Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

Attachment and love are close companions in their origin and yet different in their working and result. Both spring from the heart, – attachment from the surface heart whereas love from the deeper heart, the heart behind the heart so to say. It is like a seed that has an inner core, from where the tree or the plant emerges and drawn by the light reaches its true fulfilment. Attachment, on the other hand, is the outer crust, the capsule protecting the seed and providing it with all the experience needed while it waits to emerge. Meanwhile, the seed casts its roots down in the soil tying it to the earth nature.

Attachment, therefore, comes first and in the absence of the experience of love, it is mistaken for love. Yet it binds people only to the surfaces. Its sticky threads cannot go deeper into the soul. Besides it remains susceptible to all the forces that move on the surfaces of life tying all creatures in a see-saw crisscross pattern of the dualities of happiness and sorrow, joy and grief, ‘love’ and hate. These experiences eventually burn the outer crust as one begins to feel the inadequacy of it all and turns inwards and upwards. Then the true journey begins and love is ready to be born.

Attachment has its roots in physical nature and hence it easily tends to gravitate downwards towards lust, greed for more, various kinds of emotional and vital hungers, will to dominate. It develops easily with physical proximity and tends to slowly die down with distance. Nature uses this for its inferior purposes of keeping us tied to the forces of lower nature and the surfaces of life. The strings of attachment can start casting their web through any of the surface movements such as physical appearance, affinities, play of surface emotions, charm etc. But these things cannot endure for long when one has arrived at a certain inner development. Our being tires of the surfaces and seeks the Permanent, the True, the authentic, the Real and not replicas and imitations. When thus we begin to seek for the true, the beautiful, the lasting good, then love begins to emerge.

Unlike attachment, Love has its roots above into a higher spiritual nature. Therefore it always pulls us upwards at first through an idealised emotion uplifting human love towards some reflection of beauty and truth. But then finding this too inadequate it turns still higher or deeper towards its Source in the Divine through bhakti devotion. It is then that excessive attachments become an obstacle since they keep us tied to the sweet little longings and the small little pleasures that one derives through the bonds of ignorant earthly attachments. Since our emotions are locked into the objects and people we are too attached to, little is available to turn upwards and inwards. Detachment from the surfaces of life, from the rich relationships that satisfy the ego-self, is therefore advocated by almost all who have walked the spiritual path. This detachment however is not indifference, though it may seem so at one stage. It is a preparation clearing the ground for a deeper, truer, higher love to emerge.

When that happens then new bonds begin to emerge, no more directed by the needs and demands of the ego but by the cry of the soul reaching out to answering souls, the drawing together of kindred souls, of God-lovers and God-knowers and God-servants who meet in the ground. of the spiritual self that continues beyond the pyre and the grave.

Finally love always ascends upwards even when it ties itself to the earth. It binds earth to the heavens making our earthly life taste some harmony and bliss that is native to the higher worlds of Light and Truth Immortality. Its sign is a spontaneous giving flowing naturally from the inmost depths of the soul rather than demands and expectations to which our ordinary life is so prone.

To be attached is to remain tied to the ordinary earth nature. To love is to soar upwards, ever upwards beyond the highest heavens, beyond even the gods.

Alok Pandey

Man has buried himself under the superstructure of “civilization” that he has built by his very own body and brain. This mind has played with mud and unleashed out of it a power of matter whose potency has become a threat to himself. Or else, he lies encrusted under the arches of a toy-city, feeling himself safe and comfortable till some giant hand smashes it to the ground throws him under the rubbles and ruins of his own works. In spite of all his “perfection”, in spite of all his pride and the arrogance of his ignorance, death, disease, disaster continue to strike him at will, through one means or another, through one route or another. Nay, paradoxically enough, the very forces he has roused and chained for his service turn against him. He becomes, as if trapped, within the cocoon of his own perfection. Sitting inside his air-conditioned rooms, he sweats with unknown fears. His safe castles are haunted by unseen ghosts that hold him at ransom within his own house. His comfort zones have become his prison-houses. The fetters that bind him are those he has built with great care with his own hands. In a way man’s mind has built an empire that he cannot manage. Each new knowledge leaves the previous one a doubt and a guess. Each new discovery smashes the neat old world and its paradigm like a house of cards.

So where are we heading through all this? A “civilization” buried under its own weight or a humanity struggling to break free from its own inner limits? But the limits are within us and not outside. The heaping of more and more external superstructures in the name of development is like the caterpillar swelling in its size due to the cocoon he has built around itself. To heap more and more of it externally is to bury itself more and more. Yet this pressure, this constriction, this state of tension generated by a life growing increasingly mechanical is only making us aware, as if by a contrast, our inner smallness. Till something in us… breaks free… tearing the shelter of its cocoon and the neat boundaries of its dimensional world… it spreads beautiful wings and courts with the boundless and sports with the timeless.

But for this he has to discover other locked energies than what his limited matter bound mind can conquer. Not only the material energies but also the energies of life and the powers of mind that man has just begun to discover, cannot eventually set him free. The wings of life and the power of thought can no doubt carry him beyond what the steeds and engines of material energy can even dream of, yet these are not enough. For there lies, sleeping inside the very bodily house of man, an infinite source of energy, an illimitable potency of will and action, a power and force that only his soul can arouse and command. It is to this that man must turn his gaze, now, to this inner empire of which he is presently hardly even aware and yet it is this which determines in the end how much he will actually possess and enjoy his outer empire. Swaraj before Samrajya (conquest over the world outside) is the word given by the wise ones. The inner conquest must proceed the outer. Man must first find and know and master himself before he can find, master and enjoy the world in a lasting and true way.

Alok Pandey

The first things needed is that we do not yet know everything about anything. Rationally speaking, it is absurd to ‘believe’ that man is simply a lump of clay or a bundle of neurons ticking away to glory or a clock set in the heart to tick us slowly towards inevitable death. I refuse to believe that man is just a bunch of chemicals or animalcules. This too is a kind of faith that many ‘scientists’ unwittingly have and I find it worse than a blind faith in totems and taboos that at least admit of something more than the two-legged worm called man. For what else would we be if we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals and physiology? Both Science and Reason demand of us a humility that we do not know and may never know all the mysteries of existence. This keeps us open to new vistas and horizons of discovery. One may say that but Science is after all making new discoveries. Well, yes on the face of it. But a closer look we shall see that unable to shed its obsession with chemistry and biology and physics it is simply running the bullock of effort in the same groves of matter around the same physical tracks despite increasing evidence that the mind (forget about higher consciousness for a moment), our thoughts and feelings and faith and will all have an impact upon our physical health. Can you tell me why research does not go in these directions as much as it should? Simply because this would mean empowering the people, of giving health in their hands which would mean closing down many pharma industries which are big business now (among the top ten in the world). are these people saintly and doing all their research with a selfless motive for the sole purpose of the good of humanity in their heart? One has to be too naïve to believe it.  So much for our beliefs and non-beliefs.

Coming back to the healing process, let us admit that it is a complex affair and to reduce it to one simple cause is not doing justice to science or reason. at any given point there are many factors involved including physical such as heredity and constitutional vulnerability of specific organs, exercise and lifestyle, food habits, sleep and rest balance, etc. Then there are vital factors such as the will to live, the joy of life, the strong instinct to survive or simply a tremendous vitality with which some are born. Besides these, there are a host of several other mental, occult and spiritual factors. All these different factors form a hierarchy of determinism. It is by bringing in a higher determinism that one can alter the usual course of the lower plane. Practically, this means that a strong mental or vital will can change the course of an illness, make it milder or less complicated than it may have turned out. Since spiritual consciousness is still higher its intervention can seem almost miraculous. But the highest of all is Grace that can completely change fixed destiny.

However, the cosmic play involves the creation as well as the Creator. Though the Creator can override all rules and laws, it is with His sanction as the Cosmic Being that these things have come into existence.  A responsiveness, a receptivity is needed on the side of the creation as well. What we experience as pain is an acute response to the contact with world forces. Its purpose is indeed to awaken and open and make the hard crust of matter more receptive. It is here that we must understand the role of faith and fear. Faith opens the doors wide to the workings of the healing forces that can use even a material medium to act. The Divine is least bothered (to use a human expression) whether we believe in this or that. It is enough that we have faith in the recovery, or faith in destiny, in the doctor,  the system,  the medication,  or just faith in ourselves.  It is enough to provide support to the higher forces that are always ready and willing to act if we simply allow them to. 

However isn’t it also true that mankind opens much more readily to the lower and darker forces through anger, revolts, agitation, lust for money and power, aggressive ambition, greed, above all distrust in higher things, fear and despair? It is not just a question of belief in God but the kind of forces to wh8ch we are open.  Leave aside those who are not yet ready for higher things and are genuinely in ignorance,  but even those who have some kind of opening towards greater things. They too so readily shrink back into a selfish fear focused around preserving their physical body so that they can continue devouring nature and exploit others for their selfish ends and brief pleasures! Not that the Divine abandons them. The Grace is equally for all but we shut our doors by putting ourselves in a small hole of fear and doubts. That is what makes life so needlessly complicated by the human mind that has a natural tendency (being on top of the food chain) that he is the highest and best and surrounds his ignorance with armour of arrogance. 

If only we could learn to be simple and humble and open like a flower to the Grace, then life would be so much wonderful. But the sceptic mind stands in the way and an aggressively selfish consciousness opens doors to fear and closes it to the Grace.

Alok Pandey

Knowledge, love and will are the three mystic keys hidden in our nature which can, if applied steadily with faith and in the right way, open the doors of the Supreme Divine Mystery in us. Of these, bhakti is indeed the simplest and the most direct since the Divine Presence dwells in the heart of man and hence is most easily accessed by the power of love. In fact, bhakti is nothing else but the turning of love in the human heart towards its Divine Origin.

Bhakti, very simply is, to take joy in the Divine. It may start with a Name, a Form, a Manifestation of the Divine. The bhakta finds joy in It. But slowly this universalises until he finds the Divine in all names, all forms and the entire Manifestation. Each element of creation begins to yield the Divine element within it until the Divine Beloved is felt and seen everywhere and in everything. Each name and form become a mask, some beautiful, some terrible, yet nevertheless a mask of the Divine who inhibits It and shines through it. Universal love and compassion, maitri-karuna, become the hallmark of the bhakta. Even as the Divine whom he adores, the bhakta is a friend to all creatures and hence he is ever engaged in doing good to all.

The core of bhakti is love, its master movement is love and surrender. Love may start with longing bearing the stamp of the ego at first with all the movements to which the human vital is prone including pride and possession, joy of union and the pain of separation or even dark emotions such as fear and jealousy and anger thrown upon the Divine. But sooner or later these get purified by the Divine touch and a sacred longing that waits upon the Lord, an adoration, the wish to serve the Divine begins to replace the lower emotions. Love changes into sweet intimacy, a constant nearness and eventually a growing union and identity with the Divine.

Surrender may start with the will to offer something of oneself, – money, work, life to the Divine. It may start with offering that which one has in excess, with the desire self-eyeing upon the fruits of this offering or else the ego diluting and polluting the offering by making claims and demands from the Divine, or tainted with pride and ambition of being an instrument or someone special to the Lord. The Divine touch purifies these too until the giving and offering is for the joy of giving with no other demand except the nearness of the Divine and the joy of His service. Eventually all life becomes a ceaseless worship and all one is and has and does is given to the Divine, for His joy, for His work and service.

The actual method of bhakti is cannot be systematised just as love cannot be turned into a mechanical routine or a soulless ritual. Yet in the early stages of the soul’s contact with the Divine these outer forms of rituals and worship, bahya pooja, may have its place. But as the soul grows and our consciousness deepens and we become aware of our subjective self through the inner being, then the flame of bhakti grows quietly in our inner self, often unseen and unrecognized to the outer eye of man until one day the flame bursts through the mask, burns the covering and trappings of the ego and all all discloses the unseen Beloved. It finds joy in taking and hearing the Name of the Lord, reading and meditating upon Him, speaking and listening about Him, thinking of Him, serving Him, living for Him and according to His Will.

Bhakti is all about love for the Divine, the joy of the love, the self-forgetfulness and the new self-finding of oneself in the Divine, the union that comes through the force of love and as a consequence of this union, a progressive transformation of the bhakta into the being and nature of the Divine, samipya, sayujya, sadharmya gati. But unlike the path of knowledge, love is not a monotone of self-absorption in the Self, nor like the path of works, a simple and single-hued relationship with the Divine of the servant and worker with the Divine as Master. Instead, we see here a manifold relationship with the Divine that breaks every barrier of distance until all in us belongs to God and exists only for His joy and His service and His sake. Sri Aurobindo reveals to us:

‘Discipleship to God the Teacher, sonship to God the Father, tenderness of God the Mother, clasp of the hand of the divine Friend, laughter and sport with our Comrade and boy Playfellow, blissful servitude to God the Master, rapturous love of our divine Paramour, these are the seven beatitudes of life in the human body. Canst thou unite all these in a single supreme and rainbow-hued relation? Then hast thou no need of any heaven and thou exceedest the emancipation of the Adwaitin.’

Since love and surrender to the Divine Mother are the central keys to the transformation in the Supramental Yoga, therefore true bhakti and self-giving are its master movement. Love is indeed the key, the crowning movement, the swiftest way and the easiest means to the fulfilment of the integral yoga. The easiest means to develop it is to open to the Mother, call the Mother, pray to the Mother, love the Mother, think of the Mother, serve the Mother, read and dwell upon their books especially Savitri along with Prayers and Meditations. For indeed, as the Mother says, ‘Consciousness has built the worlds but Love is its saviour’.

Alok Pandey

A New Age has dawned upon the horizons of humanity and few will deny it. Yes we can debate whether it is the newest of the new or simply a repetition of the old ‘new ages’ that have repeatedly dawned upon man, only to end in yet another twilight and the ambiguous Night. We may also argue whether it is something ‘positive’, a turn of humanity for better or it is something that is evil, a loss of degradation of values for the worse. Of course, each age of humanity brings its own set of values and is conditioned by it. These values, the ways of living peculiar to an Age become a sort of comfort zone for the society conditioned by it. The more strongly we are conditioned as in a certain rigid and narrow doctrine, religions and ideological groups, the more there is the tendency to regard change as evil. Similarly, the more a society is governed by purely external frames of behavior and less by the spirit behind it, the more it resists change. When the focus is on the spirit, then we can understand that the same spirit can clothe itself in different forms and yet remain alive and a vibrant dynamic influence on humanity. But when the focus is only on the form, the externalities, the conformism of common behavior rather than conformism of ideas and still deeper of the divine essence in humanity that clothes itself in different ideas, then the change is shunned, denied, opposed or forcibly suppressed and violently crushed.

But the change imposes itself for the change is again not just a change of external way of living, – which is incidental, but a change of poise of the spirit that governs humanity. It finds its way as a river its path towards the sea. And if we have to look somewhere for the change then it has to be found in this spirit of humanity rather than in outer behavior and patterns of life. The change in outer patterns is an after-effect, the result and not the cause, the rearrangement of things on the shore or the land after a giant tidal wave or massive winds have flown past. The winds break many old structures, the giant wave takes back into the sea many shells lying on the shore and give back some new ones. So too after the tornado has passed away, a clearing of the debris follows and then, new colonies of plants and people, new arrangements of relationships emerge. Until the whole process is over, there is confusion, the blinding of our vision, the breakage and the wreckage, rather than buildings and institutions of a new hope. But meanwhile there is often a rainbow phase that colours our vision, makes us momentarily forget the fury and fills our eyes with hope and renewed charm. But the rainbow is only a sign of the gods, the change upon earth comes afterwards through much labour and effort. We seem to be passing through such a rainbow phase now. Like the honeymoon of the newly wed it is full of happiness and charm and dreams of the new creation yet to arrive. Nevertheless for the new relationship to endure and succeed a phase of evolutionary struggle must follow, a phase where past atavism, subconscious habits, the pull of the old will assert itself until the new equation between heaven and earth has been discovered and humanity settled in the new poise. Such is the phase of evolutionary struggle that we are now going through and will go through for quite some time until the New has definitively conquered, transformed and integrated the old.

Yet, it is precisely here that a word of caution is needed.

None can deny that something has changed and fundamentally changed in the earth and humanity since 1960. A seeking for new things, for a new adventure, for new experiments has begun. The old, stable theories, paradigms, systems, constructs, institutions are being broken and set aside or are undergoing an enlargement and change so as to accommodate and prepare for a new kind of thought and a new way of life. But it is precisely here that a word of caution is needed. All that is off-beat and in-fashion is not necessarily ‘new’ even though it may indirectly help in ushering the New Age. Very often it is like a distraction that helps to dislodge the mind from being glued to past formation. But the passage can be perilous too for the mind loosing the safe anchor of the old may suddenly sink into a bog and mire worse than the immediate darkness of the past. Renouncing the human way it may gravitate towards animality instead of swimming upwards towards divinity. The prison bars of Reason removed and the light of intuition not yet dawned, it may rush blindly towards the precipice driven by infra-rational forces that may imitate the supra-rational.

Nor is the New Age served on a platter, ready to eat as some fast food. It is not a rainbow dream sold to us for a shilling. There are many such dreams which are flooding the market in times of transition that we live in. These dreams come as various products as well as various ready-to-satisfy inner experiences. Momentarily, some of them, may serve as a bridge between the Earth and the Beyond. But soon enough they fade away under the debris and smoke of the old world whose destruction is still under way. When this happens there is a disillusionment, a disbelief in the New Age itself. There is then a tendency to fall back on the ‘old, tried and tested’ ways.

The real cause of the confusion is that we are in transition. The old ways do not work well any more since their time is over. And the new is yet to be discovered. Meanwhile our mind and heart rush at every glimmer and mistake it for the New Light. What we forget is that even when the Light has dawned we still have to emerge out of our prison-homes, remove the thick draperies of Ignorance, cleanse our eyes of the debris that is flying around and then dare to step out into the vast to discover the true and the Beautiful.

The New Consciousness is not ready-to-eat dish. It is a new ingredient, a new element that has been added just as fire was one day discovered and added to man’s life. This discovery did not automatically lead to an application of the presence of Fire in many ways that have changed our life. The first humans probably simply felt ‘awe and fear’. The Fire was there, born amidst man, but its meaning and power and full possibilities were yet unborn, waiting for our effort.

So too, now, the New Consciousness, the Supramental Force is there upon earth and activated in humanity. Now we have to slowly learn to receive it rightly. Perhaps some may get burnt in the process as the discoverers of fire might have been. But slowly as man grows in this new experience he will be led and guided over a period of time wherein he will learn to change his individual and collective life, to reorganize his dealings with himself and the world, to readjust the balance and equation with inner and outer nature. This is what’s being worked out slowly but steadily and assuredly in the Divine laboratory called Earth and within the ‘Divine reactors’ called man. The Divine experiment is meanwhile going on and extending itself so that more and more bodies and souls open to this ‘New element’ and integrate it with their life.

Till then the labour and the effort, the struggle between the old and the new will be there. It is only when the price is fully paid and our ego-bound individuality drops off and desire driven nightmare cease, to be that we shall truly see, live and be the Dream Divine.

Alok Pandey

The Mother’s Presence is often first felt as a warmth and sweetness in our heart, also as a growing Peace in all our members spreading from the heart.

Later it changes into Joy, the Joy of loving Her and Serving Her, the joy of simply belonging to Her, the Joy of surrender to Her, the joy of knowing a little of what She chooses to reveal of Her infinite Mystery, the joy of Her countless wonders disclosing before our eyes, the joy of simply reading and writing about Her and many more things that surpass our thought and feelings.

I am sure She grants all sincere prayers, and for each one of us a time is marked when Her Presence will draw near and close and intimate until She makes us one with Her Being and one with Her Substance.

Personally I have found it much easier to be in contact with Her through Service offered at Her Feet, reading Savitri and Prayers and Meditations, loving Her in my heart.

When you feel an aspiration for closeness, and a flower of Love to Her has blossomed in your heart, it is itself a sign that She is close, very close, even when our outer consciousness does not necessarily feel Her.

Alok Pandey

It has been said in spiritual traditions that success is often a harder test to pass than failure. Truly, if we compare the effect that the two have upon us, we can see why it is so.

Success can make one dizzy, haughty and even arrogant. Men drunk with success often forget the great Power working from behind that has pushed them to victory. They begin to believe and sometimes even delude themselves that they are someone special and extraordinary. Very soon their confidence passes into an overconfidence that loses contact with earthly realities. Flying upon the wings of vanity they presume, like Daedalus & Sampati, that they can touch the sun with their beaks. Success is indeed a heady wine that one enjoys in the beginning but ends up by being swallowed by it.

Failure has another effect, if one can endure and bear and go through it. While success hypnotizes you and gets you stuck to one option, failure dehypnotizes and unstucks us. It forces you to humility and makes you aware of the realistic limits, so that you may work steadily and patiently to exceed them. Success creates the illusion of power and control except in exceptional cases and even there one can easily fall into trap of confusing a limited and ignorant power for a genuine and supreme one. Failure strips us of all shows and shams, those facades and images that men hang on their outsides to deceive themselves and the world. It teaches us how to distinguish the real from the artificial, the genuine from the imitation by robbing of the sheen and shine and the glitter and glamour that falsehood uses sometimes as a cover and a cloak to hide its ugliness. Failure bares us all, so that we can confront us in our utter nakedness and walk, even if slowly, in the light of truth. Indeed failure has a much greater potential than success to bring us closer to truth… and open new doors for us.

Indeed when all outer doors close upon us one by one, we have this one rare chance to open the inner door and find ‘the One’ who never fails us; ‘the One’ who is the source of all security, satisfaction, strength; ‘the One’ whose touch upon our lives brings such a peace and joy that no outer success can ever bring. Success often depletes us by expending our energies over perishable goods and toys that break and by crowding our life with flowers that are scentless. Failure increases us by teaching perseverance and endurance and helping us discover our own inner strength. It allows us the possibility of new perspectives, and invites us to fresh goals, different aims; alternate life-views that are more complete an enduring. Indeed, he is most unlucky who has never known failure for such a one has never known God and His Grace. And fortunate is he who has weathered the storms of failure that toss against his boat. He has seen through the mask of night and when the storm and the dust settles he is ready to receive wider horizons & the light of wisdom. Success creates a zone of artificial light within the dark night. Failure ventures into the heart of night and pucks out of its folds of secrecy the jewels that hide within the darkness’ caves. Indeed, blessed is misfortune for through it one can see the face of God.

This does not mean that we should seek for failure. We should seek neither for failure nor for success for they are two sides of the same coin. As we have seen every success carries in itself the seed of failure and every failure hides within its crust the fruit of success. Yet we should seek neither but simply do the deed that God has put into our hearts, to fulfill the purpose for which we are born, to be in tune with the ‘Will’ that moves the world. And this indeed is true success, the sign of a life well-lived, a life worthy of man. To go ahead and do what we must and are meant for without caring for success and failure, victory or defeat, the jeers and cheers of the crowd, the praise and insults heaped by demons or the gods. Better it is to fail and fall fulfilling one’s true calling rather than succeed while following what may come natural to another but is alien to our own deepest self.

The Mother has written the following: “Our Path To walk on the path you must have a dauntless intrepidity, you must never turn back upon yourself with this mean, petty, weak, ugly movement that fear is.

An indomitable courage, a perfect sincerity, a total self-giving to the extent that you do not calculate or bargain, you do not give with the idea of receiving, you do not offer yourself with the intention of being protected, you do not have a faith that needs proofs, – this is indispensable for advancing on the path, – this alone can shelter you against all dangers.”

In the above message vis a vis our need for protection She is not saying that we cannot ask Her protection when in difficulty or danger. All that She is saying is that we do not take to the Path in the spirit of bargaining or calculation for then it would mean that the sadhaka was motivated by purely outer and worldly gains rather than seeking the Divine for the sake of the Divine.

Secondly, She is asking us to keep fear as far away from us as we can since it shuts us in a very narrow hole, a weakness that closes us to the Divine working. On the other hand if we walk with courage and faith we are actually truly safe since we thus create the best conditions for the Divine Grace to act and protect us. Fear, on the other hand invites the danger. She is in fact giving us the perfect recipe for safety. She is not telling us not to call Her when we are in distress. Whom else will the child call but his mumma? But this call should be full of trust. Besides, the reason for our undertaking the journey of yoga should not be out of calculation about what we will get out of it. That puts the cart before the horse. When we give ourselves to the Divine with the complete trust of a child as Dhruva and Prahlad did, the Divine takes full care and protects us from every danger. But if the seeking is done with this or other ulterior motives then it comes in the way of the full workings of the Grace.

The self giving should be an act of love and done freely without any other motive except the joy of self giving. We can equally say that a giving which is accompanied with a hidden agenda of personal gain is really not a giving but a calculated move which cannot deceive the Divine who knows the truth behind our seeking. 

Equanimity is not a dispensable element but the very foundation of yoga. It is the bedrock on which all later genuine yogic development stands. First of all it liberates us from the touches of outer nature, the shock of the senses, the waves of anger and desire and grief that besiege all of us. Thus by its liberating influence it prepares a suitable and strong ground for the awakening of spiritual experiences. But its role does not end here but extends itself far even when we begin to climb the inner peaks and receive touches from the subtler domains. In the absence of equanimity the sadhaka is often carried away by the experience rather than containing it as one more useful link in his spiritual progress. He often exaggerates it or sometimes doubts it rather than studied and observing it with a calm and equal vision without prejudices or hasty jumping to conclusions. For there is always the vital in us hiding in a little corner that is enamoured of experiences for their own sake and often, most often unconsciously adds colour and flavour to what transpires within and thereby not only distorts and falsifies what was coming but also looses its true utility. Thus equanimity has a double utility, one practical in facing the painful trials and tribulations as well as the blinding and misleading pleasures of outer life. It helps us to keep our head on the shoulders in the face of contrary appearances and the crest and troughs of life. But also in our inner life it helps create a suitable field for the descent of truth and to maintain our balance in the wake of the new experiences whose origin and meaning we do not know to begin with.

In other words equanimity has two sides to it. First the passive side that receives the touches and gifts and shocks of life without an undue reaction, or better still with an enlightened and calm passivity to the Will of God for the moment in the universe. But it has a dynamic side too. It consists in the right evaluation of men and events and forces and circumstances without undue exaggerations and aberrations that arise by the interference of our personal emotions and reactions in any judgement.

Equanimity is not indifference, nor is it a courageous stoic affront. Even a philosophical outlook and vairagya do not strictly qualify for being termed as equanimity though all these can lead us towards them. But most of all one should not make the mistake of confusing an inert and unenlightened passivity born of weakness and ignorance with equanimity. Equanimity is a great power and immensely extends our mastery over life. It is born from the Knowledge of the soul, from recognizing the truth that a deep wisdom works in this world with its inscrutable ways. As we begin to grow in the knowledge of Its ways and appreciate the relative utility and place of each and every circumstance of life and see how it is leading us to the grand goal, so do we begin to grow into an enlightened equanimity that is full of wisdom and therefore also full of force. For the force of equanimity comes from a growing stillness and Peace, from the Impersonality that lets the Divine do His Will freely in us and through us as well as in the world making us His conscious and plastic instruments. Finally true equanimity caries in itself a sense of joy and surrender rather than being a labouring and painful achievement. Knowledge, Impersonality, Universality through the growing vision of God and His Working, and its resultant Peace and Joy and detachment from all that is not yet recognized as the Divine are the edifice on which equanimity rests.

Finally equanimity is not something sudden and instantaneous. Just as most true spiritual experiences this too grows as we grow in our soulfulness and Godward aspiration and sincere surrender. It gradually extends itself to other and vaster fields than that of our limited present limited zone that we now call ourselves. And as it grows it prepares and helps grow other diviner elements in us. Then we find how beautifully God’s Grace has been leading us despite ourselves, we begin to see with open eyes God’s play and His method in the world. We recognize the utility of each stumble and failure and the marvelous Grace that works even when all seems darkest. And our hearts are filled with an ever increasing gratitude and love for Him who is the very core and essence of our and the world’s existence.