Daily Offerings from Alokda

The Master was taking a stroll in the garden. The group of disciples surrounded him like bees around a flower that had turned the Light and Power of the sun into a sweet and strengthening nectar for their thirsty struggling souls.

Feeling the mood of the moment, one among them asked as to how come in this world of beauty there came to dwell evil and suffering. The Master became pensive and took them to a nearby place where the gardener had just thrown some seeds into the ground. Pointing to the soil and the seed below it he asked them why must the seed of this beautiful flower destined to partake of the sun be put underneath the soil into a dark space and breath the waste and the mire and rot on the surface and struggle to reach the top against the heavy resistance of the earth.

‘To throw its roots deep’, said one. ‘To cast off its hard shell’ said another.

The Master smiled and exclaimed ‘That’s the answer to your question. Suffering is like the waste and the mire and Evil like the darkness and the resistance that man’s soul must face so that it can also throw its roots deep into the earth and its surface crust soften in due time. The surface crust is the ego-self, that source of all evil and suffering, when inner being is ready by the pressure of the world forces, when it has cast its roots deep and strong, then the ego-self slowly dissolves and the deeper soul emerges into Light and Freedom. It is delivered out of the womb of darkness and is ready for a new adventure into Light and its climb towards the sun. But if the seed is stripped bare of its hard crust prematurely and exposed too early to the light of the sun and the immense freedom of space then it may simply burn off and be blown away by the strong winds before its roots have steadied it. So also what we call error and evil and suffering are simply necessary intermediary steps and stages in man’s ascending growth towards Light and Freedom.’

‘What then is sin and what then is virtue and good’, enquired another.

The Master observed as he moved from one flowering tree to another: ‘Look at the buds, their petals closed upon each other, their fragrance trapped inside. That is the first stage of the flower. It is as if it was trying to not only feel and hold but also to capture and possess the light it so badly needs and to keep the fragrance to its solitary self that is meant to be its gift to the world. So also with man. Selfishness is the only sin since it induces man to try and appropriate things for its solitary self and give out nothing in return to the world. The result is that it remains dark inside and closed outside. But a time comes when the bud begins to trust the Light that it feels and opens out to it and all that surrounds it in a spontaneous gesture of self-giving. And, lo and behold! – its self-giving is instantly rewarded by the fullness of its bloom and its generous uncalculating gift of fragrance turns into sweet nectar inside. Man is selfish in his early stages of growth but soon he must realise that selfishness is a trap since it prevents him from getting the very thing that he most needs and wants. With this awakening and the pressure of Light and its own secret nature there comes in him the trust and the confidence to open out and reach out and give itself first to the world around it which alone he sees with his half open eyes and then to the sun that it begins to perceive as its eternal source, the secret master of its journey, the fosterer who turns all things to honey within him. Then man becomes a link between the earth and the heaven.’ Then with a mystic pause he added, ‘Selfishness too, that origin of all sin, is a preliminary stage in human growth. This too must pass away as man begins to trust God within and His play around and gives himself freely to both or rather to God and His play in the world.’

The Master sat down quietly on a little rocky promontory in the garden, his gaze as if fixed into infinity, his look encompassing the whole of space in a single glance, his heart one with all things in their eternal essence. And the disciples sat around him wondering whom to admire, the sweet fragrance of the flowers that gave themselves generously to everything around them or like the earth that shared the joy and the struggle and the sorrow of all things giving shelter and place to each thing that must wait for its season to turn ripe and to blossom emerging out of the darkness into the Light, or like the sun that gave itself to the creation and though far and high beyond the reach of earth and its creatures yet was the secret source and support of all. And as they thus contemplated their inner and outer gaze was fixed upon the Master who was to earth and men, at once the flower and the earth and the sun.

Alok Pandey

‘What is love?’ – asked a disciple of the Master.

The Master replied: “Tell me what is not love?”

And then to make it clearer he took them to the nearby fields where a farmer was tilling the soil while another was sowing seeds. Yet another was watering the plants while someone else was plucking them. 

“Here look,” said the Master. “The farmer who is tilling the soil is doing a labour of love even though the soil may not like this touch of hardness that it must bear, the upsetting of its layers of sand that has settled over the centuries.” He continued, “And the farmer who is putting the seeds in the womb of darkness and pouring over it the waste of earth is also doing a labour of love, for the seed is still hard and must soften through all this darkness and waste till it is ready to receive the Light.”

“And when it sprouts, the farmer puts a fence around it and prunes and limits its freedom lest it is not eaten away by the animals that sprawl around. The delicate and tender plant may find it hard to bear the touch of his scissors but this too is love.”

“And when the plant has grown and the fruits and flowers are ready, he carefully selects them and sends them away so that the flowers and fruits of his sacrifice reach out everywhere and bring new blossoms and more fruits and flowers. This too is love.”

‘But what about the plants and the earth’, – asked another.

The Master stood silent awhile as if lost in the wonder of love that he found everywhere. When he came out of his reverie, he spoke again: “The earth holds these and many other countless possibilities silently in its bosom. It waits for the right farmer and the right season, it bears the hard touch of the farmer’s plough so that one day the flowers and the fruits that it hides in the mud may emerge out of its dark womb and be offered to the sun. What else is this but love?”

“And the seed lets go of its hard crust, the plant of its shelter under the earth, its sap rising upward as an invocation to the sun and its fruits and flowers give themselves freely to the bird and the bee so that through their droppings more fragrance and more sweetness can arise out of the earth. What else is this but Love?”

And the disciples stood speechless in wonder and a fresh waft of air moved amidst them, – the wind that gives life force to the plant, dries up the farmer’s sweat, brings about the seasons by following the paths of the sun and carries the pollen far and wide for fresh blossoms. And the Master spoke not but the disciples heard in the winds a hymn of love whisper softly a song of hope in their hearts and a renewed joy in their souls.

Alok Pandey

We have stepped into a New Age. The past century challenges the old views and ways of life and to a large extent has either destroyed it or else is replacing it with a completer and more inclusive view. Each and every field of life and sphere of human endeavour is witnessing this change, this shift of paradigms towards a more comprehensive understanding. But even as this is happening and the debris of past imperfect forms is being cleared, it is important to be cautious of two things. First, in our hurry and eagerness to create we should not end up creating yet something imperfect and give it the name of newness. There is an attempt in certain quarters, for instance, to pitch their tents upon the grounds thus cleared and sell their products each as the new one. Such a ‘newness’ is at best a passing phase, an experimentation of sorts, before the true things can come up. The second danger is that the old thing may be passed off as the new with some minor adjustments or merely a change of label.
It is here that we need to exercise caution. For newness is often (mis)understood as something that is in fashion. It is also understood as something that dazzles us suddenly and caters to man’s grotesque need for an impossible miracle, impossible because it seeks for a miracle without fulfilling the conditions. But such miracles do not last and cannot be replicated for the larger good. A true and lasting miracle could take roots only when the conditions under which we live and labour are changed.

But what are these conditions but the very state of consciousness that we live in. If we regard the universe as a projection of the One Infinite Consciousness then each finite is only an embodiment of a certain movement or poise of this One consciousness. It is this binds us and creates the conditions we live in. Just as we are bound by the state of sleep and dream respectively and become subject to the conditions that exist in these states, so too our waking state itself is a partial and limited consciousness and subjects us to all that we create ad experience in this world. To recreate or create afresh and anew we must first change the consciousness in which we live or rather with which we are presently identified. We need to deepen, widen, heighten ourselves till the boundaries and limits of our individual consciousness begin to overflow on each side into the Infinite. It is this that will create the truly New in us, a new being who will see, understand, live and act from a new and vaster poise. It is raising the human in us to a larger pitch and scale, as it were, rather than multiplying more methods and techniques in the name of newness.

How can we do that? Therein lies the real challenge of the new cycle of evolution that calls upon us. Not to merely repeat the old formulas under new names, not even to merely tinker and polish the surfaces of life but to discover a new possibility and way of being that has never been so far! Time presses towards this change, our souls are called to this great adventure, the winds blow in its favour, the ground and soil of human nature is ready. All that is needed is the leap of faith and the courage to endure the process of change. The change is not outside but within us and it is happening. Only we must look and work in the right direction, and press and persevere till the moment comes when the limited circle of consciousness in which we had locked ourselves open at some vantage point and we begin to breath infinity and work out the dreams of eternity in and around us. This is the new possibility, the possibility of creating a New world that awaits us at this hour. Or shall we say that the New world and the New possibility have already arrived. All that they need is a steady will to enter into it, or better still allow it to enter into us.

We need to make the definitive choice, – whether to belong to the old world built with blocks of ego and division, watered by ignorance and desire whose best bloom is a precariously held temporary gain, a happiness mixed with suffering, a pain that can be ameliorated but not cured, a palliative at best. Or else to be born anew into the True and the Vast with its bloom or intuitive knowledge and spontaneous power of action, and behind it all that delight which is the batch and mark of the New Consciousness, the Delight that sets our souls free and rebuilds for us a life free of the stress of suffering and sorrow.

Alok Pandey