Daily Notes and Reflections by Alokda

What really is Yoga? Literally it means a state of union, – a union between what we are and what we could be; a union between our external consciousness now driven by a thousand forces of ignorance and our depths so that our inmost soul and the Divine becomes the true Master even of our most outer being and all its movements; a union between the dark half of existence in which we right now labour fruitlessly and with much suffering and struggle and, the bright half that remains hidden and unclaimed where Peace and Bliss are the very law of life; in other words a union between Soul and Nature, God and the World, Man and the Cosmos.

This union cannot come until we have found the central key hidden behind the multitudinous appearances of nature. This key cannot be found in our present egoistic state which only keeps up the division and walls us apart from everything and everyone else. This key cannot be found even by merely a universalization of our being, even if it extends as far as the universe and beyond for the reconciliation will still be missing between the diverse and different elements of nature, their right law of arrangement with respect to each other, termed the Rta of the Vedas. Beyond the ego-ridden individual consciousness and the fields of cosmic ignorance there exists a transcendent Truth whose countless Rays reach out and embed themselves in each and every atom of existence. It is the original Truth, the very Source of all that is. Even though it transcends all, it is yet hidden in all and holds all creation in its vast embrace. It is, to use the image of the Upanishad, the Speech of our speech, the Intelligence behind all intelligence, the Power behind all manifestations of power, the Mind behind our mind, even the Sense behind our sense. It is the state of constant and dynamic Perfection, a state of perpetual Harmony at rest and in movement. It is this transcendent Supramental Sun that is the key to a perfect union. Short of it we can have various degrees of union with different levels of the higher consciousness but it will always be incomplete and therefore unable to change earthly life into the mould of the eternal Perfection that ever exists beyond creation and within its very depths as its secret core and base.

If there were not this bud of eternal perfection enclosed within us we would not seek perfection at all. But one of the signs of human evolution is this relentless seeking for perfection in countless ways and in every sphere of life. Indeed there are a thousand ways that we strive for perfection and a thousand ways that men can and do approach the Source, the Divine Perfection within them. Helplessly we are driven towards It, attracted as it were and in the end no resistance can stand in the way since that is our core and our Destiny that cannot be denied for long. However There is a key within man, a secret ‘something’ hidden in the very depths that can directly respond to this Supramental Truth now beyond the reach of our mind and senses, beyond the grasp of our emotional being and a will maimed by ignorance and desire. It is this hidden key that can put us directly in contact with the supreme Truth and help our nature receive and bear the Rays that may otherwise find the Divine Touch unbearable and scorch in the Presence of that Sun of Truth. That entity within us is, in fact our true identity, it is a part and parcel of the Divine, a fiery portion of the Wonderful, a spark of That which burns yonder in Space and guides and flow and flux of Time. That key is the psychic being, the secret soul in man.

It is the psychic being that can open the rest of our nature to the Divine Influence and carve a temple of eternity out of the transient mud and water constituting this body. It is the psychic being that can orient our nature to the Right and the Light so that all its movements begin to flow swiftly and smoothly towards the Eternal rather than in a crooked and deviant way as they now do. It is the psychic being that can put us back on the straight and sunlit path that the mind has lost and hence struggles and gropes in the darkness of terrestrial nature. But for that the psychic being itself must first disengage itself from this deviant flow, extricate itself out of the thorny bushes of a fallen nature, retrieve its powers now covered by unconsciousness and falsehood, recover its truth and reclaim its immortality. That is the first and immediate task of this great journey that should preoccupy us for the rest very much depends upon how much we succeed in this. Once this is done the rest is a matter of time. This is the key to the golden temple door of things beyond.

Being Human is to be vulnerable but being human is also to be mighty. The best in us emerges only when we face the greatest vulnerabilities of our nature. That is why God created humanity so that through our vulnerabilities we may carve a path towards greatness. Greatness is not what men ordinarily think it to be. It is not about success, not about fame or money or any other such material gifts of life. It is not about recognition by other men or even unusual capacities and talents gifted to us by Nature and God. These things are simply exaltations of the great Creatrix Energy in us, moments in time when the eternal fills us with abundance and leaves it to us to use them rightly or misuse them to our own peril.

To use them rightly is to further increase them. To misuse or waste or misspend these gifts is to lose them. And it is the worse for us since when we do not have something, Nature expects little from us. But once she has showered her gifts, – whether material or psychological, then to waste them is to commit a travesty against her great purpose. But that is a different matter. Men may regard such gifts as greatness but there is nothing great about it from the perspective of the man who has been endowed with these. Even if he has acquired things for himself through the utilization of inborn capacities, it is nothing much since it is for himself that he has increased them. Such a selfish utilization of the materials offered to us by Nature may look great in the eyes of others but is in fact not the best utilization of our capacities since no man is an island and we live poorly if we live for ourselves alone. To have everything but for ourselves or, for our little circle of family and friends, is to acquire little and a poverty of another kind. True greatness lies in facing the impossible within and around us. True greatness emerges out of the shadows that we confront within and conquer.

It is out of our weakest points that the seeds of mightiness can be born. And therein lies the true greatness of man, a greatness that all can share, nay even more so those who consider themselves deprived and weak for it is to them is given the challenge and the possibility and the opportunity to rise out of the ruins and build out of the ashes the glory of a yet-to-be glimpsed future. Therefore, we must never get disheartened by life, never feel discourages, whatever our present ills and adverse fate for out of our adversity is born the greatest of force that the Divine Wisdom uses to push open an unseen door within us. For one who can face adversity without breaking down, for someone who can take on the great challenge of nature the very adversity helps to catapult them towards the summits of nature. Man’s greatness is not in what he is for what he is is but a gift of Grace or a mask of nature. His real merit lies in what he makes of the materials given to him. It is easy to build something beautiful when all the material is provided to us but far more difficult to create something lasting and enduring out of little. Therein lies our true challenge, – the challenge of being human, the path of our ascent towards supermanhood. Not simply by exalting and aggrandizing nature but by chasing the shadows out of the corners and recesses of our being and filling these gulfs with Light and Peace and Love and Beatitude and Bliss.

The Great Mother reminds us of Her constant Help is this process. She is ever with us holding our hands and carrying us in Her wonderful heart of untiring Love and infinite Grace. To those whom She has blessed outwardly are no doubt among Her loved ones but those whom She has Blessed inwardly, with the strength to climb towards the summits not yet won, whom She has even seemingly deprived outwardly so that their strength can rise up to the challenge, these are Her favourites, Her closest and chosen ones in the great work She has descended here to do amidst the dark and bright, dangerous and delightful appearances of the world. The first type are Her children who are still laboring in the early years of schooling wherein the Mother cares and provides all that they need and also gives them enough opportunity to learn and grow through the school of ordinary human experience. But those whom She loves most and works to carve true greatness out of our frail and human stuff, She casts them into the midst of the battlefield of life, takes upon Herself to train and educate them right here in the midst of the great battle of life where truth and falsehood, light and darkness are locked in a deadly combat. And yet they are never alone for not even for a moment the Divine Mother and the Divine Teacher leaves them unattended. Always She holds the rein of such lives and the destiny of such souls in Her safe hands turning all the sweet-bitter experiences of life into the honey of divine living. For such is the work She has undertaken and such is the work She will accomplish, – to build immortal things out of our transience and mortality, to open and take us through some hidden narrow passage in the darkness of ignorance towards the Light eternal and the Love Supreme. This is the knowledge we must shelter in our hearts as we move through the different appearances of life. The ignorant mind may give them values of good and bad, pleasant or painful but in reality, in their true essence they are neither of these dualities but only the hands of the Divine Architect and the Artist shaping out of our crude stuff eternal Good and unfailing Bliss and the Harmony that is built by Beauty and truth and Love.

Alok Pandey

The idea of ‘Integral Health’ goes beyond healing. It goes also beyond keeping a body free of diseases and physically fit. Mere physical fitness without a corresponding fitness of mind and vital parts, of thoughts and feelings is an animal-like fitness. Even worse, since physically strong and fit body with a crooked and deviant mind may well become an instrument to wreak havoc upon the world. That is far from being the ideal of Integral Health. In the vision of Integral Health, the mind and the body as well as the vital energy has to become instruments of a Higher Consciousness, of the Spirit hidden in Matter.

In this view, the body itself is evolving and has to evolve further so as to accommodate and adapt to the higher ranges and levels of Consciousness that seek to express in earthly life. The process of this adaptation and change of the body-mind instrumentality is called transformation. This change or transformation is a two-fold process. On one side, the human being puts in effort through aspiration, rejection and surrender; on the other hand, the Higher Consciousness descends and changes the body-mind complex and their capacities and functioning. But before the Higher Consciousness can descend and act, a fundamental preliminary change is needed, which is called the psychic change.

The psychic change means that instead of the body and mind being at the mercy of desires, they should become expressive of the soul, our inmost truth. Presently, our mind and body habitually respond to rage, fear, lying etc. All these dark mixtures have been poured into the vessel called the body by our past evolution. Our cells respond to these forces habitually, strongly conditioned through millenniums. Our tongue automatically lies without any necessity, our hands and feet habitually move, restless as a monkey, or slip into inertia. In fact most of the things we do or think are habitually, mechanically, automatically driven by the past impetus of Nature. We have to slowly replace this by a higher intelligent-will called ‘Buddhi’ and then orient the instrument to respond to the soul-impulsions, the deeper, truer will in us. Our actions have to become more conscious and deliberate. This would apply to everything and every area of life. Our relationship with others and the world; our thoughts, feelings, motivations; our work and rest, exercise and walk, sleep and dreams, speech and silence, eating and enjoyings all must be impregnated with an aspiration for Light, Peace, Harmony, Strength, Joy. We may do the same exercises and eat the same food as any other health-regime may suggest but behind it there will be another will and aspiration and it is that which brings the difference.

In essence it would mean a double labour. The first is to engage in daily activities with moderation and balance, most of all with a conscious aspiration. Secondly, to take out some time every day to reflect on the true purpose of life; to practice interiorisation through meditation and concentration and, to practice quietude, peace and equanimity in every sphere of life.

Alok Pandey

Added to this primary source of disharmony, there are secondary causes as well. These arise due to the fact that Man is neither alone nor isolated in the cosmos. He himself is one field for the complex play of forces that weave the fabric of his nature. But in a deeper view of things everything in this cosmos can be seen and understood in terms of energies and forces. These are broadly of three or four categories. There are the gross physical forces that material Science studies. There are also the subtle forces that psychological Science tries to explore. Finally, there are occult forces hidden to our present abilities and capacities for perception and conception. To use the term from Indian Thought, these forces can be each categorized by their action as forces of creation or constructive forces, forces of preservation or balancing forces, forces of disintegration or destructive forces. Indian Thought gave to these forces significant names of Rajas (constructive and creative), Sattwa (preserving and balancing), Tamas (destroying and disintegrative). The respective beings and powers behind these three are Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, the trinity of Indian spiritual thought and vision. Illnesses also arise when there is an imbalance between these forces either due to an unequal stress in the nature or due to coming in contact and proximity with one or the other.

Let us take an example, words, written or spoken, music that is expressed, food, air, water, organisms, etc. are all gross forces and each exercise influence us to a certain degree. The corresponding subtle forces would be Thought, inner harmony and rhythm, feelings, strength, will etc. The occult element would be the various types of energies and beings that enter into us unseen and move us even without our knowledge. Now, words of Thought, food, air, feelings, organisms, people, plants, for that matter anything can have on us a destructive, constructive or preservative influence. Indian thought elaborately classified these phenomena and discovered that each and every object or form can be resolved into varying degrees of combination of five elements, namely space (etheric vibrations), air (movement), water (attraction and repulsion), fire (energizing a form), earth (concretizing, precipitating, gravitational). Different activities of life require different elements. However, if the use of one of these elements is in excess or in deficiency compared to the others, the balance is disturbed leading to a state of disharmony and illness.

Finally, we have a whole range of physical and biological phenomenon which can upset the state of harmony and trigger an imbalance. This means that the vision of Integral Health provides us with a comprehensive understanding of health and illness, and, man’s relation with the world around. It takes into account and does not exclude physical causes of health and illness. But it sees them in a New Light, thereby allowing a deeper and more holistic understanding. Similarly Integral Health takes into account and does not exclude different forms of healing practices that mankind has evolved so far. But here too it sees them in a New Light providing us with a greater flexibility and a more holistic approach.

Alok Pandey

The vision of Integral Health is based on an integral understanding of man. The truths of integral healing are derived from Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and his Guidance along with the Mother, on various aspects of health and healing. Taken in its totality, it is a comprehensive guidance on each and every aspect of human existence, right from our bodily to the highest spiritual existence. Sri Aurobindo’s teaching also reconnects man, the mental being, to his larger cosmic and Divine existence. In this total vision we do not see things and events in isolation but as part of a larger movement of Nature towards realizing greater and greater degree of Perfection through the various forms She has evolved so far.

The human body is one such form and though, largely still of an animal make, it hides within itself new, higher and greater possibilities that are bound to emerge in due course of Time. However, unlike the animal, man can collaborate in the process through an integral yoga.

Or he can resist the change.

The result is an evolutionary conflict that we experience within and around. The past and the future both act upon man. He feels the pull of the dark subconscient energies accumulated and inherited from the earth’s past. He also feels drawn, however vaguely, to the bright Superconscient which is Earth’s Destiny. In man these two currents meet, often in disharmony with each other. He is caught between the forces of ‘natural’ disintegration and the forces of New Creation which visit his heart and mind thereby creating hope, idealism and dreams of a better humanity and earth. It is this inner conflict that is the primary cause of disharmony in man. Humanity experiences it as an inner ‘unease’ and a ‘ restless urge’ to find ‘something’ or ‘someone’ who can give it the much needed Peace and Joy and Truth and Freedom and Love. At first he seeks these things outside through objects and persons and outer circumstances. But as he evolves and becomes aware of a larger subjective existence within himself, he seeks them inside, in the spaces of his inner being. But until he has found the right balance between the inner and the outer, his ‘unease’ has a tendency to precipitate into a ‘disease’. The disease serves to remind him that there is a need to rediscover the threads of his life and to reorient them. It is in fact, an evolutionary door if we thus use it.

We move ever towards the New and the Unknown. But the New is not always new even as the old is not always old.

The New may be a rediscovery by another age of the old much as a child ‘discovers’ and is thrilled with discovering what his parents and grandparents already know.
The old too may be a partial glimpse ahead of Time of that which the race must realize much later. The dreams of Leonardo Da Vinci were not old and the ancient legends of Daedalus and Icarus were precursors of the Future. The Vedic Rishis and the Chaldean mystics foresaw something that the race was yet to experience. Krishna is still alive in the psychological spaces of man waiting for his call to be heard. Christ and Buddha wait on the threshold of our inner being for humanity to receive their message rightly.

Therefore, as we enter into the New and the Unknown future, we should carefully discern the surviving ghosts and phantoms of a slain past from the early blush of a forthcoming Dawn. The first leads us back to the cycles that have exhausted their purpose, the second to endless new discoveries.

Science is one of the way to understand the world and its functioning. It starts from studying phenomenon and then proceeds both horizontally and vertically to understand it. Horizontally, it tries to see and study the events and circumstances that surround the phenomenon closely in terms of Space and Time. By making these observations repeatedly it arrives at a mathematical model of cause and effect. What is seen to repeatedly precede an event is cause, what follows is effect. But since there are any number of variables at any given point of time, science picks up likely variables by exercising a selection especially in terms of Space and similarity. Thus for example, while studying the cause of a disease, one will select physical and biological elements and forces that are closely connected. It is a certain angle of vision, a selection that includes some elements and leaves out others. However, one of the ways that Science advances is by expanding its field of enquiry to look for distant events and also includes in its ambit other fields and forces such as psychological and possibly spiritual.

However there is another dimension of study. It is the vertical dimension. In this process Science digs deeper and deeper to discover and isolate with precision the phenomenon itself. In the event of diseases it would mean moving beyond symptoms to the organ pathology and biochemical imbalances and immunity disturbances to organisms and genetic studies. Medical science has proposed thus far in its effort at widening and deepening the scientific consciousness.

But what really is the scientific mind or the scientific consciousness itself. It is, as we have said, one approach to Reality and like all the diverse approaches to Reality it can easily become a cult or a religion if it believes itself to be exclusive and ultimate. Then it takes the form of a fundamentalist dogma wherein the god of Science is the all-powerful deity beyond all others (or perhaps others do not even exist, – a monotheistic Science or Scientific monism). With its superior and condescending air it looks down with contempt on all other approaches. In the process it misses out on two very important elements, – an enrichment by taking into consideration other approaches and, secondly, a heightening of the scientific consciousness. Therefore, if Science must evolve it must work towards the evolution of the scientific mind and the scientific consciousness. It is the same with religions, cults, philosophies and ideologies.

The problem is that each of these approaches has closed itself in a mental compartment, almost a prison and is unwilling to see further or beyond. Very often it denies other approaches thereby entering not only in a prison but a hole. The walls of the prison are limited by the limits of its inquiry and the certitude of having found the Reality. Further, like any cult, the followers of Science have often been unconsciously conditioned and indoctrinated into a belief system. This belief system is in the certainty and absoluteness of its methods. This blinds the scientific mind as it then moves and gropes in blind ended circles and closes doors to new things.

Take for instance widening. The scientific mind accepts to widen itself only upto a certain point. But lets say, what if the far, distant elements such as the sun and the moon effect our state of health and illness just as they effect the movement of winds, the rise and fall of water, the change of seasons upon earth? Are not these things also intimate to us. In the early days of Science when it was open to wonder such studies were held but as Science began to enter a blind closet these things are regarded as ‘outdated’. In other words we need to examine if far and distant events also influence our everyday living ‘today’.

Or, to take another example would an event before conception, prayer of the parents or an upheaval of Nature for example, influence the future course of a child?

Similarly, when we deepen into discovering the ‘forces’ at play in health and diseases, we often stop at studying organisms, genes and biochemistry. What about electrical wires and the electro-magnetic environment, the computer network, the radio-waves, the various panels for scientific appliances? Do they effect us or not? Again we have to largely draw a blank here. Yes, it won’t be surprising if we discover one day that a whole re-organisation of the physical world by the scientific consciousness and its appliances, the loss of natural environment from the flow of winds to the changes of temperature has led to a marked decrease in body resistance and made us much more vulnerable to diseases. Of course hygiene is one thing but a total artificial environment cutting us from the sum total of material Nature that acted upon us is quite another.

This is another area of study. Perhaps an even more important one since this is the stuff of which our physical bodies are made, this the environment adapting to which humanity has evolved. But now we are cut off from all that nature, wired in many ways so to say. But the most important aspect is a heightening of the scientific mind. This is only possible if the scientist regards an evolution of consciousness as a fundamental inbuilt process in the cosmos. We are a part of this evolving consciousness and we can evolve further. This would mean, in practical terms, the evolution of a new consciousness, a new way of thinking and feeling, a new way of sensing and perceiving, a new way of responding and acting upon the world and its challenges. This change would also imply, as has happened in the leap from the animal to man, the evolution of new capacities and powers, a new mode of knowledge more direct, intuitive and holistic. When that happens, science would have taken a tremendous leap. We may then discover new and hidden causes that are now concealed to thought and vision. And along with this new knowledge, we may also discover new and more powerful ways of healing, ways more direct, intuitive and holistic as well. Or perhaps we may discover the root cause which is hidden to our sight. We wait for that day for the last word of science is yet to be spoken and the last act of the drama of creation yet to unfold itself.

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 an 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 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 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.