definition, a completely new purpose and value.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother came to earth in order to lead the earthly Evolution beyond Man, beyond all the imperfections and incompleteness of Man, beyond all the sorrows and miseries of Man, beyond Death : and They have, jointly, advanced and almost completed Their Task to a very great extent. Only what They have done has to be finished — this is the Task that has to be taken up by some of the followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and it will surely be further taken up and advanced by some. What They have done in Their individual lives has to be extended to the collective life.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A divine life in a divine body is the formula of the ideal that we envisage. But what will be the divine body? What will be the nature of this body, its structure, the principle of its activity, the perfection that distinguishes it from the limited and imperfect physicality within which we are now bound? … … …
The process of the evolution upon earth has been slow and tardy– what principle must intervene if there is to be a transformation, a progressive or sudden change?

It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence, free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit … … …

Into that truth [supramental] we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit… … … [Supramental Manifestation]

The most essential aspect of the Work of the Supramental Descent and Transformation has been realized and advanced by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother aimed at and worked for a Descent, on earth, of the Supramental Consciousness, what He otherwise named as Truth Consciousness. They declared that Their main aim and objective was to manifest on earth the principle of Truth-Consciousness, of the Supramental Consciousness on earth, and set it on earth as a basic principle that will operate and function here and transform the human life into a divine life, progressively and step by step. And the divine life is defined by Them as a life where the main principle in function and operation is the principle of Supermind, while at present the main principle is Mind. They pointed out that no other power can bring the transformation except the Supramental Consciousness and Force. For more than fifty thousand years man has endeavoured to make perfect and flawless himself, his life and existence and his environment, but he has failed for the reason that all his endeavours came from an inferior power, the power of Mind. Mind is not a power of Truth — it is an indirect derivation from Truth, covered by pulls of flesh and upheavals from the vital forces and the smokes of the inconscience.

In the course of earthly evolution of Man, there were previous manifestations from the Supreme consciousness in order to cause from the Highest heights the Descent of the highest power suitable for the mankind at those times, and establish them on earth. Sri Rama came with the ideal of the enlightened mind, and Sri Krishna manifested the Overmind consciousness and revealed for us the aspect of Ananda of the Supreme. Thereafter, we find the Buddha who taught us the Way of Nirvana to transcend beyond the mental consciousness. And then, the next step required was / is the descent and manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness and Force. Sri Aurobindo took the Leadership, and along with The Mother, He did all that He had to do. With the Sacrifice of His body, He caused to get manifested the Mind of Light in The Mother, which the first effect of the Descent of the Supermind. This has to be done not for a course of an individual realization and perfection, but the whole earth and, at least, especially for a community open to the Supreme Consciousness. And Sri Aurobindo and The Mother wanted us to make efforts to progress towards the Supramentalization.

OOOOO

Sri Aurobindo told The Mother that She had to stay and complete the Work. Indeed, the entire responsibility of the Supramental Manifestation and of the Work for having a Divine Body came upon The Mother, when Sri Aurobindo passed away and the Mind of Light manifested in Her.

As we know, due to The Mother’s unique, intense and unparalleled Endeavours, the Supramental Consciousness finally descended on earth on 29th February 1956. I am again quoting below the oft-quoted declaration by The Mother :

First Supramental Manifestation
(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 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.

In Notes on the Way, The Mother spoke of the New Body. It was around 1972. The New Supramental Body was already there. Only, The Mother was trying unveil the Way for entering that Body. She expressed that She will walk into That Body and merge the gross physical body into That Body. She said: I am trying to fuse this material body into that body but I have not been able to get the clue. … Nobody on earth has tried this, the secret is not given to me.

But Events were different, and Her entire Being had to leave the physical body. And then She has entered the New Body, which is eternal and immortal. Sri Aurobindo has a supramental Body, but that cannot function at present on earth in a direct manner, whereas The Mother’s Body is nearer to the earth.

OOOOO

Let us find what M P Pandit has written in this regard in a unique manner:

*Then on the morning of 17th November at about nine o'clock, a particular friend of mine — he has certain grounding in occult experience, occult knowledge, and normally when we meet, we exchange notes — told me, "I have seen the Mother's body of light." I got interested. He said, “The new body is full of light but it is not yet dense enough to function in the earth conditions. It is there, and as I was looking at it I got the feeling that the Mother would enter this body the moment it became dense enough to stand and function in the earth atmosphere, seen or unseen. But there is no question of revival of the material body." And he added, "Those who are capable of seeing the Mother's halo, aura, they will be able to see that luminous body." It confirmed what I had perceived some four months earlier; I told him as much.

*That evening at 7.25 p.m., as you all know, the Mother withdrew from her body. They say the cause was heart failure, but let me tell you the heart failure was not the cause, the heart failure was the result of her withdrawal. She had decided; the moment things were ready, she walked into that body.

*She has not passed away, she has just changed her body. Not changed in the manner of the Gita — soul changing bodies — but consciously; keeping the full personality she has gone into that body. And, as it was revealed to me on that day, she will function in that body, work through those instruments who are open to her, expedite the remaining work — the working out of the consequences — but her activity will not be confined to the Ashram or to Auroville; for her the whole world is her ashram. As I was led to put it on radio the next day, "The sea of Love that is the Mother swells into an ocean": not a perception, not an idea, not an image, but an experience.*

OOOOO

The Eternal Mother shows Her example before all of us — the human race — and given us the Task and the Aim : the Supramental Transformation.

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

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. … … …

The first gleamings of the new Light would carry in themselves the seed of its highest flamings; even in the first beginnings, the certainty of their topmost powers would be there; for this is the constant story of each evolutionary emergence: the principle of its highest perfection lies concealed in the involution which precedes and necessitates the evolution of the secret principle.

The Mother is waiting for us. In order to complete the Task of the Supramental Change and bring in the Supramental Race, there should be, at first, a “new humanity” — in the Words of Sri Aurobindo. That is the Aim now, before all of us.

Barindranath Chaki
17-11-2008

[Written on 17-11-2008 and published on 20-11-2008, simultaneously in ASPIRATION, All Choice, Sulekha and Gaia.]

The Ascent

Sri Aurobindo said in His poem Evolution :

O thou who climbest mind from the dull stone
Turn to the miracled summits still unwon.

The first half of Evolution has been before us , the human beings — we have grown, step by step from Matter, which is described by Sri Aurobindo as “dull stone” — we have maneuvered to become the humans through the prolonged and difficult course of Evolution — from the stone to the human. That is the story of the Advent of Man, amidst the stone and the plants and the animals.

And now, there are the new summits before us, which are still unwon — the summits of consciousness and existence : we shall have to face and conquer the new summits beyond the human existence and the human consciousness. We need to conquer the new heights of Consciousness, beyond all our limitations, all our present imperfections and inacapacities, all our ignorance and darkness, and we need to have the miraculous capacities to transform ourselves for the New Creation, for the Advent of the New Man, the Superman, the Supramental Being.

That is the Truth — either we will have to achieve it or we will have to lose the struggle of existence and be doomed to the Abyss. That is what The Mother has said to us :

Men, countries, continents,
The choice is imperative — Truth or Abyss.

OOOOO

In spite of all the imperfections and ignorance and darkness in Man, in spite of all the prevalence and the pull and push of the animal nature in Man, since the early beginning of his civilization, he has an opening and an asking for the Divine, for the Supreme. He has always tried to have contact with some higher consciousness and force, however crude and incomplete the attempts for the contact may be. This tendency in him might have given rise to many a superstition, but it has also given rise to some great religions, which have led men to live some nobler and higher lives.

But in the religions, there were and are attempts by the incomplete and imperfect mind to suitably wrap up with ignorance and darkness the highest contact and the highest sentiments and emotions and ideas and thoughts within us. It was the lesser men, living in limitations and imperfections, who started managing the religions and the rules thereof and the do’s and the don’ts. Men have been seeking to go to heaven, or to go for Niravana or Moksha, making the human existence, as it were, a meaningless, purposeless, aimless play of the Supreme.

In the name of the religions, now the humanity is divided. Hatred and cruelty and division are now in force in place of Love and humanism and oneness. The Divine is far away, and the Divine Life is a distant impossiblity.

In the plane of Mind, thus, we are now in a fix. We shall have to go beyond it to find the true meaning and use and purpose of the human life and existence and also of the Mind itself.

And we should remember what The Mother has told: The Age of religion is over. Keeping aside the religious conflicts and debates, we shall have to go beyond the mental limitations and ascend the higher ranges of consciousness.

OOOOO

We need to ascend the heights of the higher ranges of Mind — of the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind , the Overmind — the ascend the heights of the Gnosis, the Supramental Consciousness. And before all these Ascents are made, we shall to have to discover and know the truth in us, the Psychic Being.
That is the Task that we shall have to undertake, because, that is the Truth. The Spirit, involved in the Stone, has become Man, and now has to evolve further and manifest Itself.

The Mother has prayed before the Supreme, for all of us :

Lord, we are upon earth to accomplish Thy work of transformation. It is our sole will, our sole preoccupation. Grant that it may be also our sole occupation and that all our actions may help us towards this single goal.

Evolution is the Work of the Divine, the Supreme. The Supreme, the Existence Consciousness Bliss has become the Stone, the principle of Matter, through Involution. And from that stage, began the return journey of the Supreme — from Matter to the Supreme Consciousness again. And Man has come into existence, in course of the Evolution in the return journey of the Supreme Consciousness. That is the Play of the Supreme, which is also His Work.

OOOOO

But in Evolution, the One willed to become the Many and has become so.
It is the Will of the Supreme that created the Manifestation. In words, it may be said that he thought : “Ekoham, bahu syama.” [ I am alone, and shall become many.] When the Existence-Consciousness became many, countless many, and each of the many is a Soul, or the atman in Sanskrit, which is a part and portion of the Supreme Consciousness, the Divine — a part who is one with the Whole, who can be the Whole also, who can unite with the Whole.

Sri Aurobindo has used the word ‘the psychic being’ in expressing the active aspect of the ‘soul’ in Man. The psychic being is evoled only in the human being, as it has to participate and lead in the next evolution beyond Mind. Sri Aurobindo says :

The soul … … is something that comes down into birth and passes through death – although it does not itself die, for it is immortal – from one state to another, from the earth plane to other planes and back again to the earth-existence. It goes on with this progression from life to life through an evolution which leads it up to the human state and evolves through it all a being of itself which we call the psychic being that supports the evolution and develops a physical, a vital, a mental human consciousness as its instruments of world-experience and of a disguised, imperfect, but growing self-expression. All this it does from behind a veil showing something of its divine self only in so far as the imperfection of the instrumental being will allow it. But a time comes when it is able to prepare to come out from behind the veil, to take command and turn all the instrumental nature towards a divine fulfilment. This is the beginning of the true spiritual life. The soul is able now to make itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested consciousness than the mental human. [Letters on Yoga — Sri Aurobindo]
OOOOO

The Divine has began His return March from the Stone and has reached the stage of the Human. And now the human being has to collaborate with the Divine to manifest the Divine in Many as the Supramental Race.

Now, ignorance, darkness, diseases and Death shall be conquered, as they belong to the falsehood. That is the Divine Will.

The Mother had prayed :
The hour has come when a choice has to be made, radical and definitive. Lord, give us the strength to reject falsehood and emerge in Thy truth, pure and worthy of Thy victory….


As ordinary human beings, we are leading ourselves to the Abyss, as we are deeply engrossed with our lowest emotions, passions, pre-occupations and occupations, as we are thoroughly involved with our fears and distrust and gross indulgence. Even if we got some Light of Faith and of Ideas and Thought, we bring in Darkness though the quarrels of religions, old and new, through the political labyrinths which mutilate and imprison the Ideas and the Thoughts. Often we close our eyes to the Light, often we shut up our inner windows when we hear the Call. We lend ourselves to be controlled and managed by the Asura.

The Mother has further said:

The Asura is the force of falsehood, antidivine, which reigns as sovereign over the physical world; his influence is felt everywhere, it is in everything in Matter. But the time has now come when the separation, the purification, can be made, the falsehood, the Asuric influence, rejected and there can be an exclusive living in the Divine Truth.
OOOOO

Sri Aurobindo has also summarised beautifully how the Ascent, the Next Evoultion will lead Man to the Transformation.

Earth was a cradle for the arriving god
And man but a half-dark half-luminous sign
Of the transition of the veiled Divine
From Matter’s sleep and the tormented load
Of ignorant life and death to the Spirit’s light.
Mind liberated swam Light's ocean vast,
And life escaped from its grey tortured line;
I saw Matter illumining its parent Night.
[Evolution : Sri Aurobindo]

The Supramental Being is the arriving God, the Divine, and the human being is the sign, the evolved reality, that is the instrument of the Divine. In Man, there is only a partial Light. He is not fully illumined. The arriving God, which is the veiled Divine, is there to bring a Transition from the Matter in sleep to the Light of the Spirit. When Mind will then be liberated — it will then swim the vast ocean of The Spirit, the Divine Consciousness. Life will also be freed from all the torture it has been tolerating all along. And even Matter will illumine its darkness.
This is in short the Message of Hope for Man, when he ascends.

OOOOO

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

We find that still the majority of the mankind is asleep, asleep in darkness and ignorance with all satisfaction. Man is yet in an imprisonment of the ignorant senses and blind and limited and blocked thoughts and ideas, without any aspiration, any hope, any light, without any vision, any seeking, satisfied with the animal indulgences and the limited ego and death and darkness and division.
The Truth is that we shall have to aspire and endeavour for the Ascent, we shall have to prepare ourselves and be ready for the Ascent, we shall have to stop remaining 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.

If we accept the Truth, we are opening 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 shall have to accept this Truth. Otherwise the Abyss is sure. To stop remaining the grossly animal man, immersed in darkness and narrowness and hatred and violence, that is what is desired. Our Aspiration should be for the Ascent.

Barin Chaki
25-11-2008

Choice by the Infinite

Sri Aurobindo has said : He who chooses the infinite has been chosen by the infinite.

Thus, whosoever has chosen the Infinite, is certainly and already chosen by the Infinite. We need not bother, whether he is really chosen or not. Unless the Infinite chooses, we cannot choose Him. Thus, we shall have to prepare ourselves, so that He chooses us.

In this matter, pride may come in, deceit may come in, and we may later on develop movements contrary to the choice of the Divine — we must have to cross over those temptations and features of darkness and inconscience. When one crosses the limits in the influence of the anti-Divine forces, one may face then the Divine wrath.

And such is the story of the Mother Durga and the Asura named Mahisha.
Let us ever remember what Sri Aurobindo has told:

All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph.

But when one is pure and sincere, in spite all the difficulties and upheavals, there is the Hope — one shall return. Sri Aurobindo has promised us, He has given us the Hope:

But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again, even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return.

Barin
6-10-2008
Mahasaptami

In Silence

In Silence alone, there is progress, the spiritual progress, or rather an integral progress. Integral silence is the source of true force and concentration and attention. We need, for a true growth in an integral spirituality, as much silence as possible— not only mental, but also vital and physical silence. Silence in the mind, silence in the vital being — the plane of all emotions and passions and feelings, even higher and subtle feelings — and in the physical, in the body and in the entire outer circumstances: this is what we need for a true progress.

The first step of the Integral Transformation is the Psychic Transformation. For the psychic transformation or the psychic change, we must realize and unveil the psychic being. And in order to unveil the Psychic Being, the true and central being in us, we shall have to go within: to the inner cave. That is the most essential journey we shall have to undertake. In order to go within and discover the psychic being, a regular aspiring practice of Meditation and an utmost concentration in our works, which should always be consecrated to the Divine, to the Divine Mother.

The Mother said to Huta :

The best way to hasten this change is the habit of going within.

Thus, we shall have to go within — the surest and the most practical way to find and bring out the Divine from within. After the inner discovery, we shall have to change our entire being, in all its parts. Without going within, nothing can be done.

In Meditation and in the consecration of the works, the greatest necessity is Silence — external silence, mental silence and vital silence. The Mother has advised us to control our speech always and to keep our surroundings as much silent and undisturbed as possible. This has to grow as a conscious habit in us.

Then what is required is a vital silence: there ought to be a conquest over all the tumults and waves. We have bring a gradual silence over the vital being’s “desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy” and hostility, so that we may develop “a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being”. [Quotations are from The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.] Such a vital being is to be obtained in order to have a true mental silence, and this too needs a sincere practice. Let us find what Sri Aurobindo has said in this connection:

In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life's cherished guests are left outside,
Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.
[Savitri, Pt I, Bk 1, Co 4]

In order that our spirit, our psychic finds itself and sits alone and has a communion with the Vast, not only our inner lamps are to be lit, but also our life’s cherished guests, the elements and forces of the vital nature, should be left outside.

Our aspiration must be integral, consisting of all parts of our being. And we must be sincere, in order to achieve a true progress. How to be sincere? The Mother has said to Huta:
To be sincere, all the parts of the being must be united in their aspiration for the Divine, not that one part wants and the others refuse or revolt. [White Roses]

Therefore, if we try to be silent in the mind, but there are disturbances in the atmosphere externally, or in the body or in the vital nature, or even if the mental activities are divided, no silence will come.

When in meditation or contemplation, one has to provide peace and silence in the atmosphere. And then, one has to try to go within, by keeping all the ‘life’s cherished guests’ outside. This needs a preparation from beforehand, which may take some, which may differ from person to person. And then comes the real work of silencing the mind. When we sit a meditation, ideas and images will come. We should let them pass. Let them pass away. We should better try to concentrate with a small mantra, say ‘Ma’ or ‘Mother’. Or even we repeat the word ‘peace, peace’. We may remember The Mother or even both of Them.

And we should see that there is the minimum action —as little as possible — in the mind. We should pray for Silence, peacefully, without any pressure or anxiety or negative thought or emotion. And gradually, Silence comes.

How does Silence come? One thing : be silent, in all parts of your existence. The Mother helps. The Mother comes in Silence, along with Silence.

OOOOO

One has to distinguish between a calm mind and a silent mind. We may be able to pacify and calm our mind and stop its ordinary activities, but in a silent mind, ideas should not enter and disturb. The Mother says that to completely silence the mind is not an easy task. In this connection, The Mother has said :
You should not confuse a calm mind with a silent mind. You can calm your mind and stop its ordinary activity, but it may still be open to ideas coming from outside and that too disturbs the calm. And for the mind to be completely silent, you must not only stop its own activity but shut out all that comes from other minds. This is not easy.

In course of Sadhana and due to the graceful interference from The Mother and The Master, or from the Divine, one may come in active contact with the consciousness beyond normal mind, ranging from the higher mind to the intuition. When the mind so receives any such experience in the silence of the mind, one has to receive it — one should not then stop the higher interference. One should have to know and realize the difference.

The Mother has said:
Moreover, you must learn to distinguish between a phenomenon of consciousness and a mental phenomenon. One can be conscious of an experience in such a way that this consciousness is not formulated into a thought or thoughts. This is very important if the mind is to remain absolutely quiet and silent.

Often, Silence is much more powerful than words. The Descent of Peace, of the Divine Presence, happens in silence, “not by beat of drums”, in the words of The Mother. Very often, the children of The Mother, throughout the world, received Her Blessings in silence — without any written word. I have personally experienced this several times.

Let us find what She says in this regard:
Always I answer your letters but rarely I have time to put my answer on paper. You are capable of receiving these answers directly, but for that you must learn to keep your mind silent − this is the true meditation − the brain blank, immobile and turned upward. This is the necessary condition to receive the answers. If you can hand over the care of your existence and your development to the Supreme Consciousness, then peace will enter your heart and your problems will be solved.

Thus, we may receive The Mother’s response and answers directly in our consciousness, if we have Silence established within us.



Barin Chaki
25-09-2008

[This is also published in ASPIRATION in my Blog, and also here in my Blog Allchoice and in my Blog in Sulekha.]

The Deepest Need

In each of us, the human beings, including me, the deepest need is one: Ananda, Joy, satisfaction, removal of the dissatisfactions and sorrows and difficulties and problems. It cannot be expressed correctly in one word. But the sense is that: Ananda. Every human seeks that and searches only that in the human life. Indeed, that is what is sought by the animals, too, as it seems.

And we never really get this Ananda. And the asking for Ananda gets involved with several other deep questions: Who am I? What is my true being? Why am I here? Why am I suffering? What is the meaning of my existence, everyone else’s existence? Why there are sorrows and sufferings? Why don’t I find any Joy, any Ananda? Why there is death? Why there are diseases? Why there are divisions, difficulties, dissatisfactions? And why there is all this Creation? Is it a Creation? Is there any One who has created all these things and all these sorrows and sufferings and all this yearning for Joy and Bliss and Ananda? And there grow numerous such questions within us, within each of us, within me.

And we start searching for the answers, along with our initial search for Joy and Bliss and Ananda. We seek within and also, we seek without. And our search begins instantly, without waiting for anyone else. We want to know.

We, in our search, find that we, the humans, are ignorant and in darkness. That is the first self-knowledge. I don’t know and I want to know. And the search grows intense. We want to know the meaning of our existence and the aim and goal of our life, which is short and uncertain, threatened by death. And we philosophize, and we dream and create arts and poetry and discover music, and also we find ‘religions’ to solve the problems. And also, we grow with sciences, techniques, mathematics, and civilizations!

And to meet the answer to the inner query, we come to discover God, come to the Seers who express the Veda, we come to Shri Krishna, the Buddha, to Jesus, to other spiritual leaders, to Plato or Aristotle or other philosophers, or in frustration of not finding any truth, and we turn Atheists!

And more or less, all of them, taught us to finally leave this earth, this Creation, and have a Nirvana, or a Moksha, or go to the Heaven! No place here, you will perish here, everything is transitory. Whether the Buddha or Shankara, your only solace is a Beyond, beyond the Creation. You shall have to return to the Origin! Go back! If any Creator is there, if any creation is here, go back to Him. Or, you shall have to go to the Heavenly Father and His Heavenly Abode.

Sciences have discovered a lot things and have advanced the standards of the human life, and have even tried to go to the origin of things, but the scientists are yet to reach anywhere in solution.

Indian philosophy has gave us a lot of wisdom regarding Existence and the Creation — it has given us the Idea of the Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence- Consciousness- Bliss, Who is the Origin of all that is, Who is all that is. And also Indian Philosophy has given us the Idea of the Soul, the Atman, the Purusha, that we are individually — we, the human beings, the living beings!

But none has given us the satisfaction in full! If I am to go to Nirvana or Moksha, if we are to return to Heaven, then why I am here? Why should the Creator send me here, or send us here? Why this creation is there at all, if this all untrue, if this is Maya, if this is a vale of sufferings and tears, of darkness and sufferings! Why this earth, and this Universe, if they have no meaning, no worth, no aim? And what is this existence of mine, of ours, if it is a meaningless transient falsehood. If the soul is true, how and why should it come to this earth, this Universe? If it is a portion of Satchidananda, then why the soul suffer in darkness and sorrows and death.

Is there any answer? Is there any Light solving the situation, the question? Can anyone liberate me, and you all, from this condition which seems to be a dungeon.

The answer is : Sri Aurobindo.
The answer is : The Supramental Manifestation.
The answer is : The Supramental Transformation.
The answer is : The New World.


Sri Aurobindo has given me the answer. He is the Hope of Man. He is the Light. He is the assurance that our deepest need will be and ought to be fulfilled. Joy will be here! Truth will triumph! Death and sufferings will be conquered.

And we see the New Horizon, and we shall march onwards there!

[Continued]

Barindranath Chaki
18-09-2008

[This is published originally in ASPIRATION in answering a question by Devabrata Ghosh (Babul), and is to be published in Sulekha .]

In the Light of Sri Aurobindo

This is a great opportunity today, on the birthday anniversary of Sri Aurobindo, on the august day of the fifteenth August, to remember Him and to renew our Aspiration and our Hope for the New Way, for the New Consciousness and Being, for the Progress and Transformation towards the New Man, the New Race.

Sri Aurobindo is the Person, who has given the most hopeful meaning of the human existence, of the Creation. He has given us the greatest Hope, the greatest Dream, of Joy and Bliss and the Widest Consciousness and of an eternal, immortal existence. He was not satisfied with Moksha or Nirvana, nor did He ask us to be so satisfied. We will be transformed into an immortal Race, a new Race, who will not live in Darkness or in Ignorance or in Transience and Death.

He, the Avatar of the Supreme, granted with His signature of Tathastu [So be it] to the Vedic prayer of a few millennia:

Asato maa sadgamaya
Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya
Mŗtyormaamŗtamgamaya.

Lead me from non-existence to Existence,
Lead me from Darkness to Light,
Lead me from Death to Immortality.

Sri Aurobindo said : So be it, and it is becoming So. He showed us the Way, the New Way, transcending and surpassing Moksha and Nirvaana. You need not leave the World, the Manifestation — for everything is He, the All-Existence. The Creation, the Manifestation, is His Will — can anyone go beyond His Will? For, in everyone, He is manifest and He is hidden.
Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa] have assured us of Their help on the Way. Has not He told us so in the following words?

And yet I know my footprints' track shall be
A pathway towards Immortality.
[The Pilgrim of the Night]

He has asked us to go within and find the Inner Being, the Inner Divine, the Psychic Being. He has told us to find also the deep-routed falsehood hiding in us and solve the riddle of existence.

I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep
On the Dragon’s outspread wings.
[God’s Labour: Sri Aurobindo]

In order to conquer all Darkness for the progress and evolution of a New Race, Sri Aurobindo, in His unique Sadhana, had entered the worlds of Darkness and unconsciousness to bring the required Transformation.

I MADE an assignation with the Night;
In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous :
In my breast carrying God's deathless light
I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo.
[The Pilgrim of the Night]

He has asked us to find the secrets within and proceed towards the New Becoming. To show us the Way, Sri Aurobindo had to find out the Way himself, for it was an untrodden way, a New Way. He had to work hard, undertaking an untried spiritual research.

He who would bring the heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way.
[God’s Labour: Sri Aurobindo]

And what did He tell us to do?

A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
And knock at the keyless gate."
[God’s Labour: Sri Aurobindo]

Sri Aurobindo was Himself an Adventure of Consciousness, as Satprem called Him. In the language of His own epic poem Savitri, He was a ‘Voyager upon uncharted routes, fronting the danger of the Unknown and adventuring across enormous realms.’

A big change will come on earth — I strongly believe, it has already started coming, since the 29th February 1956, when the Supramental Consciousness descended on earth, as declared by The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo has said :
Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come
Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind;
A sudden bliss shall run through every limb
And Nature with a mightier Presence fill.
Thus shall the earth open to divinity
And common natures feel the wide uplift,
Illumine common acts with the Spirit's ray
And meet the deity in common things.
Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine.

Of the Mission for which Sri Aurobindo and The Mother descended on earth, one can have a clear Idea from what Savitri has stated :

My soul and his indissolubly linked
In the one task for which our lives were born
To raise the world to God in deathless Light.
To bring God down to the world on earth
We came to change the earthly life to life divine.

Thus, They came to change the earthly life.

And with the Divine words that came from Sri Aurobindo, an attempt has been made for remembering and adoring Him on His birthday, the birthday of the Hope of Mankind, also for remembering and adoring The Mother.

Barin Chaki
15-08-2008