Q: Bhaya, I have one question – why are you doing this yoga and how have you chosen this path?
ALOKDA: It is not we who chose the Path as much as the Path, or the Goal and the Master who chooses us. But I understand your question since so does it appear from our side as if we are choosing it. The truth of the matter however is that I was not really seeking anything at the time that Sri Aurobindo entered my life or rather took me into His vast infinite life. I was an agnostic since whatever I had read about God and all other philosophies, I could not find my answers in them. I had few experiences also but not sure of what it meant I simply let them slip into some corner of my memory.
My search was for the ultimate meaning of life like many others I suppose. Living life as others do seeking success, fulfilling ambitions, accumulating money and all those things that one normally enjoys and lives for did not attract me. Besides it seemed such a selfish thing to live for, so small and little. Then there was the alternative of spiritual life. But that too seemed selfish since everyone spoke about personal mukti and nirvana or having some kind of bliss or experience by certain practices. All this did not answer my questions about the reason for suffering in this world. It moved me deeply but the standard answer of the karmic theory seemed incomplete. Therefore, having searched whatever I could, I became an Agnostic and thought that best to be a good human being and a good doctor so that I could help those who are suffering. But without any stable Permanent Reality it also seemed a vain thing.
Well it was during this phase that Sri Aurobindo drew me to His heart and I found Him, or rather literally walked into Him in a busy Delhi street, one winter afternoon when I entered a bookstore. There He was in His word body speaking His first phrase to me like a mantra of initiation written in the first page of the book that I opened. He wrote ‘All Life is Yoga.’ Something clicked instantly, like a revelation and I knew I was home. His name kept vibrating lie some heavenly rhythm in my heart and the whole evening, in fact the next two days I was as if in an ecstasy forgetting everything else except to pore through the pages of the heavenly script. It was love at first or shall I say first word. All else that happened was contained in that single phrase whose full meaning and impact is still unfolding before me, – ‘All Life is Yoga’. There was then no calculation, no weighing of options, no looking at advantages and disadvantages, no consideration of difficulties and dangers. In fact there was no option, but to accept all that He said as true, to aspire for what He wanted us to be, to surrender to the New Vision that opened before my soul.
Later the Mother revealed Herself to me and that completely sealed it if there was any other thought ever at all. Once She came or rather drew me to Her then all considerations and questions about the path, the goal everything was gone. Only She remained, at the center and circumference of life, to serve Her and love Her the only joy and purpose of existence.
Affectionately
Alok bhaiyya
