Daily Offerings from Alokda

Guru is the giver of Light. But just as there are several sources of Light so also there are several types of Gurus. There are those unconnected with the earth like distant constellations or stars. They point the path to us that we may follow but neither give light nor warmth. Others are like the moon, close to the earth yet not intimately linked to its life. They shed light and shower coolness of their grace in the human night. They show the way of escape out of the human night of Ignorance to the silent heart of endless Space.

Yet others are like fire that give us warmth and close comfort. They light up aspiration in our hearts and protect us from the animal stalking around us. They are like brief visitations of heavenly light clothed in forms more familiar to us. Of course there are many pseudo gurus who thrive on borrowed and artificial light like the bulbs and tubes. But they too serve a purpose in God’s plan to make the night a little more bearable.

But seldom one finds the guru as the sun, the Divine avatar shedding His light upon earth. He not only sheds Light but changes the seasons and the flow of time. He sustains and supports the cycles and the evolutionary journey of life upon earth by His mere Presence. Not many can bear His closeness and the intense pressure of Heat and Light. Hardly anyone can even gaze at him accept when he chooses to eclipse himself with a human cloak. All feel His warmth and share his light and benefit by His power and splendour. Nothing is hid from his sight and he knows all paths and every law since they originate from him. But none knows Him or can reach Him. Such a Master is born once in a thousand years or even less often. Such is our Lord and Master Sri Aurobindo, whose mere Presence is enough to change the earthly season and who shines deathless in the eastern horizon revealing Time’s secrets to earth and men.

Prayers are like birds that climb from the earth to rise to the sky. But some are weak and stay near the ground. Others climb really high and travel far and wide to distant lands of Light and Truth.

Some prayers are like parrots. They are simply learnt and mechanically repeated without their meaning stirring our soul depths. They look neat and nice but stop at that. They cannot fly far nor reach high. Others are like the crow, restless and doubting, full of fear and suspicion. They arise from our petty surface desires for this or that small object of life. These prayers have neither strength nor trust. They too do not reach high or far but sometimes they do get fulfilled due to sheer persistence since nature rewards every effort that involves perseverance.

Still other prayers are like the pigeon and the dove. They are not strong but full of peace born of trust. Hence they call forth the bounty of nature for the fulfillment of what they seek. Yet others are like the eagle. They are precise and clear about their object and strong in their spirit of seeking. They rise high and far on the wings of concentration and arrive at their object speedily and fast. Yet though they climb high their object is low, the fulfillment of some earthly wish or desire.

Rare are the prayers like a swan. Pure and clear they ask for nothing but the very nectar of the gods. These reach farthest to distant horizons, far above the clouds to the very abode of Shiva, the great god Ashutosh, the dispenser of all boons.

But the rarest of all is the prayer that resembles the phoenix. Such a prayer arises once in a thousand years. Paradoxically it descends from the heavens and enters the bosom of the earth stirring it with sublime impulses. It is the prayer that the avatar does for the earth and men. Such are the prayers of the Mother for the earth as recorded in Her prayers and meditations.

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