Daily Offerings from Alokda

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.