Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

The nine-day fight is a symbolic story of man’s quest for Perfection (Siddhi) as the divine element battles through the layers of ignorance and the forces of Darkness and Night. These are the nine stages of the soul’s inner journey as is evident from the names itself.

Shailbala is the daughter of the mountains signifying the birth of the Divine Energy within matter. She is hidden in matter lying concealed at the base of the spine in man. When she awakens, then man begins to turn towards higher spiritual things. His quest begins with the awakening of this fire as the Vedic seers would say.

The next stage is Brahmacharini whence we have to tend and safeguard this newborn aspiration by becoming more and more one-pointed.

As a result the night of ignorance in which we dwell becomes lit up. This is the Chandraghanta.

The fire has to be further held within and further concentrated like a baby in the womb. This is Kushmanda, the cosmic egg.

The next step is the delivery of the psychic being or the secret soul in us. The Divine Power working in us delivers the soul out of the prison of the ego and is called Skandamata.

It is after this that man or a woman becomes a power of Durga, Katyayani to fight the cosmic battle against the demons and forces of Mahishasura.

Once the battle against the cosmic forces of darkness are accomplished, then the next step is surrender at the feet of the Divine Mother who takes away from us the entire burden of good and evil as Kalaratri.

It is then that we perceive her in Her true original form as MahaGauri, the effluent Mother giving birth to the gods in us.

Finally, all these powers are taken up to their utmost possible individual perfection by the Grace of the Divine Mother as Siddhidhatri.

The final victory indeed takes long but the beauty of the story is that in the end Mahishasura realises his end is near. He then throws himself at the feet of the Divine Mother in complete surrender. The mood of the Divine Mother now changes into Compassion and she not only slays the outer form of Mahishasura but takes his inner being into hers and assures that he will be kept near her in all her worship. This image reveals that the highest aspect of Durga is indeed the power of Compassion rather than the power to slay. Her destruction is also a Grace and even her punishment is a blessing.

It is a paradox of our times that we are flooded with information from every side but there is so little time for wisdom and true knowledge. We are busy with quantity and numbers, – whether on the cricket field or in our bank accounts, but we pay little time to reflect upon the quality of our life or to turn the money in our wallet and the success written on our visiting cards into ‘real’ values. Now, we are not suggesting, for one moment that money, success and informational knowledge are not important. But what we are trying to reflect upon and understand is ‘how’ to turn these things into ‘real’ value. For what we mean by this term is the real and lasting worth of our life.
There are things that are of temporary and moment value, there are things that are of lasting and abiding value and, there are things of eternal value. Very often we are unable to distinguish between these three leading to much confusion and avoidable suffering. And then we wonder why the very same thing that was means or supposed to give us happiness is causing so much suffering to us. But before we try to understand, let us see what these three levels of value are.

Let’s take an example, – the example of a rich and successful man. He has money in his pocket and a tag of high position on his visiting card. Because of these he is respected by people in his work place and by friends who seek to take advantage of his high position. Soon enough the man begins to mistake these things as an end in itself. Without even realizing he begins to seek ‘a high’ from these things as an addict from a drug. Greed and ambition begin to take the better of him until one day he lands up in the Coronary Care Unit or Cancer ward at a relatively young age. Or he finds himself alienated from his wife and children and true friends.

So what went wrong? If he carefully and sincerely looks within himself, he will discover to his discomfort, that in running the rat race to achieve things of momentary value, he did not pay attention to things of a more lasting value. He forgot to pay attention to his family, he forgot to pay attention to his health, he forgot to pay attention to many other small and sweet gifts of nature that make our life beautiful and happy, – such as, the simple joy of gazing at a flower in bloom, hearing a coil’s voice in summer, taking a quiet walk by a river-side or a pool, spending some time in nature with his family, giving time and attention to his children to educate them to become better citizens.

The result is what we see. We have money and comfort but no happiness and peace. We have insurance policies to ensure expensive medical care but no natural health and poor body resistance. We are surrounded by those who flatter us but not those who love us since we have slowly alienated them by our behavior. We begin to weigh everything in terms of its immediate utility and instant gratification and start seeking momentary thrills of the flesh and the palate. But soon there is satiety and we crave for more and more. Ever dissatisfied we move down a spiral of gloom and despair, disease and doubt, anxiety and fear.

But we could have taken another route, – the route of balance and moderation, giving at least as much importance to family and friends and other pursuits that help us progress and remain healthy as we did to money and ambition. Perhaps we thought, ignorantly like the murderous Ratnakar who later became Valmiki, the seer, that these things will bring happiness to my family and I can also buy health for them. We forgot that love and health cannot be brought. There is no price tag for these things and to acquire them we need to put in as much effort as we do now to satisfy our greed for money and position.

But there is more to our story of life. There is something else of an even greater value than health, happiness, family. It is something that is there with us before birth and will be with us after death. It accompanies us like a faithful friend and chases us like our own shadow. This thing of eternal value that we always carry with us is called in Indian thought as ‘Dharma’. Unfortunately dharma is poorly translated into English as Religion. But the word does not refer to any cult or sect or a particular religion, nor does it mean rituals etc. Dharma is the central Idea, the core Value, the very reason and principle value of our existence. Dharma is the great and solid foundation on which we build our life. That is why, the seers and sages of this great land, Bharata Varsha, chose to call it Sanatana Dharma, the eternal Law of Truth that none can escape from. It is Dharma that sets the wheel of creation moving and not our fanciful wishes, imaginations, hopes and planning. It applies equally to the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the king and the subject. It is the law of our own inner progress and evolution that carries us from life to life on the great sea of years. Dharma is the ship and if we do not care to build our ship well, we may well sink half way and feel defeated in the midst of our victory.

The ship of Dharma is built by our own hands. Our deeds, our thoughts, our feelings, our attitudes and motives, our will goes into the making of this ship. Therefore, the seers of Truth reveal to us what is the way to build a strong ship by showing us the path of Dharma; that is, the ideal way to live. They tell us that the core values of life are truth, honesty, courage, sincerity, nobility of temperament, generosity, kindness, compassion, charity, self-control, simplicity, beauty, wisdom, love. These things are of eternal value and if we have them or can acquire them, then the ship of our life will sail safely through every storm and we will emerge stronger and wiser with every trial.

But if we have neglected this side of our life, this spiritual and divine element then lasting peace and abiding happiness will always elude us. Therefore, it is worth the trouble to sit quietly for a few moments everyday and reflect whether, in the process of running blindly to win a coveted prize we are not neglecting and loosing upon this most important part of our living. If we are sincere and look at ourselves in a transparent mirror then we will have the answer and make the right choices. But if we fail to look into our souls then life and circumstances will compel us to look inside one day, hopefully, before it is too late.

To summarise, we may say that if money is lost, we can once again make it with our effort or cut down our desires to fit into our means. Besides, if we have given love and care to our family and friends they will be there to support us in a crisis. But if our relationships and our health suffers then money cannot buy it. Then it is only dharma, the strength of our inner being, our attitudes that can once again rebuild everything from scratch. That is why it is said that if money is lost then nothing is lost, if health and relationships are lost, then much is lost and, if dharma is lost then everything is lost.

Alok Pandey

The gods are great but greater than the gods is the human soul. In the human soul is seated all the glories and powers and greatness of the gods. The soul passes at first, in the early beginnings of its journey, through the Titanic worlds and the Titanic states; in the middle it tastes the glory and the splendour of the gods, the nectar of bliss that is also the nectar of Immortality, the Soma wine of the Vedas; but in the end, it rises beyond both evil and good, vice and virtue, sinfulness and righteousness, indeed beyond all dualities and opposites into the utter Unspeakable Truth from which all else is born. This is beautifully revealed in an interesting story, the legend of Sati Anasuya.

Sati, as the word signifies would mean one who is wedded to Truth. In later years as many words with a deep psychological and spiritual significance, such as yajna, āditya, varna, dharma etc got distorted, this profound word also came to assume a rather limited and fixed meaning. During periods of decline it first assumed the meaning of a total commitment and fidelity to the husband irrespective of what he did or how he treated the woman. An extreme result of this change was that a woman was supposed to die along with her husband if he were to die first. She was supposed to burn herself alive along with his dead body in the pyre. Those who could do so were declared as ‘Sati’ and worshipped or revered. Those who could not do so were looked down upon and had to remain largely indoors. They were regarded as inauspicious. The fallout of all this was that women started wishing to die before their husbands, even considering it as something sacred and blessed if she were to die before the man she loved and lived with. Whatever be the sentimental side of this last romantic wish, the actual custom of Sati was no doubt a grotesque and cruel thing which Vibhutis like Raja Rammohan Roy rightly fought to change. It is also possible that later the custom got enforced by social pressures arising from the invasions that India suffered through the Hindukush. Whatever be the reasons, the ancients did not mean this when they used the word Sati as a sign of reverence before a woman’s name. The steadfastness to Truth was the one thing, the absolute fidelity to the husband in thought, word and act was a secondary element quite naturally flowing out of the first. The story of Shakuntala is itself an indicator that Truth was greater than anything else and it is that to which both man and woman had to be faithful to.

And Truth is powerful, as we find in the story of Sati Anasuya who could humble even the gods by the power of Truth within her.

Like Lopamudra, Arundhati, Gargi, Anasuya [without jealousy] is a realized being. She is wife to another great rishi, Atri.

It so happens that one day Narada calls upon the three great goddesses, consorts of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, that is Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati and praises Anasuya’s steadfastness to Truth. The praise is in such terms that even the goddesses feel a touch of jealousy, – ‘How can a mere mortal be greater in consciousness and conduct than the gods?’ Though time and again the gods have been humbled when they let pride creep inside them, yet the lesson of humility is forgotten. They forget in their pride that however high and great these celestial beings may be, man has in him ‘something’ that can make him even greater than the gods. That is because unlike gods who are typal beings fixed to the role and function, man is an evolutionary being. Man carries in himself a spark or seed of the Divine Himself and if this seed is nurtured by vigilance and watered by spirituality, it will blossom and make him greater than the gods. But he has lent his heart and brain to the untruths of the Titans.

But Anasuya is different. She has grown in her inner stature greater than the gods. So they decide to test her. The three great gods, the trinity, visit her house in a Brahmin’s appearance and ask for food. Now Brahmins, in ancient India were meant to gather the deeper and higher knowledge. This required tremendous askesis, time and concentration. They could not afford to spend their energies in livelihood and the elaborate framework of life. Therefore the arrangement in the old social order was this that the Brahmins shared their knowledge and wisdom thus gathered with the society while, the society in turn took care of their earthly requirements. This was a neat arrangement, each giving his best for the good of all; the Shudra, his craftsmanship and service, the Vaishya his wealth and opulence, the Kshatriya his courage and strength to protect and the Brahmin the very highest gift, the gift of Knowledge. He looked after the most important of all needs, the spiritual needs of the society. In turn the society expressed its gratitude by looking after the material needs of such men of great learning and wisdom. That the whole thing degenerated later like many other things is another matter. But this was before the decline.

The gods concealed as Brahmins asked for food and Anasuya responded with a ‘yes’ asking them to come in and take their seats till she prepared to lay some food for them.

When the preparations were made and the food was ready to be served the Brahmins suddenly made a strange request: ‘You have promised to offer food to us and we are extremely pleased. We have a request to make. You have to serve us food by making us sit in your lap undressed’.

Pausing to note her reaction they added: ‘You may go back on your word and not feed us. We will go away quietly. But if you would still keep your promise and honour your word then this is our condition’.

Now Anasuya was a Sati. She was wedded to Truth, – Truth in speech, Truth in feelings, Truth in thoughts and Truth in actions. The gods knew that such a person would not go back upon her word. At the same time, to concede to this strange demand may be for her a deviation from another dimension of Truth, – a total fidelity to her aim and also to the sage to whom she had completely committed herself.

As was the way with these yogis and rishis, she invoked the very power of Truth with which she had lived to come to her rescue. This power, the power of Truth gave her the capacity to see behind appearances. Ansooya clearly saw who these beings were in reality and what their purpose was. She also saw in the Light of this Truth within her heart as to what should be her response. Turning to the gods in disguise, she said with a smile: ‘Yes, I would certainly keep to my word and your condition. By the law of Truth that has built this world and keeps in order a mother can feed her child on her lap without a piece of cloth to cover either’. Thus saying and invoking the Truth that she had practised all her life, she commanded: ‘May you become like babies so I may feed you as you wish’.

No sooner did she utter these words that the gods came as if under a spell. They became like children and started behaving like little babies since their consciousness was reduced to that of a human babe. It is said that one who always speaks the Truth, his words and thoughts carry such a power that they come true because they embody the vibration of Truth in the person.
No sooner did the gods become a babe, Anasuya fed them making them sit in her lap. Then she caressed them as one does to a child affectionately and put them to sleep.

Meanwhile the three goddesses, the consorts of the Trinity started to wonder as to why so much time has elapsed since their departure to earth. As they descended from their immortal seats to the mortal sphere, they could feel the agony and pain that the mortals bear. That itself is a humbling experience. But they were in for more and they had asked for it surely. When no trace of their divine counterparts could be felt or sensed they approached Sati Anasuya to find out if they came and what had happened. The great and luminous being of Anasuya replied: ‘Yes they are there, sleeping inside as little babes. You may go inside and carry them back after recognizing them.’

The goddesses were surprised and stunned. Their consorts could not be recognized as they had become just like babies. Ashamed at their deed they approached Anasuya with humility, requesting her to release the gods from her divine spell. She smiled compassionately and had to simply utter ‘So be it’ and the gods returned back to their original form. They too bowed before the power of Truth in the woman’s heart and knew that man will one day surpass the gods. For they could sense in the being of Anasuya the future type of humanity, free inwardly and governed by truth. She is the prototype and the forerunner of a greater being who would one day arise out of a man and surpass even the greatest of gods.

Indian thought has always tried to synthesise the diverse strands of human nature, its aspirations and seekings, its higher sublime flights and its more mundane strivings. This is reflected everywhere including its religious side.

On the one side Indian thought is not just polytheistic but pantheistic. It sees the Godhead in everything; behind what we consider as natural elements as also behind what we consider as supernatural elements. Nature and Supernature is only a hierarchical arrangement of One Reality that surpasses both and yet, and – here comes the beautiful synthesis, – expresses through both. What we consider as Nature is only a diminished figure of a concealed Supernature waiting for our discovery. Thus, on the other side, Indian thought is deeply monotheistic.

These two sides of One Reality are best expressed in the ancient formulas of the Upanishads:
– ekam satyam vipra bahudha vadanti: The Truth is but One, the wise call it by different names
– ekamevadviteeyam: The One without a second
– ekobahunām: The One who has many names
– ekambeejam bahudha yat karoshi: The One seed that became the many and, finally, a most powerful one,
– sarvakhalvidambrahman: Know all this that is here as the Brahman (the sole Reality behind all things).

The gods are therefore powers and aspects of the One who alone is self-luminous, Pure and unstained, Shadowless Light, All-Love, All-Power, All-Wisdom, All-Bliss.

They are many and arranged hierarchically corresponding to the many planes of cosmic existence. Thus, when the great seer Yajnavalkya is asked by Gargi as to how many gods are there.
Yajnavalkya replies that there are indeed thirty-three million gods or three million or even three thousand or three or one and a half or just one, if you please.

The sense is clear the gods are emanations of the One Divine like countless rays emerging from the Sun. The first three emanations are the aspects and Powers that are engaged in the Creation, Preservation and the Dissolution of the universe. As they move further, they multiply in multiples of three and work in the smallest of elements of the universe.

And who are the Titans if there is only the One? They are the shadows of the gods as it falls upon creation. The principle is very simple. A god is one aspect of the Infinite and by its very nature, we may say that a god takes birth when the Divine withholds all else within and puts forth only one or two aspects in the front. It is this frontal consciousness that later lapses into its very opposite by forgetting the Oneness from which it emerged. It feels itself separate and enters into a state of division. Thus, while the gods create forms in harmony with Oneness and the Divine law in Creation, the titans create forms that are not in tune with the cosmos and the Divine law. The result is an increase in disorder. Again, while the gods preserve what needs still to be preserved for the right balance of creation, the titans preserve those elements that need to pass out and whose hour is over by the Divine dispensation and decree. So too with destruction. The gods destroy what needs to be destroyed for the good of the totality, to assist the creation’s forward march. The titans destroy all that comes in their way, in the way of their personal, separate goal and not in harmony with the greater Divine Law. The gods carry creation forward in the evolutionary journey, the titans hold it back and even try to slide it back. Thus, the gods and the titans are forever in struggle in the cosmos, and in every human heart.

Yet, the two may be seen as representing two stages of the evolutionary growth. Our journey starts as a darkness, in the womb of division, ignorance, obscurity, under the tutelage of the dark mother, Diti, the mother of division and ignorance. She too is a mother and holds her children dearly. In the legends She is shown as coaxing her children, the daityas, sons of darkness and ignorance with ambition and desire. She even goads them to win the crown of the gods that ever remains beyond their reach. Yet through these means She stimulates them, brings out their force, though not the wisdom. Restless, they strive for personal egoistic aims and that is good for them lest they completely lapse into tamas, obscurity and darkness, in a state of torpor, clouding and utter confusion as if drugged and drunk. The dark mother pulls them out of this torpor and as they grow in power, shows them the crown and the kingdom of the gods to covet and enjoy.

They strive, sometimes momentarily succeed as in certain stories, dethroning Indra. Yet they are unable to touch Indra’s consort Sachi. For Sachi is Truth-conscious, even though her origins are from the world of the Titans yet she has ascended to the throne of Indra, not by brute violent force of Titans but by the power and the Light of Truth. She and the gods then turn to their own origin, their Source of Light and Might, the Mother of the gods, the luminous mother Aditi, who dwells forever in the undivided Consciousness. Then Aditi works out a way to bring back the cosmic order.
Diti and Aditi, the dark and the luminous Mothers are the two steps of evolution. When our souls chastened and strengthened through conflict, opposition, struggle and suffering is ready then mother Diti delivers it out of her dark womb and we are then carried by mother Aditi in Her Vast and Strong and Luminous embrace to heights of freedom, to pinnacles of joy, to the splendours of a higher Supernature.

At Her highest, She stands one with the Supreme, the Shakti, the Parameshwari, the Power and Knowledge of the Supreme: 

Om Anandmayi, Chaitanyamayee, Satyamayee Parame

Alok Pandey

The real malady of man is not outside but within him. This disease which is the source of all his errors, evil, conflicts and unease is called the “ego”. It manifests in various ways and can afflict different parts of our nature right from the body to the highest mind. Its most common underlying pathology is a ‘clinging’, an inability to ‘let go’. The result is an inability to move forward in harmony with the great universal rhythm of life. This clinging is out of fear of vastness, and a sense of security in the small. Just as men construct physical dwellings to house their bodies and then get attached and bound by it; we construct psychological houses by our thoughts, feelings, impulses, desires, etc. and get trapped and imprisoned in our own formations. This temporary shelter makes us feel secure and may be necessary in the infancy of our soul, yet must the adult soul know itself not as a child of nature but discover its own true identity. Then we no more confuse the dwelling with the householder or the robe with its wearer. The robe and the dwelling become then an instrument and means of our self-expression, a field of work and not a private property or a personal possession. If we learn to step out of the safe limits of the ego-formation, of the temporary structure created by nature, then the sun and the moon and the sky and stars, the earth and all that inhabits it become our companions and the vast becomes our natural home.

But we cling to our smallness. The result is narrowness and division and conflict and strife and meaningless conquests and absurd successes and failures. We become then pawns in a chess-board moved by cosmic forces, a plaything in the hands of Time’s lords. It is they who fight and win or loose; it is we who struggle and suffer and slay or are slain.

We cling to our littleness. The result is all kinds of phobias and grief that arise from the delusion of separateness, of the self and not-self. Groupism, partisanship, religionism, racism are all its attendant outer consequences.

We cling to people, situation, circumstances and events. The result is the stress of transient satisfactions punctuated with disappointment and frustration.

We cling to habits and patterns of living. The result is various lifestyle diseases and recurring and chronic maladies of body and mind.

We cling to our thoughts and ideas and opinions. The result is narrow-mindedness, a judgemental attitude, vanity, arrogance and ignorance. We believe we are free-thinkers but we do not realise how much we are bound by our own formations. The result is various isms and schools of thought warring and jarring with each other.

We cling to our feelings and sentiments and attachments. The result is the various emotional and social problems.

We cling to our greeds and desires and our passions. The result is temporary pleasures followed by much dissatisfactions, suffering and pain.

We cling to our hates, our jealousies and our lusts. The result is various forms of moral and psychological degradation, murderous instincts and depravity of tacte, an eventual sinking towards death.

We cling to what we presume to know and believe as true. The result is an ignorance that labours and strives but only manages to move in the same blind circle that returns back to its starting point.

We cling to our systems and techniques and methods. The result is an exclusive, one-sided formula that shuts us from the integrality of an infinite, many-sided truth.

We cling to our past and therefore grow old. We cling to our present and are therefore stuck up and unable to move. We cling to life as it is now and therefore we have to meet death and rebirth in the course of the journeying rounds of life.

We cling to our experiences and therefore get locked in the spiritual ego’s bright and brilliant shell. We cling to our path and our doings and non-doings and thereby shut the doors to an illimitable Grace.

How shall then we be free? Where shall we then find the true remedy for the malaise called ‘ego’ that source of all other diseases?

Not by the body’s self that itself clings to its habits and patterns for stability of existence.

Not by the ever-changing self of life that constantly shifts but finding no certain ground moves ever and ever in the same grooves built by the energies and patterns of its past movements.

Not by the mind that is the very source of all division and which by its nature creates and hugs the bonds it creates. It can push the limits as it must but cannot set the soul free. It can make the limits more tolerable and less rigid but still we remain bound in the small or the big box to an endless chain of determinism, cause and effect, time and space.

Only the inconceivable Truth beyond mind can set us free. To That we must turn and seek leaving behind all our neat constructions of the mind and thoughts.

Only the infinite Love and the illimitable Grace can set us free. That we must implore and invoke, Only the supreme Will can set us free. To That we must offer and surrender ourselves. For, the deepest wisdom is to know this that Truth cures, Grace cures, Love cures, supreme Will cures. And these are not separate truths but one. It is the Divine who cures.

But this cure, even when it appears instantaneous, is not a fanciful magic. He cures by setting the truth within us free. He cures by liberating us from our own mind-traps and life-grooves and body-habits and subconscient memories, – in short the fixed formations and rigid patterns that repeat themselves inflexibly and are the source of all our maladies. He cures by liberating us from the knots of the ego. But the ego-self doesn’t like it and shrinks and resists. It repels the touch of Truth, it closes its doors to Grace, it resists the action of the supreme Will, it doubts the savior hands of Love.

Therefore systems and techniques and methods multiply, therefore also hospitals and doctors and diseases multiply. Therefore do problems and half-way solutions multiply. Therefore we move endlessly in circles and grooves predetermined by the habits of the past. Therefore man struggles with the burden of his fate.

Yet there is hope. For in the wake of a new dawn there rises a great wave of consciousness like a force or a thunderbolt from God. It comes to demolish all our limits to which we cling. It comes to remove the scaffoldings of our ego and set the truth within us free from all trappings and formulas. It comes to cure us radically of all our error, imperfection, disease and distress.

Would we open to this new consciousness and give ourselves to it with joy and love? Or would we resist and revolt, doubt and distrust, hide and hold to our smallness? This is the question that each individual and group has to answer. And upon its answer hangs the balance of its destiny.

Alok Pandey

For a hundred years and more man has been made to believe by our science that he is nothing more than mere mud and mire. The biologist, the psychologist, the scientist hammered into our ignorant brains the sole gospel of matter, the omnipotent power of genes and chemistry in whose wheels man is caught helplessly as a worm trapped in a hole.

For a hundred years and more man has been made to believe by our science in the non-existence of his soul or even of his self and mind which we are told is nothing but a glandular secretion and an ephemeral passage of electrical current in the neuronal circuits of his brain.

For a hundred years and more we have been made to believe that the only way we can survive and live is by plundering nature, by exterminating all that threatens us, by creating safe comfort zones that eliminate all that can disturb our ‘happiness’ purchased by paying the heavy price of an increasing servitude of our soul.

But now the coming century that opens before us brings a newer vision and a greater hope. Not by bricks of matter and chemicals alone am I built. Not by the genes is my fate decided and won or lost. Not by the props and crutches of nature do I stand and hold my precarious existence. I am greater than destiny, stronger than my fate.

This is the new message that is whispering itself as a mantra of awakening into the human heart. This is the new light that is stealing into mind’s inner chambers. This is the power that is flooding through life’s doors and filling nature with wonder and joy and hope once again.

“I saw the mornings of the future rise,
I heard the voices of an age unborn
That comes behind us and our pallid morn,
And from the heart of an approaching light
One said to man, “Know thyself infinite,
Who shalt do mightier miracles than these,
Infinite, moving mid infinities.”
Then from our hills the ancient answer pealed,
“For Thou, O Splendour, art myself concealed,
And the grey cell contains me not, the star
I outmeasure and am older than the elements are.
Whether on earth or far beyond the sun,
I, stumbling, clouded, am the Eternal One.”
[Sri Aurobindo: Collected Poems, pp. 43]

Alok Pandey

Not heaps of scientific information that often confuses us more than enlightens. Not the knowledge that burdens us with a sense of helplessness by showing the knots that tie us but not the power that can undo it. Buried within the ashes of information and the smoldering heat of knowledge lie diamond sparks of wisdom that can truly set us free. That we need the most.

Not techniques and a multiplication of methods that only change the scope and circle of our dependency and tie us in one knot of nature while releasing from another. Hidden behind all techniques and methods is the force of an infinite truth that can liberate us from all fear and ill. That we need the most.

Not systems of medicine and governance and all their-isms through which ignorance ensnares us by its changing masks. We only exchange an unpleasant mask for a more pleasant one. Above all the systems and parties lies the all–round healing power of a greater Supernature that shines upon the summits of our being as Grace and Love. That we need the most.

Beyond, all our conceptions, beyond all our constructions of thought, science and philosophy, beyond religion and its fixed formulas, beyond the dogma and the rituals of science and the beliefs and non-beliefs of Ignorance, there is the sovereign truth of the all-powerful soul. That we need the most.

God came down to earth and found man a slave and a victim to other men. This could not be and so He decided to set man free. A revolution followed and man was now free to be himself, to be what he wished to be. But man answered to this gift of freedom by misusing it endlessly to degrade his great and mighty soul.

God came down again and now with the freedom gave him the law, the law of love and truth, the law of harmony and unity, the law of living together as one family. But man answered to this gift by reducing it to a narrow formula whereby he would love those who were his kin and not others with whom he must fight and conquer. Groups were born and each strove against the other.

God came down again and gave man along with the freedom and the law, the sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, of virtuous and evil deeds. But man answered to this gift by being very acutely aware of the sins of others and being oblivious to his own. He punished others for the crime that he indulged himself secretly. Thus was born crude religion which thrived upon fear and guilt.

God came again and to assist man gave him the means of self-reflection so that he could introspect and discriminate truly the right and the good from the wrong and the evil. But man answered to this gift by engineering with his reason the power of self deception. Thus was formed a seemingly just and civic society that harboured hypocrisy and falsehood in its heart though appeared fair and good on the surface.

God, in His infinite patience came again and taught man the inner path through which he can tear the veils of falsehood and deception and discover what is real and thereby ascend to a state of true freedom and bliss. But man answered to this gift by expressing his helplessness in following the path of Truth and Light even though he now could know it. Thus were born spiritual paths and sects that liberated the few while the rest simply struggled and laboured on.

God came again and this time with His Power and Grace so that man can not only know but also do what he could not do. But man answered to this gift by revolt and doubt thereby loosing his balance and refusing to open to the one Truth that could still save him. Thus was born a world where power was misused to plunder nature for the ego’s comfort and pleasure rather than for the mastery over nature.

But God refuses to give up, how could He for what else is man and this world but His distorted image and a broken reflection. Therefore does He now hammer this world tirelessly so that the distortions may disappear and humanity grows into the perfect image and likeness of God. Therefore does He now close all other doors so that man may turn to the one door he has long denied to himself.

‘He leaves behind the ill with strife and pain,
Because it clings and constantly returns,
And in the fire of suffering fiercely burns
More sweetness to deserve, more strength to gain.’
-Sri Aurobindo: In the Moonlight

Alok Pandey

The atmosphere was solemn but not heavy. There was a lightness and a Light that one always felt in the Master’s Presence. But the solemness of the occasion was because of the Master’s illness. The Master had not been well for the last couple of weeks, and now he seemed to be withdrawing, suddenly, as sun assumes the crimson golden hue of dawn just before setting in the western seas, the Master came back to his full outer awareness and smiled at the grave faces that had gathered around him in the dusk.

The Master broke the silence, or rather enriched it by his sweet and liquid voice that always seemed to come from some far-off world, “What makes your faces so grave?” One among them answered with a rather low voice, “Your illness, Master and the fear we all share that you may leave us.”

There was a pause as between the destruction and creation of worlds. The Master seemed to have lapsed again. But he came out of his trance soon enough. Slowly, he responded to the disciple’s anxiety,

“But where am I leaving you? Do you think I am this body?” The Master pinched his flesh at places while saying so, and continued, “None of us are mere physical bodies. Only you are not conscious of it whereas I am fully conscious of my deathless Self and the many births before. And the deathless Self is immortal. It does not die.”

The conversation had started. Another continued the thread, “You are God, aren’t you?”

The Master paused a while, “Yes, but it is also true of all of you, only you do not know it.

The disciple asked, “But you are God in a special sense, an avatara, the Supreme incarnated in a material body. You are not like us struggling from below upwards.”

The Master replied, “Yes, but so were Krishna, Christ and Buddha avatara, conscious of their Godhead. Do you think an avatara is not subject to the laws of the earth when he takes up a human body?

And the disciple continued, “We thought so, an avatara is free from the laws that govern us mortals.”

The Master said with a great force in his words, “None of us is a mortal. Bondage is an illusion. Death is an illusion. There is none bound, none dies. Have you forgotten the great injunction of Sri Krishna, ‘It is only forms that perish, the soul is immortal.’ Did he not also say ‘There was never a time when I or these kings were not there, nor when they will not’?”

The Master looked at them with a powerful gaze. Then as the glow softened, he continued, “Do you think that Sri Krishna, Christ, Buddha are dead and gone? Have I not told you of my own encounters with them, especially with Sri Krishna, the eternal friend and lover of all mankind in whose arms of ecstasy I spent days and weeks? How could I if he were no more? In fact, an avatara never leaves the earth. He comes for the earth and stays here as a permanent part of the earth consciousness so that all who rightly strive may be helped by him and arrive.”

The disciples looked puzzled. Of course, they had read all this but somehow seemed to forget it. How foolish of them to believe that the Master could ever leave them. The Master as if read their thoughts, “How could I ever leave you? No, I will be present upon earth till the work for which I have come is done. Only you would not see me with your physical senses.”

“That makes a great difference to us,” one of them pleadingly complained.

But the Master reassured, “But my help will always be available just as ever. Those who have a subtle vision can even see me.”

“But your physical presence…”

The Master revealed, “Do you think the Divine takes up a physical body only to guide a few handfuls of people who are near him? He can and does do that even without assuming a physical body. The experience of many devotees and saints testifies this.”

The disciple insisted, “But still your physical presence makes a great difference.”

The Master looked at them with great compassion, “It does serve as a concrete example but one cannot profit by physical nearness alone. The Master is a doorway to help you discover the Divine Master within you. One too often forgets that simply because the Master is physically available and readily accessible. In fact, the help of the Master is not so much by the words he utters and the letters to which he replies, for these can be readily misinterpreted. His real help reaches out as a silent but powerful influence, to all who are receptive and open. And this help and influence are not dependent upon the physical Presence, though men find it easier to open to someone who is concretely visible in flesh and blood. But that is man’s limitation, not the Master’s. He acts without hands and feet, speaks without the tongue and influences us even while he is bodiless. Indeed, that is the Master’s mode of action even while he is in the body.”

A little puzzled one with logical reasoning asked, “Then why does God take up a body at all if He can guide men and the world without taking up a human body? And if He does, why does he seem to suffer and even fall ill and die like ordinary mortals?”

“Oh, that is another matter. It is not about guidance but about doing something with physical matter or the earth substance. The Divine takes up a human body as a field of action directly upon Matter and the physical conditions of the earth. Now also He acts but from behind, through many layers that clothe and conceal Him. Therefore, the work upon earth seems so abominably slow, difficult, and painful. But by taking up a physical body, the Divine can bring the very physical substance and earth-nature directly in contact with the Divine Forces from another plane of a higher consciousness. That helps the earth and embodied beings progress as a whole, collectively and not just a few special chosen men. It makes the earth cover as if in one giant leap of a few decades or centuries what it would otherwise take millenniums to realise.”

“Oh yes, we can see that; how your coming revolutionized the entire face of the earth. The very atmosphere has changed,” a disciple observed, but then added, as if with a tinge of doubt, “that is why we cannot understand your illness all the more. We have seen and experienced your powerful Presence and its Influence several times ourselves and in the world. To say the least, we have seen you cure such intractable illnesses in others. So why or how could you not cure yourself!”

The Master spoke as if enigmatically, “Maybe I could cure myself but would not. Maybe I wish to experience all that human beings experience including illness and death so that I can change their law. How could I do it unless I experience it? How can I change the law unless I fully know it? It is easy to pass beyond the law and remain above it, it is also easy enough to superimpose the law of one plane upon another, but it is extremely difficult to change the law of one plane into another.”

The disciples looked quizzically at each other, “What does that mean? We do not quite grasp that.”

The Master explained, “It is easy, for example, for a yogi to keep his body alive and healthy for a long period by superimposing upon it the vital force, or else, to simply rise above his illness and be free within of all reactions. That is how miracles ordinarily work. But when you want to change the material laws, then it is another thing altogether. In the previous two, you rise above them or else momentarily suspend or hold them in abeyance for whatever period you wish to with constant superior control. It is like policing. The presence of the police controls the thief so long as they are vigilant but it does not change a thief or criminal. For that, you have to enter into the criminal’s mind and consciousness and know it by a kind of identification, of course without losing your own identity. It is a deliberate process. You do this not out of any weakness but out of strength, to understand how they think and operate, what is their origin due to. And all this so as to transform them. That is transforming the law.”

“But won’t that upset the balance,” one reflectively demurred.

“It would do so only if the law were such at the origin and fixed for all times. But that is not the case. Earth and physical life have become what it is not because it is radically and incurably false in their origin. Quite the contrary, their origin, as indeed the origin of all things is Truth and Consciousness and Bliss. But, in the course of time, it has become almost its opposite.” The Master paused, reflectively as if the whole course of earth’s history stood before him in one panoramic flash.

“But why did this fall from Glory come out?” someone steeped in tradition asked seizing upon the pause.

The Master once again turned towards them, “Oh! haven’t you read, I have written all that in great detail elsewhere.” Some of them could notice the touch of gentle irony in the Master’s words, haven’t you read, as if observing human complacency. For these were his ways, gentle and subtle yet unfailing in pointing us the road of Light.

He continued, “Nevertheless, the fact that everything has issued forth from the Divine and contains His Presence within it, therefore, everything is not only potentially Divine but also destined to become more and more so through an evolutionary process. Matter too, despite all its inertness and unconsciousness is divine in its origin and in human beings, it has already reached a point wherein it can be divinized. The Divine descends upon earth and takes a physical body to redeem matter and liberate the godhead concealed in it.”

With a flash of intuition, one observed, “Oh! like that story of Ahly who becomes stone due to a curse and then turns into a goddess by the grace of Lord Rama’s touch.”

Another ventured to ask, “Is that the reason why Divine comes again and again upon earth and takes up a physical body? Is this the second coming spoken of in the great traditions of Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism?”

The Master answered, “The second coming is not a religious event. It is not the resurrection of a certain creed or Church or a theology nor is it to save a particular religious group. The second coming is precisely this — this complete victory of the Divine upon earth, this reign of Truth and Light in this world, the Divine advent in all His Glory and not as He is presently concealed in the thick cloak of a human body. The second coming is about the coming of the Divine in a divinized body, a body befitting the Mighty Presence.”

The disciples were awestruck. How vast was the Master’s vision and how small and narrow their ignorant beliefs? After a long silence one asked, “So you will come again.”

The Master nodded in assent and added, “Yes, in a divinized body. For only such a body can truly fuse and express all the diverse aspects of the One Divine who comes as Krishna, Christ, Buddha and the rest.”

One pleaded, “How will we recognize you?”

And the Master said, “That is one reason why I must depart. So that you open your inner eyes and find me there. For they who have this inner vision will always find me for they know me as the Supreme Godhead who has assumed this form. For them, the form is the door to the world of Light and Truth. But those who see the form alone and know Me only by my external personality will try to make a cult and a religion or an intellectual creed and dogma and philosophy out of it. That is what man has always done so far with the Divine. But with the second coming all this will cease, for the Divine will no more be hidden by the form nor will He need the imperfect figures of idea and philosophy or religion to express Himself in this world. The second coming is the great return, the return of the Divine as the revealed and not a concealed sovereign and King upon earth. That will also be the establishment of the Divine Kingdom here, the dream of all religions and the hope of mankind.”

The Master’s words fell silent in the fast-gathering night. But a hope stole in the heart of the earth and the Light of a New Dawn waited in the Eastern sky for the appropriate hour.

Alok Pandey