Daily Offerings from Alokda

Q: In Sri Aurobindo’s words, “in every being there is a Soul, but Psychic Being is not present in everybody … after a long process it can be developed”. Please explain?
ALOKDA: The soul is the divine element in man. It is like a seed that carries within itself all the divine possibilities that must one day blossom. But this blossoming is through a long passage of time running through several lives. In this process all experiences, whether we in our ignorance consider ‘good’ and ‘pleasant’ or ‘bad’ and ‘painful’ are feeders for its growth. Night and day, darkness and light are simply two sides of a single movement whose aim is to fulfil the divine possibility that is embedded within itself. That is what the real game of life is about and it goes on behind the surface experiences and reactions of our outer personality.

Then a time comes when this divine seed has grown sufficiently under the cover of darkness and is ready to open to the Light. It is when this happens that we open to Divinity within or around us. It is at this stage that there is the birth of conscious aspiration and a seeking for Light and Truth and Beauty and Harmony and Good. This seeking meets an answer within and the Divine immanent in our inmost heart manifests Himself in the form of our Master and Guru and Guide. We meet the One who is destined to carry us further following the ways and trail of the Light. We become aware of a sacred Presence within that is the Source of all that we have thus far sought outside. This second phase of growth ends in the blossoming of the soul, the divine seed into the fully grown psychic being. This completes our basic schooling in the fields of Ignorance.

It is then that we are given another choice. The fully developed psychic being can either withdraw from terrestrial existence by extinguishing itself into the One Supreme, – the aim of traditional yoga; or it can consciously enter into the curve of further evolution awaiting earth and thereby participate consciously in the destiny of humanity by expressing its divine potential into the play. If it chooses the latter possibility then it must take upon itself a much greater challenge and it is of preparing human nature and its instruments that have evolved so far into becoming free and unobstructed channels of the Divine outpouring upon creation. This is an enormous work and can be fulfilled only through the yoga of transformation.

In between these two there are other intermediary possibilities for the fully developed psychic being. It can linger on some higher plane of consciousness after departure casting its influence and help for those still laboring in the ignorance. Or it can come back incarnating some being of the higher worlds and thereby express some breath of divinity upon earth though short of the perfect perfection of the supermind.

To put it in another way we can say that the soul within us is a divine spark. It grows into a flame as it passes repeatedly through the doors of Death and Rebirth. This divine flame can withdraw into the Sun out of which it had emerged as a spark. Or it can grow further into a living Fire setting the earth ablaze with its divine Energy.

Loving regards,
alok

Q: People say that you can either be scientific or spiritual, because they’re counter to each other or that science disproves spirituality or the existence of divine. I don’t at all agree with that. I think it’s the rigidity of scientific people that they can’t accept anything without a solid proof. I am interested to hear about creation of the universe and evolution of life from a spiritual point of view.

ALOKDA: Dear A., at one level the relation between Science and Spirituality is very simple. Science is a study of natural phenomena, that is to say, what we can observe through the senses. It observes and studies phenomena through various tools available to it or devices new tools to augment its field of observation. Spirituality on the other hand is a search and a quest for Reality, meaning the Truth underlying all the various countless phenomena. In doing so it tries to understand that meaning of creation. Science studies the immediate and the intermediate causes of things whereas Spirituality studies the ultimate original cause of all creation itself. Science studies the field of observation. Spirituality studies the Observer himself.

Thus seen the two complement each other rather than contradict. However, the problem starts when science in its search for the processes and the how behind every phenomenon stands at the doorsteps where it must either take a leap of understanding to know what lies beyond the field that it has probed so far or else remain contented with its limits and say that thus far can it go and no further. Spirituality, on the other hand, tends to extend itself from the Source towards the least detail that has emerged from IT. Here again, it finds the threads of creation lost beyond a point and has to either make a leap of understanding or else say thus far and no further. This is how the two have so far tried to draw an invisible fence between their respective fields. Science takes for its field the objective world taking its stand upon studying only that which is observable and definable. Spirituality on the other hand accepts as its field the subjective field, that which cannot be measured. However, the common element in both is a search for Truth. In this process, they have both entered a field where they would meet one day.

It is the field of psychology where already they have begun to meet. Though they find the meeting ground slippery and uncomfortable, yet it is here in the isthmus of the mind that material science and spiritual science would meet or are already meeting. As to people they are in the habit of having opinions and views even about fields that they have not even casually glanced at. I have seen that very often people who have opinions about either science or spirituality know neither. Regardless of all this a new mind of light is beginning to arise and awaken in at least the elite of humanity who beautifully harmonise and synthesise these two apparently distinct fields.

In other words, everything in creation has a material side as well as a spiritual truth that upholds it. Connecting the two is a whole mass of subtle and occult forces that form a watershed area between science and spirituality. To take the example of the earth itself, it is at once a material and a spiritual reality. It is also an occult formation with a very specific purpose and function. I am not aware of any authentic books that describe the integral reality except Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, so would therefore strongly recommend reading especially all the writings of the Mother. When we read them, we see that the veil of ignorance is slowly lifted and the confusion of understanding is cleared and a new integral vision of things begins to automatically appear before the mind.

Affectionately,
Alok da

Q: What about settlement of karmic account with people, especially those in close relationships, is it required?

ALOK DA: Dear A., Fortunately God is not an accountant, otherwise this universe would have had no hope. Nor is He a judge who is busy judging us from afar with a carrot and stick. For Him , to His supreme consciousness there are obviously no others since all is Himself and there is nothing else but He. The vast material universe is His outermost body and He resides within it, in each of its elements in the subtlest of forms. We too are His portions who carry His wonderful Presence in our own depths. It is given to us by become conscious of our depths and thereby become conscious of Him, one with Him and work upon creation with Him as co-sharers and partners of His divinity. The path towards this highest consummation possible for man is through works, karma, as we call it. But karma itself is not something mechanical and outward but the whole internal mechanism starting from our inmost state of consciousness, our inner motives and intents, the action of guns or modalities of nature through which the will operates and finally the instruments developed so far to execute the work. The energies thereby released go back to the Divine through this entire machinery. We think it is to this person or that person but it is ultimately moving towards that secret Goal from where ultimately all impulsion and power and knowledge comes.

Now here comes the real purpose of the law of karma. Its sole purpose is to perfect ourselves and through us the world around us. The more we are attuned to the higher and highest state the more we engage and collaborate in fulfilling this purpose. On the other hand the more we deviate from this truth, the more we add up to the chaos and confusion. The karmic law therefore is not a law of transaction between individuals as it is a transaction between Soul and Nature with god as the eternal Witness whose role is not merely to watch the play indifferently or to judge and reward and punish us but to keep realigning each one of us and the world in general so that the secret Will that has gone into creation and operates in it is fulfilled. That Will is the will to be Divine in each of its units, it is the will for Ananda, the will for harmony and unity and peace, the will to conquer darkness and thereby grow strong, the will to manifest the entirety of the Divine Perfection. The results of actions, the consequences etc. are so designed so as to realign us back to the Goal. If we stray far, very far, then the sudden jolt of realignment comes to us as pain. But as we grow nearer to the Will and align with IT then there is automatically a growth of Peace and Joy and Harmony and Wisdom within us and in all who are touched by the same Will through us. Through all experiences, the seemingly pleasant and the seemingly painful we are growing towards Him who is the Source of endless peace and Beatitude and Love and Harmony and Sweetness and Power and Knowledge and Bliss. In this process there are cosmic agencies that help or hinder but they too in the end, even when they oppose end up fulfilling God’s plan. Quoting from Savitri (p. 458):

Fate is Truth working out in Ignorance.
O King, thy fate is a transaction done
At every hour between Nature and thy soul
With God for its foreseeing arbiter.
Fate is a balance drawn in Destiny’s book.
Man can accept his fate, he can refuse.
Even if the One maintains the unseen decree
He writes thy refusal in thy credit page:
For doom is not a close, a mystic seal.
Arisen from the tragic crash of life,
Arisen from the body’s torture and death,
The spirit rises mightier by defeat;
Its godlike wings grow wider with each fall.
Its splendid failures sum to victory.
O man, the events that meet thee on thy road,
Though they smite thy body and soul with joy and grief,
Are not thy fate,—they touch thee awhile and pass;
Even death can cut not short thy spirit’s walk:
Thy goal, the road thou choosest are thy fate.
On the altar throwing thy thoughts, thy heart, thy works,
Thy fate is a long sacrifice to the gods
Till they have opened to thee thy secret self
And made thee one with the indwelling God.
O soul, intruder in Nature’s ignorance,
Armed traveller to the unseen supernal heights,
Thy spirit’s fate is a battle and ceaseless march
Against invisible opponent Powers,
A passage from Matter into timeless self.

But it is given to us to choose whether we want to pass longer through the hands of the darkness lingering through the purifying fire of suffering or else through the hands of light and the gods who help us pass through the evolutionary journey in lesser time and through least pain. Or else we have a still better choice, the best of all wherein we give ourselves to the Divine, offer all our action to the Divine and live and act for the sake of the Divine and the fulfillment of His Will in us and in all. Accordingly the outer events unfold. The law of karma then turns out to be a law of evolution and not so much about the balance of justice or worse still an exact mathematical account balance in the book of God. Justice is no doubt a part of the divine working in creation but it is a law of balance against an excess of evil. So too there is something which can be called as a reward but it is not related to the good done to this or that person but a law of nature whereby we receive back from creation what we have issued forth into it, though not necessarily from the same people. It comes back in its own way and in its own time and the soul accepts it. It comes when it is needed for our growth to the next level rather than as a crude system of reward and punishment.

To turn this unconscious process into a conscious one is what is called as yoga. It means to do things for the Divine even though apparently they are being done for this or that person.

Affectionately,
Alok bhaiyya