Daily Offerings
Work in Cosmic Time
The spirit wandering from state to state
Finds here the silence of its starting-point
In the formless force and the still fixity
And brooding passion of the world of Soul.
All that is made and once again unmade,
The calm persistent vision of the One
Inevitably re-makes, it lives anew:
Forces and lives and beings and ideas
Are taken into the stillness for a while;
There they remould their purpose and their drift,
Recast their nature and re-form their shape.
Ever they change and changing ever grow,
And passing through a fruitful stage of death
And after long reconstituting sleep
Resume their place in the process of the Gods
Until their work in cosmic Time is done.
[Savitri: Book Two Canto 14]
A Flaming Chapel
May 31, 1914
When the sun set in the indrawn contemplation of the calm twilight, all my being prostrated itself before Thee, O Lord, in mute adoration and complete self-giving. Then I was the whole earth and the whole earth prostrated itself before Thee, imploring the benediction of Thy illumination, the beatitude of Thy love. Oh, the kneeling earth that supplicates to Thee, then is ingathered in the silence of the night, waiting in both patience and anxiety for the illumination so ardently desired. If there is a sweetness in being Thy divine love at work in the world, there is as great a sweetness in being the infinite aspiration which rises towards that infinite love. And to be able to change thus, to be successively, almost simultaneously, what receives and what gives, what transfigures and what is transfigured, to be identified with the painful darkness as with the all-powerful splendour and, in this double identification, to discover the secret of Thy sovereign unity, is this not a way of expressing, of accomplishing Thy supreme will?…
O my sweet Master, my heart is a flaming chapel, and Thou art seated there permanently like the sublimest of idols; so it is that Thy form appears to me, clothed in magnificence, in the midst of the flames consuming my heart for Thee, and at the same time, in my head, I see Thee, know Thee as the Inconceivable, the Unknowable, the Formless; and in this double perception, this double knowledge, lies the plenitude of contentment.
[Prayers and Meditations of the Mother]
Resurrection
Resurrection means, for us, the falling off of the old consciousness; but it is not only a rebirth, a sudden change which completely breaks with the past. There is a certain continuity in it between dying to your old self, your low exterior nature and starting quite anew. In the experience of resurrection the movement of discarding the old being is closely connected with that of the rising up from it of the new consciousness and the new strength, so that from what is thrown off the best can unite in a new creation with what has succeeded. The true significance of resurrection is that the Divine Consciousness awakes from the unconsciousness into which it has gone down and lost itself, the Divine Consciousness becomes once more aware of itself in spite of its descent into the world of death, night and obscurity. That world of obscurity is darker even than our physical night: if you came up after plunging into it you would actually find the most impenetrable night clear, just as returning from the true Light of the Divine Consciousness, the Supramental Light without obscurity, you would find the physical sun black. But even in the depths of that supreme darkness the supreme Light lies hidden. Let that Light and that Consciousness awaken in you, let there be the great Resurrection.
[The Mother: CWM 3]
Songs of the Soul: November 24, 2024
Mother Divine all our being is before Thee as a single flame of gratitude.
Gratitude for this Day of Victory when You consented to take up the burden of all of us ignorant humanity. It is the day when Sri Aurobindo entered deeper into the Supreme Mystery to bring down the supramental consciousness for the earth and men. Even as he withdrew within, the Lord brought You to the forefront as our Master and Guide, Mother and Father, Friend and Beloved. This is the day when You laid the inner foundation of this magical wonder that the world knows as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram where each brick and stone speaks of Thy Love and radiates the invisible Light of Thy tapasya. Yet this invisible Light and Force is awakening the blind to a new sight, raising the dead to a new life, opening the passage to a new leap. This is the day when the old was resurrected, reborn to a new possibility. This is the day when Earth crossed a threshold and entered a cusp of the new creation. This is the day when the cycle of Time started preparing for a new chapter and man’s consciousness began getting ready for the leap from the Overmind gods to the Supermind. This is the day when Sri Aurobindo and Sri Krishna together laid the foundation stone of the bridge towards the future and You took the charge of its construction. This is the day when the cycle of Time entered the cusp from the Age of the gods to the Hour of God Himself.
None of this would be even conceivable, imagined or dreamed off by mankind leaving us little to choose between an earthly life doomed to imperfection and limitations of all kinds and a selfish individual salvation into the Beyond.
But Thou hast opened a new door and all our being is a flame of gratitude singing a hymn of adoration and of new hope.
Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa
A Silent Spiritual Revolution (on significance of the Siddhi Day)
The last century or so can be rightly termed as an age of revolutions. The human mind entered into an accelerated mode giving rise to revolutionary changes in the field of Science, Industry, Politics and other fields of knowledge. It is as if there has been a casting of new ideas in the human mind leading to radical shifts in human understanding as perhaps never before. But behind these revolutions that are tangible and visible to the eye of man there is a silent revolution going on within man whose far-reaching consequences are yet to be understood. It is a revolution in consciousness, a silent spiritual revolution with its eventual consequences of the evolution of mankind from the mental to the spiritual person. It is time for evolution next, the spiritual evolution of the human race.
“The changes we see in the world today are intellectual, moral, physical in their ideal and intention: the spiritual revolution waits for its hour and throws up meanwhile its waves here and there. Until it comes the sense of the others cannot be understood and till then all interpretations of present happening and forecast of man’s future are vain things. For its nature, power, event are that which will determine the next cycle of our humanity.” [Thoughts and Glimpses, CWSA 13:211]
We may say that the blueprint of this silent spiritual revolution was given to Sri Aurobindo with his coming to Pondicherry on the 4th April, 1910. With the coming of the Mother on the 29th March, 1914, Sri Aurobindo began sharing something of this blueprint with the world at large through the Arya. The Mother’s final coming on the 24th April 1920 marked yet another stage in the Divine Project. Being the manifesting Power of the Divine, now incarnated as the Shakti of Sri Aurobindo, she started organising the materials and calling some of those who may become part of the project. Yet the formal go-ahead waited for 6 long years. It was to see the readiness of matter, of the earthly soil to bear the Divine descent. The final sanction was needed by the Divine incarnated as Sri Krishna to the Divine incarnated as Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo’s own personal sadhana and the consequent yoga Siddhi was needed before his individual Yoga could enlarge its scope and significance and become a collective yoga, the Yoga of world transformation. For the Divine Life cannot be created by few isolated individuals. At least a certain number of representative human beings were needed to see how far can the spiritual revolution aimed at a collective transformation of mankind go.
We may say that the 24th November is the day when the inner sanction, the sign and the final seal came. Sri Krishna’s descent into the physical along with all the fullness of the Overmental Consciousness was a clear indication that the human body and earth nature can bear the impact of the Supermind which indeed is much more powerful and complete and perfect. Thereby began a huge unprecedented venture or the Divine Adventure of a New Creation upon earth. What was happening in the consciousness of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother was now laid open to the world, to participate and collaborate in various ways. We may say that Sri Aurobindo and The Mother laid the foundation stone for the bridge towards the future and the Mother took charge of not only arranging and organising but actually building the New Creation, starting with a representative sample of humanity and ending with a universal township and now extending into the whole world.
It took nearly another 30 years to build the bridge from the old to the New Creation. The foundation stone for the bridge was laid jointly by Sri Aurobindo and Sri Krishna. The complete charge for the construction through the human consciousness to the divine superhumanity was given entirely to the Mother on this day, the 24th of November 1926. With this there came into existence the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the Integral Yoga, the Collective Yoga for the transformation of earthly life into the Life Divine.
Alok Pandey
November 23, 2024
Pondicherry
How do we call the Mother to establish Her constant presence in our Heart?
Q: Considering that man is in perpetual action, it appears to be difficult to keep repeating any verbal formula. Or is just the attitude of doing everything for Her sake? And how is one to do the act of calling Mother if we want to establish Her presence in our Heart?
ALOKDA: Remembering and offering all to the Mother means:
– 1. Shifting the motive of action from selfish personal gains and satisfaction of desires, ego and ambitions to work becoming a means to serve the Mother and fulfill Her Will. Initially this Will is not known so one simply dedicates the action inwardly to Her with an aspiration for light and beauty and perfection in the action which is a means to serve Her now. It also means non-attachment to the results even though one has put in one’s best efforts.
– 2. A few moments of inner concentration before starting anything from morning waking up onwards to dedicate the activity to Her praying for Her to use you as Her instrument. Similar thing after the action with gratitude.
– 3. Forming the habit (this comes with practice and perseverance) of calling Her inwardly by simply repeating Her Name in your heart while doing the work outside. It will Initially lead to a frequent forgetting. Later a division is created between an inner consciousness that remembers Her and an outer that is engaged in work.
As a result of persistence a time comes when the inner state is full of Her and it is Her Presence that begins to flow in all one does.
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