Daily Offerings
The Ideal’s Kingdom
He through the Ideal’s kingdoms moved at will,
Accepted their beauty and their greatness bore,
Partook of the glories of their wonder fields,
But passed nor stayed beneath their splendour’s rule.
All there was an intense but partial light.
In each a seraph-winged high-browed Idea
United all knowledge by one master thought,
Persuaded all action to one golden sense,
All powers subjected to a single power
And made a world where it could reign alone,
An absolute ideal’s perfect home.
Insignia of their victory and their faith,
They offered to the Traveller at their gates
A quenchless flame or an unfading flower,
Emblem of a high kingdom’s privilege.
A glorious shining Angel of the Way
Presented to the seeking of the soul
The sweetness and the might of an idea,
Each deemed Truth’s intimate fount and summit force,
The heart of the meaning of the universe,
Perfection’s key, passport to Paradise.
Yet were there regions where these absolutes met
And made a circle of bliss with married hands;
Light stood embraced by light, fire wedded fire,
But none in the other would his body lose
To find his soul in the world’s single Soul,
A multiplied rapture of infinity.
[Savitri: Book Two Canto 12]
Glory to Thee, O Lord
It is Thy sweet joy, O Lord, that fills my heart; it is Thy silent peace that reigns over my mind. All is repose, force, concentration, light and serenity; and all this is without any limit, without any division; is it only the earth or rather the whole universe that lives in me, I do not know; but it is Thou, O Lord, who dwellest in this consciousness and givest it life; it is Thou who seest, knowest, actest. It is Thou alone whom I see everywhere, or rather there is no longer any “I”, all is one and this Oneness is Thou.
Glory to Thee, O Lord, Master of the world, Thou shinest resplendent in all things!
[Prayers and Meditations of the Mother]
Surrender
There are many wrong ideas current about surrender. Most people seem to look upon surrender as an abdication of the personality; but that is a grievous error. For the individual is meant to manifest one aspect of the Divine Consciousness, and the expression of its characteristic nature is what creates his personality; then, by taking the right attitude towards the Divine, this personality is purified of all the influences of the lower nature which diminish and distort it and it becomes more strongly personal, more itself, more complete. The truth and power of the personality come out with a more resplendent distinctness, its character is more precisely marked than it could possibly be when mixed with all the obscurity and ignorance, all the dirt and alloy of the lower nature. It undergoes a heightening and glorification, an aggrandisement of capacity, a realisation of the maximum of its possibilities. But to have this sublimating change, he must first give up all that, by distorting, limiting and obscuring the true nature, fetters and debases and disfigures the true personality; he must throw from him whatever belongs to the ignorant lower movements of the ordinary man and his blind limping ordinary life. And first of all he must give up his desires; for desire is the most obscure and the most obscuring movement of the lower nature. Desires are motions of weakness and ignorance and they keep you chained to your weakness and to your ignorance. Men have the impression that their desires are born within; they feel as if they come out of themselves or arise within themselves; but it is a false impression. Desires are waves of the vast sea of the obscure lower nature and they pass from one person to another. Men do not generate a desire in themselves, but are invaded by these waves; whoever is open and without defence is caught in them and tossed about. Desire by engrossing and possessing him makes him incapable of any discrimination and gives him the impression that it is part of his nature to manifest it. In reality, it has nothing to do with his true nature. It is the same with all the lower impulses, jealousy or envy, hatred or violence. These too are movements that seize you, waves that overwhelm and invade; they deform, they do not belong to the true character or the true nature; they are no intrinsic or inseparable part of yourself, but come out of the sea of surrounding obscurity in which move the forces of the lower nature. These desires, these passions have no personality, there is nothing in them or their action that is peculiar to you; they manifest in the same way in everyone. The obscure movements of the mind too, the doubts and errors and difficulties that cloud the personality and diminish its expansion and fulfilment, come from the same source. They are passing waves and they catch anyone who is ready to be caught and utilised as their blind instrument. And yet each goes on believing that these movements are part of himself and a precious product of his own free personality. Even we find people clinging to them and their disabilities as the very sign or essence of what they call their freedom.
[The Mother: CWM 3]
Songs of the Soul: November 6, 2024
Mother Divine, Maa,
human life, especially in the cities is so cramped up psychologically. Man lives as if wearing a mask of fears and anxieties or attachments and pleasure-hunts that cover and blind his eyes, isolate him from all the beauty and joy around. He is shut to the inner peace and joy and closed in a narrow cage of thoughts and feelings and efforts centered around his little self and desires, he has totally lost the natural harmony with the rest of creation. He is shut up, as it were in the prison of an ignorant mind and limited senses that conceals much more than it reveals. A limited mind and limited effort build the psychological house we dwell in. But Thou wouldst want us to be wide and supple, equal and in harmony with all this that is.
Maa, may all our inner doors and windows open to Thy vast Immensity and stepping out of the prison of the ego may we lose our separate self and rediscover ourselves in Thee, breathe Thy infinity, live in Thy eternity. May we recover the lost harmony on a new and diviner basis. May we be nothing so that we may be one with all in Thee.
Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa Maa
An Integral View of Health (1) Health as an Attitude
An Integral view of health will include the body, mind and soul as one unit. That is to say even in their distinctions; these three elements of our being interact with each other and mutually fulfill. To divorce one from the other is to create an imbalance in the being, the consequences of which may be serious enough. It is for this reason that the well known but misunderstood ancient Indian system of Hatha Yoga is often misapplied to mean a purely physical culture. At best, we admit the mind, at least the material mind, in this scheme. At worst, we confuse the yogasanas as being a synonym for yoga – an aim too high and an ideal too lofty to be limited by this or that system and set of techniques, however useful to a few or even the many. The consequences are a whole lot of confusion which is made worse by a rapid increase in popular easy-to-do reading material on the asanas and pranayams with often astounding claims which only serve to excite the glamour seeking elements in us rather than persuading subtly the nobler parts of our being. A novice often feels (and we all are novice) that by practising a set of asanas for an hour or so, he will find a panacea for life. A panacea it is but not the way it is often believed. For man’s restless mind is often happy if it does ‘something’ concrete visible and seemingly tangible. It finds it difficult and exasperating to sit quietly or even while in activity to observe and shift the subtle psychological elements of his being. Even of meditation, it makes a cut and dried technique – a ritual of a particular mantra for it appears tangible and relatively easy. But no yoga is easy. There are no royal roads to wholeness & integration. So the first dictum in any true healthy living is to understand that health is an attitude – a total attitude as much of the body as of the mind and psyche.
Can eggs be considered a vegetarian food item?
There are two views about what constitutes a vegetarian diet. One view which is rather extreme excludes not only eggs but also milk because they are regarded as animal product. A further extreme form excludes even tubers and roots since they are regarded as living as they continue to grow giving rise to many more. Obviously, this view takes its stand upon non-injury to any living form. It is more like a moral principle that is often arbitrary and based on a limited understanding of life itself. From the spiritual perspective life is everywhere even in the atoms and stone.
If we take the consciousness perspective which is more complete and based on fundamental truth of creation, then taking eggs and of course milk is perfectly fine, especially since unfertilized eggs are invariably vegetarian.
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